By a man who still hadn’t answered him.
“I asked you a question, Grimm.”
The Grimm swung his staff, a graceful blur of wood and blood-streaked silver in the air. His blood was on those blades, Crow thought. His blood.
“I heard you well enough,” the Grimm said. “I’m blind, not deaf.”
Then he reached up, touched his free hand to the arm the woman had wrapped around him. Sighing, he said, “She feels like mine. But that is neither here nor there. You insulted her. It pissed me off. This is between us and we’ll end it between us.”
Disgruntled, Crow turned away.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Will, the hated traitor, watching him.
“It’s already ended,” Crow said sourly.
He did not remember much of anything of his mortal life, but he did remember honor.
A man defended what he loved.
And this man had defended it well.
Crow’s dragging wing was proof enough of that. Limping through the house, he found something tugging at him.
No. Someone.
He’d sensed her earlier. The young mortal.
Her skin was the warm, sun-kissed gold of his own, marked with lovely, graceful lines that disappeared under the covering of her clothes. Something about her felt…warm. Warm against the ever-present coldness that was his nature.
“She heals souls,” he said, turning his head to look at Will. “And she has seen too much. The mortal world is no longer for her.”
Will lifted a brow. “I believe I’ve already said I know how to handle my people.”
Crow curled a lip. “She’s more suited to my kind than yours. You deal with demons. I deal with souls.”
“It would be up to her. And it’s a long way for her.” Will circled around, cutting a wide path to avoid Crow’s wings. “She can’t go where you go yet. But she can go where we go.”
As the traitor knelt by the woman, Crow felt something inside him twist.
He didn’t want the poor girl going with a traitor.
But no, she couldn’t go where he went.
So very few could.
Without saying anything else, he limped to the door.
As he walked, he unleashed the bonds that held him there…and went home.
Chapter Twelve
Luc woke to the sound of rain pounding down.
Cool air, scented by the familiar traces of sandalwood, a fire in the hearth, and tea, wrapped around him.
He was home.
He jerked upright and immediately wished he hadn’t as pain lanced through him.
His right flank was on fire, aching deep, deep inside, and itching.
A new organ growing.
That wraith had ripped out his kidney.
If he’d been human, the shock alone would have killed him. Good thing he wasn’t human. The bad thing, he’d have to live through the misery of healing the injury for the next few days, and he was still fairly early in the process, judging by how he felt.
This was the first time he’d ever had such an injury done to him by somebody who wasn’t the enemy.
A wraith.
“Merde,” he muttered, covering his face with his hands.
“Yes. You do look like shit.”
Sina—
He didn’t even remember getting out of bed, much less crossing the room.
But he must have, because now she was in his arms. He went to bury his face in her hair, but it was all twisted it up. Scowling, he dislodged the mess of pins and had to take a few more seconds to free it from the braids. “That’s better.” He sighed, exhaustion already crowding his brain. Once he could press his face into her hair, he turned and leaned back against the nearest upright surface. The wall was cool against his overheated flesh
Better. Definitely better.
“You should still be resting,” Sina murmured, stroking a hand down his arm.
“I can rest fine like this.” He could rest better, knowing she was here.
“Hmm. But if we stay like this, I’m going to be tempted to start yelling at you and telling you what a fool you are. You don’t get into knock-down, drag-out fights with wraiths, Luc. You…you just don’t.”
“Obviously, I just did.” He rubbed his mouth against her neck and then bit her lightly. She tasted of the rain, of lavender and woman. Stroking a hand down her back, he discovered to his delight she wore only a shirt and a pair of panties. “I think I’d actually like to go back to bed. I’ve a yen to fuck you but I don’t think I can stay upright.”
“Luc…”
“Sina…” he teased, pushing his hand into her panties and dragging them down. He cupped her ass and squeezed her flesh, smiling against her skin as he felt her shudder. Trailing his fingers along her skin, he dipped down and found her entrance, slick and wet. “Come to bed. I need you. One night wasn’t enough.”
“And how many nights will be?”
“Ask me again in a few centuries, I might have an idea.”
“So charming,” I said, gasping as he stroked me. I wanted to ride him, work myself against his hand until I was a screaming, moaning mess, but he was still weak.
And I needed to be careful.
He might think he was all caught up in me, but I wasn’t going to bet on it.
“Bed, then,” I whispered.
Best to just enjoy this while I could.
For as long as I could.
As we stumbled our way over to the giant, lake-sized spill of his bed, some part of me wondered things that I really shouldn’t think. It was awful of me, sending cold, twisting little spears of doubt hurtling through me. And I couldn’t stop it. Had he shared this bed with his wife?
I knew they hadn’t been together as husband and wife, but had they lived here together?
Had he built this house hoping to rebuild what they had lost?
Had he…
Hard hands gripped the hem of my shirt, wrenching it away and before any more doubts, before any more thoughts could worm their way inside me, I felt myself bouncing in the middle of the mattress. Twisting around, I glared at him. “You moron, are you trying—oomph.”
The rest of the words were muffled against his mouth as he came down on top of me, settling between my legs, using his hands to spread them wider until he fit right in the cradle of my hips.
