Page 19

Cate

My old life fit into three boxes, and one of them was half empty. My clothes had already been put away in the closet, lost among the new and better ones that had magically appeared. I suspected I had Ciara to thank for that. The rest of my past comprised a dozen or so books, some old scrubs, half-used toiletries, and old photos—a few of me and Gran and Channing but mostly just magazine clippings. I gave up on digging through it, not sure what I was looking for but sure I wouldn’t find it.

There was nothing to find.

Faced with insurmountable obstacles and overwhelming emotional turmoil, I did what any sane woman would do: I started a bath. The Jacuzzi off Lach’s bedroom was larger than mine, although not as spectacular as the ones in the suites in the Otherworld with their magical taps. But the water heated to the searing temperature necessary to melt away this day, and its relatively normal features were a small price to pay for keeping my boyfriend alive.

I dug around the bar cart in the living room while the water ran, finally unearthing a dusty bottle of ambrosia shoved between the obviously more loved harder liquor. Grabbing a glass, I returned to the tub, peeling off my clothes and climbing into the water. The heat seeped into my skin, but the tension between my shoulders refused to loosen. I opened and poured the ambrosia, placing the bottle on the floor—but well within reach in case more was needed. It felt like years had passed since I’d returned to New Orleans.

How had I only been dealing with this shit for a couple of days?

I sipped slowly, the honeyed warmth of the fairy drink spreading its magic into my blood rapidly, but the heavy feeling persisted. Apparently, this was a problem that even wine and a hot bath couldn’t fix.

I finished my first glass, set it on the edge of the tub, and sank under the water, trying to wash away my questions and doubts, but they followed me. Pushing out of the water, I leaned to grab the bottle as a shadow fell over me.

Lach winced at my ear-splitting scream.

“Holy fuck!” I clutched my chest before my heart escaped through it. “Knock!”

“I did, and it’s my bathroom.” He rubbed his pointed ears. “Relaxing?”

“I was trying to. This tub isn’t quite as nice as the one in my old place.” I waved the empty wineglass at him, frowning.

Lach swiped the ambrosia from the ground and passed it to me. “You are allowed to go back down there, you know.”

“Without you?” Still, it was tempting—if only for the food and the bathtubs. I took a swig straight from the bottle as another problem occurred to me. “Maybe it’s not a good idea. What if the Hunt held me for ransom to get to you?”

“They don’t work like that. They operate on a code of honor.”

But he didn’t sound certain.

“How did it go with Romy’s sister?” he asked.

“She wants me to commune with my dead foster mom on Sow-something.” I’d forgotten what she’d called it, half from ignorance, half from the muddying effects ambrosia had on the tongue.

“Samhain,” he offered. “So, it sounds like you had a good day, too.” He shucked his suit jacket off and tossed it on a stool nearby. His holster followed with a thump .

“It’s getting better every minute,” I said as he loosened his tie. The way my blood warmed as he undid the first button of his shirt had nothing to do with the hot water. “How was yours?”

“We talked to the coven of the witch we found dead. We were trying to get information about Thalia without letting them know we found her body.”

I blinked. “Why?”

“The more we know before the news gets out, the less panic there will be.”

And the less chance the covens would revolt.

He shrugged out of the black Oxford, his grimace the closest thing he gave me to an answer. Which was fine by me now that his smooth, muscled chest was on display. My eyes tracked downward over the dips and ridges of his abdomen and paused as he reached to unfasten his pants. His fingers stilled on the button. “My eyes are up here, princess.”

“Shhh,” I hushed him, pressing a finger to my lips. “This is the best part.”

His low, rasping laugh slid under my skin and into my bones. Magic had decided this man was meant for me—who was I to argue? He stepped out of his pants, giving me a view of the V-shaped groove that continued like a sign.

This way down.

“Enjoy the ride,” I murmured. Maybe the ambrosia was starting to kick in.

“I suppose that means you don’t mind if I join you.” His smirk oozed a masculine arrogance that was well-earned. He took the bottle out of my hands, setting it on the ground before turning toward the tub.

“I don’t think it’s big—”

But Lach was already climbing in with me. “It’s big enough.”

I scooted over, giggling as water sloshed over the side. Not quite enough room for two people to lounge, but plenty if they didn’t mind being close. Lach reached for me, drawing me onto his lap.

I settled into his arms, the final stubborn remnants of tension melting away.

“Do I want to know what you found out?” I asked.

“Not much.” He traced idle circles on my stomach, his finger drifting upward to brush the undersides of my breasts. “We talked to a few members of her coven. They said that everyone liked her. That they were worried about her.”

