by A. S. Green
The lid groaned, snapping him back into consciousness. Ainsley’s scent wafted out through the crack—fear and hope. He readjusted his grip, and let out a long agonized groan. His knees buckled, and his body dropped, diminishing his leverage on the lid.
He gave one last yank, the only thing he had left to give. His body weight pulled the barrel over, and the lid came off. Other barrels rocked behind him, knocking others over. Ainsley spilled out on top of him with a cry of anguish.
“Get up,” he heard her say. “Get up!”
Someone was pulling at his arm. Pulling him through what felt like a field of broken glass. Pain was shooting through him from all angles. He heard the heavy metallic sound of drums rolling and then…
Nothing.
Cool, empty, nothingness surrounded him.
He opened his eyes, blinking up at cobwebbed rafters. The boathouse. Ainsley.
He turned his head and found her on her knees beside him, her palms on his chest, her energy pumping through him.
“You’re alive.”
“Yes,” she said. “Are you?”
“Barely.”
“We got to get out of here. Can you stand?”
“Not much choice,” he said. “Help me up.”
She got her hands under his arms and he struggled to his feet, the remnants of pain still sizzling at the edges of his brain. “That took too much out of me. I can’t tilt us out of here. I got to find the truck keys.”
“Work bench,” she said. “He tossed them into something.”
Alex found them easily in a coffee can marked “Keys.” He almost laughed. He would have, too, if he’d had the energy. He’d done the impossible. And Ainsley was alive. It was almost over.
“Run,” he said, and she ran out of the boathouse while he limped behind her. Alex made it as far as the doorway when he saw a stranger with a gun.
Ainsley stood frozen at the passenger-side door with her hands in the air. “Frankie, no.”
The last member of the Black Castle—a man she called Frankie, a man Alex recognized from the truck parked near her house—was twenty feet from each of them, making the third point of a triangle.
Alex stood firm in the doorway, assessing the scene and still undetected. He needed to know if this guy was working alone, if he was truly the end of a centuries’ old nightmare for the fae.
Frankie adjusted his grip on the gun, but kept it pointed at Ainsley. He was clearly nervous. “I didn’t want it to go like this. There wasn’t gonna be any mess this time. You shoulda stayed where you were, Ainsley.”
Ainsley kept her hands up, but Alex could feel something brewing within her. The air rippled in an exciting way. “You really want to hurt my mother like this?”
Frankie blinked.
“You remember Carrie, right?” Ainsley asked. “My mom? You liked her.”
“She shoulda stayed away from that vile abomination.” He stiffened his gun arm, and Alex detected the slightest movement of his finger against the trigger.
“No!” Alex shouted, stepping out of the doorway.
Frankie jerked and swung toward the boat house, now pointing his gun at Alex. “You!”
“You say you don’t like mess?” Alex asked. “Well, you created this mess. If you’d never sent the first note, I would have likely never found her. Why did you lead me right to her if you didn’t want a scene like this?”
“I had a good guess who her father was, but she wasn’t wearin’ a queen’s necklace. I sent you that note, I went to that weird little fair and watched to see your reaction to her. I needed to know if she was one of your queens before I ran out of time.”
“What time?” Alex asked. Was there something more he wasn’t aware of?
“Doc says I only got six months. I couldn’t go to my grave not knowin’ if I’d left somethin’ undone.”
Ainsley took a step forward and the gravel scraped under her foot.
Frankie swung the gun back in her direction. “Don’t move.”
“Frankie,” she pleaded, “let us go. No one needs to get hurt.”
“He paid me.”
“Who paid you?” she asked.
“Peadar,” Alex answered before Frankie had the chance. “Peadar, the leader of the Black Castle, paid him to make sure we were all dead.”
“And you’re takin’ too fuckin’ long!” He swung his gun back at Alex and let off a shot. It ricocheted off the edge of the boathouse, sending wood splintering into the air.
Alex didn’t even flinch, but Ainsley screamed. The ground rumbled under their feet, and when Alex looked at her, her eyes were wild and intent on something he didn’t understand.
Frankie looked down at his feet. Alex started moving toward Ainsley. The ground fractured and thick dark tree roots erupted from the earth, reaching toward Frankie like long, skeletal arms.
Panic crossed his face and the gun fired, this time nicking Alex in the shoulder. It stung—and he sucked air through his teeth—but it was nothing compared to the pain he’d suffered inside.
The roots twisted, serpentining across the ground. They wound their way around Frankie’s legs and jerked them out from under him. The gun flew from his hand.
Alex charged in. “Don’t watch, Ainsley.”
“Finish him,” she replied.
Fury boiled within him. Alex yanked Frankie’s torso up while his legs remained tangled in the roots. Alex’s teeth sharpened with rage. It had been a long time since he’d used them for violence, but he remembered what to do. He was chieftain, and he would protect his queen.
He grabbed Frankie’s hair and arched his head back, exposing his throat.
Frankie let out a terrified scream.
The sound only fueled Alex’s blood lust. He pulled his lips back then sunk his teeth into the salty skin, jerking his head down, then to the left. The movement created a long lethal slice that relieved Frankie of his head. Alex chucked it into the woods.
