There are no words as I carefully untie the leather laces along her armor that connects it together. The thongs fall away, and then the armor clunks gently against my hardwood floor. Virago is in leather pants now, and she chuckles at my appreciation, weaves her fingers through my hair as I lean down and brush my mouth over hers, over her neck and down into the dip between her breasts. I tease my fingers up under the hem of her leather shirt, and then I’m peeling the leather up and over her head, breathing in the perfumed scent of her flesh that the leather bares. She is so soft, so warm, beneath my hands, but she doesn’t remain beneath me long. She rolls me over deftly, smiling down at me with a wicked smirk as she lifts my blouse up and over my head, tugs my skirt down, looping my panties with the skirt’s waistband.
I’m suddenly naked beneath her. She crouches over me like a predator, all muscled arms and taut stomach as she bends her head to me, grazing my mouth with hers as she begins to trace a delicious, electrifying kiss down my neck, over my breastbone…
God, how she takes my right breast in her mouth, how the heat of her travels to the very core of me. Her velvet mouth impresses warmth against me, impresses a strong tongue that flicks my nipple to painful attention. I squirm beneath her, whimper, as one strong hand presses the mattress down beside my head, the other inching slowly, slowly, slowly, up my thigh.
I spread my legs to her, asking, begging, as I pant, as I rise up to meet her, grinding my hips against her leather-clad legs. She shifts her weight, presses a knee between my legs, and then I’m gasping as she presses weight against my center, as my wetness connects with the leather. She angles her body, shimmies out of the pants, and then it’s her own hot center against my own as she rises up and over me like a goddess, her bright blue eyes flashing as she stares down at me for a long moment, pressed on top of me.
“What have you done to me, Holly?” she whispers, lowering herself so that her breasts press against mine, her hips against mine as I cry out, as she begins to rhythmically, hypnotically, pulse her hips against my own. “I am undone by you,” she growls into my ear, and then she captures my mouth with her own again as I open myself to her, to her hand that inches its way over my belly and into the deepness of me. I cry out against her, arch myself against her, as she holds me tightly, as she curves her fingers inside of me, as she presses her mouth to my mouth, to my heart, to my skin and over every inch of my body. We move together seamlessly, like we have always moved this way, and time outside of us stands still.
When I come, she is kissing me fiercely, and I am open to her utterly, to this beautiful warrior woman I could never have dreamed up, but who holds me close, tenderly, as I ride through the waves of bliss she caused in me.
“Love,” she whispers to me, holding my gaze with impossibly blue eyes.
“Love,” I whisper weakly, brushing my lips against her own as I shiver beneath her, held in the sanctuary of her arms.
It is in that moment that I know, no matter what happens after now, this heartbeat, I know that I have been utterly happy. Utterly loved.
I hold her gaze as I trace my fingers over her hard, muscular shoulders. It’s my turn, now. I hold her gaze as her eyes roll back, as she moans lowly as my hand finds her wetness.
I touch her bravely, daring in these moments, to show her all that I’ve felt, all that I’ve been unable to express until now.
Chapter 14: Hunter and Hunted
I wake up to the sound of my cell phone ringing somewhere downstairs inside my purse. I sigh out, open my eyes, and then I’m acutely aware of the fact that Virago has her arms wrapped around me tightly, that she’s fast asleep, breathing softly and evenly, her taut stomach rising up and down. That we’re naked, tangled together.
Oh, my God…it happened. It actually happened.
I stare at her for a long moment before I glance at the clock. It’s only five. We agreed with Carly and Aidan—and, by proxy, Aidan’s coven—to meet together at six down on the pier, which means we should start getting ready to leave in half an hour. But still, I can’t bring myself to wake her. Not yet.
In sleep, Virago’s features are softened. She’s gorgeous, commanding, passionate in real life, but when she’s asleep, the harder edges are filed away, and she just looks beautiful. Perhaps even vulnerable as her face softens gently. I trace the contour of her high cheekbones with my gaze, of her full mouth, and the pulse that beats rhythmically upon her neck. I take in the wonder of this perfect creature, and I would maintain my gaze, memorize every inch of her…if my damn cell phone didn’t keep beeping insistently downstairs.
