From This Day Forward (9 page)

Clearly, she’d been devastated to have come here. Alone. Without the girls, without Yana to comfort her. She only came here alone when she fought her demons, when she needed direction, and all hope seemed lost
—when she searched for a strength she didn’t feel she possessed on her own.

He knew because he’d found her here at her lowest points in life. Her parents’ wedding anniversary. Her birthday. Father’s Day. All dates commemorating the huge, painful void she struggled so hard to ignore and prove didn’t exist with her positive outlook and response to life. It was the face she showed the world.

Noah knew better.

He knelt down again and touched her shoulder, rocking her gently.
“April, honey. Sweetie.”

April moaned softly. A scratchy, hoarse sound.

“Sweetie, wake up. I’m home.”

Her eyes fluttered open slowly. She blinked. Once, twice. Slow. Groggy.
“Noah?” She rubbed her forehead and her mouth turned down at the corners. Sadness filled her glassy eyes.

“
You’re not dreaming.” He rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip. “It’s me. In the flesh. I’m home.”

A single tear spilled onto her cheek and tumbled down her face. He brushed it away with his finger, then he kissed her softly. His mouth touched hers in a gentle, feather-light caress. She tasted so damned good. Her scent, like honey and sunlight
—warm and full of life—ensnared him and threatened to drown him.

“
It’s really you?” she whispered, still looking doubtful.

“
Yes, I promise.”

She clutched him around the neck and pulled him into a fierce kiss. Passion swamped him. He grew hard in an instant. Her hands skimmed his body, burrowed under his t-shirt to find him warm and solid as if to prove to herself that he was real and not an ephemeral dream.

April pulled back, lips swollen from their kiss, and pinned him with a scowl just as fierce as her passionate kiss a moment before. She fisted her small hands in his t-shirt. “Don’t ever leave me again, you hear me? Not ever.”

Noah knew he couldn’t promise her he’d never leave. Duty would call. Eventually. And one day he could die, especially with bad guys out there like the hoard thief targeting dragon mages and their families. But she didn’t need to hear those words right now
—that blatant reality. What she needed was reassurance that he’d be there for her, no matter what. And he would. For as long as destiny allowed. “I’m here, baby. Now. And always. I’ve got you.”

“
Noah, love me.” Her husky, almost tortured plea, rocked his axis—a direct hit to the solar plexus. He stood, scooped her into his arms, and headed to the adjacent bedroom.

He’d take all day long to prove to this woman,
his woman
, that he loved her and would be with her forever. From this day forward. Whatever it took.

Chapter Six
: Cocooned

After the trauma she’d experienced at the announcement of Noah’s MIA status, April couldn’t be sure if she was dreaming, delusional, or just fantasizing. But whatever the hell was going on, she planned to ride the wave. Fuck the real world. She’d take this fantasy any day or night. She couldn’t face the rest. All she wanted was her husband. Warm. Hard. In her bed. She’d been holed up at the springhouse cottage for four days now. Only eating, drinking, sleeping, crying, and taking long baths.

She floated down the hallway in the arms of the man she loved and she didn’t care about anything else. His solid chest and strong arms cradled her. His spicy, clean scent surrounded her, reminding her of sex and a winter snow storm all in one. God, she couldn’t get enough of this man. Her man. Her husband.

She buried her nose in his throat, nuzzling. She nipped the warm flesh at the base of his throat. Noah growled. She smiled. He always responded that way when she bit his neck. The man had a serious biting fetish. She lapped the spot with her tongue to smooth away the sting of pain.

Noah laid her on the bed as if she were a delicate flower. He supported his weight on his forearms so he didn’t crush her. Love and ad
oration shone from his amazing tawny gold eyes. He always treated her as if she’d break or bruise. She guessed his way of compensating for the dragon within. He’d never hurt her. She trusted him. One hundred percent.

But he’d leave. He always did.

