Immortally Yours, An Urban Fantasy Romance (Monster MASH, Book 1) (39 page)

He worshipped my mouth as I drew my fingers up to skim along the edge of his fatigues.
 

He kissed me with such sweet hunger as one by one, I slipped the buttons free. Fingers trembling, I reached inside. He bucked as I found him and slowly drew him out. I touched him everywhere, ran my thumb around the slick tip of him.
 

He groaned as something broke free in him. Galen shoved me against the rock. He lifted away my tank top and gazed at me in wonder for a moment.
 

"Gods, you're beautiful," he said, as he bent to kiss the tip of one breast, then the other.
 

Before I knew it I was lost. He devoured me, his mouth hot and eager. I threaded my fingers through his hair and writhed against him, the ecstasy of it pouring through me.
 

He stripped me bare and feasted on my body like a man starved. I wound my legs around him, kissing his shoulders, his neck, any part of him I could reach.
 

I needed him. I was empty without him.
 

I loved him.
 

He shuddered as I slid down the rock and brought my body flush against his. I stripped his fatigues away and lifted my mouth to his. Our tongues and bodies twined, skin on skin, desperate and needy, just as I'd always imagined it could be.
 

His breathing grew ragged. "Wait," he said between frantic kisses.
 

He was ready, poised at my core. I groaned with sweet torture as the very tip of him found me.
 

It didn't matter anymore. I was going to lose him. This man was too noble, too brave to go off to die without knowing how much he was loved.
 

Beads of sweat slicked between us. "I need you," I murmured. Just this once.
 

"I—" He swallowed.
 

I found his eyes, dark with desire. "I love you."
 

His mouth crashed down on mine and I lost all reason.
 

There were no words anymore, nothing else to say. I would hold him and I would love him—even if it meant his death, I would love him.
 

He would leave and he would die and he would break my heart. But he would leave knowing that he was my world.
 

I held him as he slipped inside me with wrenching ecstasy. "Petra." His breath feathered against my cheek.
 

He moved slowly, deliberately, each touch deepening my desire, my painful yearning for one more kiss, one more stroke, one more moment to show him how much I loved him.
 

The pleasure built and I moved with him, meeting him thrust for aching thrust. I reveled in the torment, the sheer joy of having him with me, loving me.
 

He slid his hands down my sides, cupping my behind and driving himself harder. Claiming me. Completing me. Finding me.
 

Tears spilled down my cheeks. I wanted this. I wanted him. I clung to him, kissing his shoulders, his collarbone, his neck.
 

I felt every inch of him as he moved inside me, filling me up, declaring me his own.
 

He took me with an edge of desperation. His breathing rough, his kisses crushing and achingly sweet.
 

This was meant to be. This had to happen. It was inevitable that Galen would be mine. We fit each other perfectly.
 

His body wound tight. His breath came in sharp pants.
 

I felt him, whole and complete and mine. I matched him, thrust for thrust, and the world narrowed down our corner of the universe, our rock in the middle of a vast desert, to the sensation of our bodies joined together under the moonlight.
 

Gasping, we clung together as the pleasure built, swelling over until I broke apart, my orgasm rocking through me.
 

Galen was right behind. He gave a hoarse shout as he poured into me.
 

Eyes closed, we clung together as if we never had to let go. And once more, I felt the swell of the breeze, I heard the rhythm of our breathing, heavy and spent.
 

He touched his cheek to mine, and I felt the rough scrape of skin. "I love you, Petra."
 

My heart swelled. "I know."
 

The world might be crashing down around us but for this moment, we held each other safe.
 

We were cherished.
 

We were loved.
 

Deep inside, an aching part of me eased.
 

He closed his eyes. My heart wrenched as he slipped away. The cold breeze iced our sweat-slicked skin. Once again, I was empty and alone.
 

We dressed in silence. I relit the lantern. I already felt hollow without him, but I wouldn't push him anymore. We'd already given each other everything we had.
 

And so he took my hand, and together we walked back to camp.
 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Galen held Father McArio's lantern out in front of us as we wound our way through the minefield. The star cast a red flickering glow over the rocky path.
 

Hulking metal skeletons blocked the moonlight in many places, and I could hear scurrying from some of the banged up heaps.
 

The wind picked up, whistling through the debris. It bit at my skin and I slowed, drawing nearer to Galen. "This is where we saw the giant scorpions," I said as we passed the mangled ruin that had been a jeep. It seemed like a long time ago. Everything had changed since then.
 

"I don't think you need to worry about them anymore." He drew an arm around me, taking away the chill as he scanned the darkness. "The gods are disturbingly practical," he added pointedly. "Now that the prophecies have come to be, there's no reason to kill you anymore."
 

I almost didn't care.
 

"It seems we've solved everything," I said, other than the fact that the man I love was going to die.
 

I hated the gods and their prophecies and the way they ruined lives without as much as a thought. Every single stinking one of them deserved a firsthand look at Hades.
 

We eased past the Hickey Horns bus. The old VW rattled with faint clicks and gloppy footsteps.
 

I didn't want to go back. I'd rather wander through a junkyard, as long as I was with him.
 

Put that on a Hallmark card.
 

I looked up at his profile in the moonlight. This would be my last time with Galen. I would always remember the feel of him next to me, his hand in mine.
 

As if he could read my thoughts, he stopped and stood over me. The lantern cast harsh shadows over his face. "It's out of our hands now."
 

He kissed me once, twice. I luxuriated in the feel of him, so warm against me. Losing him would be like cutting away a part of myself.
 

I only wanted one more day, one more hour. One more minute back at the rocks.
 