With a sigh, I extricate myself as gently as I can from her embrace. She continues to sleep, though her eyelids flutter. I know for a fact that she’s a very light sleeper, and my heart beats a little faster to realize how comfortable she must feel with me to not wake up.
It’s heartbreaking in that moment, as I stare down at her and wonder if I’ll ever have this opportunity again to watch her sleep, to wake up after making love to the wonder that is Virago.
I swallow, take a deep breath, force myself to get up. I grab my robe from the foot of my bed and slip into it, gazing back at her one last time.
I tell myself: no matter what, you’ve had this. You’ve had this moment. But it doesn’t help the pain.
My heart is breaking as I slowly descend the staircase. As I reach my purse and pull out my phone.
Five missed calls from Carly. I sigh, hit “send” on her most recent call. I glance up, surprised that Shelly isn’t begging to be fed, when I glance at the shut sliding glass door with wide eyes. Oh, my goodness, I forgot to let Shelley in before we headed upstairs. She’s still outside. I cross the living room and open the back door, whistle out for her.
There are dark clouds encroaching along the horizon, and what was once clear blue sky about an hour ago has turned ominous and black above our neighborhood. I frown and stare up at it as I whistle for Shelley again.
“You’ve reached Carly’s cell! Leave a message, I’ll get back to you,” chirps out from my cell phone.
“Hey, Carly, it’s me…sorry I missed your calls.” I smile into the phone as I head out down the back steps. “Uh. Call me back, okay?” I end the call, slip my cell phone into my pocket, glance up.
Around the corner of the pile of what used to be my shed looks like Shelley. It’s her white-gold fur anyway. “Shelley, honey!” I call to her, whistle again. That’s not like her. The shape moves away, around the corner of that big patch of shrubs out back. The gate to my neighbor’s yard is behind the shrubs, and I worry for a moment, wonder if my neighbor Clark left it open between our yards, but then my cell phone is buzzing in my pocket. I make my way across the lawn, grumbling to myself as I fish the phone out, accept the call and press it to my ear.
“Holly? Oh, my God, Holly?”
My heart’s in my throat. It’s Carly, and she sounds panicked. I’ve never heard her sound like this before. There’s terror in her voice.
“Carly, what’s wrong, are you all right?” I yell into the phone.
I hear a creak from behind the shrubs. Dammit, the gate must have been left open.
“Holly!” There’s static on the line, the call drops for a moment, but then I hear: “…it’s there!”
“What?” I say into the phone, walk around the shrubs.
“Holly!” says Carly, shouting every syllable: “the beast left the water! It made its way through the neighborhood! It was just spotted on your street!”
I feel all of the air leave me as I stare at the shape on the ground behind the shrubs.
It’s Shelley. She has a gash in her side. My precious dog’s blood is leaking out onto the ground.
“Holly, can you hear me? The beast is coming for Virago!”
The line goes dead. The line goes dead because the phone is falling out of my hand. Because I rush to my dog’s side, lift her beautiful little head into my lap as a sob chokes itself out of me. Her eyelids flutter, and then close, Shelley’s head f
alling limply into my lap.
A shadow falls over me. Even though the sky is dark enough for me to wonder if it’s still day, a shadow still falls over me from behind my neighbor’s fence.
I look up…and up…and up…into the face of a monster.
It’s enormous. Taller than a house, taller than my neighbor’s house, I realize in the back of my mind as it towers over me. It has spikes along its leathery spine, and it’s standing on its back legs as wide as tree trunks. It looks a little like Godzilla, if all of his features were larger and much more threatening and pointy, and as it opens its mouth, as its razor sharp teeth, longer than my arm, I think dully in the back of my head, it lets out a sound that no low-budget Godzilla movie could ever duplicate.
