Returned

by Samantha Stone

  “I’ve got to get you a pool table, man,” he said with a clap to Alex’s back. Then he disappeared to go drink good beer with his mate and his pack.

  My pack.

  But tonight, Alex only wanted to focus on one person, and she was right in front of him, leaning down to coo praises in their dog’s ear.

  “Who’s the fiercest beastie? Who saved Mommy? Beau did!”

  Delirious, Beau lay on his back while she rubbed his stomach.

  She met Alex’s gaze over Beau’s thumping tail, her own becoming heated. Alex took a little magic from the few pages on him that he hadn’t handed over and brought a good-sized, medium-rare steak into the dog’s bowl. Smelling it instantly, the great beast twisted until his feet were on the ground again and ran for the food, his paws sliding against the wooden floor in his haste.

  “No more secrets,” Leila chastised. She remained on the floor, where she untied her pointe shoes. She looked up, her expression unreadable. “I thought we agreed.”

  Alex sank to his knees beside her, cringing at the blood dripping from her feet, both of which appeared to have been beaten. He was used to the sight, but it didn’t mean he enjoyed seeing her in pain. Silently, he took a cotton ball and the bottle of peroxide she’d pulled from her bag and helped her doctor one foot’s broken blisters and calluses while she did the other.

  Her lips turned down in a frown hindered by the exhaustion settling over her delicate features.

  “We did agree.” Finished with the cotton ball, he set it aside and simply watched while she took her hair down. “But that doesn’t change the way your safety comes first. Telling you about that vision may have caused it to come true.”

  Leila nodded thoughtfully, holding pins in her mouth, and pointed to the back of her head. Alex managed to untangle the last two bits of metal from her hair without pulling any strands out and took the brush from her bag before she reached it. She sighed, resigned, and leaned back to give him better access to her hair. He brushed the knots and chemical stiffness away, leaving the thick silvery strands smooth and shining down her back.

  “I don’t like it,” she muttered. Her shoulders relaxed. “But I understand why you did it that way. Briony has mentioned more than once that maybe she shouldn’t have told the pack about her vision, so I get why you didn’t tell me.” She elbowed Alex in the stomach.

  “Oof. What was that for?” he cried, faking a pained whimper.

  “Making me fall back in love with you despite your secrets and lies.”

  That was it. He threw the brush to his left, turned her around and pinned her underneath him. He shuddered, almost certain he’d misheard her. Surely he wasn’t so lucky. Could she really love him, after everything he’d put her through?

  “What did you say?” he asked quietly.

  “I said you’ve lied to me, and it pisses me—”

  “No, the other part.”

  She smiled wickedly, cocking her head. He went hard against her thigh, but it only made the glimmer in her eyes brighter. “I don’t remember,” she hedged, threading her hands through the curls above his neck. “Maybe if you—”

  He kissed her, hard, growling his displeasure against her mouth and hoping she couldn’t feel the upward curl of his lips. Leila sighed but then pushed at his shoulders until he lifted his head.

  This time her face was open, serious. “I love you, Alexandre Henri Villeneuve.”

  She’d said it, and now there was no going back. Knowing everything that he was, she still loved him. Now he would never, ever, let her get away again. She was his. And he was irreversibly, completely hers. Her name was permanently etched into every part of him, and had been before she told him how she felt. Hell, she’d owned him since the moment they met.

  Leaning down again, he kissed her softly, tenderly. “And I love you, Leila Sinead Newman,” he said into her mouth, pronouncing her middle name shen-ae.

  “How did you know my whole name?” she asked.

  “It was on the picture from the album,” he explained, “with your family.” Everyone’s very Irish full names had been listed in a neat, affectionate script beneath the photograph.

  Soon he’d tell her how he liked the sound of Leila Sinead Villeneuve, but now wasn’t the right time. Right now he simply wanted to be with his woman in the most intimate of ways.

