by Michele Hauf
“Give me a minute to warm up,” she said. “I’ve got it in me. I can do this.”
If she had spent more time nurturing her faery half this would be a breeze, but she’d never thought anything about being faery was useful. Or comfortable. What girl could slap a hockey stick and make the goal with the impediment of wings slowing her down? Or trying to keep the wings from getting singed while welding metal? Not going to happen.
Though she did like having her wings out for a good stretch. And to give it a moment’s thought, wings made her feel...pretty. More womanly.
Hmm...maybe she needed to devote more focus to her faery.
Again the green and violet strands formed between her palms. Daisy rushed both palms to Beck’s ribs, where Kelyn had gotten him in the kidneys with his iron fist.
Beck moaned and tilted his head to see what she was doing.
“Lay back. Take it in,” she directed. “This may not last long.”
“It feels cool, and I can feel it...inside. As if it’s wrapping about my kidney. Wow.” He closed his eyes and laid back. “Crazy.”
Crazy, indeed. That she was even managing this giddied Daisy’s hopes, and she got so excited she lost her concentration, and the healing vita poufed out again.
But with Beck’s eyes closed, he didn’t immediately notice. Curling forward a wing, she brushed it over her lover’s face, drawing his smile widely.
Beck sucked in a breath. “Oh, yeah. I...I think you did it.”
“Of course I did.” She smiled and sighed. Well, he had been close to fully healed before she’d gotten to him. But she may have helped a bit.
She strolled her hands, now coated with faery dust, across his skin and up toward his collarbone where the bruise had receded. Gliding down his chest, she roamed over his hard curves, pausing when she felt the tenderness of damage beneath her delving touch. It was an intuitive feeling that her mother had taught her to utilize. She wanted to be able to kiss the pain away, to protect her lover from all hurts.
She wondered if faery healing could help a man’s grief?
Hands gliding down his stomach, she curved them over his hip.
“Doesn’t feel cool anymore,” he murmured.
“That was all the healing vita I could manage. Now, for your lovely parting gift.”
“My—wha?”
“Pants off,” she whispered.
“I don’t think they got me below the belt,” he muttered.
“Really? You don’t want me to even have a look?”
Beck quickly shimmied down his jeans and kicked off his shoes, and the whole tangle landed on the floor at the base of the bed.
“Thought so,” she said.
She glided her hands down his hips and over his boxer shorts. Black with tiny white skulls on them. Cute. His erection bobbed against her palm. She gave it a firm squeeze.
“Please?” her werewolf lover asked.
* * *
Daisy’s wings swept forward over Beck’s chest and up along his face. It felt as though he was being touched by the wind and snow and summer all at the same time. The faery wolf settled onto his cock, welcoming him inside her depths and rocking a slow yet insistent rhythm. She felt so good. There were no words to describe being inside her. Hot. Awesome. Wondrous. Sticky. All insignificant.
He turned his face into one of her wings and breathed in deeply, then licked the delicate wing. She even tasted sweet. He’d fallen into some kind of wonderland, and he wanted that damned white rabbit to catch him. Here was home. She felt so right.
“Oh!”
Daisy’s body jerked above him. Suddenly his cock slapped against his belly. She stumbled off him and dropped off the bed and to the floor. The wings disappeared.
“Shit,” she muttered. “Not again.”
“Daisy!”
Daisy’s wolf whined and scampered out of the bedroom area, toenails clicking across the hardwood. She crept around to the other side of the couch. A few miserable whines struck Beck right in the heart.
He caught his palms against his forehead. “Poor girl. She’s having as much trouble shifting as I...”
He blew out a breath. He couldn’t speak it out loud, but he knew how Daisy felt. Because he was struggling with his own shifting troubles. Troubles he had brought upon himself. And now that the sidhe gift had begun to take its toll on him, he wasn’t sure how to stop it, or change it, or make it drain him less.
He was destined to move forward, even if it killed him. And it likely would.
Maybe Daisy’s suggestion that he talk to the faery who had given him the ghost wolf was worth a try. But could he stop being the ghost wolf before he’d finished what he set out to do?
What did he really intend for the ghost wolf to do? Scare the local hunters out of ever hunting wolves again? Kill the hunter who had killed his father?
He knew that answer, and while he hated claiming it, he knew he had to. He wanted the hunter dead. An eye for an eye. Wasn’t that only fair?
Yet instinctually, Beck knew his father would never be proud of such an action.
“Beck?”
Sitting up, he spied Daisy’s crop of pink hair pop up from behind the couch. He pulled on his jeans then padded over to the couch. Pulling his naked faery wolf into his arms, he sat with her wrapped up against his chest. Kissing her hair, he held her and didn’t speak. Words weren’t necessary. He’d just witnessed her greatest challenge, and he felt sure she was embarrassed, frustrated and probably even angry with herself for allowing him to see it.
He bent to whisper at her ear, “Nothing will ever make me stop liking you, Daisy Blu.”
