by Alyssa Day
She wasn't the Eva who’d cowered before in the face of Snake’s threats and Noel’s bullying. This is the Eva she'd been before all of that. Willing to stand up for what was right. And Flynn had said he’d die to protect her, so she was pretty sure he was the exact same kind of person, deep down, underneath all that guilt and sadness he was carrying around.
They sped through the dark night, and when they reached her place, she was glad to see that Mrs. M had already left for California. One more innocent out of harm’s way.
"I'll be on your roof again to watch over you –"
"Flynn. No. Come inside and stay with me. I don't want to be alone, sitting around waiting for Snake to call." Even as she said it she realized she really did think of Scott as Snake now. The Scott she'd fallen for could never have put her through the past few years of pursuit and torture. The black magic had twisted him into something unrecognizable, and it was time she acknowledged it.
This time, Flynn took the lead checking out the apartment. When he was sure it was safe, he beckoned for her to come in.
“I'll be in just a minute. I want to stand out here on the porch in the fresh air for a few minutes and call my grandfather." She suddenly was finding it hard to breathe, let alone get the words out, but she managed.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” he said quietly. Flynn, so big and tough and muscular, so hard and deadly, gently touched her cheek and then quietly closed the door between them.
The tears started falling the moment she dialed the phone.
“Eva?”
“Gramps. It’s so good to hear your voice,” she managed, trying her best to sound cheerful.
“Are you okay? You sound funny,” he said, concern clear in his dear voice.
“I am okay, Gramps. I met a man from Atlantis. Well, two men from Atlantis, but one is actually a mage. Anyway, they're so interesting. Maybe sometime I can get them to talk to you about the history. I know you’d like that.”
“You sound more cheerful than you have in a long time, honey, but like you have a cold. Are you sure you’re okay?"
"I think I might actually be okay, Gramps. At least, I'm working on it. I'm working on me. It sounds silly, but I think I’m finding the person I was before--no. I'm finding the person I was meant to be, and I kind of like her."
"I knew you would, sweetheart. Always remember that I love you, and come see an old man pretty soon, okay?"
She had to agree. So, standing there, alone in the moonlight, knowing that there was a very high chance that she was going to die that very night, Eva promised her grandfather that she’d visit soon.
When she ended the call and collapsed in tears, the door opened and strong arms caught her before she could fall.
Flynn lifted Eva into his arms and stepped back into her apartment, kicking the door shut behind him. Then he stood there with an arm full of weeping woman and no idea of what to do with her. He thought kissing her might help, but her hands were covering her face, so she probably wasn't in the mood for that. Dammit.
He wasn't particularly good with women, at least the kind of relationships that lasted longer than a casual week or two. He definitely wasn't good with tears. He'd rather face a rogue vampire, unarmed, then a woman’s tears. “Eva? Honey?" He bent and placed her ever-so-carefully on the edge of her couch and smoothed her hair away from her face. Eva looked up at him, still crying.
He'd seen women before who could cry and still look beautiful.
Eva wasn't one of them.
Her face had turned blotchy, her eyes were red, and her nose was swollen.
Right at that exact moment in time, Flynn felt – actually felt – his heart turn over in his chest.
"When our grandchildren ask how I knew you were the one, I'm going to tell them it's because you looked so bad when you were crying," he blurted out, and then he groaned. “I probably shouldn't have said that.”
Eva slowly blinked, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open. "Are you out of your tiny little Atlantean mind? Also, it's not very nice to tell someone they look bad, even if they do."
She defiantly turned away from him but then immediately ruined her tough-guy act by grabbing for a handful of tissues out of the box on the coffee table.
Flynn, who had either just learned a lesson or been hit over the head with a meteorite, knelt at her feet and put his hands on her knees. "Eva. I'm so sorry. I'm an idiot. Please, for the love of all the gods, stop crying. I'll do anything. Anything at all. Just please stop crying."
