by Zoe Chant
She reached forward before she could think, taking him in her hand and running her fingers lightly over his hot, hard flesh, and hearing his groan in response.
It scarcely seemed possible to her – that this huge, strong man could be responding like this to her touch, to the sight of her body.
And yet, it was undeniable.
The pure lust in Beau’s eyes when he looked at her had been obvious, even to her. The way he touched her, the way he kissed her – all of it was incontestable. Annie had never felt the way he made her feel before.
He’s strong, he’s kind, he’s caring, she thought fuzzily, with what little coherent thought her brain could scrape together. And he turns into a mythical creature, can’t forget that bit. And he wants me.
As she touched him, he leaned down, pushing her bra aside and circling his thumbs over her nipples, making her arch up and cry out. His mouth followed a moment later, warm and wet, and Annie moaned again, writhing beneath him, feeling herself grow even wetter between her legs.
“Beau,” she managed to gasp eventually. “Please – I can’t wait any more – I need –”
The groan that wound its way up from the back of his throat was all the answer she needed to know he’d understood.
Her spine arched up as Beau settled between her legs, his massive hands on the back of her thighs. Groaning, she spread her legs wider, feeling her stomach clenching in desperate need.
“Please,” she said again. “Please –”
Annie cried out as he pushed into her, her fingers digging into his sides. She felt herself parting around him as he slid inside, filling her to perfection.
Desperate with need, Annie squeezed herself around him as he lay inside her, thick and hot, and felt the shudder than ran through the full length of his body in response.
“Oh God, Annie –”
Even the sound of his voice, drenched in desire, was enough to make thrills of pleasure shoot along her spine.
His first thrust within her, powerful and overwhelming, drove a frenzied cry from her lips. She wrapped her legs around him as he moved, her body arching up to meet his on every thrust, wanting to feel the whole length of his body against hers.
She wanted everything – everything he had to give her. He’d told her that once they sealed their bond he would belong to her forever, but –
Does that mean I’ll also belong to him? Annie thought, as she groaned out his name again and again and again.
The thought only seemed to make her desire burn even hotter. She wanted it – to belong to him, to be claimed by him as his mate, no matter what that meant.
His mate. My mate.
Annie cried out yet again as a wave of ecstasy exploded through her as the word drifted through her mind.
Nothing had ever sounded so clear, so right to her before in her life.
They were made for each other.
In that moment, nothing had ever been truer.
“Annie.”
The sound of Beau groaning her name sent another crash of pleasure through her, and she twisted on the sofa, fingers clawing at his back. She felt him pulse within her, his muscles going taut, his thrusts speeding up.
The bliss that filled her a third time made her cry out yet again, her head thrown back in complete abandon. It wasn’t only the physical sensation that surged through her, though – it was also a feeling of rightness, that this was meant to be, that filled her.
It lingered even after the sparks shooting along her nerves had begun to fade away, the fire in her veins receding. They lay together on her sofa, breathing hard, sweaty skin pressed against each other.
Annie wasn’t sure if she’d fallen asleep. But the next thing she was fully aware of was Beau’s fingers running gently over her temple, brushing her damp hair back from her face.
His dark eyes looked down at her, filled with something that Annie could only call wonder.
“You’re incredible,” he said, his voice emerging as a husky growl. “Just… incredible.”
She gazed up at him, wondering how someone like him could possibly be real.
“I feel like you kind of stole my line,” Annie managed to get out after a moment or two. “And I’m really not with it enough to come up with another one.”
It might have been a corny thing to say, but it made Beau let out a deep, rumbling laugh, before he lowered his head to kiss her again.
Chapter 9
“So, do hippogriffs have any other magic powers? Do shifters in general have powers, or is it just the, uh, shifting?”
Beau glanced over his shoulder to where Annie was sitting on the couch, a sheet wrapped around her. He had his own sheet wrapped around his waist as he stirred the re-heating soup on Annie’s small stovetop. They’d moved to the bedroom when they’d both decided that the sofa was definitely too small for round two, but eventually their hunger pangs had gotten the best of them.
“Mythical shifters usually have something else they can do besides shifting,” Beau said, looking into Annie’s shining, curious eyes.
He had to say, she was taking this a lot better than he’d thought she would. Maybe it had something to do with the mated bond – she could tell instinctively that he wouldn’t ever harm her, no matter whether he turned into a hippogriff or a bumblebee or a Komodo dragon.
“Dragons can breathe fire, just like you’ve read about in storybooks,” he continued. “Wyverns breathe poison. Griffins have healing powers – all shifters heal quickly, but griffins can heal other people as well.”
“And hippogriffs?” Annie asked, as Beau spooned the clam chowder into a pair of bowls.
Beau hesitated. “We have a couple of extra tricks up our sleeves as well,” he said, carrying the soup over to her. “But it’s a little more complicated than that. We can… well, I suppose you’d call it very, very limited time travel.”
“Time travel?!” Annie’s eyes were as wide as saucers as she stared at him, her soup spoon halfway to her lips. “Like… you could go back in time? To another century? Or back to last week, to warn me not to burn dinner so I wouldn’t have to go to bed hungry?”
