around his chest. She sobbed into him.
Beck stroked her hair and rocked with her. He closed his eyes and
held her close. She was alive. That was all he could ask for.
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Chapter Eight
Meg was still shivering hours later as she sat in Beck’s lap atop
Sweeney’s great back. Beck had spoken very little. It seemed like a
good thing to let him stew at the time, but it had been many miles
since he said a word. Meg was getting tired of the silence.
After the incident with the homicidal water horse, Beck had taken
her back to camp and warmed her up. He’d carefully laid her wet
clothes by the fire to dry. He cleaned and cooked a couple of rabbits
and forced her to eat. He’d lain under the blankets with her until he
was satisfied she wouldn’t die from the cold. Then he’d given her
back the dry clothes and packed up their camp. He’d said all of ten
words to her, most of them commands. The silence was becoming a
little unbearable.
She’d done the only thing she knew to do. If she was staying with
him, then she needed to start training him. Sure, it usually went the
other way. The submissive got trained by the Dom, but Meg had
decided that her Dom was a dumbass, and things would work
differently with them. She’d never actually gotten those books she
ordered off the internet, so she was on her own. She would have to let
her instincts guide her.
Everything she had said or done had been very submissive. She
had given in to her urge and let herself cuddle up against him. Even
while riding, she held on to his waist and buried her face in the curve
of his neck. He probably didn’t notice it, but he relaxed when she
clung to him. He preferred to be in physical contact with her.
Meg watched as the forest gave way to what looked like an
endless field. Still, Beck was silent.
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“Are we almost home?” Meg asked quietly, looking up at him.
“Almost,” he replied stoically.
Another moment and she couldn’t take anymore, but she had to
tread carefully.
“I’m very sorry.” She nuzzled against his neck. She loved the
smell of him. “Are you ever going to forgive me?”
His eyes were serious as he looked down at her, but he didn’t
move away.
“It hasn’t been very long, love. My bones are still cold from
jumping in the river after you. Perhaps you should let me warm up
before we start talking about forgiveness.” He sighed and rubbed her
back soothingly. “I don’t blame you. I should have known you would
run.”
“I wasn’t running,” Meg protested. Beck’s eyebrows arched
skeptically. “Okay, so I was at first. Then I realized that I want to give this thing a chance. We really do have a connection, and I want to
explore that. I know you won’t believe it, but I was trying to get back
to you. I got lost.”
“Of course you got lost,” Beck said with a frown. “You don’t
know your way around the forest. You could have been killed. You
almost were.”
She smiled up at him. “You saved me.”
“Barely.”
Meg thought about the strange little man in his red suit. She
shivered now as she considered the fact that he had told her to get on
the kelpie and ride. “Are those kelpie things common here?”
Beck shook his head. “No, but they are very famous.”
“So anyone who lives here would know not to ride one.” Meg was
starting to believe that little red man had it out for her.
“Well, they are Fae creatures. This is what we refer to as a neutral
plane. That means there wasn’t a civilization here when we found it.
Fae creatures have wandered off and on the place for centuries. Some
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stayed. I suppose there are plenty of beings on the plane that might
not understand what a kelpie is.”
“So he might not have known.” He might have been confused.
Meg had a hard time believing that. He’d seemed to know the forest
very well.
“Who might not have known?” Beck’s voice had gone positively
glacial. “Did you meet someone in the woods?”
Meg realized she might have been better off keeping her mouth
shut. “It was a man, a little man. He seemed old. He said he could
take me to my home plane.”
Beck stopped the horse and looked down at her, his expression a
mask of horror. “You met a Planeswalker? Oh, goddess, Meggie, that
was a demon. What did you promise him?”
Meg shook her head vigorously. “Nothing. I told him I wanted to
get back to you, and he pointed me to the kelpie. That was a demon? I
thought they’d be bigger. I also thought they would have more style. I
guess red is kind of their color, though.”
Beck let out a long breath of air. “He was a short man, dressed in
red from head to toe?” Meg nodded. “It was Far Darrig, love. He’s a
trickster. It’s his mission to trick travelers. He can read your mind, so
he knows how to get to you.” Clicking his teeth, Beck got the horse
moving again. “Don’t talk to strangers, love. I don’t want you to be
alone until you get used to this place. If you need to go somewhere,
you take me or Cian with you.”
Beck returned to his silence, his eyes on the road, watching for
threats.
