From This Day Forward (16 page)

“
Shit.” Noah buzzed his hand over the top of his head. “Then this is far from over.”

“
I need to get Morgana to the emergency room before she bleeds out,” Mick said, releasing the pressure he’d been applying to her shoulder. “Here hold this,” he said to Morgana, laying her hand on the wadded up t-shirt he’d pulled off and used to stop the bleeding.

He lifted her into his arms.

Morgana spoke up through gasps of pain. “No. Take me back to my shop. I have everything I need there to heal myself.”

Mick and Noah considered each other a long moment.
“There will be questions at the local emergency room. Questions you won’t be able to answer.”

“
Yeah. I know.” Mick heaved a heavy sigh. “Okay. Back to your shop. Is there anything else you need?”

“
No. I have what I need there. Just get me home, please.” She grunted as he lifted her.

“
Okay. I’ll take you back there. But if I’m not satisfied with your progress in an hour, I’m taking you to the hospital and damned the explanations.”

“
You don’t give a healer much time do you?”

“
Either you’ve got what it takes to fix this or you don’t.”

“
Yes. Sheesh. You drive a hard bargain, Mick O’Rielly.” Her eyes closed. “Deal. One hour. Get me home. I can do it. But I can’t promise it will last.”

Noah watched the two leave.

“Does she mean what I think she means?” April asked. “She’ll die if Iona is mortally wounded.”

Noah nodded, s
ad it could end this way for Morgana. “Yes, if David needs to kill her.”

“
You don’t think he will?”

Noah considered the dragons still flying in the distance. David could have easily overtaken the smaller red dragon, but he hadn’t.
“I’m not so sure. I think he still believes in her. May still love her.”

“
I hope it works out for them.” April closed her eyes. “She’s still very much in love with him. She’s trying to save him.”

“
I hope it works, too. But I don’t see how it can.”

“
Stranger things have been known to happen.” April gripped her hand in his and led him through the mudroom to the cottage. “A lot can happen when a spouse learns to trust the other.”

“
Yes. Marriage with a dragon mage is built on trust, especially when you’re dealing with the magickal. You can’t always see what’s happening underneath the magick smoke-screen.” He followed her into the bedroom. “No matter what you think you see. Or what signs you read. There’s magick, then there’s
magick
, then there’s
magick
.” His tone had turned softer and more suggestive each time he spoke the word magick, and his thumbs stroked the bare flesh of her abdomen under her blouse where his hands had settled on her waist.

“
That’s right.” She pushed him down on the bed.

He sat
, with April standing between his thighs, her hands on his shoulders, his gently rubbing circles on her hip bones and lower. “I love you, April Easton. I’ve never stopped. What happened in that cave in Hajar was a mission, nothing more.”

“
I trust you, Noah. Deep down I knew, even though I didn’t want to admit it at first, not after what I’d seen. I know you, soldier boy. I’ve known you since high school. You are a straight arrow. Always have been. Always will be. It’s only ever about the mission with you. And that’s what I love about you. I accept you for who you are. A soldier first. A husband and father second.”

“
No. You’re wrong. That’s all changed. You are my mission. The girls are my mission, my legacy. But you’re more than that. You’re my heart, my soul. Without you I am nothing. I love you. I need to keep you safe. I’m done with deploying on missions all over the world to save nameless, faceless people. I want to stay home, with you and the girls. I want to protect you.”

April smiled at him, love
shining from her sweet face.

“
I choose you,” Noah said, his voice a whisper now.

She stroked
his face with the soft pads of her finger tips before she rewarded him with a soft, gentle, soul-rending kiss. “Good. Home is certainly where you belong.”

“
Seriously, I’m done with missions. If there is, indeed, still a threat to you and the girls and dragon mages in Mystic Springs, my place is here. Not protecting my country from unseen threats, but protecting those I love from a very real and present evil.”

“
Yes, your place is here, with us.”

He circled his arms around her waist and pulled her into th
e V of his legs. He nuzzled her breasts, biting her nipples through the material of her blouse. “Mmmm.”

She pushed against him to get him to stop
. “As long as you remember there is no safe. Not really. There’s no guarantee. We will all die one day.” This was a big admission for April.

He lifted his head to meet her blue-bell-colored eyes. God he loved her. His sexy, gorgeous wife.
His
. “I know, babe. Believe me. I, better than anyone, know security is an illusion. But give a man his delusions, would you?” He laughed and she pressed him back onto the mattress. “Now how about that
yes, sir
you promised me?”

April hummed in her throat, a sexy little sound that had him rigid and ready to nail something hard in no time at all.
“Yes, sir,” she purred, crawling up his body to straddle him.

It was good t
o be home.

Damn good.

And this was exactly where he planned to stay, from this day forward.

Watch for new titles by Mackenzie Lucas coming in 2014.

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OUT & COMING SOON by Mackenzie Lucas

December 2012 - To Have & To Hold (#1 in Derkesthai Dragon Shifter Series)

January 2013 – The Megiddo Mark (A Serialized Novel in Four Parts)

February 2013 – Pompeii Reawakened (A Megiddo Mark Series Novella)

August 2013 – The Megiddo Mark (Novel Bundle)

January 2014 – Essence (contemporary romance) by Soul Mate Publishing

January 2014 – From This Day Forward (#2 in Derkesthai Dragon Shifter Series)

Summer 2014 – Courting Cinderella (contemporary romance) by Soul Mate Publishing

Summer 2014 – Matchmaker’s Moon (contemporary romance)

Fall 2014 – Until Death Do Us Part (#3 in Derkesthai Dragon Shifters Series)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS  PAGE

It takes a village to write a novel or a novella. So I raise my glass to my community and support network in a heartfelt salute to all you’ve done for me. Thank you to my critique partners at the R8, present and past, who read this manuscript—Yvonne, Keely, Lisa, Marjanna, Shellie, Christa, and Misha. You are the best beta readers a writer could ever want. Keep writing, reading, and laughing!

To my SHU WPF grad school critique partners, Diane and Nik, thanks for your diligence and commitment over the years. Your talent and dedication never cease to inspire me. Keep pressing on.

A special thanks to Timons Esaias and Leslie Davis Guccione, Seton Hill University Writing Popular Fiction mentors and advisors extraordinaire. I could never have gotten this far without your encouragment and attention to detail.

To my husband who has always been the champion of my dreams, thank you, honey. And, finally, to my boys, who allow themselves to be raised by wolves (okay so they’re really schnoodles)—you’ll never know what a support you’ve been.

Thank you all. I couldn’t have done it without you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR PAGE

Mackenzie Lucas
graduated with her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and she earned a BA in Literature from Dickinson College too many moons ago to count. She writes sexy paranormal and contemporary romance novels and novellas where her heroines are just as likely to save their Alpha hero partners as themselves. In her perfect world, the girl always gets the guy and the couple always finds their happy ending . . . but only after they’ve faced down the big bad and encountered some rip-roaring sexual tension. She lives in suburban Maryland with her husband, three teenaged boys, and two adorable schnoodles.