Fire's Touch (The Enlightened Species Book Three) (36 page)

Greyton stepped over and slung the sedated male, who he assumed was the brother Stacey had named Scotty, over his shoulder. “Hopefully they will give us a lead on where to begin searching for Dean”

“Kelly.” Stacey’s fingers fluttered to cover her mouth. “She was the girl who was killed.” When her voice trembled, Conlon squeezed her tightly. Stacey took a deep breath and continued. “She came from a breeding compound in Haiti. She said a male named Frank oversaw it. Maybe that will help. She had a paper on her.”

Eros lifted a brow. “Is it a map?”

Stacey shook her head. “No. But I … need it.”

“Jacob,” Eros stated. Without another word Jacob nodded and left the room.

With a groan, Hawk sat up from the floor. Blinking a few times at the warriors bracing to battle him, he held his hands up in surrender. “He’s … gone. Dead. I feel … nothing.” With a look full of gratitude and hero-worship, Hawk stared at Stacey.

Male protective instincts reared up, and Conlon had to fight to keep from moving Stacey out of the rogue’s line of sight. “Do it, Hawk. We talked about this.”

Hawk took a deep breath and nodded. “Who’s in charge of this operation?”

“That would be me,” Sargon answered. “I am the highest ranked SOSC warrior here, anyways. Though in truth, the Aquatie are in charge.”

Hawk rose to kneel with his head bowed at the feet of Conlon’s mentor. “I pledge my life to serve the Symbiosis of Species Council and make amends to those I have harmed.”

Sargon set his hand to Hawk’s shoulder. “I accept your pledge and welcome you into our fold, Hawk.”

Stacey turned a beaming smile on Conlon that crushed him like a big-rig truck. His female was amazing. She didn’t see a rogue in Hawk or probably Scotty; she saw people who deserved a chance. Jacob returned and handed Stacey a folded paper that had one edge brown with blood. Stacey thanked Jacob and clutched it to her breast.

“Hawk, you are birthright entitled to the Sicarius name,” Eros stated, stepping forward to stand beside Sargon.

“Uncle Eros, your name and bloodline are one of honor. And a wise female once said, respect, honor, and loyalty are to be earned, not demanded or entitled.” Hawk looked up at Stacey. “If I may, I would prefer the surname Tenor in gratitude to my brother, Mick.”

Chapter Thirty

It felt selfish to leave her son within hours of returning to Mesa. With Cassie and Hans waiting when they arrived and agreeing to stay for a few days, and with Mick latched on to their son like Velcro the second his arms worked, Stacey felt for her own sanity she needed to go.

Mick and Mattie had taken up temporary residence at Conlon’s while Mick healed. Hawk and Scotty wouldn’t leave Mick’s side … the house was practically bursting at the seams. And by the Fates, she needed Conlon. He’d become an emotional anchor in her world. Just looking in his eyes righted the wrongs.

Falling in love with Conlon had happened so easily. All of her pushing and back-pedaling just wound him tighter in her heart. Not being able to touch him, thinking she might never see him again, unable to reach out in any way … it had been torture.

Stepping out of the chortal by the Black Sea again, she remembered how less than a week ago, they had stood in the exact same spot, planning the exact same thing, feeling the same anticipation that was now intensified to a raging ball of need in her chest. Bloodmating was no longer an idea or even a wish. It was all-consuming, un-fucking-deniable, urgent throbbing mandate that screamed through her bloodstream every time she looked at him.

Her fingers tingled to explore his body, to wrap her hand around the girth of him and feel the silken flesh against her palm, her tongue, and deep inside. Neither of them had reached for the other since their feet had touched land from the swim across the ocean. Stacey knew if she did, they wouldn’t have made it back to Mesa, let alone Conlon’s homeland. When she noticed Conlon’s hands shaking slightly while he shoved cloths into a travel bag, she knew he felt the same.
This is my wedding day … it’s okay to be nervous,
she pep-talked to herself.

With a low, possessive, rolling growl, Conlon tossed their bags down a step out of the chortal and snatched her against his chest. “Fucking killing me.” His face sank into the curve of her neck and he drew in a deep breath. When his head lifted, his eyes were closed as if in ecstasy. Conlon gave her a sexy grin. “Have I told you how much I love the smell of coconut?”

