Mine, his heart said.
He didn’t fight it. Something deep inside him had recognized her as his from the very moment he’d seen her. While part of him still fought the feeling that he didn’t deserve her, he wasn’t about to question this wondrous gift he’d been given. With all the darkness they’d faced these past few months, he welcomed every bit of light and hope she brought to him.
Ronin would understand.
He’d have to.
From somewhere outside the bedroom, his phone buzzed again.
Shit.
It could only be one of his brothers. They were the only ones who had this number. The four of them had ditched their old phones before embarking on their mission to retrieve Lina, since the Council could use them as trackers.
After rising carefully from the bed and assuring himself that Lina was still sound asleep, he stalked outside the room and gently clicked the door shut. The light trickling in from the windows told him it was sometime in the morning, which meant he and Lina had gotten at least a couple hours of sleep.
He searched the small living area of the cabin until he found the phone lying on the kitchen counter. The caller had already hung up, but there were a couple of missed calls from Taeg. He pressed the button to call him back and held the phone to his ear. It only took a second for his brother to answer.
“What the fuck, bro? I’ve been hitting you up for over an hour.”
“Sorry.” Trailing a hand over his eyebrows, Dagan headed to the nearest window and peered out at the gloomy morning. “We fell asleep.”
“Where are you?”
“Found an empty cabin.” He gave Taeg the location. “Why?”
“That mage I told you about, he thinks he can help disable the bomb. I’m sending him your way.”
“That’s great.” Dagan paused. “How are things over there?”
“Okay. We’ve been weaving around the state, making sure we weren’t trailed by any of Belpheg’s men. We’re headed back to the cave now.”
“Take care of yourselves.”
“Always, bro,” Taeg drawled. “Everything okay on your end?”
Dagan grinned, unable to help himself. “We’re hanging in there.”
There was a pause, then Taeg, said, “Good.” His voice sounded all too knowing. “Take care of yourself, baby brother. Be safe and smart.”
He heard Taeg’s subtle warning. He was worried about what Dagan and Lina would do…and how Ronin would react to it. While Dagan appreciated his brother’s concern, Taeg didn’t understand what had happened between him and Lina. What they meant to each other.
Soon enough he would. They all would.
…
“Does it hurt?”
Lina bit back a groan of pain and forced herself to answer the mage standing above her just as dispassionately as he’d asked the question. “Not enough for you to stop.”
Crouched above her on the bed, he continued his improvised surgery with a grunt. The man was a true professional. Even though her T-shirt was hiked up almost to her breasts and nothing covered her lower body other than the thin bed sheet, he didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in stealing a peek. A lock of his dark brown hair fell down over one eye as he worked.
Truth be told, he didn’t look much like a mage. More like a young, semi-hot doctor in training. But then, she supposed every mage started off young. This one happened to be human, which was pretty rare. From what she’d heard, the human race as a whole tended to lack the powers and abilities common to so many other species.
Of course, you had the exceptions like Maya and Brynn, who made it seem pretty awesome to be human—or in Brynn’s case, mostly human.
When Dagan had woken Lina from her coma-like sleep to tell her a mage was on his way to attempt to disable the bomb, she’d joyfully thrown her arms around him. The mage would be able to do it. He had to.
“How’s it going?” she asked when impatience got the better of her, daring a glance at her abdomen. There was a bloody, gaping wound where the mage had magically cut into her flesh to reach the bomb.
“Hold still,” he replied irritably.
When the mage had first arrived at the cabin, he’d told them he could do one better than simply disabling the bomb. He thought he might be able to remove it entirely, eliminating any and all possibility of the dark fae somehow reactivating it later. Since that had sounded damn good to her, she’d been on board with the surgery, even though she’d known it was going to hurt like a mother.
“Fuck.” She bit down on her lip to stifle the urge to cry out at a particularly vicious jab. Damn, this hurt like hell, but she wasn’t about to scream. No way.
“How are you doing, sunshine?” Dagan, who sat beside her on the bed, grasped her hand.
Lina turned her gaze to him, willing herself to concentrate on his face rather than on the pain. “I’m good,” she rasped out, squeezing his hand tight.
The mage’s fingers dug into the slippery device, which as best as she could tell resembled a rectangular black box no bigger than a cell phone, and she let out a whimper.
“Watch it,” Dagan snapped, his gaze flashing with ire as he glanced at the mage.
“Sorry, it’s not an exact science,” the mage shot back.
She squeezed Dagan’s hand again, silently warning him to back down. The mage might not be the friendliest guy on the planet, but he’d sacrificed his time and his safety to meet them here. The least they owed him was a modicum of respect.
“Almost done, I think.” The mage screwed his eyes shut, concentrating hard, and a glowing blue light wound down his arm and through his fingers, filling her abdomen with a cool, healing energy. She gasped at the liquid sensation of it, and her limbs automatically relaxed into the bed.
“Got it,” the mage said a moment later in a voice filled with triumph. There was another pinch of pain when he closed his fingers over the sides of the box, but a second later, he’d yanked it out.
“Thank you,” she breathed. Though it hadn’t hurt exactly to have the device inside her, it had still felt strange.