This is a scream and a moan and a growl and a screech, all rolled into one. It hisses at me, and the spines along its back flatten as it narrows its eyes and bares its teeth down at me.
I stare up at this beast, this monster, as I hold my dying dog in my arms. I hate that beast so much in that instant that white, hot rage burns me through stronger than the fear. This thing hurt my dog. It’s going to hurt me, but before it hurts me, it hurt this beautiful, innocent dog that I’ve loved with my whole heart ever since the day I met her as this ridiculous little puppy who wagged her tail at me the second she saw me, and has never stopped wagging it since.
The creature opens its mouth and lets out a scream again, and I realize that my body is shaking as I hold Shelley tightly.
I realize I’m going to die. It’s going to lunge at me, sink its teeth in me, and it’s going to hurt so much. God, I don’t want to die. I don’t want it to hurt like this.
I stare up at that monster, and fear fills me like water, rushing into every part of me as I hold tightly to my dog.
“Stand and face me, beast!”
I and the beast turn at that, and striding across the lawn toward us is Virago. She’s holding her sword aloft with cold, clear anger etched hard on her face. As I stare at her, I realize that she’s only wearing her leather shirt and her leather pants. Her armor is on the floor of my bedroom.
Panic consumes me as Virago lengthens her stride, as she trains her piercing blue gaze onto the beast. “Virago, don’t!” I scream, but then Virago is in front of me, shielding me and Shelley from the beast.
She’s an amazing warrior. I know this. But her armor is on the floor of my bedroom.
Virago could die.
“Please don’t,” I tell her, lifting Shelley up with some difficulty. The beast hasn’t moved, is simply standing there, narrowed eyes calculating as it stares at us. “Please don’t,” I tell her again, a sob making the words come out small, but Virago’s arm is around me tightly as she pushes me behind her, as she stands straight and tall, holding the sword in a challenge up to the beast.
Shelley wiggles a little in my arms, glancing up at me then with actually open eyes. I stare down at my dog, then back up at the beast, shock and terror making everything seem extra sharp and more real, somehow.
The claws that come out of the sky are attached to a massive paw, a paw that’s as wide as Virago is tall. It swipes at Virago and me and Shelley, but misses somehow, because Virago’s arm around me tightens, and then she’s lifting me and Shelley in one arm, and moving us across the lawn.
I stumble a little when she sets me down as gently as possible, turning and swinging the sword up at the last possible moment to block the attack. There are sparks where the claws and the blade meet, and then Virago is pushed backward, toppling backward, rolling across the lawn as the beast swipes at her again.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were all supposed to rent a boat and do a calm, peaceful meditation out on the water and open the portal and send the beast to a place between worlds and send Virago home. It was supposed to be practically serene. No one was supposed to get hurt.
It’s not supposed to happen like this.
But it is.
I scream. I find my voice, and I’m shrieking as the beast turns suddenly, moving too quickly for sight as it swipes its barbed and deadly tail at Virago. Virago rolls out of the way, falling heavily on her shoulder, just in time, but she’s slower getting up this time as she rises, holding the sword tightly in front of her and panting. The beast grapples forward, lunging and crawling on all fours over my neighbor’s fence (flattening it in the process with a shriek of broken wood). The beast swings again with its barbed tail, and Virago rolls to the right…
Under the beast’s claws.
Virago makes no sound as the claws rip through the leather of her shirt, piercing up and into her ribs.
The beast lifts up its paw and its claws, Virago dangling on the end of them, her stomach pierced through.
I’m screaming as the beast throws Virago to the ground, as it makes its own triumphant sounds, turning its gaze now on me. But I don’t even see it. I run over to Virago with Shelley in my arms, set my dog onto the ground as gently as I can as I cradle Virago to me. Virago’s eyelashes flutter, and her eyes close, blood pulsing and pumping out of the wounds in her stomach out and onto the ground.
Overhead, lightning arches, brightening up everything like a strobe light.
