Darkness Bred (Chimney Rock)

by Stella Cameron

  “You have no shame,” she said, studying him from head to foot. “There you stand, naked as the day you were born, and you aren’t a bit ashamed.”

  Advancing, he slid his hands beneath her arms but spread his long fingers and settled the pads of his thumbs on her erect nipples. “Is there something I should be ashamed of?” He glanced down at himself. “Is there somewhere I come up short?”

  Elin cut off her own little shriek of laughter and cleared her throat. “Not in a single place. There’s nothing about you that could possibly be called short.” She closed her eyes and her knees sagged. With only a touch—or two—he knew exactly how to arouse her until she hovered on the edge of climax.

  “Off with this,” Sean said, shimmying the dress over Elin’s head.

  She held his shoulder and stepped out of her panties.

  Holding her to him, he massaged her spine and buttocks, the backs of her thighs, and she curled over his shoulder, rubbed her breasts against him, took little nips at his skin.

  He straightened and her feet left the bed. The shin she ran across his pelvis connected with a solid erection. “I want you,” she muttered.

  One heft and she was over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

  “Hey,” she cried. “What are you doing? That’s not fair. I can’t reach anything.”

  That brought laughter from Sean but it quickly faded and she was eased beneath the quilt and joined by her only love, the only man she had ever wanted or would ever want.

  “Now you can reach anything that appeals to you,” he said, pulling the quilt over them. “Would it be okay if I talked just a little bit? Right now? I know you’re not supposed to talk too much at moments like this, but—”

  “Moments like what?” She wrapped herself around him and held on.

  “When all you really want—that means both of us—is to make love.”

  “Get on with it,” she said. “Talk.”

  “Damn, I love you, Elin.”

  He heard her swallow and felt the way her body turned soft and pliable in his arms. “And I love you,” she said. “I used to wonder what it would feel like to love. You know, to love a man this way. It makes me want to laugh and cry at once. I can’t believe it. You make me into a whole person and I didn’t even know I wasn’t already.”

  “I was looking for you,” he told her. “Not searching around, looking at every woman I saw with that in mind. But I was lonely. Deep inside lonely. After we met, I don’t think I ever doubted we’d be together.”

  “I know.” She sounded funny.

  “What is it?”

  “You let me know you’d choose me over anything or anyone else. Even when I was a deceitful pain, you didn’t want to give up on me.”

  Sean turned on his back and pulled her on top of him. He spread his legs and nestled their bodies together while Elin looped her arms around his neck.

  “I didn’t tell you everything. I was afraid to. But once I had, I knew how stupid I’d been to worry about it. Hey.” He jiggled her until she raised her head. “Do you want me to build you a cottage like this? I think I could.”

  “This is a special place. It was our first place. There’s nothing wrong with your house—our house. Or there won’t be when I’ve finished with it.”

  Sean hardly had to move at all to take their minds off where they should live.

  epilogue

  Summer had come and gone. The days were short again but Elin still felt the urge to walk in the darkness along the pebble beach that stretched for miles on the Saratoga Passage side of Whidbey.

  In the distance, on the other side of the Passage, a few lights winked on Camano Island.

  In their heads and hearts, the island’s paranormal communities waited, without discussion, for some other attack from malicious forces. But they only grew more determined to prevail.

  Tonight the moon sat on a thin rim and the stars turned the sky into a black bowl of diamonds.

  “Piggyback?” Sean said, breaking a long silence.

  Elin chuckled and leaned against him. “What do you think?” She loved to ride on his back with her face against his neck and jaw.

  Sean ducked, she grabbed his shoulders, and he hiked her up, his big hands grasping the backs of her bare thighs beneath her dress.

  His shoes scrunched over the tumble of rocks.

  The surf rippled insistently at the shore and the scent of the water traveled on a breeze.

  “You love it down here, don’t you?” Sean said.

  “Mmm.”

  “It’s not just a habit for you, Elin, I can tell that. For the past week or so it’s been as if you’ve been waiting for evening because that’s when you most like to get down here.”

