by Mina Carter
He was also carrying a baby.
She blinked in surprise. Okay, this was one situation she wasn’t used to facing. Drop-dead gorgeous men did not appear on her doorstep with a baby. Actually, they didn’t appear on her doorstep at all, with or without a baby.
“Sorry, can I help you?”
“You might just be my salvation.” His voice was a low rumble that took Tessa’s breath away. The sound did things to her insides on a very primitive level. Oh for god’s sake Tessa, get yourself together! It’s just a voice!
“Um, okay?” she managed, dark eyes flicking to the bundle he carried. Then a slight breeze in the corridor, someone must have opened a door down the way, carried the unmistakable scent of a dirty diaper.
“Hmm, not being funny… but you might want to change the baby before you take it out visiting?” she suggested. And maybe put a shirt on, she added mentally. Although, she was enjoying the view at the moment. But what kind of a father was he, bringing his baby out with a dirty diaper?
“That would be the problem.” He shifted the baby in his arms and smoothed the edge of the blanket down. Tessa caught her breath at the colour of its hair.
Bright Pixie pink, a colour she’d only seen in the full blooded members of her mother’s family. He looked at her and smiled, the merest hint of fang showing. “As you can see, it’s not mine. Someone just left it on my doorstep and I haven’t a clue what to do with it!”
He was Kyn.
The knowledge stunned Tessa for a moment, almost as much as his appearance on the doorstep had had. But then, he shifted on his feet a fraction and the light fell across the marks across the left side of his face and body. Her breath left her lungs in a rush.
“You’re a Kyn warrior,” she exclaimed in relief, glad she hadn’t opened her door to a Rogue vampire. Even though the small amount of Pixie blood flowing in her veins protected her from being turned into a vampire, Rogues were more interested in the high from a kill, than turning their victims. Although, to be fair, she’d not heard of them using a baby as a decoy. They were more into breaking the doors down to get at their victims, and a baby would be little more than a macabre snack.
“Live and kicking…name’s Feral,” he introduced himself, grinning a little. The small expression curved his full lips, transforming his rather cruel features. Features made starker by the shaved hairstyle which turned him from mere gorgeous, to devastating.
“Tessa, pleased to meet you,” she replied on automatic, silence stretching between them.
*
“So,” Feral continued. “You gonna help me out here? The little guy…he’s really beginning to smell bad…” He watched her, hope coiling in his chest. When she’d first opened the door, his heart had sunk. She wasn’t the woman he remembered pinning out the diapers.
However, she was a Pixie, he could see the slight glamour clinging to her, making her appear more human. On second inspection, there was a family resemblance to the woman with the diapers. Younger sister maybe? He tried that route.
“I remembered your…sister?” He smiled, a cautious edge in his voice as he hoped he’d gotten it right. Women could be funny about ages, and what stated relationships to other women said about their ages. Relief shot through him as she nodded.
“I remembered your sister has kids, so when I found him, I came ‘round to beg mercy…and a couple of diapers.” He grinned as he tried his hardest to be charming and personable. Come on sweetheart, you have to say yes. Look at me, I’m not a baby sorta guy! Practising for making babies, yes…dealing with the babies, definitely no!
His silent plea seemed to work, her coffee-cream eyes flicking over him again. Feral shivered, the look almost seeming like a caress over his skin, his nipples tightening a little as a thrill shot through him. Then, she stepped back and released the chain.
“Come on, bring him in and we’ll get him cleaned up,” she ordered, her voice brusque. Feral stalled, not used to being ordered around…no that was a lie. He was used to being ordered around. Vixen did regularly, as did their boss Marak, the current Kyn monarch. But both Vixen and Marak weren’t people one would want to piss off in a hurry; while this woman was, well, tiny. And curvy to boot—the figure, the shapeless towelling robe was hinting at, enough to make his mouth water.
He followed her into the living room, looking around the plush interior and dismissing it just as quickly. It had all the hallmarks of expensive interior design and was about as interesting as the back of a cereal box.
