Desire: #4 Brightest Kind of Darkness (5 page)

Ethan smiles and shakes his head. “Oh, ye of little faith. We’ll definitely find some mistletoe. Get your boots on.”

While I pull off my thick socks and tug on my fur-lined boots, I frown at his jeans covering his black combat boots. “Those won’t protect your feet, Ethan. The snow out there has to be at least six inches deep.”

He just laughs, then opens his car door. “Come on slow poke. We have some mistletoe to gather.”

A few minutes later, wishing I could’ve found my gray scarf, I finish zipping up my coat and meet him by the edge of the pond. My breath gusts out in swirls of frost while I eye his thin army jacket over a thermal shirt and jeans. “Where’s your winter jacket? It’s thirty degrees. You’re going to freeze to death out here.”

Ethan shifts his attention from the massive tree close to the pond back to me. “Actually, it’s twenty-four-point-seven.”

I blink at him. “Um, that was pretty exact. Are you a human thermometer now too?”

“Apparently.” He shakes his head, a bemused smile tugging at his lips. “I just
know
the temperature.”

Stomping the snow off my boots, I snicker. “From now on I’m texting you for the daily weather report so I’ll know how to dress. Seriously though, aren’t you cold?”

In answer, Ethan tucks his hand under my hair, cupping the back of my neck.

His toasty touch sends a zing of warmth all the way to my toes. I give a wry smile. “That’s just not fair.”

He smiles and slides his thumb along my neck. “Consider me your own personal body heater.”

I snort. “You do that
without
touching me.”

Chuckling, Ethan releases me to point to the branches that spread out from the massive tree he’d been looking at. “I remembered this oak from our visit here before. Do you see the mistletoe up there?”

The round bunches of green are the only color decorating the tree’s bare branches. I squint past the sunlight filtering through. “Yeah, I see it, but that has to be at least three stories high. How are we going to get to it?”

Ethan eyes the mistletoe and rocks on his heels. “Well, some people shoot it down.”

“Shoot it?” I swing my attention back to him, eyes wide. “You didn’t buy a gun from that sports store, did you? The bag didn’t look big enough for that.”

He scowls slightly. “I don’t like guns. Plus, gunshots would draw attention that we’re on private property—this time without an invitation. Are you ready to guess what’s in the bag now?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

Ethan shakes his head as he steps back over to his car. “You’d make a terrible game show contestant.”

“A BB gun?”

He shuts his car door with the red bag in hand and a contemplative look on his face. “I didn’t think of a BB gun. That would’ve worked, I suppose. Though this is more fun.”

Snow kicks up around his boots and sticks to the bottom of his jeans once he makes his way back over to my side.

“So what is it?” I ask, impatient.

Ethan pulls the handle out of the bag, a wide grin spreading across his face. “A slingshot.”

“That’s your weapon of choice? Hmmm, I think my BB gun suggestion would’ve been better.”

“What? You don’t think I have what it takes?”

I gesture to the slingshot while he squats to push snow out of his way. “Those are highly inaccurate and not as powerful as a BB gun, especially one with a CO2 cartridge giving it some extra power.”

He eyes me from his squatted position. “How do you know so much about BB guns?”

“’Cause I own one. If you’d have told me how you planned to get the mistletoe down, I could’ve brought mine.”

His dark brows pull together. “What do you shoot with your BB gun?”

“Cans, Ethan. Just cans. Later when I got better, it was leaves, tree branches and stuff. Learning to shoot—versus being shot upon as a goalie—with any kind of accuracy is a skill I had to develop, not one that came from dreaming it the night before.” I pause. “Speaking of shooting, I haven’t done it in a long time. That might be kind of fun to do together some time.”

“How about we start with this for now,” Ethan says. Standing, he puts a small, cold stone in my hand, then holds out the slingshot.

“You want me to try?”

“Why not?”

I start to hand him back the stone. “I’ve never done it before.”

“Then I’ll show you.” He flashes a confident smile and moves behind me. Setting the slingshot in my other hand, he shows me how to set the stone inside the leather and pinch it closed around it. Then, he lifts my arms and directs me how to pull the slingshot back. While I ready my aim, he rests his hands on my hips and leans close to whisper in my ear, “I want many of your firsts to be with me, Sunshine.”

His firm grip tightening on my hips and his husky voice radiating in my ear send the rock flying before I’m ready. I snort when it makes a spectacular arc right straight down into the pond. “David would
so
not want me on his team against Goliath.”

Ethan chuckles. “You’re not aiming for a monstrous giant’s head. Just some mistletoe.”

“Like that’s so much easier.”

He sets another stone in my hand. “Try again.”

After three more attempts, I at least got the rock as high as the mistletoe, but it lost steam and quickly fell before getting anywhere near the greenery.

Sighing, I hand him the slingshot. “Your turn. Hopefully your aim is far better than mine.”

After retrieving some more rocks, Ethan sets one in the slingshot, then closes one eye as he pulls the rock back. “For the mystical power of the mistletoe,” he says, then releases the leather.

The rock shoots out of the slingshot so fast and hard, I can’t track it, but a couple seconds later, I see a bundle of mistletoe the size of a soccer ball tilt sideways in the tree.

“Dead on!” I say and clap in appreciation. “One more hit should bring it down.”

Ethan sends another rock flying. Two seconds later, the greenery tumbles down…landing in the middle of the pond.