"It's time," he said, pulling away.
 

I nodded.
 

We pressed on, we kept moving. We sacrificed because it was who we were. And a part of me died when we reached the edge of the minefield and saw the lights from camp.
 

Galen stiffened, his body instantly at the ready.
 

"What?" I asked. Then I heard it, too, the faint ring of alarms.
 

My breath caught. "They've sounded the alert."
 

I began to run. The shrill clanging had gone off only once before and that was right before the bombing that killed Charlie. Kosta would only order a high alert in cases of immediate emergency or attack.
 

My heart beat wildly as we zigzagged through the cemetery, toward the skeletons of long-dead funeral pyres. It was the shortest route. The bells grew louder the closer we got. My colleagues scrambled over the camp like one of the gods had kicked over their anthill.
 

"Jeffe!" I called, tasting dirt as I half slid, half fell down the rise that separated the burning yard from camp. "What's going on?"
 

He bounded toward me. "Prisoner escape," he said, his mane flying out behind him, his tail sticking straight up. "Level one emergency!"
 

"What prisoner? I was having trouble hearing over the racket. "Thaïs?"
Please let it be Thaïs
. He was a fundamentalist nutball, but he wouldn't endanger the camp.
 

"No, no, no." Jeffe shook his head. "The patient. Dagr. God of hope and fertility."
 

Great. Our high-profile babysitting case. He must have been more dangerous than I realized. "How did it happen?"
 

Jeffe's eyes were wide. "Kosta sent his guards looking for you. They were only gone a minute, but the son of a god was fast."
 

Shock slapped against adrenaline, muddling my brain. "Kosta sent guards after me?" I wasn't even on call. Even if I was, it didn't make any sense. I was a mortal. Disposable. I could fall headlong into the tar swamp and nobody but my friends would notice.
 

Jeffe wrinkled his nose. "Not you." He pointed behind me. "You."
 

Galen. I turned and was shocked to see only darkness.
 

Jeffe snarled, baring his teeth. "I see you lurking in the shadows. You may be good at sneaking, but you cannot fool a guard sphinx. Well, maybe once. But not twice!"
 

Galen stepped out from the shadows of a spent funeral bier, his face hard. He wore a stillness about him, a distinct aura of danger.
 

Galen the man had already morphed into Galen the soldier.
 

He navigated the rise with a warrior's grace and approached the sphinx, his steps measured. "At least allow me turn myself in," he said.
 

Jeffe shook out his mane and pawed at the ground. "That I can do. But no more funny business."
 

Galen stood at my side, his body pressed against mine. "I told you I wouldn't leave you."
 

"Without saying good-bye," I finished, every word tearing at me.
 

He lowered his mouth for a bittersweet kiss. I savored it, and him.
 

"Ack. Please," Jeffe said. "I don't need a show." He nudged our legs with his shoulder. "Now come with me. Kosta is having fits."
 

We walked hand in hand through camp, ready to face the firing squad.
 

MPs rushed past in squads of three, going hutch-to-hutch, searching for Dagr, the god who had most likely fled to the front.
 

Dagr had wanted war. He'd wanted glory. Frankly, I hoped he made it. Let him battle like ten gods, be a hero. Let him try to even the score for the rest of us.
 

But even I knew that was futile. There were just too many to fight.
 

A troop truck carrying a detail of red-robed imperial guards sped into camp just as we reached Colonel Kosta's office. They began piling out even as the brakes creaked to a stop.
 

I craned my neck to watch them fan out in groups of two. "They're going to tear this camp apart." I could see it in their eyes.
 

"I've heard stories about Dellingr," Galen said. "He has no sanity, no reason where his son is concerned."
 

"That's what I was afraid of." I gritted my teeth and followed Galen into Kosta's outer office.
 

Shirley sat at her desk with her head in her hands as two sprites clanged a series of thick bells in front of the PA system.
 

I touched her shoulder and she jumped a foot.
 

"Petra." She let out a whoosh of air. The poor woman was frazzled from her twin ponytails down to her combat boots. She pressed her mouth closed when she saw Galen with me. "Go on in."
 

I wasn't sure if she was only talking to Galen or if it included me, but I pushed into the office behind him anyway. I wanted to know where he was headed, and when.
 

The door closed behind us with a
whomp
, and the level of the incessant clanging grew fainter.
 

Kosta glared at us from behind his desk, his ears red. "It's about godsdamned motherfucking time!" He slammed his hands against the metal and stood. "Do you know what you helped cause here? An incident, that's what." He strode around the desk until he stood eye-to-eye with Galen. "Dagr's daddy's gonna chew my hide and when he gets done with me, you're next."
 

Galen stood at attention. "I'm aware I didn't report as requested."
 

"Didn't report?" Kosta reared back. "Didn't report?" He leaned into Galen until their noses almost touched. "You're AWOL, soldier."
 

"He was with me," I said quickly. "Helping me."
 

Kosta leveled a glare in my direction. "Shut your fucking mouth."
 

He stepped back from Galen as if he couldn't bear to breathe the same air for one second longer. "You screwed up, Commander. And I just got your punishment straight from the top."
 

Kosta shot me a glance as he made his way over to his desk. It was as if he was daring me to try to stop this.
 

I knew better. Jumping in would only hurt Galen.
 

So I waited, stomach twisting, hands at my sides, helpless once more against the wrath of the gods.
 

Kosta snatched up a sheet of parchment from his desk. I knew that golden glow and the way the red script stood off against the page. It was directly from headquarters. He held the missive out in front of him. He glanced up and I almost caught a glint of sympathy. Or maybe I imagined it.