“Hold on.” His fingers went back to the hole in her stomach, digging inside her body and over to the side. His hand crept deeper and deeper, and just when she was about to gasp at another fresh wave of pain, he removed a second device, this one a small round chip.
The tracking device.
“All done,” the mage announced as he rose to his feet with both devices in one hand. He opened his free palm, and a small but intense flame began to burn there. When he deposited the box and chip into the flame, they sparked and disintegrated into ash.
“Awesome,” Dagan said, his eyes glued on the mage’s hand.
“All in a day’s work.” The mage let out a brief smile before glancing down at Lina and frowning. “Can you heal yourself?”
Oh yeah.
Still feeling slightly euphoric from whatever was in that blue light, Lina brought her hands to the gaping wound in her stomach. She activated her healing ability. A rush of cold, calm energy flowed through her, not unlike the mage’s own power, but it brought with it a growing sense of awareness rather than the dreamlike euphoria.
Dagan gazed at her with concern. “Better?”
“Much.” She nodded and gave him an encouraging smile before turning her gaze to the mage. “Thanks again.”
He nodded briefly then held both palms in the air and turned them over. Her blood disappeared from his hands as if he’d washed them under an invisible faucet. When she gazed down at her stomach, it was clean of blood, too.
“What do we owe you?” Dagan asked as he rose. “I don’t have much on me, but I can transfer funds into your account—”
“Don’t worry about it.” The mage turned and headed toward the door of the bedroom. “I owed your brother and his fiancé a favor. Now we’re even.”
Still feeling a bit weak from the surgery, Lina remained in bed while Dagan followed the mage outside the room.
“I really apprec
iate it…” she heard him say as he led the mage to the front door.
Wow. Given Belpheg’s advanced magical ability, part of her hadn’t believed they’d find anyone able to remove the device he’d implanted.
She scooted off the bed and crossed over to the dresser which had a small mirror above it. Lifting up the long T-shirt, she took a peek. Her abdomen was smooth and unmarred. All pain and discomfort was gone. There wasn’t even a spot of blood anywhere to be found.
As if it had never happened.
Joy worked its way through her body, electrifying her nerve endings. The front door slammed shut and she left the bedroom, stepping into the living area just as Dagan headed back toward her. She saw him and they both stopped, frozen in place.
No more bomb.
The sudden realization floated between them, filling the air with thickness. Desire rose up inside her, hot and sweet and out of control. She needed him. Now.
Dagan inhaled, his gaze ripe with question. Did he think she’d changed her mind? Time to show him how very wrong he was.
She raced toward him, leaping into his arms. He caught her, as she’d known he would. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her mouth landed on his, claiming him in a hot, fury kiss. Staggering, he hit the side of the couch.
He pulled away to murmur, “Bedroom.”
“Too far,” she gasped. “I want you. Now.”
He stumbled forward, and a moment later knelt to gently deposit her on the couch. His lips and tongue tangled with hers as his hands slid up her thighs, beneath her shirt, to her center. He found her wet and ready for him. No need for foreplay. They’d already had months of it.
Dagan pulled away to peer intently into her eyes. “Lina, are you sure?”
Without spending another moment on useless words, she yanked him to her and glued her mouth to his. No way was she going to let him get her all hot and bothered and then just walk away.
“Easy,” he said, sucking in a breath when the torn drawstring on his pants, which he’d rigged together earlier, came undone. His pants commenced a slow slide down his hips.
“No.” She didn’t want to be easy. She wanted him.
His chuckle was part amusement, part frustrated desire. “Looking for control, then? You wanna be on top?”
That stopped her. Freezing in place, she lifted her gaze to Dagan’s. He was only half joking, and the thought of her being in command clearly turned him on. The red of his eyes had almost completely broken through their glamour.
“On top?”
One of his brows cocked. “Yeah. Want to?”
“Uh…” What could she say to that? “It’s been a while.”
A long while since she’d even had sex, since before Sara had died. Much less since she’d been on top. That had been…well, maybe never. If she had, she’d been too drugged to recall it.
Dagan’s soft, silky laugh reverberated through her whole body. He stood and his sweatpants dropped to his ankles. In one fluid motion, he turned and took a seat beside her, then grasped her by the waist and swung her into a straddle on top of him.
Disconcerted, she stared at him, but then his brows furrowed and he looked at her in question. “Lina?”
Something told her she’d better act now, before he got enough sense to change his mind…
Digging her toes into the couch, she closed her fingers around his full, thick length. His eyes fluttered half shut at once, and he let out a soft groan.
Now. She couldn’t wait another second.
Sucking in a breath, she rose up to fit his erection at the entrance to her body and then slowly began to slide down. Her muscles squeezed tight around him.
Dagan let out a long, ragged sigh and dropped his head back on the couch.
Whoa… She cried out softly at the sensation of his body filling hers. It was unbelievable. How long had it been since she’d felt anything like this?
Never. Not anything quite like this, and part of her recognized that was solely due to Dagan.
Before she could further ponder it, he grasped her hips and slid into her with one solid thrust. She cried out, arching her back at the unfamiliar sensation. Damn, but he was so big…so filling…so deliciously perfect deep inside her.
