by C. T. Adams
She just didn’t know.
RICK SEEMED CONFUSED at the change in her mood as they knocked on the door of the darkened building. As they suspected, the owner lived on the premises and was happy to take their cash for a single night’s stay—after a little magical persuasion on Rick’s part.
There was only one room available on the second floor, and they quietly mounted the stairs to avoid waking the other few guests. A balcony overlooked the pond, and she immediately opened the French doors to stand out in the night and listen to the crickets and frogs and smell the rich, thick scent of decaying vegetation and fish.
Rick didn’t approach. As an empath, he probably realized her feelings were in an uproar. Instead, he unloaded the items from the saddlebags, carefully separating her items on one side of the dresser, with his on the other.
“You feel melancholy,” he said softly, and she nodded. “Thinking about times gone by?”
“Thinking about what might have been and what might never be.” She turned then, leaning on the railing with the wind making the copper earrings tinkle, and stared at him. “I’m not seeing myself in the future, Rick. I don’t think I survive this.”
She swallowed hard and felt tears well in her eyes. She watched him take the emotional tide like a blow to the chest, visibly moving on the bed. “And for some reason, I feel like it’s my own fault. Something I did or didn’t do. Who did I let die that should have lived, or didn’t kill that I should have?”
He stood then and walked over to her. She let him pull her into his arms and for the first time in a very long while, she cried. Mostly it was frustration at the current situation. She knew it, but allowed herself to finally grieve for Giselle, strong proud Giselle, who had turned the burden of putting down Maman as a Wolven agent into a lifelong role as a substitute mother for the young twins, Antoine and Fiona. In a way, she’d been very much a mother figure, even to her, helping her train her gifts as Maman never could. Like Rick, she’d been an empath and a skilled one. Her death had been for a noble cause, helping to bring down Sargon’s evil plan, but it was a death nonetheless.
When she finally finished sobbing quietly against his chest, he released her and walked to the nightstand to retrieve a box of tissues. “Better?”
She nodded and accepted the slip of soft paper. After blowing her nose, she asked the obvious question. “So, did you find what you were looking for?”
If the question surprised him, he didn’t show it. Their last argument had been a long-standing one in their relationship, and thinking about Giselle and Maman reminded her. Rick had wanted children, but she didn’t. It was bearing children that had driven Maman insane, and she never wanted to risk becoming Sabine. Her siblings were all born special, whether healers or seers or magically powerful. Whether it was as Giselle believed, and Maman had what was currently known as postpartum depression, or whether the sheer power literally affected her brain, the truth was that she had been sane until she bore the twins a few years younger than she and Yvette. Money and power hungry, yes—but sane and rational. Josette just wasn’t willing to risk bringing a child into the world that she would later intentionally kill.
Rick wanted a family, wanted a stable life, and she just couldn’t give it to him, even after he pleaded and argued for over a century. So, he left. And try as she might, she couldn’t blame him for wanting what he wanted. For wanting what most people wanted. “Did you have your houseful of children with someone else?” Tears threatened again, but she held them back through sheer will.
He shook his head, then sat down on the bed and leaned against the carved mahogany headboard. “Nope. At least, not that I’m aware of. There might be a few out there through sheer accident, but none intentionally.”
“But—” Now she was really confused. “It was the reason you left. Wasn’t it? Or was there more to it that I haven’t been aware of for all these years?”
He started to kick off his boots, using the toe of one to pull at the heel of the other, before letting it drop to the floor. His voice remained soft, and she could hear the emotion play through it. But his scent was reflective of her own scent. She couldn’t sort who was feeling what, and possibly he couldn’t either.
“It was the reason, alright—or at least it’s what I told myself was the reason. And I married again, twice. But they didn’t last for more than a decade and suddenly, I was the one who didn’t want children.” He looked up at her with a sad smile. “I think it’s that I just didn’t want children with them. No, I’ve been living alone, building my house, for close to a century now, ever since I left Wolven.”
She felt her eyebrows raise and she stepped back inside the room, silently closing the glassed doors against the worsening wind and continued to keep her voice low. “You’ve been building a house for a century? That must be one hell of a house!”
The shrug was accompanied by a small smile. “Not as much as you’d think. But when you’re carving each stone with chisels right out of the mountainside, it takes a little while. I started with just one room and then added on. It’s close to two thousand square feet now. And I hand-dug the well for water, and ran the electricity when it was discovered and brought west.”
Now she sat down at the foot of the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees as rain began to splatter against the glass. “You always did like to try out new toys. You’ve probably gone solar by now, or have wind generators.”
A chuckle escaped him. “Solar yes, but they make you get permits for the big wind turbines, and I haven’t felt like bothering. I do have a wood-fired hot water heater, though. Staying off the grid suits me.” His smile lessened and a tiny line of worry creased his brow. “I heard your house is gone. Were you there at the time?”
She nodded and sighed. “Just outside. I don’t miss the house so much as I miss the things in it. I lost everything. Papa’s pocket watch; Maman’s pearl earrings; the quilt Grandmere Giselle gave us as a wedding gift…even the ring you gave me.”
