by Honor James
“Good thing because I’m keeping you, Miklos, and if you didn’t love me well…” She shrugged and winced at the action. “It would be bad all around if you didn’t love me as much as I love you.” Her eyes closed she scooted closer to him. “Warm me up,” she requested even as she began to want to fall asleep.
Grabbing the blankets he pulled them up and over them both, carefully tucking them around her. Wrapping his arms around her again he kissed her neck lightly. “Don’t get too close, love. Your back is still pretty raw,” he murmured against her skin.
“Can you stay connected to me for a while, Miklos? I really like feeling you inside of me and would like to keep you there for our nap, if you are all right with that?” She looked back at him and smiled. “Well for my nap and yours if you are still tired?”
“I won’t move, love,” he said softly to her, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “Sleep, Harker, I’ll see you in our dreams where I want you to rest as well,” he told her. “No acrobatics or gymnastics, love,” he said with a smile.
“No acrobatics or gymnastics I promise.” She settled in close to him with a breath of a sigh and closed her eyes, allowing herself to fall fully asleep.
Chapter 17
Her eyes opened next in the dream and she looked up at him. “Hello there.” She loved that she was able to share this with him. “I love these dreams, being able to be with you in reality and dreaming.”
Stroking her cheek slowly he looked to her and then beyond the blurred edges. “Is it something you want to keep, Harker?” he asked softly. Looking back to her he smiled slightly. “I mean the dreams, love. Do you still want to come into the dreams even now that we’re mated?”
“Of course I do, that is a silly question.” She loved being there in the dream with him. “I adore these times with you. We are able to be free. We could go flying in a hot-air balloon and make love as we float over the midnight skies. We could have a tree house and make love there. We can simply sit on a swing or by a lake and talk, darling. It is something that we can forever leave our troubles behind with.” She paused. “I want this, why do you ask?”
Touching her chin lightly he turned her head and then pointed. “Do you see the fog at the edges?” he asked her softly. At her nod he explained. “Because we’re mated now the dreams are no longer required so they start to fade. Unless we work at them they will fade entirely and we won’t be able to do this anymore. If you want to keep them we’ll have to force them for a few days or weeks until the fog goes away, then they’ll be ours for all time.”
“Well then I hope that you are a good hard worker, Miklos, because I will be seriously cranky with you if I have to give this up.” Especially when she was doing her three days on at the firehouse. When she couldn’t sleep in his arms she would miss these moments, a lot.
“Then we won’t give it up, Harker, we’ll work at it and keep our dreams nice and strong,” he told her. Rubbing his chin over her shoulder he reached up and gently stroked back her hair. She could see him playing with a chunk. “I keep wanting to do this outside the dreams but after that first time I’m pretty much terrified to touch your hair any more than absolutely necessary,” he said.
“It’s only when it’s pulled and if I know it’s you I am fine with it.” She hated that she’d taken that from him. “It’s just sometimes as I am waking or when someone just suddenly comes up behind me and playfully pulls my hair that I get upset.” She broke Bernie’s nose for that when she first met him.
“I know,” he said softly. “Don’t worry about it, love. I’m learning to deal with it and I can control myself to some degree. I know now not to do it, so don’t worry,” he murmured, kissing her cheek gently. “I can touch your hair here, play with it and, I’m sure in time, you’ll let me at least toy with it in real life.”
“I want you to do that though, Miklos. I need you to help me out of my shell, out of hiding from so much.” She was hiding, and it bothered her that she was hiding from the most important person in her life, Miklos. “Touch me when you want to, Mik, love me and stroke me anytime. I will be fine with it but I would love it if you just would.”
Smiling slowly he nodded. “All right,” he said softly, cupping her cheek. Kissing her fully on her mouth he teased her lips and tongue a moment. “How do you feel about public displays of affection?” he asked her when he leaned back a little.
“I have always envied those that could have that in their lives. It is something that I have always wanted but have never been able to have because there never was that right person.” She looked up at him and the remainder was said with her eyes, “Until you.”
“Good to know,” he told her quietly, stroking his fingers down her cheek. “So you won’t mind if I accost you for a kiss in the street or a hug whenever I’m in need of one then?” he asked. His words might have been light and his expression teasing but for him it was something he needed to know. He didn’t want the cold front of a relationship in public where every move was scrutinized. He wanted a freedom with his mate to touch her when and if he so chose, just as he’d expect the same in return from her.
“I won’t mind at all.” Hugging him and looking up she added, “As long as you won’t mind me doing the same. I know I don’t seem like the type but I want to kind of relationship where people see us together and feel the love we have for each other, they know with the stroke of a finger down a cheek.” She stroked her finger lightly down his cheek with all her love and hope in her actions. “With a smile.” Hers radiated how she felt about him. “With a kiss.” And she gave him just a brushing of her lips to his. “I want to remind people what real love is. Not the manufactured Hollywood crap, but real and true love.” And with that there was no room for cold, no room for question about the other. No, it was giving completely of yourself, and she gave all she was to him.
