by Selena Scott
Ansel sighed and tugged his jeans on. Well, that was something they were gonna have to address. And soon. But right now, it was the middle of the night and he had to get this woman home and into bed.
“Let’s go home.”
“Alright.” She turned a slow circle and squinted through the trees, trying to get her bearings. “Where the heck are we?”
Ansel chuckled and took her by the shoulders, pointing her in the direction of her house. Then, on second thought, he pointed her a few inches to the right. “Home is over there, but we could go this way first and check on the waterfall.”
Ruby stiffened. She faced him with a very complicated expression on her face. “How did you know I’d want to do that?”
Ansel sighed and started through the forest toward the lagoon, her hand laced with his. Inka followed behind, meandering at her own pace and hoping for glimpses of the stars through the tall trees of the forest. “Because I often check the waterfall, for signs of Griff. And to see if you’ve been there recently. And you always have.”
“I go almost every day,” she admitted and then immediately cast her eyes down. “I’m not sure why. But I think it’s in case the waterfall ever… opens up again. I want to be there.”
Ansel nodded. “Makes sense.”
Ruby scoffed. “No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t make any earthly sense at all! A waterfall that started to glow just long enough to let my brother through? And then closed back up to keep me out.”
Ansel chose his words very carefully as they picked their way through the woods, getting closer and closer. “Ruby, I don’t think it has to make earthly sense. That place? My brother and sisters and I have never liked that place. Something about it makes my skin crawl. And makes me hypnotized and dozy. It’s hard to explain.”
“Really?” She clutched at his arm. “You believe what happened? You think that there’s something magical or… evil about the waterfall?”
Ansel shrugged. “I definitely believe you, but I have no idea about that place. There’s others just like it all around the woods. You can feel them when you get close. And actually, they’re multiplying. Every year there’s a few more. We’ve all started to worry about it. But the waterfall is the strongest. I don’t like to get close. Not more than twenty feet or so.”
Ruby was thoughtful as they stepped out toward the lagoon. There it was, dark and peaceful and creepy as hell in the middle of the night. She’d never been there in the dark before.
She jumped at a sound but realized that it was just Inka behind them. The bear made a small whining sound. Like she wanted to go home.
Ruby stepped forward and Ansel came with her, but when she looked at his facial expression, it alarmed her. His eyes were hooded and strange. Lax and tight at the same time. Her skin tightened as she realized that she’d seen that expression before. On Griff’s face. A second later, Ansel’s look cleared and he peered down at her.
She tugged him further into the clearing. “Griff was swimming over on that side of the lagoon for most of the day.” She pointed to the other side, forty or so feet away from the lagoon. “We’d just found this place. It was our first time coming here. He was swimming around and teasing me and I was setting up lunch right here.”
Ansel was walking along with her but his steps were getting clunkier, a little resistant to her pace.
“In the meantime, Griff had swum to this shore. And when I looked up, he was in a lot of pain. One of his migraines.”
“He got them a lot?” Ansel asked in a harsh, strained voice.
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Since he was eight years old or so.”
Ansel didn’t say anything about that. “Where was he when the waterfall glowed?”
Ruby paced over to the edge of the lagoon that was closest to the waterfall. “Right here, leaning over the edge. And he got out and ran toward it. Maybe because it was faster to get there than swimming around that outcropping? I don’t know. It didn’t make sense. But he wasn’t in his right mind, I don’t think.”
Ansel was taking deep breaths and flexing his hands. “That’s within twenty feet,” he muttered. “Closer than I’ve ever let myself get to it.”
Inka made another whining sound back from the far edge of the lagoon, but it was rougher than before. More command than fear.
Ansel, apparently, chose to ignore his sister. Because he was taking another deep breath, squinting his eyes in concentration and stepping forward.
Nothing happened except his concentration tightened. The set of his shoulders rose up an inch or two.
Another step and another. And then Ansel was standing alongside Ruby. Right where Griff had been when he’d first seen the waterfall.
