Authors: Colleen Gleason
Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (105 page)
Verla shook her head. “No, she’s gone.”
“Any idea when she’s coming back?”
“She isn’t. She and Becca are in Cascadia.”
It felt as if he’d been punched again. “What?”
“They left a few days ago. I told her I’d get the rest of the shop packed up for the donation truck. It’s coming this afternoon.”
“She went there without me?” He stumbled backward, reeling with shock.
He’d wanted to be the one who stepped through the portal with her for the first time. Be there to experience that with her. “But why?”
“Well, if you have to ask,” Verla said, rolling her eyes, “then you really are an asshole.”
Keely was in the pasture behind Olivia’s mother’s cottage, watching a mare and foal kick up their heels in the grass, when she saw a horse and rider approaching. Although she and Becca had been here for almost three weeks, she didn’t think she’d ever tire of seeing people using horses as their only mode of transportation.
Becca had accompanied Olivia and her mother, Alexandra, to an open-air market and would be gone all day. Keely had been planning to go, too, but one of the mares was due to foal soon, and Alexandra had asked if she wouldn’t mind staying. They’d report back and let her know what they found.
The women were scouting out possible places for the new shop—Sisters Yarns and Fortunes. They didn’t have access to books here like they did over on the other side, so they’d have to make do with yarn. But Keely was excited. She loved knitting and crocheting.
The rider rode a majestic horse, a black stallion whose mane and tail were flowing in the wind. As the pair drew near, she realized there was something familiar about the man. The way he carried himself. So tall, so proud.
Her heart raced and her mouth went dry. It was Toryn.
Despite her heartache, there wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t miss him. Desperately. If it hadn’t been for Becca and her new friends, Neyla, Olivia and Zara, she wouldn’t have been able to eat a thing. It made her feel like a selfish idiot to be so down when Becca was the one who’d been through real hell and back.
Toryn reined in the horse beside her.
“You found me,” she said. It occurred to her that Becca, Olivia and Alexandra may have known about this.
“Aye, I did. We have unfinished business to attend to.” He reached his hand down to pull her up behind him, but she took a step backward.
“If you want to talk, we can do it here,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. A man couldn’t be a complete and utter asshole and then think he could just ride in and sweep a woman off her feet.
“Please, Kitten. Will you come with me? There’s something I’d like to show ye.”
She sighed. That nickname. It got her every single time. Okay, fine. She’d go.
She held out her hand and he pulled her up behind him. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she pressed her cheek to his back and inhaled. She’d really missed how he smelled.
They galloped down through a narrow basin and into a cottonwood forest. Then he reined in the horse at the edge of a bluff. The view was stunning with craggy mountains all around them.
He dismounted, then reached up and helped her down.
“So what’s this all about?” she asked.
“A good friend told me that actions speak louder than words, so I wanted to show you something…while I grovel for forgiveness.”
He led her to a semi-circle of large rocks, protected from the winds. He opened up a pack and in a few minutes, he’d laid out a gourmet meal of cheeses, fruits, various meats and breads, along with a jug of what appeared to be wine and a bouquet of wildflowers.
He sat her down on the blanket and took her hands in his. “First of all, I want to apologize for the way I spoke to you. I was a colossal jerk and can’t believe what I said. It was wrong of me, rude and horrible.”
“Yes, it was. You hurt me, Toryn. Terribly.”
“I know.” Regret tightened the corners of his mouth. “And if I have to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, I will.”
“Okay, maybe that’s taking things a little
too
far. I mean you were injured, not yourself.”
His jaw ticked. “That’s still not an excuse. I allowed my fears of abandonment and betrayal to color my viewpoint, which prevented me from seeing the amazing woman I had in front of me. I’m done living in the past now. I’m tired of that yoke around my neck.”
She caressed his cheek. “I understand all too well how difficult it is to live with past hurts. They affect everything.”
He leaned into her hand, his eyes sparkling with emotion. “I want to live for now and for the future. I want to live for us.” Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small book.
She took one look at it and gasped. “Is that…is that mine?”
“Aye. I went to the shop and saw it in one of your boxes to be donated. It’s one of your favorites, isn’t it? The one with the poetry you have tattooed on your arm?”
She nodded, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. “But how did you get it through the portal? Everything disintegrates when you cross over.”
“Not dense metal objects or items
inside
a dense metal object.”
“But what about the portal sickness?”
He gave her a wry smile. “I’ve been in Cascadia for almost three weeks. I came over a few days after you.”
“And you’ve been sick the whole time?”
He nodded. “Olivia offered to heal me, but I wouldn’t let her.”
Keely’s eyes widened. “Olivia? She knew you were here?”
“I made her swear she wouldn’t tell you. But I’m feeling better now. A whole lot better. I’d do anything for you, Keely,
anything
. But—”
“But what?”