She wiped her face one last time and then managed a shaky laugh. Then she took a deep breath and blew it out, sniffling. "I'm sorry about that. I'm usually a lot tougher than this. I've had to be. But talking to Gramps--that was tough."
She blew her nose, loudly, and Flynn had to clench his teeth together to keep from laughing. He knew that wouldn't go over well.
"Part of this is just a reaction to the idea I’m probably going to die tonight,” she said, taking deep, shuddering breaths. "You don't know what it's like to live your life in fear."
Flynn's rage turned cold and deadly. "Neither will you, ever again, even if I have to kill every single one of them to protect you."
She inhaled sharply, but said nothing. Didn’t reach out to him. His heart crashed inside his chest, but he had to let her take control. Of course she wouldn’t want any kind of intimacy now, not even a hug, not with what was coming next.
He glanced at the clock. "It's midnight. Monkey said they’d call at three. You should try to get some sleep."
"I know I'm not going to be able to sleep, and I don't even want to try. There's only one thing I want." She put her hands on his face and drew his head toward her. "I want you. Now.”
He forced himself to resist the urge to pick her up and carry her immediately to her bed. “Eva, you don’t--"
She put her fingers on his lips. “There's a chance that whatever happens in in the next three hours will be the last good memory I ever make in my life. Make love to me, Flynn. Make it my best memory."
He was driving her out of her mind.
Flynn had scooped her up off the couch, carried her to the small bedroom, and tossed her on the bed, instantly joining here there. Beside her, around her, beneath her, surrounding her. Touching, kissing, holding, stroking. He kissed her and touched her until she thought she’d go insane from wanting him, and they hadn't even yet undressed. She finally demanded that he take his clothes off and he shed them in seconds but stopped her when she tried to remove her own.
"Oh no, mi Amara. I want to unwrap you like the gift you are for me." Now, maybe half an hour later, she was down to her bra and panties. It was taking so long because he insisted on kissing every square inch of skin as he unveiled it. She lay trembling on the bed next to him, aching with desire, clutching his shoulders and moaning.
She was wetter and hotter than she'd ever been in her life, and every time his fingers skimmed the insides of her thighs, her hips bucked involuntarily against his hand.
"Please touch me," she begged. "Flynn. Touch me now."
He laughed, but his dark eyes were glowing with such stark, raw desire that she felt as if she were melting under the weight of his gaze. He finally slipped his fingers beneath the fabric of her panties, and she cried out. He took that as an invitation and stroked down her center and then pushed his fingers just a little way inside her, causing her to arch her body and moan.
"Please, please, please, please," she begged, tossing her head back and forth on the pillows.
"Is this what you want?" He started stroking her with his fingers; smoothing her own hot wetness against her clit, and in seconds she was coming apart under his hand.
"That's it. Come for me,” he said with dark, fierce triumph. “I'm going to make you come again and again, with my hands, and with my mouth. You’re going to come so hard you don't know which is up and which is down, and then-- only then--I'm going to fuck you so hard you shatter, screaming my name.
"Yes," she ans
wered. "Yes, yes, yes.
Every touch was a revelation, every caress a rapture. He sent her soaring, skating, dancing down the silver knife's edge of a desire so fierce it was almost pain. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anyone in her life, and she could tell from his words and his touches that he felt the same way.
He tore off her panties and slid her bra down her arms, and now she lay nude, writhing in the bed, clutching his shoulder with one hand and wrapping her other hand around the silken hardness of his very large erection. He kissed her again and then, in one quick motion, he slid down her body and put his mouth on her. His tongue swirled over her once, twice, and then he sucked hard on her clit and she shattered. Every nerve ending in her body lit up, a chain reaction of pure, electric sensation, and she screamed.
Before the spasms had even died down, he climbed up her body and shoved her thighs apart with his knee. He held himself over her, and she could see the strain in his face. He'd held back and showed so much restraint.
So much control.
Now it was her turn to shatter him.