“Come on, let’s have him down here then.” She dragged out a changing mat from its hiding place behind the sofa, plopping it on the floor as she glanced at him. “The diapers will be a bit big, but it’s better than leaving him dirty. Can you take his diaper off while I get a fresh one?” She arched an eyebrow, obviously doubting his ability to carry out even that simple task.
“Of course!” He kneeled down to settle the baby in the middle of the changing mat. For such a small, little thing, it took virtually every part of Feral’s body to make sure he was placed carefully on the mat.
*
Tessa shook her head as she headed out of the room to fetch changing supplies. If he’d ever held a baby before, she’d be surprised. He had that “on eggshells” manner men tended to get when presented with an infant for the first time. Women didn’t get it so much. Must be some maternal instinct, she mused, rifling through the changing unit in the twins’ bedroom. Ignoring the washables, Tessa went straight for the disposables, an addition she’d insisted on if she was expected to baby sit. There was no way she was scraping shit off a diaper for anyone. Not even her sister!
“Too big, all too big,” she murmured as she rifled through the wicker basket. “Damn, this is no good.” She leaned down, peering into the darkness of the cupboard. There! At the back. She grinned in triumph as she retrieved a wad of diapers left over from when the twins were small. She checked the size and nodded. Just perfect.
*
“Look mate, you aren’t making this easy you know,” Feral muttered, trying to get his nose as far away from his hands as he could, without turning his head or being on the other side of the room. He’d managed to remove the diaper, but he hadn’t been prepared for what it contained.
He grimaced as he considered the contents, not sure what he was supposed to do now. He’d watched Vixen change her little daughter, Marianne, more times than he could remember, and she’d always made it look easy.
He was quickly finding out it wasn’t as easy as it looked.
*
Tessa stifled a giggle as she came back into the room to find the Kyn warrior on his knees, trying to clean the baby’s bottom with hesitant movements. All he was doing was spreading the mess even further.
“Just where I like to see a man,” she quipped, “on his knees. Come out of the way, you’re just making it worse.” She shooed him away, then knelt down in front of the baby, who was taking advantage of the moment to try to flip himself over. Tessa made a grab for him just before he managed it, tapping his nose playfully.
“Oh no you don’t, handsome,” she chuckled, catching his ankles in one hand, cleaning him up with the other. She was used to changing babies, having spent a lot of time over here when Lisa had given birth to the twins.
“There we go, all clean and dry, aren’t you a clever little man?” She fastened his baby gown as he wriggled again, doing his best to escape. She grinned and caught him, his chortles filling the room as she tickled his sides.
Smiles wreathed her face. He really was the cutest little thing. A pang of longing filled her; she’d always wanted kids of her own. For that though, she’d have to meet a man first, something she seemed singularly incapable of. She tickled him again, running her fingers along the soles of his bare feet as she reached for his trousers.
“He’s a gorgeous little thing,” she commented, very aware of the large Kyn watching her like a hawk. “So, he was just left on your doorstep?”
“Yeah, about half an hour ag
o. Was a bit of a surprise…usually I just get pizza delivery,” he chuckled, shrugging a shoulder. “Not the domestic type.”
“Pizza? I didn’t think vampires ate?” She flicked a glance up at him while she finished dressing the little one. She picked him up easily, handing him over. “Here, hold him for a moment, whilst I clear this lot up. Hey…what’s this?”
Her eyes fell on a folded piece of paper which fell free of the yellow blanket as she folded it. Tessa reached down and picked it up. It appeared to have been ripped from a reporter’s notebook, crumpled and folded into quarters. She smoothed it out and frowned at the words scrawled on it, in a hasty hand.
“What’s it say?” He shifted closer, peering over her shoulder. The scent of aftershave and warm man enveloped her, a shiver running down her spine. God, I really needed to get laid if a man just looking over my shoulder stirs up a reaction like that!