  She blew softly in his ear and felt him smile. “You understand me too well, my mate. I feel pulled here. At first I didn’t know why, now I think I do. I think it’s the chimney under the water. Inside myself I’m waiting for it to show me something.” Her kiss on his neck had the predictable result—he shuddered as if she had tickled him. “Now I’ve said it out loud, nothing will happen. All your fault.”

  “Hah! No way, girl. What will be will be. If any two people should know that, it’s you and me.”

  Rubbing her cheek against his hair where it fell free in the wind, she let the silence sink in again.

  They crunched on around a small point to where the beach straightened a little. In the distance, the lights glowed at Niles and Leigh’s place.

  “Gabriel seems better,” Sean said. “I don’t think he’ll be in a hurry to meet someone else after Molly, but he looks more peaceful.”

  “Yes…Sean!” She caught her breath. “You can see that, you have to.”

  He stopped walking and looked at the sky. “What was it, a shooting star?”

  “No, that, the pink and gold arc. It’s coming out of the water. See?” She pointed to where a streak of brilliance shot upward then began to arch over. “Where is it going?”

  “Sweetheart,” Sean said gently. “I can’t see a thing like that. You’ll just have to tell me about it. Any of that useful green stuff? We should stockpile some of that—even if you are the only one who can see and use it.”

  Elin almost stopped breathing. She wiggled down from Sean’s back. “It’s going into Leigh and Niles’s house,” she said, jumping along sideways, pulling him by the hand. “I never saw gold before. There’s pink but there’s a dark purple. I don’t like the purple.”

  Sean’s eyes were narrowed to glittering slits. “You think it means something bad.”

  “Not really bad. It just makes me edgy. Come on.”

  He laughed. “We can’t just drop in on them when we feel like.”

  “Come on,” Elin insisted. “I need to be with my Deseran sister.”

  She started to run, slipping and sliding as she went. Sean ran, too, but faster. He hauled her along behind him. “I believe you,” he said, anxiety in his voice. “But I hope we’re both wrong.”

  They scrambled up the steps to the top of the concrete bulkheads where the Latimers’ house had been built.

  At the door, they both stopped, panting.

  “They’re having a quiet night at home,” Sean said but Elin could hear his uncertainty.

  “The worst that could happen is they invite us in—or tell us to get lost.”

  Elin hammered on the door. “I don’t care anymore.” She glanced nervously at the ethereal arc coming from the sea and connecting with the roof of the house.

  Seconds passed. Sean gave Elin’s hand a pull to suggest they leave, when the door opened a crack.

  Leigh, on her knees, had opened it for them, then she sank to sit, huddled over. “The baby,” she whispered.

  Without a word, Sean swept her up into his arms and headed into the house.

  “Where’s Niles?” Elin said.

  When Leigh didn’t answer, Sean said, “She’s having a rush—a contraction. This is heavy. Let her get her breath. Hush, hush, hold on to me tight. D
ig your fingers in. It’ll help.”

  He headed toward the bedroom but Leigh said, “The bath. I can’t lie down.”

  Sean changed course and Elin ran ahead to fill the tub with warm water. “Is that right?” she asked Sean.

  “Yeah. Do you want to wear a nightie in there, Leigh?”

  She shook her head. “No. Nothing.”

  She made ineffectual efforts to help them undress her.

  “Sent Niles to get Sally,” Leigh whispered. “She’s not answering. I said I didn’t want Saul.”

  Sean raised his brows at Elin.

  “Niles…he’s not comfortable with Saul and this is…I want it perfect for him. The baby won’t come for a long time.”

  Sean lowered her carefully into the water and kept an arm around her shoulders. “How long have you been in labor?” he asked quietly.

  “Only a few hours. First babies take a long time.”

  Moved to tears, Elin kissed Leigh’s belly, then her face, and Leigh turned blindly to kiss Elin’s cheek.

