“I’ll plan on it.” Sudden tears flooded her eyes. Their separation was still too close and raw for her to joke very much.
He saw the tears, and his expression changed. Cupping the back of her head, he cradled her close. “Shh,” he murmured. “We’re good. It’s all good. It’s so much better than I could have hoped for.”
“I love you,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you too, darling girl. With all my heart.” He cupped her face and kissed her softly.
Not many men could pull off “darling girl,” she thought hazily, but somehow when Morgan said it, it sounded warm, natural, and right.
He pulled back. “Hard as the past few weeks were, the time to reflect has been good for me. I’ve been thinking a lot about the orders you gave me in the great hall.”
Anxiety flooded her expression. “I screwed up, didn’t it? Did I screw it up?”
“Not in any way.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “But the more I think about it, the more I find the way you phrased things intriguing.”
She touched the lean line of his jaw. “I was trying to set you free completely.”
“I could see that, but at the time I was too close to living under Isabeau’s control to believe it. I thought anything you said could be countermanded if you changed your mind, but the way you phrased things stuck with me. You said, I order you to rediscover what it is like to live a life of your own choosing. I order the geas to rest forever and never compel you to do anything again. These words I speak are paramount. Nothing I can possibly say at any point for the rest of my life will ever override the orders I give you right now.” He paused, his gaze lively with curiosity and speculation. “And I can’t help but wonder—you were trying to turn the geas into something written in stone, and not to be revisited. What if you managed to do it?”
She blinked. “Is it possible? I want so much for it to be possible.”
“I haven’t felt a hint of compulsion since you stopped me from leaving in the great hall,” he told her. “And if it’s one thing I know, it’s what the geas feels like when it activates. So… we’ll never know if you managed it unless we try it. Give me an order, and let’s see what happens.”
Her stomach twisted and she recoiled. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” He took her by the shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “We need to know what we’re going to be living with so we don’t run into any surprises. And you need to listen to me when I say this—when you give me the order, anything that happens is okay.”
What he said made sense, but she still hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled at her. “I’m okay. We’re okay. So go ahead and do it. Order me to do something. I want to know what’s going to happen.”
“Well, okay…” She cast about for something to order him to do, but all she really wanted was to get back to the kissing part. Feeling self-conscious and awkward, she ordered, “Kiss me.”
Amusement flashed across his face. Pulling her into his arms, he rocked her as he laughed and laughed. Then he tilted her face up and kissed her with such evident enjoyment, she didn’t know whether to be dismayed or pleased.
Winding an arm around his neck, she whispered against his mouth, “Is this bad? I can’t tell if this is bad. Did the geas make you do it?”
Lifting his head, he told her, “First, let’s get one thing straight—I will always want to obey any order you ever give me like that. Please give me as many orders to kiss you as you’d like. And secondly… I didn’t feel a thing from the geas. Not one damn thing, you clever love.”
Excitement and hope soared. “Are you saying it’s gone?”
“Not gone. I wouldn’t say that.” He grinned. “We can keep testing it with other orders to make sure, but I think as long as you hold the control of the geas it might very well be tied off for good. And since Isabeau had cast the spell using Azrael’s Athame, it makes sense he would be the only one who can transfer the geas to anyone else. I think we’re as stable as we’ll ever be.”
The relief was immense. She sagged. “Thank God.”
“Yes, and thank you.” Cupping the back of her head, heat replaced the laughter in his expression. “I think I need to obey your order some more.”
A smile broke over her face. She lost it quickly as he kissed her again. Her lips moved under his, while she pressed as close to him as she could get.
Nothing had changed between them. All the fierce burning was still there. The soft, healing kiss changed rapidly into raw demand. Prying her lips open, he plunged into her mouth with his tongue, driving into her with the force of his hunger.
That felt so good, so necessary, and it had been so damn long since he had done that, she moaned and feverishly began to unbutton his shirt while kissing him back.
He pulled back, his face flushed with intent, and tore out of his jacket. As he took over the job of unbuttoning his shirt, she stood to strip off her sweater, jeans, and shoes. She was just beginning to pull off her bra, when he stopped. Still kneeling, he wrapped his arms around her legs, turned his face into her stomach, and held her tightly.
The emotion in that wordless gesture made more tears spring to her eyes. Growing still, she stroked his hair. He pressed his lips to her skin, and she caressed his temple and the side of his face.
Pressing kisses along the edge of her panties, he murmured, “I trust you. I love you. I believe in you.”
The words filled all the empty corners in her soul. As she began to kneel too, he stopped her. Easing her panties down, he pressed more kisses along the edge of her pelvis, then nuzzled at the juncture between her legs. Desire coiled through her in a gush of heat. When he slipped two fingers along the petals of her sex, she felt the strength leave her legs.
“Morgan, I-I can’t do this standing up,” she stammered.
He looked up quickly, humor flashing across his face. “Are you sure?” he asked, stroking her.
Pleasure rocked her back. She gasped, “I’m sure.”
Coming to his feet, he pushed her back, back… until her shoulders met the wall behind her. “What about now?”