So she never quite gave everything when she loved him. She saved a small piece of herself, never giving him all her passion, all her anger, all the pent-up frustrations. He got the good stuff. The light, positive side of April Easton. The side she’d shown to the world ever since the day her dad walked out on them. The day her father—the man who was supposed to always be there—had chosen his freedom over his wife and daughter.

A dad was someone who you should be able to trust. Always. Not someone who turned on you, or disappeared, never to look back. Never to speak to his daughter again or show her an ounce of consideration or love.

Why am I so unlovable? Why didn’t he choose me?

The thought seared her mind and heart, leaving a deep, painful brand on her soul.

Never again. Never again would someone get a chance to brand her soul. So she’d kept a part of herself buried, buried so deep that every time Noah left her, every time he made love to her, hell, every time he frustrated her, he got a freakin’ Pollyanna response. A calm platitude. A loving caress. Warmth. Joy. The hint of passion. But a decoy. Not the real thing, not the churning, seething love and hate that warred inside her soul.

Did Noah know she was a mere reflection of the woman she should be? Did he even guess?

She doubted he even saw her. Really saw her.

So no one, not even her husband
—her soul mate—could reject her because he never really truly knew her, never got the real April. It was a neat trick. A sleight of hand, or, rather, a sleight of heart.

But now. At this moment, she wanted to give Noah everything. Because she’d almost lost him forever and who knew what tomorrow would bring? The fantasy would fade. He’d go back to war. She could lose him again a thousand times over. And he deserved better. More. Hell, she deserved more. A life half-lived is no life at all. It’s a prison. And April was tired of living a life shackled by the woundedness that came from abandonment. She wanted freedom. Freedom to love and to hate without the fear that she’d turn him away.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and rolled him so she sat on top, straddling him on the bed. He was hard and ready under her. She rocked against his erection once.

He gasped.
“It’s been too damned long.”

“
Yeah, babe. It has. We’re going to remedy that right now.”

Then she tunneled her hands under his t-shirt and pushed it out of the way. She kissed a hot trail over his abs to his chest, where she gently bit down on his nipple than soothed it with her tongue. Again, he growled, deep in his throat.

She stroked a hand down his bicep to appease the dragon.

It purred.

She smiled against Noah’s skin, then sank her teeth into the tendon at the side of his neck. He sucked in a breath. “Do that again, and you are done. I’ll be in you so fast you won’t know what happened.”

She kissed and sucked a path to his ear. Nipping his lobe playfully she whispered,
“I’ve had dreams about that. Long, hot, wet dreams that ended with me touching myself and using the vibrator you so lovingly dubbed Noah II.”

“
You’ve got the real thing now, babe. No need for toys or dreams. Your every fantasy is my command. Here now. Forever.”

April sat up and pulled off her top. She waved her hand between them.
“There are way too many clothes here.”

“
You’re killing me.” He ran his thumbs over the blue lace of the demi-bra she wore. “Even after ten years, this never ever gets old.”

She laughed and pushed herself off of him. She wiggled out of her yoga pants. The matching blue lace panties barely covered her sex. She knew by the groan that tore from his throat.

“Killing. Me.” His hoarse utterance had her showing him mercy. She unbuttoned his pants and slid the zipper down, freeing his erection. She tugged his boxer briefs to his knees and took his shaft in her hand. Heat. Velvet. Smooth. Soft. Yet hard as stone. She kissed the tip, licking away the bead of fluid. “Mmmm.” Then she took him into her mouth. Deep. Sucking gently. He plunged his fingers into her hair, cradling her head gently. Then she moved back to the tip. Again. And again. Until he hauled her off of him in one swift move.

She was under him, he was between her legs. His hard length at the opening of her sex. Hot. Slick. He penetrated. One smooth thrust and he
was in, part of her. And, God, he felt so damned good. She arched into him, meeting his slow, steady rhythm.

April whimpered with each thrust. The pleasure so intense she didn’t know how long she could hold off the orgasm. But the longer she waited, the better it would be. Then,
“Don’t stop. Damn you. Don’t ever stop.”

