Most Ardently

by Sheena Austin et al.

  My heart started beating faster before I even moved the top of him.

  “Be still,” I whispered. Carefully, I positioned him at my opening, and then slid down onto the long, hard length of his cock. When he was as deep inside me as I could manage, he reached up to grasp my hips, his fingers digging in tightly as he stared into my eyes and pulled me down even farther. Slowly, I began rocking back and forth.

  Bennet clenched his jaw as he fought to remain completely still.

  Finally, I nodded at him, the gesture enough for him to grin me and start matching my movements stroke for stroke. And as we moved together, I felt something building inside me. Not an orgasm—although that was there, too—but something bigger, stronger.

  It swirled through me, over me, under, inside and out, until I could see it surrounding me in a blue-white light that pulsed with the rhythm that Bennet and I maintained.

  And as it pulsed, it got brighter and brighter, even as I felt Bennet begin to swell inside me, and as we moved faster and faster, the light grew almost blinding, until I closed my eyes against it. It built even more, becoming almost a sound that reached a higher and higher pitch.

  All at once, the magic light that was also a sound shattered around me at the same time my body convulsed around Bennet. It fell like shards of glass, slicing into Bennet at the exact moment his own orgasm hit, and he pushed himself up hard and fast inside me, holding my hips down against his cock, the broad heat of him stretching me around him as he cried out my name.

  From outside the cabin came a screech of anger.

  I fell forward, draping myself across Bennet’s chest. He wrapped his arms around, his fingers playing my hair.

  I opened my eyes to discover saw a bright blue light encompassing as both.

  “Do you see that?” I asked in a tone of wonder.

  Bennet chuckled deep in his chest. “I think I helped make that.”

  15. Bennet

  “DID YOU HEAR THAT SOUND from outside?” Darcy asked, still breathless.

  “Yeah. I think maybe the claiming worked.”

  She laughed, and we both watched the light surrounding us until it faded away to almost nothing.

  “I can still feel it, though,” she said. “It’s like we’re connected.”

  I felt it, too—and more than that, I felt a connection to the land we were on, as well. I kind of hoped I hadn’t doomed both of us to be stuck here forever.

  After we’d finally caught our breath, Darcy said, “what do we do now?”

  “I think we should see if we can send those hunters back to their queen.”

  “And then?”

  I shook my head. “And then, if this worked, we’ll need a plan.”

  Darcy stared into my eyes. “You mean a plan to defeat the Winter Court Queen, don’t you?”

  I hadn’t really considered that before, but for the first time in as long as I could remember, there was hope that someone else might be able to overthrow her. I didn’t know for sure how powerful Darcy was, but in every story I’d ever heard, only the strongest of fae royals were able to claim people.

  And her claiming had not worked like the Winter Queen’s did, by stealing other’s. No. I could feel my own power coursing through me, and more than that, I could feel Darcy’s, too.

  Darcy’s claiming had worked to open a channel between us, and between me and the land that belonged to her.

  I’d only known her for a day, by in that day, she had done more to save me and my people than anyone else had ever done.

  As we got out of bed and she dressed, I watched her with something like awe.

  “Aren’t you going to get dressed?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I’ll shift before we go out.”

  When we got to the living room, she gestured out the front window. “The snow has slowed down. I guess the storm isn’t going to be as bad as they predicted, after all.” Her smile was sunny and bright, so I didn’t want to dim it by telling her that I thought the magic we had made may have had something to do with the weather, as well.

  Instead, I simply said, “Then we ought to have no trouble getting to the property line.”

  “No, we shouldn’t.” As she pulled on her coat and boots, I watched her in amazement. Before, she had been afraid to turn her back on the elves. Now she couldn’t wait to confront them.

  I concentrated to let my cells shift. And then I followed Darcy out the door. It was still snowing lightly, but that didn’t seem to bother her as she marched directly toward the elf hunters, who rose to stand as soon as they saw her step outside.

  She stepped up to the leader, the two of them separated only by the barrier of her own magic.

  “I have a message for your queen.” Her voice was hard and uncompromising.

  The hunter hissed wordlessly at her.

  Darcy reached through the invisible barrier and poked it in the chest. “Shut up and listen.”

  It was like nothing I had ever seen before. The tiniest spark of that blue-tinged magic flickered from her finger to the warrior’s chest, and he froze, completely still and silent at her command.

  She tilted her head and glanced down at me. “Looks like I can get past the barrier, after all.

  I yipped in agreement.

  “Take this message to your queen,” she repeated. “Bennet Austen is mine. His entire kitsune clan is mine. And if she tries to take them, or if I find out about any other clans being hunted, I will end her.”

  She reached through the barrier a second time and poked the leader again. “You can go now. In fact, I suggest you leave immediately.”

  The warrior hissed something in his own language to his team, and they all backed away slowly, finally turning and flowing into the creek bed, traveling along it to wherever they were headed. When they were finally out of sight, Darcy blew out a relieved breath. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off.”

  Again, I yipped to show my agreement. I hadn’t been sure, either.

  “Just one more thing,” she said.

  She swallowed nervously once before she stepped over the invisible boundary that marked her property.