“I’d like that,” he said simply, stunned she’d want to do that. He’d never expected to have such an open relationship when he found his mate. He’d expected it to be another Wolf, to be completely honest with himself, which would have meant showing that he had what it took to keep his female all the time. While in theory it sounded great, in practice it was exhausting. To have a human, while there were other concerns, overall it was a shock to his system and it was putting him way off balance.
She frowned as she watched him and asked, “Is that all right with you? I mean I don’t know what a Wolf mating would be.” Maybe he had hoped for another Wolf, one that knew the ropes and knew just what to do to keep him happy. “Are you upset that I am not a Wolf, Miklos?” Harker’s words were casual, even when inside she was turning inside out.
“God no,” he said with feeling behind his words as he shook his head. “Mating a Wolf is…” How did he put this so she’d understand? “It’s violent, bloody, and often leaves scars of a lifetime on the male. A female is extremely demanding. She expects her mate to outthink her during sex. She’ll try and twist to hit him or, in some cases, kill him if he’s dumb enough to let her go. It’s a match I’ve always dreaded to be honest,” he told her softly. “I’m extremely pleased with my mate. She has bite but she doesn’t try to claw out my eyes or go for the jugular if I’m not performing up to par…I hope,” he added eyeing her now warily.
She snorted and shook her head. “Why would I want to kill him when I can just ask him to perform better next time?” she teased and shook her head. “I do have bite and I could easily hurt someone if they hurt someone I care for but you are safe from me, Miklos. You I want to keep alive and whole and without scars that I create. You I love.”
Nodding slowly he pulled her gently closer and kissed her softly. “I love you, too, Harker.” Rubbing his cheek lightly against hers he breathed her in. “Our worlds seem so far apart at times and yet, so very often run parallel.” Sighing he rolled to his side and looked at her as she shifted. “I can see questions in your eyes, Harker. What’s bothering you, love?”
“I just feel…” She sighed and shook
her head. “You will think that I am strange but I feel as if I am never going to be just right for you. You are a strong force of nature and will live for hundreds of years and I am just human. I will die after a relatively short time and I don’t want to think about how that will affect you. It makes me sad to think of leaving you but I know I will one day.”
“You don’t have to, Harker,” he said softly even though he felt a surge of joy at her words. They were sad and tugged at him, but it also gave him hope that she was worrying about the future. “I can change you, if that’s something you want. Or, if you’d rather live out your human life there is a ritual that I can do, when it’s your time to leave this world that would allow me to follow you into the next.”
“I don’t have to make this choice at this moment, do I?” There was so much to consider. She wanted as much time as she could get with him, but was she really cut out to be made into a Werewolf or would she roll over and die because of the demands that the animal half would make?
“No, you don’t,” he told her quickly. “You can take all the time in the world, Harker, I promise. And whatever you want to know about it just ask,” he said, touching her cheek. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know and if I can’t alleviate your fears about it we do have another option. Everything will work out just as it’s supposed to be.” He smiled at her.
“But we are mated now, right?” She leaned into his touch and sighed. “We are mated and no one can tear us apart now, right?” She had the fear that if she wasn’t Wolf, she wasn’t mated to him. “Because I can’t lose you, if I have to become a Wolf to keep you that is what we will do, but I can’t lose you.”
“Honey,” he murmured, pulling her closer to him. “We’re mated, tied together for all time. I promise, there’s nothing and no one that can pull us apart. You don’t have to be changed to be my mate, Harker,” he reassured her softly stroking her hair. “You can remain human the whole time and you’re still my mate.” Touching her shoulder where he’d bit her he smiled. “This and the ritual words are all it takes with a wild lovemaking session as the kicker.” He smiled.
She grinned a broad and happy grin as she nodded. “The lovemaking was pretty spectacular.” She had loved every moment of it, especially the bite. She didn’t know why but she loved that part. “I’m normally not one for pain, but my god when you bit me”—she shivered in memory—“it was indescribable.”
Stroking the mark that was there even in their dreams, he smiled. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react to it. Unfortunately it has to be reasonably deep so it stays for a time but it’s hard to judge. Too shallow and it would fade in a couple years, too deep and you wouldn’t have gotten the chance to choose to remain human,” he admitted quietly, his smile fading. He could have hurt her so badly by taking that choice from her, something he never wanted to do. She was his mate and she had a right to all the choices of life. Miklos was just glad he’d judged it right.
“I will like that I will have it for a while,” she said with a grin and sighed. “I am happy to be with you and I just need time. I don’t know if I could ever survive as a Wolf.” But she knew she wouldn’t survive as a human, not without him always there, and she was far too independent to make him walk in her shadow. “We should rest, Miklos. I have an injury to heal so that I can have my mate making love to me again, letting go and being as rough-and-tumble as I need to.” She grinned back. “That’s you by the way.”
“Better be, woman,” he growled softly at her even as he curled into her as she got more comfortable. “Anyone else touches you and they’ll suddenly be missing limbs.” Kissing her gently he smiled. “Sleep, love, slip deep and get the rest you need to heal.” Not just for him, but for herself as well. He had enemies that would not hesitate to harm her if they could and he’d be damned if it would be through anything he did if he could help it.
