Second of the Winterset Coven (7 page)

“No, I like it, keep going.”

“Date number five,” she read quieter. “I really, really, really like him. Tonight he asked me to stay after I fed him so we could play chess and talk, and afterward, I fell asleep on his bed. When I woke up, it was midday. He had tucked me in all nice and tight, and he was sleeping on top of the covers beside me. He wasn’t touching me, but it felt like he was. I think I love him.” Heat flooded her cheeks and ears, and she kept her gaze carefully pointed away from him as she tucked her journal back into her purse. “There are some more dates, but maybe I was just reading too much into them.”

“No,” Garret said low. He slid his arm around her shoulders and hugged her against his side, adjusting his long gate to match hers. “I haven’t done this in…well…ever. Not like this. I don’t know much about dating. If you say those were dates, then they were. I guess this discussion needed to happen tonight. It’s not fair that we get deeper into this and you not know where I stand. Where we stand. You felt like mine from the moment I laid eyes on you, and if it felt the same for you, too, then okay. Can I see your phone?”

Confused, Dawn pulled her sparkly pink phone from her purse and handed it over. He poked a few buttons, then hugged her against his chest and held it up. She smiled in shock at their reflection on the screen. He’d turned on the vamp filter and was resting his head against hers, smiling with his mouth closed to hide his fangs. He took the picture, then reviewed it. She was all happy eyes and pink cheeks, and he was perfection that had never existed in Winterset before.

“I thought you didn’t like pictures,” she murmured as she took the offered phone gingerly from his hand.

“It’s a special occasion.” Garret leaned down and sipped her lips gently. When he eased back, he smiled deep enough to show dimples and murmured, “Happy four-month anniversary.”

The feeders were waiting on the front porch when Garret and Dawn arrived.

It was late, and Dawn was surprised they’d been called in on account of the impending coven meeting Aric had ordered. But here they were, Amanda and Erin, dressed to the nines and probably looking to get laid by Shane and Evan, the coven man-hoes. They were sitting on the porch swing with matching irritated expressions that said they’d been waiting a while.

Dawn waved at them from where she clung to Garret’s shoulders like a backpack. Her feet had started hurting a half a mile back so she’d climbed him like a tree. One of those towering redwoods with the sturdy branches.

Gently, Garret settled her onto the bottom stair of the porch and nodded a greeting to the feeders. “Ladies.”

Amanda giggled. “Garret, your eyes sure do look dark, honey. Big strapping vamp like you needs to be fed regularly.” Amanda cast a shady glance at Dawn. “If I was your feeder, I’d be taking better care of you.”

Dawn narrowed her eyes and parted her lips, prepared to spew hellfire on this wench, but Evan cut in. He bustled past Dawn, pulled Amanda off the chair, spun her slowly, and whistled a catcall. “Damn girl, you look gorgeous tonight. I sure hope this dress is for me and not Garret.”

Amanda, the persistent little trollop, shared her attention between Evan and Garret and offered, “I can feed you both if you like,” with a challenging glint in her eye. “We’ll make it a proper threesome.”

If Dawn was a vampire, she would’ve turned into a bevy of bats and dropped Amanda from a tall cliff. She lunged at the mouthy twit, but Garret caught her around the middle and dragged her inside. Shane’s laughter followed them inside.

“What a heifer,” Dawn gritted out, pushing off Garret’s immoveable arms. “Like I don’t take care of you. I’ve offered to feed you!”

“She’s trying to get under your skin. She’s been trying to feed me since you left, and I’ve declined. She isn’t your competition, Dawn. Dawn!” Garret cupped her cheeks and dragged her furious gaze from the door to him. “She isn’t your competition. You don’t have any.”

Garret pulled her by the hand toward the long, dark hallway. Refurbished dark wood floors creaked under her feet, and the bronzed sconces on the wood panel walls flickered. It happened when Evan was worked up and angry. Amanda must’ve been pissing him off outside. She wasn’t a very careful human.

On the basement stairs, they passed Sadey and Aric. The King of the Asheville Coven had been reserved with her before. He was like that with everyone—quiet but respectful with an easy demeanor that belied a power that few beings on this earth could match. He could control people’s thoughts, their minds, what they saw in their imaginations. Dawn was really glad she was on Aric’s good side. At least she thought she was, but it was kind of hard to tell with how quiet he was around her. She assumed he would do his little head nod and continue on his way without much attention to Dawn, but she was wrong.