* * *
Beck held her on the couch for the longest time. Daisy was glad he didn’t talk, save to whisper that he liked her. She liked him, too. This romance had developed into serious like. And she’d once again revealed the most devastating part of her life to him, and he had merely wrapped her in his arms and told her he liked her.
Like was so much better than love. Because they both knew love was a part of it. They’d fallen into each other and genuinely enjoyed being there. She just wished there was a way to figure out what the heck was up with her. Beck wouldn’t have answers, but it felt as if she’d released a heavy weight from her soul now that he was in on her secret.
“I’ll get it figured out,” she muttered, turning on his lap to sit forward and clasping his hands over her stomach. “Wolf or faery? Seems like I can’t be both.”
“If you had to choose,” he asked softly, “which would it be?”
She shrugged. “My family is mostly wolves. Yet my mother is faery. I have always favored my wolf. To be honest, the faery half of me has always felt so...feminine.”
“Your wings are crazy gorgeous. What’s wrong with being feminine?”
“Nothing. But you should have noticed by now that it doesn’t come naturally to me.”
He stroked the side of her feet. She remembered he liked to touch them. “You’re not a tomboy.”
“You don’t think so? Even after I kicked your ass at pond hockey?”
“You’re a chick who happens to play hockey well. And who enjoys working with a welding torch. Why do pink bows and silly high shoes have to define you as feminine?”
She shrugged. “Never thought of it that way before. But I’m going to pick wolf, if I have a choice between the two.”
“I’d miss your wings. And your healing. That is an incredible skill. Could you really give that up?”
“Don’t fool yourself. I barely healed you. Your body was already well on its way to healing.”
“You helped.”
She turned and brushed at the faery dust on his biceps. “You feeling better?”
“One hundred percent.”
“So tell me how it’s going with your ghost wolf?”
“It’s about as good as your shifting situation. Honestly? I get weaker every time I shift, Daisy. I don’t think I can do it for much longer.”
“Then stop.”
“I intend to. But I still haven’t done what I set out to do. My search for the hunter with the silver bullets is turning up a dead end.”
“Stryke was hit by a silver-tipped arrow. Do you think it could be the same hunter?”
“Possible. I can hope it’s only one man we have to worry about. I’m not sure what to do, Daisy. What would you do, as a journalist?”
She tilted her head back against his shoulder. “I am an aspiring journalist. This story about the ghost wolf is my first big investigation.”
“And look, you’ve discovered the truth behind it.”
“Right, but I can’t tell anyone. Do you know how that drives me bonkers?”
“You want to tell people about me?”
“As a journalist? Hell yes. I’m sure this story could win me the internship. But as your lover and fellow werewolf? Heck no. This is your secret, and a secret the whole werewolf community needs to guard.”
“I’m sorry to have put you in this position.”
“Don’t be. Beck, what you’re doing is awesome. You’ve scared the shit out of the hunters.”
“Yeah, but for how long? The ghost wolf hurt someone, Daisy. I don’t think it’ll be long before they come after me with pitchforks and silver bullets. And after that, who’s to say the gray wolf population won’t again feel the threat? And what about Stryke? He was almost killed. I think I’ve screwed this up, big-time.”
“No. Let’s think about this.” She stroked her hands along his thighs. “I agree that the ghost wolf needs to pull back for a while until things calm down.”
“But what if I can’t? Daisy, at night...”
“What is it?”
“It’s like the ghost wolf pulls at me if I even see moonlight. I’ve drawn all the curtains in my house.”
“That’s weird.”
“And you saw how I was the other night when you came over to my house.”
“Horny as heck.”
Beck sighed and hugged her to him. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else. I can’t. My father would have never wanted that.”
She kissed his knuckles. “I think your father would be proud to see what you’ve accomplished.”
“I’m not so sure he would approve of the means to what I’ve done.”
“The faery bargain?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, that worries me still.”
“That makes two of us. I’m worried about your faery situation. I’m worried about mine. When did life become so full of worries? I’m too young for this crap.”
He stood and padded over to the bed to retrieve the rest of his clothes. Daisy popped up her head and leaned on the back of the couch, watching him dress.
“If you go to the faery to ask about giving the ghost wolf back,” she said, “I’d go with you. Maybe...”
“Maybe the faery would know how to help you?”
She nodded, glanced aside.
“Sounds like a plan. But I’ve got some work to do before then. If you don’t have any ideas on how to track the hunter, then I’ve got to rack my brain and come up with something. I wish your brother could help me, but I asked him last night if he recognized the hunter, and he was more interested in putting bruises on me.”
“How could he know anything if he was in wolf shape?”
“Exactly. But he might remember his scent.”
She followed him across the living room, naked. When he paused before the front door, she wrapped her arms around him from behind. She wanted to ask what he would do when he finally did find the hunter, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“Should I tread carefully around town now in fear of your father?” he asked.
“I’ll have a talk with him.”
“You shouldn’t have to, Daisy.”
“Yeah, but we are a couple, right? I mean, I want us to be.”
He turned and kissed her forehead. “You’re my sexy faery wolf. But that goes against everything dear old dad wants for you. And you know I don’t want to make trouble.”
