Diana's Hound: Bloodhounds, Book 4 (18 page)

Or had he? She didn’t know a goddamned thing, really, except that a storm was coming, one that could wash them all away.

She had to unlace and discard her ruined corset, and was seriously considering doing the same with her pants when Nate’s voice drifted down. “That should be enough for a little bit.”

“Good.” She climbed up the narrow ladder and half-collapsed onto the deck, sighing as the breeze soothed her skin. “It’s boiling in there.”

Nate only grunted in response, but when she lifted her head to look at him, his gaze was sliding over her body. Not with lust, but desperation, his eyes seeming to catalog every healing cut and every forming bruise. Tension bracketed his eyes, and he bared his teeth. “You could have died.”

She sat up and crossed her arms over her chest. “We knew that when we came out here.”

“You threw yourself on a
grenade
, and you’re damn lucky it wasn’t laced with silver shrapnel. It could have been, you know.”

“I know.” She swallowed hard, met his gaze again and immediately wished she hadn’t. There was too much there, so much she wasn’t ready to deal with, not after their last conversation at the Black Lily. “It isn’t that I was being a hero, or that I didn’t think. But I had to, Nate.”

He growled and hauled on a lever before snapping it into place with a clever little hook that swung up from the maze of controls. He did it again with the lever on the left, then stepped out of the open front of the cabin to loom over her. “
Why?
”

No escape, from the words or the responsibility he would bear because of them. “If you died, so would I.”

Nate’s knees folded. He hit the deck next to her with a soft thud, a thousand unspoken words churning behind his dark gaze. But he only used one. “Mated?”

He was so close now, close enough to touch. “It doesn’t change anything. As long as I can see you, know you’re all right, I can manage.”

“It changes things.” Nate cupped her face with both hands and tilted her head back. “All I ever wanted to do was give you a chance at happiness. But hell, Diana—” He exhaled and pressed his forehead to hers. “I feel it too. Maybe even more strongly than you do, because your blood is my blood. You’re inside me. I think you could run a hundred miles, and I’d be able to follow you with my eyes closed. My heart only beats for yours.”

Pain. Elation. There was no emotion his words didn’t spark, but when she opened her mouth, only one thought would come. “I can’t need you. You don’t want me to.”

“I didn’t,” he admitted. His thumb touched the corner of her mouth. “But now I don’t just want it. I
need
it. Can you forgive an old man for not knowing his heart?”

“Yes.” She barely got out the word before their mouths met—not only a kiss, but a promise. A binding.

His fangs jabbed against her lower lip, drawing blood, and he groaned and muttered an apology before swiping his tongue along the already healing marks.

It’s all right.
And if he didn’t hear the thoughts in her head, she’d show him. A button popped off his shirt, but she managed to claw the others free of their holes, and she shoved the fabric off his shoulders.

There was nothing slow or controlled about the way he touched her. His hands skated over her skin, stroking and exploring, clutching her closer in one moment and easing her back in the next, but only so he could work his fingers in between them to cup her breast. He plied her nipple without hesitation or subtlety, just the rough touch she loved.

She kicked off her boots, which left only their trousers still in the way. She had to get hers off and his open, but her hands shook so hard she needed his help. She unbuttoned her pants far enough to slide them off her hips, and he dragged them free before hauling her into his lap.

“Fast,” he rasped, freeing his cock. He was panting, as wild-eyed as he’d been during the worst of the new moon. “I need to be inside you, Diana. Need it. Need
you
.”

She took him, fast and hard enough to drive a cry from her throat and a snarl of satisfaction from his. Half-clothed and a little beat up, but it didn’t matter because they were
alive
.

Alive, and moving. His fingertips dug into her hips as he encouraged her to speed her pace, sliding up and down, taking him deep in rough, quick rocks of her hips. Nate twisted the other hand in her hair and hauled her head back, dropping wet, hard kisses to her skin, each accompanied by the barest hint of fangs.

Somewhere, in the distant, hazy part of her brain that hadn’t given itself over to sheer carnal pleasure, she marveled that they could be so hungry, starving for one another. It had to be more than the danger or affirming their survival. It had to be about
them
, the way they fit together.

Mate.

“Yes,” he whispered against her throat, and then his voice was inside her as surely as his body was, his thoughts sliding over hers like velvet.
“Mate.”

The last piece of the puzzle, the reason behind the inexorable draw that had trumped their better judgment. They were made for each other.

Diana slowed, her chest heaving against his as she gripped his shoulders. “Say it again.”

His lips twitched. His eyes danced. When he smiled, it was wicked. Teasing. “Say it? Or think it?”

“Smart aleck.” She rubbed her thumb over his lips and then pushed between them.

Warm laughter spilled over her as he licked the pad of her thumb.
“You’re my mate, and I love you.”

No more running. Diana caught his mouth in another open kiss and snapped her hips against his, harder with every desperate rock. But even with his mouth on hers, his tongue swiping past her lips, the words tumbling end over end through her mind didn’t slow.
“I need you. I want you. I want you on me, around me, under me… I want you coming all over me.”

The silent plea shuddered through her with a teasing hint of the ecstasy to come, and she gave in to it. Every thrust pushed her higher, higher, until finally she fell, with Nate’s voice in her head and the taste of him on her tongue.

Her back thumped against the deck, his hand still cupping the back of her head, protecting it against impact as he surged above her. He thrust into her, rode her release with a frantic hunger that matched her own, a hunger that eased only when he shuddered above her, her name on his lips.

