Switch of Fate 2

by Grace Quillen

  She could feel the sharp edge Flint was riding, how badly he wanted them to go over it together. For once in her life Goldie felt ready for the drop. She tightened inner muscles and ground herself against him, felt the heated throb of him loving her. Goldie pulled her arms free and both hands went to his butt, holding tight, driving him deeper. Flint pulled back far enough to look her in the eyes before his lips took her over like they always had.

  His hot, gasping breaths against her mouth were too much. Goldie couldn’t believe she’d pushed this extraordinary male to these heights and that he was man enough to take her with him. With one final thrust, she was over the precipice and flying in his arms.

  Flint let out a breathless groan against Goldie’s lips as he soared with her, somehow managing to cushion their fall from above.

  Chapter 34 - Body Talk

  In the breaking light of the following dawn, Flint reclined on his very much worse-for-the-wear bed (really, they’d be lucky if it lasted Goldie’s Prowl) and stroked his woman’s hair as she slept. He should be sleeping, too, if he had any sense. But he didn’t. He’d lost it all in the war this switch had waged on his heart without even trying. And now he’d woken up just as the sky was starting to turn from black to blue and found he couldn’t go back to sleep, he was so grateful to even be alive to see the day.

  And that didn’t even include how things had changed between him and Goldie. Claimed or not, the two of them had declared their love over and over, all night long, and he had no doubts. He knew she didn’t want anyone but him, and vice versa. Claiming could wait. His bear gave a grumbling protest. No longer than it must.

  Goldie mumbled and squirmed in her sleep, rolling slightly away so that the blanket shifted and revealed one perfectly-shaped breast to his view. Flint’s dick twitched because, well, damn, but he let it be. She’d be awake and on him soon enough. His switch needed her rest as well and nobody, including him, was going to interrupt it.

  The whole night had been insane, one bout of acrobatic sex after another, Goldie barely letting either one of them catch their breath before she’d take hold of his body and slip him somewhere warm and wonderful once again. He’d been on pleasure overload for hours and wasn’t sure he was ever coming down. Even the scratch on Flint’s chest, red with itchy blisters, that Vlade had left using only the tip of his bloodblade, barely bothered Flint at all.

  He and Goldie had only stopped fucking twice: once for Flint to get them water and a snack, and once for him to wrap the vampire carcass at the foot of the bed in an old blanket. He’d almost stepped on Skinny Jeans’ beef jerky ass more than once, and it was really starting to make a mess on the carpet. Flint would be in here for hours next week trying to get the smell of burnt pine needles out. He smirked. Worth it.

  On the street outside, Flint heard the familiar sound of Bryce’s Jeep, his brother cranking the tunes in spite of the early hour as he pulled into the driveway and parked. As quickly and quietly as he could Flint rose from the bed and pulled on a pair of shorts, relieved when Goldie’s sleeping form didn’t budge and her breathing stayed slow and even.

  He closed the half-blasted bedroom door behind him, padding to the front door just as Bryce pushed it open, the kid’s surprised eyes going to Flint’s finger at his lips. Then Bryce’s face split into a grin and he stage-whispered, “So that’s why you didn’t want to talk last night. You were getting hammered. Well tough shit, big brother. Hungover or not, I need to grab a shower before I go back to the hospital. Jameson’s there pretending to ask Darby questions about the accident since it happened in his territory, but if anyone digs too deep they’ll find out he’s got no business there. I gotta get back.”

  Flint growled. “I need you to do something. Wait here.” He walked back to the bedroom, away from Bryce’s impatient glare. Goldie was still sleeping. Flint strode to the blanket at the foot of the bed and lifted it gingerly. Bones clattered in the folds and a thin film of ash rained down on the carpet. Flint sighed.

  He took the bundle back out to Bryce and thrust it into his brother’s arms. “Get rid of this. Somewhere good. We don’t want anyone finding it.”

  Bryce’s nose wrinkled and he retched. “Dude, no! This shit stinks like a vampire’s assflaps. What did you fucking drink, man?”

  Flint rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t getting drunk. We got jumped by vampires and Goldie Undid one. I’ll tell you about it when her Prowl is over. Right now you gotta go.”