“Sina,” he whispered against my lips.
“Yes?”
“Stop. I’m a big boy,” he said.
I could feel the head of his cock nudging against the heart of me. Tilting my hips upward, I groaned as he sank inside my pussy. “Yes…you are a very big boy.”
He withdrew, surged back inside.
“A very, very big boy…”
He chuckled and caught my hands. “I can be a very good one too.”
“I’d rather you be bad.” Biting his lower lip, I wrapped my legs around his hips and rocked up to meet him.
I wanted to feel him break again. Wanted to see him lose control.
Ached for it.
“Bad, my lady?” He dipped his head and bit my nipple, sucking it deep into his mouth, hard rhythmic pulls that I felt echo in the pit of my belly.
His hand gripped my wrists, held them stretched overhead. His other hand cupped my ass, fingers digging into the muscle, tight, almost too tight. “How bad do you want me to be?”
“Only as bad as you want, Luc.” I shuddered as he moved higher on me, as each stroke of his body had him rubbing just so against my clit. It was the purest, most burning sort of pain. The most indescribable pleasure. And my heart ached as he gave me the softest, sweetest kiss.
My Luc…my knight gallant, whether he saw it or not.
“I’m not feeling terribly up to being bad right now,” he muttered against my mouth. “I just want to lose myself in you. Feel this soft, sweet pussy gripping me. You’re like heaven, Sina. I want to lose myself here. Right here.”
Tears pricked my eyes.
And then I gasped as he teased me between the chee
ks of my ass, pressing against me with the tip of his finger. “Later, I’ll be bad…”
He pushed inside, slowly, slowly…as he continued to ride me. “Luc.”
Pain, pleasure, the sweetest of both, twined through me, inside of me. My heart beat so hard, I thought it might break free of my chest and fly away.
“My Sina,” he groaned against my lips as his cock swelled. “Mine…fuck, you’re going to hate me, but I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Dazed, stunned, I came apart in his arms.
Exhaustion forced him into sleep not long later.
Sina had managed to get him into the shower, had managed to get a meal into him, but less than twenty minutes after he’d confessed himself, he passed out.
And she hadn’t said a damn thing about what he’d told her.
Trapped in his dreams, helpless by the relentless toll the healing put on his body, he brooded.
All this time, he’d managed to hold himself somewhat apart from everything in life.
He’d had to, because he’d been shattered in his mortal life, and he hadn’t wanted to risk seeing it happen again this time around.
Perci.
“Hello, Luc.”
Dreams were one place he could see as he’d been able to in his mortal life.
As she came striding to him down the beach, Luc didn’t bother to rise.
He was just too tired. Even in his dreams.
As his former wife, his once love, settled in the spot beside him, he just sat there, his eyes focused on the lake. Behind him, the house he’d recently bought blazed with lights, but he felt none of the warmth. None of the welcome.
He only felt fear.
Perci dropped down beside him, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them as she joined him in his study of the lake.
“You wanna tell me why I’m here?”
Luc closed his eyes. “I didn’t invite you.”
“Well, maybe not with an engraved invitation, but I was having this nice, hot little dream that involved Jack and Michael Fassbender and all of a sudden, it stopped and I found myself standing by a lake.” She looked at him with a sad smile. “Not too many people can tug at my emotions the way you do. So I figured you needed me.”
Fisting his hand in the grass, he tugged some of it up, let it fall away. “I’m better off not needing anybody, I think.”
“That’s bullshit, you know.” She caught his hand. “We needed each other, and we did fine with it for a while. It was when we let it go too long, when we clung to the memories instead of moving on that it became a problem.”
He looked at her, letting himself think back. He could remember, vaguely, being happy with her. But the memories were so vague…so very vague. “I never should’ve have kept you with me for as long as I did,” he said quietly. “It was unfair. To both of us.”
“Either one of us could have walked away. It wasn’t just you.”
Luc shook his head. He’d made the promise to protect her. Staying with her had damaged her in the long run, a fact he could see now.
“Luc, it’s…” She scowled, licking her lips. “Look, Luc. I’m always going to have feelings for you, but it’s time to let me go.”
Scowling, he shot to his feet. “Perci, darling, that’s not the problem. I did that, quite a while ago, actually.”
“You—wait. What?”
With a sardonic laugh, he started to walk down the shoreline. “Everybody is so fucking convinced that I’m brooding my life away and mourning for my lost love.” As she fell into step alongside him, he stopped and faced her. “I loved you. Madly. Desperately. I hurt for you. And losing you, having you at my side, but not having you? It was sheer torture. But I knew years ago that you weren’t going to ever be mine again and I began to accept it. Some part of me even understood that I no longer was the man who’d fallen in love with you, that you weren’t the same woman. We grew apart, and I saw that before you did. It took me some time to admit it, but I did.”
Her pretty eyes narrowed as she studied him.
“Letting you go isn’t the problem,” Luc said quietly. “You’ll always be a part of my life, of my heart. But I’m not in love with you.”
“Oh.” She frowned. Nodded. Frowned again. “Well, that’s good…okay, I’m confused. What in the hell is the problem?”
