by Lauren Dane
And by the time they landed he was so tired his eyes burned and all he could think about was a hot shower and a good night’s sleep. Still, he’d made a decision to move forward and, that done, he rarely lost sight of something he’d set his mind to do. Within the next two days he would ask Delilah over for a drink. He could do this. It was long past time.
• • •
THE plane touched down and Helena managed to get everyone into a car and safely delivered to their Washington, DC, homes, where they all had personal security, and she and Faine joined the rest of the Others at a huge house owned by the National Pack.
“You should go to sleep.” Faine shouldered her bag once they’d entered the front gates and she let him. Too tired to refuse.
“I’m surprised there aren’t any protesters.”
“I suppose they may not know this location is Other-owned yet. Are you even listening? You’re dead on your feet. As usual. You should rest.”
She grinned at the agitation in his voice, for some reason cheered by needling him. Stupid, really, to poke at a giant beast wearing a man’s skin. But she liked to live dangerously. “No. Come on. I’m hungry.”
He frowned at her, but followed her into the house where the magick of all the Others inside greeted his senses, easing his tension.
“It’s so nice to be in a friendly space.” He watched as the frown lines around her eyes eased back and that made him feel better.
“I was just thinking that.”
Molly got up as they entered the main living room. “Hello, you two. Glad you got in all right. Come on upstairs. I’ll show you your rooms and you can put your bags down.”
They followed her up the stairs and down a long hallway to the end. Molly turned to Helena. “I put you facing the courtyard. The plants out there make me feel better. I figured you’d think so as well.”
The room was nice sized and had an en suite bathroom.
“Faine is on the other side.”
He nodded. “Thank you, Molly.” He turned to Helena. “I’ll be back in a moment and then you and I are eating some dinner.”
“There’s a huge kitchen here. Cade Warden sent a chef down so there’s a lot of food as well. Are you all right?”
“It’s been a challenging day,” Faine said as he came back into Helena’s bedroom. “We were chosen for an enhanced search at the airport. There was a fight between three security people, one of whom was an asshole but the other two, also human, were not. Sato had to intervene and make calls to get it moved along. The plane trip was long, but thankfully, as we took up the entire first-class cabin, we didn’t have to deal with much animosity.”
Molly looked to Helena. “But you felt it.”
Helena nodded, pressing her fingers to her temples.
“You can feel it?” He pushed his anger that she hadn’t said so down as far as he could. She wasn’t a natural sharer, this one, but he wanted her to lighten her damned load with him sometimes just the same.
It was Molly who spoke to explain. “A lot of negative energy, especially when it’s aimed at you and you’re in a confined space, is toxic. Planes tend to amplify our magick as well, so it’s a one-two punch.” Molly took Helena’s hands. “Why don’t you go out into the courtyard for a recharge? I’ll let the chef know you’ll be eating in a few minutes. But clear out all that bad energy, you’ll feel better and the food will go down easier too.”
Faine wanted to scoop her up and cosset her. He had no idea all the dirty looks and nasty comments people made under their breath would affect her like that.
“Is it all right if I come along?”
Helena shrugged. “Sure.”
Molly took them down a back staircase—slowly and carefully in her walking cast—and showed them through large French doors into an enclosed courtyard, full of life. Container gardens spilled with plants and flowers.
“Gage and I are in the living room watching movies when you’re ready.” Molly hugged Helena and then Faine and went back inside.
Faine settled on a bench and watched as Helena took her shoes and socks off, along with her sweater, leaving her in a T-shirt that showed the whipcord strength of her upper body. She freed her hair from the bun she’d been wearing, running her fingers through it as she did.
Then she wandered through the path, letting her outstretched fingertips brush over the plants, against the bark of the trees, through the rushing water of the water feature. She stepped up and then down into the bed of a large garden space.
