by Vivian Wood
Rhys buried his face against Echo’s neck, sinking his teeth deep into the sensitive spot where her shoulder met her nape. Echo cried out and shuddered with both pleasure and pain, the sensations so strong that Rhys felt them in his very bones. When he released her he took his time licking the mark, using their bond to heal the wound, leaving a fresh red mating mark behind. His brand on her flesh, his seed in her body, his claim on her heart.
Rhys was suddenly, finally complete.
Rhys gave Echo a final long, deep kiss before withdrawing and collapsing beside her. He pulled her close, content for the moment to lie there and catch his breath, and listen to Echo’s harsh breathing.
13
Chapter Thirteen
Echo
“I want you to come work for the Guardians, lass.”
Echo turned her head to look at Rhys, her heart welling with feeling the second their gazes met. Her mind drifted, thinking of how he was hers now, and her body began to flush as she considered all that meant. It had only been two days since they’d completed the mating bond, but Echo and Rhys seemed to be competing to see who could wear whom out first, their mutual lust only growing by the hour.
“Echo?” Rhys said, breaking her train of thought.
“Huh?” she asked.
A grin spread across Rhys’s face, and Echo had to physically resist licking her lips and drawing him in for a heart-pounding kiss.
“I asked you to come work for the Guardians,” he reminded her.
“Oh. Uh… what?” Echo asked, confused.
“I talked to Mere Marie, and she agreed that we should ask you to come work for us.”
Echo frowned.
“You just want me close so you can keep an eye on me,” she said. Today had been her second day back at her job in the French Quarter, and Rhys had made his dislike of her leaving evident enough. If a man like Rhys could be said to pout, that was exactly what he’d done.
“Aye,” he agreed, catching her hand when she reached up and smacked him on the arm. He turned her fingers in his, giving them a kiss. “Don’t be angry. I just can’t stand the idea of you going around unprotected.”
“Rhys,” Echo said, giving his fingers a squeeze before pulling back. “You’re going to have to get used to it. You can’t follow me around all day every day no matter where I work. I’m an independent person, and I deserve privacy if I want it.”
Rhys’s gaze narrowed, but he didn’t dare disagree.
“That’s not the only reason I want you to come work for us,” he said, changing tacks.
“Oh yeah?” Echo asked, skeptical.
“We need someone to manage the day-to-day business of the Guardians. Take calls, keep a database of information, that kind of thing.”
“Doesn’t Duverjay do that now?” Echo asked.
Rhys snorted, and Echo’s lips twitched. He was being perfectly genuine about this part, at least.
“Hardly. He does the domestic tasks, and nothing more. Duverjay has been perfectly clear about that,” Rhys said.
Echo considered his words, pursing her lips.
“I’m not sure I’d be suited for it. I’ve never had an office job or anything,” she said.
“I don’t think this would be much like that, unless most office jobs require someone to keep spreadsheets tracking vampire attacks and rumors of witches raising the dead,” Rhys told her.
Echo couldn’t hold in a giggle.
“No, I guess not,” she agreed.
“Besides, from what you’ve told me, you have all the basic skills. At your job, you make the employee schedules, which would be similar to keeping the patrol schedule for us. You track inventory and sales, which would be a lot like doing the Kith activity database. You deal with a lot of drunk assholes in the French Quarter, which should prepare you for dealing with Aeric.”
Rhys’s eyes twinkled with amusement at his joke, but they both knew he wasn’t too far off. Aeric was prickly in the best of circumstances, and Echo hadn’t even seen him in a bad mood yet.
“I’ll think about it,” Echo said. She caught Rhys’s eye and gave him a long look, then smiled. “I will, I promise. It’s just… a lot. We haven’t even talked about some of the other important stuff, like my apartment.”
“You can move in here, obviously,” Rhys said with a frown.
“What about after you leave the Guardians?” Echo asked.
Rhys went quiet, and Echo realized that she’d touched some sort of nerve.
“You don’t know when that will be?” she asked.
