Sebastian (Bowen Boys) (6 page)

“A great many things about you matter to me.
” He handed her a large travel glass, and she took a sip and moaned. He glanced at her as he drove out of the lot. He was getting onto the highway when he started talking.

“Why sweet?”
She looked at him. “Why do you need sweet stuff when you’re stressed? I mean, I think it’s great, but I would have thought maybe juice or something like that.”

“I love juice
, but it’s terribly expensive. Not to mention most of the stuff you buy is little more than sweetened water with a little juice added in anyway. I love tea, especially the kind that has flavors in it.”

“I like raspberry tea myself
, and have some at home now. We’ll have some with dinner.” He drove a little more and she had just closed her eyes when he spoke again. “I had a visitor today. Jacob came to see me.”

She sat up so quickly that she nearly spilled her tea.
Her heart was pounding so hard that she knew he could hear it. When he reached for her hand, she let him curl his fingers around hers without thinking. She looked at him as her body started to calm.

“
I don’t suppose he told you that he found a way to remove this stuff from me, did he?” She felt his shock. “I asked him to look for a way. I had hoped he’d come to me sooner.”

“I don’t think…he didn’t mention it.
He did tell me about the demon that came to the house today. He said that if his master finds you and brings you back to his lair, he will try and breed with you.” She felt him look at her as the car pulled to a stop in a driveway. “Did he tell you that?”

“No.
He told me about what I was and that my powers would grow once I took a mate.” She looked out the side window and not at him. “I don’t want to mate with anyone, not just you. It’s too dangerous for me to be around real people now. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I had a mate.”

“I would think you’d be safer with a mate.”
She didn’t say anything to that, not sure what she’d say anyway. “How about we go inside and I feed you? I’m not a great cook, but I can cook a really good steak. The potatoes should be about done by now.”

She got out and followed him to his door.
She couldn’t see much as it was very dark out here in the forest. His house was large and white and that was about all she could make out as he opened the door to the kitchen. Ama stepped into his house and nearly fell over.

“It’s beautiful.
And I love this kitchen.” She walked around the room looking at all the counter space and the smaller appliances that he had spaced around. She loved the refrigerator that was a huge side-by-side with glass front doors, and the cabinets that seemed to glow with the lights behind the beveled glass on them. She walked to the stove and fell in love with the gas-top burners and the large grill in the middle. She laughed when she thought of all the dinners that must get made here.

“I’m going to confess something
to you. This place was a sty up until about an hour ago. I’ve been really busy at work and trying to balance the two jobs I have, and had sort of neglected this place for a while. You have the best cleaning crew I’ve ever seen to thank for this being clean.” She nodded and took the glass of tea he handed her. “There’s more in the fridge. Just help yourself. I’m going to go out and fire up the grill for our dinner. How do you want yours cooked?”

She told him rare
, and he smiled at her. He told her if she wanted salad that it was on the second shelf, to make them each a bowl. She pulled out the large bowl as he stepped outside.

By the time the steaks were done
, he’d shown her where to find plates and silverware as well as the dressings. She was putting the warm rolls on the table when he brushed against her while putting the steaks on their plates. She felt as if he’d touched her everywhere. Nervous, she backed up as he turned to her.

“I
won’t hurt you.” She nodded, knowing that he would anyway. “I’d very much like to kiss you again. This time without interruptions. May I?”

Ama wanted to tell him no
, that it wasn’t a good idea, but he put the platter he had the steaks on into the sink, along with his utensils. He took a step toward her and she didn’t back away, as was her habit. When he was just inches from her, she looked up at him and licked her lips.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?
How it feels to be this close to you without touching you?” He touched her throat in the barest of touches and then cupped his hand behind her head. “I need this from you. May I please kiss you?”

“Yes,” was barely out of her mouth when he sealed his lips over hers.
He tilted her head to his left and ran his tongue along her sealed lips, asking for permission to enter her. When she opened her mouth slightly, he took her hungrily and she moaned and reached for something to hang onto. It just happened to be his shirt.

As his tongue slid along hers
, she moved her hands up his chest to his shoulders. He ran his free hand down her back to her ass and cupped her against him. She felt his hardness against her and moved, thinking to pull back. But as soon as she felt his cock at her soft folds, she gripped him harder across his shoulders and moaned against this mouth. She was clinging to him even as he lifted her off the floor.

