Howl for Me (11 page)

“Doesn’t matter now,” he whispered, groaning as he massaged me with the tip of his tongue. “But yeah, in the second before one of those ghosts hit me, the only thing I could think of was what you whispered right at the end of that dream.”

He pushed his fingers deep and curled them against the sweetest place, that little part of me that just makes me shudder and squirm. He leaned over, sucked my ear, and whispered “Baby.”

When he pulled away and twisted his fingers, I saw he was smiling, and that there were tears running down his face.

“We did it,” he whispered. “That wasn’t me hallucinating, right?”

Never once in my life, had I seen him even get near crying. But there was something intense and beautiful about how the one time he did, it was over our baby.

“When you left,” I said softly, “I just took the test thing and I was coming to show you.”

In one smooth motion, he slid his legs out backwards and pushed my knees apart, driving pleasure deep inside me. Pleasure that was so wonderful, so hot and tense, that I felt it well up and fill me, from the inside out.

I reached down and grabbed his arm, pulling him up. It took a few moments, and when that tongue and those fingers left, I immediately missed them.

“I can’t wait,” I said. “Don’t make me wait.”

“If I remember,” Damon said, kissing my trembling lips. “You were on top last time?”

I couldn’t help but giggle, and blush again.

He moved himself up, and then down me, before resting right at my entrance. He was smiling, staring right into my eyes, holding me captive with his gaze. And then, when he finally made that first move forward, and I took him in, shuddering with every movement, I was whole.

No. We.
We
were whole.

He moved up, and down, so slowly, that it made my hair curl and my toes tremble. My hands shook when I rested them on his back.

“I missed you so much,” I whispered. He started to answer, but I intercepted with a kiss.

A second later he tried to speak again, but I lifted my hips and turned, giving him too much pleasure to say anything. He finally gave up talking, and instead grabbed my hands, and pulled my hips up onto his.

I locked my ankles behind Damon. Pinned on the mattress with my hands entwined in his, I was completely helpless, completely Damon’s.

“You’re incredible,” he whispered, in a tight, strained voice. “I can’t even imagine anything better than this.”

I squeezed the muscles between my legs, clenching him as hard as I could, trying to keep him from moving in, moving out, because I wanted him as deep as he could be, forever and ever. That’s all I wanted... all I needed.

He shuddered, he twitched, and swelled inside me, and I knew he was having as much trouble as me. Holding back is not one of my strong suits.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “You don’t have to act all tough for me.” I giggled softly. “I’m about to, too. I can’t... Oh, God!”

All at once, the two of us started moving, started breathing, as one soul, with two bodies. The green that tinged my vision flared to life. Damon swelled in me, groaning. He threw his head back, his mouth falling open.

“I love you... Lily,” he said, in halting breaths. “I don’t need... anything... else...”

I squeezed Damon with my legs. I pulled myself up to him, holding tight, as we both surrendered to pleasure.

We shook, we trembled, we moaned, and finally, when we were both exhausted, he laid me back against the blanket. He followed me down, sliding his arm underneath my head, and rolled me over to taste my lips again.

“Do we ever have to stop doing this?” I asked, still catching my breath.

Damon’s face grew a little tight, but he smiled, anyway.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “Yeah. But not today. Late in the third trimester.” For a second, we both laughed. God that felt good.

“What about Devin?” I asked, propping myself up on an elbow, and trying not to reach down and stroke him again. “Doesn’t Poko need help with him?”

“I think,” Damon said with a sigh, “that Poko mostly needs help because he wants to make me feel needed. But, he said he’d need a day or two to help Devin back to some kind of health. He got this dust stuff all over him, and,” he paused for a second. “Look, I’d rather not think about it right now. Is that okay?”

I nodded and kissed his jaw.

“I’m just glad you’re home,” I said. “Husband.”

“Hmm?”

“Just trying it out,” I looked up at him, smiling. “It still doesn’t seem real sometimes, but...”

I squealed, when he pulled me on top of him.

“It is,” he said, kissing me. “It really is. How long are Hunter and Cat gonna be gone?”

He had a wicked, naughty grin.

“So, I guess, you’re not as tired as you look?” I asked, and kissed his neck, already feeling him swell underneath me.

