She gripped his searing hot flesh and positioned herself over him. Ever so slowly, she slid down. He filled her, like before. That hadn’t changed. Would never change.
“Oh, Leo.” She splayed her hands on his chest and let both of them adjust to the sensation.
“How’d I get so fucking lucky with you?” His hands were at her hips, but he didn’t prod her to move.
She cherished being connected for several heartbeats before his fingers dug into her skin. She rolled her hips, sliding up and down his length, doing her best to tease him for once. The edge had been taken off, but their need for each other hadn’t been dulled.
His firm grip prompted her to go faster until she rode with no sense of rhythm. He demanded, she gave. His body tensed under her and she tossed her head back. They came together, their cries bouncing off the walls, his hot release filling her.
She draped herself over him. Her lingerie was still on, but it was the next best thing to skin on skin. They were messy and she wouldn’t have it any other way. “I love you, my mate.”
“I love you so damn much, Millie.” His arms closed around her as tight as a vise. “I thought I’d lost this, lost you.”
“As much as I’d like to think that listening to me was enough, what finally did it? What changed your mind that there was more to life than that wall?”
He squeezed her close. “Don’t ever doubt your effect on me.” His hold relaxed, but he kept his arms around her. “Bryant told me about Sierra when he was here the other day.” He fell quiet for several moments. “Losing our wings was supposed to be the worst thing that could happen to us. She was supposed to lose everything. Most fallen succumb to despair. She didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m . . . stunned. Humbled. I have my home. I have you. I have my friends—at least Bryant and Odessa, so basically the same as before. I lost a way to move through my world, but I didn’t lose my world. I can adapt,” he huffed. “And then to be told all that by Bryant, as he’s sitting there with angel-fire scars over half his face. I know what that injury did to him. What he thought he lost until Odessa. You. Them. It finally got through to me, I have a life and it’s my choice to live it.”
“I know a lot of this is going to be personal for you. I can’t pretend to think I know how you’ll have to adjust. But don’t shut me out again.” She turned her head so she could hear the steady thump of his heart. “Don’t hide yourself from me.”
“I’m done hiding.” He rubbed her back. He was inside of her and still hard. Her mate had never lacked stamina. He nuzzled her ear and his gruff voice sent shivers down her body. “You need to take that slip off.”
Sierra finished hooking up the monitors Dionna had gladly dumped in the bedroom that Alma had used. The project kept Sierra occupied. This was the last of all of her old equipment. In the last two weeks, she’d been slowly getting it set up and testing its capabilities with where she was at now and what she had to do.
Some of it could use an upgrade. The rest would do. Her mind worked over the various ways she could set up surveillance. Her team would carry out her ideas until the baby was born and then . . . They’d figure out the rest later. That seemed to be the motto of her life now.
There was a knock on the door. She popped her head up from her task. “Jagger. Hi.”
He stayed in the doorway. The desk took up the rest of the space in the room. “Director Vale wanted me to tell you that the senate signed off on everything, including leaving the decision of who would provide the surveillance up to the director.”
She chuckled softly. Smooth way around having to tell them it would be her. She sobered. “I don’t like him risking himself like that for me.”
Jagger lifted a shoulder. “With Felicia on the senate, and Mother, he won’t lose his wings. He might lose his position, but that’s what makes him perfect for it. He could give fuck-all whether they oust him or not.”
Those were probably Director Vale’s own words. “Any word on Harlowe?”
“She asked the director for a shot at hunting Sandeen. Since we have to find him and we’re not exactly a standard warrior team anymore, it’s our next task.”
Which gave Harlowe the perfect excuse to stay away from the safe house. Loss seeped in. Sierra had her team—sort of. They were congenial, and they might double-check her work, keep an eye on her while residual distrust worked its way out. But they were here. It wouldn’t be her and the baby against the world.
