Embrace the Wind (11 page)

“I love lying here like this.”

“Me, too.”

He saw her fingers pulling at the sheet and covered her hand with his own, lacing his fingers with hers.

Without warning, his eyes started to burn and his chest felt like his rib-cage was held in a powerful vise. He realized he hadn’t done this with a woman since his wife had died. Sure, he’d had sex, but this had felt more like … making love.

He hadn’t wanted to get involved again. Hell, he’d made a commitment to stay away from any kind of serious relationship so long as the Invictus existed.

Now here was Olivia, a blood rose, and she was in his tree house bed.

He sighed heavily.

Zane, what’s wrong? I don’t know if it’s a blood rose thing, or if it’s just us, but I’m feeling like you’re in some kind of pain?

He drew out of her because, yeah, he was hurting. “I’ll be right back.” He went into the bathroom and grabbed a hand towel. He’d felt the gush as he’d withdrawn from her body.

He returned and wiped her inner thighs then planted the towel between her legs. Even in that strange position, with her feet on the floor and her upper body lying flat, she seemed so comfortable in her own skin. Very shifter.

She rolled and scooted, holding the towel in place, until she was lying on a pillow near the headboard. The scene was so homey that once more his throat felt like he was being strangled.

He moved to the bottom of the bed and pulled up the covers. “You have to be worn to the bone.”

“Mmm. Guess I am.” He tucked the quilt around her and she grabbed his arm. “You don’t want to talk?”

He met her gaze and swallowed hard. “No.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

He shook his head briskly. “No, Sweet Goddess, no. You were perfect. You were amazing. It’s … other shit.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He watched her eyelids droop, loving that she hadn’t pressured him to spill his guts. “Sleep now.”

“I will.”

He jerked his thumb in the direction of the bathroom. “I’m going to shower up.”

She nodded, but already her eyes were closed as she adjusted the pillow beneath her head and punched it a couple of times.

He returned to the bathroom and flipped on all three showerheads. But as soon as he stepped beneath the stream, his head bent and water flowing down his long hair, tears started and wouldn’t stop.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, his thoughts had turned to Emily. His wife. Dead five years because he couldn’t protect her.

Repressed grief burned through him and for the first time since he’d come home to find her gone, he let it burn.

Olivia didn’t wake up until late that afternoon. She checked her internal clock and realized she’d slept eleven hours.

A wonderful aroma of meat cooking on an outdoor grill greeted her. Her stomach rumbled.

Was Zane her kind of man, or what?

She blinked against the fading light. But what was a vampire doing outdoors barbecuing at dusk? Maybe there was something she didn’t know about him after all. Huh.

She turned on her back and saw that a tall stack of her clothes sat on small dresser outside the bathroom. It meant several things. First, that Zane had arranged to bring her clothes here, to what she knew to be a fairly remote mountain location. He’d also given someone permission to break into her house and rummage through her closet. But he’d been damn thoughtful in the process.

She stretched as she rolled out of bed, feeling deliciously sore in well-used places. She hadn’t had this much sex, all in the space of twenty-four hours, in a very long time.

As soon as she was showered and dressed, she walked out onto the deck and saw that the tree house complex included at least five small dwellings, each with ramps leading to the next. The pitched roofs showed in patches through the almost bare deciduous trees and the occasional pine. Dark brown shingles covered the sides of each dwelling, broken up by a fair amount of windows.

Situated at the highest point, the bedroom porch had a view that went on for miles. Because the porch faced east and the sun was almost down, the vista of several mountain ridges was cloaked in a deep purple haze.

As she looked down, she could see the complex had been built on the side of a ravine. By the number of narrow trails along both sides of the stream below, all kinds of wildlife must congregate in the area.

She sniffed the air, her shifter senses separating the many different smells. Zane appeared from the large house to the left, the biggest of all the treehouses. He bore two platters on one arm and two mugs hooked in his free hand.

The coffee smelled like heaven.

She met him halfway down the ramp and took the plates from him.

“Thank you. I had the worst image of these fine steaks and eggs splattered over the walkway.”

