under their parents’ tender care.”
“I took their sun away,” Maralee
whispered.
He didn’t deny her claim. The truth
was not always kind.
“If he was the sun and Rella the rain
and their children the flowers, then where
did you fit in?” Maralee asked, still
clinging to him.
“I guess I was the dirt,” he said and
chuckled. “Yeah, I was definitely the
dirt.”
“The dirt?”
“Cort always seemed to outshine me
with his radiant warmth, and I’ve always
been an anchor for the kids. Rella…Rella
just sort of erodes me. Takes little pieces
of me and washes them away. In the past it
was my doubts she eliminated, but
lately…” He trailed off, confused by the
recent change in the relationship between
Rella and himself.
“She…she told me that she loves you,”
Maralee said, anxiously. “Do you feel the
same way about her?”
“Yeah. I love her,” he said without
hesitation. Maralee stiffened, and he
explained his words more clearly. “She’s
like a sister to me.”
“So you don’t have romantic feelings
for her?” Maralee asked hopefully.
He chuckled, giving her an affectionate
squeeze. “Dirt and water make mud,
Maralee. What is romantic about that?”
“Then what am I in your strange little
analogy?” she asked, smiling with relief
and hope.
After
a
moment
of
careful
consideration, he said, “Quartz.”
“Quartz?”
“Beautiful, tiny crystals mixed in with
the dirt. They make the dirt sparkle,
mingling with its particles. The crystals
are a part of the dirt and without it, the dirt
is plain and ugly and very, very alone.”
She laughed and hugged him. “You’re
silly.”
“I’m silly?”
She nodded and laughed again. “I
thought you were going to tell me I was a
flower.”
“You’re as beautiful as a flower. But
flowers fade over time,” he told her,
brushing her hair aside so he could kiss
her neck. She sighed and tilted her head in
submission. “I guess it would be nice to
have you on me,” he growled into her ear.
“I just want to be close to you, mixed until
we can’t tell which is one or the other,
until we become one and the same, until
there is nothing but us. Together as one.”
“Yes,” she agreed breathlessly. “I
want us to be like that.”
His fingers began to work at the
buttons of her shirt while he kissed and
licked and suckled and nibbled along the
side of her neck, her earlobe, her neck
again. He released the final buttons of her
shirt, and lifted both hands to cup her
breasts. She arched back against him. His
fingers pushed the cups of her bustier
down so he could stroke her taunt nipples.
She gasped, hands clinging to his thighs as
she thrust her breasts forward for his
eager perusal.
“Don’t be gentle,” she begged, rubbing
her bottom against his arousal.
He bit her earlobe and pinched her
nipples roughly. She shuddered with
pleasure.
“You’re always so hot,” he growled
into her ear.
“You make me hot,” she whimpered.
She gasped in surprise when he
tumbled her onto her back and settled
between her thighs. He ground himself
against her, cursing the man who had
invented clothing. She always turned him
into this lustful, rutting animal. Strangely,
his complete lack of control seemed to
excite her. She was clinging to his
buttocks with both hands, pressing him
closer, equally eager to complete their
joining. He struggled with the laces at her
waist, breaking the string that secured the
fly of her pants in his fumbling impatience.
when he separated their bodies long
enough to jerk her pants down to her knees
and free his rigid cock from the confines
of his leather pants. She kicked off her
pants impatiently and was only partially
successful, but neither one of them cared.
It was only after he was buried deep
inside of her that they were able to find
the sanity to remove their remaining
clothing. She sought his mouth with hers in
the darkness, as he drove into her deep
and hard. If he was hurting her, she didn’t
offer any indication as she lifted her hips
and met him stroke for stroke.
Long, moments later, they lay still
entwined and gasping from their exertions.
“We should take things more slowly,” he
murmured. “Make it last.”
“That was exquisite,” she purred,
holding him close.
“We always rush,” he told her, “like
we don’t have enough time.”
“It’s not that,” she murmured. “It’s
because we don’t have enough patience.”
He grinned and kissed her tenderly. “I
suppose
you’re
right,”
he
agreed.
“Doesn’t it bother you that you bring out
the worst in me?”