Something hard touched her back
, and she moaned again when his body pressed deeper into hers. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, he lifted her leg up by her thigh and she wrapped her legs around him without thought as to what she was doing and where this was going to end up. His mouth moved along her chin to her throat, and she tilted her head for him, giving him whatever he needed to bring them to wherever he needed. Her body was screaming at her to touch him like he was touching her, and she nuzzled her nose against his pounding pulse, suckled the vein into her mouth, and nipped at him.

“Christ
, I want you. I need you.” Her shirt was torn from her and his mouth was everywhere. Her breasts were suddenly freed, and his mouth was covering them.

“Please.”
She didn’t know what she needed, but he apparently did because he rocked into her again and again. “More please. I need more.”

He lifted his head.
She looked at him, on the verge of begging him to finish her, when she saw his eyes. They had darkened from the warmed honey color to the dark of his panther. She nipped at his chin, and he moaned at her.

“Give it to me.
We can’t go any further until you tell me I can.” Her mind was trying to understand him. Then he lifted her chin up again when she tried to go back to his throat. “I want you, but you need to give me permission to do this.”

Permission.
She’d forgotten about that, and stared at him as he waited for her answer. He would take her and make her his if she said yes. And as much as she wanted to feel him, to have him take her, she didn’t want all that came with it. She felt him as he began to pull away.

“I’m sorry
, Sebastian. I can’t be your mate.” He nodded as he stepped back. “Maybe you should just take me home.”

“I can’t until we eat.
It’s probably cold by now, so if you want something else just let me know.”

She went to the table and sat down
. Her legs were trembling, and she figured if she didn’t, she was going to fall.

“Let me make you something else. It
won’t be a problem.”

“It’s fine.
It’s still warm and since we didn’t unwrap the potatoes, they’re still warm, too.” Opening the aluminum foil, she watched as steam poured from it. “See, it’s just fine.”

He sat down and opened his foil and looked up at her. She was just about to
speak but looked at his neck and froze. There was blood there. She’d bitten him. She went to him and ran her finger over the opened wound.

“I marked you.”
Dizzily, she reached for the table and missed. As she dropped to the floor, she heard him say her name, and as the darkness closed around her, she knew that it was too late for either of them.

Chapter 6

Wanera paced his lair and reached again for his
messenger. Nothing. It was as if he was blocking him. And Wanera knew that he couldn’t do that any more than he could think a thought that he hadn’t given him. The man was simply a being that took messages to and fro for him.

He glanced at the file on his desk and sneered at it.
Since it had been brought to him, he’d been having one problem after another. And now this. His messenger was to go and get the girl and bring her back here. He should have returned hours ago, but still nothing.

“Where the fuck are you?”
He had nearly decided to go to the upper world and get her himself when he heard a small scratching at the door. “Come in, and whatever you want, it had better be fucking important.”

The door opened slowly
, and the being there seemed to be terrified nearly to the point of bolting. Wanera told him if he left without telling him what he’d disturbed him for, he’d hunt him down and vanquish him.

“He’s here
, my lord. Your messenger has been returned to us.” Wanera started forward and was on the verge of asking why the messenger didn’t come there himself when the being swallowed before continuing. “He’s been returned, my lord, and reeks of faerie.”

Wanera
stopped. The being had said “been” returned, not that he’d returned. Wanera felt a bit of fear trickle along his skin as he thought about what the implications were to what the being was saying. The thought “returned” kept circling around in his head.

“Who returned him?”
The being shrugged. “Where is he now? And what, if anything, did he bring back with him?”

“He is in the main hall
, my lord, the point he left this realm from. And he brought nothing back with him but the smell of female faerie. What shall I do with his remains?”

No body
, but remains. He started to tell the being to throw the remains in one of the pits, but thought he’d better take care to see if he might have brought something back with him. Wanera told the being to take him to the remains and show them to him. He didn’t know what to expect, but when he saw what had been done to the body, he nearly grabbed for a wall. She had destroyed him.

There was really no way other than smell to know that the pieces
on the floor had belonged to him. The messenger had been with Wanera for a very long time, decades as a matter of fact, but to see this mess now it was hard to think of it as a person he once knew. He knelt down and sniffed. Faerie, and one not as young as he’d been led to believe.

