Under the Full Moon (Crimson Romance) (17 page)

“We need to cross slowly and one at a time,” he warned the others.

Each board cracked a little, but held strong as he made his way across. Beth was two steps behind him and Moss two behind her. Though the water was not drowning deep, its stagnate surface held numerous threats hidden beneath. Gators and snakes, two of the worst.

Once his foot finally made contact with what he assumed had once been a porch, he called yet again in desperation for Grace.

Silence
.

The front area, barely standing, would not be able to withhold all of them. He motioned for the others to wait. Last thing he wanted to do was destroy the last remnants of a place Grace loved and cherished.

The three behind him decided to turn back, easing carefully off the equally disintegrating deck.

He fought the urge to race into the dilapidated dwelling and verify Grace hid somewhere within, but he feared any heavy footed movements would bring the place crumbling down.

“Grace. Sweetheart, are you here?” He lowered his voice, forcing the hard fear-laced edges down a notch.

The place had turned dark, but his nocturnal sight aided in seeing in every nook and hidden cranny. Finally, he made out a shape curled up a tight little ball.

Grace.

He went and knelt at the ground beside her. Pale, ice cold, and shivering in fierce abandon, he feared for her well being. How long had she been her like this? The air around wasn’t nearly as cold as her body, and it looked like she was in shock.

“Grace, honey … talk to me,” he soothed as he scooped her frail body in his arms. Her eyes remained clamped shut and he couldn’t distinguish whether from real sleep, shock or refusing to acknowledge his presence. “Honey, you’re scaring me. Come on, sweetheart. Wake up for me.”

She seemed so small like this. Not the vibrant, headstrong woman he’d come to love and this fact scared the holy shit out of him right now.

“D … Damien? C … c … can’t be. You’re dead.” Faint as her proclamation was, he caught her words.

“No honey. I’m fine. I’m right here.” He stroked the sides of her face and shifted so she faced him. When she finally opened those gorgeous blue peepers of hers, he wanted her to see him. Proof he was very much alive. Hell, as her tantalizing scent reached his fear-addled subconscious, something else jumped alive as well. Normally he’d feel like a heel cradling her and getting wood, but if that was what it took to get her to believe he wasn’t a dream, then so be it.

He lowered his mouth to her ear.

“I’m not the only presence alive right now, Grace. No way you can’t tell — Junior says hi. Wake up for me now. Let me prove just how fine we are. Open those pretty blue eyes. Let me in, Grace.” Relief flooded when her hand, shaky as it was, reached up to move a lock of hair from his eyes.

“I don’t understand. You’re dead. I heard the explosion. Demetrius said … ”

“Whatever he told you were fabrications of the truth. No one died.” Though Trick still fought for his life, Damien’s words were still the truth.

“Promise me no one died. Promise me. Please, oh please, oh please.” Her voice wavered and again, the sense she perched on the verge of shock caused panic to flare in him.

“No one died.” He didn’t count Demetrius as a someone, so he wasn’t being computed into the equation.

“Beth?” Weak, but her voice strengthened the longer they spoke.

“Is just fine and outside this dwelling.”

“Moss?”

“Moss is fine, too. They are outside with Squire. Waiting for us to come out.” He wished he had a way to alert them, but he didn’t dare leave her side yet. He wanted her talking and alert. The more she did, the better she looked. Her color even appeared to be returning.

“I thought I’d killed you.” A keening wail burst from her, and she began rocking again. He couldn’t let her slip back to where she’d been. Gripping her waist, he sat her up on his knee. With one arm crooked behind her, he used his free hand to force her gaze back to his.

“You didn’t, so don’t leave me again. Stay with me, Grace. I’ve been too stubborn to acknowledge all the emotions hitting me, but damn it, I love you. Ever since that day on your porch when you trusted me enough to open up. Since I massaged your shoulders and your scent, tears and laugh drew me in like a bat to a cave.”

Silence.

“Did you,” sniff, sniff, “just reference me like a bat to a … a … cave?”

Okay, in hindsight his rendition of their magic moment may not be the most romantic of descriptions. But he lived in a cave. Bats loved caves.

