by Leigh Evans
Sex. The man oozed it. That, and suppressed violence.
His scent reached for me first, as it always had. Stretching out for me, before his hand ever met my flesh, to prepare the way, to brush my skin with invisible, silken fingers. “Hello, sweetheart. It’s me.” That’s how I remember it. Soft and light. Teasing. I’d replayed the sensation of it on my skin many a night as I lay in my bunk bed, running my own hand along my hairless arm, trying to reconstruct that wonderful sensation when his scent wrapped itself around me. But the unexpected rawness of it now on my skin was a far cry from my memories. It felt far more solid, as if his personal signature had been cooked over a high heat until it was thick as syrup. Potent, too, with a sexual heat so very different from the coaxing, tender element that I’d marked as Trowbridge’s. This essence of him didn’t have time for sweet whispers of seduction. It was arrogant and sure of itself. No flattery. No pretty words.
It hit me with the brute force of a linebacker, and my lady parts responded in an unexpectedly sharp contraction of desire. Well, isn’t that just dandy, I thought, woozily straightening as it wove me into its foreign embrace. Score one for his team.
Yes, his eyes replied. And for a second, in the brief curl of his wide mouth and the gleam in his eye, I saw the ghost of the man I’d shoved through the portal. But that faded away all too soon, as this new Trowbridge tilted his head back to inhale deeply.
Again, his nostrils flared.
It felt rude—that intimate assessment of my fuckability in front of others—and in reaction, I clamped my knees together, trying to contain the scent of my desire. My mate paused, mid-step, eyeing my resistance as if he were surprised, and then he began to stalk toward me again, chin up, cheekbones highlighted by the morning light spilling from the window, inhaling my essence without my permission. He came to a full stop in front of me, an arm’s reach away. Cocked his head to the side, and just studied my face for a bit. His gaze roamed. My hair. My face. My boobs.
One hot look was all it took for my nipples to bead and my breasts to swell.
His neck moved as he swallowed.
“Don’t look directly into his eyes,” I heard my brother say. “He’s still under the influence of the moon and part wolf.”
Seriously, shut up, Lexi.
Trowbridge took a step forward—claiming my personal space as his territory—to prop his arm on the wall above my head. Fuzzy ropes of hair tickled my cheek as he bent his head. I heard him inhale slowly through his nose.
I don’t carry your scent anymore.
But I was becoming … fragrant. I was wet, and positively aching.
So, there are two situations when a Fae exudes her own aroma. Never noticed that before. But then again, I only feel this way around Trowbridge, and usually if he’s naked, I am, too. And then it’s impossible to separate scents.
There are just the two of us, mixed together into one identity of heat, and flame, and passion.
“Hell.” I slanted my eyes to my left. Lexi held out a hand. “Slide away. Come to me, and I will protect you.”
Smack. Trowbridge flattened his left hand on the wall between us.
Well, I guess that would be a no. I stood there, trapped in the cradle of his body, quietly luxuriating in the warmth radiating from his arm. Trowbridge’s scent wrapped itself around me, now spiced by the musk of his arousal. Is this what violence and sex smells like? When it’s been welded onto the surface of a man?
I liked it.
Trowbridge had always been an insanely sensual visual feast … but now? All the civility had been stripped from him, and what was left was raw male power.
Who knew. I was a back-to-basics girl.
Like for instance—his arm. It was dusted with hair, a little dirty from the grime he’d picked up on the floor during his change, and well, not to overwork a theme, really freakin’ well muscled.
My vagina clenched like the buttocks of a cheerleader doing an aerial rah-rah. And suddenly, I was damn glad for the support of the wall because it was fifty-fifty that one of my knees was going to give out.
“Come now,” said my twin.
Like hell I will.
From the moment my hormones started cranking out the girl pheromones, my inner-Were, my mortal heart, my very DNA—whatever you want to call the sum of my want for Trowbridge—had recognized him as mine. And now here he was. His body arched over mine. His cock full and heavy, its blunt head teasing the folds of the loose cotton T-shirt I wore.
