by Lauren Dane
“They don’t care. I wanted to hold out as long as I could, you know? A lot of humans are good people like Tosh. But this other stuff? Bombings and attacks and bills to put us in camps? That’s not right, damn it. Cameras being turned off so my drivers could be murdered? It’s like a movie plot, for god’s sake!”
Lark sighed heavily. “We receive death threats on a daily basis now. It’s . . . I’ve forgotten what it was like before.”
Helena understood. She nearly had too.
“Both those men, humans according to Anderson, were killed in the blast. The second car was also bombed, but half the vest he wore malfunctioned so the blast wasn’t as large. They’d moved to the passenger seat to get closer to us when we came down to load everyone in. I suppose we should be thankful they detonated before I reached the door.”
“I hate this. Hate it. Gage told me you pulled some mighty magick out of your tool bag today. He said he’d never seen anything like it and that you nearly fried yourself doing it.”
“Honestly? I don’t know where it came from. Only that it happened. I’m glad for it and a headache is a price I’m willing to pay for that result.”
“Yeah? And if you’d died?”
“It’s my job to protect people. If that means I die doing it, well, I signed on for that. You know you’d do better at this than me, but there’s no one else so I’m doing the best I can.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Do you really think that? That I’d believe anyone was better suited for this job than you? You’re the only one I trust to oversee it all.”
Helena swallowed hard. “Lark, that’s not the best idea.”
Her sister cursed beneath her breath. “Oh shut up. If you’re going to bring up the haven thing, just stop.”
“You can pretend it doesn’t matter, but it was my decision to send the witches to the havens. And that got them killed. All those lives in my hands and they’re dead.”
“It wasn’t the choice that killed them, Helena. What happened was so much beyond what any of us could combat. We’re all of us fucking treading water here.”
When the Magister’s attacks got worse, and more and more Others were turning up missing and dead, The Gennessee called together the Full Council and they decided to send the most vulnerable witches in the Clan to the havens. Havens were safe spots, well away from the city, guarded. Helena had been the deciding vote to send the witches—supposedly—out of harm’s way. Until one of the smaller havens in Indio had been discovered and all twenty-two witches there, including five children, had disappeared.
One glaring fact remained. “But you didn’t make that choice.”
Lark sucked in a breath. “I could have, though. It was a perfectly reasonable choice to make. It could have easily been me. You didn’t make the wrong choice. Hell, how many Others died when the Magister manifested? Huh? I didn’t stop it in time. We lost a lot of people, Helena. We did the best we could. You and me, we had the weight of all those lives on our shoulders and we did all we could with what we had.”
And it hadn’t been enough. Helena had to live with that knowledge every day.
Lark broke into her thoughts. “I know we haven’t had enough time to talk about all this stuff. We need to. But I want to be face-to-face when we do. I want to be able to knock out a few bottles of wine and hash everything out. That’s not happening anytime soon, but it will. Just know that. In the meantime, you have to stop blaming yourself for what happened at the haven. You are the person I trust more than anyone else to do this. I mean that.”
Tears came, surprising her. All the hard-won walls she’d built against the well of emotion and fear crumbled at the edges. Oh goddess, not now. She just couldn’t. Didn’t want to talk about the haven thing anymore. There was nothing to be done about it. It was over and the shame of her failure would hopefully make her a better hunter. “I’ll call you when I learn more. Rebecca is having a phone conference with Meriel and some of the other witches about whether or not continuing this road show is viable. I’m sure you’ll hear when I do, but I’ll check in when I know anything.”
Lark paused and Helena knew she wanted to say more. But thankfully, she didn’t. “All right. I love you. Please be safe.”
“I love you too.” She hung up and with a groan, heaved herself up from the couch. She had work to do.
Faine seemed to appear out of nowhere, scowling at her and blocking her exit from the room. “Sit back down. What can I get for you?”
“I need to work.”
“You need to rest.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“Thank heavens. I can’t imagine what a shitty job that would be. You’re disobedient and reckless and you take on far more than you’re responsible for.”
She didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly she found herself gasping on a sob and a flood of tears.
He softened, a sad smile marking his lips. “Come on.” He took her hand and led her to her room, pulling her blankets back. “In.”
“Please go away.” She tried to pull the covers up over her head, but he lay down next to her, pinning her in place with the bed coverings, the heat of him soothing as well as discomfiting.
“I’m not going anywhere. Just let it go. Get it all out.” He settled in, pulling her into his arms. The power of it, of letting go and being taken care of, soothed, was nearly overwhelming. And then his magick rose, teasing hers just when she wasn’t sure she was capable of even the most basic of spells.
She didn’t have the energy to hold him back and hold herself together at the same time. His power was warm and wild, it seemed to rush through her veins, teasing her senses, enticing, seducing.
She opened her eyes to peek at him and found him staring at her, a look of wonder stamped on his features.
“I never expected you.”
“What?” She wiped her face with the edge of her sleeve. No doubt she was red and puffy and her hair was a mess because she had jammed it into a ponytail after her shower.