“Um. I’m not the best at … ”

Damien found himself pleasantly cut off by a warm set of plump lips. She may have meant for the gesture to be sweet. But it was so damn much more. The satin lips sliding across his stirred the hunger within. His tongue swiped between their softness, urging them to part. Let him in. His animal surged forth happy its mate was back. His hand ran the length of her back, wanting more than to be stroking fabric. He needed to touch her. Skin on skin. Proof she was safe and within his embrace, where she belonged.

Her moan elicited a direct call to action from him. His tongue ran the length of hers, swirling ‘round and ‘round as they dueled in the most basic of all dances. He brought her body flush against his, languishing in the soft curves of his woman against him … safe. Felt the press of tight puckered nipples poke against his chest and wished others weren’t waiting. He’d take her right here and now on this weathered old floor and implant himself within the memories of her past. Give her new ones to cling to while burying the old.

Grace kneeled then rose enough to lift a leg over his waist until she sat on his hard cock. Her hips rocked back and forth as she ran her crotch over his bulge. Her small puffs, pants, and tilting pelvis told him her gyrating hit all the right spots. Sure, he could have lifted her dress and been in her in a matter of one blink. He needed her as much it appeared she needed him. But Grace was too classy a woman for him to chance them being caught.

If he didn’t call out to the others soon, they’d be barging in.

Pulling his mouth away he rested his forehead against hers, their hair blending to create the perfect of private canopies around them.

“No … don’t stop. Please, I need you. Need more. Was so cold and now am … ”

“Am what? Alive? Sultry? Yes, you are. Smoking hot. But sadly we aren’t alone.”

“What?” That grabbed her attention and had her smoothing her dress back down while glancing behind them in a nervous fashion. “Oh my God, I forgot what you’d said about others.” Her face blushed the most beautiful shade of crimson he’d ever seen. Far more lovely than even the exotic bloodwood blooms that sprang up around the swamps in springtime.

“Uh, Damien.” Her expression had become most quizzical. Almost humorous as she pointed behind them.

He turned to see four young armadillos standing there watching them.

“They’re staring,” Grace quipped as a smile spread across her face. “Your doing, I gather?”

“Not that I’m aware.” He patted his thigh and the four armored creatures waddled right over.

“They didn’t even hesitate.” Grace seemed awed at the link he had with his cousins of sorts. Amused, he watched as Grace reached and gently picked one up. The thing curled into a ball, but once she brought it gently up into her arms, uncurled in tentative trust. Apparently even his little friends recognized Grace for what she was. His mate.

The moment was perfect as all became one. One with the swamp and the world that encircled its grace and beauty. Out here in the swamp as dangerous as it could be, life was simple. There were no outside confusions. The circle of life was that which it had always been. Survive. If you found a mate in the process … even better.

But as Damien glanced to the open door jamb, he knew things wouldn’t be simple for them. Trick fought for his life, Squire hid something and after all the traumas, they needed to decide whether to remain with B.E.A.R. or not.

His vote was to take Grace back to his cave where he could protect her far better. Convincing Grace of this, however, would be an up creek row without an oar.

“Hello, Grace.” The armadillos scattered, scampering back through the gaping holes in the ragged walls.

Damien jerked his attention to the door. Squire. Asshat had to ruin the moment. Sure, the magic was bound to end within a few minutes anyway, but damn. Squire couldn’t have given them one more second?

Grace’s body froze within his arms. Her skin chilled even more than it already was as her gaze slid toward Squire. She eased from his grasp and rose before turning to face the man who’d intruded on their moment.

“I … how?” she stuttered as her mouth dropped open only to close and reopen again. Under different circumstances he would have teased that she resembled a guppy. Or followed his ungentlemanly thoughts when seeing those lush full lips of hers open and close. Not now though. His gut roiled and instinct told him to tread carefully or lose her forever. Something big was happening, and the fact he didn’t understand what made him all the warier.

“You’re dead. They told me you merged with the swamp creature you’d been cursed with. So how are you here? Now?”

“Grace, I … ” Squire, too, seemed at a loss for words. Damien had been content riding shotgun in the backseat of this ride until Squire took hesitant steps toward Grace and his hands reached out for her.

