by Lynn Red
“Do we even know why they have her?” Dax finally asked, as his head cleared itself of rage.
Fletch shook her head. “Not a clue in the world. We can assume a few things – first of all, it’s possible they just happened upon her, and finding a human woman isn’t the most normal thing in the world around here. They could think she’s just a hiker or something that got lost, and so they’re keeping to the code.”
The code was a euphemism for hiding from humans, and it’d been around longer than anyone in Kendal Creek or anywhere else. The shadowy shifter council, the governing body for everything magical, weird, strange and unexplainable, had put it in place centuries ago. It was an oath that when a known human was around, everyone was supposed to clam up about whatever strangeness was afoot.
Then again, the Creighton bunch couldn’t possibly know that Raine had already been debriefed – so to speak – about the whole situation.
Dax leaned his head against the wall, cushioned by one of his hands. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why would Jack do this? After we’d gotten so close to a truce? We were that close to tying up all those stupid old feuds that no one even remembers the reason for. Why would he kidnap someone that—”
“That’s why I’m thinking he doesn’t know,” Fletch said.
Rollins nodded, still tugging at his mustache. “Would make more sense that he and his boys, or his girls, whichever – I can’t hardly tell the difference – happened on her.”
“You know he named both of his girls after himself and his wife?” Fletch said with a grin. “Jackie Junior. Hell of a thing, the Creightons.”
Just as the taut energy flickering between the trio was beginning to pass, and clearer heads were prevailing, Dax felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do, at any rate,” he said as he reached for the phone. Absently mindedly, he repeated himself as he swiped across the screen.
A half second later, his mouth fell open, hanging there like the disjointed jaw of a feeding snake. He was silent save a few gawping noises.
“Uh, Dax?” Fletch asked. “You’re drooling. Did someone send you a picture of one of Wilma’s pies?”
As suddenly as he froze in place, Dax flared to life, his nostrils widening in rage. “They’ve got her, and they know who she is. They know why she’s here.”
The hair on his neck was growing, and his fingers were already thickening into clawed fists. “That son of a bitch is trying something. He’s going to try and ransom her to me in exchange for... something. I don’t know exactly what, but I feel it in my bones.”
“Wait,” Rollins grabbed his friend’s shoulder as Dax’s muscles swelled. “How do you know all this?”
In the second before he pulled away, Dax turned the phone to face them. In the text window – which struck Fletch as morbidly funny, because who the hell sends ransom threats in text messages – was Raine. She was unhurt, but obviously irritated. Underneath the picture was a not-veiled-at-all threat. “WE KNOW WHO WE FOUND,” it read. “YOU GET HERE OR SHE’LL GET DEAD.”
Dax’s lips were curled in a silent growl. “I’ll kill the asshole. I’ll kill all those assholes. I don’t care what happens, they stepped over a line.”
“Uh, I’d say kidnapping your girlfriend is a little more than ‘over a line’, but okay,” Fletch said. She had started chewing on her lip, a sure sign that her nerves were getting the best of her.
Rollins was almost pulling the hairs out of his mustache. “What’re you gonna do, Dax?” he asked with a hint of fretfulness in his voice.
“I’m gonna go get her from those goddamn lunatics,” Dax said. His teeth were getting big enough that he was slurring a bit. “They’ll be sorry they ever crossed Daxon Mark. And if they have any sense, this will be the end of this idiot game.”
As Dax bent to the ground and dug his fists into the grass beside the courthouse sidewalk, Rollins and Fletch both held themselves stiff and still. As their alpha charged off, a giant golden locomotive of pissed-off rage, Rollins let out a long sigh.
“What’s eating you?” Fletch asked. “Besides the obvious.”
Rollins poked the hole in the grass with the toe of his boot. “I spent a week patching this sod, and now he just goes and rips into it like it’s nothing.”
They laughed for a second. “I’m getting my car,” Rollins said. “I expect you’re coming along?”