She returned the grin. “Considering what I want to do to you, that’s a good thing.” Colon’s eyes darkened with passion, and his dentes peeked from behind his sensual, full upper lip.

“Fly.” Stepping back, he grabbed the bags as if the ground was on fire and shot into the sky.

One thing that came out of this experience was that Stacey was no longer a novice flier. She caught up to him easily. Conlon looked over his shoulder when she grasped his ankles and worked her way up his calves and the hard muscles of his thighs. Their wing flaps in tandem, her cheek to the lowest part of his back, she palmed the bulge in the front of his leathers. He groaned long, placed his hand over hers and ground into her hand. Stacey was on fire. Yet this was a good kind of fire.

A football-field-sized clearing in the trees opened up below them, and she felt the protective energy weave surrounding it as they passed through. Conlon never released her hand against him as they made a full loop above the expanse of grounds. The property was encircled by a ten-foot-wide moat filled with water. In the center was a tight group of four large stone homes with outbuildings scattered around them. Obviously there was a home for each brother.

“This is beautiful.” She placed a kiss to his lower back.

Each home had a slightly different flare. Conlon guided them to one with thick, large windows framed in stone two stories high. Before her feet fully touched ground, Conlon dropped the bags from his shoulders and swooped her into his arms, cradling her to his chest.
I’m a bride.
Waves of unadulterated pleasure fluttered in her stomach. His long strides ate up the few porch steps in a single bound and the door burst open with a bullet of kinetic energy.

Inside, the front half of the house was wide open from floor to ceiling. A log-railed loft above overlooked the living area to her right. The main floor had highly polished hardwood floors, while the living area had a full-sized, incredibly detailed Persian rug with log-styled furniture angled toward the big stone fireplace built into the wall. The dining room on her left, by contrast, was elegantly formal, much like the home she’d grown up in. A table for eight sat on another Persian rug with a different design but the same edge as the living room rug, tying the two areas together. Off the dining area was a granite bar that separated the kitchen area.

“You’re beautiful.” His voice was thick with the same need she felt, sending a shiver down her spine. Through clenched jaws, his heavy breaths sawed past the elongated dentes in his mouth. “And
mine
.”

Three and four steps at a time, he took the stairs yet it barely jarred her in his arms and his deep hazel eyes never left hers.
This is really happening. It’s finally happening.

As he reached the top of the stairs, Stacey realized this really was Conlon’s private place. The entire far wall was a window overlooking the vista behind his house, yet the space was one-hundred-percent man-cave. The loft overlooked the living room below and had a giant bar, pool table, big screen, recliners with cup holders, a weight bench, a tread mill. Like the basement of the Mesa house was before she invaded it. It was an oasis for testosterone. No wall divided that area from where he settled her like she was fine china onto the soft black silk comforter of a giant bed. She knew without asking that this was a place he had never brought females, or quite likely anyone outside his family.

With the SOSC doing reconnaissance on the Haiti compound, Sargon assured them they would have at least a day before Conlon was called to duty. Stacey looked at the way his nostrils flared, the desperate passion in his eyes, the tension in his muscles, the shaky hand that flowed reverently over her curves as he slowly undressed her. A day wasn’t going to be near long enough.

He never ceased to amaze her. All that power and virility harnessed inside his magnificent body, yet he was always tender, gentle when he loved her. Their wildest ride had been the first one against the wall of her corporate suite.

He tossed her flight halter to the floor and his hands cupped her breasts, thumbs brushing feather-light over her nipples, sending a shockwave into her core. She moaned and arched into the heat of his hands. Fingers spread wide, his hands followed the pattern of her ribcage down to the snap of her beige shorts. She pushed on her heels and lifted, enabling him to slide the material down. “Mine,” he whispered huskily. That single word sent a fresh rush of moisture between her legs.

His erupted dentes elongated and she heard his hard swallow, smelled her scent of arousal trying to wrap around him. A blast of male and sandalwood overpowered hers and then mingled with it.
Rapture.
He was teasing his own rapture and bringing hers to a boiling point. Her shorts joined the halter. Feeling incredibly empowered and brazen, Stacey spread her legs slightly. His quick, indrawn breath never released, but he made short work of his boots and leathers. His thick, hard manhood pointed at her like a compass, wet with a drop of need. “Mine.”

