CHAPTER 29
Kaya stood within the circle of Aric’s strong arms, the warm water of the shower having washed away all of the blood and grime and stress of the day’s ordeals.
They had just made love beneath the soothing spray, an unrushed mating they’d both seemed to need with equal desperation. They held each other close, neither of them seeming to be able to stand more than an inch of separation after all of the loss and anguish that surrounded them.
But there was hope too.
Rafe was recovering in the infirmary. Aric had reached him in the nick of time, and now Tess was doing everything in her power to ensure her son’s healing was complete. His body would bear no scars from today, nor would his punctured heart. His flesh and organs were restored, but no one seemed confident that the angry, vengeful male who had awoken from the betrayal he suffered would ever be the same on the inside.
“I still can’t believe how thoroughly Iona Lynch deceived us all,” Kaya murmured as she and Aric caressed each other with slick, soapy hands. “None of us suspected a thing.”
Aric grunted. “Only Tess had an inkling that something wasn’t right.”
“She did?”
He nodded. “More or less, at any rate. A few weeks ago, when Mira and Kellan needed Tess’s healing help, she accidentally gazed into Mira’s eyes.”
Kaya drew back, looking up at him in surprise. “Do you mean Tess saw a vision?”
Without the lavender contact lenses Mira wore, her eyes were mirrors that reflected the future to anyone who stared into her naked gaze. Aric acknowledged with a sober expression.
“What did Tess see?”
“Rafe and his blood-bonded mate. Tess saw him happy with a family of his own, and the woman he was with was not Siobhan O’Shea. Or Iona Lynch, as the case may be.”
“Then who?”
Aric shook his head. “No one Tess has seen before. She says she was surprised to see Rafe so smitten with someone who didn’t fulfill the prediction, but she never dreamed the meek little waif could be a danger to her son or anyone else.”
Kaya considered for a moment. “No wonder she seemed oddly quiet at the ceremony when Rafe was talking about how captivated he was with Siobhan. Er, Iona. Let’s just call her Reginald Crowe’s daughter.”
Aric exhaled a sharp breath. “I still can’t believe that part of her secret. All this time the Order assumed Crowe was spending so much time in Ireland with a mistress. I guess nothing should surprise us anymore.” His embrace tightened around her, strong muscles flexing as he drew her against his hard, wet body. “You have been the only good surprise to come out of all this.”
She warmed at his praise, and at the evident sincerity of his affection for her. She couldn’t hold back her small moan of pleasure as he moved his hips against her, his arousal thick and enticing where it jutted between her thighs. “I can’t imagine not being with you, Aric. When I think about how close I came to losing you because of the things I was too afraid to say, all the things I was ashamed to admit to you . . . I’m just so relieved that you and the rest of the Order have forgiven me.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Kaya. Not until you stayed silent instead of trusting me and the other people who love you.”
She glanced up at him in hopeful silence. “What did you just say?”
“That I love you, Kaya Laurent.” He stroked her cheek, his eyes smoldering and full of something far deeper than desire. “I love you with everything I am. If memory serves--and we both know it does--you also said you love me.”
“Yes.” A smile broke over her to hear him say the words that had been living inside her from the beginning. “Yes, Aric, I do love you. I’ve been trying to convince myself that it’s impossible that I fell in love with you practically from the time we met, but it’s true. I love you.”
He grinned. “You’ve had me under your spell from our first meeting too.”
“My spell?” She frowned and smacked his muscled chest. “Promise never to joke about that again.”
He smirked and bent his head to kiss her. “Okay, I promise. But I am going to say this. I don’t want to know what it feels like to live a day, or a night, without you at my side. This detour was only supposed to be temporary. I never dreamed I’d find forever here.”
She swallowed, realizing just now that there was still one obstacle that they would have to navigate around. “But the Order is going back to D.C. as soon as Rafe is fully recovered. Won’t you be going with them?”
He nodded. “Yes. For a short while. Then I’ll be going wherever the Order needs me the most. The threat from Opus looms larger than ever before, now that both UV and Red Dragon are in play.”