  “Oh, thank God.” She all but deflated when she realized that she could, indeed, leave her land. Deliberately, I stepped over the outline, as well, joining her on the other side of the boundary.

  It occurred to me that for all that this felt like a victory, it was merely the calm before a much bigger storm—one that would involve the Queen of the Winter Court, who wasn’t likely to take Darcy’s orders the first time around.

  But watching the woman who had claimed me as she stood just outside the boundary of her property, hands on hips, surveying everything around her as if it were hers to protect and defend, I suddenly knew without a doubt that I had absolutely chosen the correct side.

  I didn’t know if fate or happenstance had led me to her, but I did know that no one else could have saved me the way she did.

  Yeah, there was more to be done. But for the first time in a long time, I felt like we could handle it.

  Darcy stepped back onto her own property. “Well,” she said, “I think I might’ve just picked up one of the battles you were facing.” She grinned down at me, inexplicably delighted to be gearing up for a fight. “But you know what? I think together, we just might be able to handle it.”

  At her words, I raced back toward the house. I wanted to be able to talk to her, and I couldn’t shift out here. It was too damn cold. Besides, we had a lot of plans to make for whatever came next.

  She’d left the door open enough that I could open it with my paw.

  And by the time Darcy got back to the house, I was waiting in my human form to wrap her in my arms so we could make those plans.

  Together.

  If you enjoyed Snow Flight, be sure to leave a review for the collection and sign up for Margo’s Newsletter to hear about new releases—including the next book in this series!

  About Margo Bond Collins

  USA Today
, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between "hanged" and "hung," turned to writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kill monsters, too.)

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  Shades of Pemberley by Claire O’Dare

  Chapter 1

  The first rule of Waterloo is that one never talks about Waterloo. Not in parlours, not at dinner parties, not at gentlemen’s clubs. Certainly not at White’s, where all the young bucks gave you a look of both pity and disdain.

  Of course, one could always chat about Prinny’s great victory. One could always raise a toast to Wellington. But one most definitely did not mention the soggy fields or the blood on branches or the cries of young men dying on a field to protect these dinner parties where one never talked about Waterloo.

  So, Colonel Fitzwilliam, who marched a regiment through rain and mud for weeks last summer, did not talk about it. He smiled when smiled at, nodded as was needed. And drank enough port at these parlours and dinner parties and gentleman’s clubs to incapacitate a horse.

  Instead, when the feeling urged, when Colonel Fitzwilliam thought he might burst if he did not open his mouth and let the words tumble out, a person could take a hack to the East End, past the slums, and find himself in a warehouse in a back alley. And one placed a wager.

  On one’s self.

  There, the men who could not talk of Waterloo or Napoleon, spent their time not talking about it. They fought about it. In a circle pit drawn with chalk, a man could volunteer to not talk about the war, and instead, fight the thoughts away with an opponent, who needed the same release.

  Tonight was one of those nights. Colonel Fitzwilliam’s shoulder was aching from an injury acquired on a field he dare not mention. He spent the afternoon at his cousin Darcy’s London home listening to Georgiana butcher her way through another round on the piano. When Darcy’s wife, Elizabeth, burst in with packages, unwrapping each for Darcy’s perusal, he finished his drink and made an excuse to leave. Seeing her always put him in a foul temper.

  When he walked into the warehouse a hush took over the crowd. He could hear a young lad whisper, “The Colonel is here.” For that’s what he was here and now. He wasn’t a gentleman’s son, the second son, a member of the beau monde. He was simply “The Colonel.” And it suited him just fine.

  He didn’t have the best record here; that honor belonged to Shaw, a man about ten years his junior. The Colonel wasn’t the biggest fighter, nor the fastest, but people liked to watch him fight. Though he definitely wasn’t of society’s highest ranks, and though niceties stopped at the warehouse door, the men knew who he was and respected that he came to be one of them, that he understood their frustrations and pains. There was also something they enjoyed, he supposed, about seeing a gentleman get the daylights beaten out of him.

  The Colonel signed his name on a scrap of paper and threw it into a wooden box by the door. He took to the back of the room where men shared their drinks and wagered, waiting to see whose names would be called for tonight’s bouts.

  He enjoyed the camaraderie here, of men who had to look out for one another, so unlike the London gentleman’s clubs. But more than that, there was a rage in this warehouse that would not subside, and its story was told in the punches and kicks of men who didn’t have the words to tell it. The loose teeth were a poor substitute for words, but they told the tale. The split lips were as soothing as a kiss, the bruises little forget-me-nots. There was a comfort in knowing that the pain was real, it told him that the war wasn’t just a nightmare or a fever dream or some melodramatic play that rehearsed itself repeatedly in his mind. That sting of pain pulled him back from the shadows. There was that heaviness when a blow hits you, a dizzy fog that fell on one’s mind, that pushed you to the brink, the edge of blacking out. Yet, with a brisk shake of a head or another blow, you got called back from the darkness. Somehow you crawled back through it. He always crawled back through it.

  The next morning, he woke up with a headache, an even sorer shoulder, and was a few pounds shorter than when he started the evening. But Christ, it was worth it.

