"He, too, has a special reason to hate her," Alaric said.
"Past tense," Quinn pointed out. "He had a special reason, because the wicked vampire goddess is dead!"
Alaric caught her when she leapt into his arms, and he turned and headed out.
"Don't call me, and don't knock on our door for at least twenty-four hours," he called back over his shoulder.
"You said 'our' door," Quinn said, smiling.
"You don't think you're getting away from me now, do you? After I saw you with that sword? I'm thinking hedge trimmer for a new job. You'd be great in a floppy hat," Alaric said, laughing down at her.
As they left the palace and he launched himself into the air, heading for the window of his rooms in the temple, she considered what he'd said.
"I don't really like floppy hats. I'm more fashionable than that."
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am."
"Quinn, you are the most beautiful woman in the world to me, and I love you, but you look like you find your clothing in a homeless person's trash can."
"I guess you don't want me to buy a red bra and panties, then," she said, lowering her eyelashes and peeking up at him through them. "Am I seducing you yet?"
He groaned and flew faster. "I should have told them not to disturb us for forty-eight hours. Or three weeks."
"You have to bring me food this time," she said, practical to the last. "I'll need my energy to keep up with you."
Power flooded back into him as his magic recharged under the welcome sight of the moon over Atlantis, shining brightly on his people after so many thousands of years. His body began to glow again, and she smiled.
"You're lighting up. Does that mean my feminine wiles are working? If I even have feminine wiles," she said, laughing. "I think they got rusty over the past decade."
"Your wiles are more than sufficient to make me want to drive my cock inside you and never stop until you scream," he said sincerely, bending down to fasten his lips around her nipple right through her shirt. The power surged through him and into her body, and she moaned.
"Can't you go any faster?"
He flew through the window, tossed her on his bed, and ripped her clothes from her lovely, perfect body, while she frantically tore at his pants, finally succeeding in pulling them off.
"Please, please, please," she said, and she wrapped her hand around his erection.
It was his turn to moan.
He was thrusting into her body within seconds. She was screaming his name soon after.
He was going to be the happiest damn gardener in the history of the world.
Chapter 35
It wasn't twenty-four hours, after all. It was more like three days. Every time Alaric touched Quinn, his mind rebelled at the idea of letting the outside world anywhere near them just yet.
When he kissed her, she tasted like hope. Hope for a future that didn't involve swords or death. Hope for happiness and love.
He pulled her closer to him and stroked the curve of her hip, marveling anew at the texture of her skin. It was pale luminescence in the moonlight, softer than the finest Atlantean silk. Warm and delicate; tantalizing him with delight. His fingers traced the tip of her breast, and she shivered in response.
That had been a wondrous surprise to him--that his fierce rebel warrior woman would be so sensual in his bed. He lowered his head to kiss her nipple, and she gasped a little.
"Tell me you want me," he demanded, raising his head to look into her eyes, his voice low and rough. He needed to hear the words, even though her body showed him the evidence. "Tell me again and again."
"I do want you, you know I do," she said, her eyes darkening. "I want you more than I ever knew was possible."
She bit the curve of his neck, and need swamped him. Need and white-hot desire. He touched her cheek and wondered that this complex, enticing, incredible woman could truly be his.
He was home. Forever.
Quinn laughed a little as Alaric's eyes began to glow a hot emerald green. She'd never have to wonder if he wanted her. He broadcast his passion as strongly as his other emotions. She wanted him again and again and always. He was refuge and respite and release. He was love.
She opened her lips and her body to him and kissed him, tasting his mouth and tongue, and teasing him by nibbling at his bottom lip gently. His hard body shook in her arms, and she gloried in the feel of knowing he was losing control, even as she herself began to tremble.
Any remaining barriers between them dissolved as the magic of the soul-meld and the simpler, far older magic of love swirled around and through them, adding an edge of fierce intensity to their touch. She caressed the muscular line of his shoulder and then his chest, and he caught his breath when she traced her tongue over one flat nipple.
"I cannot get enough of your touch," he said. "Never. I might not ever let you leave my bed."
She laughed a little, but then she allowed her hand to roam lower until she grasped the hard length of his erection. "I may never let you leave. Did you ever consider that, my bossy Atlantean?"
His body tensed, and he pulled her even closer. "You have an hour to stop touching me like that," he said, grinning that deliciously wicked grin.
"I never knew it could be like this," she blurted out, honesty making her clumsy. "I never knew."
"Nor did I," he said, and then he kissed her until she couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't feel anything but the whirlwind of passion between them.
"But if I had known, I would have come after you a lot sooner," he said firmly.
Her laughter faded as he rolled over and settled his body over her.
"I find that I need to be inside you now. Do you agree?"
She wrapped her legs around him and guided him to her, sighing as he slowly entered her, inch by glorious inch. "I agree."
He thrust ever so slowly in and out of her, over and over, until she thought she'd go mad with frustrated desire.
"More," she urged, digging her fingers into his lovely, firm butt.
He grinned down at her, but the strain of maintaining control was showing on his face. "More what? I'm a simple warrior. You'll have to tell me what you want. Explicitly."
