“I’ve fallen in love with someone strong and brave. Someone willing to stick her neck out for people she doesn’t really know because she thinks she can help them. She’s beautiful and has a rockin’ body, and our chemistry is through the roof—with or without energy influence.”
Riley’s hands tightened on his sleeves, the need to kiss him practically killing her. But he hadn’t said what he wanted. So she waited, standing still.
“But what I really love is how she loves me. With so much going on, she was the only one who cared more about my well being than about anyone else. I don’t know if she knew I saw it, and I never thanked her.”
“Of course you did!”
He pressed a finger to her mouth. She held still again, not wanting him to move it away, and knowing she’d derail everything if she gave in to the impulse to lick it.
“I want you.” He shrugged. “That’s what it comes down to. The reasons don’t matter, and everything around us doesn’t touch that truth. The first thought in my head when I woke up tonight was that you weren’t there, and I needed you next to me. I want you to be mine, Riley.”
She leaned forward until their bodies touched. “I am yours, Sam. I have been since the moment you set that disgusting Pepsi on the table.”
He chuckled on his way down to her mouth. Halfway there, the amusement fell away, taking everything but the intensity of their need. His hands molded her body against him, and despite his ridiculous height, they fit together perfectly. Their lips were warm when they met, their tongues gliding into each other’s mouths. It was a kiss of promise, of exploration, of hope.
Riley knew that in a few minutes they’d have to go inside and face a million decisions, a hundred challenges that would both test and strengthen their relationship. But that could wait. Right now, all she needed was right here.
Epilogue
Marley slipped out of the apartment after everyone had wound down and gone to bed. She’d have done it sooner—right after she left the dinner table—except she didn’t want to risk anyone trying to stop her. It was obvious no one knew what to say after she left the table, and she was glad. The responsibility for everything that had happened today—for the last three years, actually—fell completely on her.
None of them seemed to know what had happened to Sam, and she was glad. Because she knew. She’d felt it happen. Hadn’t believed it, except it had marked her as surely as the transfers had marked Sam. Tanda and Riley said there was no trace of the power left in him, but they weren’t quite right. There was a scar, but Marley suspected only she could see it. If anyone had asked her to describe it, she’d have compared it to surgery to remove something diseased or destructive, like a tumor. It marked him by its absence rather than by a lingering presence.
Null. The word echoed in her head, knocking around until it should have been meaningless. But it was just the opposite. It was the rest of her life.
Quinn and Nick went to bed first, and Marley stayed locked in the bathroom until Sam and Riley left to get a hotel room. No secret why, though they claimed it was to relieve the burden on Tanda and free up some space. John left with them, heading back to D.C. to prepare for Nick to take over as head of the Protectorate. He’d been gleeful about telling Jeannine that Quinn would accept the Society presidency in a couple of months, when the current term was up.
Marley tried to be happy for her sister and Nick, and for Sam and Riley, but she couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t feel much of anything, actually. She silently gathered the few things she’d brought with her, snuck through the still apartment, and went out to the street to catch a cab to the airport. She’d go back to her inn first. She missed Maine, longed to be home at least until she could sell it. Luckily, a developer had poked at her a couple of times a year, feeling her out. He’d probably snap it up if she said she was ready.
After that…
A few days ago, she’d obeyed Sam when he told her to stand back. Pointed the way for Nick and John, and stood in the hall crying while she listened to her sister scream and people fight, knowing she’d only be another liability if she went in there. When the Numina men and boys had streamed out of the apartment, not a single one of them had looked at her, never mind considered her a threat.
Well, she was done with that. Done with being helpless. Done with being a victim. Done with struggling to make up to everyone else for a mistake she’d already paid for. Things had changed, and somehow, she’d been given a gift. Or a curse. Probably both.
When Sam had flailed around on that floor, screaming in the depths of hell, Marley had reached to touch him, knowing she couldn’t soothe or heal any more than the others could. But the instant her hand brushed his face, everything stopped. The power doing so much damage disappeared. One second it was there, the next it was gone. And not just hers. Beth’s power, the little bit remaining, had gone with it.
Quinn said it was impossible, but Marley knew it wasn’t. She’d felt it happen.
She’d caused it.
Giving Anson power had damaged her vessel, her ability to channel energy through crystals. Maybe the damage would have been barely noticeable if Anson hadn’t later leeched her. But when he sucked all the capacity out of her, he’d created something new. He’d carved an emptiness into her that wasn’t static, as she’d always thought. It had a purpose. Or at least, she could give it one.
She’d have to research it, but she suspected she’d find no one else had ever been what she now was. A null. A black hole. She could remove power, energy, ability from someone who wasn’t supposed to have it.
Goddesses were safe, she was sure of it. She’d been around them nonstop for two years, running the educational and tracking programs. It was only once she touched Sam, struggling against the barbs of her orphaned power, that her ability had gone active. She’d saved him.
And in doing so had saved herself.
