by Lynn Red
I shook my head, absently picking sauerkraut out of my sandwich and eating it, strand by strand. “That is…”
“You grew fast. Real fast. The doctors were surprised, to say the least, but there wasn’t a trace of anything strange, at all, about your mom’s pregnancy. Well, except that she went zero to four months in about three days. The doctors just passed it off as her having an easy first trimester and not noticing.”
“Yeah, I’ll say,” I said, under my breath. “Easiest one in the history of the world.”
That morning had been my first run in with waking up at three to a stomach full of nausea. I kinda envied the whole magic pregnancy thing if it meant no early morning pukes.
“But, that was that. After that point, nothing strange, nothing at all. She said she could talk to you, though, but I suspect most mothers say things like that about their cute little parasites.”
He chuckled. Aside from calling Damon “Meathead,” his favorite thing in the world was calling babies “parasites.”
“Anyway,” he continued, “I’m sorry. I never meant to keep it from you, especially after you started having your dreams. I knew that whatever thing your mom had was in you too, but it wasn’t until Poko told me the whole thing that I really understood.”
“I’m still not sure I do,” I admitted.
My stomach settled enough for me to take another toasty, sour, tangy, sweet bite.
“Funny thing is, that’s not what I was going to talk about. My present trouble is all about Damon and his brother.”
“You never cease to surprise me, Leroy,” Grandpa said. “Your mind is always on something I’d never guess. Well, tell me about that, then. Anything I can do to lighten your load.”
I half-smiled. “You sure you mean that? It’s kind of a pants load.”
“When’s the last time I didn’t want you to tell me what was bothering you?” he asked. “Lay it on me.”
I took a deep breath – a really deep one – and told him everything.
*
Burning through the whole story about Damon, Devin and whatever was lurking in the swamp, took about three hours. It would have sounded absolutely insane to anyone who wasn’t my grandpa. In the forty years or so that he and Poko knew each other, Grandpa had seen enough to just listen and accept.
“Well,” he said. “I’m sure glad he’s got someone like that husband of yours on his side. I’d hate to think what would happen if it was anyone else in charge.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know. I’m scared though. Not of Devin,” I caught myself. “He’s… Whatever. It’s the other thing. During today’s practice, I saw him and as soon as I did, Poko jerked me back.”
A worried look crossed my grandpa’s kind, hazel eyes.
“I’m sure he knows what he’s doing,” he said, with a sigh. “I never got into any of that business of his, but I know if there’s something bad going on, he’s the one I’d trust to handle it.”
For a moment, we sat in silence looking off into the distance. The sun started to set behind the mountains. Purple shocks of dying light went creeping up and along the horizon. I thought about Damon for a second, out there, wherever he was, dragging his brother back to Fort Branch.
And that’s how I figured it’d happen, too. That’s the way it had to happen. If the two of them went toe to toe again, Damon would pound him into the dirt just like had the first time. Conveniently, I chose to forget how close it came to going the other way.
“Welp, Leroy. I gotta get some shut-eye,” Grandpa Joe said, as he stood up.
He tapped the salt and pepper ashes out of his pipe, then kicked the dusty pile between two of the boards of the porch.
“You okay with all this?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling up at him. “Yeah, I think as long as I’ve got Damon, and as long as everyone is safe, more or less, then that’s all that really matters, you know?”
He smiled, nodded, and went inside. It didn’t take long for the impending desert chill to send me in after him. I gathered all my stuff, went back to my old room and tossed my bag on the floor beside my old bed. When I sat, it squeaked.
Usually, the last thing I take off every night is the big, heavy, wolf-fang necklace Damon gave me months back. I grabbed the clasp at the back, but decided that being without it that night just didn’t feel right.
I lay back, head buried in the pillows, with light goose down blankets piled up around me, and focused on the pendant’s weight. The heft of the tooth, the cool of the steel chain, almost felt like Damon holding my hand.
