Reign: A Royal Military Romance (40 page)

D
elilah didn’t know
how long they sat together in the gazebo for, but she did know that the only thing that made her feel better at all were Miles’s strong arms around her. She felt like they were anchoring her to the ground, and that without them she might just float away in a cloud of self-pity and grief.

At least, she thought, there was one person in Fjords who cared about her beyond her ability to stitch men up.

After a long, long time in Miles’s arms, Delilah’s joints were starting to ache from staying in the same position, and she realized that her back had soaked through with drizzle. She took her head out of her hands and looked around, realizing for the first time that day how tired she was. Tired, cold, and wet.

She sat up, Miles’s arms still anchored firmly around her, and looked around.

As she’d been in her tired, sad reverie, the rain had increased to a steady soak. No wonder she was so wet and cold — how had she not noticed?

For a moment, she leaned against Miles, letting his big, strong frame support her. Then she sighed and stood, knowing that even that slight comfort wasn’t one she could partake in, not really.

“I’m going to try to take a nap,” she said, stretching and rubbing her eyes. Now that she was no longer in his warm arms, she was freezing cold, and she wrapped her arms around herself.

Miles stood too, looking around. Delilah saw something move across his face, quickly, and then he looked back at her like he had a secret to share.

“Look around,” he muttered to her.

She did, and in her worn out, tired state, it took her a moment to realize what she was looking at.

Nothing
.

There were no grizzlies out there — when they’d come out, there had been a few lounging around, mostly looking relaxed under trees, but since the rain had really started, they were all gone.

She wondered if it was a trap, but why bother? They had her exactly where they needed her — what was the point in catching her trying to escape? She was already their prisoner.

Tentatively, she took the steps down from the gazebo, half-pretending that she was just walking back to the lodge, her head swiveling the whole time, Miles walking next to her. They reached the path from the gravel parking area into the lodge, stopped, and looked around.

There was truly, honestly no one but them out there. The rain was soaking them through to the skin, but Delilah didn’t care. She was unguarded for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours. William was going to die anyway — she was going to run for it.

Bravely, she grabbed Miles’s hand, feeling a twinge of guilt, but ignoring it.

The two of them walked, casually but quickly, toward Miles’s truck. Delilah tried to act like she wasn’t looking around frantically.

They were thirty feet away, then twenty.

Miles released her hand to look in his pocket for his keys, brought them out trying to keep them from jingling.

Ten feet away, and then there was a noise: the sound of claws on gravel.

An enormous bear wandered out from the gap between Miles’s truck and another car.

Then, it sat down and simply stared at them.

Delilah and Miles looked at each other, and she felt like she could read his mind:

There’s only one of them and two of us
, they were both thinking, she knew.

Beside her, she sensed rather than saw Miles start to shift, all his muscles flexing and then that red-brown fur sprout out, a growl tearing itself out of his throat.

Delilah shifted too, or at least she started to, but the bear in front of them roared. It was loud, and suddenly, from all around them, other grizzles came out: they’d been behind trees, behind rotting stumps, feet away behind a corner of the lodge.

She gave up and reverted to human, her own red-gold fur disappearing into her skin. The bear in front of her seemed to growl in approval, but even as she turned to go back inside, knowing when she was outnumbered, Miles roared back at him.

“Miles, don’t,” she said, feeling tired and empty.

He bared his teeth, growling, totally ignoring the other bears beginning to surround them.

“Please,” she said, and she felt the desperate tears start in her eyes, threatening to burst forth. She felt almost too tired to cry again, but there it was.

Miles advanced until he was six inches from the bear in front of him, the other bears not more than ten feet away. Delilah could see how it would play out: even if Miles got one, the others would get both him and her.

“Miles, don’t,” she said again. “Come on, you’re the only one I’ve got.”

Bear-Miles paused, mid-growl, and looked at her with one eye.

Delilah swallowed her tears and shook her head at him.

