His hand leaving her body should have made her feel empty, but her heart, her mind, and her body understood the moment was temporary.
His body joined hers slowly, and she never once let go of her hold on his face. She wanted him to know that he was getting her all. She wanted him to know that as much as he was giving, she was giving as well.
Sex wasn’t just sex for them.
She felt it as soon as he did. Their union was like the jogs they shared. Symbiotic synchronicity. Power. Joy. Freedom. Emotions one-hundredfold, but tempered by the grounding power of not just the emotion of love, but the act of love.
Her rainbow colors reached for him and she saw his pupils expand until his eyes were almost black. His own hunter green and dark brown aura reached for hers as well, comforting and natural. Jesus, her Nicky was so different. And beautiful. So fucking beautiful, everything in her claimed him while he moved inside of her.
His pace increased and she felt him get warmer. Her own body responded with delicious stretches of muscles as the two lovers met each other thrust for thrust, her breasts meshing to his chest, but still slightly bouncing as Eire and Nicky let the glide, the motion, the run, the joy fill them and spill over.
She felt their Darkness before he did. She knew this because he was almost shocked, like their Darkness was an intrusion he didn’t want.
She felt a pang in her heart at the rejection, but his questioning eyes suggested he didn’t even know what he’d done.
He hadn’t even known he’d had that Darkness. Why should it be a surprise to her that he’d bat it away in the moment that they should have connected even more deeply?
He wasn’t ready.
And part of her change was learning to accept what was.
She couldn’t change everything.
A piece of her was just so heartbroken because she felt the urgency. They didn’t have much longer.
She would face her father and her grandmother soon. But she wouldn’t bring them into this moment.
She closed her eyes, practicing crazy Ginny’s method of acceptance.
She let her Darkness out, let it seek his own, and it touched his, but they would not fully connect until Nicky could accept his whole history. It was like he’d glossed over it. He was not just Clan. He was of Titania. And not just created by Titania like Titania’s mother, Morrigan, had created the Fae. No, he had literally been birthed by her, ancestrally speaking.
The Darkness rolled over Eire, and she breathed out as her eyes opened again.
The tension built once more and she felt her climax crash against her walls, against her body, against her heart and mind as she let go of her anxiety and fear and anger and worry, and she allowed Nicky to have her everything. Even the parts he didn’t know he held. Like her Darkness.
His own release started with hers, and he ground his hips up into hers, trying to get as close to her as he could.
When they were both spent, their foreheads touched in communion. Not in a communion of souls, but Eire knew, if there was time enough, it would happen. He’d accept his own Darkness, and they would mate for real. Because he was hers. And she was his, just like he had claimed a couple months ago. They were fated mates. But she would wait for him to realize that, with their particular history, their union would be different than the traditional Clan or even the Other matings. Because both sides of the Histories were clear, Clan and Other couldn’t mate. Eire and Nicky weren’t exactly normal, though, were they?
“Damn,” Nicky said, not moving his body from her own, “that was fucking amazing, Vanilla.” Then, he gave her a cheeky grin, and she about melted. She did have an effect on his playfulness. “But yeah, Eire, you’re going to be late to Girls’ Night if we do this again.”
Her smile dipped. Fuck. “Shit,” she said, lifting herself from the couch. When he left her body, she felt him harden at the retreat. Well, good.
She had to experience one of Hades various levels of the Underworld tonight.
So, did he.
“Serves you right.” She looked at his dick and then looked back up at him with a smirk she knew was slightly evil.
“Now, Vanilla, that’s just cold.” She didn’t take offense. She was still cold. She always would be. She just wasn’t ice. She was magic. She was power. And she loved that he at least still recognized that in her and still admired that part of her.
She murmured her agreement, smile intact, and walked to the bathroom. Before she went inside, though, she stood at the doorway and turned around.
“Hey, wolfman,” Eire said as he stood.
He answered with a smile like he thought there would be more sex. They shared a stronger connection now. She could feel it. He’d mistake this for a mating bond. She’d need to tell him that it wasn’t. That they hadn’t fully connected and why, but she’d wait. He needed this little bit of hope for now.
“It was,” she said, her smile lighting up her face. She could feel the smile from her head to her toes in a way she’d never felt happiness before. “It was fucking amazing.”
His own answering smile was like the sunshine that split through the clouds after days of rain. Her toes curled, and she cursed Girls’ Night.
Eire hopped in the shower. The water cleansed her skin, but her mind was so totally on all the dirty things she could do to the man out in the large front room of the yurt, probably still naked and yummy, and fuck.
Yes. Exactly.
Fucking Girls’ Night.
Fuck Alexia’s decree.
They were so watching a movie.
She needed something with lots of blood to get her mind off sex.
God, sex with Nicky.
Think about something else, Eire chastised herself.
She let the water cascade down her body, washing away the scent of her wolfman and the woods, and she hated Girls’ Night even more.
She finished up her shower, quickly dressed in the lime green shirt, her jeans, her combat boots, and her green leather jacket. She threw her hair up in her lime green scrunchie, and she opened the flap to the bathroom to find Nicky dressed in his jeans and his black shirt. His work outfit. On a Friday night.