The gentle patter of light rain on the impossibly hard, cracked earth outside my window was a welcome and extremely rare pleasure, but it was the perfect way to let me drift off. In my last moments of consciousness, I reached up and wrapped my fingers around the tooth, focusing all of my energy on that little trinket, that little reminder, of my husband.
Husband, I thought, as I closed my eyes. It’s real. It really is. Every dream I’ve ever had all came true.
But, somewhere in the back of my mind, in a place where hope and dreams and love never really managed to go, I knew it could all come apart. Like Poko said, or at least alluded to, something horrible was lurking on the fringes of our world. And Damon had ridden straight toward the danger.
Whatever Joram Blight was, and whatever he could do, it wasn’t going to be an easy path.
A bolt of lightning cracked outside my window and a roll of thunder shook me to the core. At almost exactly the same time, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. I flipped over and looked just long enough to see it was Hunter King, Damon’s best friend and sworn brother, calling.
I knew what it was about. He was coming for a visit in a couple of days, so it was probably just last minute preparation stuff, or him asking how much fresh meat we needed – Hunter’s kind of a funny guy like that. Either way, it could wait.
I closed my eyes, and rested my hand on my stomach, breathing in the cool, rainy air that drifted through my open window. Right before I succumbed to sleep, when my mind was flittering around the fuzzy edges of the real world and dreams, my fingers stirred and I grabbed the fang.
-7-
The zooming of my soul through space never stopped being fascinating.
At first I tried to control my dream vision and focus on Damon. Shortly, I remembered what Poko said. I forced myself to let my heart go wherever it wanted, because I was sure that my journey would end with Damon.
The mountains of New Mexico, and the South Texas desert, spread out before me. All around, my spirit eyes were entranced with shimmering hues of pink and green and blue. The whole world, spreading out below me, was breathtaking.
Further to the east, I went, closer to both Damon and the devil. It was like my chest was getting tighter, my breath was hurting more… even though I didn’t exactly need to breathe, and I didn’t really have a chest.
This never got old.
It wasn’t like an airplane. Not at all. In airplanes, there are other people and lights and the noise of movies and clattering trays. Out here, up here, by myself, with only my own thoughts, I couldn’t imagine anything more peaceful.
Even with the coming danger, it was impossible to be blasting through the sky, ten thousand feet up, without falling into a little bit of silent repose.
Just as the intense, utter silence of the quiet dark began to lull me, something pulled me toward the east, but not as far as Louisiana.
Like a cannon ball forced through too-small of a gun, I blazed across the sky. From below, I heard someone shouting.
“I’ll rip out your throat, you self-righteous prick!” Devin. I’d know that voice anywhere. “I’ll kill you, then I’ll pull out your throat, just to make sure!”
The ground was coming up fast, like it always did. I closed my spirit eyes for a moment and felt all the tingling green around me, but refused to open them, knowing exactly what I’d see when I did.
“I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll rip and tear,
and murder, and…”
Devin’s rage subsided, and I heard a snore.
Slowly, I opened one eye, and then the other.
Laid out below me was something I did not expect. Devin was tossing from side to side, in perfectly normal, human form, but in absolutely terrible shape. Covered in bruises and lumps and gashes all along his arms and neck, he scratched at a scab and then fell silent again.
It took a second before I realized that Devin, lying there, asleep in a sleeping bag underneath an outcropping of rock was, first of all, tied up, and secondly, not alone.
To his immediate left, about fifteen feet or so from the pair of tent poles holding the chains that bound him was someone I was a whole lot more excited about seeing.
With his fingers threaded behind his head, my beautiful, green-eyed husband was reclining, and dozing, shirtless in the moonlight.
Damon was lying in a pool of silvery light that streamed in from a hole in the outcropping. He always had good taste in camping spots, I thought, with a giggle. Briefly I remembered our lovemaking under the stars and how that had been only a few weeks before.