  Alex carried her to his bedroom using his elemental abilities to ensure rose petals scattered across the bed and on the bathroom counter before they entered. He wanted her to always remember this night, not only as the time her parents’ killer was avenged, but as the moment they finally came together as one.

  Leila didn’t seem to care about the petals. She kissed him as he walked, wrapping her legs around him and causing him to swell almost painfully in his slacks. When he laid her on the bed she was already lifting his shirt and throwing it across the room. His pants were gone a few moments later along with his boxers.

  “Not fair,” he grumbled.

  Benevolently, she helped him take off her costume without ripping the cloth, murmuring that it might cause Mindy to go into a fit of hysterics rivaling that of an angry faery.

  Petals fell to her feet as she slid off the bed, stood on the tips of her toes to give him a lingering kiss, and dropped down low enough to put her at eye level with the part of him that was pointing directly at her.

  Her mouth brought him to heaven and back, but before she could bring him over the edge, he lifted her onto the bed and crawled down her frame, covered in layers of lean muscle, so he could give her center the attention it needed. He made her shatter under his lips and tongue twice before he finally lifted his head, supremely pleased with the animalistic shouts he’d brought from her delicate throat. Causing her to feel this way, seeing her enjoy him touching her, made his head swim. It was addictive, seeing her smile and feeling her smooth skin under his fingers.

  He couldn’t suppress his pride that, now, she could shout without concern for causing him or Beau damage. Not even a petal wilted from the force of her voice, which had the ability to tear his house apart with or without his protective spells.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, reaching up to cup her face, still dazed form her rapture. “It’s absolutely okay if you aren’t.” When he kissed her, her heartbeat was racing at the same pace as his. Strange.

  “I would wait forever to have you,” he whispered honestly. It might kill him in the process, but he’d never rush her.

  Her eyes, framed by heavy, dark lashes, gleamed up at him. She gently sat up while pushing him down, onto his back.

  “That,” she said, rising to straddle him, “is exactly why I want you.”

  Slowly, with her eyes closed, she lowered herself onto him, allowing herself to adjust as she went. Alex kept his hands fisted at his sides, determined not to pain her more than she would already be hurting—he was large, and there was nothing large about her. When he was fully sheathed inside her, she opened her eyes and released a breath, whispering, “Oh,” so softly a human couldn’t have heard.

  She must have adjusted to him, because after a minute of her breathing deeply, Alex finally allowing himself to caress her back in soothing circles, she started to move.

  His control broke.

  Rising up to meet her, he caught her mouth with his and wrapped his arms around her, pushing her ever closer against him for maximum contact. He met her hips with his, forming a rhythm with her that made his eyes roll back with pleasure. Leila clutched him back every bit as fiercely, whispering, “Yes,” in his ear. “There.”

  Her release brought him tumbling down with her, no matter how hard he fought to last a few minutes longer. She took everything from him and more, in the best possible way. His energy was happily depleted, but managed to hold her to him securely with the last vestiges of his strength.

  “That was…” she began, trailing off with a smile and a shake of her head. Laughing, she plucked a rose petal from his left thigh, and an
other from his right pectoral. She blew them from the palm of her hand and met Alex’s eyes. “That was more than just love, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded. Maybe it was due to his constant proximity to the energy warlocks used, or maybe he was imaging it, but he could sense the bond forming between them. Solid and strong, it would link their life forces together, causing one to die with the other. It would give him a taste of her banshee strength, and her a piece of the werewolf in him as well as the warlock.

  It wouldn’t be certain they were mated until the full moon, but he didn’t care. He knew.

  An alarm rose in his mind, trying to tell him something, but he decided it could wait. They’d defeated their enemy for the day. She was finally, blessedly, safe and had given him the honor of allowing him to make her his.

  Exactly as she’d so thoroughly made him hers.

  “You’re my mate,” he murmured against her hair confidently. “We were meant for each other.”

  Sleepily, she muttered, “Of course we were, silly warlock,” before she pressed a kiss to the side of his neck and reached back to remove the components of her cochlear implants behind her ears so she could sleep.