  He edged Bryce towards the front door, his younger brother blustering and protesting. “What?! You got Goldie in the back?! I mean, not... ‘in the back’... like that,” Bryce stammered, his eyes drifting towards the hallway that led to their bedrooms. “But dude, I bet during their Prowl is the best time to ask for the freaky shit.”

  That did it. “Put the blanket down for a sec.”

  Bryce did as Flint told him. “Why? What now?”

  “I didn’t want you to get the carpet dirty.” Without another word Flint punched Bryce in the jaw, harder than he had in years, even at sparring. Fuck, that felt good. Righteous, even. Brother or not brother, nobody was going to say a sideways word about his woman.

  Bryce staggered back three steps then fell on his ass, his ruddy cheeks going deep red as he glared at Flint, ready to go off. Flint held a finger up to his lips. If Bryce woke Goldie the cub was gonna get tagged again. His brother glared at Flint and angry-whispered. “What the hell, man? I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  No doubt. But he’d think twice next time, wouldn’t he? Flint extended his hand to help Bryce up, then spun his brother to the front door, picking the blanket full of bones up as they went. “Be a good boy and maybe you’ll get heartbound one day, too. For now, get the fuck out.”

  Bryce stood on the front porch holding his stinking bundle of bloodsucker bones, working his reddening jaw, a look of confused dismay on his face. “But you don’t even live here anymore!” Flint shut the door in his brother’s face and locked it. Duty called.

  He practically sprinted to the kitchen, throwing together a tray of bagels, juice, and fresh fruit for breakfast and carrying it back to the bedroom. Perfect timing. One of Goldie’s slender arms was reaching to his side of the bed as if searching for him. When she didn’t find him her head rose to look, and Flint’s heart kicked into overdrive. With her mussed hair and sleep-creased cheek she was even sexier than when she’d been screaming beneath him, above him, as the little spoon... He shook his head to get it back on track. “Breakfast, Pumpkin.”

  Goldie licked her lips and pushed herself onto all fours, crawling to the edge of the bed where she could kiss his taut belly under the tray and give his cock a squeeze through his shorts. Her sleepy voice was gravelly, like a woman well-fucked, and he could hear her sly grin through the words. “I know what I want to eat.”

  Flint backed away, a school-marm expression on his face. “Hands to yourself, switch. We need to fuel this Prowl.”

  Regret seized him when Goldie sat back, her beautiful breasts bouncing, and pulled the blanket almost all the way up to her pouting lower lip. She heaved a put-upon sigh and met his gaze. “Fine. I don’t want you running out of energy when you’re nailing me to the bed.”

  The naughty glint in her eyes when Flint groaned in response told him she knew exactly what she was doing to him. He fucking loved it. Loved being wrapped around her little finger because she was so sweetly considerate of where she put her hands. “Clean your plate, Pumpkin, and I’ll nail you to every wall in the house.”

  Her cheeks went pink and her mouth curved in that shy smile he loved so much. Flint smiled. Everything they’d done to each other, said to each other, and she still felt sheepish around him? Sweet little Pumpkin didn’t even know. By the time this was over, if he had anything to say about it, they’d know each other as intimately as two people could. They were made for each other just as surely as Goldie’s Resonant was crafted to make her bloodlust sing. And he wanted to be there for every tune, the harmony to her fierce
, magical melody.

  Flint placed the tray on the bed between them, deeply satisfied when Goldie dug into her cream cheese-topped bagel with ravenous enthusiasm. He started talking, hoping that if he kept her distracted from sex she might actually eat a decent meal. “We need to talk a little shop. It’s not safe to stay here. That fucker Vlade doesn’t seem like the type to back off for long.”

  Goldie shifted on the bed, not meeting his eyes. “I know you’re right, but I still don’t know what to do about Darby. I can’t leave her. I mean, if she even wants me around her anymore.”

  The blowout the two sisters had had yesterday at the hospital had been loud enough to draw the attention of everyone on the hall, but Flint hadn’t been able to distinguish all the words. He could guess what it was about, though. “You’re going to have to tell her the whole story. All of it.”