“Are you alright?” Ruby asked, turning to rub her hands up and down Ansel’s arms. “If this is hurting you we should–”
Ansel held up a hand to stop her talking but Ruby hadn’t needed him to. Because even though he was looking right at it, she’d seen the reflection on his face. The glow.
Ruby turned, quick as a flash, and saw the waterfall lighting up the night. She felt the press of Ansel at her back, the tremble in his body as the waterfall called him forward. And then she felt his arm band around her waist as she took a quavering step forward.
“Griff,” she whispered. And then she catapulted herself toward the waterfall.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A few hours later, Ruby sat with her face in her hands at Ansel’s kitchen table. Kain and Inka sat on either side of her, Ansel stood behind her chair and Milla paced around the kitchen, twirling her car keys on one finger.
“Honestly,” Milla said in that bossy voice of hers. “I don’t see what we all have to be afraid of here! Your proximity opened the… gate, or whatever the waterfall is. But both you and Inka managed to resist the pull of it while you were dragging Ruby away.”
Milla’s eyes flicked to Ruby in something vaguely like distaste, but Ruby didn’t care. She didn’t care at all. The waterfall had opened, she could have gotten to the other side, been that much closer to finding Griff if these two Keto thugs hadn’t dragged her back here.
“Just barely resisted it,” Ansel replied. “The pull is extremely strong. If it had been anyone but Ruby, I don’t think I would have been able to pull back.”
“I think it’s less strong when you’re in bear form,” Inka mused, her tongue poking out of one side of her mouth as she carefully painted her toenails a shade of pink that made Ruby’s eyes hurt. “Because it was hard for me, tempting and all that. But not so bad. I could have resisted it even if Ruby Red wasn’t throwing her life on the altar of, of, you know, whatever.” Inka waved a hand in the air and winked at Ruby, then went back to painting her toenails.
Ruby’s head ached.
“I’m just saying,” Kain started and Ruby almost groaned; he’d been making this same argument for the last ten minutes and honestly, Ruby didn’t care. She didn’t care at all. She just wanted these bear shifters to get the hell out of her way so she could go find her dang brother. “It’s a completely unknown entity! We don’t know what’s on the other side. Or WHO. We’re stronger when we’re all together. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t all go!”
“Look,” Ruby said, her voice quiet but decisive. All eyes in the room turned to her. “This doesn’t have to be that complicated. I’m not asking anyone to go with me. All I need is for one of you to come along and open the gate.”
“No,” all four Keto siblings said at once.
“We’re obviously not letting you go alone,” Milla flicked a dismissive hand at Ruby. “You’re just a human.”
Ruby’s mouth dropped open, stunned insult filtering through her. “Is that what you think?” she turned in her seat to demand of Ansel. “That I’m just a weak, useless human who can’t fend for herself? That’s why you won’t even consider letting me go on my own?”
“Of course not,” Ansel immediately replied. “I’m not letting you go on your own because I’m in love with you.” Comple
tely oblivious to the way the rest of the room came screeching to a halt, including Ruby’s heart. Ansel turned back to his brother. “The reason it makes sense for some of us to stay behind is because we don’t know how the gate works from the other side. What if we need one of us to open it from the lagoon side in order to get back through?”
Kain tore his eyes from Ruby’s flabbergasted face. He fought back the grin on his face. Either his brother was in for a very good night tonight or a very rough night tonight. “Fine, that makes sense, but Ansel, EVERYTHING is an unknown in this situation. We’re pretty much talking about another world. And splitting up makes me nervous as hell.”
“Fair enough.” Ansel nodded his head at his brother but he didn’t change his stance. “Milla, you should come with me. In case something goes down, we’ll need to fight.”
Now Kain stalked away from the table, straight out of the kitchen, his hands in the air. “You can’t tell this asshole anything!”
Milla grinned viciously. “I think he didn’t like you saying that I’m a better fighter than he is.”