Turning back the house, Luc closed his eyes.
And immediately, Sina’s face was there.
“We feel things more in this life. Have you noticed?” he asked her quietly. “Pain. Grief. Love. It’s all so much more intense.”
Opening his eyes, he looked back at her. Not at the woman he’d loved and lost, but at his friend. “For years, we were both broken…because of what we’d lost. Our children. Each other. You’re finally whole again after all of this time, but it took centuries.”
A knot settled in his throat. “I think I’ve lost my heart again. If she doesn’t feel the same, I’m done. I’ll give up my wings, Perci. Because I’m not going to spend the next five hundred years, the next thousand trying to heal a broken heart all over again.”
“Luc…”
He shook his head. “I’d rather live out the time I’ve left as a mortal. It would be a quicker, easier end to it. It’s a slow death, what you and I did. I’m not doing it again.”
It was an odd quiet that settled over his house.
I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was silly, really. Curled up in my favorite T-shirt, the one with Grumpy stretched over the front, I sat by the fire and waited for him to wake. He was sprawled on the bed behind me and every now and then, I’d go to his side, check on him. The wound was healing.
Will had said he’d take care of him, but I’d wanted this task. To watch over him.
Of course, I hadn’t expected to have this flung at me.
How did I handle it?
You’re going to hate me, but I think I’m falling in love with you.
Krell whined.
Looking up, I saw Luc stirring on the bed. I went to his side and settled next to him, flicking a blanket over me as I curled up next to him.
I think I’m falling in love with you.
Think. Think, or know?
Closing my eyes, I pressed my brow to his arm and waited for him to wake.
The best thing, I imagined, would be for us to take our time. I knew how I felt. Let him take his time, let him be certain.
After all, I’d loved him for centuries.
It wouldn’t hurt me, really, to wait a little longer so I could be certain he knew what he wanted.
With that in mind, it was almost easy to smile as he drifted into wakefulness. Easy and light. That was how I needed to play this.
Keep it light. Keep it easy.
A faint line appeared between his eyes as he started to open them. Dipping down, I pressed my lips to his. “Good morning, sleeping beauty.”
“I keep telling you, that’s the wrong fairy tale.”
“Hmmm. Well, you are sleepy. And you are rather beautiful. It seems to fit to me,” I pointed out. I slid my hand across his belly, gingerly testing the healing flesh at his side. “It’s better.”
“Yes.”
“You should eat.”
“Wait.” He caught my wrist. “We need to talk, Sina.”
“There’s no reason to talk, Luc.”
Something clouded his lovely blue eyes. It chilled me. To the core.
“There is,” he said quietly. “I told you I was falling in love with you. You didn’t tell me how you felt. I think I’d like to know.”
So bluntly stated—
Clenching my jaw, I buried my face against his chest. Time, damn it. I wanted to shriek at him that we needed to take time, even as I wanted to clutch him close and never let him go. “We really don’t know each other terribly well, Luc. Not for declarations such as that. I…what I think is that we should take our time. See what happens.”
“Are you saying you don’t love me
?”
“That’s not what I said,” I pointed out.
“You either have feelings for me or you don’t.” He shook his head and pulled away. “Maybe it’s too soon, and I get that. But then you think you could have them, and you let me know that. I don’t need platitudes or shit, Sina. Neither of us are children, and neither of us are fools. I’ve spent enough time alone.”
Something hollow settled in my throat. Is that where this was coming from? He’d found a woman he liked fucking and he was done being alone?
“I’m not about to be rushed into something just because you have spent enough time alone,” I snapped.
He sat there on the edge of the bed, his back to me. Hearing a familiar clicking sound, I looked up as Krell came into the room. Was it my imagination or did that damned dog give me a censuring look?
“Very well then,” Luc said quietly. Krell went to him and rested his head on Luc’s leg. “I’m going to shower. I need some time to myself, if you would. I’m healing up and there’s no reason for you to linger here. You can leave whenever you wish.”
The dismissal in his voice was clear.
Politely voiced. But very clear.
Chapter Thirteen
“Who is he working with, damn it?”
Will rubbed the back of his neck as he watched Mandy try to talk with the new girl, Natasha.
So far, she hadn’t spoken a word.
Not in the three days she’d been with them.
Tucking a hand in the back pocket of his jeans, he turned to Perci.
“Look, Percinette, my hands are rather full right now. You needed to talk, so I brought you here, but if it’s about Luc, you’ll just have to leave. He isn’t your concern,” Will said.
She glared at him and spun away, pacing the room. Then she stormed back over to him and tried to drill a hole in his chest with her finger. “That’s one of my best friends—hell, he is my best friend and I’m hoping the two of us can find a way to keep that friendship whole. He’s hurting and he’s miserable and lately, you seem to be just as interested in playing matchmaker as you do our boss. Everybody ends up mated lately.”
“Not everybody.” He smiled. “I had Jacob and Rob working together briefly and I assure you, those two will never mate.”
Blind Destiny: Grimm's Circle, Book 7 [retail mobi] Page 13