  The glass of orange juice Goldie had been raising to her mouth froze two inches from her lips. “Why would I want to do that? She’ll think I’m crazier than she already does.”

  Flint shook his head. “It’ll be fine. We should move both of you up to Resperanza, just to be safe. There are a bunch of extra rooms.”

  Goldie was looking at him in confusion. “Wait, Resperanza is the name of the house you took me to?”

  Flint nodded as he swallowed a mouthful of fruit. “The Covens protect the switches, like a secret hideout or something. Probably keep the stalker off the scent, too.”

  Goldie’s eyebrows twitched, her attention caught. Flint tried to sweeten the pot. “Darby’s probably a switch, too. We get her into Resperanza, she’ll be safe, prepared, and before long maybe she’ll light up.”

  But far from looking convinced, Goldie’s face crumbled, her half-eaten bagel forgotten in her limp grip. “But that’s the thing. I don’t know for sure if Darby is my sister.”

  Flint stared. She didn’t think he was going to buy that roommate shit again, did she? But much to his relief she took another bite, swallowed, and began to explain. “I told you my dad used to get drunk and fling accusations around. Well, his favorite one to hiss at Mama when Darby was little and he thought I couldn’t hear was that she wasn’t his daughter.”

  Goldie rolled her eyes, looking far more like Darby than she usually did, and shook her head as she continued. “Which is stupid, of course. The only reason he could even say it is because Darby is the spitting image of our mother. Didn’t get one single trait from him that I’ve ever seen, except a loud mouth and hot temper. I’m the one who looked like him, except for my blue eyes like Mama’s and Darby’s.” Goldie’s face screwed up with worry. “What if she’s only my half-sister and that makes her not a switch at all? What if all we do is put her in more danger?”

  Flint popped the last grape in his mouth and shrugged. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire? If anyone can handle it, Darby can.”

  He watched Goldie consider his words as she chewed the last of her bagel, then glanced down at the fruit still piled high. Without a word she picked up her dish and dumped its contents onto Flint’s empty plate, then set it down and grinned at him. “I cleaned my plate.”

  Flint laughed at that, rising from the bed to set the tray on his dresser and drop his shorts to the floor. “Lucky for you I’ve got this hammer.”

  Chapter 35 - Sibling Stalemate

  The next day Goldie knocked softly on her sister’s hospital door and waited for an answer. Darby’s quiet voice came a moment later. “Come in.”

  It was Sunday. Goldie had spent all day yesterday in the erotic fog of her Prowl and had hardly given a thought to her sister after her and Flint’s conversation. This morning when they woke she had felt like she was through the worst (the best?) of the Prowl, but she was eager to get things settled in case it came over her again. Even walking away from Flint as he settled into a chair twenty feet from Darby’s door had been more difficult than she expected, but Goldie knew she had to do this part alone. She looked back at him and he gave her a thumbs up that she shakily returned before entering her sister’s room.

  Darby’s eyebrows rose in a you-got-some-nerve curve as they locked gazes. Goldie held out her peace offering: Darby’s makeup case. She’d grabbed it from their side of the duplex before she and Flint came. Darby’s still-bruised eyes lit up, but she kept the smile from her face as she greeted Goldie. “Hey, where you at?”

  Goldie gave a weak smile. “I’m okay. Sore, still.” Although, if she was being honest, most of that was from the sex, not the car accident. “I thought you might want this.” She set the makeup case on the rolling table next to the hospital bed.

  Darby maneuvered the table so it crossed her lap, and opened the case to reveal a large mirror and tiers upon tiers of product. Goldie opened the shades on the window to bring in better light before she sat down. “We need to talk, Dar.”

  Her sister was already into her routine, putting her hair up in a plastic clip and pulling tubes and brushes from her kit, too busy to spare Goldie a glance. “So talk.”

  For probably the millionth time ever, Goldie wished that Darby could just make things a little easier. But that wasn’t who her sister had ever been, and it was time Goldie stopped wishing on stars for what would never happen. One dream come true was enough for her. “I know things have been crazy lately, and I haven’t been completely honest with you. That ends now.”