She felt her cheeks flame hot, but she was a rebel leader. A fighter. A strong woman. She could surely be a little brazen. She whispered in his ear exactly what she wanted him to do, and she made sure to use the words "hard" and "strong" and "deep."
Alaric lost all restraint, and he almost lost his mind. To hear such delightfully raunchy talk from his beautiful mate was an unexpected gift. He drove into her, harder and harder, claiming her in the most basic and primal way possible.
"I love you. You are mine, and you will never, ever leave me," he told her, desperate to make sure she understood.
"I love you, too, and you will never leave me, either," she replied, gasping, her beautiful face rosy with passion, and then she cried out as she crested, her body pulsing and clenching around his cock.
He couldn't resist the force of her climax; it took him over the edge to his own, and he raised his head and roared out her name while he came inside her.
"Mine. Forever," he whispered, as he kissed her cheeks and nose and forehead and lips, over and over and over. His mind was frantic to make sure she understood, even as his body was sated and replete.
"Forever won't be long enough," she murmured, nestling closer to him, and the final barrier inside his heart. that had been terrified of a future without her, finally fell to the realization that she loved him.
She loved him. Forever. He held her close as she fell asleep, smiling as he noticed that, this time, they were both glowing.
Quinn had never in her life spent three solid days doing nothing but engaging in utter hedonism. She felt drunk on pleasure. Anytime she wanted him, he was ready, and he always wanted her, so they spent most of their time making love and talking.
Making love and laughing together.
Making love and making pla
ns.
She actually wanted to travel to every corner of the world just because she wanted to see the sights, not because she had to hunt and kill something there.
"London at Christmas," she said, writing it down on a tablet that was resting on Alaric's naked back. "Also, does even your back have to be buff? It seems a bit like showing off."
He laughed. "I don't know how to do swordplay exercises without using my back, but I can try."
She licked a path down his spine, distracted from the conversation and her list by his muscular perfection, and they forgot about the paper and pen for a few hours.
Another time, his housekeeper brought them dinner, and there was chocolate ice cream, and he decided to paint her body with it and discover if the contrast between the icy chocolate and his hot mouth could entice her into any further heights of pleasure.
Turns out that it could.
It took her nearly half an hour to learn how to breathe again after the ice cream.
They dressed up in formal robes he had in his closet and danced to the music wafting in from the window when the Atlantean symphony played. But dancing involved touching, and they were too new to touching to be able to dance and not explore. The robes fell away, and soon his mouth was on her breast and her hands were on his butt, and then they were dancing in a whole different style on the silk coverlets on the bed.
He told her things he'd never shared with anyone, not even Conlan, and she told him of the terrors she'd faced as a rebel. She cried when he told her about the long days in the oubliette, and he tensed and gritted his teeth when she described the time the wolf shifter had caged her for three days, saving her for a snack, before she'd finally escaped.
"It was actually the best I ate that whole year," she said, laughing in retrospect at the experience, which had been terrifying at the time. "He kept feeding me roasted chicken to fatten me up, and I love roasted chicken. He would have been better off to eat the chicken himself and let me go. I was a lot of trouble, and I stole his wallet on the way out."
"How old were you?"
"Maybe seventeen," she said casually, and he winced inside at the thought of her teenage self going through such a horrible ordeal, but he tried not to let her see it.
The soul-meld didn't let them hide from each other, though, and she smiled. "You can't save me from my past, remember? You can only protect me in the future."
"We can protect each other. We are a good team," he said, and she rewarded him with a kiss, and then they didn't say much other than yes, and please, and more, for a little while.
On the third day, he brought up the scariest topics of all. Marriage and children.
"You do realize I want a little girl who looks just like you," he said, and she choked on her glass of wine.
"Do you really see me as mother material?"
He considered her question seriously. "You've been taking care of an entire rebel army for several years. Do you think a child would be more difficult than that?"
"Yes. I can't shoot my daughter if she annoys me."
He laughed, but she wasn't entirely sure she'd been kidding.
"Why don't we just spend more time with Aidan and see what we think?"
"Fine. For now," he said. "Also, do you want a church or an Elvis?"
This time she fell off the bed. When he leaned over, she stared up at him, not moving. "Do you even know what that means?"
"Yes, it means we will marry in the human way, and you will buy a horrible dress that looks like a cake, and also there will be real cake to eat, and Ven will take me to a bar in which a half-dressed woman will jump out of a very large cake."
He reached down and pulled her back on the bed. "What is this human obsession with cake?"
By the end of the third day, both of them were willing, if not exactly ready, to join the rest of the world again.
"Thank you for this," she told him. "This wonderful respite from anything dark or unpleasant in the world. I have never enjoyed any time more in my adult life."
"I, too, have not wanted this time to end. Perhaps we could make this a regular occurrence," he suggested. "Not only here, but in places around the world, as we travel for pleasure, as you said, and not for fighting or missions."
"I would love that," she admitted. "And I love you. I only hope that real life doesn't intrude and pull us apart."
"Never. In any event, we have a tiger shifter to cure."