“No,” Rhys said, rising abruptly. “I work for Mere Marie until she releases me.”
“Hey,” Echo said, snagging his hand and tugging him back to the bed for a kiss. “It’s okay. That just means that I’m here until she releases you, too. Okay?”
Rhys looked down at her, several emotions warring on his face. Echo hugged his bare, muscular waist, dropping a kiss next to his navel.
“I should get ready,” Rhys sighed. “It’s my turn to patrol. Aeric and Gabriel have been taking up the slack since you got here, and I think they’re growing annoyed.”
“More like jealous,” Echo said, waggling her eyebrows.
“Aye,” Rhys said, leaning down to give her one last kiss. He turned and padded off to the bathroom for a shower, giving Echo a glorious view of his naked backside in motion.
“Unf,” she whispered to herself, collapsing back on the bed.
On one hand, there had been some growing pains in the last few days. She and Rhys were connected deeply, but they were also both independent by nature. Not to mention hard-headed, a feature they both had in spades. In between bouts of spectacular and gymnastic sex, they’d argued about what their shared future would look like. Rhys was vague about his specific desires, only demanding that he should be able to “protect his mate” as he saw fit. Echo, on the other hand, was more practical and needed to know where they’d live, how they would resolve disagreements, that kind of thing.
So far, they had mostly just bickered and then ended up fucking for several hours until they were both too tired to mouth off. One big point of contention remained, centering around Pere Mal and the Three Lights.
Tee-Elle had finally grown tired of the Guardians’ overprotectiveness last night, insisting on returning to her house. Before Echo’s aunt had left, though, everyone had gathered downstairs at the big table to discuss the whole situation. Tee-Elle had laid out everything she knew about the Three Lights, and Gabriel had added a few bits and pieces of research he’d found.
The obvious conclusion was that Echo was the First Light because of her abilities as a medium, meaning that the Second and Third lights would likely be discovered by contacting a spirit beyond the Veil. Who that spirit might be, no one knew, but Echo had offered what she found to be the most likely solution.
“I should go to the Gates of Guinee and explore what’s just on the other side of the Veil,” she’d said, looking around at the others with a measure of exasperation.
Rhys had immediately lost it, of course, angry at the very idea despite the fact that he knew next to nothing about mediumship or what lay on the other side of the Veil. To be fair, Echo didn’t know a lot about it either, but she had a strong feeling that she could easily answer a lot of their questions with a simple trip across the Veil. After all, that was why Pere Mal wanted her in the first place, wasn’t it?
Echo snuggled back into Rhys's bed. Their bed now, she supposed. Rhys was amazing, making her feel safe and wanted and cherished, but his insistence in not letting her help wasn’t going to do.
Echo let her eyes close, thinking to catch a couple more hours of sleep before she rose and started her day. If she really was going to put in notice at her job, the shop she’d basically managed all by herself for over five years, she was going to need to be well-rested. She loved the shop’s owners, and telling them goodbye would require some serious emotional fortitude.
Echo must have drifted off without realizing
it, because the next thing she knew she was standing on the Manor’s front steps, face to face with a familiar-looking man. Wickedly tall, vaguely Hispanic good looks, a tuxedo… and those fascinating, frightening flame-orange eyes.
“Pere Mal,” Echo breathed.
“The one and only,” he said, looking her up and down.
She glanced down at herself, frowning when she realized that she was dressed in nothing but Rhys’s oversized t-shirt. When she looked back up, Pere Mal seemed amused.
“Can you at least dress me?” Echo snapped, crossing her arms over her breasts.
“It’s your dream, cher,” Pere Mal said, his apologetic pretense thin as tissue paper. “You dress yourself.”
Echo wrinkled her brow and willed herself to be wearing jeans and a proper blouse, and when she looked down, she was.
“How did you get here if this is my dream?” she asked, looking up at Pere Mal. He was eerie in the most supernatural sense, and staring at him too long gave her goosebumps.