Blood gushed and spurted from the body. Alex hadn’t been able to keep some from getting in his mouth. He dropped the torso; it landed with a thud. Then he turned and spit the foul warmth into the dust. After twenty years, this was not the blood he wanted.
He spit one more time, dragged his sleeve across his mouth, then slowly rose.
Ainsley was staring at him, her mouth open, terror obvious in her eyes.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he begged. He couldn’t take it if she were, if he’d repulsed her, pushed things too far again….
“You’re hurt,” she said, the tears springing into her eyes.
He glanced down at his shoulder. Apparently the bullet had done more damage than he’d realized. “It came out of left field.”
“Seriously, with the baseball talk?” She peeled back the frayed tatters of his shirt, exposing the wound. “You’re limping, too. Did he get you more than once?”
“No. I did that myself trying to tilt here.”
She leaned around the side of him to see his back. “Exit wound. Straight through you.”
“Really?”
She came back to the front. Her hands were gentle as she pressed her thumbs on the side of the bullet hole and Alex watched with pride and admiration as she knitted him back together. “You’ve been practicing.”
“A little. With Knox.”
Alex stiffened and she shook her head. “Let’s see the ankle.”
“It’s fine. Just a sprain.”
“Burns?” She yanked his shirt out of his pants and she hissed at the large red blisters all over his torso. “You’re a mess.”
“I would have been more so if I hadn’t got you out of there.”
“We’re going to survive?” she asked, as if the realization had just hit her.
Alex’s chest swelled, hearing the echo of his brother’s words when Alex first told them he’d found their queen.
“We’re going to survive,” he promised her. And this time, he knew it was true. There was only one more hurdle to cross.
34
“Uff!”
“Ugh. Ow.”
With Ainsley’s help, Alex had regained enough strength to tilt them home, but not enough to stick the landing. They fell in a heap on the living room floor, him on his back, her body limp on top of him.
“Get them up,” Callum said, and strong hands clasped under his arms, helping him to his feet. He didn’t let go of Ainsley and shifted her into a cradle hold. She buried her face in his neck.
“Get her fully marked,” Knox said. “None of this half-ass shit, and do it quickly. I don’t want this to ever happen again.”
Alex didn’t normally take directions from anyone, but this time he didn’t pull rank. “Call her mother,” he said. “Let her know she’s safe.”
In normal circumstances, he would have tilted himself and Ainsley up to his room, but he’d done enough of that for one day. Besides, he liked the feel of her in his arms, and he liked for everyone to see that act of possession. He’d been given another chance, and this time he wouldn’t leave her side.
He took her into his bathroom and ran a bath. She undressed herself this time, and as he tore off his own clothes, he surveyed her body for signs of injury. As far as he could tell, there were only abrasions.
He carried her into the water. The tub was big, deep, and the water just shy of scalding. He assumed she’d want to strip every sign of that monster from her skin, and he was right.
With a rasping breath, she reached for the soap then rubbed frantically at her arms and legs until her skin was pink from the heat and the friction. When she was done, she collapsed back against his chest. They stayed like that, basking in the warmth and each other.
Ainsley turned and nestled into his neck, her body soft and pliant in his arms. He combed his fingers through her damp hair.
She drew in a ragged breath and only then did he realize she was crying. “He killed my father.”
Alex’s hand froze for a beat, then he continued to caress her hair. “When?”
“Before I was born. I feel so terrible. I’ve hated him all these years, and he didn’t leave us on purpose.”
Her body shook, and he tightened his hold. “Shhh. Tell me everything, if you think it will help.”
Her breath brushed lightly against his wet skin, and he counted each one, paying attention to their depth and rhythm, until she sniffed loudly. “My dad knew I was a girl, and he was excited about that.”
“I told you females are rare. He would’ve been excited because he knew what you’d become. You represented hope, Ainsley, and he’d be so proud of what you did today.”
“Do you think so?”
“Of course. Why would you doubt it?”
“Because he’d already begun pulling away from my mom when Frankie killed him.”
Alex adjusted her more comfortably in his arms, and the water sloshed around them. “None of us have ever heard of him. I have to assume he was living on his own, without a clan, without a queen. He was probably starting to unravel. He was probably worried for your mother's safety, being around him as much as she was.”
“So he was trying to protect us?”
“Yes. I have no doubt.”
“And you’ve been trying to protect me—with what you told me, and what you didn’t.”
“That was a mistake.”
She pulled back, and he looked down at her face. Her expression was apologetic and pleading. “I’m so sorry I was mad at you in the car, when you took me to school. I thought you’d lied to me about Orla.”
“Orla?” He hadn’t realized Ainsley was mad at him; he’d thought she was doubtful of his ability to keep her safe.
“I heard Alastair mention the decorations for your bonding ceremony, and I thought you’d lied when you told me I’d be your first.”
“Ainsley, she—”
“No.” She shifted so she was straddling him, and she took his face in her hands. “You don’t have to explain. I know the truth. But going forward, no more secrets, no more doled-out truths.”
“I love you.”
She flinched backward. “What?”