  “I had candles and things ready,” Leigh panted, and clamped her teeth together. The water running on her face was a mix of bathwater and sweat.

  “We’ll use the candles soon,” Elin said.

  “How does the water feel?” Sean asked. With his free hand, he rubbed her back hard.

  “Good,” she said, but her face was contorted. “It feels right.” She raised a hand and ran it through the air.

  Elin smiled. “She’s feeling our colors.”

  Another twenty minutes and they heard someone crashing into the house. “Leigh?” Niles yelled. “I’m home.”

  “In the bathroom,” Sean called. “She’s doing fine.”

  He made Elin want to hug him. How could anyone feel unsure or unsafe with a man like him? He would always do whatever he did well.

  Niles entered the bathroom and took in the scene. “Thank you,” he said. “Sally’s gone to friends—that’s what Gabriel says. I tried to call Saul but he isn’t answering.”

  “We have everything we need,” Leigh breathed. “I think I want to come out of the water.”

  Immediately, Sean stepped aside, and while Niles lifted his mate, Elin threw a huge white towel over her.

  Niles took Leigh to the bedroom and this time she didn’t complain, until he tried to lay her down.

  “Let her sit on the end of the bed,” Sean said. “Are you okay with me taking a look—both of you?”

  Sliding behind Leigh on the bed, Niles said, “Of course we are.” He leaned against her back and she pushed into him.

  Sean took Elin with him to the floor.

  “Is it burning?” Sean asked.

  “I think I see the head,” Elin said.

  “Burning,” Leigh moaned. “I want to push.”

  With Niles holding her, she pushed and the baby’s head crowned fast. “It’s coming,” Elin said, scarcely able to take a breath.

  “Push again,” Sean said. “Niles, kiss your mate. Really kiss her.”

  For an instant Elin thought Niles might refuse but he looked into Leigh’s upturned face and kissed her, gently at first, then with mounting passion.

  And the baby’s head was born.

  Elin felt jumpy. “We have to catch him,” she said, holding out her hands.

  “We’ll catch him,” Sean said.

  “How do you know all this?” she muttered.

  “Son of a sawbones,” he said shortly and grinned at her. “He taught me everything I know.”

  The infant moved down a little more then seemed to stop.

  Leigh cried out and Sean squeezed her thighs hard. “Hold back just a minute.”

  His face showed nothing of what he was thinking. Elin saw the cord and it was loose with no sign of being caught up.

  “Push,” Sean said and his very good patient did as she was told.

  But the baby didn’t make any progress. “Sean?” Niles said but got only a quick shake of the head in response.

  “Everything’s great, Leigh. Elin and I will help this little soul the rest of the way.”

  Elin got the sensation that she’d moved away from herself. What she needed to do, what he quietly guided her to do, she would manage well. He let her know that her hands were smaller than his and with mind talk she would never forget, he indicated they would widen Leigh inside.

  “Ready? I will pull the bones farther apart. One shoulder is caught. Yes, the left one. Reach in and ease it out. Babies are strong, all they need is a welcoming committee. There. You have it. See it slip free? A miracle.”

  “Quick, Niles,” he said. “Your job now, get here.”

  With the four of them clinging together, tears streaming down their faces, Niles caught his tiny child and Sean moved Leigh to lie down so the little one could be placed on her chest.

  “Listen,” Niles said while Sean continued to work over Leigh. “Listen to her cry.”

  Elin watched Sean’s face while he laughed and said, “Your daughter has good lungs.” And Leigh could only keep on crying and laughing at the same time.

  Niles is desperate to prove a man’s heart beats within his predator’s body. And Leigh—the mysterious beauty possessing powers she doesn’t yet understand— may be the one woman who can help him.

  Please turn this page for an excerpt from

  Darkness Bound.

  chapter ONE

  We’re going to highjack this woman, body and soul,” Niles Latimer said. “I feel like crap about it but we don’t have a choice—unless we give up and wait to die, one by one.”