Frowning, I craned my neck to study his weary face. “So, it was just a random act of violence?”

“Part of me wishes it were, but it can’t be,” he said grimly as he filled me in on details he’d left out last night.

“Jesus,” I breathed when he was done.

“I didn’t want to give you nightmares.” Lach pressed a kiss to my neck, resting his chin on my shoulder.

“I worked in a hospital,” I reminded him. “I’ve seen worse.” But nothing this close to home. I hooked my arm around his shoulder, brushing the memento mori on his neck. “Do you think it’s a warning?”

“What else could it be?” he asked distantly. “Thalia proposed the bona fides—carving the Wild Hunt’s mark on her neck sends a pretty clear message.”

“But it can’t be the Hunt.” Part of me just needed to have him say, to have him reaffirm, that there was at least one danger we were safe from.

“No, but someone sympathizes with them.” Proof of what he told me last night. An oath was only words. It was impossible to know someone’s heart. “They can’t touch our family, though. Not while the bona fides is intact.”

I snuggled closer to him, watching ink drift down his arms. I wished I could give him peace. Because it wasn’t just the city that we had to worry about. We were safe in New Orleans. For now. But my own thoughts chased me like those tattoos.

“Have we heard from the other courts?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. A lot had changed in the course of the last few weeks. Only one court remained an ally, after all. That stacked the odds that news would be good against us.

“Ciara spoke with Fiona earlier. She said everyone is being helpful, particularly Sirius.” His lips grazed my skin again, and a shiver of anticipation raced down my spine. Lach circled a fingertip over the peak of my breast, and I bit back a gasp. He seemed completely unaware of the effect of the small, mindless touches. Meanwhile, it was an effort to remind myself that talking was necessary if we wanted to actually solve our problems, especially with the incessant pull of our new mating bond begging for a deeper connection. “I suppose I have you to thank for that.”

“Me?” I asked absently. Only half my brain was paying attention. Each second, I found it harder and harder to focus.

“He’s your friend.”

“ Our friend. The Astral Court didn’t agree to help only because of me. Face it—they like you.” I poked his arm.

“A fate worse than death.”

I flinched at his choice of words. He hadn’t meant to hit so close to the mark, but…

“I’m sorry,” he said roughly. His arms moved under the water, circling my waist and tightening around me. “I’m not that easy to kill, princess.”

I swallowed in a futile attempt to fight the rawness creeping up my throat. “I know. I’ve tried.”

“Exactly.” He nipped my earlobe. “Between my disregard for the rules and your homicidal instincts, no one can touch us.”

I forced a laugh, but that hollow fear lingered.

“Have you decided about Samhain? This séance?”

I might have appreciated his obvious attempt to redirect the conversation if he’d chosen another subject.

“No,” I admitted. “I was hoping to find my answer at the bottom of that bottle.” I tugged free of his hold, half lurching out of the tub to grab it.

“No one finds answers at the bottom of a bottle.”

I swigged from it anyway. “Summoning dead people wasn’t how I planned to celebrate Halloween.”

“Samhain is on the first of November,” he challenged me, brow raised. “What’s your next excuse?”

“It’s not an excuse. She said we would meet at midnight.” I twisted around, moving to the other end of the bathtub, where I stood a chance at finishing this conversation instead of mounting him. I tangled my legs with his to make the new arrangement work. “I want to do Halloween.”

“You do?” he asked slowly.

“I never have.” I lifted a shoulder as I took another drink.

“Even when you were a kid?”

“Tragic childhood, remember?” I kept the words flat and lifeless so he wouldn’t take them too seriously.

“You never went trick-or-treating?” He stared across at me, a vein twitching in his forehead.

Why was he acting like this was weird? “Did you?”

“I’m nearly two hundred and fifty years old. Of course not, but—”

“It’s not a big deal,” I cut him off, wishing I’d never admitted any of it to him. “I just never did it, and the last few years I took a shift at the hospital, since I don’t have kids. Halloween was always a busy night.”

He rubbed his lower lip, drawing my attention to his mouth. “So you’ve never even been to the Garden District on Halloween?”

“Nope.” I sighed, turning my head before I gave in to that base need building inside me. “But forget it. The ring is more important.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re right. The spirits won’t cross the veil until midnight. That leaves plenty of time.”

“Spirits?” I blinked. “You make that sound so normal.”

“I grew up with wraiths,” he reminded me.

I shivered. Good point.