She shook her head, bringing herself back to reality. “I don’t know, it’s an old Fae script, I think… This is more Lisa’s kettle of fish than mine. Some of it I recognise,” she pointed out a word in the middle, fingernail tapping the paper lightly, “this is the word for Morrigan.” She scanned the rest of the writing. Then it hit her, the half remembered lessons of her youth coming back all at once as she scanned the page.
“Shit!” she breathed, looking up at him, eyes wide.
“What? What is it?” Feral frowned, brows raised.
“He…the baby…he’s a Morrigan. There’s a Fae prophecy about a male Morrigan… ” Tessa swallowed, hardly believing what she was saying. “When he grows up, I think he’s going to be a god.”
Chapter Two
Feral blinked, not quite believing his ears.
“Ok, you want to run that one by me again? A god? As in smiting and powers…the whole shebang?” He looked down at the baby in his arms in surprise, trying to see something of the divine. All he saw was cute. A whole lot of cute.
She nodded. “The whole lot. The legend of the Winter King…” She looked at him as though the name should mean something. It didn’t.
“Sorry doll, not up on Fae legends. It’s not compulsory reading for us Kyn. We’ve got enough of our own.” He apologised with a shrug, wondering why he was getting pulled into this. The baby was a Pixie. He’d found a Pixie to look after it, so he should be hightailing it out of here.
He really didn’t like Pixies, like really didn’t like Pixies. Last year, they’d kidnapped the woman he had been in love with, or thought so at any rate, and beat the living snot out of him. It didn’t incline him to think favourably of them.
But female Pixies, Feral was discovering, were something else entirely. Tessa really was rather enchanting; he’d watched as she’d gathered things up—her movements had been quick and graceful.
“The Winter King legend is an old one. You’ve heard of the Morrigan right?” She didn’t wait for his answering nod before she continued. Everyone knew the legend of the Morrigan.
Originally a Triple Goddess dedicated to war, the Morrigan had diminished into one form, currently that of Nemain, and became a fixture of the Unseelie Court, mostly riding with the Host. No one was really sure how much of her divine power she’d retained.
What was known was the woman was batty, even by Fae standards. Madness ran in the line, and touched each new Morrigan as she came into her power. Not that anyone would dare to say it to her face. There was still something about a former goddess, especially a Corpse Goddess, which sent chills down a person’s spine.
“Well, there’s this old legend about the line. They’re all female. No male children born in the line whatsoever, never has been. But they say, when there is a male Morrigan born, he’ll be the Winter King.”
“O…kay, this is a bad thing, right?” Feral asked carefully and grimaced as the little guy they were discussing decided to slobber all over his shoulder.
She shrugged. “It could really upset the balance of power in the Fae courts for starters. The rest, I’m not so sure about. The legends are vague. Apparently the Morrigan knows more about it…there’s a book, an old one, on it. But she’s never let anyone read it, doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Okay, so, ‘not end of the world’ type stuff…but imbalance is probably bad, right? And if he’s Fae, not a Pixie, what’s with the fluorescent ‘do?”
“Well Pixies are actually Fae,” her lips quirked, eyes dancing in amusement, “we just don’t like to admit it out loud. And imbalance would be bad, yes. You can pop him down on the floor to roll around. This place is kiddie-proof.”
Feral did as he was told, a quick glance around reassuring him she was telling the truth. Soft carpets and furnishings, and all hard edges on the furniture had little cushioned pads. Amazing what someone could miss when they weren’t looking properly. He’d been convinced this place was an interior design showpiece, but when he really looked, he could see care had been taken to make it suitable for children. Not sure why he cared that much, especially with a kid he’d just had dumped on his doorstep. Feral put the baby on the floor carefully, leaving him giggling and playing with a soft toy Tessa waved in front of him.
Like his place, the kitchen was just off the living area, a large breakfast counter separating the two. He leaned against the counter, his arms folded over his broad chest as he watched her bustle around the small space. Now that the baby had been sorted and didn’t smell so bad, he could finally take time to appreciate the way she looked.