Dionna had asked if she planned on staying in the house. Sierra could work from anywhere, but until she had more than a few paychecks in her account, she had no way to move. It was a stable place, and with a baby arriving in a little less than four months, she would stay.
Jagger shoved his hands in the pockets of his black tactical pants. “How’d the appointment go?”
She’d missed her second visit while she was at the club, but they’d called her to fill a cancellation yesterday. “Good. Strong heartbeat. The big ultrasound is next week. Then we’ll know for sure if there’s little wings.”
A smile ghosted over his lips. “I, um, talked to Mother.”
Since Sierra had one thing in common with Jagger’s mother, Chanel Hancock, she dreaded what the subject of their discussion had been. “Oh?”
“I asked her what she would think about Father having kids while he was fallen.” The muscles in his jaw clenched. Had he worked out how he felt about any of this?
Chanel was considered an ice queen in the friendlier circles, a cold bitch to those more daring. “What’d she say?”
“She said Father was a lot of things, but the only thing she thought he ever got right was me, and she didn’t see why that would be different for any other child.” The side of his mouth kicked up. “Provided, of course, their mother was a class act like mine.”
“If this kid is anything like you, Jagger, I’ll be a very lucky mom.”
Moisture shone in his eyes and he cleared his throat. “Yeah, well. Just know that big brother gives a shit. I’m not leaving you alone, Sierra, not this time.”
This would be the time to give him a hug, but they hadn’t been those types of warriors. “Thank you, Jagger.”
“Yeah. Glad to have you back.” He winced. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean. I’m glad, and extremely grateful, to be working with you again.”
He gave a final nod and walked away.
His steps faded quickly. It wasn’t like any of the warriors stomped. She rolled her shoulders. Her back didn’t ache like it used to, but she had to stand for a minute.
As she stretched, voices drifted in. Was Urban here? Bronx? Urban had offered to take her shopping for new clothes, but her leggings and ugly T-shirts still fit. When she earned her own money, she’d buy her own clothing. Dionna had asked what was wrong with what she’d brought, oblivious to the black hole of fashion they’d come from.
Sierra smiled. Dionna hadn’t intentionally set her up with crap clothes after all. The warrior female just didn’t know or care about fashion—and that had lifted a huge brick off Sierra’s shoulders. None of them hated her, except maybe Harlowe, and she understood why.
She swung her arms down and brought her right hand to rest on her belly. It was sticking out more than ever. She rubbed her firm stomach.
“Have you felt it move yet?”
That voice curled around her like a warm blanket in front of a fire. “Boone.”
He stopped in the same place Jagger had been. “I’m sorry I left.”
Her heart swelled so large with hope she was afraid everyone in Sin City would hear it shatter if Boone said no to her next question. “Does that mean you’re back?”
“Do you want me to be?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But I can’t change who or what I am, or what I’m going to do in my life.”
He drifted closer, his steps silent on the ceramic floor, as if he was afraid she’d run him out. “I don’t want you to
. My driving partner put me in my place on the way back to Montana. She said I was a lucky bastard and that I was being stupid.”
More voices spilled into the house from behind Boone. She gave him a questioning look.
He grinned. “That’s probably Urban showing Alma the new puzzle he finished earlier.”
Urban had taken pictures to send to Alma, but since Alma didn’t have a phone, he’d asked Sierra to print them. “You brought Alma?”
“Packed us both up, put the house and cabin up for sale, and came straight here.”
He’d sold his cabin? That place was his refuge. “Boone.” Tears pricked her eyes.
He was there, his arms around her, his soap-and-pine scent surrounding her, his lips buried in her hair. It’d grown long enough since she’d fallen that the ends were turning black. And she was letting them. She was in a realm where two-toned hair was pretty tame.
“Don’t cry, Sierra. I just wanna make you happy for as long as I’m allowed to. I love you.”
“Oh, Boone.” She sniffled and buried her face in his shirt. “I love you too.”