His T-shirt, come to think of it.
“I don’t need protection from him,” I told my brother, my gaze clinging to Trowbridge’s parted lips.
“You don’t know what he is,” hissed Lexi.
“But I know who he is,” I said, touching my Trowbridge’s face. Oh, I recognized him. He was there, under all that wolf and tangled hair, buried deep. A muscle tensed under my finger as I stroked his skin. “He’s Robbie Trowbridge, son of the Alpha of Creemore. He lived in a big yellow house, he drove a Jeep, and he was the most popular guy at St. Hubert’s.”
The fanwork of lines at the corner of his eyes tightened.
“Some nights, he’d go sit under the tree on the lookout, and play his guitar. He thought he was alone, but he wasn’t.” A spark of a blue comet circled his pupils. I softened my voice, seducing him close with a low whisper, until his mouth was mere inches from mine. So close.
Kiss me, Trowbridge. Kiss me.
“I was there. Whenever I heard that guitar, I’d sneak out of the house and go find myself a hiding spot near the lookout on our ridge, so that I could listen to Robbie Trowbridge play. Sometimes, he’d play for a couple of hours. But other nights he’d only get halfway through a song before he stopped playing. Then he’d just sit there and stare up at the stars. I used to wonder what he was thinking. Even after I was back to my own bed, I’d ask myself, what was Robbie Trowbridge thinking when he looked up into the sky?”
My words were coaxing him closer, tugging the man hidden inside the wolf nearer, but it wasn’t enough. I’d waited so long. Hoped for so much.
Mine, mine, mine, crooned my wolf.
“Trowbridge, what did you see in the stars?” I asked, daring to cup his face.
The wolf wavered, reluctant to step back.
Then, because I play dirty, I did what I knew I must. I dropped every barrier I had, and flared the way I’d done the first time for him. For him, for us, I showed him all of me—what I am, what I should be, what I could be—through the pure light spilling from my eyes. Did you try to forget me? my flare asked. I will never let you. He made the smallest inhale, and then the beast was gone. My Trowbridge flared back and gifted me with a beautiful electric-blue light—fire hot, soul bright.
Our two separate flares flashed across a battlefield not of our making.
Evermore, you are mine.
For a moment—how long it was I’ll never be able to define—there was no Trowbridge electric blue, nor Hedi fluorescent green. Our individual flares merged into one, and the room that I remembered as being red turned into the warm blue-green of a sea that knew no turmoil, no current, no wind.
Evermore, I am yours.
My flare flickered out on the heels of that vow. His held for another half beat, then it, too, faded. “There you are,” I murmured, looking into his tired eyes. “There’s my Trowbridge.”
That won me a smile. Slow and small.
I did that, I thought, cupping his face. I made him smile again.
“I knew you watched me play my guitar.” His voice was rough. “I knew you were there hiding in those bushes.”
I shook my head. “Impossible. I was quiet as a mouse.”
My mate pressed his forehead to mine. “I could smell you.”
“I don’t have a scent,” I whispered back.
He thumbed away my tear. “Tell that to some other Were.”
Such a sweet thing, his touch. I leaned into it—and that’s when I hit a brain skid. It can’t be. Mentally, I did that thing
you do when you’re trying to figure out left from right. “Trowbridge,” I said, with awe. “Your hand.”
With a faint smile, he raised his fist. And then slowly, one by one, he unfolded his digits. A rounded nub close to his palm for his pinkie. A diminished ring finger, cut down to the first knuckle. A pause … and then he unfurled a completely and beautifully whole FU finger.
I’d seen Stuart Scawens lean into the blade and sever it from his hand.
Right in this room. Just over six months ago.
My gaze flew to his. “How?” I whispered, touching it with wonder. For a reply, he did that thing men do when they don’t know the answer—a tilt of their head, a flex of their neck, that upward swing of their jaw.
So mortal. So man. So Trowbridge.