“You’re more than I ever imagined you’d be.” He snorted, leaning close to kiss each eyelid. “So tender. You take so much on and you do it with such power and ability that no one would know how fragile you are just underneath.”
“Great. On top of everything else, I’m fragile.”
“No. Helena, you’re magnificent. You’re the finest female I have ever beheld in my entire existence. And believe me, I’ve seen a lot in many worlds. You are strong. Righteous. Courageous. Today, you nearly killed me when you pulled that spell together. But you did it and you did it because that’s what you do. You protected your people and even those humans who’d just been insulting you because you’re that person.”
She closed her eyes, willing the newly sprung tears to go away.
“It is all right to cry sometimes. You don’t need to hide in the shower, or pretend to be above it. It doesn’t make you less of a warrior.”
Her eyes snapped open.
“Yes, I heard you that night at my house. And it broke my heart because you are so strong and yet, you don’t think you can lean on anyone else. Just for a little while.” He tipped her chin so she was looking into his eyes. “You can lean on me. You can cry and know I respect you. You can cry and know I’ve fallen apart a little after a battle like the one you’ve been waging for months. Everyone has to break a little or they’ll break all the way.”
“Why?”
He thumbed her tears away and she was instantly sorry she’d asked because she wasn’t sure she could handle the answer.
“I think you know. But that’s all right, I’ll give you the words because I need to say them out loud. Make my declaration.”
Declaration?
He laughed at her reaction. “Scared?”
“You’re sort of scary.”
His grin made her less afraid of what he’d say and more interested in what he’d look like naked.
“I’m very scary. But not to you. I want you to lean on me becau
se I want you. I want all of you, Helena Jaansen. Since the first time I met you I knew you were special. And everything I’ve seen since has only confirmed that. I thought it was a passing fancy at first. You’re beautiful and powerful. A male like me finds those qualities fairly irresistible.” He grinned again and she groaned.
He stole a kiss and with it her breath.
“I was in Seattle and with Molly while you had your own job to do, but then our paths kept crossing. And I got to know you. I saw through your prickly demeanor and the quite frankly bizarre way you keep all your clothes and shoes color coordinated and arranged according to length, height, whatever. You’re trying to control things in a world utterly out of control. And you are doing it with all your might and that, Helena, is why I cannot get you out of my head. You are singular. You are the female I was meant to find and love.”
“Love? Listen here, buster, I have a horrible track record with love. Also I’ve only known you a few months.”
“That witch you were engaged to was a fool. It doesn’t mean you have a horrible track record. It means you hadn’t found the right male until now. As far as being too soon to love you? Pah.”
She laughed, unable to resist being delighted. “Pah?”
“Pah.” He nodded his head once. “You’re a thing of light and magick. You are not human. Don’t cling to what they can’t see because they refuse to look with something other than their eyes. I’m not human. I’m not young or inexperienced either. I’ve loved before. And that love wasn’t anything compared to what you make me feel every time I think about you. Months I’ve watched you fight. I’ve watched you give orders. I’ve watched you make passionate arguments about things you believed in. I’ve watched you protect and defend and I’ve watched you break apart when you couldn’t save people. It’s so intimate, that glimpse I get every once in a while when your defenses are down and you let me in. I know what I feel. I know what I want. I want you. And I know you want me. I know how you watch me. I tasted your desire when you kissed me. Each time you’ve kissed me. There’s no reason to pretend otherwise. It’s a waste of time.”
She struggled to keep up. Struggled to make sense of how she felt. Of the truth in his words and her bone-deep fear that if she trusted them she’d end up hurt far worse than anything she’d ever felt before.
Fear that she’d fail at this like she’d failed those witches at the haven.
He was different. On every level. She knew from Lark that Lycian males put the alpha in alpha male. That was a lot to manage, even if it came in a package that looked as good as the one looming over her, blanketing her in all those feel-good hormones that were designed to part a girl from her underpants.
“You can’t run scared from me, you know. First, you’re too dominant for that. Second, you’re too honest for it. Third, I’m a predator and that only makes you hotter to me.” A flash of his grin and though she was going to groan she only managed a breathy sound. “Last, you’re a highly sensual being and you know just exactly how it will be between us physically.”
Her heart stuttered as he traced a fingertip down her chest, between her breasts, down to her belly button, circling it slowly.
“And because you feel it too. This magnetic thing between us. This thread that pulls us together each time we’re near each other.”
She opened her mouth to deny it but couldn’t. She was drawn to him on so many levels.
His smile changed and tightened things low in her belly. “I locked the door. And I think I know something else that will help you get your energy back up.”
She gulped.
“I know this momentary reprieve from your bossiness is just that—temporary. So I figure it’s best to divest you of your clothing before you start arguing.”
Chapter 10
HE waited to see if she was on board and she didn’t argue, thank the heavens.
She was hurt and he wanted to go slow, reined himself in the best he could as he got to his knees and started to pull his shirt off.
But he should have known Helena would have her own ideas. Quicker than he’d expected, she grabbed his wrist, moving to get to her knees facing him. “No. I want to.”