“Where did he come from, can you tell?”
The being said that he could not. “I must know where he found her, and go and make her repay me for what she’s taken from me.”

“I cannot
, my lord, other than to tell you that he was in the world of humans. I could try to trace him back, but there is very little of him left to go by. Sometimes I can search a mind of a body, but this…. This, sire, I cannot.”

Wanera nodded.
He looked at the pieces and wondered how she’d killed him so easily. The messenger belonged to him and thus had some powers of protection, but the faerie that had killed like this had been very strong.

“When you told me you’d found a faerie on the upper worlds
, I thought you said she was no more than a child in my lifetime. The one that did this is a good deal older than a mere child, I think.” The being simply nodded. “Are you saying that you agree with me, or that she was a child?”

“Both
, my lord. When you had me look for a female faerie, I told you that they might well be extinct. An older one, many years older than even you, died some years back. I mentioned that there might have been another that showed up, but it disappeared and I thought it dead as well. Then when a few weeks ago one came up on my screen, I only thought her to be young, as she had not come fully into herself.”

Meaning that he thought she’d not hit her maturity yet.
But the one that had done this had most assuredly been mature. The being had walked away to his computer and was keying in information. When Wanera asked him what he was doing, he said he was looking for the faerie.

“She would have left a magical trail behind after using the
amount of magic needed to do this. I am trying to find it. I can only think that it had to have happened within the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours.” As he continued to put in more information, Wanera leaned against the other desk.

“I thought that all beings were to be returned to me immediately.
How did this happen so long ago and he’s just now being returned to me?” The being shrugged. “Do you know anything?”

“Yes
, sire, I know plenty, but never as much as you.” The answer sounded like he’d been practicing it, but before he could question him on it, the being turned in his chair. “She is young and powerful, my lord. So much so that she’s able to keep her magic to a low hum. I can find a bit of a trail, but it is so small that I cannot know if she used it on this messenger or at another time. I could send something there to check and—”

“I’ll go.
I want to see firsthand where she’s at.” The being nodded and turned back to his desk. “When will I be able to be—?”

The alley he was standing in was dark and wet smelling. He
looked around the area and tried to find something, anything other than the nasty smell of humans that seemed to permeate the air like a disease. Then as he was ready to call to come home, he smelled something. It wasn’t faerie but…. “Panther.”

He shivered when he thought of weres. They were
the most vicious group of beings ever created. He hated panthers more than he did anything else. They were sleek and dark, and were the only beings he’d ever encountered that could take him down—and once had.

It was just after he’d gone to collect the child he’d been promised.
Fryda and his mate Pendus had been the only couple that he’d ever known that had bred. Their child had been due that week, and Fryda had lost a bet. Of course, the bet had been a trick—a lie actually, on Wanera’s part—but he’d gone to a great deal of trouble to get the babe and Fryda had said no.

Killing him had drained him. A being so powerful had nearly killed him in the process
, but when Wanera had severed Fryda’s wing from his body, he seemed to fall apart. Wanera had never known that a faerie could be killed after their maturity, and he’d done it all by himself.

But he hadn’t been able to get the child. The mate, Pendus
, had just given birth, yet she was as powerful, if not more so, than her mate. When she’d raised her hand against him, Wanera had done the only thing he could do and left the house to go back to his own lair to heal. It had taken him nearly five years to heal, not able to make his wounds close until he had finally taken a hot blade to them and closed them off. He rarely looked at the huge, ugly scars on his legs and chest anymore. But the panther that had given the worst ones to him had died that night, too.

He’d come out of nowhere, his fangs dripping with saliva.
As Wanera stood over the body of Fryda, the panther looked at Wanera as though he knew that he’d killed Fryda. The panther had leapt at him, tearing a large opening across his chest as his claws connected with his flesh. As Wanera had tried to stand up and leave the magical realm, the panther had attacked again, this time tearing a large opening in his thigh. Bone was exposed, and his muscles were torn so badly that he still couldn’t walk for long before the pain got to be too much. Killing the panther had proven to be nearly as hard as the faerie, and by the time Wanera had returned to his bed, he was nearly dead, too. Without the help of his beings, he would have perished long ago.

As he moved closer to the scent of the panther
, he could smell traces of the female. Humans had been with her as well as several panthers. One of them was a male, the leader of his group. He moved to the opening of the alley and called to return home. He’d found no traces of his messenger there.