She lifted one of the plates to her nose and drank in the aroma. “And you charred them perfectly.” She smiled at him over her shoulder.

He grinned. “Somehow, I knew that’s what you’d want, and the eggs are barely cooked.”

“The shifter in me is starting to love you a lot, you know.” Maybe she shouldn’t have said those exact words, but what the hell, it was true. He seemed tuned into her species. “Oh, and thank you so much for having my clothes brought here.”

When she settled into one of the two wood chairs on the porch, he put the mugs on the table between them and sat down. She passed his plate over. “I love it here,” she announced, unsure why she’d blurted it out.

“I thought you might. This is a wild place, and very much like you.”

“It’s my shifter-ness.”

“And did I tell you how much I love that part of you?”

“You’ve known me exactly one night and you already love something about me?”

He searched her face. “You find it hard to believe? Well, tell me what the shifter in you loves about me.”

“Easy question, but with more than one answer. You’re a man’s man and almost six-foot seven-inches tall. On the beach, when I nipped at your heels, you took off after me and I got the distinct impression you loved the game. But I think mostly I love just how much you look after your realm the way you do.”

He held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Let me return the compliment: I love your hair, your beautiful green eyes, and that you’re so physical.”

She shook her head. “But don’t get used to this. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t a relationship kind of woman.”

He chuckled. “No problem. I’ve promised myself that until the Invictus are gone, I’m riding solo.”

“Then we understand each other.” She looked at him over the rim of her mug.

“We do.”

She took a sip. “Ah. The coffee’s great by the way. And I do have one question. I thought vampires had to wait until full dark to be out and about, even with this level of light.” It was dusk, the sky turning deep blue. “But here you are.”

He shrugged and sawed off a thick chunk of meat. “My grandmother was human.”

She balanced her plate on her lap, and took another sip of her coffee. “Wait a minute. I know you’re old and the Nine Realms didn’t connect with the U.S. until thirty years ago, so how did that happen?”

He shook his head. “What can I say? My vampire grandfather went out hunting and brought a human female back. I didn’t get much from the strain, however, just a very slight tolerance to dusk.”

She liked that she had at least this in common with him, and that he wasn’t pure vampire.

Because she’d fed him two or was it three times, she was famished. She settled in to eat, savoring every bite of the protein-rich meal.

Holding a speared chunk of meat upright, he said, “You know the main reason I brought you here was for the privacy. I needed to be alone with you, and my retreat here seemed like the right place for it.”

“I’m glad you did. I think it suits you being in the trees, being up here in the mountains.”

He nodded. “It does. But I’m rarely here.”

“Why’s that?”

He picked up his coffee and took a drink. “Time, mostly. Usually by the end of the night, after long hours of battling, and flying over Swanicott, all I want is to be in my lighthouse home. I have a staff there that takes care of everything, my meals, my laundry, even making sure the leathers of my uniforms are well-cared for and replaced when needed. When I go home, I shower and fall into bed and I forget about what happened the night before. When I wake up, a meal is waiting for me. After that, I launch into a boatload of Realm business.”

“You have meetings with city officials and the like.”

“You have read some newspaper articles. Or is it blogs.”

“Both.” She smiled as she once more drank from her mug. Setting it back on the table, she cut a piece of steak and added some egg. Perfect first meal.

“I also meet with the leadership of various guilds, with my Troll Brigade Commander, sometimes the various Swanicott presses representing towns and villages.” He paused and cut off another chunk of steak, then stacked a generous portion of egg on top, just as she had. “But since you seem to know all this, I think it’s time you told me more about yourself.”

At that, she released a sigh. She wasn’t used to talking about herself, but it only seemed fair. She shared about her life growing up in the small town of Freeport with her mother, the humiliation of sprouting fur as a child and being unable to control it, being so different from other kids, and her generally isolated upbringing.

He frowned. “Sounds lonely.”

“Yes and no. I wanted to have friends, but back in those days there was a lot of prejudice against Realm-folk. And sometimes I’d get my shifter blood up and hurt the kids while playing sports, which didn’t help my cause. Of course, I never meant to do harm.”