She looked from one side to the other. There were so many pitfalls, and nothing at all to prop her up on either side. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s try,” he coaxed as he undid the fastening of his slacks and stepped out of them. The humor still lingered in his expression, along with the building heat, and the combination was so damn sexy, she felt weak at the knees.
“I’m warning you, this is not a stable situation,” she told him, shaking.
“So I can see.” Standing nude in front of her, he rubbed her arms. “What can I do to help?”
Greedily she spread her hands across the expanse of his chest, running her unsteady fingers through the dark, crisp hair that narrowed to a thin strip down his abdomen, to his erect cock. Grasping his erection in both hands, she sank to her knees.
Breathing hard, she murmured, “This feels a lot steadier.”
He laughed. “That’s not what I had in mind.”
“But you’re not going to argue, are you?” Slanting a sidelong look at him, she opened her mouth and took him in.
Everything felt so much more intense as a lycanthrope. His scent, the scrape of his fingernails across her skin, the roar of his magic that he no longer bothered to conceal. She felt giddy with it, with him, as she opened her throat to take him in all the way. His cock jumped as she suckled at the tip, then swallowed his length, and pulled back to caress the head again.
“I’m beginning to see your point about the unstable situation,” he muttered. Cupping the back of her head, he fucked her mouth. His muscles were tight, his skin hot.
Closing her eyes, she gave into the moment, the salty taste of him and the hot, hard glide of his erection against her tongue. His thrusts became shorter, more urgent. Willingly, she opened up to it, stroking the long, taut length of his thighs and cupping his tight sac at the root of his co
ck.
Suddenly he pulled out fast, swearing. She looked up at him in disappointment. “No!” she complained. “You said, Take me. I was taking you. You don’t get to pull out.”
His breath shuddered audibly in his throat. Caressing her cheek, he gritted, “Coming in your mouth sounds like the hottest thing ever, but… not this time. I need to look in your eyes.”
As soon as he said it, she wanted it too. She needed to see his soul housed in his body—that vital connection she had fought so hard to save.
“I’d like that,” she whispered.
She rose to her feet, and, taking her hand, he led her to the bed. When he sat at the foot, she moved to straddle his lap, facing him. As she wrapped her arms around his head, he nuzzled her breasts, kissing first one then the other. With one hand, he stroked at her sex, while he stroked her back with the other.
She felt so loved and desired, pleasure lit her from the inside, turning her incandescent. When he gripped his erection and positioned it at her opening, she pushed down, taking him in deeper each time she moved against him. Soon she had him in as deep as she could get.
Grasping her by the hips, he thrust up in time to her rhythm. The pleasure spiraled higher, hotter. She couldn’t take him in hard enough, deep enough. She needed—she needed…
With the ball of his thumb, he found her clitoris and rubbed, and the explosion that rocked her was so sudden and sharp she sobbed aloud.
Watching her closely, he moved steadily, providing the right pressure and the right penetration to help her spiral higher. “Give it to me again,” he urged against her lips. “Sidonie, it’s been fucking weeks. I’ve been tight and aching the whole time, and I thought you might never want to see me again.”
Her shaking lips moved under his. “I felt the same way. I need you the same way.”
“It’s okay now, my darling girl. Don’t strain for it. Let me bring it to you.”
Trusting him, she hung on to his shoulders, letting him caress her while she flexed on his lap. He was endlessly inventive, nipping at her lower lip, sliding a finger inside her along with his cock.
She lost herself in total sensuality, drifting with the play of their bodies, until he grasped hold of her firmly and picked her up. Without withdrawing, he turned to lay her out on the bed, coming down with her and settling between her legs.
It was the simplest position of all, entirely pleasurable and comforting at once. She reveled in his weight, in his penetration, stroking his back and murmuring wordlessly as he kissed her. He picked up the rhythm and the strength of his thrusts, and she rose with it, until he drove at her, hard and steadily, and when he stopped to grind against her, he hit it just right, and she climaxed again.
He rocked with the waves of pleasure, then thrust hard, and hard again. Bowing his shoulders around her, he shuddered with his own completion. She stroked his shoulders as she watched him.
She didn’t think it was possible to love him any more, to feel any more, but then in the middle of his own climax, while she could still feel him pulsing inside, he looked deep into her eyes.
“I’m yours,” he whispered. “Don’t ever doubt it. Don’t doubt me.”
That moment.
Tears slipped out the corners of her eyes as she took it in.
“No,” she promised. “I never will.”
They spent the next few months at the farmhouse, taking their time to get to know each other and exploring the moors. When they’d had enough time together so she could unclench a bit, she remembered she needed to warn him about their yearly obligation in Azrael’s Wild Hunt.
He took it better than she had expected. “If that’s the price it took for me to come back to be with you, it will be entirely worth it,” he told her. His features filled with the curiosity she was coming to associate with any time he became acquainted with something magical and new. “Besides, it should be interesting.”
She snorted. “I guess you could say that.”