Beau laughed softly. “Nothing so dramatic or useful, I’m afraid. It’s really a one-time-only thing, and calling it actual time travel is a little bit of an exaggeration. It’s more like we can pause time – or close to it – for everyone but ourselves. We keep moving, but everyone else stops. But it’s only for a moment, and it takes a lot of energy. Which is why we’d never use it unless we had no other choice. There’s hippogriffs who’ve had to do it for more than a couple of seconds, and the results were… well, it wasn’t pretty.”
Annie swallowed. “Oh… what happened?”
Beau hesitated before he answered. All of this was still new to Annie, and he didn’t want to scare her. But he supposed if she was going to be frightened, she already would be.
“She was in a coma for three weeks. We weren’t sure whether she’d come out of it, though eventually she did. It was touch and go for a long time, though.”
“You sound as if this was someone you know,” Annie said quietly, reaching out to touch his hand.
Beau swallowed. Of course, Annie had been able to intuit it in his voice. She was his fated mate, after all.
He nodded. “Yes. My mother. It was years ago, but… well, you never forget that kind of thing. Especially when it was your fault that it happened in the first place.”
“Oh – what happened?” Annie asked softly.
Beau took a deep breath. “I was a kid, and I hadn’t learned how to use my wings yet – not properly. But like a lot of kids, I took a silly risk, and misjudged a distance. One minute I thought I was flying, just like my older sister and cousins, the next… well, the next my mother was holding me in her arms. I never knew what happened in between, except I remembered realizing I’d overshot where I wanted to land, and I was going to go tumbling down the side of a ravine instead.”
Beau shook his head. The memory still felt fresh in
his mind, even though it had been over twenty years since it had happened.
Annie squeezed his hand. He looked up to find her gazing at him with her beautiful green eyes, which were wet with tears.
“I’m sorry I asked – I didn’t mean to bring up a painful memory.”
“Hey, no – no crying,” Beau said quickly, leaning forward to gently run his thumb over her cheekbone, catching her tears before they could fully fall. “It’s okay. It’s something I’ve dealt with. I won’t pretend it wasn’t hard and I didn’t have my fair share of guilt for a while. But we can’t hold on to these things forever. My mother and I are still close, and believe me, it definitely made me appreciate my family all the more. In that way, it was a good lesson to learn early on.”
Beau paused, swallowing. He meant every word he said. It was part of the reason he was always quick to put in for leave every Christmas.
“She’s always said she’d do it again in a heartbeat, for any of her children or grandchildren,” he continued after a moment. “Though obviously I hope it’d never come to that.”
Annie nodded, blinking away her remaining tears. “Sorry. I just… well, honestly, this is all kind of overwhelming. I have to admit I’m still kind of quietly freaking out about the fact you just casually mentioned dragons exist.”
Beau grimaced. Had he dumped too much on her too fast? “Yeah, sorry about that – and sorry my power isn’t as cool as breathing fire or something like that.”
“Ah, no, I’m fine with being able to pause time,” Annie said quickly, shooting him a smile. “Breathing fire sounds like… more than I could handle. What if you sneezed and set my hair on fire?”
Beau couldn’t hold back his burst of laughter – not that he was inclined to. “Okay, good point. I don’t know how dragons keep that kind of thing under control.”
Annie giggled shyly. “Honestly, I do have a lot more questions for you, but I think I need some time to… to process what you’ve already told me. I think I should probably just eat my soup for now.” She lifted the spoon to her lips, sipping at the chowder. “Mmmm. Oh my God. That’s so good.”
Beau couldn’t deny the sight of Annie closing her eyes, licking her lips and making small sounds of pleasure was rekindling some of the heat in his belly, despite all the time they’d just spent in bed together.
Later, he told himself. Right now, eat your soup.
Annie was right – the soup was good. Creamy, salty and smoky, the potatoes seemed to melt in his mouth, the clams themselves providing just a hint of oceanic bitterness.
“That’s some good soup,” Beau said as he scraped his spoon over the bottom of his bowl, chasing down every last morsel.
“You’re telling me,” Annie said. She put her bowl down on her coffee table, before leaning back against the sofa, watching him. “Today hasn’t gone anything like I thought it would,” she said reflectively after a moment or two. “I guess in some ways I’m still waiting to wake up and find out this is all a dream.”
“Nope – promise you I’m real,” Beau said, reaching over to grab her bowl from the table, before standing and taking them to the sink.
“So you say, as you stand there, the hottest man in the world, doing the dishes with a sheet half falling off your ass,” Annie said. “Am I honestly supposed to believe this is really happening?”
Beau glanced over his shoulder at her, a warm smile on his lips. His hippogriff had been quiet – a nice change after all the storming and rampaging it had been doing all morning – but now it rose up again, content but insistent.
She is the one who is too beautiful to be real.
I know, he told it.
“To be honest, I never really understood what meeting my mate meant until now either,” he said, once he’d stacked the bowls in the drying rack and come back to the couch. “I’ve had friends who’ve tried to tell me, but I get now why they couldn’t. It’s just indescribable.”