A spot on her wrist burned. She hissed the same time Boone did. They pulled away, looking at their flesh. Sierra peered closer. Was that a . . .
“No way.” A faint image of a single wing. “A sync brand.”
“You got it too?” Boone’s gaze jumped back and forth. “What does that mean?”
“In Numen, it’d mean we’re meant to be. Tied together forever.” The truth of the words resonated to her bones.
“Forever,” he echoed, hopefulness in his tone. “It’s a good sign. Right?”
“Yes?”
She pulled him out to the kitchen where Jagger and Urban were helping Alma dismantle the lion puzzle Urban was so proud of. A new lion and lioness puzzle waited on the counter. “Guys. What do you think this means?”
Jagger’s eyes widened and Urban said, “Holy. Shit.”
Alma hummed and kept to her puzzle task, smiling to herself.
Jagger went toward the sliding door. “I think it means I should go get Director Vale. It can’t hurt to have a sync ceremony.”
“Wait.” What would Boone think? She grabbed his hand, her thumb brushing the mark. “It’d be like getting married, but way deeper, for much longer. It’s something you can think on. Getting the brand doesn’t mean you have to go through the bonding.”
Boone turned her hand in his and covered it with his other one. “I think that I might’ve pulled you out of the snow, but you pulled me out of purgatory. We’re in this life, together.”
Epilogue
The doorbell gonged through the house. Sierra’s eyes popped open and the swaddled baby on her chest squirmed. She’d fallen asleep in the recliner in the middle of the day. It was like she’d regressed to her training years, when they’d been taught to catch shut-eye anytime and anywhere they could.
“We should’ve dismantled that damn thing,” Boone groaned from the couch. He’d been napping too. He rolled up and his long strides took him to the door of their three-bedroom cabin outside of Helena. They were close enough to the city to get decent internet but private enough that they could tell if anyone was trying to sneak up on them.
Her security system was top-notch. She had cameras all over the trees. A wolf couldn’t sneeze without her knowing.
Boone had proposed moving back to Montana shortly after he arrived in Vegas. The proximity of people strummed his nerves and they had both longed for the simplicity of mountain life. Jack and Shari Smith were put to rest. They were Boone and Sierra Reamer, and Boone didn’t sell health insurance.
Arik was three months old. When he was much older, they would travel to meet and talk with fallen in person, discreetly gathering data. But for now, she used all of her surveillance skills to do it between diaper changes and feedings, like she’d planned to in Vegas, before her bond with Boone.
Voices murmured from the entry, along with the fresh, clean scent of the great outdoors. Snow was coming. She looked forward to being snowed in with Boone again. They had a lot more food supplies than their first cabin had held.
Was it someone from her team? Jagger had made good on his vow to stick around. He and Felicia had babysat so she and Boone could buy groceries without planning the adventure between feedings. Urban was back to being his old self around her, and Bronx joked about teaching Arik all the things Sierra had given Bronx crap about. Dionna had held Arik as a newborn, wonder filling her deep brown eyes.
Harlowe was the only one who hadn’t made an appearance.
The regret never went away, but with Boone and her baby, the reminder wasn’t such a blow.
Boone appeared at the edge of the foyer. “You have visitors.”
She sniffed her free shoulder. Did she smell like sour milk? Was her hair frightening? She shouldn’t care. These angels knew her—all of her. Her hair brushed just past her shoulders, the last six inches an inky black. The nurse in the delivery room had asked her who did her hair. I had it done in Vegas was the easy lie.
Boone looked to the side at the visitors she couldn’t see, his expression conflicted. These weren’t her teammates or he wouldn’t have hesitated. Yet he’d let them into the house.
A furrow developed between his brow. “It’s, um . . .”
“Sierra, it’s Leo. Leo and Millie Richter.”
A vise gripped her heart at the familiar voice. He’d been an imposing male in his day, commanding all the warriors and dressing down senators who wanted to interfere in warrior business.