She was small, barely grazing his shoulder, and wrapped in a terry towelling robe designed for someone far larger. The voluminous fabric buried her, cinched tight around a wasp waist.
“I’ll make him up a bottle,” she chattered, probably not realizing his attention was elsewhere at the moment. Like on the deep “V” at her neckline, which kept gaping a little, teasing his imagination with fascinating glimpses of the creamy skin underneath. “We don’t know when he last ate, so better to be safe than sorry. Um, do vampires drink coffee?” she queried, looking up to catch him looking at her.
They locked eyes for a moment before she blushed and looked away, leaving a little smile on Feral’s face. He read her interest there, the awareness of him as a man, and it pleased him on levels he didn’t realise existed.
“Yeah, we drink coffee,” he rumbled, his voice low in the sudden silence.
“Actually, most of us can eat and drink…we just don’t most of the time. Some prefer not to at all. Myself, I’m partial to a beer and a pizza,” he offered with a smile, as he realised having a vampire in her apartment (or her sister’s at any rate) had to be a little worrying. After all, he wasn’t the smallest of Kyn, and compared to the average Pixie or human, he was huge.
She flashed him a grin. “Sounds like the perfect date,” her voice was light as she opened a cupboard and put two mugs on the counter, “pepperoni pizza with all the trimmings?”
Feral grinned. “Why? You angling for a date, Tessa?”
She arched an eyebrow as she poured water into the bottle, measuring out and mixing the formula with an experienced hand. She popped the bottle into a jug of cold water to cool and turned her attention to him. “Hmm, depends…Pixies are better kissers than vamps,” she replied, a hint of mischief in her eyes.
This time, it was Feral’s eyebrow winging its way up to his shaved hairline. “Is that so little Pixie?” he asked, a dangerous edge in his voice as he worked to keep a straight face.
“Yup!” She pushed a mug toward him, leaning her hips back against the side as she lifted her own to her lips, blowing the steam on top. Her wide, dark eyes glanced at him over the rim, laughter dancing in them. Pixies liked to live dangerously…seemed it was true of the women as well as the men. But where the men liked to get into fights, Tessa, he believed, was playing a whole different sort of game. One Feral was more than happy to play with her.
“Well, I can’t let this slur to a Kyn go unpunished.” He pushed off from the counter, sauntering toward her, step by slow step. He could
move faster than the eye could see, mortal or Pixie, but this wasn’t about speed. It was about the awareness tingling between them, about feeding the attraction to see where it would lead. And about getting a taste of those full, pouting lips. Lips that held a soft smile of invitation.
He reached her and took the mug from her unresisting hands. “I figure I’m going to have to do something about it.” He put the mug on the counter behind her and boxed her in, with a hand on each side of her hips, as he lowered his head.
The softness of her lips took him by surprise, warm and pliant under his. There was no coyness in her response, her lips yielding under his gentle coaxing as her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He groaned as she stroked her tongue along his playfully, shifting to enfold her in his arms as he deepened the kiss.
By the time he lifted his head, their breathing was ragged, and high bands of colour highlighted her cheeks. Feral rested his forehead against hers for a moment and then smiled. “I agree,” he breathed, “Pixies are great kissers.”
* * *
Two hours later, Tessa escaped to the solitude of the bathroom, closing the door and leaning back against the wood. He was gorgeous! She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t just imagining everything, fully expecting to wake up on the sofa, the movie over, and her ice cream melting and dribbling all over the floor.
“Ouch!” She rubbed the sore spot on her arm. Okay, so she was awake and this was really happening. She couldn’t believe it. This sort of thing didn’t happen to her. In her world, Feral would have just dumped the baby and disappeared, likely content he was being cared for by someone with a little more knowledge of childcare. But he hadn’t—insisting instead on sticking around in case they “needed anything.”
Tessa sighed, running a hand over her still tingling lips. Then there was the kiss. She’d never been kissed that way before, not ever. Slow and thorough, it had been devastating and left her weak at the knees and breathless. Breathless. Anyone would have thought she’d been out running a hundred metres.