“Hard to say, cher. Perhaps a part of you wanted to talk to me, n’est-ce pas?”
Echo bit her lip. He might be right. She didn’t want to interact with him, exactly, but she did want to resolve the situation so that she could begin her life with Rhys without looking over her shoulder.
“Why are you here, then?” she asked. “Somehow, I doubt that you came here to help me out.”
“You think not?” Pere Mal asked, giving her a measuring glance.
“You don’t seem the type,” Echo said with a shrug. “Oh, and you’re a kidnapper who sends his henchmen to beat on little old ladies in their own homes.”
Pere Mal seemed taken aback, then he laughed.
“You must mean your aunt,” he said with a grin. “She’s more than capable of taking care of herself, I assure you. If I wanted to harm her, it would be much more difficult than simply trapping her in a warded room. Besides, I’d rather come right to the source. Tee-Elle can’t give me what I want.”
“Neither can I,” Echo said, fisting her hands on her hips.
“Sure you can. You make a quick trip past the Veil, talk to a few spirits. Then you never see me again,” Pere Mal said with a shrug.
“Uh, I doubt that. Rhys is a Guardian, so I think we’ll see plenty of each other from here on out,” Echo replied.
“If you say so, cher,” Pere Mal answered. “I think you and I would not cross paths, because your mate will not let you out of the house to begin with. You’ve given your man the run of things, have you not?”
His words stung, but Echo refused to be cowed by him.
“I’m not going to help you,” she said flatly.
Pere Mal affected a sigh, shaking his head.
“Don’t make me threaten you, cher,” Pere Mal began.
“Don’t call me that!” Echo snapped, her patience coming to an end.
“As you wish,” he said. “It does not change the facts. If you do not get me what I want, I will kill your mate. Your aunt, too. I will keep killing until you do as I ask.”
Echo stilled, trying to gauge Pere Mal’s intent. She took a page out of Tee-Elle’s book and opened her mind to view his aura, nearly taking a physical step backward when she saw it. It was almost entirely red, a deep crimson the exact shade of freshly spilled blood. The violence simmering beneath his carefully calculated demeanor was obvious enough.
Pere Mal wouldn’t hesitate to kill Rhys, Tee-Elle, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be close to Echo’s heart.
“You have a day to think about it,” Pere Mal said, reaching into his suit jacket and producing a business card, which he thrust out at Echo. When she hesitated, Pere Mal actually bared his teeth at her. For the first time, she noticed that his teeth were filed into cruel, sickening points.
Echo reached out and took the card with trembling fingers, and Pere Mal’s expression smoothed to perfect blankness once more.
“Excellent. I expect to hear from you by tomorrow, Echo. Otherwise I’ll be visiting your mate.” He paused, then gave her a sort of pitying glance. “I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over this, cher. You’re going to give me what I want. It is foreseen.”
Echo opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She blinked and found herself sprawled across Rhys’s bed once more, shaking and covered in sweat. Clutched in her right hand was a crumpled business card, and Echo didn’t need to look at it to know it was Pere Mal’s.
“What the hell?” she whispered, curling into a ball as she tried to fight back tears.
Though it was still before dawn, Echo knew there would be no more sleep for her, not anytime soon.
Echo lay in bed late the next night, unable to return to sleep despite her growing exhaustion. Rhys was sprawled out beside her, stomach and face pressed into the comforter, giving Echo a close and personal view of his finely-sculpted back, ass, and legs. One arm was thrown across Echo’s stomach, holding her close as he slept.
Echo reached out to run her fingers through his hair, a sad smile playing on her lips. He was so beautiful, and such a good mate. Maybe a little overprotective. Okay, a lot overprotective, but Echo had never felt so cherished in her life. The connection she had with Rhys was stronger than any she’d known, even with her beloved Tee-Elle.
Rhys had crept into her heart and made himself at home there, though they’d only known each other a short time. Echo worried about him when they weren’t in the same room, just as he did about her. The protective instinct went both ways between them, and that was why Echo’s heart was so pained right this moment.