“Director Richter.” Her panicked gaze caught Boone’s, but his small smile was reassuring. He stepped aside to let the couple through.
Soft thumps accompanied footsteps. When the director turned the corner, the backs of her eyes burned. He used crutches that cuffed his forearms as he walked methodically on metal and plastic legs. He wore a plain gray hoodie and black basketball shorts. Concentration wrinkled his brow but he never stopped.
His dark gaze lifted to hers. “Still getting used to these damn things.”
His mate followed him. Strain lined her face, but drained when Millie’s gaze landed on Arik. “Oh my, that’s him?”
“Y-yes.” Sierra sat up and Arik shifted. Should she stand? Should she rock Arik back to sleep? He’d been up half the night. “Director Richter.” She’d wanted to tell him how sorry she was, knowing her words would do nothing to help him.
The director went to the couch Boone had been napping on and carefully lowered himself. “It’s not Director anymore, Sierra.” When he settled, he turned his solemn stare to her. “Just Leo. We both know that better than anyone.”
“I’m so sorry.” She tried to fight the tears but she couldn’t blink enough to stop the fall. Boone stayed by the foyer, sensing that this was something she had to face on her own.
“I know.” He rubbed one of his thighs. Was that where the prosthesis cupped his leg to stay on? Did it hurt? “Millie and I came today because we agreed that we all need this to keep from being trapped in the past.”
She couldn’t imagine ridding herself of the guilt that underlined all her actions.
“There are those who would use this against us,” he said, his tone grave. “We can’t let them. We have to remember who was really at fault: corrupt enforcers that we should’ve been able to trust. A self-centered fallen who used our realm’s ignorance and arrogance against us. An evil human who amassed too much power while we were distracted. And demons.” He leaned forward. “Real ones. You’re not a demon, Sierra. Your father never would’ve allowed it.”
Director Vale hadn’t told the senate, but it was fitting Director Richter knew. “He’s doing well?”
Leo nodded. “No one will find out, Sierra. And if the senate does, there are too many of us that will back your father. He’s too good of a warrior to let fall.”
“So he’s back in the field.” Papa was a good fighter. Smart and old enough to know better, he wouldn’t make impulsive mistakes. But she worrie
d.
“Yes. Well, I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you—”
“Did something happen?” She hugged Arik to her as she leaned forward. “Was he hurt in a fight?” All the worst images flashed through her mind. Impaled by a claw-tipped demon wing and beheaded. Doused in angel fire. Injured and lost in the Mist.
“He’s your replacement.”
“On my team?”
Lines winged out from the former director’s eyes as he smirked. “He’s more like Bryant’s replacement, since he doesn’t even know how to answer a smartphone.”
“Papa’s back in the field . . . with Dionna, Jagger, Urban, Bronx, and Harlowe?” The warriors she trusted the most had her father’s back. Sierra didn’t know whether to be elated or distraught. Since her team were some of the best, they got the most dangerous assignments.
“On the team. You’ve been in contact with them. I understand you’re still working with them.” He lifted his chin to Boone. “Which means . . .”
Boone stepped back again.
A tall male with a mop of dark blond curls and a lopsided grin turned the corner. His gaze soaked her in, then landed on Arik. “Oh, angel.”
“Papa—What—I . . .” She blinked against the onslaught of tears. “I don’t deserve any of this.”
“Some of us disagree.” Leo positioned his crutches and Millie hovered at his side as he carefully rose to a standing position. “You deserve a life with your loved ones. So do I. So does your father. Protect your family, protect humans, protect the realm. The rest will fall into place.”
“Direct—Leo.” She struggled to rise.
“Don’t get up on my account. Ransom’s gotta be briefed soon. I have a few more therapy sessions so me and these legs can play nice together without crutches, and then I have a vacation to get to.” His eyes warmed as he glanced at Millie. “It’s about a century too late.”
Demon Fire (The Angel Fire Book 3) Page 24