Blood Challenge

THIRTY-THREE

THE night air was cool and silky. Stars spattered the darkness overhead as if some celestial dog had gone swimming in them, then shaken himself dry. The upper deck was still warm from the day’s heat. It felt good beneath Benedict’s bare feet.

His brother had joined him out here for a while. He and Rule hadn’t talked beyond exchanging basic information: Arjenie was talking with Lily. Yes, Benedict had followed her when she went for a walk to get her head straight. It was his duty to keep track of her. She’d walked slowly along the road for about a mile, then sat in the grass of the meeting field. She’d sat there for about half an hour, then returned. She hadn’t limped. She hadn’t seemed overwhelmed by emotion. She’d seemed to be doing just what she’d said she needed to do. Thinking.

A couple minutes ago, Rule had gone back inside. Those weren’t his footsteps coming up behind Benedict now.

“I guess I do have a Benedict-locating sense now. I found you.”

He turned slowly. “Did Lily answer your questions?”

Her nod was brief. He couldn’t see her face well. The moon was up, but she stood beneath the patchy shade of the big eucalyptus tree. Her hair was as loud and boisterous as ever. He just wasn’t sure what it was shouting about.

“You will not do it,” she told him.

He blinked. “What?”

She came closer and jabbed a finger at him. She poked him in the chest with it. “There is only one way to remove a mate bond, and you will not do that! I want your word. Right now.”

“What did Lily tell you?” he demanded.

“That there’s only one way to break a mate bond. Death. When I added that to what she said about Claire—”

“She told you about Claire?” Damn meddling female!

“You should have told me.” She poked him again. “Lily thought you had. She assumed you had the sense God gave a goose.” Poke. “She didn’t realize that you are such a complete guy!”

“You’re angry.” In the past two days she’d been captured, scared, worried, aroused, curious, delighted, hungry, annoyed, and frustrated. She hadn’t been angry. Not until now. “Really angry.”

“Pissed! I am pissed! When you tell someone that you’re romantically bound together—and I don’t care how unconventional that binding is!—you have to tell them about it if the last person you were bound to died and you almost died of grief.” She stopped poking to seize his arms, both of his arms, as if she was going to shake him. As if she could have. “I want your promise. Now.”

“I know you can’t tolerate being physically held against your will. The bond is physical. I don’t want you to be frantic because—”

She put her fingers on his lips. Just rested them there. “Shut up, Benedict. Shut up and promise.”

He smiled. Her fingers didn’t prevent that, but he gently removed them from his mouth anyway. “All right. I promise I won’t kill myself.” Not directly, at least. He kissed the fingers he was holding.

He knew her pulse stuttered. He heard it, smelled it in the renewed wash of her scent. Her voice didn’t. “Or do stupid, reckless things that lead to your death.”

His Chosen was much too bright sometimes. “I can’t promise to never risk myself.” Tenderly he brushed her fingers back from her palm so he could kiss that, too. “Sometimes there’s a need for risk.”

“Then promise you’ll be as careful with yourself as you would be with any of your men.”

“Are we bargaining?” He tickled her palm with the tip of his tongue.

“Yes.”

“Then you must be prepared to offer me something in return.”

Her sudden smile was pure pixie. Mischief with a hint of sex. “Sure. I’ll stop yelling at you. About this, anyway. I don’t promise I’ll never yell at you. I’ve got a feeling you’ll need it from time to time.”

She was talking about the future. About their future, as if it were settled and agreed upon that they would be together. As if she’d accepted the mate bond.

The hard crust of time moved inside him—calcified years shifting, shifting, threatening to break apart under the assault of this new flood of feeling. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t allow his fingers to tighten on the hand he held. He was too strong. He could crush it, could quite literally crush her bones if he gripped too hard. He could hurt her.

He wouldn’t. Easier to stop breathing than to take that chance. But she wanted his promise, didn’t she? To give her that, he needed air.

Benedict’s chest heaved. The breath he drew was ragged. He felt it all the way down. “All right. But you have to promise the same. That you’ll be as careful with yourself as you would be with—with any other who you were responsible for.”

Her face was still and solemn, her eyes large. It was too dark to see their beautiful ocean color, yet he could feel the ocean in them washing over him. Her voice was quiet. “I do so vow.”

Those were the right words. The perfect words. Were they Wiccan? Part of some sidhe ritual? It didn’t matter. He gave them back to her. “And I, too, do so vow.”

