Unstoppable Force (Force of Nature Series) (24 page)

“You behave. Of course it would kill
him. That’s why it was laying out there for everyone to see when we found poor
Timothy’s body. He certainly didn’t have it out like that when we were
together.” She huffed at him again and went to stand by the sink to finish up
the potatoes for dinner. “That poor man gave me what he knew I’d use. He’d
already given me the map. The key would have been useless without it killing
William and he knew it.”

Connor wasn’t sure when she’d lost him,
but he realized that he didn’t have a clue what the hell she was talking about.
He eyed the spoon in her apron pocket and wonder if he could get it from her
without being brain damaged before he could get away. She turned to look at him
as if she knew what he was thinking. He said the first thing he could think of,
hoping she wouldn’t call him on the spoon. Or hit him with it.

“And you two, what have you done with
this map and key? Gone out spelunking? Or have you been scouring the mountain
looking for the lost treasure?” He flushed. He’d been nasty, but he was also a
little pissed. She’d not told him.

“We’ve done both, thanks.” She sat next
to him and he picked her up and put her on his lap. “We found something,
but…but not anything of value to anyone but me, I guess. The world too if I
were to let it go, but I won’t. Not ever.”

“It’s the formulas he used.” His mom put
the big notebook on the table with a smallish box. “I took some of the pages to
the university and asked them to look them over. Not a lot, mind you, but just
snippets of a page here and a page there. They said it was the work of a mad
man. A man who needed to be locked up.”

Connor picked up the book and thumbed
through some of the pages. There were pictures, crude ones that showed Louise
as a child. A layout of a lab and a list of things needed in one. There was a
longer list on another page that had the same things on it, but some had been
crossed out and other things added. There were prices of some of the equipment
and a list of people he wanted to work for him. He laughed when he saw the name
of a very famous chemist. One who had been dead a very long time.

“So, you have the inner workings of a
madman. Now what? I know you said you won’t use it. But something has to be
done with this information.” He looked at Louise when she put the book back on
the table and handed him the box. “What’s this? Another key?”

“It’s my birth certificate.” He took out
the topmost sheet of paper and opened it. She took it from him and pointed to
the top. “It’s my real name. The one they gave me in the lab.”

“Eve Cinderella Cavanaugh.” He looked at
the name of her parents. “Someone decided to call you after your mother. Her
name was Ginger Louise Spatter. William James Bond is listed for your father.”

He watched her fold the sheet back out
and take out another. “This is the list of ‘donors’ that they put into my
test-tube. I think they wanted to keep it all straight. All of them are in that
box, or at least their pictures are. They all had a…all those men were a part
of my life the entire time I was a child. The pool guy.” She handed him a
picture. Then another. “That guy was our door man. This guy was the first
foster family I stayed with when I was forced out of the orphanage.”

“They kept tabs on you.”

She nodded.

“At least until you ran away from Herman.
Then they must have lost track of you.”

“It’s in there as well. The ramblings of
William. He had a list of these men and they were marked off with dates. I’m
assuming either when he killed them or asked them where I was.” She handed him
a neatly typed up sheet. “Your mom made a list of them and she checked on them
at the library. All of them died a horrific death.”

Connor watched her put everything back
in the box and close the lid. He knew she was upset. Could even understand it. But
what he didn’t understand was how to help her. But he did love her.

“There are some things you should be
aware of. Things that now that we have this, it makes things a bit easier for
you.” Phil sat down and pulled out a file. “Your…whatever you want to call him
claimed you on the birth certificate, so you are entitled to all his—”

“I don’t want anything of his.” She
stiffened in his arms and he held her tightly. “You do whatever you want with
it. I don’t want to have a thing to do with it.”

Phil nodded. “I can understand your not
wanting his things, but there is a matter of his money. There is a great deal
of it.”

“I don’t care.”

Connor didn’t let her go when she
started to cry.

“He tried to do things to me that…you
have to know that he was nothing more than a man who I knew.”

“I can do what you want with it, but I’d
like to make a suggestion.”

Louise nodded.

“Austin has a large pack here, a pack
that you’re now a part of. There are over seventy children here that will need
help with educational needs, college. Some of them might be in need of housing
help during college. What if I set up a foundation to help defray the costs to
help the pack? No one would ever know where it came from.”

She looked at Connor and he nodded. Louise
looked back at Phil and he smiled. “I have things I’d like to make clear. Things
about the money. It can’t be used for what he was doing. I don’t care if
someone uses it to go to college and do research, but they can’t set up a lab
somewhere and start doing what William was doing.”

“I can make that happen.” He pulled out
a sheet of paper and started making notes. “How about you think of a name for
it? A name that will reflect what you want the money used for.”

He started to tell her to take her time
in thinking about that when she spoke again. “The Timothy Bennett Foundation. Isn’t
that what you found his last name was?”

“Yes. Yes, it was.” After making a few
more notes, he stood up. “I have to go and take care of Holly. She and the baby
were going to watch television when I left.”

After a few minutes everyone left them
in the kitchen and Connor simply held her. She seemed to be the most relaxed
he’d seen her in a long while. He kissed her shoulder and stood up with her in
his arms. It was really late and they were going to move into their new home
tomorrow.

“Connor? Let’s go to our house. Let’s
become wolves and run over there right now and sleep in our new bed. Tonight.”

He liked the idea. “I don’t think you
should plan on doing much sleeping, love. I have plans of breaking in that bed
of ours. What do you think of that?”

