“Feeling better?” he said.
I stretched out on top of him, head resting in the hollow below his shoulder. “Much.”
Prisoner
WE LAY THERE FOR A FEW MINUTES, THEN I CAUGHT A whiff of blood and lifted my head. Blood trickled from Clay’s shoulder.
“Whoops,” I said, licking my fingers to wipe it off. “Got a bit carried away. Sorry about that.”
“Didn’t hear me complaining.” He brushed his fingertips across a fang-size hole under my jaw. “Seems I gave as good as I got anyway.” He yawned and stretched, hands going around me to rest on my rear. “Just add them to the collection.”
I ran my fingers over his chest, tracing the half-healed scabs and long-healed scars. Most of them were the residue of friendly fire-dots of too-hard bites or the paper-thin scratches of misaimed claws. I had them too-tiny marks, nothing to draw stares when I wore halter tops and shorts. Even after fifteen years as a werewolf, I had few true battle scars. Clay had more, and as my hands moved over them, my brain ticked off the stories behind each. There wasn’t one I didn’t know, not a scar I couldn’t find with my eyes closed, not a mark I couldn’t explain.
He closed his eyes as my fingers moved down his chest. I stared up at his face, a rare chance to look at him without him knowing I was looking. I don’t know why that still matters. It shouldn’t. He knows how I feel about him. I’m having a child with him-it doesn’t get any clearer than that, not for me. But after ten years of pushing him away, trying to pretend I didn’t love him-wasn’t still crazy-in-love with him-I’m still cautious in some small ways. Maybe I always will be.
Gold eyelashes rested against his cheeks. His skin already showed the glow of a tan. Now and then, when he was poring over a book, I caught the ghost of a line forming over the bridge of his nose, the first sign of an impending wrinkle. Not surprising, considering he was forty-two. Werewolves age slowly, and Clay could pass for a decade younger. Yet the wrinkle reminded me that we were getting older. I’d turned thirty-five last year, right around the time I’d finally decided he was right, and I-we-were ready for a child. The two events were, I’m sure, not unconnected.
My stomach growled.
Clay’s hand slid across it, smiling, eyes still closed. “Hungry already?”
“I’m eating for two.”
He chuckled as my stomach rumbled again. “That’s what happens when you chase me instead of something edible.”
“I’ll remember that next time.”
He opened one eye. “On second thought, forget it. Chase me and I’ll feed you afterward. Anything you want.”
“Ice cream.”
He laughed. “Do we have any?”
I slid off him. “The Creamery opened last week. Two-for-one banana splits all month.”
“One for you and one for-”
I snorted.
He grinned. “Okay, two for you, two for me.”
He pushed to his feet and looked around.
“Clothing southwest,” I said. “Near the pond.”
“Are you sure?”
“Let’s hope so.”
I stepped from the forest into the backyard. As clouds swept overhead, shafts of sunlight slid over the house. The freshly painted trim gleamed dark green, the color matching the tendrils of ivy that struggled to maintain a hold on the stone walls.
The gardens were slowly turning the same green, evergreens and bushes interspersed with the occasional clump of tulips from a fall-gardening spree a few years ago. The tulips ended at the patio wall, which was as far as I’d gotten before being distracted and leaving the bag of bulbs to rot in the rain. That was our typical approach to gardening: every now and then we’d buy a plant or two, maybe even get it in the ground, but most times we were content just to sit back and see what came up naturally.
The casual air suited the house and the slightly overgrown yard that blended into the fields and forests beyond. A wild sanctuary, the air smelling of last night’s fire and new grass and distant manure, the silence broken only by the twitter of birds, the chirp of cicadas…and the crack of gunfire.
As the next shot rang out, I pressed my hands to my ears and made a face. Clay motioned for us to circle back along the woods and come up on the opposite side. When we drew alongside the shed, I could make out a figure on the patio. Tall, lean and dark, the hair that curled over his collar as sporadically clipped as the lawn. Standing with his back to us, he lifted the gun over the edge of the low stone wall and pointed it at the target. Clay grinned, handed me his shoes, then broke into a silent lope, heading around the other side of the patio.
I kept walking, but slower. By the time I neared the wall, he was already vaulting over it. He caught my gaze and lifted his finger to his lips. As if I needed the warning. He crept up behind the gunman, paused, making sure he hadn’t been heard, then crouched and sprang.
Jeremy sidestepped without even turning around. Clay hit the wall and yelped.
Jeremy shook his head. “Serves you right. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”
Clay bounced back, grinning as he brushed himself off. “Live dangerously, that’s my motto.”
“It’ll be your epitaph too.”
Jeremy Danvers, our Pack Alpha and owner of Stonehaven, where he, Clay and I lived and would doubtless stay for the rest of our lives. Part of that was because Clay was Jeremy’s bodyguard and had to keep close, but mostly it was because Clay would never consider leaving.
Clay had been no more than five or six when he’d been bitten. When other kids were heading off to kindergarten, he’d been living as a child werewolf in the Louisiana bayou. Jeremy had rescued him, brought him to Stonehaven and raised him, and this was where Clay would stay.
Now it was my home too, really had been since the day Clay had bitten me. It’s no sacrifice. I’m happy here, with my family. Besides, without Jeremy to mediate, Clay and I would have killed each other years ago.
Jeremy watched as Clay bounded back to me. As he glanced my way, relief sparked in his eyes. If Clay was in such a good mood, my Change must have gone well. I knew they’d both been worried, though they’d tried to hide it, knowing I’d been panicked enough and that the alternative-not Changing-would be even more dangerous.
I handed Clay his shoes. Jeremy’s gaze slid down to Clay’s bare feet. He sighed.
“I’ll find the socks next time,” Clay said. “And look, Elena found her top.”
I held up a sweater I’d “misplaced” in the woods a few months ago. Jeremy’s nose wrinkled as the smell wafted his way.
“Toss it out,” he said.
“It’s a little funky,” I said. “But I’m sure a good washing, maybe some bleach…”
“In the garbage. The outside garbage. Please.”
“We’re going into town for ice cream,” Clay said. “Wanna come?”
Jeremy shook his head. “You two go. You can pick up steaks at the butcher. I thought we’d have a barbecue, take advantage of the warm day. It may still be early in the season, but since you seem so energetic, perhaps I can persuade you to cart out the lawn furniture and we’ll eat outside tonight.”
“Let’s do that now,” I said, swinging toward the shed. “Build up an appetite for those banana splits.”
Clay caught my arm. “No lifting, remember?”
I was reasonably sure you couldn’t damage a fetus the size of a pea by lifting a patio chair, especially not when werewolf strength made it the equivalent of picking up a plate. Yet when I looked over at Jeremy, he busied himself unloading his revolvers.
Since I’d first decided to try for a baby, Jeremy had read just about every book ever written on pregnancy. The problem was that no matter how many books Jeremy read, he couldn’t be sure they applied to me. Female werewolves were very rare. For one to bear a child, even to a human father, was a thing of legend. Two werewolves reproducing? Never happened. Or, if it had, there was no record of it, and certainly no maternity guides.