She grinned naughtily. “If that was
your worst, I can’t wait to see your best.”
His answered with a crooked grin. “I
hope you have several hours of free time.”
“I suppose I can free up a little time in
my busy schedule.”
“You’d have to cancel all previous
engagements,” he murmured, giving her a
teasing kiss and drawing away from her.
“Done,” she agreed, wrapping both
arms around his neck to draw him closer
for a deep, lingering kiss.
“If you keep that up, I’ll only need a
couple of minutes,” he warned.
“Then you’ll just have to keep doing it
over and over again until you get it right,”
she whispered, kissing him again, rocking
her hips to stimulate him back to
readiness.
“You are a wicked woman,” he
growled, withdrawing from her body to
prevent himself from getting caught up in
her furiously fast rhythm.
“You like it,” she assured him, her
hands traveling between their bodies to
touch him intimately.
He moved out of her reach. “No,
Maralee, I don’t like it,” he told her, his
voice hard and cold.
“You don’t?”
“No,” he said seriously and then
smiled. “I love it.”
She smacked at him angrily and he
caught her hand. He kissed her wrist, the
&nb
sp; palm of her hand. She sighed blissfully.
“Now stop your teasing and lie still
for a while,” he murmured. “I want to
make you sparkle like quartz.”
She chuckled, but it wasn’t long before
she was sparkling and he was seeing
sparks.
CHAPTER 34
“It always happens this way with us,”
Nash murmured in the early hours of the
morning. Maralee was draped over his
bare chest, half asleep, splendidly
exhausted from hours of loving.
“Hmm?” she questioned, too content to
form actual words.
“I come with the intention of talking to
you and then I get carried away in your
intoxicating sensuality,” he said drowsily.
“Um-hmm,”
she
agreed,
eyelids
opening and closing slowly as sleep
beckoned.
“The only time we carry out any deep
conversation is when we’re spitting mad
at each other.”
“Hmm,” she murmured reflectively.
“Then we have to make up with each
other and we end up like this again.”
“Mmm,” she agreed happily.
“The woman is supposed to be the
rational one in these matters.”
“This is as rational as I get whenever
you’re nearby,” she said.
“I have things I need to tell you;
important things. But somehow they don’t
seem important at all when you’re close
and so willing and eager. I can’t resist
you.”
She honestly didn’t see the problem.
She loved the way he made her feel.
“Maybe in a few decades we’ll get tired
of each other and we can have that
important talk,” she said.
“I think now is the best time.”
“Now?” she protested. “But I’m
exhausted.”
“Too exhausted to make love?”
She contemplated this for a moment
and found that she didn’t even have the
strength to touch him. “Yes,” she said
regretfully.
“Me, too,” he agreed. “So now would
be the best time for us to talk.”
“Let’s sleep. We can talk in the
morning,” she argued groggily.
“I’ll want you in the morning,” he said.
“I can already tell. If I wasn’t trembling
with fatigue, I’d want you now. The thing
is: I don’t think I can move.”
She giggled. “Same here.”
“The first thing I want to tell you is
that I really am a hundred and twelve
years old,” he said.
“Not really,” she murmured. “You
can’t be.”
He splayed his hand over the small of
her back, holding her close. “I’m
immortal. Do you understand what that
means?”
“You live forever.”
“I believe that I can, but no one has
ever actually tried it as far as I know.”
“Why not?” she murmured, still
drowsy, but interested.
“We age very slowly, but we do age.
About three to four times more slowly
than humans age. Carsha is sixteen. The
twins, Lark and Lord, are in their late
twenties. My mother is over two hundred
years old.”
“That seems so strange to me. Carsha
looks six. I’d have guessed the twins to be
around ten.”
After a few hundred years we become
old and tired and frail just like any other
species.”
“So you can die of old age?” she
questioned, confused.
“No, we have to poison ourselves
with silver in order to actually die. It is
our choice when we do it. No one forces
the issue or even suggests it.”
Her limp arm tightened around him
slightly. “It must be hard to willingly give
up life, knowing it’s possible to live
forever.”
“I suppose,” he agreed. “Grandma
poisoned herself days after my grandfather
was killed. I think she’d rather have been
dead than to live on without him.”