“Okay, so we’re going trick-or-treating,” he decided.

I snorted as I took another drink from the bottle. Why had I even bothered with a glass? “I think I’m too old to trick-or-treat. I just assumed Ciara would force me into a sexy costume and drag me to a bar.”

“We’re going trick-or-treating. My city. My rules,” he said firmly. “And after, we’ll go to the séance.”

“Everything sounded so ordinary and fun until the last bit.”

“Welcome to my life.” He hesitated. “About Samhain. It might be dangerous.”

“Why?” I wasn’t even sure I believed it was possible.

“Not only will the veil between the living and the dead be thin, but you’ll be in a space between worlds.”

Like we were the last time we nipped. The wine in my stomach started to churn.

“Do you think it’s worth the risk?” I asked him.

A tattoo twisted down his arm. “That’s up for you to decide, but I should be there in case…”

…things went south.

“Willow already suggested that you come. She said the dead wish to speak with you,” I added in a quiet voice.

“They can get in line.” His lips flattened. That would be a very long line. But he didn’t ask what else she’d said about him. Instead, he reached for my foot and began to massage it. “Now tell me about this sexy costume.”

“Suggestions?” I moaned as he worked on a tender spot.

He zeroed in on my lips, and I preened when his throat slid. “This is a nice look.”

I rolled my eyes as I took a drink. “Children will be present.”

“Not our children.”

“What a low bar.” A giggle slipped from my lips—the conversation and the ambrosia were finally lightening my mood.

“You have no idea how low I can go, princess.”

Even the nickname didn’t bother me as much as it had since I’d found out about the ring. I held the bottle out to him. Maybe we both needed to let loose and just live.

While we still could.

I shook the last bit from my mind. I wasn’t spiraling into that line of thinking.

Lach took the ambrosia, checking to find the bottle still half full. “Are you trying to have your way with me?”

“Maybe.” I tried to move my other foot to his groin to determine his level of interest in cutting this conversation short.

He batted it away, taking a drink before returning the bottle to the floor. “Because you don’t have to try so hard.”

We’d been naked for far too long for that to be true. Crawling forward, I straddled his lap, accidentally dragging my seam down his hardening cock in one long, far-from-subtle stroke.

“But don’t let me stop you from your seduction attempts,” he grunted, his eyes hooding as I did it again.

I rocked against him, biting my lip as the crown of his erection nudged against me. I wriggled, trying to sink over him in the slippery water, but Lach’s fingers kneaded my hips, sliding his cock up and down until my clit throbbed. His patience was maddening. The friction built until I found myself gasping. I fisted a hand in his ink-black hair, drawing his mouth a breath from my own.

“Tell me what you need, princess.” The command whispered over my lips, hoarse and demanding.

“You.” I moved to kiss him, but Lach craned his neck, shifting out of reach.

“Be. More. Specific.”

“Do you need a diagram?” I snapped. His answering laugh made me whimper.

“I love when you’re a needy little brat,” he murmured, urging my hips rougher. Faster. Until I was close to spilling over the edge like the bathwater. “Now be a good girl and tell me what you need .”

“Your cock.” I flushed, but his eyes held mine, refusing to let go. A silent order staring back at me that I found I couldn’t question. “I need your cock.”

He slid a hand under my ass, rising from the water so swiftly that I shrieked. My arms hooked around his neck to steady my spinning head. “What—”

“We aren’t fucking in a bathtub.” He kissed me as he stepped smoothly onto the tile floor. “It’s the fucking worst.”

But I needed him now. “The bed’s too far.”

I kissed along his jaw, desperate for his taste in my mouth.

“Not a problem.” Hunger coarsened every word. My legs coiled around his waist as he spun me. Glass shattered at our feet. I drew back at the sound, but he muttered, “Don’t worry about it.”

Good enough for me.

Lach pinned me against the wall, gaze trained on me as he spit into his palm, then reached between us and slicked my core. I moaned, unable to look away from his eyes as he pushed a finger inside me and began to pump, teasing out my arousal until I was trembling, until my entire world centered on that singular touch.

“ Please,” I begged. He leaned forward, swallowing my pleading with a kiss like he needed that as much as I needed his touch.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I needed him inside me. My hips ground against him, urging him deeper, but it wasn’t enough. Another desperate plea fell from my mouth.

A laugh rumbled in his chest as I squirmed.

“Not yet.” His teeth nipped my lower lip just hard enough to make it sting before he pulled back, dark agony clouding his eyes. “I need to make sure you’re ready before I fuck you, because I’m not sure I can be gentle.”