  Standing in the bed of his truck beside a small stone cottage, he spoke telepathically to his second in command, Sean Black, who was several miles away, leaping through great, dark trees on agile feet. Sean was in his werehound form and at the speed he moved would arrive momentarily.

  Niles paused, flexed his shoulders. From behind him he heard the familiar sounds of the powerful animal grazing past branches, using the dense forest as cover to allow him to move freely, hidden from any inconvenient and curious eyes. Even in his human form, Niles wasn’t tempted to turn around when Sean arrived—werehounds recognized each other instinctively.

  “We appear to have no choice about the decision we’ve made,” Sean mind-tracked. “Unless, as you say, we scrap this plan completely and accept the inevitable. There’s still time for you to leave before she gets here. She doesn’t know you, doesn’t expect you to be here, so if you pass her on the way out you can say you took a wrong turn.”

  Niles understood reverse psychology when he heard it. “Accept that our numbers will continue to shrink while we cling to the fringes of human society, never allowed to live among them openly, you mean? I’m not ready to do that.” Okay, so he had cold feet about the woman, but they wouldn’t get the better of him.

  “We’re living among them now,” Sean said.

  “Carefully,” Niles said. He looked over the waters of Saratoga Passage sweeping in beneath the bluff where the cottage stood. Wind spun dead leaves and grit into the cold air. He sighed, loving this place, hating that he and his kind could not find peace there. “We consider every move we make. If they knew what we are we would be forced to leave.”

  “Or stand and fight.”

  Niles swallowed a curse. “Fight the human world we want to be part of? Back to reality, Sean. We are sworn never to harm a human unless they threaten us. Without them we have no hope of getting back our own humanity. We are not like the werewolves—they are animals and they like it that way. We’re not the men we were meant to be either, dammit, but we’re not giving up, not now. Not ever.”

  “They are too quiet,” Sean said. “The wolves. I keep expecting them to interfere with our plans somehow.” On these occasions he wished hounds could hear wolves’ thoughts, but they couldn’t, just as the wolves couldn’t hear them.

  “If they knew our plans, Brande and his pack would have every reason to stop us. We know too much about them. He knows we could make their lives hell.�
�

  “It’s getting late,” Sean said. “Are you sure Gabriel gave you the right day for her arrival at Two Chimneys?” Two Chimneys was the name of the cottage the woman had inherited from her dead husband. She was about to come back for the first time since that death.

  Niles rarely noticed fading light. He preferred the darkness and had perfect dark-sight, but he glanced around and wondered if Sean might have a point. “Gabriel ought to know. He’s going to be her new boss. She’s supposed to start in his office in the next couple of days and she’ll need to settle in here first. Gabriel said she’d come today.”

  “This thing you’re doing could blow everything apart,” Sean said. “It could totally backfire. What if she goes running for the nearest cop the minute she finds out what you are?”

  “I’ll feel my way. If she isn’t receptive to me, we’ll forget it—for now. We’d have to anyway.”

  “How will you know if she’s receptive?” There was laughter in Sean’s thoughts. “When she arrives, you say, ‘Hi, I’m gonna be your new mate. All the females of my species have died giving birth. I need you—’ ”

  “Knock it off, Sean.”

  Sean wasn’t done yet. “I need you to have my offspring, and find more females to do the same thing with other members of my team. We want to restock our ranks. Oh, and we can’t be sure you won’t die the same way our own females did.”

  “Get back to the rest of the team and bring them up to date,” Niles said sharply. “They’ve got to be on edge. I’ll check in later.”

  Niles felt Sean close his mind, and heard him go on his way.

  A flash of silver caught Niles’s attention. A small car passing the cottage on the far side. Leigh Kelly had arrived. He stood absolutely still, his eyes narrowed.

  He had waited a long time for this day, this meeting. If this woman knew his plans she wouldn’t even get out of her car.

  The thought of what lay ahead scared the hell out of him.

  Leigh left the front door of the cottage open to let in fresh air. The little house had been closed up for eighteen months since her husband, Chris, died, and a musty smell inside made her eyes sting.