She raised her eyebrow in question.
“Danny called. He thinks he might have a lead on those missing persons cases we’ve been working on recently.” Nicky touched his scar as his jaw ticked. “I’m glad he finally confided in me about what he’s been working on these past few years, but damn. We’ve got near nothing on this, and the kids are all foster kids. Who takes kids?” She went to him and wrapped her arms around his torso letting him feel her comfort.
“I forget sometimes,” Eire said looking up at the strong, tall man in front of her.
“What?” he asked, his gaze questioning as he rubbed her temples. God, his touch felt like everything good.
“That humans can be just as bad as the supernaturals,” she said, letting him soothe her. The Clans had been created by the gods to protect the humans, sometimes from evil and sometimes from themselves. But Jesus, the humans were fucked up mixed bags of Darkness and Light themselves. Sometimes, Eire wondered what the gods had been thinking in creating any of them. She guessed everyone needed something to play with.
“Yeah, Vanilla,” Nicky said, buttoning the cuffs of his black work shirt and giving her a kiss on her forehead. “But, there’s always hope, even in the Darkness. We’ve got Light.” He didn’t see her look. He didn’t see the pain in her eyes she knew was apparent. He’d moved away. But she knew it was there.
He didn’t see the Darkness for what it was.
She was Other.
She did see.
Because she was Darkness, and had always known what she was.
He mistook her mood for depression over the case, she was sure, and the ride on his bike to Carrie’s place was more sedate than usual. She felt the shift in the mood. He was preparing himself for human contact.
She was suddenly looking forward to Girls’ Night and to spending time with someone
other than Nicky. She loved him. Loved him so completely. And she’d tell him so someday, hopefully.
But Carrie understood her, had since that first meeting. Gemini got her because despite being mated to a Luna, she was human. She had a Darkness of her own. Plus, she had that super cool ability to see the music in those around her, and she knew the truth about Darkness.
Ginny got her because Ginny was, well, Ginny. And even though Alexia might deny it, the half-Skröm got her too. They understood Darkness. They accepted that Darkness was a part of them. Something Nicky was unable to do.
She got off the bike, let her mate kiss her, but backed away as he drove off to fight evil, thinking he was fighting Darkness. Her eyes blurred a bit and she blinked, letting the few tears she had fall.
She sensed Ginny and Carrie before they stepped up to either side of her, and there Eire experienced a wash of comfort in their presence, something she hadn’t realized before tonight. A camaraderie. She had people. She might not have all of Nicky, but she was building other relationships.
“So,” Ginny said from her left, “you got laid, huh?”
Carrie’s tinkling laugh sounded from her right, but Carrie had gotten used to laughing in Eire’s presence and she didn’t hide it. Not even when Ginny leaned forward to look to Eire’s right.
“Yep,” Eire answered, letting the joy from her friends engulf her and override her fear and pain. “Totally got laid.”
And for the first time, she was looking forward to Girls’ Night.
Melina Vargas moved slowly from her bed. She felt about eighty years old recently. Not unusual. Not since—
She broke that line of thought, moving robotically through the motions. She wasn’t better. And she wasn’t getting better. And a part of her wondered if this was all physical or if the loss of her power had something to do with the snail-crawl level of healing.
She put one foot after the other down in front of her, feeling the cold floorboards as they touched the bottoms of her feet. The smell of snow invaded her senses and a part of her wanted to crawl right back into bed, wanted to hibernate for the rest of winter. But as broken as she was, she was not dead. She’d made it through worse.
Yes, at the hands of Henry Jones, she had experienced too much.
She lifted herself to a standing position.
Step. By. Step. She would get through this.
Every step to the bathroom hurt, and the pulling of her muscles and tendons had her cringing. She wouldn’t be able to ride her lime green Harley anytime soon. She felt a crack in her heart, and her breath caught.
Breathe, sweetie, she thought to herself. Just breathe. You’ve got this.
Movements. She had to focus on each movement. Stay in that moment. Not think beyond that. She couldn’t think beyond this moment.
She walked into the bathroom attached to the bedroom. Alexia had emptied the room for her, had actually cleared out of the whole trailer when they’d moved into their own.
What Melina didn’t say, but what they all knew, was that she felt comfortable there. Cam was a beautiful memory. He’d changed his senior year of high school and had hurt her deeply when he’d broken up with her, but she’d been a couple years younger, and her family had moved not long after. She’d had other boyfriends, but none like Cam. Cam had taken care of her, loved her, and despite his sort of lanky features, she’d felt safe with him. Protected. So yes, he’d hurt her, but what she’d experienced later, what she’d been through the past almost twelve years had taken everything from her.
The memory of Cam kept her head above water. Kept her sane. Kept her from breaking at every moment.
Breaking. She was broken. So fucking broken, and it was all because of Henry Jones.
A vision of his face swam into view, the mirror in the memory as he moved behind her, painting his features in an even more grotesque and sloppy fashion, making him look monstrous.
Melina made fists at her side, tensing up her body and bringing those fists to her temples in an attempt to beat the memories out of her head.
