A Twitch of Tail (8 page)

Unable to hold back as he felt the heat of her pleasure seep around his cock, he held her close and took her hard and fast, following her into pleasure.  He released her neck as his orgasm flowed over him, growling his pleasure as he came.

She sagged against him, leaning back away from the wall with a gusty sigh.  Her head rolled back, and she blinked glazed eyes up at him.  “Showering is fun.”

He kissed her nose with a chuckle, reaching back to turn off the water.  In the midst of making love to her, he hadn’t realized the water had gone cold, but he noticed it now.  When they got out of the shower, he wrapped her in a towel from the rack before slinging one around his hips.  She shivered, and he wrapped his arms around her, rocking slightly and kissing the top of her head.

“You’re amazing, Tera,” he murmured.

“I think you are, too,” she replied, stifling a yawn and snuggling against him.

Hunger got the better of them both as their stomachs growled, and they dried off quickly, dressed, and went into the kitchen.  She told him to sit at the table while she made them something to eat.  He protested, but she wouldn’t hear it.

“You and Tahl have been taking care of me since we met.  It’s time I returned the favor.”

“We do it because we’re mates, and mates take care of each other,” Melo pointed out.

“Exactly.”  She turned from the refrigerator and set ingredients on the counter, plucking a pan from the cabinet and turning on the stove.

Melo watched her cook.  Even doing something as mundane as marinating chicken was made beautiful by her actions.  She began to hum while she cooked, something he realized she did whenever she was thinking seriously.  It was clearly an unconscious act, but it was a dead giveaway that her thoughts weren’t on the chicken in the pan but somewhere else.

He stood and joined her at the stove, kissing her cheek.  “What are you thinking about so seriously?”

She looked up at him in surprise, as if she hadn’t expected him to notice, and maybe she hadn’t.  But there wasn’t much of anything that she did that he didn’t notice.  The way she twisted a lock of hair around one finger when she was reading.  The delight in her eyes when she saw him or Tahlon.  The way she bit her bottom lip when she was turned on.

“Tahl said he was going to train with some of the tigers.  He’s been doing that all week.”

“You’re worried.”  It wasn’t a question, but a statement.  Melo could see clearly in her eyes that she was concerned about the fight Tahlon would endure in order to leave the ambush.

“Why does leaving an ambush have to involve blood?  When I left my coven, it was just a simple ceremony.”

He frowned, rubbing his hand across her back in soothing circles.  “It’s the way of our people.  When we joined, we pledged our loyalty to the king and queen, promised to protect the ambush at all costs.  To choose to leave means breaking a promise, and a broken promise requires blood.”

She turned her attention back to the pan and the sizzling chicken breasts.  “I don’t understand it, and I sure as hell don’t like it.”

“Tahlon will be fine.  He’s an excellent fighter,” Melo assured her.

She poked one of the breasts with a fork, turning it over in the pan.  When all the pieces were turned, she looked over her shoulder at him.

“You’re certain?”

Melo nodded.  “I am, sweetheart.”

He kissed her forehead and sat back down at the table.  She still seemed tense, but he wasn’t sure there was anything he could really do about it.  Melo didn’t want to expose her to the harsher side of ambush life, but they didn’t have a choice.  Although it warred with him to take his sweetheart back to the Florida ambush, because it was a place that held only bad memories for him, there was a part of him that also wanted to share it with her.  To revisit all the things in his past that he tried to keep tucked in his memories.

He’d never wanted to share his past with anyone.  But as he looked at Tera as she made dinner, he realized that he wanted to share everything with her.  Because she’d quickly become the most important person in the world to him.  It wasn’t just that his cat pranced in his mind every time she came into a room, or that his cock was in a perpetual state of hardness whenever thoughts of her roamed through his mind, or that he didn’t think he could fall asleep without having her in his arms.  No, it wasn’t
just
those things; it was that he was falling in love with her.