  More than slightly drowsy himself, Alex pulled his covers over them once she’d placed her devices on the table. More rose petals fell to the floor softly, while others fell beneath the sheets.

  He closed his eyes, happier than he’d ever been in his life.

  And instead of that happiness stemming from talismans or enemies conquered, it came from the woman in his arms, the very same woman he’d known was his the moment he’d seen her in that downtown club over a year ago.

  Alex should have been shocked, but all he felt was contentment paired with a protectiveness that made him tighten his grip around her waist. He pressed a kiss to her temple and laid his cheek against her hair.

  Now I have to keep you safe from the warlocks trying to destroy the world.

  He fell asleep before the entirety of the task could wash over him and ruin his chance for rest.

  Chapter 20

  LEILA awoke to bright sunlight streaming down over her face. She could see it without opening her eyes and wondered how it was possible—Alex’s bedroom had no windows.

  A gnat bit her neck, causing her to jolt up in the bed, slapping at her sweat-covered throat.

  There was an enormous hole in the ceiling, big enough for two cars to fit through. Mosquitoes and other insects gleefully flew around her while the heat of the sun lashed at every inch of her exposed skin.

  Alex was gone.

  A chest of drawers and the table that used to stand next to it had been reduced to splinters. A mirror was shattered on the floor, and a loveseat situated in the corner had split in two pieces, white stuffing spilling out the middle. She would have heard the commotion if she hadn’t been deaf. Damn it.

  Taking the external processors off the side table, she quickly turned on her cochlear implants so she could hear again. The first thing that hit her ears was Beau howling, a forlorn, drawn-out wail Leila recognized as a call. He was begging Alex to come back.

  Or for whoever took him to bring Alex back.

  Wincing at a sore place on her left foot, Leila walked to the doorway leading to the hall…and bounced back into the room as if there was an invisible barrier with the consistency of rubber.

  Her bag, where her cell phone was, still lay on the floor of Alex’s living room, precisely where she could not go.

  “Beau!” she yelled. “Beau, come here!” Maybe he could travel through the barrier at the door.

  An answering series of wild barks came back, followed by a high-pitched yelp. He must have been confined as well.

  Warlocks. They must have come for Alex and tampered with his house.

  “It’s okay, boy,” Leila called soothingly. If Beau fought too hard against whatever spell the warlocks had cast, he’d hurt himself. “We’ll figure this out,” she murmured, mostly for herself.

  She stepped around the perimeter of the space she was allowed—the bedroom and bathroom—once, twice, three times, thinking. The problem was, what she knew about warlocks was very limited.

  They want to kill all creatures, but Alex and his friend, Brendon, plan to stop them. To organize who gets killed, they have a map. Yellow means safe, blue means dead. She kicked the corner of the bathtub. Black means, well, who the hell knows?

  Hide, that’s what black meant. Hide in the firehouse, hide at Alex’s house, or else the Big Bad warlocks, boogeymen among creatures, would get curious and come find her.

  That had been the solution presented to her.

  That was unacceptable.

  If only it was a full moon. Then she and Alex would be mated, a bond started by sex and sealed with the light of the moon. She’d have some of his powers, and could use them to get out of this bind to find him. Not to mention she could get away from here before the warlocks came back to take her.

  Which they would do, or else they wouldn’t have wasted their precious talisman energy sealing her into Alex’s bedroom. It also meant they wanted Beau for some reason. She couldn’t imagine why, unless he really wasn’t a mere dog. Either way, she didn’t care.

  The warlocks wouldn’t have either of them.

  She tried screaming at the doorway, using every ounce of banshee powers she possessed, but the one thing it weakened was her. It also seemed to irritate Beau despite her best efforts to keep the poison in her voice from harming him. He was whimpering now, sounding utterly pitiful. She preferred his howls.

  “What do I do?” she murmured at the sky. A tree branch waved at her overhead, and a large beetle flew through the hole and into the bathroom. Perfect.