“Kind of late to consider the ramifications, don’t you think? I don’t want us to end, Beck.”
“Neither do I. I guess I’ll have to figure a way into your father’s good graces.”
“Let’s just play it by ear for now. My dad is not part of this relationship.”
“I don’t want to sneak around. Your brothers have already given me a warning.”
“It wasn’t a warning so much as they weighed and measured you. And do you know? Trouble actually said he likes you.”
“He did? Wait. That’s like friend like. Not the kind of like we have?”
“Right. My brothers approved of you, but they don’t get a vote where my dad is concerned.” She kissed him.
“I’ve never had brothers, so I can’t imagine. But maybe soon, eh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Uh...” He stroked her cheek and shrugged. “My mom is pregnant.”
“Really? That’s amazing.”
“She was going to tell my dad on the night he died.”
“Oh, my goddess. Beck, I’m so sorry. You two have been through so much.”
“I’m a survivor.”
“How is your mom doing?”
“She’s much better lately.” He kissed her again. “I’m hoping for a brother, but Mom said she wants a girl. Ivan Drake has been visiting her, and I think that’s helping her a lot.”
“I’m glad. It’s got to be hard being alone and pregnant.”
“Which reminds me, I think I’ll stop by my mom’s today and give her a hug.”
Daisy wrapped her arms about Beck. “I hate to give you up.”
“How about sharing me?”
“I can do that.”
Chapter 19
“Hey, Mom.”
Beck kissed his mother and noted she was wearing a soft floral perfume. Her long brown hair was pulled up into a neat bun with a few curly strands hanging down around her face. And her smile remained even after she’d acknowledged him.
“Feeling good?” he asked.
Bella led him into the kitchen, where it smelled like brownies. “I’m feeling great, Beck. I even guessed you’d be around today, so I made you brownies.”
“Heloise’s recipe?”
“You know it.”
The former maid had died while serving his parents—killed by vamps—but Bella always made her brownie recipe in honor of the woman whom she and Severo had loved as if a family member.
Beck had to use a fork to dig into a brownie heaped with cream cheese frosting and served on a plate because it was cut so big. Man, this was heaven. And if his mom had brought these brownies to the ice festival, she would have had to charge double what the others had charged—and would have made a fortune.
“How’s the baby? Have you been in to see the doctor?”
“Ivan is taking me next week.”
Beck nodded, but kept a comment to himself. So how close were Ivan and his mother getting? Because Ivan was married to a witch, had been for decades. He didn’t want to bring the two together that much.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bella said.
The twinkle she’d always had in her eye had returned. That set down Beck’s shoulders even more. His mom was doing much better.
“Ivan is a friend. And Dez stopped by yesterday to help me make these brownies. The two of them have been what I’ve needed to...you know, take a step toward the future, is the best way to describe it.”
His mother’s sigh was evidence that she would always hold Severo in her heart. Hell, it had only been three months since his father’s death. It was going to take a while for them both to get over his loss. Did they even have to get over it? And really, who decided how long the grieving process should be, or what, exactly, it entailed? He’d grieved already and was moving on. And now that his mother seemed to be heading toward the future, he could relax and know she would be all right.
“How are you doing,
sweetie? Is the shop ready for opening?”
“I’m in no rush to open it to the public.”
“No rush, or no energy? Beck, now, I know I’m the last person to be telling you what to do—”
“You’re my mom. You sort of have that right,” he said through a mouthful of brownie.
“Right. But lately, I’ve been—you know.”
He rubbed her arm. “Understandable.”
“Thanks. But I’m surfacing from the depression. Every day feels brighter and more promising. Yet I wonder if you’ve gotten stuck lately?”
“Stuck? No, I’m just taking my time with the shop.”
“I’m not talking about the shop. Have you talked to anyone about losing your dad? Beyond me?”
Beck’s stomach clenched. He pushed the plate across the counter. “Dad’s gone. There’s nothing more to say.”
“He’ll never be gone, Beck. We both hold him in our hearts.”
Beck lifted his chin. He had to stay strong for his mother. “Yeah. You’re right. He’s in my heart. So do you think I could get a couple of these brownies to take with me?”
Bella smoothed her palm over his forearm. “Have you visited his grave?”
They’d buried his father out at the back of their property beneath the willow tree Severo would often sit under when in wolf form. An escape from the world, he’d once explained to Beck about the spot. But as well, a connection to the earth, the very universe that grounded him and brought him peace.
“It’s just ashes and bones in the ground, Mom. Dad’s spirit is long gone from this realm.”
Saying it released a tear down Beck’s cheek, which he hastily swiped away. That was a lie. Severo’s spirit remained within him. He hoped forever.
“It’s getting late.” He stood abruptly and turned toward the foyer. “I’m going to get some more things from Dad’s shop.”
“I’ll cut up some treats to take home with you.”
“Thanks!”
He rushed to the shop and closed the door behind him, leaning against the steel surface and sniffing away the tears. “Damn it.”
He’d anticipated some random feelings when coming here, but he’d expected them to be over his mother and her sorrow. But Bella seemed to be improving. And here he stood, crying?