The heat of his body against hers in reality and in dreaming was all that it really took to send her off into slumber. She was so very tired that her consciousness slipped away without argument and the remainder of her night was spent in a deep and healing sleep, no more dreams, just his arms around her and holding her tightly.
She woke well after ten the next morning. Never one to sleep in she scrunched her nose and looked around. “Are you kidding me?” she whispered when she spied the clock. “Mik?” He was curled around her tightly, not hurting her, but holding her close enough she couldn’t move, if she had wanted to move.
“Mm,” he grunted. “Awake finally I see,” he murmured, lifting his head enough to peer into her face. “Sleep well?” he asked quietly as he loosened his hold enough that she could turn if she wanted.
She did turn slightly, wincing when she moved the wrong way, but when she was able to look at him without crinking her neck she smiled. “Yes, I slept brilliantly, but you knew that already, didn’t you?” It had been her turn to rest deeply, completely. He had napped as she held his head in her lap for hours and it seemed she had done the same. “Did you get any more sleep or did I ruin it for you?”
“Got a bit more, but for the most part I’ve just been laying here enjoying having you in my arms,” he told her quietly. Running his fingers lightly up and down her arm he watched her closely. “What’s on the books for today?” he asked her after a moment.
“Well today we need to go back home, to my home for a time.” She sighed. “I love your home, I really do, Miklos, but it’s so big.” And that was so not an understatement. “Just for a couple of days, can we spend it at the other house? That way you can help me pack up so that I can move in here with you. If you really want me to.”
Staring at her as his heart resumed a normal rhythm after nearly stopping completely he nodded. “You’re willing to come live here?” he asked softly. “I want you here, Harker,” he reassured her. “More than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, but are you sure about it? You said it’s too big, if it is, love, we can find something smaller,” he offered even as he cringed internally. For him, the house was small. It was as small as he’d ever want to go, but he could survive as long as he had somewhere to escape for the occasional run.
“I want to be here with you, Miklos, this is the home you created for your family and this is where I belong.” Her hand over his heart, she could feel the thudding of it under her fingers as she added, “Besides, there is a little girl we need to bring home to live with us and one day we will have children, too, so yes, I’m positive.”
“All right then,” he said, softly placing his hand over hers to hold it, enjoying the slight weight of her smaller hand and the heat that came from her skin. “Thank you for sacrificing so much for us, Harker,” he murmured to her, stroking his fingers over her skin. “I feel as though you’re doing all the giving though and I’ve given nothing in return.”
Tapping her thumb on his chest she grinned. “Believe me, you will be giving.” When she was making him move her things from her home to his. “Think your brothers are up for a little U-Haul Bingo?” She chuckled at the look on his face. “You, them, all big strong men, moving every piece of furniture and clothing from my place, to this one. I want to keep the house as our little getaway, but I want my things here in our home.”
“I’ll convince them it’s in their best interest to help us with the move,” he told her. Hell, he had a gun, had a badge, and if all else failed he’d shoot them for resisting his delectable mate. “They’ll help, love, and you can do whatever you want with the place to make it feel like home for you.”
“You will be here, that’s all I need.” She shrugged and winced, bit out a curse, and pressed her forehead to his chest. “That and maybe cleaning my wound, salve, and bandaging it so that I can put on one of your nice big sweatshirts so I don’t have to pull on a bra.” Thank god for her only having B cups or life would be a serious bitch right now.
Cursing softly he eased out from underneath her and looked at her back. Gently he touched the small drop of blood and cursed internally a lot bl
uer than ever before. “Come on, love,” he whispered softly to her. “Let’s go and clean you up before I cause any more damage to you.”
She sat up on her knees and watched him stand. “You didn’t do this, Miklos,” she said with a growl and bite to her words. “You didn’t do this to me. I did it. Stop thinking that you have hurt me because you haven’t. I’m happier and more whole now than ever. I just haven’t been paying enough attention to the fact that I am still healing, and that is because you make me feel well, you make me feel healed and whole so don’t take this as your blame, mister.”
Wrapping an arm around her waist he helped her off the bed and then guided her to the bathroom. Letting out a breath he didn’t argue with her. “Sit,” he said, pointing to the little stool by the tub. Grabbing a cloth he soaked it in warm water and then came back to her to gently and carefully wash the wound. Any time her skin tensed he knew he was hurting her but he just couldn’t do anything about it. He was trying to be careful and was obviously not careful enough. Thank god he hadn’t become a doctor. He was a guy with all thumbs.
She leaned forward and let her head drop down and hair cover her face. “Will you pour peroxide over it before the salve, Miklos?” It would hurt like hell, but she knew from experience it would help with the tenderness because it would help combat the infection.
Staring at her with wide eyes he bit his tongue for long moments before he just couldn’t help it any longer. “Are you crazy?” he asked her softly. “That is going to fucking hurt like wildfire, honey,” he said touching her hip, gently stroking the soft skin.
“I know that it will, love, but believe me, it really does help it heal faster. I know because I have done it more than once, honey. It is simply the best thing for me.” She touched his hand. “Do you need me to do it myself, love?”