He saw it then, the light of her aura as she drew all the magick around her. It settled against her skin like snowflakes and then seemed to melt into her. She breathed slow and deep as she walked. Occasionally she’d pause, burying her face in a bunch of leaves or flowers.
This side of her was soft. Lush and so achingly intimate it was as if he’d been spying on her. But she’d allowed it. Moved around knowing he was there watching.
A gift of her inner life and the weight of that settled. Not crushing. Anchoring.
She’d been sort of tattered when they’d arrived. Her spine hunched, the tension rolling from her in waves. But when she came back to him, settling next to him on the bench, that was gone. Her ragged spaces seemed to have filled in. Her aura was brilliant, sunny yellow, the blue of the sky at summer.
She stretched. “This garden is fantastic. Whoever tends it does so with love. Every leaf seems to vibrate with it.”
“You can feel things like that?”
“Not always. But living things most especially. My mother says we get it through her. Lark is much the same, though she’s got this crazy affinity with birds. We’ve always loved being outdoors. There’s so much ambient magick in a garden. If it’s tended by someone who truly loves the work, the magick seems to leap to you when you call for it. The energy, the life force of the plant life fills in all your empty spots. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Seems to me you’re doing just fine.”
“I have a lot of plants in my apartment, but at the house I used to share with Lark, we had an inner courtyard like this and it was full of plants. After crazy shifts we’d often just sit out there and have a glass of wine, letting all the bad business wisp away. My mother is a big gardener. She loves it. All the stuff from her teas comes from her gardens at their house. I guess we do get it from her, though I’m not that gifted with green things. She’s special that way.”
He smiled. “Thank you.”
“For what?” She clearly had no idea.
“For letting me share in this with you. This private side of yourself.”
“Oh. Well. I figured you’d find something restorative out here too. Shifters have that connection with nature as well. Different, but it’s there.”
He snorted. “I’m not a shifter.”
She turned, a mischievous grin on her lips, and his heart lightened.
“You’re human and you shift into a wolf.”
“You enjoy poking at me, don’t you?”
She raised a brow, but said nothing else and he chuckled.
“I’m Lycian. I am a beast who wears a man’s skin sometimes. And other times I wear fur. But I am always who I am, no matter the skin I wear. I do not need the moon or the tides. If I bit you, you’d bleed, but you wouldn’t be infected.”
“Did I insult you?” Her levity was gone, her question genuine.
He snorted a laugh and took her hand, squeezing it a moment. “No. We’re related in a distant manner, to shifters. But we are not the same.”
“Thank you for educating me. There’s so much I don’t know about everything out there in the universe. I thought I did until the Magister. Not knowing things makes me nervous.”
“There’s so much out there. Miraculous things.”
“I envy you that knowledge.”
“I can share it with you. If you like. I already said we’d go to Lycia when there’s a lull of a few days. There are other places. Beyond the Veil, I mean. I can part it, we can travel s
o you can see it all.”
“I’d really like that.”
And so he’d make it happen.
Her stomach growled. “Shall we go in and eat?”
He leaned in close. “After.”
“After?”
He reached out, cupping the back of her neck as he brushed his lips over hers. He’d intended a brief kiss, but she opened, sighing into him. Once that breath entered his system there was nothing brief about it.
He sank into her mouth, sliding his tongue over her juicy bottom lip and then inside, tasting the sweetness of her, the spice of her magick as it rose against him, twining around his.
Loam and fur, sun-dappled leaves and the lap of a lake against the shore filled him. Her magick, snowflakes and pomegranate slid around it. They were opposites and yet complementary.
Something clicked in him. An utter surety that he’d felt rarely enough that he trusted it to his toes.
He took her hand, squeezing it as he pulled away.
She nipped his bottom lip and he was back for more, deepening, his tongue dancing with hers. The sounds of the night all around them began to filter through the heat of their kiss. Of traffic on the street, voices just inside the house, the merrily running water just a few feet away.
When he broke the kiss, it was only because he knew there would be more.