“I need you now," he said roughly. "Please, please tell me yes."
"Yes, she said. "Yes. Now."
With that, his control broke into a million pieces. She watched it happen. She watched his face as he drove forward, thrusting into her so hard she felt him in her soul.
"Never going to let you go," he said, over and over and over. "Never. Not ever."
"I never want you to." She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss, and on his next hard, deep thrust, she flew apart again, clenching and convulsing around him. She could feel his hardness deep inside her, so deep, and when he exploded in turn, she caught him when he went up and over.
This time, it was Flynn who shouted her name.
At exactly three a.m., Snake called.
9
Flynn didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. He’d give anything for an idea—any idea—that would get him inside that copper mine without Eva. But Snake had agreed, almost too eagerly, to bring Flynn into the inner circle in exchange for Eva.
Now all that was left was to drive to the mine.
Eva was so pale that each individual freckle stood out like a scar on the porcelain of her face.
“Eva--"
“No. There’s no other way.” She brushed by him in the doorway and ran down the steps.
Flynn was a broken man. How could he allow her to go into danger?
How could he not?
They had a twenty-minute drive to the mine. Surely, please, gods, he could think of something—anything—in twenty minutes. He swallowed, hard, and then started down the steps after her.
“Flynn,” she said, but her voice sounded wrong; terrified.
He realized he’d been a fool. They’d been ambushed.
He leapt over the side of the railing and landed just in front of Eva, between her and the threats ranged around them. Monkey, another thug, and Zach were all there.
“Snake?” he asked.
“No, I don’t know who that is,” Eva said, her voice shaking.
“I’m Rock, pretty lady,” the thug said, showing them his blackened teeth.
Flynn flicked a contemptuous look at the moron. “As in ‘dumb as a’?”
It took Rock a minute, but then he snarled and started forward, exactly as Flynn had hoped. Fights were always easier when you divided and conquered.
“Cut it out, Rock,” Monkey ordered. “Safety in numbers. All right, loser. Hand over the woman. You’re outnumbered.”
Flynn smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. Monkey flinched at the sight of it.
"Not a chance, you bunch of losers. I said I'd give her to Snake, and only Snake. We had a deal. I get patched into the Dark Angels, and he gets the woman." Flynn didn’t have to try to fake the rage in his voice. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done in his life, calling Eva "the woman" less than an hour after she’d been coming apart in his arms.
He had to save her. How could even be doing this to her? What kind of monster was he?
But Kyla's face, contorted in agony, flashed into his mind. They just had to rescue those girls, take down Snake and Narco, and get out alive. Then they’d have the rest of their lives to learn everything about each other. To spend night after night after night in each other's arms.
He forced his face to an expressionless mask, grabbing Eva too hard by the arm. He shoved her further behind him. "If you want her, come and get her."
"Sure about that?" Monkey taunted him. "The odds aren't good."
Flynn shrugged. "Yeah, you're right. You should've brought more men."
With that, the Dark Angels attacked. Monkey and Rock closed on Flynn, and Zach circled behind him to catch Eva, who'd been trying to make a break for it and run to her car.
He thought – he hoped – that Zach really was on his side. If so, Zach was the best one to capture Eva.
Just as he thought it, she screamed behind him. When he whipped his head to the left to see what was happening, Rock smashed his massive fist into the side of Flynn’s face. Flynn didn't go down, not all the way, but he staggered back several steps and bounced off the side of the garage wall.
Okay, that was gonna leave a mark.
"You can still back down, asshole, but this is your last chance." Monkey said dancing around just out of Flynn's reach and tossing a blade from hand to hand. Who knew if the idiot actually knew how to use one? Better to assume he did.
Eva screamed again, and the sound galvanized Flynn into action, in spite of the ringing in his skull. Just in time, too. Rock pulled a pistol from his side holster and Flynn figured that meant his “last chance" was officially over. He launched himself at Rock, calling to the power of his water magic to propel him forward with superhuman speed. He knocked the gun out of Rock’s hand so hard he heard the man’s wrist bone crack. The gun went flying.