Aric stopped suddenly beside her and gripped her wrist, stared into her eyes with shocking intensity. For a few terrifying moments, she stood like that, connected and frozen, as if she’d touched an electric fence. And then as quickly as he’d grabbed her, Aric inhaled sharply and winced away from her touch.

“Are you okay?” Sadey asked him from two stairs above.

No answer.

“Aric?” she asked louder, worry snaking through the word.

Aric cleared his throat once, twice. “Dawn, you’ll come to the coven meeting tonight.”

“Me?”

“You and…” Aric frowned deeply, his darkening eyes pooling with confusion. “You aren’t really alone, are you Dawn?” he asked so softly she almost couldn’t make out the words. “You’ve always been dragging ghosts. You’ve been the bait. The first grenade. Isn’t that why you came here? To start a war.”

What? Dawn shook her head helplessly. Nothing he said made any sense, and now his eyes were so empty. So cold.

Garret’s grasp went hard around her other hand. “Enough Aric. You’re scaring her.”

Aric’s face relaxed into a somber expression. He stood taller as he glared at his Second. “Two hours, Garret, and you’ll bring your woman. That’s an order. She’s a part of this now.”

Woman
. It was the first time Aric had called her anything other than a feeder, but despite the passive look on his face, the air felt heavy, as if the king was upset—and a wise human never angered a vampire king.

Garret led her down the rest of the basement stairs and put her in front of him, placing himself between her and Aric. His fingertips rested gently on her hips, and his chest was on her back, as if his protective instincts were kicked up. As they passed under the single hallway light, it flickered hard and then surged brighter. A low, terrifying hiss sounded from deep in Garret’s chest. When she turned around, Aric was still in the stairwell, watching them, and his eyes were reflecting strangely in the light.

Chills blasted up her arms as Garret ushered her into his room. When they were inside, he shut the door quickly. He stared at the barrier and then at her as he ran his hand through his dark hair. After a second of hesitation, he reached forward and clicked the lock into place, something she’d never seen him do before.

And now she was really scared. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.” Garret’s voice was too deep, too gravelly now, and he backed up a few paces, eyes on the door. “Something’s not right. Aric doesn’t scare women, and Sadey wouldn’t stand for it either. She should’ve called him out, but she stood there smelling…off. Not like fur, but like something different.”

When a soft knock sounded at the door, Garret reached behind him, gripped her waist. “What?” he asked, his voice cool as you like.

“It’s me,” Aric said. His voice sounded regretful. “Open the door.”

Garret’s broad shoulders were tense so she ran the flat of her hand up his back. He moved forward and unlocked the door, then opened it a few inches.

“I’m sorry, man,” Aric said low. “I don’t know what was wrong with me. I touched her and I saw… I’m stressed about your origin, but I shouldn’t have pulled that back there.”

Dawn was resting against the wall now with a good view of Garret’s rigid profile. His black eyebrows arched up high and, for a moment, he was silent. Then he said, “It’s okay. I stress, too, about protecting the coven. All’s forgiven, King. We’ll be up there in two hours. I’m jumpy as shit and need some food first.”

She couldn’t see Aric’s reaction from here, but she imagined him nodding magnanimously and walking away gracefully because there were no more words exchanged before Garret clicked the door closed again. And this time he didn’t lock it, so all must’ve really been well.

He still wore a slight frown of confusion as his gaze lingered on the door, but Garret’s shoulders had relaxed and the hiss had died in his throat. “You make me crazy, you know,” he said through a teasing smile as he set the picture frame she’d gifted him onto the desk against the wall. Then Garret stood beside the bed and pulled off his shirt.

She was nearly dumbfounded by his sexy back, but shook her head hard to rattle her thoughts loose. “What do you mean I make you crazy? The crazy trophy just went to Aric, not me.”

“No, I mean you have me feeling like I want to fight all the time now, always looking for things to defend you from.”

“It’ll be even worse when we adopt our pot-bellied pig.”

Garret snorted and sank onto his bed, leaned back on locked arms, and jerked his chin, inviting her closer. He had one knee drawn up, one leg dangling off the bed, and his abs flexed with each breath he took. A leather necklace trailed down his chest and rested in the defined indentation between his pecs. The leather was old, stiff, and from the end, metal glistened in the dim lamplight.

She’d never seen it before. Slowly, she approached and settled onto the mattress between his legs. She hesitated only a moment before she fingered the etched metal. It was crude and lumpy, but it seemed to be some sort of cat with fangs. The eyes were black except for a tiny glint of silver in each. Chills rippled up her arm from where she touched it.

“What is it?” she asked softly.

