by Leigh Evans
He flexed his hips so that I felt him right up to my womb.
“I don’t want to make love to the Alpha of Creemore,” I said shakily. “Any more than I want to sleep with the Son of Lukynae.”
Our gazes locked as I rose slightly, just enough to let him come close to slipping out from me, then sank again, parting my legs wide, and leaning forward so that the bud of me rubbed against him. His breath was shallow, quick and sharp, through parted lips.
“In this bed, it is just you and me. You are my Robbie Trowbridge.” I flattened my hands beside his head and bent until our mouths were inches apart. His breath and mine mingling. “And I am reclaiming you.”
Then, the terrible stillness that had held him splintered into lustful shards of lost self-control and then … there were no words.
I was being caught in a grip that forgot to be gentle and tender. He rolled me, tearing away my panties as he did, and then I was flat, one arm pinned over my head. And he was leaning over me, plundering my mouth. His knees pushing my thighs wide apart. Reaching between us again. Pressing himself into my soft wetness. Entering me again, with one sweet sharp thrust of his hips.
Yes. His hips heavy on me, his weight balanced on arms bulging with muscles. Comets swirling in his beautiful, beautiful eyes. I hooked a leg over his back and pulled him close.
And then it was a blur of sensation.
And there was no awkwardness. There were no more counterfeit grins. Or a self-conscious girl, thinking herself too young, too round, too short, too small.
No strangers in this unmade bed.
There was this: the lush softness of a woman’s breast and the hard button of a man’s nipple. Sucked-in guts—from touch-me, touch-it, touch-us need. A woman’s heated core, a man’s swollen cock. Hard mouths and tender mouths. Trembling hands and sure hands.
And limbs twisting and friction mounting.
Hearts thudding. Slick skin sliding. Sweat building.
The right angle—there. The right rhythm—yes, there.
High choked baby cries and deep groans.
And finally—oh sweet Goddess, thank you—
Two hearts, beating as one.
Chapter Twenty-two
It’s all kinds of wonderful to wake up draped over my Trowbridge. My head tucked under his firm chin, my arm over his taut belly, my short leg swung over his long one. A thump from below made me stir, yawn, and snuggle in a little closer. Drowsily, I slid my fingers under the thatch of hair growing on his chest.
Mine.
I hadn’t dreamt at all during my short nap. No ponds, no pools, no pens within a pen.
Safe.
Kind of amazing I’d dropped off at all, considering how the cleanup effort going on downstairs had swollen the house with sound. Unseen brooms swept the porch. Taps groaned, sinks gurgled. Scouring brushes swept back and forth. If I just listened to the noise and subtracted the people, I could almost imagine myself as Belle waking up in the Beast’s castle. Mrs. Potts puttering in the kitchen, the little hassock dog doing circles around Cogsworth. Except of course, I’d knitted the middle of the movie to the ending—my beast had already transformed into the very beddable prince.
But the house? It was waking up under their ministrations, as if it, too, had a life.
Yet another example of how I’d gone wrong with the pack. I should have given them some jobs. Kept them occupied. Clean that hearth, scour that sink.
Wait till they see all the hair Trowbridge left on the bathroom floor.
Another thump.
I glanced at the bedside clock then at the amulets dangling from the lampshade. We’d been snoozing for over an hour, during which time neither Ralph nor Merry had snuggled up. So clearly it wasn’t bashfulness keeping the lovers apart. Something was wrong there, but what?
I’ll get to you soon, Merry-mine. Promise.
Then I put my best friend’s problems in a box, labeled it LATER, and shelved it.
My life had a huge knot that needed untangling, and I wasn’t sure which end to tease loose first. On one end was Lexi—so fouled and broken I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to fix him—and on the other, My One True Thing, who came with his own list of problems. Packs and fur loyalties. Moon-runs and fleas. And in the middle of the larger knot was the small tight one of me—a girl who’d found herself tied to the old oak tree.
A life among the wolves without being a wolf.
That made my head pound, so I went back to the problem of Lexi and Trowbridge.