A variety of emotions flashed across his face and roiled in his scent as she admitted that she’d kept it this whole time. But she wasn’t trying to accuse, she was just saying she’d miss them. None of the things she’d wept for had any great monetary value, but each had been priceless to her. Losing them hurt like losing a part of herself. “What I’m going to miss the most is the hand-carved toy cradle from Charles.”
Rick laughed. “Oh yeah, I remember that. He put that note inside: ‘The reason it’s empty is because I robbed it.’”
It had been given to her as a joke gift after she very pointedly gave Charles permission to court her sister. While Amber was easily seventy when she first met Charles, the Chief Justice of the council was ancient—even by Sazi standards. Josette’s hindsight had allowed her to see just how long ago he was born. There were fur garments and stone tools involved.
Another chuckle moved his chest and he crossed his arms over it. “I’ve always wondered if he never mentioned me wooing you because he had it in mind to do the same thing. I mean, you were a pretty…mature woman when I met you, and I was just a lad of twenty-five.”
Her skeptical look was enough to elicit another shrug. “I seem to remember you being plenty mature enough to convince me to sneak you into Maman’s house. In fact, if memory serves, you were exceptionally skilled at certain tasks, even as a lad.”
Now his smile turned lecherous, but there was a warmth to his eyes that added weight and made her shift nervously. “Still am.” He moved his arm and patted the other pillow, while still keeping his eyes locked on hers. “If the future’s in question, how about we make the present something worth remembering?”
Once again, indecision flooded her, locking her into an almost frozen position at the end of the bed. Rather than cajole or convince her, he simply stood up, walked around the bed, and slid his arms under her bent knees. She didn’t stop him, didn’t do anything as he carried her the two steps to the pillow and laid her back down. It wasn’t until he cupped her chin
with his fingers and pulled open her jaw as he pressed his mouth against hers that she realized just how much she wanted this. She’d wanted him to make the first move, just like he’d made the first move to leave.
Her arms slid up around his neck as he deepened the kiss, using his tongue to massage hers as he used to. There were no corsets this time, and their clothing disappeared with alarming speed.
Rick’s palms bore calluses now, thick and rough, probably from the years of carving stone. There was only so much that Sazi healing could heal, especially when it was repeated day after day. Calluses weren’t injuries, per se, just a thickening that prevented damage. But they raised the hairs on her skin as they glided over her naked body, making her squirm. When his hand reached her knee and moved inward, his lips moved to her neck. A light growl escaped her. Her animal remembered long, playful nights under the full moon where teeth and claws struggled for dominance. She had more magic, but he more muscle, so he usually won and would clamp his teeth into her neck while he mounted her.
Those hands still retained the memory of what would make her moan and scream and climax, and he didn’t hesitate to use that remembered skill. Already she could feel wetness between her legs. Her body felt swollen and tight. She let go of past hurts, just for tonight, and let him suckle her breasts while his fingers slid deep inside her. Again and again he rubbed his rough thumb against her swollen nub, until she was forced to hold a pillow over her own face as the combination of sensations took her over the edge. No sense waking up the neighbors if the storm already hadn’t.
“Time for the main event.” His voice was deep and edged with growls. His scent was so deeply musky that she could smell it through the feather pillow. Her body was still squirming from the intense climax when he spread her legs and slid his thick, pulsing cock inside her. Another sharp gasp, which was close to a scream, escaped her before he ripped the pillow out of her grasp and claimed her mouth with his.
Her hands clutched at his hips as he moved in and out of her while his tongue probed her without mercy. She could feel his lust like a living thing; she wanted to drink it in, let it fill her until she could take no more. He let magic play over her body like a thousand fingers—tickling her toes and nibbling at her ears.
Her nipples were so hard they hurt from the pleasure of his body rubbing against them and she felt another orgasm building inside her. She tried to slow it, to slow him, but he would have none of it.
“Oh, no, little bobcat,” he hissed into her ear after releasing her mouth. “I promised you a night to be remembered.” He lifted her hips suddenly and began to push and pull harder, using magic to increase his own size inside her until she couldn’t even speak. Lowering his head to her chest, he bit at the mounds of her breasts lightly…then harder as he sensed she was close. His skin was glistening now, a combination of sweat and magic that was intoxicating. His scent was enough to remove the last vestiges of civility from her.
As the rain poured down and the wind howled outside, she grabbed at his hair, his back, his neck. He rode her until they were both growling openly and desperate for release. “Oh, God!” she whispered. “God, Rick! Yes, please.”
He chuckled deeply and lifted her hips even higher. “And just wait until I flip you over later.” The memory of some of their bedroom adventures long ago was too much in her current state and with a cry that was quickly stifled with his mouth and tongue, another climax raised her shoulders from the bed.
Rick’s control was lost when her muscles seized his erection hard enough to pull a moan from him. He gave himself over to the sensation and pounded her body with his while frantically kissing her neck, mouth, and cheeks. His climax was just as intense, and his entire face distorted and reddened from the power of it.
