by Moira Rogers
“I need my—” Her voice broke. “I need my knife.”
After another moment, Nate tugged at her arm, trying to pull her up. “Come on, love. It’s done. We need to run.”
The hound had fallen still, his eyes half open and staring sightlessly. Her stomach flipped over on itself, and she scuttled back until she slammed into the opposite wall. “Oh Christ.”
“Diana.” Nate filled her field of vision, and he pressed the comfortable, familiar weapons into her shaking hands. “Look at me. I need you to get us out of here. We have seven blocks to the airships, and if we make it five before ghouls start chasing us, it’ll be a miracle. I need my bloodhound to hold them off while I find a ship we can take.”
She focused on the cadence of his voice first, the movement of his mouth. Then the words. Get to safety, and hold the ghouls at bay. Simple goals, clear and precise.
She shook herself and nodded. “I can do it.”
Nate folded her fingers around the hilts of her knives. “I know you can.”
“I can.” He trusted her. She felt it somehow—the trust throbbing in her head the way his thoughts had before, a headache without pain—and she sheathed her knives.
It took her a moment to orient herself after the confusion of the fight, but she got her bearings and tugged Nate toward the airdock. They passed windows on their way through the narrow streets and alleyways, curious, pale faces pressed to the glass. How much did they know already? And how many blood-bound ghouls did they command?
She got her answer as they rounded the corner where the bloodhounds had confronted them to begin with. That same bridge stood before them, this time teeming with ghouls.
Nate drew up sharply, his eyes taking on a distant look. “More are coming from behind us,” he whispered. “I can almost—I think I can hear them. Not the ghouls, but the commands the vampires are giving them.”
“Wonderful.” She drew her knives and walked faster. “We’ll have to plow through them.”
He drew a steady breath and pulled a knife of his own from his boot. “Get me to the other side of that bridge, and I’ll get us into the air.”
“It’s a deal.” This was the kind of fight she knew, the mercy of freeing a ghoul from his thrall, from the prison of his own shambling body.
Mercy, and she fell into it, meeting the first few ghouls with a wide sweep of her arm. In the first instant they drew back, some instinct in the shells that were left fighting against the vampires controlling them like puppets. But rebellion only lasted a moment. In the next they surged around her, constricting in a tight knot with her at their center.
She poured everything out, every protective instinct that had led her to throw herself on that damned grenade. Not a mindless impulse, but a necessity. An imperative.
Guard. Shelter. Defend at any cost. She knew now what it meant, how much.
The ghouls fell, not because she fought well, but because she fought for Nate’s life.
And he fought for hers. She caught sight of him when she turned, his teeth bared in a furious snarl as he sank his knife into a ghoul only to lose it when the creature toppled backwards off the side of the bridge.
It didn’t stop him. He took down the next ghoul with his bare hands, wrestling until he could get a firm enough grip to snap the thing’s neck. Another ghoul surged up behind Nate, a blade raised to sink into his unprotected back.
No. Diana slammed into the ghoul, pitching him into two others, and put her back squarely against Nate’s just as another ghoul rushed her. She dispatched it with a quick stab and a kick that sent it tumbling down the angled surface of the bridge.
“Almost there,” Nate grated out, taking a careful step forward. “We can’t manage most of those ships on our own, but the one on the west side—the one that’s already in the air but tethered—I can fly that, if you can keep them off us long enough to climb that ladder.”
Almost. Another ghoul—new, judging by his lack of pallor, and big—charged them, and Diana had to break away.
“Go,” Diana told Nate. “Get up the stairs and ready the ship. I’m right behind you.”
The ghoul fought hard, every movement a study in coordination, meaning that somewhere out there, a vampire had focused the entirety of his attention on this one being. The creature dodged and feinted, half wide-eyed terror and half deadly determination. It landed a lucky blow to her left shoulder, almost knocking the knife from her hand, and Diana kicked as she spun through the pain.
She pinned the ghoul against the rough stone railing and quickly drew her blade across its throat. But even as blood gurgled from the wound, an eerie whisper emanated from its lips, a taunt from its vampire master. “Running won’t help. You’ll see me in Washington soon.”
Diana didn’t have time to entertain threats. She whirled, searching for Nate. She spotted him halfway up the steep, open stairs winding up the side of the airdock and hurried to follow. Her boots clanged on the metal as she took the steps two and three at a time, eager to get the hell away from Eternity.
As she reached the top landing, the click of a revolver’s hammer being cocked dropped her heart into her stomach. She cleared the roofline and saw the hound from the canal, the one with the crossbow, holding a gun to Nate’s forehead.
Too far to stop it. Too far to do anything but draw in a harsh, shaky breath in the unnatural silence.
The hound stared at Nate, his gaze unwavering. “You didn’t kill me. Why?”
Nate didn’t flinch, didn’t give any sign of fear. “You’re a bloodhound. My life’s work has been keeping the lot of you alive.”
The man’s arm shook. “You’re working against the Guild. I saw you down there, fighting Vance. Heard the shots.”
“I’m working against the vampires,” Nate countered. “If the Guild’s working with them now…then I guess I’m working against the Guild too. But for all that’s happened to me, I’m not the one who’s changed. They have.”