“Keep looking
,” he told the being as soon as he returned to his lair. “That wasn’t where he died. And the next time you send me off like that without some warning, I will come back here and make your remains look worse than that one.” He pointed to the mess being cleaned up from the front hall. “And make sure that you take him to be buried. He served me long enough to reap that benefit.”

Wanera paced his lair.
Fire blazed hot in this room and would have roasted a large elk had he any desire for food. But he needed the warmth now that he’d returned from the human world. Something in the other world always made him ill and chilled to the bone. He flopped himself into his chair and tried to think.

He needed the faerie more than he needed anything else right now.
He glanced at the large tome over the mantel. He’d forgotten about the curse that had come to him when he’d taken this job. He had to find a female to breed with and have a child before the next summer solstice. If he did not, then he would be killed and his replacement would do it. He could have a child of his own take over for him once he was mature enough to do it, and watch over him as he grew into his power, but he had to have the child or have one expected to be born before the summer. That gave him less than one year to find her, be given her permission to take her, and to breed her. Not going to be easy to say the least. He reached for the book near him and opened it to a random page.

Romance was not his cup of tea. Snarling at the words on the pages
, Wanera thought it dribble and trite that any person would have to go through something as stupid as a wooing ritual to lure a woman into his bed. He thought that simply taking what he wanted should be enough, and that any female should be impressed with his ability to fuck her so well and so thoroughly and to breed with her. He didn’t think that this faerie was going to be that easy.

But he no longer had a choice. He needed to have a being much like himself
— which he was sad to admit had eluded him until they were all taken by others—or one as strong or stronger than him. The only thing stronger than him was the faerie and there was just the one left. The scratching at his door had him bidding them to enter.

“I have found a small trail
, sire. I do not believe it to be from the same female, but there might be enough of her power to do what you need. She is in a place called New Mexico. Have you heard of it?” Wanera nodded and stood up. “She is there, and if you would give me your permission, I will send you there posthaste.”

Wanera nodded once and felt the air stir. Then he was standing outside a door
in a house with no idea what he was going to do. He was seriously going to have to figure out some ground rules for the beings he had working for him. Like, when he’d said yes, he had his permission to send him, he’d hoped that the being would at least give him the chance to ask a few questions so he’d be somewhat prepared. Apparently, asking for it and receiving the okay meant to go fucking right now.

The door opened before he could knock.
The male standing before him didn’t look like he was human, much less faerie. He smiled at him, and the man raised a brow. This was not going to end in his favor, Wanera just knew it.

“I don’t suppose you’re a faerie
, are you?” Steam seemed to pour from the male, and before Wanera could do much more than blink, the man had hit him, hard enough to knock him back onto his ass. He started to stand when the man came out of the room and stood, really towering over him.

“What my sexual
preference is has no bearing on me, do you understand me?” Wanera nodded, not having a clue. “A man or woman has their rights just the same as straight people. Get the fuck away from here before I have my partner blow you to pieces.”

The man standing behind the mammoth held a gun
pointed right at Wanera’s head. It wasn’t loaded with silver, but at that moment, Wanera knew that he’d hurt him all the same. He called to his being and was on the floor of his offices seconds later. He didn’t move as he looked up at his being.

“I want you to
know that the next time you send me to the upper world without letting me be prepared, I will kill you.” The being nodded. “And I need for you to look up the word faerie and what it has to do with sexual preferences.”

“It has to do with gay relationships
, sire. The slang for the people who are in same-sex relationships is called fairies. I do not believe it to be the same thing.” Wanera only glared at him. “Did you find the faerie that you were looking for?”

Without answering him
, Wanera stood up and went to his room. Stupid beings were going to be the death of him sooner or later. Pulling the small romance book to his lap, he started reading again the story of a female and her tribulations in trying to escape the arms of the one that wanted her, even though she wanted him as passionately as he wanted her. Passion was another word that made him ill. He forced himself to read until bedtime, then tossed it in the fire. Hopefully one of the hundreds of others would be of more use than that one had been.

~~~

Sebastian watched her sleep. He’d been so terrified when she fainted that he’d called for his entire family to come to him. His mom had been the first to answer his call. She was so calm that he felt himself relax more as she spoke.