“She’s right,” said Roy’s voice, behind them. “Just go back inside, and stop trying to get out.”

Delilah whirled. She’d been so caught up in what was happening in front of her that she didn’t even realize Roy had walked up behind them.

“Just let me leave,” she said. She wanted her voice to have more spark to it, but the truth was, she was tired and worn out. “He’s going to die whether I’m here or not.”

Roy scoffed.

“Sorry, doc,” he said. Then he seemed to soften, bringing his hands together in front of him. “Listen, just for a few more days, then you can go home. We’d feel awful if we didn’t do everything we could for William. He’s looking better, by the way.”

It was the only good thing she’d heard all day, but it didn’t make her feel better. She sensed Miles shifting back into a human next to her, but without even looking over at him, she walked past the bears, past Roy, into the lodge, then down the hallway to the room that had become hers.

Miles followed as far as Roy.

“You’re despicable,” she heard him say to the older man.

“I’m your alpha,” Roy answered. “And you need to get in line.”

Then she slammed the door shut, stumbled to the bed, and crumpled onto it.

Moments later, there was a gentle knock on the door.

“Del,” Miles’s voice said.

“Come in,” she said, tired to the bone.

He opened the door and shut it behind him, locking it. Amazing that they’d left the lock on.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She sat up on the bed and he sat next to her, putting his hand on her back again.

“You’re freezing,” he said.

“Yeah.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Miles stood. He offered her his hand, but Delilah just stared at it, too exhausted to even think.

“Come on,” he said. “Take a hot shower, at least.”

He pulled her to standing, and she stayed there for a moment, her hand in his, just looking at it.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” she said, and then burst into tears.

More than anything else, Delilah was furious. Her fucking father had died at just the wrong time, and because he hadn’t cared at all about her, he’d left the whole mess of his life for her to sort of.

Then Larry, the asshole drunk, had crashed his car into the alpha’s mate, who
probably
should have been looking where she was going to begin with.

Then there was everything else — the bears trying have their own brand of justice instead of leaving it to the courts, getting two people killed and one mauled, and now
she
was involved, given the impossible task of keeping the last man alive, despite conditions that would make an 18
^th
century doctor turn up his nose.

And of course, in the middle of it all was Miles, who had to still be single and still be wonderful and good-looking. The moment she’d seen him again, everything had come rushing back to her — how desperately she’d loved him, and then how she’d had to choose between a life beyond Fjords and a life with Miles.

Even though she’d loved him then — and even though she was positive she could love him again — she still thought she’d chosen right.

“Hey,” said Miles, putting his arms around her, rubbing his warm hands over her cold back. “Hey, it’s gonna be all right.”

“What’s happening?” Delilah said, half-sobbing into his chest.

“You’ll be okay,” Miles said, his face now in her hair. “William will either get better or die, and the first chance we get, we’ll get you out of here, and—” there was a tiny pause, a micropause, but Delilah noticed it “—you’ll drive back to California as fast as you can, and this will all be behind you.”

With a jolt, Delilah realized that she hadn’t been thinking beyond getting out of the lodge, but Miles was right: when she left here, she was leaving Fjords, probably forever.

She didn’t care at all about her father’s estate. No matter how much it was worth, it wasn’t worth staying here.

Miles, she realized, was trying to help her, even if it meant losing her again.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

She pulled her head away from his chest and looked up at him. He looked slightly surprised.

“Why?”

“I’m sorry that I came back and messed up your life,” she said. Fresh, hot tears made their way down her cheeks, and she hated herself for it, wished that she could tell Miles this without sobbing, but he got what he got.

“I know this isn’t what you want, and it’s not even what I want, either, but if we were back together and then I left again, I could never forgive myself,” she said.

Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I just can’t stand to hurt you again, Miles,” she said.

Miles swallowed, and if she looked hard, Delilah thought she could see the faintest glimmer of a tear in his eyes.

Very gently, he took her chin in one hand, using his thumb to wipe away a tear, and Delilah leaned into his warm, dry palm.