Another interminable, breathless moment passed before the hound disengaged the hammer and lowered the gun. “Iron Creek. It’s safe for now, but they’ll come for you all soon enough. I recommend you find another base of operations.”
Nate exhaled. “We’ll do that. What’s your name, son?”
“Cade Sexton.” His gaze swept over Diana. He seemed to understand that she needed more space between him and Nate, because he took a step back, then another. “You didn’t shoot me in the back of the head, so I owe you. This ship’s fueled and ready to fly, and that makes us square. I don’t want to see either of you again.”
Nate hopped on to the deck of the ship before reaching out to Diana. “I hope to see you again, Cade Sexton. I’ll make sure our people know what you did today. You’ll have a place with us, if that day comes.”
“Bite your goddamned tongue,” Sexton growled. “I’ll have a hard enough time explaining this.”
Diana couldn’t hold back her relief, or the smile that rose at his disgruntled tone. “Tell them we coldcocked you and stole the ship. You’ve got the bump to prove it.”
The ship tilted, the deck railing obscuring the rude gesture he flashed in response.
Nate had already disappeared toward the back of the deck, where a three-sided captain’s cabin sat in the shadow of the smaller of two massive balloons holding the craft aloft. Behind it, two large silver turbines spun lazily. Nate fiddled with the controls and brought both spinning to life before shouting to her. “Cut the ropes!”
Both had already pulled taut, and the craft jerked as she sliced through one, then the other. “What else do I need to do?”
He jerked his thumb toward a ladder leading into the hold of the ship. “Stoke the boiler. We need to burn hot to get a head start.”
It didn’t seem complicated until she started shoveling coal into the furnace. It was sweltering, almost unbearable. She soldiered on, focusing her attention not only on the task at hand, but on sorting through everything that had happened.
The Guild was d
ealing with vampires. Was it the sort of thing Doc could have predicted? Did he know his former Guild was capable of such? She’d always assumed he had kept her existence a secret for her safety, because the Guild scientists would have taken her apart bit by bit in their quest for knowledge.
But perhaps he’d held even darker secrets than Nate knew. The possibility made Diana shiver despite the heat of the boiler, and she worked faster, eager to rejoin Nate. Not to be alone with such thoughts any longer.
So many things unsure, undone. Jonah Knight and his consort, Iris—would they be safe? He’d seemed so certain he’d make out all right, even if things went bad, but he also hadn’t known about Vance and the Guild’s shadowed business dealings.
Or had he? She didn’t know a goddamned thing, really, except that a storm was coming, one that could wash them all away.
She had to unlace and discard her ruined corset, and was seriously considering doing the same with her pants when Nate’s voice drifted down. “That should be enough for a little bit.”
“Good.” She climbed up the narrow ladder and half-collapsed onto the deck, sighing as the breeze soothed her skin. “It’s boiling in there.”
Nate only grunted in response, but when she lifted her head to look at him, his gaze was sliding over her body. Not with lust, but desperation, his eyes seeming to catalog every healing cut and every forming bruise. Tension bracketed his eyes, and he bared his teeth. “You could have died.”
She sat up and crossed her arms over her chest. “We knew that when we came out here.”
“You threw yourself on a grenade, and you’re damn lucky it wasn’t laced with silver shrapnel. It could have been, you know.”
“I know.” She swallowed hard, met his gaze again and immediately wished she hadn’t. There was too much there, so much she wasn’t ready to deal with, not after their last conversation at the Black Lily. “It isn’t that I was being a hero, or that I didn’t think. But I had to, Nate.”
He growled and hauled on a lever before snapping it into place with a clever little hook that swung up from the maze of controls. He did it again with the lever on the left, then stepped out of the open front of the cabin to loom over her. “Why?”
No escape, from the words or the responsibility he would bear because of them. “If you died, so would I.”
Nate’s knees folded. He hit the deck next to her with a soft thud, a thousand unspoken words churning behind his dark gaze. But he only used one. “Mated?”
He was so close now, close enough to touch. “It doesn’t change anything. As long as I can see you, know you’re all right, I can manage.”
“It changes things.” Nate cupped her face with both hands and tilted her head back. “All I ever wanted to do was give you a chance at happiness. But hell, Diana—” He exhaled and pressed his forehead to hers. “I feel it too. Maybe even more strongly than you do, because your blood is my blood. You’re inside me. I think you could run a hundred miles, and I’d be able to follow you with my eyes closed. My heart only beats for yours.”
Pain. Elation. There was no emotion his words didn’t spark, but when she opened her mouth, only one thought would come. “I can’t need you. You don’t want me to.”
“I didn’t,” he admitted. His thumb touched the corner of her mouth. “But now I don’t just want it. I need it. Can you forgive an old man for not knowing his heart?”
“Yes.” She barely got out the word before their mouths met—not only a kiss, but a promise. A binding.
His fangs jabbed against her lower lip, drawing blood, and he groaned and muttered an apology before swiping his tongue along the already healing marks.