With one hand he reached for his length, giving it a solid stroke that was visually erotic to her. His other hand trembled as it reached for her offering. He opened the petals of her womanhood, and his thumb brushed the tender bundle of nerves. It felt like a bolt of electricity. She cried out and bucked hard. “Perfect,” he uttered, circling the entrance to her core and spreading her moisture to the bundle again and again.

“Conlon, please.” Her body cried for him, for the release he dangled.

“Please what, Leifde?”

She tried to grind against his hand in answer, but he moved with her, circling her entrance and teasing the most tender part of her. “Tell me, Liefde … please what?”

“Please.” Was that mewling noise her voice? The sea of sensation ebbed and flowed with the up and down stroke of his fingers against her. “Take me … make me yours, please.”

Those must have been the magic words, thank the Fates. His body came down over hers, pressing her deeper into the luxurious mattress. She opened her thighs wide to accommodate his hips, desperate on a level unlike anything she’d ever felt. This yearning, aching, pounding need was more powerful than anything she’d ever felt. It put her estrus to shame. The soft skin of his steel-hard tip touched her entrance. She gripped his firm ass, trying to impale herself on what she needed deep inside her.

Conlon caught her hands and forced them over her head, pinning them with both her wrists in one of his large palms as she undulated and thrashed against his manhood poised to thrust. “Say it, my love, say the words I need to hear, and give yourself to me.”

Stacey opened her eyes. Conlon’s jaw was clenched, his head curved to his shoulder, exposing the hard, throbbing pulse of his neck just above her. Her gaze clashed with his wild, feral, primal gaze. All the desire, pressure, and need he’d just painstakingly taken her to the brink with was reflected back at her, robbing her of breath.
Rapture
.

Stacey held his gaze, knowing he needed to see her eyes. “I take thee as my blooded mate, forevermore.” With a hiss she opened her jaw and struck into his neck, stunned at how natural it felt. It took everything in her not to draw off him, to fight the instinct to feed that she hadn’t realized she had. Her body quaked with need, heat, love, and passion. Her orgasm began the second a splash of his blood hit the back of her throat, yet she panted against his throat, needing him deep inside her body and vein before drawing from his life’s blood.

“I take thee as my blooded mate.” His deep voice rumbled against the shell of her ear. Then he was there. A sharp pinch at her artery, a hard thrust penetrated her.

They drew at each other’s blood in synchronicity to her lifting her hips and meeting his hard, deep thrusts. Her climax rippled through her, growing in strength, pressure building, climbing, clawing against her womb as she felt Conlon’s psyche opening to hers, his pleasure adding to hers. His body’s needs intensifying hers. She could feel him inside her, her walls milking his hard length. Taste his blood and her own through him. Feel the powerful contractions of her womb and the ball of release that rolled through his body to center in his lower back.

Her release ripped wide open as she felt his climax shoot from his lower back down his shaft, sending his seed deep inside her. Stacey tore away from his throat on a scream, hearing Conlon’s roar bounce off the glass and walls around her. The connection remained, the bond complete. Her inner walls rippled and gripped him hard, pulsing on and on. Their body’s response echoed between them, lifting and sustaining each other. All of Conlon’s love, fears, wants, and desires flowed through her, blending inside her mind, filling a void that until this moment she hadn’t sensed in herself. She bloomed inside, giving him all of her, opening to him her body, heart, mind, and spirit.

“My warrior, my bloodmate, my love,”
she thought

“Mine,”
his voice resounded back to her.
“I love you, Stacey.”

Tears of joy squeezed from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. He really did love her, all of her, the good and the bad.

Chapter Thirty-One

Twelve hours … he’d only gotten twelve hours in Stacey’s arms and at her vein before being called to Haiti. What a cluster-fuck this was. The leader was missing and the whole place was on fire when they arrived. The soldiers that tried to defend the burnt-out ruins might as well have been a Boy Scout troop. And the females must have been relocated.

Greyton stood next to Gord as the Tellus tracker used ultrasound to penetrate the ground, looking for an echo of void in hopes there was more to this place below the surface. When Gord shook his head, Greyton let out a string of curses that would make any sailor proud. Conlon didn’t envy the guy having to tell DeeAnna he hadn’t found her brother.