On more mundane matters, they were both terrible cooks, but Morgan was more patient at trying to figure out recipes. Sid couldn’t be bothered.
“I don’t like to cook, and I don’t like to clean toilets,” she said. “And I’m more than happy to pay someone else to do those things.”
Morgan had little to no interest in television shows other than the news, but he was a voracious reader. Sid dabbled at both.
Morgan insisted she swear a pact to avoid any news about Isabeau or Oberon. “I’m done,” he said as they sprawled on the bed one lazy afternoon. “I’m out. I was done so many years ago. It was never my conflict to begin with, and I don’t want to know anything more about it.”
“Of course,” she agreed, resting against his chest. “Part of me feels like I should have been more bloodthirsty about going after Isabeau, but you know something? When it came down to it, most of me didn’t want to give her any more of my time.”
“I understand.” He hooked one arm behind his head. After a moment, he added, “But I had to kill Modred. He’s the one who killed my king, from the time I was human. I couldn’t… not kill him.”
Lifting her head, she stared at him. He was watching the ceiling, his face pensive.
“Did it help?” she asked gently.
He sighed. “You know, it did. I worried it wouldn’t, and I would always be looking back at a past I could no longer reach. It was worse when I was at Isabeau’s court, because I could never get away from it. Being forced to interact with her and Modred was like rubbing salt into a wound that never healed. Now everything feels different. Cleaner.” With a shrug, he added, “I don’t know how to put it any better than that.”
She pressed a kiss to his pectoral muscle. “I’m just glad you feel like you can move on.”
He grinned. “I’m starting to have thoughts like, What am I going to do with my life now? And how do you start a new career when you’re past middle age?”
That caused her to burst out laughing. “You can literally do anything you want. Thirty-seven is not middle-aged!”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “When you’ve been thirty-seven for… Oh, never mind. I’m not going to share that number with you.”
“You could always pick up your old instruments and start playing again.”
“No,” he said, after a reflective moment. “That belongs in the past too. Besides, I would far rather listen to you.”
“Well, don’t try to force anything,” she murmured. “You have all the time in the world, and something will occur to you.”
“I’ll tell you one thing right now.” He rapped a knuckle gently against her head. “Whenever you’re ready to go on tour, you’re not going to use Vince’s security company again.”
“Oh, no?” She hid a smile. She had a feeling she knew what was going to come next.
“No,” he replied in a firm voice. “I’ll take care of your security. Me, along with some of the other Hounds.”
Even though Morgan had disbanded the thirty-two surviving Hounds, several had already asked to come back to him. Unable to settle into their former lives, they missed the structure and community of the pack. Morgan had been noncommittal up until this point, but now she knew he meant to take in everyone that asked.
“They need you,” she said.
“Well, I need you,” he told her. “So they can help me guard you and make sure you’re safe.”
“Lately, I’ve been daydreaming about starting a small, independent music label,” she confessed. “But I’ll be honest, the whole idea of the business side of things is overwhelming. That’s what I pay Rikki to handle. I just want to write songs and play the violin.”
He was silent for so long, she lifted her head to check on him. He was still watching the ceiling, but now his eyes were narrowed and his expression had come alive with interest.
He said slowly, “How would you feel if I looked into doing it? It sounds like the kind of challenge I might enjoy, and I like the idea of supporting independent musicians. Some of the
Hounds would be good at management. Others could focus on security.”
Rolling onto her back, she went into a full body stretch. “I think you can do anything you want to, even that.”
When October came, Sid felt it was time to tackle going home to New York. “We don’t have to stay, if you don’t want,” she told Morgan. “But I’ve got an apartment I’m paying a fortune for, and right now it’s just gathering dust. I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do with it.”
“Let’s go,” he said immediately. “I’d like to spend some time in New York. Besides, there’s someone there I would like to see.”
“Okay!” she said. “I’m game if you are.”
Within a couple of days, the travel arrangements were set, and they had packed up all their personal belongings. They flew into the Newark airport and took a car service to Sid’s apartment.
She stared out at the early evening during the drive. The trees had begun to change, and the fall colors were brilliant. The smells were complex and exciting, and everything felt both familiar and strange at once.
Her apartment was located in a high-rise building, and it felt like a disappointment. She remembered it being spacious and comfortable, but as soon as they walked in the door, she knew it wouldn’t do.
“This is too closed in for me,” she said, walking over restlessly to the wall of windows to look out at the view. “Sure, the view is great, but you can’t open any of these windows. This is going to make me crazy.”
Morgan set the last of the luggage on the floor and joined her. “So we’ll look for something else,” he said with a shrug. “It’s an attractive enough place, but I’ve dealt with being a lycanthrope for far longer than you have. I think you still need room to roam.”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “I do too.”
Morgan had made arrangements to meet with the person he wanted to see that evening. She had overheard snatches of an intriguing phone conversation while she had been taking a shower, so after they hauled the luggage into her bedroom, she asked, “Do you want me to disappear when your person arrives?”
“Please don’t feel like you have to,” he told her with a relaxed smile. “But you might be more comfortable if you took an evening walk.”