“I don’t know.” A slow smile as he spread his fingers. “When I turned into my human form, it was like this. I couldn’t figure out if the stuff that happened in this room was a dream.” He shook his head. “It got all messed up in my head. But it did happen, didn’t it?” His head started to turn to that corner again, and I caught it and kept it safe in the cage of my hands.
“Don’t,” I said.
“You look the same,” he said in a hushed voice, laying his palm on my cheek. “Exactly the same.” Three fingers tunneled into my hair to cup the back of my head.
“Is that a good thing?” I asked, as he pulled me closer.
My mate answered by using his thumb to gently tilt up my chin. “A very good thing,” he said, his cheeks flushed, his eyes glittering. “It’s like you walked out of one of my dreams.” He stroked my jaw, once, twice, both times with a hint of wonder as if he couldn’t quite believe how soft my skin was.
Kiss me, Trowbridge.
But he didn’t, not right away.
The Alpha of Creemore’s gaze held mine, perhaps for a second, perhaps for five. Who knows? Who cares? I was far beyond counting. All I knew was that he held it long enough to show me the naked longing in his soul—and the sweet soul of Robbie Trowbridge still alive within the shell of this battle-hard, beautiful stranger. His attention returned to my mouth. He took in the slightest, shallowest breath.
My lips parted.
I am beautiful. I am loved.
Then his mouth—wider than mine, harder than mine—lowered to gift me with a kiss that narrowed the whole, damn confusing world down to one perfect set of lips pressed to mine. Slightly open. Warm. The right pressure. The right angle.
The right everything.
The taste of him. The brush of his tongue. The smooth warm cavern of his mouth welcoming my exploration.
Every problem, every nuisance, every disaster looming—all that twisted ball of angst that made me feel like I was balanced on a tightwire holding a ticking time bomb—disappeared. It was just the two of us. And between us there was heat and confusion and want and desire and everything else all rolled into a thick, insulating cloud of lust and longing.
At last.
Oh Trowbridge, at last.
His tongue teased mine as his hands pulled me close. My belly met his hip. His erection was a long hot welcome ridge against my stomach. I was wet, and aching.
Fuck the spectators.
Carry me away, Trowbridge.
I lifted on my toes, straining—
* * *
You know, it doesn’t take a whole lot to prick a girl’s zeppelin of happiness.
Really, all you need is one high, anxious wolf whine and that airship is coming down.
Well, perhaps two.
Maybe three.
“Eeerrgh.” The puplet from Merenwyn issued another mood-destroying canine protest and padded to where we stood entwined. And I mean, right to where we stood. Hot dog breath heated the back of my naked knee.
My man’s mouth stilled on mine.
No, no, no.
I slit open my eyes. “Trowbridge, there’s a bitch behind me.”
He gazed down at my lips with something akin to acute regret. “You’re going to hear some stuff you’re not going to like.”
My spine stiffened. “Explain to me why she carries your scent.”
The Alpha of Creemore’s face tightened. “There are things that will be difficult to understand. You need to listen carefully to what I have to say before you do anything—”
I backed up and almost tripped over the little brown wolf.
“Get out of my way!” I warned her in a lethal voice.
But no.
The bitch-from-Merenwyn stood her ground and dared to lift her lip toward me.
A show of teeth. At me. In this room that stinks of blood—both his and mine—that was shed that night six months ago. So, okay, maybe I lifted my magic spinning hand in a threatening manner, maybe I didn’t.
But Trowbridge caught my arm and growled, “Don’t use that Fae shit in this house.”
* * *
And the world stopped.
Not for very long.
My heart slowed for two heavy thuds—as if someone had tossed first one bar of cold iron, and then another, inside my chest cavity.
Fae shit?
“I stuffed Trowbridge’s finger back into his shorts before he went through the gates,” offered Biggs from the hall, when the tense silence following that statement stretched out. “Thought it might be handy when he changed into his wolf.”
“Shut up, you insensitive dimwit!” snapped Cordelia.
I found myself backing away from the guy with the dreads.