“All that makes sense. Given your general level of power, you have strong shifter blood, eclipsing your human DNA. You probably should have been raised here.”

She shook her head. “I’ve wondered the same thing, but my mom didn’t want to make the move. I’m okay with it all now. I had some counseling and I don’t think my mother would have been happy here in Swanicott.”

She cleared her throat and felt a warmth climb her cheeks. “There is one thing I did want to tell you. The human men I made love with pretty much couldn’t handle what you seem to enjoy a lot.” Just in case he missed her point, she stroked the fur on the backs of her hands.

His eyelids dropped to half-mast and his grassy seaside scent suddenly filled the space. “And I do enjoy it.” He took her hand and drew her fingers to his nose. He nuzzled the fur across the back of her knuckles, sniffing loudly. His lips parted and his eyes closed all the way.

She knew these small acts had thrown him into a state of full arousal.

She leaned toward him and whispered, “Your scent, what you’re releasing right now, makes me so hungry, and not for steak and eggs.”

He opened his eyes and held her gaze. “We have some good stuff going on here, Olivia, but I never planned on being involved with anyone after my wife died.”

“I know. I’m with you on that. But can I ask you something? From the accounts I read online, you never found your wife’s body. Are you sure she’s dead?”

He scrubbed a hand down his face. “There was blood all over the kitchen. A lot of it. I’m not mistaken, but I wish to hell I was.”

She sat back in her chair and pulled her hand from his grasp. He didn’t try to stop her.

She picked up her knife and fork and sawed off another bite. She set her gaze across the deep row of mountain ridges, uncertain whether to tell him the truth or not about Emily. His wife had moved to Freeport exactly five years ago.

When Olivia had done her Realm web research, she’d seen pictures of Emily with Zane and had compared them to the ones on her cellphone. Olivia had no doubt about Emily’s true identity. But what had driven the woman to leave as she had, clearly faking her own death, was a mystery Olivia had yet to solve. The only thing that made sense, knowing Zane as she did, was that Emily wasn’t really cut out to be the wife of a powerful mastyr vampire. She had a gentle fae, artistic soul and now lived a very quiet life in a small New England hamlet.

Of course, it wasn’t exactly her business, so she let it go. At some point, she knew she’d have to tell Zane, but now didn’t seem like the right time.

“Do you rent the house in Barker’s Bend?” Zane asked.

“Actually, I own it. My mother passed away three years ago and her estate, though modest, allowed me to buy the house as well some land that I farm.”

“Wasn’t there a house on the farm?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t in the best shape. I had it fixed up adequately for the laborers to use as needed during the workday, but I wanted something a little more civilized for myself. And I was drawn to Barker’s Bend. For one thing, when I checked out the listing, there were a lot of shifters at the Elf Lords Hideaway. As reserved as I am, I think it was my way of coming to know the culture a little. Hard to explain.

“Then of course, I saw you about the third night I was here and the rest follows. I guess on some level I feel I was fated to live in Barker’s Bend.”

“You don’t mind all the noise? The bar fights?”

She chuckled. “Actually, I love it, my shifter nature being what it is. And truthfully, it’s a nice change from the farm. Don’t get me wrong, farming suits me. I love the work and I earn a good living from my organic produce.”

“You mentioned that before. You sell to restaurants in Helms Watch.” He cocked his head. “I can see how farming would suit you since it’s very physical work.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, my wolf loves the exertion of working the land. Although, I honestly think it’s the human part of me that enjoys watching things grow.”

She set her now empty plate on the table between them, and held her mug in her hands. She drew up her knees to plant her feet on the seat. She was barefoot. The cold didn’t bother her at all and if it started to, she’d just add more fur.

She stared out at the growing number of stars and the almost full moon showing at the far distant ridge. “Zane, I need you to know that I’ve lived apart all my life and I’m used to it. I’m really independent and I’m not all that girly, if you know what I mean. So this blood rose thing has me really concerned. I mean, I don’t think I have anything to give you or any mastyr, for that matter.”