The pain stopped her. She’d taught herself. She couldn’t get lost in the memories.
When Henry Jones had his fun, she escaped to another world, but every other moment of her life was spent in the present. Spent living day to day. Spent experiencing any joy she could.
She couldn’t afford to fall into the pain.
She needed to focus on the moment.
Breathe.
Pick up your toothbrush.
Spread the toothpaste on the brush. Lift the brush your mouth. Scrub at your gums gently for two minutes. Sing a song. Sing any song.
Hurt, broken—
Move past that thought.
Sing a song. Sing any song.
She moved through each motion until she stood at the back porch door looking out onto the cabin, the trailers, and the large Lodge.
Her hand touched the knob, the cold of the glass door brushing her fingertips, and she let her hand sit there. Let herself feel the cold.
She could do this. She could do this.
Left for dead. Abandoned—
She heard the sound of a motorcycle as it made its way up the main drive, and she saw the woman get off the back. Melina’s other hand went against the glass as she watched two women, Ginny and Carrie, join the woman who had once been her friend from childhood.
Eire Donovan.
Melina wanted to cry at just the sound of the name in her head. But crying would do nothing for her right now. She needed courage.
Like an animal in a cage, she watched as all three turned on their heels in unison, making their way toward Carrie’s cabin, laughing. She saw Gemini and Alexia talking in the living room, drinking wine, Ben and Jerry’s containers already out and half eaten as Eire, Carrie, and Ginny walked through the front door.
Alexia had asked her to come. She didn’t need to have her face against the glass door of Cam’s trailer. But it was so symbolic of where she was.
She was the outsider looking in.
She watched as Eire’s face scrunched up in imagined anger and then faded quickly into laughter. She watched as Carrie took two lasagnas out of the oven, one of which she knew was for Danny. She’d been paying attention.
She watched as Gemini grabbed the movies from Eire’s hands and threw them into the corner. She watched as Alexia and Carrie held Eire back from Gemini, who instead of looking scared was bent over in laughter making gestures with her hands and kissing the air. She watched as Eire too started laughing and the other girls let her go all while Ginny spun around the room also making kissy faces.
She was paying such close attention to the scene across the way that she didn’t notice the movement of a man moving into view until it was too late.
She jumped back from the window, her body shaking as she crouched on the ground.
Breathe.
In the moment. Stay in the moment.
She let her gaze, which had fallen to the ground lift back up toward the window and she saw a figure in her doorway, and for a moment, she thought maybe Cam was there, that maybe she was saved, that maybe she could go back to that time so long ago. But as she broke down the man’s features, she realized there were actually two men, and she smiled.
Most men scared her, but not the men of this mountain. Nicky who was all quiet strength and who loved her childhood friend. Danny, who always made her laugh. Matt and Devon who loved, protected, and stood by their mates, helping the women in their lives grow stronger rather than stealing their strength.
And then there were the two men waiting patiently at the sliding glass door of her trailer. Ben, despite or maybe because of his quiet demeanor, and Damon Trappe had been her two favorite visitors this past month and a half. Apparently, before her appearance, Ben had hidden out in his own trailer when he wasn’t jonesing for a fight, and she felt even more strongly about her growing friendship with the man because of that fact.
No, none of the men on this mountain were anything like Hen
ry Jones.
She stood slowly, wiping down her clothes, even though she hadn’t gotten them dirty, and straightened to her 5’5” height.
She walked gingerly toward the door, not letting herself show the severity of her injuries. They knew of course. She’d heard Eire worry time and again that her Stone wouldn’t heal Melina just yet. Eire still had hope, at least it sounded that way from the conversations Melina had overheard. Hope in healing her physically. Melina and everyone else knew her Azima power was gone.
She tried to unlock the door as she looked at the men, but it wouldn’t budge.
Breathe. Focus.
Her hands were shaking, so she took a breath, and then another, and then another, until she was entirely focused on her hands undoing the latch and stepping back. Neither man walked in. The room was large enough. She wouldn’t have felt trapped with them, but still, they were thoughtful enough to see that her past trauma was clawing at her.
Would it always claw at her? Would she always feel so on edge?
Hurt. Broken. Torn. Left—
She turned her thoughts to the moment and she raised her chin and met their eyes. She wasn’t a coward.
She was damaged, yes.
She was physically injured.
She had lost her power over her body.
She had lost her Azima gifts.
But she still had herself.
She always had herself.
And the moment.
“What—”
Her voice caught and she cleared her throat to try again. “What’s up, guys?” she asked casually, like they hadn’t seen her broken and damaged and naked just a month and a half earlier.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
Ben looked to Damon, but Damon never looked from her. The intensity in his gaze wasn’t cold like it was with others. No, her boss always looked at her like she was the sole reason he still lived. Heady. Protective. Even better than staying in Cam’s trailer.
Damon was just like that, though. Protective. Kind. Giving. He’d brought on Caleb, their twenty-year-old barkeep, after only a half hour of meeting with him a few months ago. The kid was odd, sure, but he was also sweet.
Rage Against the Devil (Wild Beasts Series Book 2) Page 28