Divine Savior (26 page)

Colin then turned to Aaron with a sappy grin and said, “So, what did you want to talk to the new Master of the Realm about?”

Aaron threw back his head and laughed. He was soon joined by the rest of the group. Colin had done exactly what he wanted, came in and conquered for his lady love. The newly mated couple now had a home all their own. Sara was glad she had witnessed this. She never would have believed it otherwise. And she decided that Aaron might have been correct, but there was no way she was telling him that.

~
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE~

Several days later, Colin and Shade lay in the crypt of the sublevels of their new home. Most of the furniture had been taken out only that evening and construction crews were to begin first thing on the following Monday.

Most of the people in Colin’s realm were leery of the new master and his mate, having heard about lightning coming from his fingers and lasers from his eyes. But they hoped that everyone would be all right once things settled.

“
Are you sure this is what you want? I mean, I won’t have him hurt again. I want him to be happy.” Shade had her head on his chest and Colin was stroking her bare back.

Colin smiled down at her, and then kissed the top of her head. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my entire life. I want this, I swear to you.”

They had been talking about this for days now, ever since they had moved into their new home. Brent was being released from the hospital in a few days. He’d had to spend this week in the care of others because they couldn’t locate his mother after he’d been found wandering about the streets in a daze. David Wolff had picked him up and brought him there, telling everyone a different story than the one that he knew had happened. Shade and Colin had gone to see him every day he’d been there.

“
Let’s go tell him. Right now.” She jumped out of the bed and was pulling on her robe even as Colin moved to grab her.

“
Love, its three o’clock in the morning, I’m pretty sure we should wait until at least a little later in the day. Besides, we need to get things ready. There’s so much we have to do…” His heart constricted as he watched her face crumble. She was not being manipulative; she was crushed. “Okay, in the morning then, I swear. First thing.”

~~~

”
Brent, we’d like to talk to you about what happened in the cave. We wanted to tell you that your mom...she is…” Shade looked to Colin.

Shade didn’t have any idea how to tell a little boy his mother was dead and that she had actually been the one who had killed her. Shade was also afraid once she told him, that he would never want anything to do with her again. And that would indeed crush her. She loved him as her own and she wanted so much to bring him home, to their home, with them.

“
Brent, son, your mother was not a very nice person.” That was an understatement, thought Shade as she frowned at Colin. She wanted to get to the good part. Oh, she so hoped it was a good part.

“
It’s okay, Mr. Colin. I knowed my mom is a bitch. Everyone knowed it. Mrs. Orting said my mom would make a preacher cuss up a tornado. I don’t knowed what that means. But she looked so mean when she sayed it, I just knowed it was bad. She let them bad men hurt me and Becca. I don’t wanna sees her no more.”

Shade couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing. Leave it to a kid to know just how to put things into perspective. She sobered slightly as Colin answered Brent.

“
Yeah, well, that’s not a nice word. True, but not nice. Here’s the deal, kid. Shade and I want to take you home with us. We want to keep you as our kid, but only if you want us to. There’d be rules and stuff. You’d have to clean your room and things like that. And I’d have to demand that you’d eat three meals a day and make sure Shade does too.”

Shade watched as Brent sat down and began playing with the blocks they had gotten for him yesterday. He didn’t say anything for a while, just drove his car around. When Shade started to say something more, Colin stopped her with a small shake of his head.

Brent never took his eyes off his car he was building as he asked, “What about you? You gonna eat too? And I don’t gots a room to clean and no toys but this one to play with so that’ll be okay, I guess.” He drove his car over to where Colin’s hand was resting on the table.

“
I’ll eat some, but not as much as Shade will need to. She forgets sometimes. You know how girls can be? And you’ll have a room. Actually, we just bought a house so you can have your pick of any room you want. You’ll go to school too.” Colin touched the little hand now driving the car up his arm. Shade held her breath.

Every since Becca had died, Brent wouldn’t let any man come near him, and he would scream if one touched him, even if it was innocent. She was afraid that Brent would start to scream again as he had when the police officer had taken him from the hospital after he was hurt in the cave. But he didn’t; he just looked up at Colin.

“
I...I never had a daddy, Mr. Colin. Never in all my whole life. My mamma was a bit…bad person. Her and that other lady, they hurt me a lot. I don’t wanna ever never go back to her. If I comed to live with you and Shade, will I haveta, go back to her, I mean?” He reached up and carefully touched the sigil that was on Colin’s neck.

It had moved when Shade’s had, moving to rest over their jugular. Every time he bit her on it, the bond between them grew, as did the powers that Colin now had. Also, their sex had gotten more intense and more frequent, as if they couldn’t get enough of each other. She blushed when she thought of how many times they’d made love before they’d left the lair this morning.

Shade cleared her throat several times before she could speak. Her heart was in there clogging it up, she thought.

“
No, Brent. You’ll stay with us forever if you want to. Your mother isn’t ever coming back for you. I promise.”

Shade watched as Brent traced the trunk of the tree with his small fingers. He did this several times before she realized what he was doing. “Brent, what do you see there? What are you touching?”

“
The pretty tree. I was petting the little bunny. Can I get a tattoo too, when I live with you?”

Colin and Shade both answered “no” so quickly that they startled both them and Brent. His grin told them that he was kidding with them.

“
I wanna live with you. Forever and ever and ever. Can I called you Mom and Dad like those kids in that other place did? I’d wanna do that real bad, Shade, please?”

Shade pulled the little boy to her breast and hugged him tightly to her. She glanced at Colin and he looked as if the entire world had just bowed before him.

“
We’d love it if you called us Mom and Dad, Brent. You already feel like our little boy.”

Meet Kathi Barton

I woke up one morning and decided to give play time to the people in my head who were keeping me awake. Little did I know that they would be so relentless and want their time right now! I wrote for the pure joy of it and to entertain my family and friends. But mostly it was to get more than an hour of sleep without a story playing out. Of course, the more I write, the more they want. So…well, as a result of sleepless days (I work through the night as a gun toting grandma – nope not a vigilantly but an armed security guard) I have lots of stories written.

Hello! My name is Kathi Barton and I’m an author. I have been married to my very best friend Sonny for at times seems several lifetimes – in a good way, honey. And together we have three wonderful children and then the ones we brought into the world - Paul and Dale Barton, Jason and Wendy Barton and Danielle and Ben Conklin. They have given us seven of the greatest treasures on Earth. They don’t live at home seven days a week! No, seriously, seven grandchildren – Gavin, Spring, Ben, Trinity, Sarah, Kelly and Kian.