“Your grandfather was killed?”
“Fifteen years ago.”
“My family was also killed fifteen
years ago,” she murmured, the loss of
them a persistent ache in her heart. He
took her hand and said nothing. Seconds
later, her eyes flipped open with
realization. She sat up beside him,
instantly wide-awake. “Do you mean…do
you mean that it was your family who
massacred mine?”
“I can’t say for sure,” he said. “Part of
my family was there, Cort, my father and
grandfather. Others from my pack. Still
others from packs all over the continent.
They all came together and formed a pact.
Together, they decided to do something
about the Hunters.”
“You?” she forced herself to ask him.
“No,” he murmured, perhaps it was his
one saving grace. “I tried to talk them out
of it. They didn’t want me there. They
feared that I would cure them of their
madness and they would be unable to
carry out their plans. I was locked up for
the week that they were gone. Cort brought
our father and grandfather home to be
buried. I blamed myself for their deaths.
It’s my destiny to protect my people and I
failed.”
“I once followed my destiny blindly,”
she said. “You made me see I have to live
my life by my own heart, not by what is
expected of me.”
“You are stronger than I’ll ever be,
Maralee.”
“I’m not strong. I just didn’t know
what else to do. The slaughter of my
family is what motivated me to be a
Hunter. I thought avenging their deaths
would give meaning to what happened to
them. I thought that eventually, if I killed
enough Wolves, I would find peace and I
wouldn’t have to see their destroyed
bodies in my dreams,” she said, her voice
hollow and cracking with emotion. “I
dreamt of their murders every night for so
many years. It gave me the will to continue
with my quest to prevent Wolves from
hurting and killing other people. I had to
do something to fill the emptiness inside
me. Telling myself I was making a
difference made it all seem worthwhile.”
“You were left alone,” he said, pulling
her back down on his chest so that he
could hold her, stroke her silky black hair,
and brush his lips reverently over her
brow. “We lost several, including my
father and grandfather, but we didn’t lose
everyone. They were wrong to try to settle
their problems by spilling blood. After the
massacre, I tried to convince myself it
was for the best, thinking with the Hunters
out of the
way I could control the curse
and live peacefully here among the trees,
but my pack isn’t the only pack. The other
packs have no control over their actions at
all. They don’t have a Guardian to stop
them from killing.”
“My way wasn’t the right way either,”
she admitted, her chest feeling tight and
achy. “Killing doesn’t save anyone in the
end. Jared told me something like that
once.”
“Jared,” Nash growled with a low
curse.
“How did you come to be the pack’s
Guardian?” she asked him, lifting her hand
to touch the thick strand of white hair that
always seemed determined to impede the
vision of his left eye.
“I was born this way. I have no idea
why,” he admitted. “There has only ever
been one other guardian.”
“Only one?” she whispered, surprised.
“Have you met him or her?”
“No, he was born almost six hundred
years ago, near the time when the curse
took effect. The books I’ve been studying
are his. He wrote them when he was a
little older than me. He seems to have had
a much better handle on the situation than
I, yet he was unable to break the curse.”
She was silent for a long moment as
she absorbed his words. “I am going to
help you,” she said with determination.
“Help me?”
“Yes. I’ll never be able to live with
myself if I don’t do something to stop this.
I can’t kill Wolves anymore, but I can’t
turn my back on those people I swore to
protect either.”
“I don’t think…I don’t think there’s
anything you can do to help,” he said
finally. “Only a Wolf Guardian can break
the curse.”
“Does it say anywhere that he has to
do it without any help?”
He paused. “No, not directly,” he
admitted.
“It’s
settled
then,”
she
said.
“Tomorrow we’ll start working together
to figure out how to break the curse. There
has to be a way or you wouldn’t have
been born free of its effects. That’s what I
believe at least.”
He hugged her against him and kissed
the top of her head. “It’s been a long time
since I was filled with hope, Maralee,” he
whispered. “Thank you for being here
with me.”
“I have nowhere else I belong.”
They lay there silently, holding each
other, until sleep finally claimed them. On
that night, Maralee’s nightmares returned.