Fletch smiled and pushed a gray curl out of her face. “You think I’d ever miss the scene that’s gonna play out between those two bears? Jack Creighton may be an old shit, but he’s still strong. A lot stronger than Dax might think.”
Rollins nodded. “I’m fairly sure Daxon can take him, but... when you start throwing all those hillbilly cubs into the mix? Things could sure get interesting for our alpha. I don’t want him alone out there. If anything happened to him, or to Raine, I’d probably never forgive myself.”
“Wait,” Fletch said, catching the old bear by the hand. “To Raine? Since when do you care about her? I thought you didn’t trust humans as far as you could throw them? And let’s be honest, you’re no shot-putting champion.”
“I don’t, Fletch,” Rollins said. “But Dax obviously does. And whatever it is that happened between them that got her running off, no one deserves to be taken in to the Creighton camp that isn’t related to them. Hell, not even the Creightons deserve being taken into Creighton land.”
“You know, Rollins, sometimes you surprise me. When I get to thinking that you’re just a grizzled, irritable old cop, every now and then you say something like that and it really surprises me. Warms my cold, icy heart.”
“Oh hell, Fletch,” Rollins grunted, adding a laugh onto the end. “I know better than to think anything could melt your blackened lump of a heart.” The two of them laughed for a second. “And anyway, I’ve never seen our alpha act like that. You realize he turned into a bear and tore off after a girl he met two days ago? That’s not like Dax at all.”
Fletch nodded. “He met her a long time before that. Sort of. Anyway,” she waved her hand to avoid explaining that. “Maybe it is, you know? Maybe that’s really what he’s like when he feels something strongly enough to be himself. Maybe all this alpha stuff, running the clan, keeping the code and dealing with the council is keeping him from being happy?”
Rollins shrugged. “It’s a big job for anyone,” he said. “Dax ain’t any different than you or me or, hell, Jack Creighton. I can’t imagine anyone would want to deal with the things he does on a daily basis, but it also ain’t like he’s got much choice.”
“Yeah,” Fletch said. “And I can’t imagine what it’d be like to know that no matter what happens, no matter how much I don’t want to do something, I don’t have any choice but to do it. That’s the curse of being the only one strong enough to do the job, though.”
“Say,” Rollins said after pausing for a moment to nod. “You ever thought of being Sheriff? I mean, I can’t imagine anyone would be better for the job than you. You’re certainly bossy enough.”
She hit him sharply in the side. “Shut your damn mouth,” she laughed. “Go get that car. It won’t take Dax long to get out to Creighton’s place, and we better be ready when he does.”
-16-
Guns a-blazin’
My heart skipped about eight beats when I realized what was going on. I heard Dax’s voice before I saw him, and almost immediately gave up trying to stand. My body seemed to slump over without any input from my brain.
I heard Jack Creighton greet him, and then their feet shuffling against the uneven boards underneath their feet. “She’s back this way,” I heard Creighton say. “I think Wyatt almost had her convinced to run, but, yeah, it didn’t work out the way he hoped it would.”
My head was still pounding, still thumping in my temples. The blood running through my brain had a very unpleasant chill to it, and the rest of my body shuddered in agony as a light flicked on overhead. I still don’t know what the hell I was thinki
ng; I still don’t know why I stayed. I think Jack telling me all that stuff about Dax’s smiling for the first time in years had something to do with it, and I think another part of it was my unkillable, morbid curiosity.
But I knew damn well we weren’t out of the woods yet. So to speak.
“Raine?” I’ll never forget as long as I live, what it was like to feel his voice vibrating inside my chest. Warmth crawled out of parts of me that I didn’t know could be warm. A smile pulled at the corners of my cracked, pained lips and I blinked to try and keep my eyes from swimming with the pain of white light burning inside my skull. I knew we still had a long way to go, and I hoped things would work out, but I just didn’t know.