“Tired I definitely am,” he said. “But, I’m not gonna waste this. Not a chance in the world.”

His sliding into me, his movement, his breath and his kisses; it was all enough to take me to the brink, and over, two, three more times. When we were
both
finally tired enough to keep our hands off each other, I ran a bath for Damon and helped him wash off the road, and the pain. I’d do anything I could to help him relax, because I knew it wasn’t going to last.

With us, it never did. Rest never came easy, and it never stayed.

So, like Damon said, I wasn’t gonna waste a second. Not one, single moment.

––––––––

P
oko’s cave was, honestly, the last place I wanted to go. Not because I didn’t want to see Poko, but because it meant that reality was back.

Damon, Hunter, Cat and I, spent most of the last two days together. There was a lot of laughing, a lot of storytelling – mostly, Damon and Hunter trying to out-embarrass each other – and a whole lot beer. It doesn’t sound like much, but in our world, those little breaks from the other stuff that fills our time are a blessing.

We left Cat at the apartment she’d rented, when she decided to stop being her dad’s heir and start making her life on her own. She had work later on, which was good, because as badly as I didn’t want to see Devin, I’m sure she had even less interest.

“Is everything going to be okay?” I asked out loud, not really sure where the question was aimed.

Seeing as how neither of the boys answered, I’m guessing they were both just as uneasy about the whole thing as I was.

“It’ll work out,” Damon finally said, in his super-serious voice. “Things just kinda do for us, right?”

He said the words, but I could tell he wasn’t feeling them. I nodded anyway. And Hunter looked over at me, running his tongue along his bottom lip. He tilted his head toward the cave.

“So, this is where he lives?” Hunter asked.

Hunter got out of the Suburban and looked more than a little stunned.

“I can’t believe I’m going to meet the elder alpha of the pack, man. This is nuts. And he lives in a cave. This is all just...”

Damon slapped him on the back and half-laughed.

“It’ll be fine. He’s a little strange, and he talks to spirits that no one else can see, but he’s...”

Damon and I exchanged a quick glance.

“He’s certainly fascinating,” Damon said, with a grin. “But no, don’t worry about it. We’re about to go on one hell of a ride.”

He got really seriously, really quickly.

“Guys,” he said, and we both stopped dead in our tracks. “I need to warn you. I don’t know what’s going on out there, past what Devin and I came across.”

“I’ll kill the son of a bitch,” Hunter said. “He had to have something to do with you getting jumped, and for what he did to Cat, I’ll—”

Damon grabbed his friend’s shoulder.

“You won’t do a single goddamn thing. You’re about to see a scarred, broken, and honestly, pretty sad sight. He might be an alpha in name, but he certainly doesn’t look like one. And the other thing is, I’m not even sure the Carak exist, anymore. When I was out in the swamps, I couldn’t find a single one.”

“The bodies,” I said hollowly. “I’ve... I know where they are.”

“What? Bodies?” Damon asked. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve seen them.” My voice was a dried-out whisper. “When Poko and I were doing my practice with the spirit vision. I was looking for you, and found some kind of camp in a swamp. There were bodies piled up.”

I had a long, distant, cold stare.

“Poko said it was the Carak. And then, when I saw Joram Blight, this old as hell werewolf, with gray skin and long, brittle, white braids on either side of his face – and he was half-shifted too, like he couldn’t be
not
like that – Poko wouldn’t let me look anymore. He said it was too dangerous.” I took a breath.

Damon and I exchanged a long look.

“I... I think we should just go see what Poko has to say,” he said, not looking away from me. “And Hunter?”

Hunter spat on the ground.

“I’ll stay away from him, Damon. I’m not going to do anything. But only because
you
, my brother, told me not to kill him. Anyone else, I wouldn’t give a shit. No one does that kind of thing to an innocent girl. He doesn’t deserve to live.”

Damon nodded.

“Thanks.” He said. “To be honest, he’s so out of his mind that I’m not entirely sure he even knows who he is anymore. Whatever that Blight guy did, he really, really screwed with Devin’s head. With the way he was grumbling and moaning and carrying on, yeah, I don’t know.”

*

“T
his is just... crazy,” Hunter kept saying, running his hands along the walls of the cave, stopping to look at little cave drawings that dotted the way back.