Noah laughed. But now it was his turn. He bit and sucked her neck, then lowered the demi-bra to expose her aching nipples. He sucked one into his mouth, pulling hard. She cried out. Again, the pleasure more than she could stand. Her back arched. He did it again. She could feel the orgasm building. He thrust harder. Sucked her other nipple. And she exploded into a million tiny pieces. Wave after wave of pleasure cascaded over her, washing her out to sea with the tsunami that raged.

He kept up his pace through her orgasm. Steady, pounding. And, God, if she didn’t feel another one sneak up on her. Damn it. The second orgasm lasted so long she didn’t know if it had been one or two. But this time, Noah didn’t go unscathed. She’d milked his erection into a seismic orgasm of his own. He shouted out, the dragon snarled. And she knew she’d done well. Because no one—not her, not Noah, not the sleeping dragon hidden within—would ever ever forget this reunion.

And, maybe, just maybe, it would be enough this time to keep him home, with her.

Choose me.
The tiny voice clamored, echoing in her heart ... searing the scarred tissue of her soul again.

Chapter Seven
: A Sign Not Ignored

Hours of hot sex almost made up for Noah’s six-month absence. Finally, April began to believe her husband had come home. Alive. In the flesh. She wasn’t dreaming. He had not abandoned her. He wasn’t dead.

And for some reason, she knew this time
would be different. This time, she would work through her abandonment issues. She was an adult for God’s sake. Surely, the woundedness she’d experienced in childhood didn’t need to impact how she lived her life right now, every day. Not after this. Something had changed inside her. She’d changed. The possibility of Noah dying had awakened something desperate within her. Something she didn’t want to bury and ignore any more.

S
he awoke, thoroughly sated and achy in spots that hadn’t been worked out in forever. Today would be different, she vowed. She’d open herself up. Fully. No more hiding behind the façade of sunshine and daisies. If she was going to do this thing—this relationship with her husband, she was going to give it her all. No holding back. No fear that he’d leave her or she’d push him away. No, ma’am. She’d chart a brand new course.

She turned her head
on the pillow to look at Noah.

Tenderness, laced with desire so hot and needy
that it made her feel feverish, spread through her. God she loved this man.

He laid face down on the bed. Naked.
Gorgeous. Elbows bent, forearms buried under the pillow, he slept with his cheek snuggled into the plush bedding, emphasizing the contrast of the hard planes of his body against the softness of the comforter and bolsters surrounding him.

The muscles in his biceps bunched as he cradled the pillow closer
. She brushed her fingers across his tat.

She loved that dragon.

The dragon slumbered, too. Its taloned feet and wings close to its body. Like a sleeping dog, its nose tucked in under the long tail which encircled its body. At her caress, the dragon lifted its head and peered sleepily at her. He arched his head, as if leaning in to her warm touch. She ran her finger down the inked spine. His scales rippled under her fingers.

The dragon cocked his head, looking at her.

One eye closed in a slow wink as he continued to peer at her.

I missed you
. She didn’t utter the words. It was the cry of her heart, her soul crying out to the soul of the man-dragon who she’d mated, who she’d cherished.

I’m yours. Always.
Trust me
, the dragon spoke, a rough whisper. Not out loud, but through her mind. Sure. Gentle. Commanding.

April tipped
her chin toward her chest, a silent acquiescence.
I do. I will. From this day forward
. The sacred vow echoed inside her.

And she meant it.

Something in her heart unfurled. Something new and fresh. Like a tender shoot of love and trust coming to life after a long winter underground.

The silverback dragon nodded in acknowledgement then rested his chin on his front talons, now stretching out straight
, body in a straight arrow behind him, and he closed his eyes as if the matter had been settled with those short words.

April couldn’t help smiling. Yes, she probably looked like a fool, smiling like a goon at her husband as he slept. But she didn’t care. She was happy. Happier than she could remember feeling in a long, long time.