Her answer nearly had him fall over. She
nuzzled her face into his neck and nipped at his flesh. A soft moan from her
about had him tossing her over his shoulder, taking her upstairs and fucking,
but her next words made him change his mind.

“If you take me to the house, I’ll let
you tie me up.”

Connor took them outside and put her
down. “Hurry. Hurry before I take you right here on the porch.” He loved her
giggle and smiled as he watched her strip. He almost forgot what he was doing
he was so mesmerized by her skin being revealed to him, inch by inch.

Chapter 20

The run was fantastic. They had both
shifted and she couldn’t seem to run fast enough or long enough through the
woods. She loved the way she felt and the way things smelled. Sharper, much earthier.
She had just come out from behind a large bush when he jumped her, knocking her
to the ground.

“I need you,”
he growled
through her mind.
“I need to bury myself deep in you while you’re a wolf.”

“Yes.”
Her body was ready for him in
that second. But she wanted to be chased by him, dominated by him. Louise took
off running and didn’t stop even when she felt him getting close. Didn’t slow
when she knew that it was only a matter of seconds before he took her to the
ground.

When it happened she’d thought she was
prepared, but his heavy body had rolled her over and over until she was beneath
him. His larger body, muscled and strong, held her down to the ground without
any problems. She whimpered when he bit her hard on the shoulder.

“My beast wants you and he’ll have you.”

She wanted to tell him yes again but
didn’t.

“You ran from us. You can’t run from us
when you smell like sex to us.”

She curled her body up and rubbed
herself under him. When he bit her again, she nearly came. Then he dropped his
weight over her and she was lying flat on the ground.

“Lay still. If you move again, I’m not
going to be able to be gentle with you. I want to, but fuck, you’re driving me
insane.”
She moved again and felt his cock.
“You are still a virgin in this body. If
I take you, it’s going to hurt.”

“Hurt me, Connor, please. I need to feel
you take me this way.”
He shifted over her, but didn’t let her up. She
wanted to run again, but knew that if she tried again he’d really hurt her.

When he mounted her from behind, she nearly
cried out when he slammed deep inside of her. His cock was thicker than she’d
thought it would be and much longer. She waited for him to move and when he
didn’t, she did. His canines sank deep in her shoulder.

He held her down as he took her. He moved
so quickly that she couldn’t seem to get a grasp on his rhythm and build up to
a climax as well. And that alone made her see stars. When he put his paws on
her back and pushed her down more, she knew that he was close to coming. Knew
that she too was going to come with him.

“Christ, I need you.”
His breath was
hot on her muzzle and she realized she could move more.
“Come with me, baby.
Come now.”

She did. Her body came apart and seemed
to put itself back together again before she did it again. When Connor
stiffened behind her, he bit her again, this time hard, and she knew that it
was different somehow. But when he howled, her body hard and jerking behind
when he did it, she knew that he had come as well.

~~~

They had shifted an hour ago. Both of
them relaxed enough not to care about the stones biting into neither their
backsides nor the occasional bug that landed on them. She rolled over and
rested her head on his chest and looked at him. His eyes were closed, but she
knew he was awake.

“How long do you think it will be before
we don’t want to have sex any longer?”

He raised his head and looked at her for
a second before he dropped back down and closed his eyes. “Never. Where do you
come up with this stuff?” He rolled her to her back quickly. “Or do you need
for me to prove it to you again how much I love your body?”

His body was hard and she felt his cock
stir on her thigh. She reached up, pulled his head to hers, and kissed him. They
both deepened the kiss and after several seconds, Connor made his way down her
body to her breasts and worried her nipple. “I love the way you taste. Especially
after sex. You’re salty and hot.” His tongue seemed to glide over her skin,
leaving a hot trail behind it. “There is nothing I’d like better than to take
you again, but I don’t want to injure either of us by doing it on the ground. Let’s
go home.”

After dressing, they walked over to the
new house. It was lovely even in the twilight. He asked her what she wanted to
do first after they woke up in the morning.

“I should find a job.” She looked at him
when he laughed. “I’m serious. I have never not made my way in the world.” She
knew he was aware of her last few years. They’d talked about her being homeless
and how she’d ended up at the Force compound. And she thought he was all right
with it. She looked over at him as they opened the door to the house. He
stopped her before they went inside.

“Going through this door is a new
beginning for us. Once we cross over the threshold, nothing that happened
before matters and everything from now on does.” He picked her up in his arms
and held her to him. “Today, we start our lives together. No matter what, I
will always love you more than myself and cherish you longer than either of us
will live. And the child you now carry will know nothing but love,
understanding, and that his or her parents would do anything for them. Do you
understand?”

“Yes. You love me. As much as I love
you.”

~~~

Myles watched them go inside before he
moved out from behind the tree. He’d been walking the woods when he’d heard
them coming toward him and, rather than make himself known, he simply pulled
the shadows around him and stood still. He really liked the couple and hoped
they had a long life together. He walked in the opposite direction of both the
pack house as well as the home behind him.

He was depressed. He knew that it was
stupid to feel that way after all he’d been given since he’d meet the Forces
and the Campbells, but he was, damn it. There were very few beings who could
lay claim to the fact that they’d died and woke up a new man. Completely. Myles
looked up at the night sky.

He’d been a vampire for nearly a whole
year now. A whole year since his life had been ripped from him in a clothing
store. He wasn’t mad at Phil for doing what he’d done. He might have done the
same thing had things been different. But to be able to live forever… Well,
Myles was still trying to wrap his head around that.