Merry swiftly ratcheted herself up her chain to the soft hollow of my throat. There she hunkered down, warming me, while from the inside of her amber belly, she issued her own commentary with a series of red blips of light that I’m pretty sure were actually Asrai code for “Shame on you!”
Yes. I nodded. Shame on him.
Which irritated my mate, judging from the way he flung his dreads over his shoulder with a quick snap of his head. I watched the dust motes dance around him, thinking the whole damn universe was like a snow globe held in the paws of an unsupervised three-year-old, then numbly turned toward Lexi in query.
“He’s not what you think he is.” My twin’s eyes were sad. “You don’t understand what he’s capable of. What he really is.”
“No,” said Trowbridge, speaking very, very slowly. “She doesn’t know what her brother is. The Black Mage’s Shadow. A traitor to his kind.”
“I am not ‘your’ kind,” said Lexi, through his teeth.
“You are an animal under your skin, just as I am.” Trowbridge stepped between me and my brother. “Though maybe not a wolf. You’re more like something that feeds on another’s kill…” Trowbridge’s eyes glittered. “A hyena—”
My brother sprang. Trowbridge swung out with his elbow in a blow that caught Lexi under the chin with enough force to snap his head back and send his body flying into the corner of the living room.
Before I could dart for my twin, Cordelia snatched me back, and folded her arms around me in a tight embrace.
“I can stop them!” I squirmed to free myself. “Let me go!”
She hissed as my foot caught her kneecap, then wrapped her fingers over mine, forcing them into impotent fists from which no magic could spring. “No. The Alpha must deal with this.”
The Alpha did.
Lexi surged upward from the floor, hands clawed for battle.
Trowbridge transferred his weight to one foot, spread his arms high and wide, and met my brother’s charge with a savage kick. His foot caught my brother mid-chest, and then my brother was falling again, his arms flailing in the air.
Thud. Lexi hit the oak flooring and slid across the living room, overturning a side table and its lamp, before his skid stopped. Eyes flashing, he grabbed something off the ground, flicked his wrist, and something—a box? a book?—hit Trowbridge on the cheek.
The projectile bounced off and broke open on the floor, the box’s contents of silver chains spilling out. A gasp from the spectators crowding the hall went unheeded between the tw
o combatants.
“Don’t,” I wailed.
But he did. Lexi made a fist. A quarter second later—as my brother’s punch continued its harmless arc through the air where my mate had stood a second before—Trowbridge delivered a left-handed, lights-out blow straight to Lexi’s jaw.
Chapter Sixteen
My twin’s heels dug into the ground as he clawed at Trowbridge’s foot. An understandable reaction, considering the foot was pinned across his neck, slowly choking him.
“Let him go,” I sobbed, tearing at Cordelia’s grip.
“Steady,” she cautioned in my ear. “Have a bit of sense.”
If I had a shred of that, I’d never have fallen in love with a Were in the first place.
My True Love stared down at my writhing brother, his expression merciless and savage as he observed my twin’s color mottle into an ugly puce. “How does it feel to wear a collar?”
“You’re suffocating him!” I cried. “He can’t breathe!”
“He stinks of sun potion. Do you know why he swallows that shit? It’s to keep his wolf from coming out. He likes to keep that hidden under his hat. Don’t you, you bastard?” Trowbridge let Lexi writhe for another four seconds before he eased off. “Just like you enjoy hunting your own kind.”
“No.” My nails cut into Cordelia’s wrist. “I know my brother. He wouldn’t—”
“You know him, do you? Do you know anything about his life in Merenwyn? Or mine?” Hot rage blistered his tone. “Do you know that the Weres of that realm hold the Pool of Life as sacred as the Fae? Do you know your brother gets his hunters to set wolf traps around the pool and every spring that empties into it?”
No. That I didn’t know.
Trowbridge’s eyes examined me—for what? An answer? An apology? How could I frame an adequate response for either? “Go to the Pool of Life,” that’s what I’d told his wolf. And now my mate waited, head tilted, for an explanation. They trap Weres in Merenwyn. Mute with horror, I covered my mouth with my hands and something died in his eyes.