The beast makes a terrible sound, part scream of defiance, part roar.
The sword lies in the grass beside Virago’s limp hand. She’s unconscious. Perhaps she’s dying. I don’t know. But the woman I love with my whole heart saved me, and now she’s giving her life for it.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I stare up at the monster, tears making everything blurry as I set Virago’s head gently down onto the grass. I grasp the hilt of the sword with two hands, but even holding it in two hands, it’s practically impossible for me to lift it up, it’s so heavy. But there’s adrenaline pulsing through me now, and I lift it up, manage to hold it level with my heart as I point it at the beast.
If I didn’t know better, I would think it’s laughing at me as it throws its head back, as it shrieks again.
I’m going to die. But I’m not going to die like this, with my lover bleeding at my feet, my dog dying in my backyard.
I’m going to die causing this beast at least a shred of the pain it caused me.
I don’t even go to the gym, but adrenaline is still moving through me with every pulse, and that’s what gives me the courage to move forward now. And I do. I lunge forward as quickly as I’m able, swinging the sword around.
I don’t think the beast was expecting anything from me. Because it didn’t move when I moved. It stays perfectly still as I slam into it.
I bury the sword in its stomach. I bury the sword all the way up to the hilt.
Overhead, lightning arches across the sky again as the beast tilts back its head, screaming in agony as it begins to writhe in front of me.
I hold onto the sword for all I’m worth as the beast scrabbles with its claws, but its writhing is growing weaker.
I hold onto the sword, panting, until the beast doesn’t move anymore, as its head slumps down onto the ground, and it twitches beneath the sword.
And then something even stranger happens.
I’m still clinging to the sword, but it begins to fall out of the beast. Because the beast simply isn’t there anymore.
For a single moment, there’s a glowing light that’s so bright, I can’t see anything at all. But then I can make out the fact that there’s a woman lying on the ground in front of me, the sword sticking out of her side.
She has long black hair that’s matted and tangled, and she appears to be wearing animal skins stitched into a crude dress. She has the palest skin I’ve ever seen, and when she opens her eyes to look at me, I take a step backward.
They’re jet black, those eyes. There aren’t any pupils or irises…her entire eye is as black as the night sky.
She opens her thin lips and moans. I keep holding onto the sword because I don’t know what else to do.
“Be merciful,” says the woman in a sibilant hiss, then
. “Kill me.”
“Who are you?” I say, my voice shaking but my grip on the sword still strong.
The woman casts me an almost disgusted glance. “I am Cower,” she whispers, drawing out the word with a half-snarl. “And I was once a Goddess. But I have been a beast for so long, and now this…I have been defeated by a mewling woman. Kill me. I cannot bear the shame.”
Anger rakes its way through me, but I continue to grip onto the hilt of the sword, cast a glance back at Virago. I can see her chest rising and falling weakly. She’s still alive. But she’s losing so much blood. Shelley is breathing, too. They’re both still alive.
I don’t know what to do.
“Why are you in…uh…human form now?” I hazard to Cower. The woman gives me another disgusted look.
“I become what I truly am when I am vanquished,” she says, like she’s reciting rules from some rulebook. “Finish me off, mortal. I can’t bear this.”
I stare down at her for a long moment. Virago might die. The woman I love with my whole heart is bleeding in front of me. I should kill this creature…this woman, I guess. This beast. She’s done so much harm.
But I’m no killer. I did what I had to do to save Virago. I’m not going to have anyone’s blood on my hands.
“No,” I tell her. And then I jerk the sword out of her stomach. Cower makes a gurgling sound as I toss the sword into the middle of my backyard. I move away from her, crouch down next to Virago, tears beginning to leak out of my eyes.
“Virago,” I whisper, cradling her head into my arms, pressing my lips to her cold forehead. Virago’s never cold. Something is terribly wrong. “Virago…” I say, but then I’m weeping, choking out the syllables of her name over and over again as I hold her to me as tightly as I can.
A Knight to Remember Page 21