She leaned in close, breathing him in at his neck, sending gooseflesh skittering over his skin. After he’d laid himself bare before her, after he’d seen those walls of hers break and the tears come, he needed this more than he could articulate. Needed to connect with her on a whole new level.
“Have at it.” Even to his own ears, his words were breathy and a little shaky. She rendered him into a nervous, needy mass. Even with Lydia it hadn’t been like this.
She pulled his shirt up and off, tossing it to the side, skimming her palms over his chest. “I love these.” She pressed kisses over his marks. “Four hundred years of your life, all over your skin.”
With each major achievement in a Lycian’s life, he or she received ink from the family elders, turning each Lycian into a walking record of their honor and service. He and his siblings were the most marked in Lycia other than their father. He wore his skin with a great deal of pride. That she found it beautiful only made him want to preen for her gaze.
That she understood just how much it meant made him rejoice that he’d found this female.
She traced over the trails of ink. Over dates and words, over animals and maps, kissing here and there as she did. It was difficult not to push her back and feast on her skin, but he managed to hold still, his beast taking over and standing proudly for her to examine him.
“Your body is ridiculous.” She looked up into his gaze, a smile marking her lips.
He didn’t resist the urge to dip and take a taste of her mouth, his fingers sliding through her hair, taking it down from the ponytail. He breathed her in, the scent of her hair, of her skin, of everything that made her. His beast stirred, satisfied, but demanding more.
“Ridiculous bad or ridiculous good?”
She laughed, her head tipping back, and he feasted on the line of her neck, warm and supple skin, heavy with her scent and the tang of her magick.
“So, even four-hundred-year-old males who look like you do fish for compliments?”
“Only from the most beautiful women in the world.”
He unbuttoned her blouse and eased it away from her body, pausing to take in the sight of the pale silk camisole she wore underneath. “You have marks too?” He figured she would. He knew her sister had them; he’d seen them when she’d come to Lycia for the binding ceremony and had worn a backless gown.
She hummed her delight as he kissed her shoulders and over to her neck. “Yes. Lark and I wanted to honor all the big moments. It sort of became a competition to see who got what tattoo first.”
“You and your sister are very competitive.” He brushed his fingertips over a scar on her side and another on her upper arm.
“Rogue wolf,” she gasped as he licked over the inside of her arm, at the elbow.
“And where is that wolf today?”
“Nowhere.”
He smiled against her skin. So fierce. “You should probably know up front just how sexy I find it when you say such things.”
He pulled the right strap down, kissing to her elbow, then followed up with the left. But he leaned back, speechless after he’d pulled the camisole free of her body and she knelt there, her upper body in nothing but her bra. And the beginnings of a wash of bruises. He’d be angry about that later.
“We’ve competed at everything I can remember since we were little kids. Never in a mean-spirited way. I’ve always felt that we push each other to be our best. Sometimes we manage to do it right.”
“You and I are going to have to discuss this guilt you seem to carry over things you can’t possibly really be guilty for. After.”
His annoyance at her self-blame dissolved like smoke as he took her in. Long and lean, fit. Layers of muscle defined her upper arms. Her tits were freaking magnificent in a barely there wisp of a pale blue bra.
“I don
’t say a lot, but fifty thousand pages of poetry could be written about you.”
The harsher edges of need on her features eased into a flattered smile. And a blush.
“Do you know I can smell you when you blush?” He slid his thumbs over her nipples through the bra and she arched into his touch.
“Huh?”
He popped the hooks at the back and removed the bra, exposing all that glorious tawny skin to his gaze. “Am I distracting you?” He gently laid her back on the bed, pulling the soft pants from her long-as-sin legs. Her panties were in the boy-short style, accentuating her belly and thighs and most likely her ass.
But she’d have to stand up for him to see and he didn’t want that. Not right then. He pulled her underpants from her, leaving her totally naked.
“When you blush it heats your skin and your scent rises. I’ve never smelled anything like you before. Your magick smells like snowflakes and pomegranate. And sex. Heaven help me, when you heat up my beast wants to drop to his knees and worship you.”
“Wow, you’re lethal with your mouth.”
He laughed, loving the way her gaze never left his hands at his waistband as he unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans and shimmied from them and his shorts.
“I haven’t even begun to show you just how talented I am with my mouth.”
She sucked in a breath. “I can’t wait.”
Helena knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, the place she was actively ignoring, that having sex with Faine was a monumentally bad idea.
But he was too much. Big and tall, broad shouldered. Covered in ink and muscles and tight skin. She sighed happily as she took him in. He smiled, knowing she was objectifying him. Totally digging it, and who was she to judge? The way his gaze ate up every bit of her body thrilled her to her toes.
He kissed her slow and deep, his lips were sure and gentle. At first. But once he lay against her, skin to skin, he hissed as she arched. His skin was hot, nearly scalding hers, and yet she couldn’t get more. Her magick seemed to wake and radiate outward in a way that left her dizzy.
And that gentle, sure kiss deepened. He’d teased her mouth open but now he took. Demanded more as his tongue slid into her mouth, sliding against hers. She held on, her nails digging into the skin of his back, urging him closer.