Right now, all she wanted was his touch, more than anything, even though wanting it made her feel weak, like she couldn’t even resist her own desires.

“I’m not sorry you came back,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “I know you’re going to leave again, but—” he paused, and swallowed again, looking Delilah right in the eyes. “When I’m with you, I don’t care what happens next, in an hour or a day. You’re here, right now, and that’s what matters.”

Then, before Delilah could say anything, he bent down and kissed her firmly, his lips hot with passion and desire fueled by years of longing.

Delilah couldn’t help herself any more. Somewhere in the past day she had utterly lost her willpower and so now, even though she knew she shouldn’t, she kissed Miles back fiercely, gripping his thick shoulder with one hand, moving her lips against his.

She’d been thinking about this almost nonstop since she got back to town, and off and on for years, and now she didn’t care what happened next, either.

She moved her against Miles and then his other hand was on her back, searing hot against her rain-soaked cold skin, and she felt a shudder of desire move from her skin, all the way down to her bones.

Miles’s kiss deepened, and his hand on her face tightened just a little, like he was afraid that she would break away, but nothing was further from Delilah’s mind. His tongue swept along her bottom lip and without a moment’s hesitation, Delilah parted her lips, meeting the tip of his tongue with her own.

She could almost feel the electricity crackling between them as they kissed, her hand all over him now, clutching at the back of his head and pressing it to her own, not pausing for breaths. She kissed him voraciously, like she was afraid it would be the last time, like it could replace her need to breathe.

At last, Miles pulled back, and for a split second Delilah was afraid that he was asserting control, that he’d straighten up and leave the room, make the wise choice, and she tightened her hands in his hair, but he just looked into her eyes for a moment, chest heaving.

“Please don’t go,” she whispered.

A smile twitched around his lips and sparkled in his eyes, making him looking almost rakish.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured.

Desire surged through Delilah, and before she knew what she was doing she’d pushed his jacket from his shoulders, tossing the sodden mess somewhere else in the room, and then she was unbuttoning his shirt, her cold fingers fumbling with the wet buttons as he grabbed her and lifted, earning a little yelp of surprise.

She pressed her face to his again, kissing him hard as she tightened her legs around his waist, her hands curled uselessly in his still-buttoned shirt, only the top two buttons undone.

His hands were all over her, hot on her cold, wet skin, one holding her up and the other now tugging her soaked t-shirt off, lobbing it somewhere else. Delilah could hear it crumple into a wet pile, even as she struggled through the next button of Miles’s shirt.

Then she was on the bed, half-placed, half tossed, and Miles was undoing the last two buttons of his shirt. He’d grown more chest hair since the last time she saw it, and now had a light covering of dark hair as he tore his shirt off, depositing it behind him.

He leaned over her, one arm one either side, kissing her jaw and then her neck, nearly biting in his passion, and Delilah laid back and wrapped her legs around his waist again, savoring the feeling of his heat even through her cold denim, gasping and arching her back as he reached her shoulder with his lips, using one hand to tug down her bra strap over her arm, finally exposing her small pink nipple.

Miles flicked his warm tongue over it, making Delilah gasp again, his hand tugging at her bra, dragging half of it down over her ribcage, even as his tongue danced over the sensitive pink nub. She reached her opposite hand up and over his chest, running her fingers through his chest hair, wondering what else was different since the last time they’d been naked together.

He bent down, pushing his hands under her back, and she finally realized he was trying to undo her bra. She squirmed up, trying to let him have better access, but it didn’t work.

Finally, she laughed. “Move,” she said, and he took his hands away, let her reach back and undo the thing in a matter of seconds before he tore it away without looking where it landed.

Now he had both her breasts in his hands, heated against her skin, his lips traveling from her collarbone to her nipples, kissing every part of her. Then he stood, reaching for the button on her jeans, unzipping them and pulling the wet denim down and away from her body, her underpants sticking to them and coming off as well.