A shiver crept through my Fae spirit, and I willed myself to slide down to him, beside him. Instantly, I felt warm when my consciousness snuggled beside him, as though I were really there, in body as well as spirit.
I ran my fingers along Damon’s cheek, brushing his four days of stubble with the back of my hand. He shivered and stirred.
That shouldn’t have happened.
Can he feel me? How is that possible? When I’m doing this, I’m not really in a place, I’m just projecting. But somehow, he was acting like he felt my touches, my caresses.
A night bird, maybe a swallow in the cave above, let out a little chirp. For a moment, I really did feel like I was with him, so much so, that I leaned over and kissed his collarbone. I let my spirit’s lips trickle down his muscled chest.
I tasted sweat and leather, and the dust from the road. I ran my kisses, letting my lips trail gently down the line of his chest, and kissed his nipple.
Goosebumps washed up him, and he let out a soft moan, though he didn’t open his eyes. He was dreaming. Dreaming of me, I hoped.
I put my hand on his leg, feeling his thickness swell, and letting his heat warm my palm. Rubbing him slowly, I let him come to life, and listened to his moaning – his heavier, faster breathing, and smiled to myself.
Slowly, I unzipped his jeans, and ran my hand along him, down, then up.
I looked up at his face for long enough to see him smile, and then I took him in my mouth, teasing every inch of him, sliding the tip of my tongue in circles, all the way up.
More than anything, I needed to feel him inside me. It was security and safety and home, all rolled into one. I knew I needed to do it quickly – there’s never any telling how long I have before something snaps me back to my body.
I had to take advantage of whatever time we had. Smiling to myself, I pulled him free and aimed him between my legs. I gasped, soundlessly, as I led him inside. I moved against his body, driving him deeper and deeper with every motion.
Damon rolled his head from left to right, smiling up at me, but not opening his eyes. The sweetness on his face was just too much. I pushed down on him and leaned forward, sucking on his bottom lip and almost trembling as I pulled away.
Our slow movements got faster, deeper, more desperate and heavier.
He flexed his legs, pushed himself up to meet my movements as I drove downward onto him. Just before I threw my head back in climax, I felt him swell, and knew he was there, too.
Grabbing his hands, I swirled my hips and let all the breath out of my chest.
Tightness, and then relaxation, starting in my center and radiating outward, took every inch of worry and pain right out.
Damon’s lips fluttered like he wanted another kiss, and I could only imagine what was happening in his dream. I bent down, still shaking, and touched my lips to his.
It wasn’t until I pulled away, leaving him smiling, and glistening with sweat, that I noticed he was just as bruised and battered as Devin. The main difference being, he wasn’t chained up.
Then, I knew that I needed to tell him. He needed to know about the baby, and I fought my way back down to the ground.
“Damon,” I whispered in his ear. “Damon, it… We did it. When you were leaving and I had the test in my hand, and you were all upset, I was about to tell you, but you were in such a hurry, I…”
Swallowing hard, I licked my lips. I kissed his cheek one more time.
“We did it, Damon.” I said. “We’re having a baby.”
Tears welled up in the corners of my spirit body’s eyes and dripped down, onto his face. As I let myself float back into the sky, further and further from my Damon, I watched a smile creep across his face.
He heard me. He must’ve heard me.
Away I went, back into the sky. Before I knew it, I was back in my bed. My spirit slammed into my body, jolting me awake for just a moment.
Sweat covered me, and soaked the sheets, but I grabbed the fang hanging around my neck, nestled between my breasts, and knew that everything was going to be okay. Wherever I’d been – on the eastern border of Texas and Louisiana, somewhere there were rocky overhangs – Damon was safe. And, just like Poko said, he had his brother with him.
It was just a slight comfort, a very slight one, but knowing he was okay was just enough.
I closed my eyes again, and let my hands fall to my sides. That time, instead of another dream, it was sleep that took me.
*
When morning came, it was still raining.