“Whoa there, buddy. I don’t think so.” He placed himself between them and bit back the growl his beast wanted to unleash.

“Damien, it’s okay,” Grace promised, placing a hand on his forearm, her voice barely above a whisper. She’d come from one shock and sounded as if she headed straight into another.

“Who is he to you?” Damien’s gut screamed he didn’t want to hear her answer, but his mind knew he needed to listen to the truth. And from her. Not the challenger before him.

“It’s. … Henry. My fiancé … er, ex-fiancé.”

Red clouded his vision as rage boiled over within. This man had known about Grace and had stayed mum the entire time. Damien felt played. And nobody played him.

Nobody.

• • •

Grace wished she’d had more time to think about Henry returning from the grave, but she didn’t. The flesh beneath her palm hardened and she thought she heard a hiss even as she stared at Henry, whose pupils suddenly went oval as his eyes drew to slits. Damien, who stood before her one second, launched airborne the next in one swift move into Henry … whom he’d called Squire. The world splintered as the massive men flew into the dilapidated wall and the rotten wood disintegrated around them.

A loud splash and Grace ran to the old dock to try and find out where they’d landed.

“What the hell is going on now?” Beth hollered, stomping her foot from the other side of the dock. Then her niece caught sight of her running out onto the dock. “Grace!” Beth screamed her name before she beelined toward her. Beth had taken only a few steps when one of the boards gave way and she nearly sank in the water and muck. Moss grabbed her around the waist and hauled her to shore before anything more than her feet hit the water.

“I’m fine, stay there,” Grace yelled across to Beth and Moss before searching the water frantically for the dueling men.

Both rose out and Grace realized they’d gone into their animal counterparts. Or as much as she supposed either did. Squire’s eyes looked lethal in appearance but held no candle to the predatory viciousness that damn near glowed from Damien’s. His lips drew back and the snarl turned into a loud roar. She’d never experienced such helplessness as she did then.

“No! Please stop!” she begged, though neither even so much as flinched. Water splashed and swirled around as the two men lunged, bashed and punched one another in the territorial battle.

Damien’s arm flew from the water and arced as he brought his fist down into Henry’s jaw with a sickening thud. She watched in horror as Henry’s hands rose from the murky waters to display talon-like nails. Frozen, she watched shocked to the core as those talons flew across Damien’s now exposed chest. Screamed when a crimson stain spread slowly across the top of thick swamp water. Still neither man paused in their assault on the other. She was relieved to notice that where she’d thought gaping wounds would appear from the slices, only minimal scratches were visible. Memory skirted back to something Moss mentioned. Damien carried traits of his soul creature, the armadillo. He’d inherited armor it appeared.

More shouting, more curses.

What played before her seemed more a death match than any sort of standard fight.

Bones cracked, flesh slapped the water, and she feared what lurked beneath it waiting for a chance to strike the men battling above. Gators thrived in the area as did water moccasins.

Something large bobbed to the surface just behind the men and she squinted to make out whether a limb or a gator. Finally the rough, bumpy snout of gator distinguished itself. The thing was massive — at least seventeen feet — and she couldn’t see the entire length. A monster among gators and heading straight for the men. Yeah, they might have animal strengths and qualities, but against the massive beast, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Especially unaware of the approaching danger.

She yelled a warning as two more green bumps emerged on each side of them. Neither man noticing the arrival of more predators. The men rolled as though already in a gator’s jaws, yet she knew they weren’t. Not yet anyway.

Desperation made her turn to beg for Moss’s help. She thanked the fates she didn’t have to ask. The large man was already diving into the water. Glancing over to Beth, she saw the fear on her niece’s face and guilt set in. Beth’s fiancé endangered himself because of an event she set in motion.

If anything happens to Moss …

Both men had again disappeared beneath the stagnant water. Moss surfaced once or twice without coming up with either of them, and panic set in that they were too late. That in their need for bloodshed the gators had taken them. As if in slow motion, she became aware of Beth screaming for Moss as he came up empty handed again. Tears burned the backs of her eyelids as she leapt into the water, no longer able to stay out of the fight and not caring about any critters lurking nearby.