Alex pulled her back to him. “That’s the only thing I still need to tell you. You know everything now.”
“I love you, too.”
“I know.”
She laughed, then looked down. The tears were back in her eyes, and she touched one of the red welts left by the iron barrels. “Frankie said he was the last of his kind.”
“Good.”
“They’re all gone now.”
“Let’s hope,” Alex said. He had no reason to doubt it, but he couldn’t imagine ever letting his guard down when it came to her.
“I wish you didn’t have to get so hurt. I wish I’d been enough to fight him off in the first place. I wish I could’ve done something so I never ended up in his truck.”
“You were in an underground parking garage, surrounded by concrete. There was nothing natural down there for you to draw from. And you are enough.”
“Am I?” she asked, looking up. “Am I enough for you?”
He was already aroused—How could he not be with her straddling his lap?—but her question made it impossible to ignore and his claiming scent started to fill the room. “Yes, Ainsley. Yes, of course.”
“Will you make love to me?”
“Tomorrow. You need time to recover. You’ve been through a trauma.”
“Tomorrow, yes. That too. But first, today. Now.” She reached between them and seized his hard flesh. His head slammed backward against the tile, and the tendons in his neck strained with the intense pulse of his bloodstream.
“And you will claim me as yours.”
His cock pressed hard and urgent against her soft flesh and his teeth sharpened, together a sinful promise that this time it would be far more than mere sex. Without wasting another second, he scooped her up and stepped out of the bath, carrying her straight to the windows that looked out over the garden.
Ainsley twisted her neck to see where he was taking her. “What are you doing?”
He set her on her feet, facing the window, and he placed her hands wide on the wooden casing. Her naked, dripping body quivered in anticipation, goose bumps popping up all over her. She wouldn’t be cold for long.
His erection bobbed heavily against her ass, and her cheeks spasmed, already on the urge of orgasm.
“Keep your eyes on the garden, my queen. Make it do what I’m going to do to you.”
“Sweet suffering Jesus,” she whispered, her breath fogging the glass.
Alex grabbed her hips and pulled them back a few inches, making her bow toward the window. He lined up his shaft with her opening, then he entered her in a single, commanding thrust that slapped his balls hard against the backs of her thighs.
Ainsley absorbed his girth with an open-mouthed but silent cry that he saw reflected in the glass. He gave her no time to acclimate. Before her next breath, Alex was pulling her hips back and forth in a salacious choreography that had her arms trembling and rattling the window frame.
Alex held her jaw in his hand, keeping her looking at the garden and nothing else. She braced herself against the window frame, her fingernails dug into the wood while his thickness surged and retreated within her. Her flesh swelled around him. Her muscles strained. Her body wound tighter and tighter around him.
Perilously close to his own orgasm, his release poised in his shaft, he reached around and circled her clit with his middle finger. She was so hot and swollen that he growled.
Ainsley made a sound so sultry Alex thought he’d be hard for the rest of his life. She tipped her ass higher, and released a long mewl of desperation. “Claim me.”
And that’s when Alex’s control finally snapped. Like a cobra striking, he bit down on the pulsing invitation of her neck, slicing through her skin and tapping into her vein. Hot blood rushed down his throat as his hips thrust forward.
He sucked hard, drawing her into him, mixing her essence with his. His claiming scent spread thr
ough the room, marking her. There was no going back now.
He took one last drag from her vein, then pulled back.
“Alex!” she cried out. “Oh, God, Alex!”
He sliced his wrist with his teeth then put the gash to Ainsley’s lips. She sucked hard, and her body convulsed in a powerful responsive rush.
“More,” he said. “Harder.”
Ainsley groaned, sucking harder, and when he pulled his wrist away, her orgasm scored through her like fire.
The sky snapped, like lightning in a cloudless sky.
Energy shuddered all around them and shattered the window. Broken glass rained down on the patio, tinkling like crystal bells.
And the wisteria tree at the center of the garden… Its blossoms exploded with an incomprehensible burst of pale pink petals. The most exquisite of all bonding bouquets.
Epilogue
Saturday, three weeks later
“Hasta la vista, Harper!”
Ainsley’s best friend gave her the hang-loose sign from the sidewalk outside her apartment and yelled, “Back atcha, chickie!”
“Get your head back in the car,” Knox grumbled, yanking on Ainsley’s costume and pulling her head and shoulders back through the open window.
She fell onto the passenger seat and giggled at her lack of grace.
Knox cursed under his breath. “How drunk are you exactly?”
She counted it out on her fingers. “Five. I’m five sweet meads drunk.”
“Is that a lot of mead?” He didn’t take his eyes off the road as they drove down the dark residential streets.
“Plus one whiskey shot,” she added, “but that was hours ago.”
“Jesus Christ. McKee’s going to kill me.”
“Why?” she asked, turning in her seat. “What did you do?”
Alex had had a late-afternoon Skype meeting, so he’d sent Knox along as Ainsley’s designated driver and bodyguard, though her friends didn’t know that last part. They were just happy to have a driver who made their toes curl. Those were Niesha’s words, but Ainsley could see her point, even if Knox was now her brother.