A little harder than the night before, rain droplets pounded the still-dry ground outside my window. They left little rings where they dried on the glass. I blinked twice, making sure I was home, and that I was in my body.
The smell of my grandpa frying bacon pretty much confirmed that I was happily underneath my blankets. I took a glance around the room and swung my legs off the bed, surprised at how cold the floor was when they touched the ground.
A shiver crept up my feet and up the backs of my bare legs when I walked to the window. Goosebumps followed the chill, but grabbing my blanket and wrapping it tightly around my shoulders helped.
“Please be out there,” I said, staring into the rising sun. “Please, please be coming soon.”
Even though I’d seen him, and knew he was safe, my thoughts were still stuck on Damon. I couldn’t help it. I never could.
Then I remembered the phone buzzing from the night before and reached over, grabbing it to distract myself from worry. Just as I thought, the messages were from Hunter, and he was certainly excited.
“Coming tomorrow afternoon. Really pumped! Can’t wait to see you guys.”
That one was quickly followed, like four seconds later, by several more.
“Anything I need to bring?”
And, of course, that one was followed by, “Meat? Sausage? You got enough meat?”
I laughed, relieved to have a little bit of lightness in my life. Seeing Hunter would be good. I just kept scrolling through texts.
“By the way, remember how you mentioned a girl? Caitlyn, or something? Is there any way you could call her for me?”
Eight seconds after that one, he sent another, telling me to never mind the last message, because he didn’t want to impose.
“No worries!” I sent back. “I’ll call her today – she’s doing better after the whole Devin thing. If she’s around, she’ll probably be happy to go on a double with us.”
Hunter sent back a smiley face. I giggled, thinking that, if nothing else, he could always hide the fact that he was a giant werewolf, by masquerading as a teenage girl.
I grabbed a pen and jotted down a few to-do’s.
I needed to clean up the house. The guest room was currently full of old videogames and He-Man action figures. Hunter might prefer a bed to that stuff.
Cleaning might not be my idea of a great time,
but setting Cat up with Hunter? That’d be fun. I hadn’t really talked to her since everything happened, only once or twice. Every time I did see her though, she was always smiling and waving, and full of hugs.
“Hey, Leroy?” Grandpa called from down the hall and around the corner, in the kitchen where he was making breakfast.
“You awake back there?” he yelled. “Got some bacon and eggs if you are.”
I smiled. He always had that effect on me, especially when there was food involved.
“Yeah,” I answered. “Be there in just a second.”
It all hit me at once. The smell of bacon, the smell of coffee, and of fresh-baked biscuits. It wasn’t long before something else hit me – reality.
Damon was halfway across the country, and was going to be dragging his brother home. His brother, who tried to kill both of us, and did horrible things to Cat. He was coming back, and we were just supposed to be okay with it because that’s the only way an ancient evil was going to be contained.
Devin Cline’s face danced through my mind. Harsh angles and half-crazed eyes were all I remembered of him. I wondered if he’d changed at all.
Judging by the way he was grumbling and swearing in his dreams the night before, no, probably not.
I fished some shorts out of my bag and pulled them on, trying to keep Devin out of my mind. Focusing on the good things like Damon and Hunter and how much I just knew Caitlyn was going to love hanging out with Hunter helped some.
“Come on, Leroy.” Grandpa shouted again. “Bacon’s getting cold!”
If nothing else, I always had my grandpa.
“Coming!” I yelled, and slid my phone in my pocket, then pulled on an old Ghostbusters shirt, and popped my neck.
Out in the hall, the smell really hit me.
And, yeah, those were fresh baked biscuits.
Grandpa and I ate in silence. We were both lost in thought as we chewed our food. It was a comfortable silence. A safe one.
I knew, somehow, this was the calm before the storm. I wished that the storm would never come, that Poko was wrong.
Everything was going to be fine, I told myself. Damon’s able to handle anything. He’s strong and smart and kind. Just thinking about him sent a thrill up my stomach.