Laughter sounded from inside and she smiled. “Let’s go in.”
He stood and she took his outstretched hand, letting him pull her up.
Chapter 7
“SO, you want to talk about anything?” Molly tried to hide her smile when she sidled up to Helena as they both filled their plates at breakfast.
“You scare me. It’s so early and you’re so perky. I do, however, covet that blouse.”
Molly preened a little. “It’s so nice to be around someone else who loves clothes as much as I do. Also? Fifty percent off. Sale rack. It was missing a button, but I can sew enough for that.”
“Nice score. The color is good on you.” It was true, Molly’s coloring worked well with the deep blue of the silk.
“Thanks. One of these days I’m going to take you shopping with me so you can show me all the places I can find clothes with enough pockets to hide weapons.”
Helena laughed. “You have Gage. You don’t need to hide weapons.”
“He does come in handy.” Molly blushed. “I have no idea how you manage to look like you’ve walked out of an ad for designer clothes when I know you’ve got guns and knives on your person, and you’ll still be able to run and kick people in the face.”
They moved to the table and sipped coffee.
“It’s a gift.” Helena winked. “It is hard to find pants cut right for ease of face-kicking though. The thing is, magick is easier to use, I don’t need special clothes for it and it’s free. Unfortunately, when I’m doing four things at once, a nice face kick clears the decks for me to do other things and not run my power down. Plus? It’s really satisfying to kick a jackwagon in the face.”
“What’s going on between you and Faine? I’m sorry for my bluntness.” Molly’s laugh told Helena she was no such thing. “He’s going to be lumbering down here with Gage any minute and I want to hear all the details.”
Helena hoped she wasn’t blushing. “Nothing really. I mean.” She looked toward the door and, finding the hallway empty, she leaned closer to Molly and kept her voice down. “He kissed me. A few times now. I like him. He’s ridiculously easy to look at, he’s got fists the size of giant hams, his butt is spectacular and he doesn’t try to do my job or treat me like a fragile flower. But, it’s just a kiss or three. We don’t have a lot of time to make it anything else, and that’s okay because he kisses pretty damned well.”
“I figured Tosh would make a move.”
“You’re the second person who’s said that to me lately. He is a lovely man, handsome, powerful, he knows how to wear a suit and I bet he knows his way around a lady’s business. But it’s not me he’s into. It’s Delilah. He gets a dreamy look on his face when he’s looking at her and thinks no one notices. Hello. My job to notice things.” Tosh really was cute, the way he crushed on Delilah.
“He’s always looking at your boobs. I just figured . . .”
Helena barked a laugh. “He’s a dude, Molly. Plus, if I do say so myself, I have great boobs. But when Delilah talks he watches her mouth. He likes to touch her a lot and he finds any excuse he can to seek her opinion and to sit next to her. Boobs are one thing—he looks at yours too, though he’s at least pretty wily and I figured no one noticed. But when a dude can’t stop looking at a woman’s mouth that’s a whole different level of interest.”
Molly’s eyes widened and she nodded. “Oh my goddess, you’re totally right! I’ve noted that he seems to listen to her well and now that you mention it, he does look at her mouth. Ha! I’m going to rub Gage’s face in this so much!”
Helena laughed as she ate her bacon. “He used to get that line between his brows every time you and Tosh would talk. And then he’d be all, ‘Oh, we’re just casual, it’s not a big deal’ about you.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “Lucky for him he’s gotten past that point now.”
“He is lucky. You’re a good catch. You smooth him out when he gets ragged.”
“Thank you. He’s . . . well, I never expected him.”
Helena figured that’s how it always worked. “It’s always the ones you do expect who fuck you over. You have your list—and I know you did, because we’re alike that way—so you get the guy who is 9 of 10 on that list and you feel so accomplished. And he turns out to be wrong for you in every way.”
“You lucked out. I mean, I don’t know the whole story. But the broken engagement.”