He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Oh, Toryn, I already have.”
His fingers grazed her jaw tenderly, then he cupped the back of her neck and drew her close. His kiss was gentle at first but quickly turned hungry. When you needed someone as much as the air you breathed, three weeks was an awful long time to be apart. Her nipples tingled and the juncture between her thighs ached with anticipation as they tore off their clothes.
His gaze darkened with desire as it swept over her naked body. “You are so beautiful, Kitten. I want to lick every inch of you.”
“Then what’s stopping you?” she breathed wickedly.
His lips twisted. “Not a damn thing. I just wanted you to know my intentions.”
He pushed her down on the blankets and spread her knees apart. A low growl came from his throat as he dipped his head between her legs. She would never, not in a million years, grow tired of his desire for her.
He licked the seam of her sex in one achingly slow motion that had her crying out his name even before he suckled her clit between his teeth. She gripped handfuls of his hair and held on tight as waves of pleasure spiraled through her body, igniting every nerve ending and turning her bones to rubber. Just as she was about to shatter, he broke away, pulled himself on top of her and slipped the head of his cock between her folds. She was so wet that he easily slid inside. Her inner muscles clenched around him.
“Oh, God, Toryn…I’m…having another one.” She gave a strangled cry as another orgasm slammed through her.
He pushed himself up on his elbows, increasing his tempo until his whole body went rigid. Groaning loudly, he arched his head back, the cords in his neck straining.
God he was beautiful, she thought, still in the throes of her own pleasure.
And he’s all mine
.
After it was all over and they were cuddling under the blankets, Toryn rolled onto his side to face her. Tendrils of his dark hair fell over his sweaty forehead. He looked completely sated.
She smiled to herself, feeling even more satisfied.
I did that to him
, she thought proudly.
“Keely,” he said, his broad, warm hand splayed across her belly, “you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I want to be your man, through good times and in bad. I don’t ever want to be away from you again.” He cleared his throat, his voice rough with emotion. “These last three weeks were some of the worst in my life.”
“Mine, too,” she admitted.
“Kitten, will you marry me? Will you make this man—this, imperfect man—whole again? Please say yes. Make me the happiest man in the world—two worlds.”
She held his face in her hands and kissed his lips. “Oh Toryn, I love you. My answer is yes.”
The End
Thank you for reading
Rebel's Desire
and I hope you enjoyed it.
When you've finished reading
Dark and Damaged
, please consider leaving a review for the boxed set. Reviews help other readers make decisions about books and I really appreciate every review my books receive.
Laurie London is the
NY Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of the Sweetblood and Iron Portal series—dark, sexy paranormal romance, set primarily in the Pacific Northwest. Publisher’s Weekly has called her work “sexy” and “sizzling.”
She lives on a small farm outside of Seattle with her husband, two children and a variety of animals. After graduating from college, she worked for a Fortune 500 company as a programmer/tester and an underwriter. Her other jobs included cocktail waitress, hotel maid, candy store manager and bridal gown sales.
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Iron Portal Series
Book 1: Assassin’s Touch
Book 2: Rogue’s Passion
Book 3: Warrior’s Heart
Book 4: Rebel’s Desire
by Bonnie Vanak
A cursed alpha wolf promises to free an enslaved Mage if she mates with him so he can sire an heir, not realizing she can destroy the dark secret keeping his pack alive.
PROLOGUE
Everything around Robert Keynes smoldered in burning ruins. The land. The trees and plants.
His people.
His parents, who had gasped their last, gripped by the plague striking their pack lands. All because he had brought in an outsider, his lover, a beautiful Mage, who’d worked dark magick.
Caroline had leeched energy from the earth, then from his pack like a vacuum, destroying everything she touched with those long, elegant fingers. She’d cursed the land with her blood and died upon it, laughing insanely.
Many of his people had already fled. All his relatives had died but for his sister, her mate, and their only child, Molly.
The acrid stench of smoke lingered in the air. Robert sank to the ground, lifting a handful of ruined soil with his palm. He chanted the spells of healing his father had taught him. “Please,” he whispered, “heal the earth.”
But nothing happened.
He struggled to stand. Around him were the remaining loyal members of his pack, those he had not buried in the scorched earth. They looked to him, their alpha’s son, for guidance and leadership.
Even though he was barely nineteen.
His chest drew in tight and he wanted to fling himself down upon the ground and sob for the dead. But the living relied upon him.
I’ll grieve later
.
Beside him, Melanie clutched his shirtsleeve and stared at him with big, woeful eyes. Her parents were fortunate. Their daughter lived, unlike the others. Melanie was the oldest surviving child in his pack. She was only fourteen, and scared out of her wits.
But she was alive. They were all still alive.
“Rob, what are we going to do?” Melanie asked. “How are we going to eat and hunt?”