“Protection,” he murmured. “It was a gift from my chieftain after I survived injuries I shouldn’t have in a raid. I had protected him, and together we made our way through a shield wall. I was supposed to die protecting him. He said I had the spirit of a wild thing and gave me the name Geir the Destroyer. He made me this and told me I would know what to do with it when the time came. I never knew what that meant until now.”

Dawn canted her head and looked up from the metal. “What will you do with it?”

Garret rocked forward and lifted the necklace over his head, then put it around her neck and settled it gently against the fabric of her dress. “It’ll protect you now.”

Stunned, Dawn clenched the metal in her hand. It felt warm already. It felt like it belonged there near her heart. “I’ll keep it safe for always,” she promised.

Garret smiled slightly and brushed her hair off one shoulder, then cupped her neck, right over the leather strap. “We didn’t give rings.” He lifted his dark gaze to hers. “Do you understand?”

The blood drained from Dawn’s face as shock settled in, leaving her skin feeling prickly. Wide-eyed, she looked down at the metal talisman on her palm. This wasn’t just an old necklace. It was one he’d kept for hundreds of years for this moment, to gift it to her. It was a declaration bigger than any promise ring, or any words he could say.

“I’m yours,” she whispered.

“And I’m yours,” he murmured. “My body is for your protection, my heart is for you to hold, my nights are yours, and my days, too. You can have whatever parts of me you want.”

“All of you,” she said on a breath. “I want all of you.”

His smile stretched a little wider, and he nodded once. “Then all of me belongs to you. This will be my final lifetime, Dawn. I’ve waited for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ll enjoy every moment of your mortal life with you, and when you are a hundred and don’t wake up anymore, Aric will end my life. Whatever afterlife there is, I’ll be ready for it with you.”

“Garret,” she whispered, her vision blurring with the burning tears that filled her eyes. She didn’t like when he talked about this, but he sounded so confident, so sure. He had thought this through and was giving up what he could for her—his immortality. Perhaps it wasn’t as big a deal to him because he hadn’t wanted it in the first place, but this was a big sacrifice. He’d lived so long, and now he was anchoring himself to one remaining lifetime. She imagined such a short amount of time passed in the blink of an eye to a vampire.

It was the greatest gift anyone could’ve ever offered her.

Dawn slid her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. She stared at the picture of them on the desk and shook her head at how lucky she’d gotten. She’d known he was a huge element meant to be in her life, but she hadn’t realized anything could feel this deep and this right. Garret was everything.

She eased back and kissed him hard, tight lipped and impassioned because she couldn’t believe how incredible he was. How incredible this building bond was that she could feel growing inside of her.

She loved him. She loved him with every fiber of her being, and part of her was terrified of taking a leap like this. But then there was a part of her that had been opening up since the day she’d met him, and that part had started out just a dark smudge deep inside of her, but had grown brighter and more vibrant with everything she learned about Garret. And now it was maybe the biggest part of her. Maybe it was hope. Maybe Garret was the realization that she wasn’t alone on this earth anymore and would always be there for her. Perhaps it was the bond Sadey had talked about having with Aric. Or maybe she’d been broken somewhere along the way as the men in her life had left her one by one. Maybe Garret had been the cure to make her whole again. Maybe this humming, warm sensation was him putting her together again, piece by flawed piece until she made sense again.

Or maybe it was happiness.

“Shhh, don’t cry,” he murmured against her lips as he rubbed her back gently.

Caring man. He was Geir the Destroyer to Asmund, but to her, he was Garret the Gentle.

Mine. This man is mine to protect always.
Her nights would be spent bathing in joy, and her days would be spent sleeping and protecting the vampire she adored.

Dawn didn’t use his knee to lean on like she always did for feedings. This one would be different. It would be bigger. It would weld their souls to each other. Dawn straddled his hips and parted her lips, dipped her tongue shallowly into his mouth. Garret’s grasp went tight on her back, and he dragged her against his erection with a feral sound in his throat. His body was fluid against hers as he rolled his hips.

She hadn’t worn panties tonight on purpose, and when Garret cupped her sex and smiled against her lips, she knew she’d made the right decision. He dragged his fingers through the wetness he’d been creating between her thighs while Dawn worked biting kisses down his neck to tease him. Garret reached to her back and slid the zipper down slowly, then pulled the straps of her dress forward and exposed her breasts to his cool palms. Dawn arched back and rolled her eyes closed as he dipped his lips to her nipple and drew her into his mouth. He licked her in languid strokes until she was drawn into a tight, needy bud. “Oh,” she murmured softly as he rolled his hips against her again.