He let out a groan and tugged her shirt off, throwing it to the side. Then he slid her partially up before, once again, impaling her on his stiff length. Setting a slow and steady rhythm she couldn’t help but mimic.
She dug her toes deeper into the couch, wrapping her arms around his neck. Fitting her mouth to his, she moved her hips in countermotion to his hard pumps. Each and every silky thrust brought her closer and closer to the edge of release. Their tongues tangled in lazy imitation of their joined bodies.
When he shifted his hips, increasing the tempo of his upward thrusts, she arched her back in pleasure. Her low moans grew louder and louder, joined by his thick, heavy groans. Finally, aching with the need to climax, she took matters into her own hands. Using her position as leverage, she slapped her body down on his. Harder and harder. Faster and faster. Her moans became harsh cries of need. She barely noticed scraping her nails down his shoulders, his arms, as she rode him wildly.
“Fuck…” Dagan’s hands tightened on her, his fingers digging into her hips. “Lina.”
Without warning, her body convulsed in an orgasm so forceful that she could do no more than throw her head back in a soft scream. Her walls clenched him tight, urging his own release.
He let out a hoarse yell, his hips arching off the couch. Then, before she could even think twice about it, he slid out of her body, crushing her to him and muffling their cries with a deep kiss. His warm seed splashed against her abdomen.
He held her there, pressed against him, until her shudders subsided. With a soft exhale, he lifted his lips inches from hers to murmur, “I know the chances are slim, but I didn’t want to risk it.”
Because he knew about Sara.
A glimmer of longing sprang up in her heart, but she forced it back. She would have loved to have another child, would have loved a second chance. But she’d messed up too badly. There were no second chances for someone like her.
Lina buried her head in his neck. “Thank you.”
His arms slid up and down along her back. He held her tightly against him, so close that she felt the residual pulses of his cock from their lovemaking. They matched the tingle between her thighs that told her just how well-loved she’d been.
She breathed in deep, and allowed her heart to recover.
When Sara had died, Lina had sworn off men. Hell, she’d forsaken living altogether. Now it was as if she was being slowly reawakened. Brought back to life. And there was no doubt who was responsible.
“Holy hell,” Dagan finally murmured. “That was amazing.”
“Mm…” She couldn’t disagree. It had easily been the most unforgettable sexual experience of her life, and not just because it was one of the few times she’d done it without being high.
Dagan was a master when it came to making love. She’d known from the start he would be. Just as she knew what they’d done was more than just sex…for the both of them. They would have to examine the consequences of that later, but for now, she couldn’t help but be anything other than happy.
When Dagan’s hand slid lower on her back, she realized she’d broken out into a sweat during their lovemaking. It hadn’t bothered her one bit then, but now it brought back horrible memories of her withdrawal symptoms.
“Mm…I need a shower,” she mumbled into his neck.
His hands smoothed her hair back. “How about a bath?”
She pulled back to look him in the eye. He looked just as satisfied as she felt, but there was an unmistakable glimmer of interest in his eyes. Given her self-imposed years’ long celibacy, she understood where he was coming from.
“You think the tub will fit the two of us?” she asked dubiously.
He shrugged. “We can make it work.”
Well, if he was game, she was c
ertainly willing. Only a fool would turn down a chance to bathe with Dagan, and she was determined to be a fool no longer.
Before she could respond, his lips curved into a wicked grin. “Did I ever mention all the things I’m good at doing underwater? Being able to breathe down there has its definite advantages.”
Huh. She hadn’t even considered that small factor.
“The tub is too small,” she pointed out.
“Well,” he grinned, “I’m nothing if not resourceful.”
Good point.
Tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear, Lina gave him a slow smile. “Then what are we waiting for?”
…
Hours later, Dagan lay with Lina in the small bed inside the cabin. These past few hours had been the best of his life. Despite knowing there’d be consequences for his actions, he couldn’t help but be happy about what had transpired. Lina was…hell, she was meant for him.
They both lay on their sides facing each other, and Lina gazed at him through half-shuttered eyes. She gave him a tired smile, and he returned it.
What had happened with Lina was unstoppable, he knew that now. It was meant to be. Despite all the obstacles, they were meant to be…and if they lived through this, he’d happily tell her so. Over and over again, until she finally believed him.
Her eyes closed on a momentary spasm, and he moved closer with a frown. Brushing her hair from her forehead, he murmured, “Are you okay?”
She gave him a weak smile. “Yeah.”
Sometime after the bath, in between their third and fourth rounds, she’d broken out into shivers once again. It would take a while for all the effects of the drugs to leave her system, and he wished with all his heart he could absorb the discomfort she must be going through. But given that he couldn’t, he resolved to simply be there for her.
“I almost forgot what it felt like, the recovery period,” she said softly, the pain clearing from her eyes. Her fingers moved to his face, idly tracing his lips and cheeks as if memorizing them.
“How did you handle it the first time?”
Though her eyes clouded, she answered him. “Losing Sara was like dying. Kicking the habit seemed light in comparison. And if I died during the recovery period, who cared?”
Call of the Siren (Demons of the Infernum) (Entangled Edge) Page 20