  He called for his valet, as he could barely manage to lift his arm high enough to pull his shirt over his head, and used some oil of wintergreen on his knuckles, still raw and bloody from punching that young chap in the face. He might have to think up excuses to keep his gloves on all day to hide the scabs.

  When he arrived at his cousin Darcy’s house, he was ushered into his cousin’s study as though he had an appointment and was not simply making a family call. There was something off about the air. Something suspicious, but Darcy only smiled at him and nodded towards a seat as though he were about to speak with his solicitor. This was a business meeting it seemed, and Colonel Fitzwilliam hated when Darcy intruded on his business.

  “I was hoping to see you last night at Lady Sefton’s,” Darcy said.

  Drat. He knew he had forgotten something. But he really couldn’t have taken another party with all the mamas throwing their daughters at him for a clumsy dance.

  “No, I was at my club instead.”

  Darcy took in his bloodshot eyes and the purple welt on his face. “Which club do you belong to again? Boodles, was it? Or Whites?”

  The Colonel stifled a laugh. “Neither of those. It’s a bit more exclusive. For military men.”

  Darcy left it at that, but then walked to a decanter near the desk and poured a large brandy. It was still morning.

  “You may want one of these after I tell you what this meeting is about.”

  The Colonel put his hand out, trying to make sure it didn’t shake when he reached for it.

  “Well, let’s get to it, then,” he said to Darcy.

  “It’s about Georgiana.”

  The Colonel rolled her eyes. “Which wastrel is sniffing after her this time?”

  As Georgiana’s co-guardian alongside her brother Darcy, the Colonel was responsible for her care and protection as much as her brother. And now as she grew older, that protection also meant finding her an appropriate marriage fit for her station, or rather her dowry. Georgiana had grown to be a beautiful young woman, but, like her brother, she was quiet and reserved, prone to fits of melancholic staring out of windows. He always joked in private that the two of them belonged out on the moors, Darcy and his sister, wandering around ghostlike among the fields rather than London ballrooms.

  He felt a sting at that thought for he had joked about it to Darcy’s wife, Lizzy. He remembered how she had smiled at that, then let out a warm laugh behind her gloved hand. The sting is from my shoulder, he told himself, nothing more. He took a sip of brandy.

  “The usual miscreants,” Darcy answered. “Thornton spent the evening extolling the virtues of his son, but I’m afraid he’s too wild. Cousin Mortimer is another thought, but I think Georgiana might murder me.”

  “Agreed. Those are both contemptible choices. Who’s next?” The Colonel asked.

  “Well, I was honestly hoping it would be you, Fitzwilliam.”

  The Colonel choked on his brandy. “What?”

  “I know the last few months have been difficult for you. It will be a fine arrangement. I know you will take care of Georgiana and Georgiana will take care of you.” He meant her dowry, the Colonel thought. He wasn’t really offering his sister. He was offering her dowry. She was just a special gift that was wrapped in the bargain.

  “You are a hero to this country,” Darcy went on. “I have no faith that this country will ever be able to repay you. Start a life with Georgiana.”

  What Darcy said was true: it would be a fine arrangement for Colonel Fitzwilliam. But that was the rub—it was an arrangement. If he married Georgiana, he’d be marrying a dowry. Not a wife, not a
partner, certainly not a lover. It was a rather cruel jab considering the hubbub Darcy created when he himself chose not to marry out of duty or “fine arrangement,” but instead married that harpy that had been haunting his dreams every night for years. Since Rosings, if he was honest. Which he was not. He took another drink and swallowed.

  The fact that it would be a fine arrangement for Georgiana as well did not escape him. Still so young, she already had a history of throwing herself at the nearest inappropriate man. At least the Colonel could be counted on to do right by Georgiana and could be guaranteed to not treat her ill or misuse her fortune. Georgiana was, of course, now safe from the likes of Mr. Wickham, who had repurposed his pretty lines and scammed Lizzy’s sister, but Georgiana’s shyness left her at the mercy of other fortune hunters, who obligingly flattered her while she sat in ballroom corners as the most popular wallflower at Almack’s.

  And Lord knew that the Colonel would rather go ten rounds with Shaw than sit through yet another one of her pianoforte recitals.

  The Colonel was about to say all this, was about to tell Darcy to mind his own business when both could hear the carriage draw up in front of the house.

  “Perfect. That will be Lizzy. With another hundred packages no doubt,” Darcy said.

  “Well, I’ll be off then.”

  “Stay and say hello,” Darcy said. “Let Lizzy talk some sense into you.”

  “I really must be going,” The Colonel answered.

  He must have looked grave indeed, because Darcy lifted a hand, stopping him to add, “Fitzwilliam, I didn’t suggest such a thing if you are that adamantly opposed. It’s not my intention to force you into anything. I just thought—well, why hand her over to a fortune hunter? Why not find an arrangement that’s beneficial to two of the most important people in my life?”

  The Colonel nodded and left the room. As he put on his coat, he could hear a distant tune— Georgiana playing the pianoforte. He could picture her with her small hands on the keys, her hair swept up away from her face. She looked so young.