He’d never been in love before.  And he was glad for that.  He was glad that Tera, his mate, would be the first and only woman to ever hold his heart.

Chapter 6

On Thursday afternoon, Tahlon watched Tera pack a rolling suitcase that was open on the bed.  He leaned against the doorframe and watched her carefully fold her things, muttering under her breath as she counted out the number of items she would need.

Without looking over her shoulder, she said, “Are you certain I don’t need anything dressy, Tahl?”

He loved that she knew he was there without even looking.  He knew it was the strength of their bond as mates.  He always had a sense of where she was in the house.

“I’m sure, love.”  He crossed the bedroom to stand behind her, sliding his hands around her waist.  Dipping his head to kiss the crux of her neck, he smiled when she tipped her head to the side and leaned back against him.  She was so responsive.  He’d never known another woman like her.

Her skin was soft, and he couldn’t resist a taste, opening his mouth and licking across the mating marks that filled him with pride.  She shivered, making a small noise in her throat.  Her hands came to rest on his.

Bringing his thoughts back to the matter at hand, he said, “We’re only going to be there three days at the most.  We’ll arrive tomorrow night, and the king and queen will greet us and invite us for dinner.  Then Saturday we’ll get my place packed up.  The fight to leave the ambush will happen that night.  We’ll leave Sunday morning and come home.  There won’t be any parties or anything.  It’s a somber time, love, not a time of celebration.”

“It’s a time of celebration for us, though.”  She peeked over her shoulder at him with a small smile.  “Because you’re closing that chapter of your life and starting over here, with me.”

“You’re right,” he said and kissed the tip of her nose.  “I hadn’t thought of it like that.  There’s no one else I’d rather start my life over with.”

She smiled, and it knocked his socks off.  Then again, it always did.  When she was really happy, her smile could light a small city.  He was just glad he was lucky enough to be her mate.

Leaving her to her portion of the packing, he walked into the family room where Melo talked on his cell.  Melo ended the call and slipped his phone back into his pocket.  “When we get home, Midas said we could do your joining ceremony and Tera’s mating ceremony at the same time, next Saturday.  Normally our ambush does ceremonies like this on the full moon, but with Tera being part of the coven and needing to be there for their rituals, he’s making an exception.”

“Good.  I’ll be glad when this weekend is over and we can come home.”

They walked into the bedroom together to help Tera pack, and Tahlon thought about what Tera had said, about starting a new chapter of their lives and leaving everything else behind.  His past had shaped him into the male he was now, and however he’d come to this point in his life, one look into Tera’s vivid purple eyes and he knew it was worth it.

* * * * *

Early Friday morning, Tera opened the shower door and took the towel off the rack, wrapping it around herself.  Tahlon smiled at her.  He wasn’t sure he had smiled so much in the last ten years as he had in the last two weeks with her.  Of course he hadn’t ever really been happy before.

His eyes caught sight of something on her skin, and he put down the small bag he was packing and put his hands on her shoulders, turning her towards the vanity lights.  The skin around her neck was red.  “Did you hurt yourself, love?”  He gingerly touched the mark, which was a few inches thick and flowed up from her collarbone to her neck.  Her skin felt hot, but then again she’d just gotten out of the shower.

“Hmm?  No, I don’t think so.”  She looked in the mirror, leaning forward and touching the mark herself.  “I was outside some yesterday, and it was pretty sunny.  Maybe it’s just too much sun.”

Something tickled at the back of his mind, but he didn’t know what it was.  She opened a tube of lotion, and he took it from her, gently massaging the thick cream into her skin.  She sighed, closing her eyes with a hum.  When he was finished, she kissed him and darted into the bedroom to change.

He sighed himself, turning back to the mirror and looking at his reflection.  It had been nice not thinking about the ambush for the last couple of weeks, while thoughts of his mate filled his mind instead.  But the time had come for him to face the ambush and break his oath.  The only good thing to come out of this situation was finding Tera when he’d come to Melo for support.