“Will you kiss me?” Meg asked very politely. She didn’t want to
think about all the creatures on this plane that might kill her. She had
other things to worry about. She had a husband to train.
“You want me to kiss you?” His voice rose slightly as he asked
the question, as though he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
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“Yes,” she said with as much innocence as she could manage. “I
have since the moment I met you. Kiss me, please. It makes me feel
safe.”
His gray eyes looked slightly mystified, but he bent his head down
and softly kissed her lips. Meg held still, letting him control the kiss.
It was gentle, tender even, and when he pulled away, he kissed the top
of her head as well. He settled his cloak around her shoulders,
surrounding her with warmth.
Meg tried pushing her contentment outward. She wasn’t sure
about how the whole psychic connection worked, but she knew it was
there. He needed to know and come to trust that she was happy with
him.
When she felt him chuckle deep in his chest, she knew it had
worked. It was the sound of a man who was satisfied with himself.
Meg had begun to realize that Beck was very unsure of his ability to
please a woman. His instincts were all screwed up. Something had
happened to make him doubt himself and turn his back on his true
nature. She had to smash that wall down if they were going to be
happy. She would use their connection to do it. She drowsed, happily
thinking of all the ways she intended to get past his barriers.
* * * *
“Wake up, love.” His voice pulled her from her nap.
/>
Meg tried to sit up and realized that Sweeney had stopped
moving.
“Well, finally,” a familiar voice said from below her. Meg rubbed
her eyes and saw Dante standing with crossed arms, looking up at
them. He looked haggard and tired. “It took you forever. I expected
you late this morning.”
“Meg decided to take a ride on a kelpie,” Beck replied
sardonically. “It caused me to push back my schedule.”
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Dante’s green eyes were wide and his mouth dropped open. He
was utterly fangless now.
“Seriously?” He turned to Meg. “What the hell were you
thinking? Kelpies like to eat people.”
Meg stiffened at the thought of what might have happened. “It
was going to eat me? You didn’t tell me it was planning on eating
me!”
“Well, it wasn’t inviting you to tea, love,” Beck replied as he
handed her down to the vampire. Dante set her squarely on her feet.
“It was a close thing. The kelpie took her deep. I had to slit its throat
before it would let her go. I damn near drowned myself.”
“That explains it.” Dante rubbed a palm across his forehead.
“Early this morning, Cian stopped breathing. It freaked me out. I
really thought he was dead this time. He started again after a minute
of my frantically shaking him. I was surprised that worked. He’s
weaker than I thought.”
Beck slapped his cousin on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine now.” He
turned to his horse and released the saddle on its back. With an easy
strength, he hefted the heavy saddle with one arm and smacked the
horse’s rump with the other. “Go on now, go rest.” The great beast
lumbered off to wherever it went to rest.
“You haven’t seen him.” Dante rushed after Beck. “He’s worse
than ever. I don’t know if you can bring him back.”
Meg followed the small procession, trying to take in her new
home as she hurried to keep up. It looked like a farm out of the shire
from Lord of the Rings, if the inhabitants had averaged six and a half feet and let everything fall down around them.
The front yard was badly in need of attention. There was a small
flower garden, but whatever had grown there lost the battle against
invading weeds. There was also an odd-looking motorcycle leaning
against a fence. Meg noted the bike proudly boasted a Harley
Davidson logo.
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Beck sighed as he looked at the garden, completely ignoring the
bike. There was an air of unsurprised disappointment about him. “I
suppose the vegetable garden is the same.”
“Worse.” Dante’s boot kicked the dirt where there should have
been flowers growing. “Flanna and some girls from the village came
and saved what they could. She said she would preserve the
vegetables and make jelly from the strawberries, but that was all she
could promise.”
Beck nodded. “I’ll be sure to thank Flanna in the morning. Her
family is good to us. We’ll need every bit we can salvage if we’re
going to make it through the winter.”
“Damn it, Beck, I can help.”
Whatever the vampire was about to say was cut off by Beck’s low
growl. “I’ll provide for my wife.”
Meg slipped her hand into Beck’s. It was a good time to continue
his training. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
She wasn’t. She was slightly terrified. The house, or brugh as
Beck called it, was small, and though solidly built, it had an air of
neglect about it. Meg had more work to do than she could have
imagined. She tried to let none of that slip through. She focused on
giving off an air of trust and love.
“I promise you won’t go hungry,” Beck said, stroking her hair. He
did it unconsciously now, Meg noticed. He hadn’t started reaching for
her yet, but when she touched him, he pulled her close and seemed to
revel in the contact.