Ansel blinked. “Is he an idiot? Of course you’re a better fighter than he is. He’s faster. But you’re better.”
Now Milla was scowling. “He is NOT faster–”
“What’ll my job be?” Inka asked as she finished up her last toenail. She screwed the cap back on the bottle and wiggled her toes, blinking up at Ansel.
“I think you should stay as close to the waterfall as you possibly can,” Ruby said, cutting into Ansel’s plan. While the siblings had been arguing, she’d been thinking this through.
“Oohhh,” Inka shivered dramatically. “But I hate that place.”
“I know,” Ruby acknowledged. “But right now, you and Ansel are for sure the only ones who can make the waterfall glow. It would make sense that the others can do it, too, but you never know. So we’ll need you on this side, making sure it’s open if we need to come back through.”
“Well…” Inka said, her eyes trailing across the kitchen wall and toward the fridge. A fly buzzed on the light fixture at the center of the ceiling and she followed its path.
“Inka!” Milla snapped, clapping her hands together.
Inka jumped. “Oh! Right. Yeah. Sure, I’ll keep watch from this side.”
“And Kain will… keep you company,” Ruby added diplomatically. Though she was really hoping that Kain would keep Inka from wandering through the waterfall herself.
“Okay, so,” Ruby said, standing up, “let’s go.”
“Not tonight,” Milla shook her head vehemently.
“What?” Ruby really wasn’t sure if she liked Ansel’s militant sister.
“It’s four a.m. We’re all wired and exhausted, I drove all the way from New York City. We need to rest. There’s no reason to go into this haphazard.”
Ruby sagged. She knew that was right. But for the first time in a year, she actually had hope that she’d be seeing her brother again. And now she was just supposed to wait? That sounded terrible. Utterly terrible.
“She’s right,” Ansel said, landing a warm hand on her back. “We need to rest.”
Inka rose from the table and yawned exaggeratedly. “Milla, wanna sleep at my place?”
Milla, who was halfway into ass-kicking mode, softened at her sister’s sweet question. “You got it, babe.”
“Gimme a ride, Mill!” Kain called as he reentered the room, obviously cooled down a little. “I’m too tired to shift again.”
Ruby sank back to her seat at the table, barely able to pay attention as the siblings bid each other goodbye. She was aware of a few tense words between Ansel and Kain that dissolved into reluctant chuckles. She heard the sounds of a back-slapping man hug. And then the kitchen went quiet. And she and Ansel were alone. In his house again.
She’d left here this morning thinking that she was slowly gonna find her way to some new kind of happiness. She’d been dizzy with newness. And now, the entirety of her year was crashing down around her ears, practically suffocating her.
Ansel scooped her up from her seat and carried her through to the bedroom. “Let’s get you some shut-eye.”
“I can’t sleep, Ansel,” she said hollowly. “Griff is out there. And I know how to get to him!”
“You won’t do any good tonight, trust me. Rest up and we’ll go in full steam tomorrow.”
“I won’t be able to sleep,” she repeated as he sat her on the edge of the bed.
Without waiting, Ansel stripped her tank top right off of her. He shoved her back on the bed and slid her pajama pants off. She lay there with nothing but an open mouth and a pair of white panties.
“Is that a challenge?” he asked. “I’ll bet I could put you to sleep.”
“Ansel,” she started, but she fell back on a moan when he dropped to his knees and yanked her panties to one side, licking gently up her crease. She was learning that this was his chosen way to go down on her, no preamble. Just diving right in.
She thought about resisting for about another half second before his lips closed around her clit and he gave her a solid suck. When his tongue inched back down and burrowed into her pussy, he teased wetness out of her, made her back arch.
Ruby’s mouth fell open and her hands tightened on the bedsheets as she chased her release. He was right. He was gonna make her come in a second and all her tension was gonna melt right out of her and she’d fall asleep. She knew without a doubt that that was the case. And suddenly, that wasn’t what she wanted. She loved that he was a giver. That he restrained himself and held himself back and withheld from his own release. But that was not in the cards for him tonight.