Noah was alive. And that’s all that mattered.

He slept hard. Nothing would wake him, short of an emergency. It was funny,
really. She’d been told while on mission he could be ready for action at a moment’s notice—the slightest click would wake him. But when he came home, when he slept here at the spring house, it was like he was cocooned and could find rest. True peace. That deep sleep that eluded him everywhere else.

She ran her eyes over the length of him and even though she was pleasantly tired, her body tingled in all the right spots, as if in anticipation for
its next round of sex. He’d been through a lot in the last several weeks, but especially the last several days with the torture his commanding officer had told her about when he visited with the chaplain when Noah first went MIA.

The man deserved his sleep. But she couldn’t help touching him
to make sure he was okay, to reassure herself that he was really there, next to her. She loved the T of muscles stretching across both shoulders and in an inverted triangle. God, he was a huge turn-on. His broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist and then to his delectable ass. And if she didn’t think it would wake him up, she’d be tempted to take a bite. Just a small nip. A smile tugged at her mouth again. The man’s serious fetish for biting, or, should she say, being bitten, ramped him from one to eighty like nothing else.

Her hand stopped at the scabbed
brush burn that stretched from his hip down his leg. He’d been in an explosion. Tortured. But he’d survived. And that’s all that mattered. A female terrorist had been involved. He’d done what he needed to do to survive and he’d come back to her. Period. She didn’t need details. Seeing the end result was bad enough. Her imagination could fill in the blanks well enough on its own. She really didn’t want the reality stuck in her head too.

She trailed her hand back up his spine, a soft, reassuring stroke against warm, spicy, masculine skin.

Noah moaned in his sleep.

He arched into her
touch, but still didn’t wake.

She kissed his shoulder. Then got up. She used the bathroom, and then stum
bled into the kitchen. She brewed a single cup of light roast coffee, added creamer, then sipped the elixir of the morning gods. Mmmm. Nothing tasted better than that first sip of coffee in the morning. The door to the springhouse vibrated. The energy more frenetic than the night before. The door clicked open.

April sighed, almost hating her new resolution to confront signs, her personal signs, head-on. Face-to-face. No more hiding. Okay. She could do this. Noah was safe now. He slept on in the next room. He’d survived. He lived. Nothing else mattered. So what could she possibly see that she had to fear?

It was the unknown and the power it had to hurt her.

Plain and simple. That’s what kept her fear alive.

She took another long drink of her coffee and considered the open doorway. She could go through the door and begin to live her life like she’d determined earlier in bed—without fear of the future. Or she could go back, curl up with Noah, and let things go forward as they’d always done, living a half-life.

She se
t her cup down on the marble countertop with a resounding click. No. She chose to live, to go forward without fear. Damn the consequences.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked through the open door and down the steps and through the long hallway that led to the spring, the ancient bubbling waters of Mystic Springs, where her past met her future and legend became reality. Magick
, fear, and excited anticipation, all wrapped up in one package, shivered along her skin.

“
Let’s do this.” She said out loud, more for her own benefit than anyone else. She opened the old rustic door to the spring. The bubbling sounded like a tinkle of laughter.

A challenge? Shit. She hoped fate was not laughing at her.

Wicked bitch.

April smiled
in response. Game on.

An hour later, April felt less optimistic about surviving this encounter with the spring. Or, at least, surviving with her heart intact. She sat on a low stone wall built a century ago with mortar and limestone. The spring looked like it was contained by a wishing well. That’s where similarities ended.

The
warm water made the air hang thick with humidity. The surface glowed, an ethereal silver like a looking glass. The darkened room vibrated with energy, a soft hum of sound bounced off the walls, like a lover’s croon—the siren’s song that April could never resist for long. She’d been sitting at the poolside for an hour with nothing coming to her. No patterns emerged on the surface. It was if the spring had decided to remain silent.