Dante watched the byplay. For the first time since she’d woken
up, there was a hint of a smile playing on Dante’s lips. Meg realized
she had gotten used to the vampire smiling. It was funny how
comfortable she could get with someone in so short a time.
Beck sighed and squeezed her shoulders. “I’m going in, love. You
stay out here for a moment with Dante. Let me get Cian ready. He’d
kill me if I let you see him at his worst.”
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The door opened and closed behind him. Meg was left alone with
a grinning Dante.
“The human learns,” Dante snarked.
Meg rolled her eyes and punched him on the arm. She had never
had an obnoxious brother, but that was what Dante felt like. “I’ll have
you know I am highly educated, asshole. I have two degrees. How
many do you have?”
“Only the one,” Dante allowed. His chest puffed with pride. “I
graduated from the most respected business college in America.”
“You mean Vampire America.” Meg really wanted to see what
America looked like with vamps in control. “What did you major in?
Boozing? Partying? Falling asleep in class?”
Dante looked thrilled with her new attitude. “The real Meggie
Finn comes to life, thank the gods. I thought you were a little boring
there for a while, but I caught the faintest hint of bitch, so I had hope.
I merely minored in boozing, though I was excellent at it, thank you. I
have a degree in management systems. How about you?”
“English and history,” Meg replied, looking out at the barn. It
needed a coat of paint, but it looked solid. There was a pen with what
looked like sheep in the far field.
Dante looked highly amused. “You studied English? Seriously?
You got a degree in a language you already spoke?”
“There’s more to it than that.” It wasn’t the first time she’d had to
defend her choice of degrees. “There are novels, and the study of how
to write.”
“The schools must be different there. I knew how to write in first
grade. I guess you’re slower. All I know is my parents would never
have paid for me to lounge around for four years studying a language
I already knew how to speak and reading DLs. Maybe you should
have taken a course in how to avoid getting eaten by deadly forest
creatures.”
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Meg planted her feet and scowled. “It wasn’t like there was a sign
saying ‘watch out for woman-eating horses.’ How was I supposed to
know?”
“You weren’t supposed to run,” Dante said with a sad shake of his
head. “You were supposed to listen to my advice and stick it out with
Beck. They didn’t teach common sense at your school, did they?”
“I’m not running anymore. I am done with running away. It just
gets me into trouble. For your information, I’ve decided to take your
advice and work on Beck.”
Leaning against the side of the house, Dante’s smile became
slightly lascivious. “Have you got him to top you yet, sweetheart?”
Meg returned
the smile without a hint of self-consciousness. She
was also through with feeling ashamed of the things she wanted.
Nearly dying in an icy cold river trapped by a horse with Super Glue
for skin had cured her of that. “Not yet, but I’m working on the
problem. So you know something about the type of relationship I
want with Beck?”
The vampire shrugged. “Sure. It’s very common where I come
from. You’ve got to understand, he has his reasons for being afraid of
what he needs. You’ll have to pull it out of him.”
Meg let a little of her anxiety show. “That might be hard. I have
no idea what I’m doing. It’s not like I’ve had a Dom before. The truth
is, I was just sort of reading about it before I met Beckett. Now I
know what I want, but I’m not sure how to get it.”
“I can help you with that, sweetheart.” He pulled out that ever-
present tablet. It apparently had a home inside his jacket. He typed
something on the keyboard and flipped it around. The LCD screen
flowed as an enormous list of downloadable material on the subject
came up.
“Have a problem? We’ve got a DL to solve it.” He let his lanky
body slide down to sit in the dirt by the front door. “Sit with me, Meg.
We’ll look at some porn. This could take a while.”
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Meg took a deep breath and stared at the vampire. She decided it
was time to make a deal. “I will, but only on one condition.”
“I’ll bite,” Dante said with an ironic grin.
“Later, you have to take me for a ride on that motorcycle.” The
bike looked really cool.
“You got it, sister,” Dante agreed.
Meg was satisfied and sank down beside Dante to see what they
considered porn in the good old Vampire US of A.
* * * *
Beck walked into the house and swore silently. His twin was a
pig. How he’d managed to live with that slob brother of his for thirty
years without killing him was a mystery to Beck. The small living
room and kitchen area was cluttered, and it looked like no one had
done a single dish since he’d been gone.
“You were supposed to be fading, Ci,” he muttered to himself.
“Not wrecking the kitchen.”