Then he opened the door. I saw Dax’s face, like a beacon in the middle of a cold, dark, hellish night, calling me home. Before I knew what I was doing, I threw my arms around his neck, feeling the inhuman heat from his skin penetrate straight to my soul. I couldn’t help but smile as he kissed my cheek first, then my neck. I drew a quick breath that grew hotter and hotter as his lips trailed down the side of my jaw to the hollow of my throat.
“I thought you ran,” he said with hushed words. “I thought you were scared off, that something got to you and I wouldn’t ever see you again.”
I shook my head, still relishing the smell of his skin and his sweat, like hard leather and earth. “I just had to think,” I whispered. “I just needed some time to figure out my own head. I had so much going on and so much on my mind that I just didn’t know if I could do this again.”
“Again?” he quirked the corner of his mouth up into a smile. “You spend a lot of time dating giant magical bears?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such pure, unadulterated joy as I did right then. It wasn’t just because it was him, it wasn’t just because I was safe and so was he... it was like a thousand different things coming together all at once and overwhelming my senses with a rush of energy that I could hardly fight off. “I want you,” I whispered in his ear. “Right now. Right now I want you to strip me, throw me across this rickety old ironing board.”
I swept the junk off of the ancient, dust-covered desk that was my only companion in the dusty closet. “Right here,” I said, my breath coming hot and fast. “I need this Dax. I need to feel you and know this is real. I need this more than I’ve ever needed anyone or anything.”
He looked back over his shoulder for a moment, watching to see what Jack was doing. The old man was whistling off in the front of the cabin, collecting things we were going to need when we made our way back to the Creek.
“I think we might have just a few minutes here before something else happens, but I don’t think that ironing board’s gonna hold either one of us,” Dax said. I noticed that his eyes were starting to glow, and the hair on his forearms was starting to stand up stiff and hard, longer and harder than before. “And I don’t think I can keep my hands off you.”
He shut the door, turning on me with those beautiful, burning eyes, and grabbed ahold of my collar. He went to rip it, but I stopped him.
“What? Change your mind?”
I shook my head. “God, no,” I said. “No, no, no.”
“Then what is it?”
“Well,” I said, “For one thing, I don’t have any other clothes. And for a second thing,” I kissed Dax’s chin, then his jaw. He purred with pleasure and returned the kiss as he cupped one of my breasts in a burning hot palm. My nipple hardened at the brush of his callused palm against my bra. “I don’t want to be too obvious about what’s going on in here.”
Dax smiled. “Raine, I don’t think there’s gonna be a soul on earth who won’t know what we’ve been up to, the way I’m going to make you scream.”
I ran my teeth along the stubble on Dax’s jaw as what he said really hit me. I felt a flush creep up my neck, hot and prickly in the musty air of the laundry closet. “Yeah?” I asked. “Well, you better have some damn good tricks up your sleeve.”
Without a second’s pause, he shoved his hand underneath my loose jeans and pressed the tip of his finger against my opening, through my soft cotton panties. I drew a breath, sharp and fast.
“Is that a good trick?”
“Yes,” I moaned as he shoved my panties aside and tickled me for a moment before pushing his fingertip inside my sex. “Oh my God, yes.”
His lips brushed my neck and then he sucked behind my ear, swirling his tongue against my skin. My nipples ached with anticipation, and I was so wet that I couldn’t believe it. He nipped at my neck, then swirled his tongue against the hollow of my throat and sucked at me.
“I’m so ready,” I groaned. “If you make me wait much longer I’m gonna start screaming without anything happening.”
He laughed, his breath hot against my chest, as he pulled my shirt over my head. I caught the scent of my sex on his fingertips, and immediately ached to have him back. I could hardly stand the pain of the void inside me when his finger was gone, but I knew that he wouldn’t hurt me, he wouldn’t ever leave me begging. Not for too long, anyway.
“Put it back,” I whispered, sucking at his earlobe. “Give me your finger again, or something else, just anything, please.”
Dax eased me to the ground, pushing the laundry and the detergent out of the way. He dragged his growing teeth against my throat, then along my collar bones and down between my breasts. I was thrilling at the way he kept touching me and kissing me, but when he circled my nipples with his thumbs, and then slid my bra off over my head, I just about collapsed. Seconds later, as I was bracing myself against the wall, Dax’s mouth found my nipples. His tongue went in a slow, patient circle.