It waited on her.

“What do you want from me?” she finally whispered.

“
Acknowledgement,” the siren voice whispered back.

“
I have always acknowledged your power.”

“
Yes, but you hold back this time. Are you afraid?”

April hesitated.
She was afraid. And she’d vowed not to be.

The spring, with it
s breathy feminine voice, trilled. A sad little laugh. “I have my answer. You don’t want the truth. All your life you’ve feared the truth. Why? Does not the truth set you free?”

April tucked her chin into her knees and hugged her legs, giving a small shrug
. “No, the truth has never set me free. The truth has always damaged me. I’ve come to expect a nasty bite from the truth.”

“
And what do you tell your daughters?”

She rubbed her forehead.
“If we know, we can fix it. If we don’t know, we can’t find a solution.”

“
Do you want to see?”

“
The future?”

“
No, the future is not your problem. The past is your problem.”

“
Why? Is it my father?”

“
No.”

“
Noah, then? Must I see him tortured? Why? He’s here. It’s over. There’s nothing else to know.”

“
There is always more to know.” The spring swirled in tight circles, creating a vortex at the center with her agitation.

April closed her eyes and rested her head on her knees.

She didn’t know why she resisted the pull of the spring this time. Something was different. Somehow she knew she might not survive whatever it was that the spring wanted to show her.

“
Why now? You didn’t show me what happened when my father disappeared.”

“
No. You were too young to understand betrayal on that level. A girl of ten should not see what happened then.”

“
I knew betrayal a few days later. When he finally called to say he was leaving us.” A tear slipped down April’s cheek. She swiped it away with her shoulder.

“
This is different. This is the man who holds your future. He has not abandoned you. It may look like betrayal, but only if you see with your eyes. You want change? Then you must see with your heart for a change. Trust your intuition—what you know.”

April didn’t want to see what had happened to him. Not if it looked like betrayal, because she wasn’t sure she would ever get beyond it. It might look and feel too much like her old wound. So much so that she couldn’t get beyond it.

The spring burbled, rising in the air, taking the shape of a woman. The face serene, angelic. “You must see the situation in order to help him overcome this villain. She is evil. Your family is in jeopardy. If you do not see, you do not know what you are dealing with. And it is always better to know your enemy than to hide and hope she never comes after what you love. Because she will come.”

April was silent a long time, hands gripped tight, knuckles white. Noah would come to look for her soon if she didn’t return to the house.
Okay. She could do this. Really, she could. “Fine. Show me.”

Desert heat blasted April’s skin as the scene unfolded before her. She stood inside a dimly lit cave, a voyeur to a sickening scene. Her husband, naked and bloody, was chained to a stone wall. He pulled a woman dressed in black leather with dark hair to the middle of her back to him and he kissed her. The kiss deepened in passion—their bodies intertwined in a power struggle as old as time. The woman pulled back. Looked over her shoulder. April knew her immediately, but that barely registered because all she could focus on was her husband.

She could smell aroused dragon.
They gave off a particular spicy scent during arousal. And Noah was the only dragon in the cave. Dammit.

“
Enough,” she said, the word harsh and brooking no argument. The vision faded immediately, but the pain that sliced her heart did not.

Noah stretched. God, it felt amazing to be home. Right. A peace he’d never experienced settled over him. The woman next to him surpassed all his expectations and fantasies in ways he’d never dreamed when he’d married her ten years ago. Who would have thought it possible? Certainly not him. He reached for her and found empty space. The bed had grown chilly. Apparently, he’d slept the sleep of the dead.

April must be up milling around
the cottage.

He pulled on his jeans and walked into the kitchen. The door to the springhouse stood open. He brewed himself a coffee. He didn’t frequent the spring. There was something
disturbing about it for him. The dragon always felt restless and on edge when standing before the pool of water; the magick more concentrated, which usually wasn’t a problem, however, on occasion, he’d had to be extra careful—especially vigilant of his powers.