Flynn did a somersault over Rock’s head, hit the ground, and bounced back up into a spinning kick that took the man just under his left ear. That was the end of Rock.
He turned to Monkey, who was aiming a pistol directly at him.
"Enough fun and games,” Monkey snarled. “You're dead now, and I bet Snake rewards me by letting me have some fun with your woman before he kills her."
"Yeah, I don't think so,” said a new voice from behind Flynn. "Down, now."
It was Jake, of course. Somehow, he must've gotten away from the Dark Angels for long enough to follow Monkey to Eva's place.
Flynn hit the ground, and an ice spear shot through the air exactly where he’d been standing and struck Monkey in the shoulder, causing the pistol shot to go wide. Before he could take aim again, Flynn was up off the ground and on him, smashing his fist into the man’s face with every ounce of power he had. Monkey flew backward through the air about six feet and landed, hard, and his gun flew off through the air.
Flynn turned and started for Eva. She was perfectly fine, though, standing next to Zach and rubbing her arm where Flynn had grabbed her too hard. He felt an overwhelming wave of shame that nearly knocked him to his knees.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "I had to put on an act. They wouldn't believe I was keeping you if I–"
But Eva wasn't listening. She ran across the distance between them and jumped into his arms. "I thought you were dead. I thought they were going to shoot you, and I would have to watch you die right in front of my eyes. Never, ever do that to me again."
Flynn held on as tight as he could until Eva raised her head and smiled. "I do still have to breathe, big guy."
He stopped crushing her in his embrace, but kept his arm around her waist and turned to face Zach, who’d claimed to be an undercover operative. Evidently it had been the truth. Jake was securing Monkey and Rock with zip ties and gags, which meant they must have both survived. Too bad.
"Okay, Zach, if that's really your name, what's the deal?"
Zach's eyes narrowed when he heard Flynn's harsh tone. "Ye
s, he said shortly. "Zach is my name. Zachary Ford, Special Agent, FBI, P-Ops division. I've been undercover with the Dark Angels for months, and they finally let me into the inner circle today. I think that's only because they needed more manpower for their nasty rites.”
He scanned the group. “Bottom line: I know where the girls are."
"They’re inside the copper mine," Eva said. "We told you last night. The copper masks any magic being used, and what better place to hide people than in what's basically a hole in the ground?"
Zach shot an admiring glance at Eva, and Flynn contemplated the wisdom of smashing a federal agent into the side of the building.
Maybe later.
"Perhaps you should join my team, Ms. Calandar, because it took us a while to come to see that one. And, yes, your tip last night helped us find the right place. It's not the mine in use, either. That would be too easy."
"Of course. It's one of the old abandoned mines. One that's played out, or at least people thought it was played out," Flynn said, groaning. "Do you know where it is?"
"He had help," an arrogant voice drawled from above their heads.
Flynn looked up to see Griffin materialize from mist and float gently to the ground. When he landed, he was already walking toward them.
"That's really cool," Eva said, and Griffin smiled at her.
Flynn hadn’t know the mage knew how to smile that widely. He glared at Griffin and made a growling noise in his throat. Maybe he could do a twofer and smash the FBI agent’s head against the mage’s.
He’d let Jake live. Jake was helpful.
"When are we going?" Everybody looked at Eva, who'd asked the question in a quiet but steady voice. “We know where they are. You have me. Zach's on the inside. It's time to go get those girls."
Flynn thought he'd never been more in awe of any person—man or woman—ever in his life than he was of Eva and her incredible courage.
"We go now," Zach said, his face grim. “They're planning to start some of what they call the ‘lesser sacrifices’ an hour from now. They've kept the girls safe and sequestered until now. Innocents always makes the best sacrifices, don't you know?" Zach turned his head and spit on the ground as if trying to get a foul taste out of his mouth.