It’s all right. And if he didn’t hear the thoughts in her head, she’d show him. A button popped off his shirt, but she managed to claw the others free of their holes, and she shoved the fabric off his shoulders.
There was nothing slow or controlled about the way he touched her. His hands skated over her skin, stroking and exploring, clutching her closer in one moment and easing her back in the next, but only so he could work his fingers in between them to cup her breast. He plied her nipple without hesitation or subtlety, just the rough touch she loved.
She kicked off her boots, which left only their trousers still in the way. She had to get hers off and his open, but her hands shook so hard she needed his help. She unbuttoned her pants far enough to slide them off her hips, and he dragged them free before hauling her into his lap.
“Fast,” he rasped, freeing his cock. He was panting, as wild-eyed as he’d been during the worst of the new moon. “I need to be inside you, Diana. Need it. Need you.”
She took him, fast and hard enough to drive a cry from her throat and a snarl of satisfaction from his. Half-clothed and a little beat up, but it didn’t matter because they were alive.
Alive, and moving. His fingertips dug into her hips as he encouraged her to speed her pace, sliding up and down, taking him deep in rough, quick rocks of her hips. Nate twisted the other hand in her hair and hauled her head back, dropping wet, hard kisses to her skin, each accompanied by the barest hint of fangs.
Somewhere, in the distant, hazy part of her brain that hadn’t given itself over to sheer carnal pleasure, she marveled that they could be so hungry, starving for one another. It had to be more than the danger or affirming their survival. It had to be about them, the way they fit together.
Mate.
“Yes,” he whispered against her throat, and then his voice was inside her as surely as his body was, his thoughts sliding over hers like velvet. “Mate.”
The last piece of the puzzle, the reason behind the inexorable draw that had trumped their better judgment. They were made for each other.
Diana slowed, her chest heaving against his as she gripped his shoulders. “Say it again.”
His lips twitched. His eyes danced. When he smiled, it was wicked. Teasing. “Say it? Or think it?”
“Smart aleck.” She rubbed her thumb over his lips and then pushed between them.
Warm laughter spilled over her as he licked the pad of her thumb. “You’re my mate, and I love you.”
No more running. Diana caught his mouth in another open kiss and snapped her hips against his, harder with every desperate rock. But even with his mouth on hers, his tongue swiping past her lips, the words tumbling end over end through her mind didn’t slow. “I need you. I want you. I want you on me, around me, under me… I want you coming all over me.”
The silent plea shuddered through her with a teasing hint of the ecstasy to come, and she gave in to it. Every thrust pushed her higher, higher, until finally she fell, with Nate’s voice in her head and the taste of him on her tongue.
Her back thumped against the deck, his hand still cupping the back of her head, protecting it against impact as he surged above her. He thrust into her, rode her release with a frantic hunger that matched her own, a hunger that eased only when he shuddered above her, her name on his lips.
Perfect. “No more running.” She said it aloud this time, her quick breaths feathering over the damp hair at his temple.
“No more running,” he echoed. “Perhaps crashing, if I don’t see to it that someone is flying this damn thing…but whatever comes, we’ll face it together.”
When the full meaning of his words penetrated the lazy fog of pleasure, Diana shot upright, clutching her shirt to her chest. “It doesn’t run on its own?”
Nate rolled to his back and laughed as he put his trousers to rights. “Not indefinitely. I set it bearing due east, but much more precision than that requires a mind at the controls. And if we don’t keep the boiler stoked, we’ll drift lower than we care to. Let’s stay out of range until we cross the border. And then…”
“Then we’ll need to get the word out.” She met his gaze. “Warn Wilder and others that the Guild plans to silence them.”
Once his pants were fastened, Nate rocked to his knees, his expression serious. “This means war. It means rebellion. I never wanted t
o leave you grieving me, but now I have to fight knowing you’ll follow me into the grave if I fall.” He pinned her with a look. “And you’d best fight knowing the same. I don’t know if there’s enough bloodhound in me to pine itself to death over a mate, but believe me, Diana. I wouldn’t outlive you by long.”
Fear and sorrow vied for a tight grip on her heart. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth, love.” He caught up her hand and pressed it to his chest. “We’re both oddities born of magic and tragedy. We may not fit in either world, but we fit together. So keep yourself in one piece, my huntress, and I’ll live as safe a life as a man can have in the midst of war.”
She’d been a hound for five years, and she’d spent every day not giving much of a damn if she saw the next sunrise. Now, the thought of leaving Nate behind tightened a vise around her midsection, cut off her breath. “I’m not leaving you. I’ll be careful. We both will.”
“Yes.” He pressed his free hand to her chest, fingers spread over her heart. “So, what do you say, love? Fancy starting a revolution with me?”
“Anytime.” The answer came automatically, and she meant it with all her soul. “Though, in this case? I think we already have.”
About the Author
How do you make a Moira Rogers? Take a former forensic science and nursing student obsessed with paranormal romance and add a computer programmer with a passion for gritty urban fantasy. To learn more about this romance-writing, crime-fighting duo, please visit their webpage at www.moirarogers.com, or drop them an email at [email protected]. (Disclaimer: crime-fighting abilities may appear only in the aforementioned fevered imaginations.)
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