  “What on Earth can I do?”

  The beetle. The bugs. They could fly through the hole—meaning there probably wasn’t a barrier there. The warlocks hadn’t spelled it. Taking a lamp off a side table, she unplugged it and threw it through the ceiling. It went straight through and fell back down, bouncing on the bed without breaking.

  Inspired, Leila quickly put the lamp back on the table and jumped on the bed. One jump brought her head level with the place where the hole began, and another brought her even higher, maybe a foot above Alex’s roof. The mattress was no trampoline, even absorbing some of her bounce, but it was all she had. She kept on jumping until she thought she was going as high as she could reach, lifting her legs back over her head in a flip she’d done before in dance classes. Then, a partner had supported her.

  The rough material of the roof slammed through the skin of her knees, but she managed to land precariously along the edge of the hole. Leaning back, she barely kept herself from falling back through. Stinging pain seared her knees and hands from where she’d gripped the torn edges of the hole to keep herself from falling.

  Used to working through pain—and this really was nothing—she stood, dusted herself off, and made for the back of the house, where there wasn’t an outside glamour as far as she knew. At the end of the roof, she lowered herself to dangle five or so feet from the ground.

  For once, she was glad she was somewhat used to people seeing her in various states of undress. She hoped no one could see her standing nude in Alex’s backyard, but she couldn’t be sure. Luckily, she could not have cared less at the moment. Later, she noted absently, she might be a little embarrassed.

  Bare feet squishing in the dirt, she could see Beau through a window. He prowled around what seemed to be a five-by-five-foot space he’d been locked into, baring his teeth.

  He saw her too, and caught himself from leaping at the edge of his cage, apparently having learned that it wouldn’t work. A whimper escaped him. The door inside was locked. Of course.

  Mumbling an apology to Alex, Leila took an oddly colorful garden gnome out of the grass and threw it through the window, where it landed near Beau.

  She threw a mat over the shards of broken glass and crawled through, gaining only a few scrapes on her way ins
ide. Murmuring reassurances to Beau, she took her bag, grabbed the black leggings and large Full Moon shirt inside it and threw them on.

  While she dialed Raphael, she laced up a pair of soft tennis shoes.

  It was answered on the first ring.

  “Leila? Do you need something?” Mary asked. “You’re on speaker; Raphael can hear you.”

  “I—” Leila hesitated, unsure of what to tell them. On one hand, the firehouse was teeming with powerful immortals who could be ready for battle in minutes. But the warlocks would love nothing more than to kill Raphael, Briony, or Sebastian for their power, taking the lives of a child, mother, father, and her sister’s beloved mate.

  How could she risk them, after everything they did for her and Mary?

  “I’m at Alex’s house and need Gris-Gris. Could you speak to Sebastian or Briony and see if it could somehow magic itself here?”

  A loud meow sounded next to her, silencing Beau’s whines. The conduit must have heard her from Raphael and Mary’s end.

  “Is that what I think it was?” Mary asked, amusement apparent in her voice.

  “Oh yes.”

  “Are you okay? Heath told me where Alex lives; if you need us, Cael can have us there in seconds.” Raphael’s voice sharpened with concern.

  “No,” Leila said breezily, “I—we—need some help with Beau. He’s stuck.”

  All true.

  “Can I speak with—”

  “I have to go! Beau’s really wigging out now that Gris-Gris is here. He doesn’t know it really isn’t a cat!” She pressed end as fast as she could, so Raphael and Mary had no chance to question her further.

  The not-really-a-cat sitting in front of her swished its tail. Beau watched it warily, his hackles raised.

  “I need you to help me save Alex,” she pleaded. “You know the warlocks, and I think they might try to kill him.”

  He is a warlock, a male hissed. We do nothing for warlocks. Never again.

  Do you have any power to use? A talisman, perhaps? a woman asked.

  True love; can’t we help save true love? We should at least try, a younger-sounding woman cried haltingly, as if afraid to speak amongst the other conduits.