Perfect. “No more running.” She said it aloud this time, her quick breaths feathering over the damp hair at his temple.

“No more running,” he echoed. “Perhaps crashing, if I don’t see to it that someone is flying this damn thing…but whatever comes, we’ll face it together.”

When the full meaning of his words penetrated the lazy fog of pleasure, Diana shot upright, clutching her shirt to her chest. “It doesn’t run on its own?”

Nate rolled to his back and laughed as he put his trousers to rights. “Not indefinitely. I set it bearing due east, but much more precision than that requires a mind at the controls. And if we don’t keep the boiler stoked, we’ll drift lower than we care to. Let’s stay out of range until we cross the border. And then…”

“Then we’ll need to get the word out.” She met his gaze. “Warn Wilder and others that the Guild plans to silence them.”

Once his pants were fastened, Nate rocked to his knees, his expression serious. “This means war. It means
rebellion
. I never wanted to leave you grieving me, but now I have to fight knowing you’ll follow me into the grave if I fall.” He pinned her with a look. “And you’d best fight knowing the same. I don’t know if there’s enough bloodhound in me to pine itself to death over a mate, but believe me, Diana. I wouldn’t outlive you by long.”

Fear and sorrow vied for a tight grip on her heart. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth, love.” He caught up her hand and pressed it to his chest. “We’re both oddities born of magic and tragedy. We may not fit in either world, but we fit together. So keep yourself in one piece, my huntress, and I’ll live as safe a life as a man can have in the midst of war.”

She’d been a hound for five years, and she’d spent every day not giving much of a damn if she saw the next sunrise. Now, the thought of leaving Nate behind tightened a vise around her midsection, cut off her breath. “I’m not leaving you. I’ll be careful. We both will.”

“Yes.” He pressed his free hand to her chest, fingers spread over her heart. “So, what do you say, love? Fancy starting a revolution with me?”

“Anytime.” The answer came automatically, and she meant it with all her soul. “Though, in this case? I think we already have.”

About the Author

How do you make a Moira Rogers? Take a former forensic science and nursing student obsessed with paranormal romance and add a computer programmer with a passion for gritty urban fantasy. To learn more about this romance-writing, crime-fighting duo, please visit their webpage at
www.moirarogers.com
, or drop them an email at
[email protected]
. (Disclaimer: crime-fighting abilities may appear only in the aforementioned fevered imaginations.)

Look for these titles by Moira Rogers

Now Available:

Red Rock Pass

Cry Sanctuary

Sanctuary Lost

Sanctuary’s Price

Sanctuary Unbound

Southern Arcana

Crux

Crossroads

Deadlock

Cipher

Impulse

Building Sanctuary

A Safe Harbor

Undertow

…and the Beast

Sabine

Kisri

Children of the Undying

Demon Bait

Hammer Down

Bloodhounds

Wilder’s Mate

Hunter’s Prey

Archer’s Lady

Green Pines

Haunted Sanctuary

Coming Soon:

Haunted Wolves

Enigma

She’s looking for redemption. He doesn’t believe in it.

Archer’s Lady

© 2012 Moira Rogers

Bloodhounds, Book 3

Accused of betraying the Bloodhound Guild, Archer’s only chance to regain the trust of his fellow hounds is to earn it—one dangerous job at a time. Crystal Springs may be the worst yet. The town has been deserted by all but the poor and the desperate, yet the vampires stalking the edges of the settlement haven’t closed in for the kill. Question is, why?

Grace Linwood, professional liar, has been hiding under the guise of a border schoolteacher for so long, she’s almost fallen for her own con. The frontier was supposed to be her chance at a respectable life, but now the cowardly part of her wants to flee. When Archer catches her considering a run for safety, she knows it’s only a matter of time before he sees through her charade.

They become reluctant allies in the quest to uncover the mysteries of Crystal Springs, but every unraveled knot ties them closer together. They both know their pasts are too shattered to hope for a future—until their investigation uncovers a secret. One that could make betraying the Guild their only path to redemption.

Warning: Contains a partly reformed con-artist heroine with a bruised heart and a mostly retired bank-robbing hero with a weary soul. Also included: vampire schemes, mad scientist plots, an alarming amount of dirty talk and some borderline-criminal bedroom antics in an alternate Wild West.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Archer’s Lady:

He opened the door and immediately turned his face from the bright beam of her twist-torch. “Grace?”

For one stupid moment she simply stared at him, at his broad shoulders and bare chest, at muscles and bare skin and scars. He was massive and impressive, a virile man when she hadn’t touched one in years.

Oh, she
wanted
.

Belatedly, she jerked the light away, pointing it toward the floor. “I—I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have woken you, but I remembered something.”

He reached for a shirt and shoved his arms into it. “What is it?”

“About interesting people in town.” She should have thought to pull a robe around her body. “I remembered something Doc said to me once. It made me wonder, at the time, if he’d ever been associated with the Bloodhound Guild.”

Archer frowned. “That would explain how he managed to help Diana. What did he say?”

It was foolish to feel exposed in a dark hallway when everyone else in the building slept, but caution was too deeply ingrained. “It’s a delicate subject. Could we step inside?”

His shirt was still hanging open, and he started to button it as he stepped back. “How delicate can it be?”

She slipped past him, then took the few necessary steps to put space between them. “It was about the new moon.”