Helena liked Molly a great deal. They were alike in temperament, which helped just then when she decided to share.
“He hit on my sister. He was a fool and so was I for never seeing it. He was so perfect on the outside. He had a great job. He drove a great car. He was handsome, but not too handsome. His family was a great family. He stood up when my mother came into a room. My judgment is flawed, clearly, because I didn’t see past any of it to who he really was.”
Molly waved that away. “You were what? Twenty?”
“Twenty-three. I’d known him for years.” He’d made her feel pretty.
“We all make mistakes. I’m sure Lark made him sorry he hit on her, and you did the right thing by breaking up right away.”
“I’m assuming you heard the whole story.”
“No, I mean, I knew he hit on Lark and she told you and you broke things off and things were tense between you two for a while. But that’s really it.”
“Things weren’t tense because I blamed her. I would never, ever have believed she’d betray me like that. He was mistaken in any attempt to claim that. I should thank him though because once he tried that it made it even easier to cart him to the curb and leave him there. He was a dick. Is a dick. I doubt he’s changed.” She chewed her bottom lip.
“You don’t have to say more. But if you want to, I’m here. I like you, Helena. I consider you a friend and I’d like you to confide in me, but I understand it’s hard.”
“My judgment is bad. That’s really it. Later, once he was gone and I looked back, I could see it all so clearly. All the stuff he did that was crappy. But I missed it during the relationship. Or maybe I ignored it. Either way?” Helena shrugged. “It was pretty obvious. I didn’t care that he looked at other women. He’s a dude, they all do. Most of them just do it well enough that we don’t notice too much.”
“That’s respect.”
“Exactly. I look too, for heaven’s sake. But my sister. My. Sister. Lark never in a million years would do that to me. No matter what. I never doubted that. It just, it sucked that he’d try to betray me in any sense, but with the person I was closest to in the world. Hell, maybe I was jealous that he preferred her to me.”
Molly sniffed. “He did it to hurt you. He chose he
r because it would hurt you if you found out. Yes, Lark is lovely and I quite enjoy her. But he didn’t hit on her because he preferred her; he hit on her because he could, because he liked the thrill of the potential to get caught. And, I’d wager, he figured that even if she turned him down she’d never tell because Lark didn’t want to hurt you.”
Helena paused, thinking that over. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.” She smiled, buttering her toast. “He seriously misjudged her if that was the case. She gave him a black eye and then she dragged him, by the ear mind you, to me and told me what he’d done. She was so outraged.”
“He’s clearly lucky to be walking without a permanent limp.”
She smiled at Molly. “He is.”
“Things are better now. Well, not like in the big picture, which seems to be full of bombings and shootings and that sort of thing. But Lark and I are close again. I’ve missed that. She’s in Seattle though. But maybe . . . maybe it’s better that way.” Maybe Lark needed to be in a place where she could make her own decisions, which were clearly better than Helena’s choices anyway.
“She misses you a great deal. And I know what you mean about things being better, some things anyway.”
“Gage.”
Molly nodded. “Yes. We had some rocky moments. But in the end, he comes to me. He accepts his feelings and he’s at my side. I’m glad to have that. Especially now when things seem so dark. But back to Faine. Things are moving in a good direction. I like that because he’s a sweetheart and you deserve someone like him.”
“Well, don’t go registering us at department stores or anything. Just a kiss. Things are way too busy for anything else, and to be totally honest with you, I don’t know if I’m cut out for a relationship.”
Molly thought this was hilarious. “Not a kiss. Kisses. Which is different. Also, he’s not some twenty-four-year-old human. Lycians, like all alpha males”—she snorted—“they don’t play around like that. He’s four hundred. He and Simon, males like them, they know what they want and they will stop at nothing until it happens. He’s not smitten with you. Not only smitten anyway. He wants you. He watches you work and it’s clear he approves. I say ride that train because you need it.”