Somehow, without undermining the Alpha of Creemore’s top-dog status, I had to get my brother out of that locked room downstairs and into some place of safety while he wrestled with his withdrawal symptoms.
“Mrrph,” Trowbridge sleepily sighed as I traced a circle around his nipple.
How deeply buried was my twin under the weight of his addiction? Would I ever find the boy who cried, “I’ll save you, my lady,” underneath the man who’d flung his daughter across the room like she was a used sock?
Thump. Pause. Thump.
“What is that?” I heard one of the league’s bitches ask.
“It’s the Fae,” a man replied. “He keeps throwing himself at the door.”
Lexi. Before Trowbridge had blearily lifted his head, I’d rolled off him, swept up Merry, and bent to retrieve his crumpled T-shirt from the floor.
Covers rustled. “What’s going on?”
I hurriedly tugged his T-shirt over my head. “Have you seen my panties?”
“You don’t need them,” he murmured, sitting up and stuffing a pillow behind his back.
“Yes I do,” I replied, centering Merry on my chest. “I’m going downstairs. Lexi’s hurling himself against the door. He’s going to hurt himself.”
“You can’t help him,” he said flatly.
There was a quality to his voice that should have stirred my instincts, but I wasn’t listening to my inner voice. I was Hedi the mate-claimer, and she was lifting the quilt intent on panty retrieval, her Nightingale instincts on full alert. “Is there anything I could give him that would make his withdrawal easier?” I asked, sweeping the mattress with my hand.
No answer. No panties, either. Frowning, I flicked a glance upward.
My Trowbridge studied me, then chewed the corner of his lip, and then drew his leg up so that he could rest his wrist on his knee, and then—finally, after all those thens—he said quietly, “Don’t go down there. That’s not the way you’re going to want to remember him.”
And bang. The wheels on the bus stopped turning.
Remember him? “You promised me that you wouldn’t hurt him,” I whispered, fear starting to crawl up my spine. “You said flat out, ‘I won’t kill him.’”
A flush tinted his cheeks. “I won’t have to. Your brother’s been on the juice for decades … He can’t go without it.” Pity on his face. Regret in his tone. “In a day, maybe less, he’s going to go into convulsions, and then he’s going to die.” Blue eyes steady on me, he delivered the final slap. “There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
No. There’s always something I can do. My fingers curled around Merry. “Then I have to take him back to Merenwyn.”
He shook his head. “I won’t let you cross that portal.”
Merry scratched against my palm as if to say, “Let’s have another think on this.” But this was not the time for deep thought—not now with the hours melting away. This was the time for action. “We can slip in and out before the Black Mage even knows we’re there,” I said, as much for her as for Trowbridge.
The man who’d trailed a line of kisses along my spine only an hour ago now swung his legs out of his bed and stood. Legs spread and planted. “No. You can’t.”
And then I understood.
Everything. Welcome to Part II of the “later shit.”
“You knew,” I said, backing away. “You knew even as you promised me that you wouldn’t hurt him, that the worst had already been done. You’ve known since this morning.�
� Disbelief and disgust churned my gut. “All the time we spent making love … Oh, you ripe bastard, you knew.”
“You said that in this bed it was just you and me!”
“You could have—”
“I didn’t cause this,” he said harshly. “He’s been a dead man walking for a long, long time.”
No, no, no.
An expression of such sadness swept over his face, as if he could see the hurt ahead, could already measure the size of the resulting scar. “Don’t, sweetheart,” he said.
I spun for the door—just as he knew I would.
Weres.
They’re so fast when they want to be. Before I could turn the handle, Trowbridge had caught me by the hips. Then I was being turned, and his body slid between me and escape as he repeated, in a voice laced with sadness and awful knowledge, the same utterly useless request. “Don’t, sweetheart.”
Don’t what? Don’t fight?
Let death win?
Never.
I launched myself at him, striking out blindly with my nails, my fists, my feet. Ever stoic, he weathered my abuse silently. Never striking back. Never flinching. His gaze filled with so much pain for me that I wanted to scratch out his eyes.