He collapsed onto her and they held each other as their heartbeats returned to a semblance of normal. But his whispered words in her ear sped up her heart again, for a different reason.
“I’ve never stopped loving you, Josie.”
Chapter Eleven
IT WASN’T UNTIL the next morning, over breakfast in bed, that she decided it was time to check in with her family. She hadn’t had any visions at all this morning, and it concerned her. It was probably the first time in a century that she wasn’t getting hourly visions of something. It could mean nothing, but it worried her nonetheless. They decided, after a truly delightful romp that still had her glowing, that Rick should call Raven. While Josette hated that particular choice, he was the most logical person to come down. He’d been human far longer than most Sazi, not turning until he was a junior in high school, so he would be able to understand Ellen’s plight. And, if things grew difficult, he’d be able to draw power from her. She was going to eventually have to tell Rick about the mating. She knew that. But not quite yet.
She took a short walk around the pond and tossed bread crumbs to the fat orange koi, who didn’t seem to fear her at all, using the time to sniff carefully for signs of any other shifters. There were none, even in the deeper grass, so she sat down on a stone bench far from the house and dialed her sister’s number into the cell phone.
Amber picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Bon matin, ma soeur. Comment vas-tu?” Greeting her in French would help in case anyone happened to be listening, which seemed unlikely.
“Aspen! Thank God you’re alive.” There was desperate relief in Amber’s voice. It carried over the line clearly, despite the poor connection. The storm had passed, but the morning was cloudy and smelled of more rain. “Where are you?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but her sister interrupted. “No! Wait. Don’t say anything. You need to call me back at a different number. We’re in a full system crash.”
“What?” Josette nearly dropped the phone. Surely she hadn’t heard correctly. A full crash was an utter disaster—the kind of thing she should have seen coming. She hadn’t had a clue. None.
“Do you have a pen to write down this number?”
“Give me a second.” Propping the phone between her shoulder and her ear, she began rummaging through the tote bag she was carrying with her everywhere. It only took a second to find a pen, which had the logo of the Shooting Star Motel, along with a small pad. “Go ahead. I’ve got it.”
“Okay, the number I’m giving you is a sterile phone. We’re only going to use it for the one call. You’ll need to get rid of your phone after you use it. Use top security protocol. Remember that plan? We talked about the details in Monte Carlo during the regatta.”
Josette forced herself to remain calm despite the adrenaline that was racing through her veins with each beat of her heart. So much code, so many worst-case scenario plans they’d made long ago, when Amber married Charles. There was no Monte Carlo, no regatta races that they’d attended. They were just codes to confuse the enemy—whoever that might be during any given crisis.
There was a bitter taste on her tongue, and her mouth had gone dry with the same fear she could hear in her twin’s voice. Amber recited the series of numbers that formed the cell phone number she was to use, and Josette repeated them back.
When Amber confirmed she had the numbers right she disconnected the line. With trembling fingers Josette tapped in the numbers and waited for the call to go through.
“Bonjour? La soeur, cela vous est? S’il vous plaît confirmer avec le nom de notre grandmère.”
That seemed a logical enough question—asking for their grandmother’s name. People trying to impersonate her might know one of them, but not Giselle. She wasn’t a true relative, after all. “Out, c’est moi. Grandmère Giselle ou Grandmère Helene?”
Josette switched to English. “Both, apparently. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“What isn’t?”
She heard the panic in her twin’s voice and was surprised that she couldn’t feel any sort of emotional bleed from their twin connection. It didn’t happen often, as they were fraternal rather than identical twins, but sometimes when things were especiall
y bad—
“Calm down. Take a deep breath. Then tell me what’s going on.”
Amber took a steadying breath. When she spoke, her voice was still a little higher and breathier than usual, but there wasn’t the edge of panic that had been so apparent a moment before.
“I have to make this-brief. Rick probably already told you if you’ve seen him, but in case not, we found electronic bugging devices on all of the standard-issue equipment for agents while we were visiting his cabin. Lucas ordered the entire system to be crashed and rebuilt from scratch.”
Josette nearly fell off the bench. The immensity of the problem was staggering. A full crash meant that every agent was effectively cut off, completely on their own. There were protocols for checking in, but that in itself would be perilously dangerous for the agents currently on deep cover assignments.
“I do understand that this is very bad, but what does that have to do with me?”
“Nothing. Lucas is handling it. But there’s the other crisis going on. Have you seen Rick? Do you know anything at all?”
She hesitated. How much should she say over the line? Yes, she bought this little prepaid phone off the shelf, but who could say that it wasn’t tampered with before she arrived. It had been the only phone in the tiny convenience store. “Yes. We’ve…met.”
Amber paused for a long moment, and then a hint of something briefly playful, and immensely pleased came over the wire. “Are you two—?” She didn’t have to complete the sentence. They’d talked on too many occasions about the situation.
Josette shook her head. “Yes…no. I don’t know. But he did tell me about the seers. I think I saw the caster in a vision, but I couldn’t see a face or get a location.”