Acknowledgments
The Dew Drop Inn, featured briefly in chapter thirteen, was a real place in North Stonington, Connecticut. I took some artistic license, moving it to suit my heroine’s travel route and ignoring the fact that ownership and name had changed. My family often stopped at the Dew Drop on our trips to the beach in Misquamicut every summer, and my mother developed a friendship with Curtis Moussie. These memories are touchstones to the things that were most important in my childhood, and even before I learned that Curtis had passed away and the Dew Drop was demolished, I wanted to pay tribute to them in this book—and by extension, pay tribute to my mother.
Heavy Metal would not be the book it is without Kerri-Leigh Grady, Liz Pelletier, and especially Danielle Poiesz, who somehow drew out of me the story I was trying to tell in the way it really needed to be told. Huge thanks to Liz Pelletier for the amazing cover, and to all the behind the scenes folks along the production line, making sure we come as close to perfection as possible. Finally, thanks to Crystal, Jaime, and Dani—my Entangled publicity team—for their support and hard work in what is, for some of us, the most challenging aspect of being an author.
Megan Hart deserves a massive thanks for taking time out of her own insane schedule to read a draft of this book and provide the cover quote. Smith, Simon, and Bix, thank you for listening to my rants and giddiness and making this journey so much fun, even when it’s frustrating. And thank you, Lisa Mondello, for slapping me upside the head with genuine affection whenever I start spiraling.
Every book I write also owes a great deal to my family. Jim, Dakota, and McKenna, thank you so much for your unwavering support and understanding when I’m lost in my fictional worlds or crazy on deadline. Thank you for celebrating every silly little victory with me, for telling everyone with pride that I’m an author, and for helping me live my dream. I love you.
About the Author
Natalie J. Damschroder writes high-stakes romantic adventure, sometimes with a paranormal bent. Since 2000, she’s published ten novels, seven novellas, and fourteen short stories, many of them exploring magical abilities, but all with a romant
ic core. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her perfect partner of a husband and two daughters who are so amazing, they’ve been dubbed “anti-teenagers.” Learn more about her at her website, www.nataliedamschroder.com, follow her on Twitter @NJDamschroder, or friend her on Facebook at /nataliedamschroder.
Turn the page for a flashback to
the first book in the Goddesses Rising series
Under the Moon by Natalie J. Damschroder
Chapter One
Society views goddesses the same way they view psychics—
most people don’t believe in us, and since there are only about a hundred goddesses in the United States, skeptics rarely have occasion to be proven wrong. Some people have open minds but still no reason to seek to use a goddess’s talents. If you choose a public career as a goddess, you join in the responsibility for image maintenance.
Help us keep public opinion positive.
—The Society for Goddess Education and Defense,
Public Relations Handbook
When Quinn Caldwell’s cell phone rang, she assumed one of her clients needed an appointment or a Society member had a question about next week’s annual meeting. It took her a second to pull her attention from the paperwork on her desk, another three to register the name on the screen.
Nick Jarrett.
Her spark of joy at seeing his name quickly changed to concern. He wouldn’t be calling for anything good. Quinn plugged her ear against the noise from the bar outside her office door, held her breath, and flipped open the phone. “Nick?”
“Quinn.” The rumble of his vintage Charger’s engine harmonized with Nick’s voice. “Service isn’t good out here so just listen.”
She knew it. “What’s wrong?”
“We have a problem. I’m coming early. I’ll explain when I get there. I won’t have a very good cell signal most of the time. I’m at least a day away, so stay close to Sam, and don’t…” His voice cut in and out before disappearing altogether.
Quinn’s skin prickled. She closed the phone, frowning. Nick never came until at least the week before new moon, when she was most vulnerable. In the fifteen years of their relationship, he’d never come a whole week early.
Something big had to be happening.
Quinn was the only goddess whose power source was the full moon, which meant she was only fully able to use her abilities for the seven days around it. As the month waned, she grew more “normal” until the new-moon period, when she had no ability to tap the power. That was when Nick appeared. Never now.
“Who was that?” Sam’s solid, warm hand landed on her shoulder, and he dropped a pile of papers on the desk in front of her. Quinn blinked at the shift from the surreal nature of the phone call to the mundane clutter of her narrow office at the back of Under the Moon, the central-Ohio bar she’d inherited from her father. It was her main business, a connection to the parents who died within months of each other twelve years ago, leaving her without any real family. It also kept her connected to the public between power cycles. The goddesses who made a living with their abilities mostly relied on word of mouth to find clients, and Quinn’s bar, centrally located for locals and travelers, had enough people channeling through it to give her customers for both businesses.
“Nobody,” she said, still lost in thought. She shook off the fog. “I mean, Nick.”
Sam’s eyebrows disappeared under his dark, shaggy bangs. He crossed to his smaller but far more organized desk near the office door. His chair squeaked when he dropped into it. “Nick called you?”
“Yeah. He’s coming early.”
“Great.” Sam glowered and mumbled something under his breath. “Why? The moon is barely waning gibbous.”
“I don’t know. The signal dropped.” She worried her lower lip. Stay close to Sam. Why? The order was protective—and after all, Nick was her protector, so that was his default mode—but what did she need protection from? She rubbed her right forearm, the phantom ache a reminder of the first time Nick had been assigned to her, that “goddess” wasn’t a synonym for “invincible.”
Sam sighed. “When is he getting here?”
