“We’re narrowing it down to just those two at the moment. We’ll move on to other positions later. Although I admit to significant interest on the topic of me behind you versus you backed up against a wall, with those long, beautiful, powerful legs of yours wrapped around my waist.”
Behind. First. I grabbed my sword, shoved my door open, kicked my legs out and turned back to look at him, using his own words against him, from long ago. “Some secrets, kid,” I hissed with saccharine venom, “you learn only by participating.”
He threw his head back and laughed, white teeth flashing, eyes glittering.
I closed my eyes, shutting out the vision that had eternally, incessantly, escaped my box.
Ryodan. Laughing.
That was one of the things I’d missed the most about him. The rare moments I’d startled him into a laugh. Glimpsed unadulterated joy blazing in his eyes.
I definitely preferred the top. But that was none of his business. When he stopped laughing, I opened my eyes again.
“Unfortunate,” he said. “Of the two, top is my preference as well.”
“Stay out of my head.” If he’d thought about me so bloody much, he should have called.
“We’ll have to fight for it. See who wins.”
An image of Ryodan and me, stripped naked, sweat-slicked and lust-driven, battling for dominance, slammed into my brain, stupefying me for a moment. “In your dreams.” As I surged from the car, I concentrated on shutting the door gently. If I slammed it, he’d know how much he’d just gotten to me.
The window shattered, glass tinkling to the pavement at my feet. I sighed. Brain/hand disconnect was clearly one of my unwritten rules around him.
His laughter—that very laughter I’d missed so much—floated out the broken window into the night.
Bright side: I couldn’t be more in the mood for war.
When they come for me
KAT TUCKED THE BLANKET snugly around her sleeping daughter, retrieved the worn copy of The Little Engine That Could from the bed, and turned to slip it back on the shelf.
As she moved to the door and turned off the lights, she glanced back at Rae and, as it always did, her heart swelled inside her chest with more love than she’d believed a single person could hold.
Rae had spent most of the afternoon into the late evening in the gardens, playing with the Spyrssidhe. I love the Spur-shee, Mommy, she’d said before she drifted off. They’re not like me. They’re so light inside.
Other mothers would have asked the question her comment implied. If they’re light inside but they’re not like you, what does that make you?
She hadn’t asked. Time would tell. If Rae believed she was dark for some reason, yet loved as instinctively and freely as she did, there was no point in asking.
Using her gift of empathy on her daughter had proved worthless. Rae felt so much love for her mother, Kat could feel nothing beyond it.
The spots on Rae’s tiny shoulders had vanished. She must have stretched out on something, perhaps lain on two rocks in the grass at just such an odd position. An unnerving freak occurrence, nothing more.
When Rae rolled over in her sleep, mumbling inaudibly, Kat’s phone tumbled to the floor, and she realized she’d forgotten it on the bed. She reclaimed it, tucked her daughter back in, kissed her forehead lightly and smoothed her curls.
As she turned back for the door a radioactive cloud of
PANICFEARHORRORFEARGETRAERUN!
exploded in her head. A scream escaped her lungs, clawing its way up her throat. She choked on it to keep from frightening Rae.
Rooted to the spot by terror, she stood, sputtering softly, trembling from head to toe, staring with wide, horrified eyes.
No, no, no, no, no, began the desperate litany in her mind. Please, God, no, I don’t deserve this, Rae doesn’t deserve this. I’m a good person, a good mother, but I can’t protect us from this!
He towered against the door of the bedroom, barring her exit.
Trapping them within.
Enormous black wings curved loosely forward around his body. She knew those wings. She’d dreaded them. Orgasmed exquisitely, over and over again, wrapped in them.
Breathe, breathe, breathe, you must breathe, she told herself. But her lungs refused to cooperate. Everything was locked down tighter than the Sinsar Dubh had ever been.
It wasn’t possible.
He was dead.
Mac had assured them before she left for Faery that the Unseelie Court had been destroyed, each and every one.
Including Cruce.
Especially Cruce.
Kat had asked repeatedly. And Mac had repeatedly told her she could feel all other royalty in existence. Not by location, just a quiet burn in her mind.
Cruce wasn’t there.
Kat had gone so far as to dip into the Fae queen’s heart to ascertain the veracity of her words. Mac believed Cruce dead.
But now, standing tall, dark, and malevolent, powerful arms crossed, watching her with eyes of…Oh, dear God.
Eyes of such finality.
She jerked and brushed blood from her cheeks. Forced her gaze away, down the thick, dark column of his neck, over the writhing, glittering torque, down his black clad, massive body. His shoulders were enormously muscled, his legs powerfully sculpted.
“Never hold my gaze, Kat,” he purred softly. “I can protect you from much. But not that. It was not my intention to startle you. I sought you in private, so as not to alarm the others.”
She screeched a breath into her lungs that seared them, so desperately was it needed, and angled her body as if she might conceal her daughter from him.
Had he come to take Rae away? Both of them? If that was the choice, she’d go! Just don’t take my daughter from me, she thought hysterically. Anything but that.
“Why are you here?” she whispered faintly.
“Och, lass, it’s Sean, he needs you.”
What was he talking about? How was Cruce even alive? And what was he doing with Sean? And why was his voice so different than she remembered from those hellish, fevered dreams?
“We’ve a bit of a problem, Kat. Have you someone to watch the wee lass?”
His second use of the word “lass” finally penetrated a brain of concrete. Kat blinked, as slow comprehension dawned. “Christian?” she exploded softly. “Is that you?”
His lips drew back in a silent snarl. Then, “Och, Christ, tell me you didn’t think I was Cruce! Do I look that bad?”
She nodded vehemently. “Yes.”
“Bloody hell,” he growled. “He’s dead. I’d know if he was alive. At least I think I would.”
She sucked in a ragged breath and crumpled as the strength fled her body, crippled by the profoundly worst moment of her life—thinking Cruce had returned and was going to take Rae away from her. She had nightmares about that happening, awakened horrified and trembling, clutching a hand to her mouth to hold back screams.
Christian caught her before she hit the floor, swept her to her feet and steadied her with an arm about her shoulders.
Good God, he was enormous. Seven feet at least. Massive.