Zipping up his case, he turned off the light and walked out of the bathroom to finish getting ready.  In thirteen hours, they were going to be walking into a tiger ambush that may or may not be friendly to them any longer.  And the most important person in his life was going to be kept safe at all costs.

At his insistence, Tera stretched out in the second row of the SUV they borrowed from Manny and Mari.  With a pillow tucked under her cheek and a blanket tossed over her petite body, Tera was asleep before they hit the interstate and headed south.  They’d left in the early morning hours so they could arrive at the ambush’s territory by seven p.m.  After dinner, they would go to Tahlon’s small home and begin packing.

Unease settled through him, and he cast his eyes back at Tera.  They had just begun their journey and already he wished they were home.

* * * * *

Tera stood between Tahlon and Melo, her body trembling slightly with nerves.  Tahlon squeezed her hand.  He didn’t want her to be nervous, but he understood it.  They were inside the stately home of the king and queen of the ambush, waiting for the house servant to tell them if they were going to be received for dinner.

The ambush in Florida was very old fashioned, holding to a strict monarchy.  The king’s word was law, as was the queen’s, and all in the ambush treated them with respect or were punished.  Tahlon hadn’t known anything but this life.  Seeing how the ambush in Ohio behaved, like one big family with Midas as the father figure, he realized how stifling the old-school way of the Florida ambush had been.

The servant came back and escorted them into the sitting room, where the king and queen and several warriors were waiting.

Although Melo was oldest, since he was no longer part of the ambush, introductions fell to Tahlon.

“King Tiduaron and Queen Genevieve, I present to you my brother, Melo and our shared mate, Tera.”  He ducked his head in a slight bow and saw Melo do the same.  Tera gripped his hand tighter, and he squeezed it reassuringly.

Tiduaron, leaning against the mantel of the elaborate marble fireplace, swirled ice in a tumbler filled with amber liquid.  “Welcome to our home.  I trust your journey was easy?”

“It was, thank you,” Tahlon answered.

Genevieve stood from the fainting couch, her long gown slithering down her body and pooling around her feet.  He looked down at Tera, and she grimaced at him.  Tahlon knew immediately that Tera was going to give him an earful later, because he’d promised that she didn’t need to bring any dressy clothes.

Genevieve stalked forward, her heels making loud clicking noises on the marble floor.  She stopped just a foot from them and stared down her long nose at Tera, who was at least a half foot shorter than her.  Genevieve’s voice was icy when she spoke, “I’m certain that you’ll want to freshen up before our meal.  You may use one of the upstairs rooms so you can change into something more presentable.”

Tahlon growled internally as Tera’s cheeks pinkened in embarrassment.  Tera cleared her throat.  “That won’t be necessary.”

“Excuse me?” Genevieve said.

“I don’t have anything nicer to change into, so I won’t be needing one of your rooms to change.  Thank you for the offer, though.”

Genevieve sniffed.  “I guess in Ohio it’s acceptable to dress for dinner as if one were going for a hike.”

Tera’s hand clenched Tahlon’s but she said nothing.

The queen turned her attention to Tahlon.  Giving him a wounded look, she purred, “I can’t believe you’re really leaving the ambush, Tahlon.  And after everything we shared.  The harem won’t be the same without you.”  She moved forward, cutting her hip to the side and pushing Tera away.  Tera stumbled into Melo as Genevieve kissed Tahlon on the lips before he realized her intent.

Before he could voice his displeasure at her overly familiar gesture, she turned her head and sniffed at Tera.  Genevieve’s eyes flashed, with anger Tahlon thought, and then she screwed up her face and sneezed loudly.

Stepping backwards quickly as if she’d smelled something horrible, she sneezed twice more and said, “Oh, your perfume smells terrible!  I’ll have to remember to hold my breath when I’m near you.”  Turning to Tiduaron, she made a pathetic sound and said, “I simply won’t eat dinner if she joins us.”