Annie’s cheeks were tinged with pink as she looked at him. “I guess I’m still taking it all in as well.” She swallowed. “So, uh, does this mean I get to meet your family? Your hippogriff family of hippogriffs?”
Beau laughed. “Sure, if you feel ready for that. I won’t lie – I had to tell them I’d met my mate so I could excuse myself for a few days while I tried to figure out a way to tell you. So they’re all raring to meet you.”
“Oh, right,” Annie said, before taking a deep breath. “I… I kind of hope I’m not a disappointment. I mean, the only thing I turn into is a terrifying beast when my alarm goes off in the morning.”
Again, Beau couldn’t hold back his laughter, before he reached out to run his hand reassuringly over the smooth skin of her shoulder.
“There’s no way you could disappoint anyone, ever,” he said. “But in any case, you’re my mate. That means you’re family now. They’ll love you no matter what.”
To his slight surprise, he could see tears beginning to gather in Annie’s eyes once again.
“Sorry,” she said quickly, brushing them away. “I’m not sad – the opposite. I just… I’ve never really had a family before. And you said – you said a mated bond is for life, right?”
Beau nodded, his heart filling with tenderness as he looked at her. “Yes. That’s exactly what a mated bond means. Forever.”
“This’ll take a little getting used to,” Annie said again. “But… well, luckily, I have a few days off work. So I could go with you to visit them over Christmas, as long as it wouldn’t be intruding.”
“Never,” Beau said warmly. “Like I said, they’re dying to meet you.” He grimaced as a thought occurred to him. “Though… I think I left my car parked out the front of your bakery. I should probably go get that at some point.”
Annie laughed. “Uh, yeah, that might be a good idea. We can go now, if you like. My neighbors are away and they said I could use their parking spot if I wanted to have a Christmas guest over – not that I thought I would. We could start out first thing tomorrow morning.” Annie looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “Though why are you driving? Are those huge wings just for show or something?”
We should show her! His hippogriff was apparently well and truly away again now. We should fly her to wherever she desires to go! Show her our magnificence!
“Oh no, they’re definitely good for flying,” Beau said, pushing his hippogriff’s egotistical declaration to one side. “But with the weather the way it is… well, let’s just say I learned my lesson about not doing dumb things while flying.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, I can understand that.” Annie said, nodding. She stretched her arms above her head, yawning. “Well, as much as I hate to say it, I guess we should have a shower and get dressed.”
“That’s a shame. That sheet is a good look on you,” Beau said, appreciating the way it fell and exposed her side and hip as she stood up.
“Speak for yourself,” Annie shot back, giving him a grin over her shoulder as she disappeared into her bedroom.
With a warm, wide smile, Beau followed her.
It was early evening and the sky was dark, a few flakes of snow falling from the sky as Annie drove them back to the bakery to pick up Beau’s car.
They’d managed to get out of the shower after only one false start – Annie’s shower was really not big enough for two people anyway – and the drive was only fifteen minutes or so.
Beau turned his head, contemplating the way Annie bit her lip as she took a corner, concentrating hard in the slippery conditions.
She really was perfect, he thought as he looked at her – everything he’d ever dreamed his mate would be. Beautiful, funny, and determined. He could already see all of that in her face when he looked at her. The prospect of getting to know her – of finding out everything there was to know about her, and about how he could protect her and dedicate himself to being the best partner he could for her – made him more excited than he knew how to express.
“Okay, we’re here,” Annie said as she pulled up, sto
pping the car. “The shop will’ve closed hours ago, so I guess that lump there must be yours.”
She pointed to the car-shaped mound in the parking lot, covered with a fair amount of snow. Clearly, it’d been falling fairly heavily while they’d been otherwise occupied.
“I’ll help you scrape it off,” Annie said, reaching for the snow scraper beneath her seat. “Shouldn’t take too long.”
“Dragon’s fire breath doesn’t seem like such a bad idea now,” Beau said as they got out of the car into the frigid air. “This’d be over in a moment if I were a dragon.”
“Believe me, I’m happy with you just the way you are,” Annie said, smiling.
It was as they trudged toward the snow-covered car that Beau first detected it. It was a scent he’d know anywhere – that most people would know anywhere, and which definitely didn’t belong here.
Kerosene.
The scent was strong enough that his shifter senses had picked it up right away, but not so strong that Annie had noticed it yet. Beau whipped his head around, seeking the source, as his hippogriff rose up within him, beak opened in a mighty screech.
Something is wrong here.
Beau narrowed his eyes, focusing all his attention. He didn’t want to worry Annie before he knew there was any reason to, though. Bringing his hippogriff’s senses to the forefront of his mind, he scanned the darkness, the eagle’s sharp eyes immediately spotting movement in the alleyway between the bakery and the shop next door.
There.
“Annie, wait here a moment,” he said softly, leaving her side. “I’ll be back in a second.”
“Beau? What’s –” Annie started to ask, but cut herself short when she saw the serious expression on his face.
Beau nodded to her in what he hoped was a reassuring way before he moved quickly and silently to the front of the building, out of sight of the alley. When he got to the wall he glanced around the corner quickly – just long enough for him to see a crouched shape by the wall, and to determine that it was definitely where the scent of kerosene was strongest.