“I don’t know that, either.” She rested her head on her hand, her elbow on a pile of folders on her worn oak desktop. The full moon would completely wane by tomorrow, taking most of her power with it, so she’d worked steadily for the last week, using mostly telekinesis and her healing ability to help her clients. She hadn’t slept enough to balance the depletion of her normal energy, and her sluggish brain resisted the apprehension buzzing in her now.
“We’ll have to wait until he shows up, I guess.” She shook off the mental fuzzies and focused on Sam. He watched her, longing mixing with concern in his light brown eyes.
“How long did you sleep?” he asked.
She stifled a yawn. “Seven hours, six minutes.”
He shook his head. “That’s not enough.”
“Gonna have to be. It sounds like we have a full house tonight.”
“It’s busy for a Tuesday,” he acknowledged. Murmurs and laughter mixed with the jukebox music filtering in from the main room. It was still early, too.
“Bets and Katie are both sick, so they probably need us out there.” She stood and stretched, closing her eyes briefly and arching with her arms high. He didn’t answer. “Sam?” She caught him staring at the stretch of skin bared by her sweatshirt and tugged it over the waistband of her jeans. Heat seeped through her, dragging tingles in its wake. Did he notice her skin flush?
He gave himself a little shake and pulled his gaze away. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.” But he scowled.
Quinn propped her hands on her hips. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He sat up and shifted papers on his desk, but she knew it wasn’t “nothing.”
“Sam.”
He sighed. “We need to talk. You’ve put me off all week, and now we’ve got Nick…”
Shit. She had hoped Nick coming early would put an end to this debate. She dragged her cotton apron off the back of her chair and busied herself tying it. “I’d better get to work.”
But Sam didn’t get up. His voice was low and deep when he said, “Why didn’t you come to me?”
Her hands stilled, and she avoided his steady gaze by checking for her order pad and pen. “You know why.”
“I’m still here.” He stood and came around the desk, and she couldn’t help but look at him now. He dwarfed her, filling her vision, his scent flooding her senses, feeding the grinding need she’d battled for weeks. She kept her lids shuttered so he couldn’t see the inevitable dilation of her pupils and take the reaction the wrong way. Her moon lust knew what Sam could give her, her body giving a Pavlovian response to his nearness.
Tapping her power source had a price. As energy flowed through her, it depleted her resources like exercise depleted an athlete. Instead of needing water and vitamins to balance her body, Quinn needed sex. She’d never understood why, but her body had always been recharged by that primal connection to another human being. She hadn’t had that for three months now, and the longer she resisted, the more difficult it got.
So Sam’s long legs, ridged stomach, and broad chest all called to her. Quinn’s hands flexed, anticipating the silk of his shaggy hair bunched in them. Only a few minutes, a voice whispered in her head. That’s all it will take. For balance. A moment of thought, of remembering the heat between them, was enough to make her crave it again. Her mouth watered as she watched Sam’s long-fingered hand track up his chest and around the back of his neck, a move she knew was calculated.
That didn’t matter. She took a step toward him, then forced herself to stop. She’d told Sam three months ago that she wouldn’t use him anymore and had held fast to the decision no matter how willing he was. It had been six years since she’d first had sex with him, and she’d only recently understood the damage they were doing to each other. Sam didn’t believe she could stop, but she had fought the moon lust for nearly twelve weeks. Tomorrow wou
ld end this full-moon cycle; she’d have it completely under control, and it would get easier next month. It had to. Yeah, because it’s been a cakewalk so far. But she didn’t have to convince herself—she had to convince Sam.
“I’ve told you. What we’re doing isn’t fair. You’ve stopped dating, stopped even looking for—” She hesitated, uncertain how to phrase it.
“I don’t need to look for it.” His tone was hard with conviction, and Quinn closed her eyes, despairing.
“That’s my point,” she said. “I’m tying you up, and you deserve better.”
“That’s a matter of debate, and you don’t have to suffer because of it.”
Her laugh didn’t need to be forced. “Not having sex isn’t suffering.”
“For you it is.”
He’d closed the distance between them, and though Quinn knew she didn’t move, her body seemed to surge toward him in agreement. She breathed in the remains of the aftershave he’d used this morning and wavered. He smelled so good.
A shout came from the other side of the paneled door, jerking Quinn out of her trance and replacing it with guilt. She couldn’t give in. Sam cared too much. And so did she, but not in the way he wanted.
“We’ll talk about this later,” she said as the racket outside the door escalated.
“You bet we will.” He set his jaw and opened the door, striding out ahead of her.
Quinn followed, her heart and body aching. She immersed herself in taking drink and snack orders from the bikers crowding around four-tops and stroking cues around the two pool tables, but being busy didn’t distract her mind. When she wasn’t detouring every trip around the room to peer out the front door to see if Nick had arrived, she was fretting over Sam.
He was her best friend and more. The son of a goddess, he’d been fresh out of college when he came to her six years ago looking for a job. He’d designed his education around becoming his mother’s assistant, but she’d died soon after graduation. Sam believed she’d put too much wear and tear on her body using her power to help others. Since he couldn’t save her, he’d found Quinn.
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