Quinn and Alaric had dressed slowly, neither of them in a hurry to leave their refuge, but when they finally rejoined the rest of Atlantis, it was to find that only good things had been happening for the formerly lost continent, almost a reflection of their own path over the previous three days, so they could add guilt-free to the list of superlatives about their time together. Quinn headed off in search of her sister and nephew, feeling lighter than she had in many years.
A baby? Her? No.
Well, maybe.
She put her hands in her pockets and whistled as she walked, and she almost didn't notice and certainly didn't mind when many of those she passed smiled indulgently. A life of leisure. She could get used to it.
Maybe.
"About time he unchained you from the bed," said a voice she'd been afraid she'd never hear again. She whirled around to find Jack, in human form, grinning at her like a big loon.
She ran at him and threw herself into his arms, and he hugged her a little too tightly, for a little too long, before he put her down, but they both pretended not to notice.
"So, are you happy?" His voice was rough and almost hoarse, as if spending so much time in tiger shape had damaged it, or maybe the hoarseness was from the emotion she could feel circling around in him.
Regret and resignation were there, true, but also the glimmerings of something that felt a little bit like peace.
"I've never been happier," she was able to tell him honestly. "But what happened? How did you finally change back? I thought you'd be a tiger forever."
"It wasn't easy," he said, his expression strained. "Part of me--the biggest part of me--never wanted to come back. I've seen too much, Quinn. Done too much, in the name of the rebellion. I think that when my body was injured so badly, my spirit decided it was time to retreat."
"But you came back," she said, fiercely glad it was true. "You were still a tiger when you arrived, but now--"
Jack started walking, and she matched her pace to his long strides as they roamed together through the gardens. "Now I'm human again. Mostly. I came back because the portal arrived and told us you were in danger."
He left it at that, and she let that part of it go. She would have done the same for him. She needed to know the rest, though.
"When did you decide to shift? How? I tried so hard in Japan to help you find your way back. I'm sorry I failed." She walked a little faster, determined not to let him see the tears forming in her eyes.
"You did help," he said gently, touching her arm. "But this was something I needed to do on my own. I think it was the aftermath of the battle, here in Atlantis, realizing that if an eleven-thousand-year-old lost continent could find its way, then so could a relatively young tiger shifter."
He fell quiet, and when she realized he wouldn't say anything else about it, their talk continued to less personal subjects. They walked in the gardens, circling under and around the fantastical trees and fountains, engrossed in catching up and content with the familiar pleasure of spending time together. All the while, however, Quinn had the bittersweet feeling that the conversation was a prelude to good-bye.
"I'm ready to move on and do something else," Jack finally said, when their talk of Atlantis and the world had died down. "The next group of rebel leaders has already stepped into our shoes, and I don't want to go back to that life anyway. I think this time I'll try seeing the world without the need to take charge and save the day. I have an uncle in Florida I've been meaning to visit for a few years. He lives in a town named Dead End, can you believe it?"
Quinn laughed. "S
ounds interesting."
"Probably not, but that's what I'm looking for right now. Someplace not interesting." He plucked a flower off an absurdly round purple bush and handed it to her.
"You'll always be a hero, Jack," she said. "No matter where you go. That's who you are, and you can't change that."
His eyes darkened, and just for a moment, it was the tiger looking out at her, and not the man. "I don't know if that's still true, Quinn. I need time to learn who I am without the battles and the blood and the killing."
"I'm always here if you need me," she said. "You know that, right?"
He hugged her, hard, and then let go, and she felt a moment of deep sadness, as if he'd already gone.
"Quinn, I . . . If you ever need me--"
"I know," she said, brushing the tears off her face with the back of her hand. "I know. Same goes."
She reached out, one final time, to try to sense his emotions as she told him she loved him and she wished him well, and they both promised to keep in touch.
She felt it in him, as in her own heart, that they both doubted they would.
They didn't say good-bye this time. Once had been enough.
She watched him walk away, down toward the shore where he'd said a friend with a boat was waiting, and she finally let the tears fall freely.
"Good luck, Jack. I love you, too."
Alaric walked up behind her and pulled her into his arms. She rested her head on the hard muscles of his chest and watched Jack disappear into the noise and chaos of the people renovating the Atlantean port, so long unused.
"He deserves someone who loves him the way I love you," she said through her tears.
"He will find her," Alaric said. "I have a very strong feeling about that tiger. He's going to have an interesting life."
"Oh, boy. I'm not sure that's a good prediction," Quinn said, laughing a little. "Our lives have been far too interesting already."
"It's an Atlantean curse, you know. May you live in interesting times," Alaric said. "And so true of the Atlantean family who adopted Faust. When I saw him earlier today, he'd just set the archery targets on fire. All of them."
Quinn started laughing and turned around to look at him. "He's a good kid. He'll do well. But anyway, I thought that saying was Chinese."
Alaric raised one silken eyebrow, and she started laughing. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You guys were here first. Well, my interesting Atlantean, let's go to the palace. Riley is making me try on some ridiculous fancy dress for her coronation."