No. Tonight had been the strangest night of her life. And she was about to make it even more memorable.
Though it damn near killed her, Ruby planted her hands and slid backwards from Ansel, onto the middle of the bed. She rose, kicking her underwear off and then sat down, her legs folded under her.
He eyed her from where he crouched at the edge of the bed. When he swung a hand out for her, presumably to drag her back into heaven, Ruby batted his hand away.
“You said you loved me.” Her voice was serious and sure. Strong.
Ansel froze; his eyes searched hers for a second and seemed to understand what he saw. He rose to the side of the bed and peeled his shirt off, flicked it to the side. “Yeah.”
Ruby folded her arms over her naked chest. “You said you were in love with me.”
Next came Ansel’s pants and he shucked them off. “Yeah.”
“And that was the God’s honest truth?” Her tone was sharp, clear.
Last were his underwear. They were gone and he was crawling over the bed and straight over top Ruby. She suddenly found herself trapped under a very large man who was staring down at her more intensely than ever before. “Truth,” he admitted.
Ruby’s breaths were coming in gasps. Her eyes searching his.
“I suppose you’re looking for some proof, darlin’? That you want me to show you exactly how I feel?”
“I want you to make love to me.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “I know.”
Ansel put a hand on one of her knees and spread her wide. He dropped his hand to her pussy. He cupped her.
“But there’s something you should know before I do.” His voice was so gravelly she had trouble hearing him.
“What?” she asked, her breaths making that one word have two parts to it.
“Once you let me in here, it’s mine. Nobody else’s. I’m a patient man, Ruby. I’m a gentle man. But,” he lowered his mouth and gave her a bite along her collarbone to punctuate each of his next words. “I. Don’t. Share.”
Ruby gasped and couldn’t help but open her legs even wider. She tried to keep her wits about her. “Ansel, I– of course I wouldn’t be with anyone else. I know we haven’t talked about it, but of course we’re exclusive.”
“Exclusive?” he laughed at her word choice. “Oh, darlin’,” he muttered against the skin of
her breast, tugging her nipple into his mouth. “You don’t get it. But you will.”
And then she was gasping as he drew the head of his very large cock through her heat, not pressing inside, just playing in her wetness, circling her clit.
“Oh, God,” she moaned and he pulled away.
He chuckled as he slid down her body, anchoring her legs over his shoulders. “I gotta get you ready for me,” he said as he flicked his tongue over her clit and then circled it inside her. “Darlin’,” he grinned up at her, “you’re gonna lose count.”
And she did. She didn’t just lose count as Ansel sucked and ate at her. She lost sense of time and space. She barely understood what parts of her body were hers and what was his. Everything was his. He surrounded her, played her like an instrument. She started on her back but ended up over him, one hand in his hair as he gripped her thighs and brought her right down onto his mouth.
It was a new position but Ruby was blown away. She could watch his face as he ate her to within an inch of her life. She’d never seen anything like that before. Pleasure and desire furrowed his brow, burned in his eyes as he stared at her body, the way her hips moved, the bounce of her breasts. His tongue swirled and sucked and he growled directly into her when Ruby’s back arched yet again. This was her third? Fourth? Fifth? And sure enough, another was hot on the heels of the last one. She fell forward onto her hands and knees as her strength started to wane.
He kept her there, on all fours as he slid out from in between her legs. His large hand smoothed over her back and she felt the fronts of his thighs press against the backs of hers. When Ruby ducked her head, she looked under to see his huge cock between her legs. He ground his pubic bone flat against her pussy, but his cock, straining and veined, smacked up against her stomach.
It was the first time she’d ever seen it against her body, the scale of it, and Ruby quaked. “Oh God, Ansel,” she whispered.
She turned to catch his eye and he shook his head, immediately reading her trepidation there. “That’s for me to worry about, darlin’. Not you.”