Unmovable. The ultimate doorstop.
When most of the fight went out of me, and I slid to the old wool carpet, he followed, wrapping his arms around me, absorbing my weight and my misery as my knees collapsed.
We knelt together. His body curved around mine.
And I hated him.
Dust bunnies quivered against the baseboards as I panted and seethed.
“I don’t care if you hate me,” he said in a fierce whisper. “I won’t let him hurt you again. I won’t let him take you down with him.”
It was there, inside me—black and bitter—my Fae’s dark and wicked wish to render him as helpless as me. She lifted her dragon snout to murmur, “Teach this wolf our strength.”
It would be so easy. He’d forgotten the danger of our hands, hadn’t he? Past his shoulder we could see a variety of things we could use to stun him. The old bulky television, the lamp with its fussy shade. We could turn this room into a maelstrom of Fae might.
My Fae smiled, the tip of her forked tail flicking.
We could destroy this room, this man, this unsettling love.
I came close. Right there, in that room of ugly wallpaper and easy chairs with broken springs, I could have splintered into three separate pieces, because all the straws had been piled, one after the other, on this camel’s back.
Was it always going to be like this?
Always caught in the middle between two loyalties?
Never Fae enough for the Fae. Never Were enough for the wolves.
Never knowing which side to pick.
Oh Goddess, I can’t, I can’t.
Trowbridge pressed his chin to our sweating brow.
And finally, found the perfect words.
“I love you, Hedi Peacock.”
* * *
Okay, if there really was a fairy godmother, and sweet wishes turned plain cupcakes into red velvet cake batter, I would have told him that I loved him right back. Right then, right there. Cue round three of hot sex. But I knew suddenly, just by the hurting squeeze on my heart, that life isn’t baby-fat cupids, and valentines with two lines of xs and os. My One True Love could live with a little temporary insecurity while I figured this out.
I am loved.
It should have filled me with unholy delight. Hadn’t I longed for those words? Then why did I feel like I was wearing hip boots and a rain slicker while fireworks burst over my head?
Because I am loved, but the price of that love is so fucking awful.
I took a time-out, and once more let him gather me up like I was a witless rag doll. I said not a word as he deliberated between bed or easy chair once again, nor commented “smart” when he opted once again for upright over horizontal. I lay unprotesting in his arms as he dragged his blunt fingernails lightly up my backbone. Remained unmoved as he parted the hair at my nape to press a melting kiss on the knob of my spine.
It’s not going to be that easy, Trowbridge.
Not for us.
“Love doesn’t triumph over all,” I said, resting my ear on his warm chest. My brother the Fae. My brother the wolfhunter.
“I’m tired, Trowbridge,” I said slowly. “I’ve been trying to make parts of me invisible, and I’m pretty sure I can’t do it anymore. I am all three things—the Were, the Fae, and the girl. Which means that I’m never going to be the easy—or even the right—fit for you. My inner-Were isn’t a dominant wolf, and my Fae comes out at the worst times. I’m never going to run with you under the moon with your pack. And I’m always going to be fifteen years younger than you.”
“I know,” he murmured, combing my hair with his fingers.
“I’ll never forgive your pack,” I told him. “They tried to kill me. And you’ll never forget who my brother is. Or what he has done to you.” I knew the answer—in my heart I knew it—but I asked anyhow. “Who ordered you whipped?”
A pause, soaked with bitter memories.
“Your brother did.”
I bit down on my back molars, clenching my jaw against the need to release a ragged sob.
“You are not your brother. And I promise that I’ll never let any of the pack hurt you again. No one will lift a hand toward you, no one will ever treat you with disrespect.” His voice was firm, his intention absolute, but how could he say that? Not even the Alpha of Creemore could hold back the shit-storm that was coming our way. His hand stilled on the spot right between my shoulder blades, and flattened there, as if he wanted to feel my heart through his palm.