She smiled—deep, secret, mysterious. And reached up to cup his face in her hands. “Now you’re supposed to kiss me. I’d do it myself, but I can’t go up on tiptoe, so—”

Benedict was no fool. He followed instructions.

Her arms went around him tightly. Her mouth was sweet and her scent flooded him, as if even his pores had opened to absorb it. He stroked her back, her butt, running his hands up and down, savoring the feel of her. She shivered.

Urgency bit. He tried to go slow. He couldn’t. The sweetness of her mouth deserved an hour or two to appreciate, but already he was urging her deeper into the shadows beneath the tree. He put his back to the smooth trunk of the old eucalyptus and tunneled his fingers into the insane mass of her hair, tipping her head so he could kiss and suck on her neck.

She liked that. Her body moved in a slow undulation. When she hummed down low in her throat, he felt the vibration in his lips. Her hands dug in at his waist and he shuddered and straightened and reached for the hem of her T-shirt.

“Wait, wait—can they see from the house? I can’t see the house from here, but—”

“They can’t see.” Neither could the guards. He’d chosen this spot because he knew it was hidden from view.

“You’re shaking.”

“I thought you wouldn’t like it if I ripped your clothes. I’m trying not to.”

“Oh. Good. I’ve thought about this, and I think you need to court me.”

“Okay.” He pulled the T-shirt off over her head. This excited her hair.

“That isn’t what I—oh!”

He’d fastened his mouth on one nipple without waiting to remove her bra. This was stupid because he wanted her bra gone. Only he’d have to stop in order to remove it, and—

“Benedict.” Her voice was breathy.

He made a noise low in his throat and reluctantly released her nipple. “I’m sorry. I know how to go slow. I’d love to go slow, but I don’t think I can right now. If you—”

“Pay attention.” Her hands dived for his waistband. She unsnapped his jeans. “I’m not sure how we’re going to do this out here, but I do not want you to go slow. I’m pretty sure I’d go insane if you tried.” Carefully she eased the zipper down.

He flung back his head and gritted his teeth and thanked God she was careful. He wasn’t wearing underwear. “Like this,” he said thickly, and as quickly as possible he stripped off her jeans and panties, cupped her bottom in his hands, and lifted her off her feet. “We do it like this.”

Her legs circled his waist. “Yes,” she whispered, nuzzling his neck. He probed and found her wet and ready and just as he was about to thrust inside, she thrust forward, and they were joined.

He wanted to stay there forever. His body had other plans. So did she. She bit his neck and he growled and began to move, using the trunk to hold his upper body steady as his hips thrust and his hands held her to him.

It wasn’t slow. It was more like grabbing on to a highspeed train headed straight for the edge of a cliff—if riding a train could flood every neuron in your body with need and pleasure so demanding you had no choice but to hold on, hold on …

Until she bucked against him, crying out. And he could leap off that cliff after her.

His legs buckled. He turned that into a controlled slide, lowering the two of them to the ground. His chest heaved. Her face was buried in the side of his neck, her hair spilling over his shoulder and chest.

Benedict stroked that hair. His hand still trembled, but for a different reason.

“Wow,” she whispered into his skin, then lifted her head. “You’ve got such big hands.” Her voice was soft and dreamy. “I never knew that was possible, what we just did. Such big hands.”

Her face was a pale oval in the darkness. His hands smelled like her now. So did his body. His heart still thudded strongly in his chest, its earlier gallop slowed to a canter … and at peace. He smoothed her hair back from her face. “If I live another hundred years, this moment will remain clear and vivid for me.”

She didn’t say anything, but she smiled.

“What kind of flowers do you like?”

“What?”

“You want to be courted. I need to know …” He stiffened, his head turning.

“What is it?”

She hadn’t heard, of course. “My father. No, don’t panic, he’s not coming here. Shh.” He listened.

Silence was not Arjenie’s strong point. Mostly she managed it only when a magical binding would not allow her to speak. But she distracted herself from talking by grabbing frantically for her jeans.

But as Benedict had told her, Isen wasn’t approaching. He stood at the back door of the house and spoke softly, knowing Benedict could hear. First he apologized for the interruption, then he explained it.

Benedict sighed. “Seabourne’s back.”

Arjenie quit trying to wiggle into her jeans without standing up. “What did he find out?”

“Not what we wanted him to.” Benedict hated having to tell her. “He couldn’t find your sister. The guest cottage behind Friar’s house is empty.”