Every second that he touched me, I was breathing harder and faster. I felt myself approach the precipice of an orgasm without him doing anything except kissing, pinching and stroking my stiff, pink nibs. He sucked again, then dragged his teeth down the short length of my nipple, letting them clack together after he tugged ever so softly at me.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, trying my best to be coherent. “I’ve never... you’re... I can’t handle this, Dax.”
He took a step back and I wrapped my legs around his waist, then pulled myself forward. I felt his thickness against my sex, hard and long and ready. “Please,” I whispered. “Let me feel you. Don’t make me beg.”
Dax kissed my chest once more, then gave my other nipple a suck. Drawing a hot, expectant breath from my lips, he buried two of his huge fingers inside me, rotating them slowly and hooking them upward, hitting me right on the sweet spot that sent stars through my eyes.
The mounting collapse inside me was more like the singularity of a black hole pulling planets around it into the center. It was all black, then streaks of white, then pinpoints of light highlighting every single one of my nerves as they flared to life one after another.
“Dax,” I whimpered, clutching his thick, powerful forearms. Once again that hair was creeping out, slowly and gently, but it was there. His animal ferocity did something deep in my belly, stoked a fire I didn’t realize I had. “I can’t keep going.”
“Don’t,” he growled. “We don’t have long anyway.”
“Don’t... need it,” I heard myself growl. “More,” I panted. “More, more, faster... yes!”
All at once those pinpoints of light exploded into something I can only describe as the wildest Cirque du Soleil that’s ever existed. Like a circus of lights and colors and happiness and anger and confusion all washing over me at once.
My muscles and my tendons all went taut. I squeezed Dax’s arms, digging my fingernails into them, and breathing harder, faster and heavier.
“Let go,” he whispered, sucking my earlobe as he did.
“Like I need you to tell me,” I sucked a breath through my front teeth. He twisted those huge, skilled fingers inside me one more time and then as the tips settled on that place just past my entrance that sends me into the clouds, I did exactly what he said to do.
There were no
words coming out of my mouth, only gasps and croaks and squeaks that made me sound like a really excited bullfrog. Soon the groans and gasps turned to a long, softly exhaled whistle of air through my teeth and the whole world melted. Right there, in the dingiest place I could imagine, I was completely happy, absolutely safe.
In the middle of a shitstorm of epic proportions that could wipe the town I never knew I loved until I missed it off the map, I was, for the first time in my life, in love.
“I love you, Dax,” I whispered as the air came back into my lungs.
He kissed my cheek, then my lips and held me tight against his chest. “I love you too, Raine. I’m sorry for how this is all going. I wanted to take you on dates and get you roses and—“
“You really think I’m that kind of girl?” I asked with a grin. “I can’t remember the last time I had this much stupid, unbelievable, ridiculous fun.”
“Yeah, well, if you think it’s been fun so far,” Dax said with a laugh. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, baby.”
“Oh my God,” I laughed, rolling my eyes. “You really just said that. Are you seriously straight from the 80s?”
“I know a good line when I hear it,” Dax said. “Come on. We got some wild bears to clear out of town. This might get messy. Say, I’m really impressed by the way you’ve handled all this. If it clears up the way I hope it will, you ever thought about being a cop?”
“A cop?”
“There’s a vacancy in the sheriff’s office. If you’re gonna stay in the Creek, we’re gonna have some work to do to get people comfortable with you.”
I arched an eyebrow. “So, putting a gun in my hand and making me write traffic tickets is the way to win the heart of the locals?”
Dax let out a booming laugh. “More like hunting down poachers and throwing drunks in a tank, but, yeah, more or less.”
“Well let’s see how the rest goes first, huh?”
He stared at me for a long moment. “I figured you were the smart one between us,” he said, grabbing my hand. “Let’s get this over with.”