“I’m twenty-two years old, and I can count the things I love on one hand,” I said, slowly running my finger along the contours of three fingers on his bad hand. “I love Merry, and Cordelia, and Cherry Blossoms. I’m fond of Harry, and I’m softening on Biggs, though that could still go either way.” I gave up on his hand, and moved to his arm, stroking it, trying to flatten hair that seemed to bristle.
Then I lifted my head and looked into his eyes.
“You’d need to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know this already, but I love you, Robson Trowbridge.” His mouth broke in a wide smile, and suddenly I wanted to cry so badly that I had to clench my teeth and draw in a shallow breath before I could continue. “That’s the truth,” I said shakily. “There’s no getting around it. I love you more than the sum of all the people I’ve ever loved in my life.”
Blue comets in his eyes, deep happiness in his scent.
I covered his mouth with two shaking fingers when he opened his lips to speak.
“I’m not done yet, okay?” I whispered.
His expression grew serious, and he gave me a grave nod.
“If love was all it took, then whether you’re the Alpha of Creemore or the Rogue from British Columbia wouldn’t have made much difference. I could have got past all that.”
His body tensed on the last sentence.
“I’ve got to get up,” I said, fighting the urge to smooth his brows. “I can’t think when you’re touching me.”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice low.
“Gotta,” said I, slipping off his lap.
Folding my arms over my chest, I walked over to the window and stood there with Merry on my shoulder, looking at all the Trowbridge land. His empire. Once, for a brief and dreary moment, mine. “Being with you is what I always wanted. This should be the happiest day of my life, but now you’re telling me that there is no way to save my brother, and it feels like the saddest.”
The seat cushion crackled as he stood. “Hedi—”
“Shh!” I said, not turning. “I’m going to have to watch him die, here. In this house. While he’s under guard. And you’re going to ask me to do nothing about it. And that’s the thing I’m not sure I can get over.” The old glass shivered in its loose moorings as I rested my heavy head against it. “
I know what my brother’s become. He’s everything you say—a lying, drug-addicted wolfhunter. I know that’s the truth, just like I know that I owe the boy he once was a debt that can’t ever be repaid.”
Truth is born when you say it out loud. Until then it’s thinking, and somehow, thinking isn’t as painful. But now, as I absorbed all that had been said, guilt swept over me, its weight so choking, it almost smothered the pain.
Breathe. There is a world beyond this minute.
Outside, two Weres inspected a sugar-maple sapling that had seeded itself near the edge of the property. It didn’t belong there—clearly the five-foot specimen had encroached on what had been once designated for lawn, but it was beautiful within its vibrant show of fall color. Ivy had discovered it and had wound itself up the tree’s thin trunk and threaded itself through the lower branches. That, too, was picture-book lovely, its greenery having turned a brilliant red. As I watched, one of the men reached for a vermilion loop.
The sapling bent as he started to strip the ivy from its branches.
I thought about what had to be said next and fought to force the words out of my throat. “The night the Fae came, Mum told me to go wake Lexi up. But I didn’t, which meant that Lexi was sound asleep when the Fae came into the house.” I swallowed. “He was a kid, Trowbridge. Just a little boy, who woke up to find the boogeyman in his bedroom and the house filling up with smoke.”
So small. So feisty. “From the sound of it, he threw every book, video game, and G.I. Joe he had at them. But in the end, he was just a kid. When they carried him past me…” His eyes were so wild. “He saw me hiding in the cupboard, but he never let on to the Fae. So I got to live this life, and he got to live that one. All the things he endured? That could—should—have been me.”
The maple was now rid of its pest, but it had suffered in the process. Branches had broken. Leaves were shed. Now the two men stared at the sapling, one with hands on his hips, the other idly scratching his shoulder.
Leave the tree alone.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Trowbridge said simply, and his scent stretched for me, landing softly on my shoulder, curling down my back and around my waist. It was sweet, and tentative—an extension of the man, not the Alpha. I twisted around to look at him. My mate’s expression was hurting, his arms hanging by his sides.