Pouting, I scan the massive oak for other options. “Crud. The only bundles are in the branches reaching out over the water. Any other mistletoe you break free will end up in the same place.” As if mocking me, the floating mistletoe hits some ice, then ever-so-slowly sinks under the water. I glance his way and sigh. “Now what are we going to do?”

Chapter Three

Nara

Ethan stands by the pond, shirtless and in the process of stepping out of his boots and socks.

“You are
not
going in that water.”

He touches my chin, a slight smile tilting his lips. “Do you know your cheeks get rosy when you’re all worked up?”

I slice my hand toward the huge pieces of ice floating in the pond’s surface. “Your brain will shut down. The water’s too cold.”

Ethan’s brow furrows. “We just talked about this. I’m not cold. At all. I’ll be fine.”

His fingers might feel warm on my skin, but I jerk my head back and forth. “It’s one thing to be able to withstand cooler outside temperatures, but you don’t know how your body will react in freezing water.”

“You’ve studied ravens, Nara. How do you think they survive, even in arctic environments?”

I shuffle through my memory, seeking an answer even as I mumble, “They certainly don’t go swimming in freezing ponds.” By the time I glance up, Ethan has already stepped barefoot in the snow to the pond’s edge.

“Ethan, no!”

He just grins at me and walks into the water. My heart jerks when he shallow dives, disappearing under the water’s surface. Remembering he’d told me that he always keeps a change of clothes in his car in case a demon hunt turns messy, I tromp through the snow and open his car door. Once I pop the trunk, I hurry to the back to pull out a waterproof duffle bag.

I lug the bag over to the pond’s edge and set it down to glance at my watch, my heart racing with worry. Ethan’s been under for three minutes. How long can he hold his breath, and how long does it take for hypothermia to set in?

Another minute passes and my bottom lip is pretty much gnawed to bits. My chest aches and my eyes sting as I stare with fierce intensity at the now smooth-as-glass pond top where he dove in, willing him back to the surface.

Nothing.

“Ethan.” My voice sounds hoarse and strained and I start to hyperventilate, my breathing coming in fast, frantic bursts. A rush of arctic wind whips around me, and when the fog from my breath morphs into the words, TELL HIM, I grit my teeth and snap, “I work on my time frame, not yours, Fate.” The fact more time has passed without sight of Ethan sends me off the deep end. “Go before I tell him you’re back to bullying me again. Or this time around, I might not stop him from shredding you.”

The second the words hanging in the air dissipate, I open my mouth to scream Ethan’s name, but the smooth water starts to ripple, making me pause. When Ethan’s dark head breaks the surface, tears streak down my cheeks.

I quickly brush them away and bend to unzip his bag. Grabbing the towel sitting on top of the clothes, I straighten to see Ethan climbing up the embankment, his raven wings growing larger with each step he takes.

“Nara.” He stands next to me, dripping frigid water into the snow under his feet.

I’m so upset, I refuse to look at him or his gorgeous wings while I rub the towel in brisk strokes across his hard chest. “That has to be the most reckless, stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

“Nara,” he repeats in a calming tone, but I don’t want to hear any excuses. I just want him dry and warm. I run the towel over his shoulders, then along the side of his neck.

Ethan tosses the mistletoe into the snow beside his bag, then captures my wrists to stop my frantic movements. “Look at me.”

His voice is firm, commanding. The fact that his hands aren’t blocks of ice eases some of my panic. I shift my attention to his blue one.

“Come with me,” he says, taking a step back toward the water.

My eyes widen in panic. “I can’t go in there. I
will
turn into a human popsicle.”

“Trust me, Sunshine.” At the same time Ethan grips my hand, his raven wings unfurl fully behind him in an impressive, breathtaking spread.

I stare wide-eyed at their strength and beauty. When he’d shown them to me before, we’d been in my small bedroom, so he hadn’t been able to spread them as wide. The sun reflects off the streaks of iridescent purples, blues, and greens veining along the midnight black feathers, only adding to their mystical appearance.

Tugging the towel from my tight hold, Ethan releases me to quickly dry his hair, chest, and arms. I can’t help but watch his muscles and abs flex with his quick movements. Once he drops the towel on his bag, he reaches for the zipper on my jacket. My heart speeds up as he slides it down. When the zipper pulls free of the hook, I finally manage to breathe out, “I can’t, Ethan. I won’t survive that.”

“You can,” he simply states, stepping close to tug my coat off. When my coat joins the towel on top of his bag, he laces his fingers with mine, the desire swirling in his deep blue eyes pulling me in. “I want to share this with you, Nara. Please let me.”

Even though I’m shivering against the cold, the look of assured certainty on his face warms me from the inside out. I bite my lip and start to slide off my left boot. Once my foot’s free, Ethan’s hands encircle my waist and he effortlessly lifts me toward him.

The moment my legs settle around his waist, I kick off the other boot, then gasp at the jarring cold of his wet jeans seeping into mine. Darkness suddenly surrounds my back and lifts my thighs. A second later I’m settled against him once more—minus the cold dampness.

His wings move closer, folding fully around my back and encircling my legs and feet in a layer of soft warmth.

I glance up at the blue sky and see puffs of clouds above us where his wings haven’t completely closed yet. Matching Ethan’s confident smile, I wrap my arms around his neck. “Show me something new.” I lean close to kiss his jaw, but Ethan turns his head and presses his lips to mine instead. I sigh against his mouth as his fingers massage my skin before his arms gather me even closer and the silky darkness encloses around us.