Kaya knew what he said was true. Using the data they’d collected from Lars Scrully’s computers, Gideon had found a link between Stephan Mercier’s lucrative deal with the Opus member and the manufacture and proliferation of the Breed-targeted narcotic. And Mercier wasn’t the only one who’d been tapped to launder money and play the mule for Opus Nostrum. There were others in the chain, and now the Order needed to be ready to go after the organization with every advantage and weapon they had.
“I’ve been assigned to a new team,” Aric said. “I start effective immediately.”
Kaya didn’t dare hope that team would be hers, here in Montreal. She stroked her hands over his back and tight ass, wanting to memorize every inch of him in case this was the last time she would see him for a while. “Is that why Lucan pulled you aside after everything that happened today? To give you this new assignment?”
“Yes.” His gaze held hers, pride and purpose in his green eyes. “I’ve been tasked with heading up a new division of the Order. A Special Ops team comprised of daywalkers and other specially skilled warriors.”
“Aric, that’s amazing news.” She couldn’t pretend it wasn’t. Not even if this new role would undoubtedly send him away from both D.C. and Montreal. “I’m thrilled for you.”
“I hoped you would be,” he said, lifting her chin for his kiss. “I also hoped I might be able to convince you to be part of the group. My first team member and best partner. You did say you always wanted to see the world. So, do it with me.”
“What?” Elation soared through her, but her joy had a slender tether too. Everything inside her leapt at the thought of being his partner, his comrade. His lover. “But what about Leah? We’ve just reunited. She needs support, especially now that she’s got a baby on the way.”
Kaya had been torn between relief and sorrow when Leah told her the sad circumstances of how she’d become a prisoner to Angus Mackie’s threats. She’d fallen in love with a man inside the group, a kind man. When she became pregnant, they plotted their escape, only to be stopped by Big Mack. Leah’s lover was murdered in front of her and Mackie threatened to do the same to her and her unborn child if she ever attempted to leave the gang.
“The Order won’t leave your sister on her own,” Aric assured her. “Renata and Niko are already making arrangements for her at Anna’s Place. The shelter is in need of a manager, and Leah needs a safe home for her and her baby.”
Kaya closed her eyes, swamped with gratitude not only for Aric’s love and kindness, but for the rest of the Order as well.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes, Kaya.” He held her face in his palms, his eyes glittering with amber sparks. The sharp points of his fangs gleamed as he spoke, sending a coil of dark need spiraling through her. “Say you’re mine.”
“I am, Aric.” She stared up into his glowing eyes, overwhelmed with the power of everything she felt for this incredible man. This Breed male she loved more than anything she ever knew. “I am yours.”
“I won’t settle for anything less than forever,” he murmured thickly, his fangs growing even longer, sharper, with each earnest word.
He stroked the side of her neck where her pulse throbbed. His touch made her veins ache for something more. As if he knew what she needed, he lowered his head and suckled the tender flesh above her carotid. The slightest graze of his elongated canines nearly made her come on the spot.
“Tell me this is what you want, Kaya.”
“It is,” she gasped. “Aric, I want this more than my next breath. I want you. Forever.”
He uttered her name, and then she felt the stunning pleasure of his bite. He drank from her, hard, possessive tugs that made everything female in her erupt with heated desire. And love. So much love she wept with the power of it.
Aric’s possessive growl filled her ears, echoing in the veins he now owned. Veins that would connect them for the rest of their days.
“You’re mine,” he growled, pausing to lick her punctures and seal them closed. “You have my body and my heart, Kaya. You have my love forever. Now, will you have my bond?”
“Yes, Aric.” She’d never wanted anything more. “Oh, God. Yes.”
He brought his wrist up to his mouth and bit down on his own flesh, opening his veins for her. She had never tasted anything so wondrous, so erotically powerful as the first sip of his blood. The roar of it filled her senses as their bond came to life within her, within both of them.
“Mine,” Aric growled, spreading her legs to receive him as he fed her from his open vein. “You’re mine forever now, Kaya.”
She moaned, incapable of words as he filled her body and nourished her heart and soul with the power of his blood and his bond. And when he brought them both to shattering climax a few minutes later, he came shouting her name like a promise and a prayer.
“Forever,” she murmured, holding his fiery gaze.
She couldn’t wait for their future to begin.
~ * ~
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