That explained the shadows haunting him. He was still afraid he would break me, even when I practically begged him to. “I don’t want you to be gentle. I want you—all of you.”

“Cate.” Warning laced his voice.

His concern would be endearing if he wasn’t holding me on a cliff’s edge. I gripped the sides of his face and glared at him. “Nothing can break me. Not even you, Gage.”

The shadows fled his eyes, a smirk lifting his lips. “That’s my girl.”

“ Prove. It.” A challenge he wouldn’t be able to resist. Not with that bond stretched taut between us.

He ran his tongue over his lower lip, studying my face with an awe that bordered on reverence. “You’re in control,” he reminded me, grunting as he hoisted my body higher against the wall to position himself, “but I suggest you hold on .”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, and his mouth crashed into mine. Lach slid in a single inch, and the mating bond roared in my veins, crying out for more. A growl tore from his throat like he felt it, too, and he slammed inside me, driving deeper with each thrust. I clawed at his back, tearing at his skin as that shared magic stripped us into something baser, something animalistic and primal, something ancient .

There was no question of accepting or rejecting what we were. He was burned in my blood, scorched into my fucking soul. Our lives were no longer linked by a bargain or a bond. They were forged into one. There was no part of me that didn’t include him.

Lach reared back, eyes wild and searching as pleasure tightened my limbs. “You’re mine, princess.”

And nothing and no one would ever come between us again. That knowledge undid me as much as his words. I went over the edge, unspooling as he released inside me, again and again until I collapsed against him, panting and trembling.

Lach rested his forehead against mine. “That was…”

I understood why he couldn’t finish the sentence. The word didn’t exist.

My head lolled on his shoulder, a lazy smile taking up what I suspected might be a permanent residence. But when I opened my eyes, the sight of bloody footprints and glass shards swept it away.

“Lach,” I said slowly, “are you…injured?”

He glanced at me, his sheepish grin giving way to a grimace. “Possibly.”

“Why—” I cut off my own question with a frustrated screech. “Put me down.”

“Not in here,” he said, ignoring the request as he carried me out of the room. The bottle’s glass crunched with each step, and as soon as we hit the carpeted threshold of the bedroom, I wiggled free of his arms.

“Sit down,” I commanded before he could do any more damage.

He rolled his eyes and continued to the bed, tracking more blood and glass across the carpet.

“Lachlan Gage!”

He flourished his hand, bowing slightly at the waist before he took a seat on the edge of the mattress. “Wait a second.” He waved, and the blood and glass vanished.

“Why didn’t you do that before?” I asked as I hurried over to inspect his feet.

“I had better things to do.” The smirk was back. “A little glass wasn’t going to stop me.”

“It took you two seconds to clean it up.” I sank to my knees, cringing as I began picking the embedded glass out of his lacerated feet.

“Would have been a waste of time.”

I shot him an incredulous look.

He held up his hands. “In my defense, you were naked.”

I fell silent, continuing my work. After washing his feet and asking Lach to dispose of the remaining shards, I ordered him into bed.

“It will heal,” he promised, but he obeyed.

I crossed my arms, words failing me. I knew that. Most of the cuts were already fading into pinkish scars. In a few hours, there would be no trace of them. But it wasn’t the injuries that bothered me. I wanted to let it go, wanted to pretend it wouldn’t gnaw at me. But I couldn’t. “I don’t want you hurting yourself to be with me.”

He’d already sacrificed so much.

“It wasn’t—”

“There is a memento mori burned onto your neck. Enough!” A sob escaped me. It had to be enough. He couldn’t keep destroying himself.

“Better mine than yours.” His voice was quiet, but sincerity blazed in his eyes.

I choked back another sob. “But it is mine. You are mine. I wear that mark as much as you do, because if they find you, if they…” Words failed me again. There was nothing that could describe the despair that thought carved into me.

Sadness softened his face. “I’m not dying today, my love.”

He didn’t promise me tomorrow.

He couldn’t. No one could.

Every decision led us down a new path. There was no future. Only choices.

And I could let that break me or I could keep fighting to live each moment. We could keep fighting.

After a minute, he cleared his throat. “Do you yell at all of your patients?”

“Only the ones who deserve it.” I wiped the tears from my cheeks. “It won’t take long to heal, will it?”

“No.” Lach beckoned me with his finger. “Still, you could kiss it and make it better.”

I gave in to his smile, gave in to that instinct that bound us, gave in to the love I couldn’t deny. But it would take more than a kiss to make it better.

We needed a miracle.