26
SERENA
The nighttime streets of Paris lay spread out beneath us, arcing out in a spiderweb of lights. From up here they were colorful and twinkling. I could even see the dark strip of the Seine, winding lazily through the city.
You know, it really is beautiful…
It almost made me like Europe again. Not quite, though.
“Hey…”
Broderick’s big arms slipped around me from behind. They settled over my belly, clasping his wrists there. His stubbled chin tickled me as he laid it on my shoulder.
“Sorry about before,” he murmured.
“For what?”
“For getting short with you during the ride back,” he said. “I can be that way sometimes, and I don’t mean it. You really did stick your neck out for us. I want you to know it’s appreciated.”
I turned into him. Without realizing it, my own arms slid around his body, hard and beautiful. There was a level of intimacy between us that wasn’t there before, not even when he was inside of me. I decided to take advantage of it.
“Tell me how you were made,” I said.
I expected to feel him stiffen, maybe even pull away. Instead he only looked down at me. For a minute he said nothing. Then, gently, my blonde giant reached out with one hand and pinned a stray lock of hair over my ear.
“I was Forsvarets,” he began, the word rolling easily of his tongue. His accent was sexy. “Special Commando. Norwegian Operations Forces.”
His expression was blank now, like he was remembering, but not really feeling. Telling the story mechanically. Without emotion.
“Ten years ago my unit was in Kabul, Afghanistan. We were training an International Security Assistance Force. Getting them ready for when we left. It was all pretty routine. I was less than a month short when it happened.”
He paused here, and I watched as his eyes changed. The corners turned down in something that could only be sorrow.
“We were ambushed out in the far desert,” he said. “Mortar attack, followed by a ground assault. My whole unit was wiped out, almost to a single man.”
Broderick swallowed hard, then lifted his shirt. Just beneath his rib cage, he pointed to the long, zig-zagging scar I’d seen before.
“The shrapnel hurt me bad,” he said, “but it was the infection that almost killed me. Nothing they gave me seemed to slow it. I’d been out there three days without any help, bleeding non-stop, my body taking on all kinds of nasty stuff. I had a raging fever. 105 I think. I don’t remember much. I was delirious…”
I reached out and let my touch linger on the flat of his stomach. With the pads of my fingers I traced the gnarled pink skin from end to end.
“She came to me on death’s door,” he said. “Offered me a chance to live. A chance to heal from my wounds and move on, and all I had to do was join her.”
“And you did,” I breathed. “Of course you did.”
He nodded. “Wouldn’t anyone? I only half-believed her anyway. The other half of me was too far gone with fever to even understand what was happening. But she was right. I did heal. We always heal, better and faster. In that respect, Karessa was right. She kept up her part of the bargain.”
It made me furious, just picturing it. Her touching him. Making him. Going to him knowing he had no other choice, doing what she did at a time when he was the most vulnerable.
“She gave me life,” he said. “Instead of death.”
“She took advantage of you,” I replied angrily. “That’s what she did.”
“But is that so bad?” he asked. “Saving me, rather than letting me die? Giving me this measure of life — as strange as it may be — when there wouldn’t have even been one?”
I shrugged. “I guess that depends on what you do with it.”
He rolled down his shirt. That part was a damned shame. I was enjoying every bit of his skin, scar or no.
“Karessa was good to me,” he said. “For a long while. Before, and even after Damien.” He sighed heavily. “But now…”
“Now she’s just an asshole,” Damien chimed in. He’d just entered the room, but I had little doubt he’d heard everything. “An asshole who’s trying to hold you hostage by keeping your totem.”
That part made me angry too. I didn’t know how long he could go without the object, but in keeping his totem this woman was risking the very life she gave to him. Broderick might shift into a wolf at any moment… and then never shift back.
“Do you still love her?” I asked abruptly.
It was a strange question, considering. Even Damien remained silent. He folded his arms, waiting to hear.
“No,” said Broderick, after a time. “Not in the ways I once did. Not after everything she’s done.”
The words were genuine, even healing. I could tell it had been something he’d struggled with. Something he was only now ready to admit to himself.
Beyond the big glass window dusk had long since given way to darkness. It was getting late.
“So we’re not going tonight?” I asked.
“No,” said Broderick. “Last time we took the wrong approach. We went at night, thinking we could catch them while they were out.”
His palms slid up along my bare arms. His touch gave me the shivers.
“This time we go in the morning. Catch them in. Maybe while they’re sleeping, or tired, or turning in.”
I swallowed, realizing the implications. We’d actually be staying the night here. In the meantime, Damien had silently moved behind me. I felt his hands go to my hips.
“Tonight we rest,” said Damien, as his lips fell to my neck. His hands slid around, to the front of my waist. He began unbuttoning me. Unzipping me…
“At least for some of the night,” Broderick grinned. He lifted my arms. Slid my shirt over my head.
My heart pounded wildly in my chest. Every square inch of my skin was covered in goosebumps.
“Is that so?” I said, trying to be brave.
“Yes,” they said together. “That’s so.”