  And she told Darby everything that had happened since their grandmother died. From the voodoo woman in Jackson Square to Flint and Bryce being grizzly bears. Darby’s jaw dropped, her eyes and mouth wide, brown and ivory contour dots scattered over her face, waiting to be blended. She blinked quickly, more times than Goldie could count. “Motherfucker’s been holding out on me.”

  Then Goldie told Darby about Jameson being the white wolf who’d run them off the road, and herself being a killer of vampires. “You might be one, too. We won’t know until you get around a vampire, I guess.” For once Darby didn’t say anything, just looked at her sister with the widest ‘scuse-me? eyes Goldie had ever seen until Goldie gave up waiting and told Darby about the Prowl. Just a little. Just in case.

  By then Darby had recovered her chill. Her smirking response made Goldie’s cheeks flame. “‘Bout time you found an excuse to bounce on that boy. Bear. Whatever.” Darby screwed the top onto her lip gloss and put it back in the case, folding in the tiers and closing the lid.

  She fixed Goldie with a hard look. “Honestly, Goldie, I don’t know what to think. I’m supposed to be the crazy sister, but you just left me in the dust with this shit. What ever happened to you and your rock solid control? This kind of crazy shit never happened to us before.”

  Goldie squirmed in her seat. She knew it sounded nuts. There was the hard sell and then there was mental institution material, and she had no illusions about which side her story fell on. The fact that it was true wasn’t much help to anyone but her.

  Oh! Keeping her gaze locked on Darby’s, Goldie blew into her palm and felt the Breath energy fill it. She curled her fingers around the ball of electric purpose and threw it at the empty water jug six feet away, sending it skittering off the bedside table.

  Flawless burgundy lips popped wide, along with Darby’s eyes. “No shit! How’d you do that? That’s fucking epic!”

  Goldie grinned and blushed at the bombastic reaction. She hadn’t impressed Darby enough to get her to show it in more years than she could count. Now her sister’s jaw was practically spring-loaded. “So you believe me?”

  Darby tilted her head to one side and regarded Goldie with kinder eyes. “You’ve never lied to me before all this, that I can remember.”

  Goldie swallowed. She had held one thing back. Not exactly a lie, but… “There’s a little bit more to the story. It’s about Mama and Daddy and the night they died.” So she told Darby that, too, about the green glow and the thoughts she’d had, the guilt she’d carried ever since. By the end of her story Goldie was staring at her tear-stained lap, unable to meet her sister’s eyes. “I’m s
o sorry, Dar. I never meant for them to die.”

  Darby’s cynical laugh brought Goldie’s eyes flying up. Her sister’s perfectly made-up eyes were filled with tears that threatened to ruin all the time and attention Darby had paid to them. “Goldie, if that was all it took to kill our parents, they would have been dead years before Katrina hit. I wished myself out of there every day since I was five, and in lots of worse ways. But I didn’t mean it the other night when I said I’ve been trying to ditch you all my life. Hell, you and Tallulah were the only people I ever wanted to be around back then.”

  Goldie gave a shocked laugh. “And now?”

  Her sister smirked. “Well, Tallulah’s dead, and you’ve kinda turned into a pain in my ass.”

  They both laughed hard and long at that, at the swampy mess they’d landed in and how much they loved each other in spite of it. When they finally calmed down Darby wiped her eyes. “I guess your new bouncy-bear means we’re staying here.”

  Goldie smiled, then took a deep breath. This was the last hurdle. “So here’s the thing. The duplex isn’t safe, so Flint is thinking maybe we should all move into the hacienda, Resperanza. Bryce too. It’s hidden from humans, vampires, too. Your stalker won’t be able to send us letters… I think it’s the best thing, if everyone else agrees.”

  Darby hesitated and Goldie saw the skepticism in her eyes. Oh yeah, way to show her you don’t want to control her life. She should totally trust you on that one. So Goldie tackled that beast head-on, too. Non-confrontational can suck my left nipple. “And I promise I won’t even bug you. Riot lives there, downstairs where you’re going to be, and if you spend all your time with him and Bryce and I never see you, that’s fine.” Goldie met her sister’s eyes, so much like her own. “I just want to know you’re safe.”