After an hour of mind-blowing, exceedingly naughty sex, Rhys had collapsed on the bed and announced that the Guardians would begin attacking Pere Mal’s properties one by one, an attempt to break up Pere Mal’s organization and find any other kidnapping victims that he might be holding the way he had Tee-Elle.
Echo had nodded, barely listening as she fell asleep. Then she’d had the most vivid, terrifying dream of her entire life, watching half a dozen scenarios play out in which Pere Mal killed Rhys. She’d watched her mate gunned down in the street by thugs, watched him mauled by a zombi, watched Pere Mal rip his heart out of his chest. Then there was death by poison, death in a Gray Market cage match against another bear shifter, death by suffocation after being buried alive by Pere Mal’s cronies.
After the last one, Echo awoke gasping for breath. Rhys, still asleep, mumbled something and pulled her a little closer, attuned to her needs even in slumber. That was the kicker, the moment Echo knew that she was going to have to give herself over to Pere Mal. Rhys was too good, too wonderful. He protected the city, looked out for the other Guardians, just as he had for his clan.
But who looked out for Rhys? There was no one, save Echo, and she damned sure wasn’t going to be the one to let him die for something as stupid as a little information.
Still, Echo didn’t want to give some innocent girl’s name to a wicked man like Pere Mal, so she’d come up with a pretty series of lies. Names and detailed information on the Second and Third Lights, all completely made up.
All she had to do was project a truthful aura as she told the lies, and Pere Mal would never know the difference.
Simple. Easy as pie, she told herself, but in reality Echo was scared out of her mind.
Giving Rhys one last long look, Echo eased his arm off her stomach. He grumbled a protest, still dead asleep, but Echo just dropped a kiss on his bare shoulder and slipped out of bed.
She went to the guest bedroom to dress and find the crumpled business card bearing Pere Mal’s information, which she’d hidden under the mattress. After putting on jeans, sneakers, and one of Rhys’s t-shirts for good luck, Echo snuck downstairs. She was out of the front door before anyone noticed, and halfway down the block before she paused to look back at the Manor, her heart pounding even as tears pricked her eyes.
Shaking her head, Echo squared her shoulders and kept moving, raising her arm to flag a cab.
It’s for the best, she kept telling hers
elf. You can do this. You can protect him.
That didn’t stop a lone tear from breaking free and rolling down her cheek as Echo slid into a taxi, unable to shake the regret growing in her chest even as she gave the driver the address. Things were already in motion, and she would let them play out.
Whatever would be, would be.
14
Chapter Fourteen
Rhys
Rhys woke to the sound of his phone vibrating on his nightstand. He sat up, disoriented, and reached for it. He frowned at the screen, swiping to accept the call even as he turned and frowned at the empty bed. His brain was trying to process Echo’s absence and a four a.m. phone call at the same time, and failing.
“Hello?” he asked, scanning the room for clues as to Echo’s whereabouts.
“You ain’t been keeping track of my girl,” came Tee-Elle’s voice. She sounded more than a little angry, and Rhys blinked in confusion.
“How did you get this number?” he asked.
“That’s the first question you ask?” Tee-Elle shot back. “Maybe you should be asking me where your girl is, huh?”
Rhys’s heart faltered for a moment.
“Uh… Okay, where is Echo?” he asked, rubbing a hand over his face.
“I don’t know where she’s going exactly, but she just left my house. Sneaky little thief doesn’t think I know, but she came in and took some of my gris-gris bags. Looks like she’s going to need some protection, and I’d bet you anything that little fool is doing something that’s going to get her hurt.”
Rhys was on his feet, trying to hunt down his jeans from where he’d flung them earlier.
“You don’t know where she’s going, though?” he demanded.
“She’s going to find Pere Mal. I’m just not sure where that is,” Tee-Elle said. “She also took some gris-gris that boosts privacy, cloaking or hiding the aura and the presence of magic. I can’t find her in my scrying mirror.”