Further and further we went, escaping the daylight into the belly of Poko’s cave. Soon we were welcomed by the distant, orange glow of Poko’s ever-burning fire.

“Holy shit,” I said, clapping my hand over my mouth. Rounding the final curve, I saw
something
in a heap on the floor.

“Told you,” Damon said, looking back at me with a wry grin. He stepped over his brother, and shoved Hunter forward. I couldn’t stop staring.

Devin hardly moved, but what little he did do was halting, jerky, and from the way he moaned, it hurt like absolute hell.

“Oh, ho, who is it you’ve brought me? No, no,” Poko said, somehow pushing himself to his feet, and leaning heavily on his twisted cane. “Don’t tell me...”

He closed his white eyes, moving his head left and right.

“Don’t tell me, I said,” he told some unseen participant in the conversation. “I know this one.”

The old, blind wolf reached out and ran his hands along Hunter’s face.

“He’s familiar. He’s strong. Damon, are you sure you have only one brother?” Poko chuckled under his breath. “In truth, this one looks more like you, than the one on my floor. Seems more upright, as well.”

It was absolutely wonderful to watch Hunter stiffen and tremble. I guess it would be like me meeting David Duchovny. But as Poko ran his old fingers along Hunter’s face, Hunter couldn’t keep himself still.

“It’s so good to meet you, finally, Hunter King,” Poko said, with one of his bizarre, unsettling, tight-lipped smiles. “Damon has told me a great deal about you, and him, when you were children. Or rather, he didn’t know he did, but in the few seconds since you walked in, he has given it all away.”

“It’s... Sir, it’s an honor, uh to meet you, I...”

Poko’s shoulders shook. He was trying as best he could to keep himself from laughing.

“My son,” he said patiently, “I’m no reason to get excited. I’m just an old wolf.”

“You’re,” Hunter’s voice got distant, and quiet. “A legend.”

“Yes, well.” Poko did something I never imagined he would – he got a cocky, almost smug, look on his face. “I suppose I am.”

Damon and Hunter both stared at him for a second, mouths hanging open, before he started to laugh.

“There’s no reason to be so dour all the time. Bad things have happened, are happening, will happen, but why not laugh?” Poko opened his milk-white eyes as he shuffled nearer. “I’m who I am, and I graciously thank you for the compliment, child, but we have far more important business to which to attend, than how wonderful I am, or am not.”

“What’s wrong with Devin?” I asked, absolutely shattering the gentle calm that had settled over the four of us. “He’s... twitching.”

“Ah, yes, that’s been the case. Damon, or Hunter one of you help me over there.” Poko said.

Both Hunter and Damon took an arm, slowly guiding the old man over to the twitching lump on the ground.

“Silver dust,” he said, reaching down and running his hands along Devin’s jaw. “Of course, from where it came? That’s a bit of a mystery.”

“It was from the guys that attacked us,” Damon said. “I guess I should have said something.”

Poko shook his head. “No, no. You were eager to get home to Lily. I didn’t want to keep you any longer than you were here. But, now that you’re back...”

After a minute, I jabbed Damon in the ribs.

“Oh!” he said, with a start. “I found him on the side of the road, like I said, and then we started back. At first it was fine – I mean he was complaining the whole time, and he grumbled stuff about wanting to murder me in his sleep. I had him tied up, so it didn’t matter. The last morning though, when I woke up, he’d escaped.”

Every time Damon spoke, his jaw clicked a little. It had gotten better over the past couple of days, and I knew that in a few more, he’d be completely healed, but it still hurt me to see the agony on his face.

“And this is when...?” Poko urged him on.

“First Devin attacked me, but as we were having it out, the riders showed up.” Damon took a deep breath. “At first they looked like thugs on bikes. It was kind of a blur, honestly, but the first one I knocked on the ground, just sorta exploded. I guess I was far enough away that I didn’t get any of the dust.”

His eyes fell on Devin, who was still lying there, twitching.

“Makes sense,” Poko said. “This is... I’m afraid this is the result of a very, very long time underground.”

Both Damon and Hunter cocked an eyebrow at him. Of course they both made the same facial expressions. I had to giggle a little, despite myself.