Night Fall on Dark Mountain (2 page)

“Poor Max?” Quentin grinned. He couldn’t help it. The thought of Max’s head glowering above the mantle cheered him considerably. But Darcy’s darkening expression had him saying, “You think I’d want that ugly mug of his preserved?”

“Quentin! This isn’t funny. I’m scared.” The frown still marring her brow, Darcy played with a button on the front of his shirt. “I don’t get why you’re so set against him.”

“I have my reasons,” he said, folding her upper body closer to his chest.

“Well, that certainly fills in the blanks.” She nuzzled his neck with her nose then sighed. “You know, it’s not fair that you have this long past I don’t know anything about.”

“Ask me anything,” he said, his voice gruff. “I’ll tell you what I can.”

She leaned away. “Really?”

Quentin hadn’t realized how important the issue was until her expression softened and her eyes grew moist. He cupped her face between his palms. “I’m yours, Darcy,” he whispered fiercely, “body, soul, and endless history. I’ll bore you to tears with the retelling of all the mundane facts of my misspent youth.”

Despite the moisture welling in her eyes, Darcy’s lips curved in a wry smile. “I know I won’t be bored. Just finding out how you first met Dylan will likely be enough to satisfy my curiosity for weeks.” A shadow crossed her face. “But not now. I’m a little tired.”

Downplaying his worry, he smiled. “Come rest a while with me?”

“You just got out of bed.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “I’ll hold you.”

“You know what that usually leads to,” Darcy said, arching a brow.

“Have I been too demanding?” he asked, his tone mild, knowing she’d rise once again to the bait.

“Not at all, as you damn well know.” She swatted his chest with her open palm. “I’m frustrated as hell!”

He leaned toward her and nuzzled her ear. “Haven’t I pleased you?” he growled.

Her breath hitched, and she groaned. “You know you have. Your mouth makes me crazy—the fact my belly’s so big I can’t watch you drives me even crazier. But I want to please you, too.”

“Soon enough, love,” he said, wishing he had her turned so he could rub his aching cock against her bottom for relief. As it was, her belly prevented any contact. “This never-ending erection is my penance.”

“Why do you owe a penance?”

He shuttered his expression from her knowing glance.

But she was too attuned to his moods. She tilted her head and smoothed a hand over his cheek. “I know it’s hard for you. This isn’t your child. I don’t blame you a bit for being resentful.”

He closed his eyes. “This child will be ours in every way except its conception.” He meant it. He really did.

“I know that.” She touched his forehead. “You know that.” Then she placed her hand on his chest. “But your heart doesn’t. Don’t feel guilty about the way you feel.” Her eyes shone with love and acceptance.

Funny, sometimes he thought he could see his whole world in her eyes.

“Everything will be all right,” she said softly. “You’ll see.”

He turned his head and placed a kiss in her palm, too overcome for the moment to reply.

Another movement in her belly distracted him. This time it felt like the baby rolled inside her.

Darcy grimaced and moaned softly.

“Is something wrong?”

“My back aches, and I’ve been having…twinges.”

His heart stilled. “Is it the baby? Is it coming?”

“I think so.”

“You think so?” he asked, panic rising to constrict his throat. “How long have you known?”

“Since mid-afternoon—I thought a walk might help quicken this whole thing.”

“You knew you were in labor, and you went for a walk
alone
?” This time he shouted.

“Uh huh,” Darcy admitted, a smug little smile tilting one side of her mouth. That expression looked familiar.

“Fucking hell!”
I’m in a panic—and she’s smirking at me!
“Quick,” he said, turning her to walk back to the compound, “we need to get you to the hospital.”

Darcy laughed and grabbed for his hand. “There’s no rush. I’ve been timing the contractions.”

“Timing the…
contractions
?” he parroted, his voice rising. “That’s what I’ve been feeling? I thought the baby was kicking wobblers.”

Another grimace crossed Darcy’s face.

Quentin cursed beneath his breath. Through letting her call the shots, he lifted her into his arms and strode toward the tall wall surrounding their new home. “Not another word, ridiculous woman.”

As he approached the gate, the floodlights that were set to detect motion failed to light. He slowed his steps, the hair lifting on the back of his neck.

Darcy stiffened in his arms.

“I know,” he whispered, noting the lack of human guards around the perimeter. “Something’s wrong.”

“Put me down.”

He did and quickly shoved her toward deep foliage next to the wall. “Wait here.”

“Like hell! What if the trouble’s out here? Vamps and weres both have a great sense of smell.”

“All right,” he said in a clipped tone, damning himself for his carelessness. With the wind coming off the ocean, he’d found no scent to give him warning. He punched the security code on the touch pad. The lock on the gate released with a soft snick. He slipped through and held it open for Darcy.

Once inside the wall, he noted the stillness—no hint of the guards’ movements, no distant murmurs of conversation. He sniffed the air and froze, finding the scent he feared most.

Wolves!

“Damn him to hell!” he gritted out, rage already hardening his body.

“Who?” Darcy said, clutching his arm.

“Our pet!” he spat. “He’s brought friends.”

With Darcy matching his steps behind him, Quentin crept into the courtyard, past the flowering bougainvillea and palms, past the edge of the tiled patio to peer inside the darkened living room.

Darcy shouldered her way into position beside him. “We have wolves—plural—in the compound?”

“Stay behind me.”

“But Lily,” she said, a note of fear entering her voice, “they’re here for Lily. We have to get to her.”

“Once inside the house, you will run straight for the panic room. Today, you’re not a cop, Darcy. I’ll take care of Lily.”

“All right, but Quentin,” she said, tugging at his sleeve, “this isn’t Max’s doing.”

“Then why didn’t he sound the alarm? He and Pia are supposed to be on watch tonight.”

“I don’t know. But I do know he couldn’t do this. He wouldn’t betray us.”

“Be quiet now, love. Remember what I said. Get to the panic room.” He opened the door and let Darcy slip past him to make an awkward dash for the stairway. The panic room was along the upper corridor. He followed behind her, facing the opposite direction, waiting for a foe to charge up the stairs and cursing the fact he hadn’t brought a weapon other than the silver-bladed knife strapped to his ankle.

What had he been thinking? The weres in the area had appeared to be conquered. The few stragglers of the rogue pack that had wreaked havoc in Vero Beach had been easy to find—they’d left bloody trails in their wakes.

In retrospect, they’d been too easy to find.

As Quentin braced himself for the fight of his life, his mind raced. Where were the human guards? He detected no scent of death in the air. And what of Pia and Max? If Max wasn’t responsible for the breach in security, then who was?

A gasp erupted behind him, and he whirled to see three weres in varying forms of transformation creeping down the hallway toward them.

As he faced them, deep-throated snarls erupted from the wolves.

The newly installed panic room lay just beyond the three. Quentin guessed they had been about to enter the bedroom, so at least he knew where Lily was.

He pushed past Darcy and shoved her against the wall, bending at the last moment to slide his knife from beneath his pant leg. “Watch for your break,” he shouted.

Still crouched low, he summoned the beast inside, letting his body bulk out with just enough of the monster to even up the odds. When his shirt strained across his shoulders, he lunged at the closest of the wolves—a brindle bastard, fully transformed and nearly foaming at the mouth.

They met in mid-air. Quentin rolled with him, coming up on his feet after slashing deep into the wolf’s neck. The next, a dark-furred cur, caught him from behind and knocked him to the ground.

Darcy shouted and a shot rang out.

Quentin couldn’t look back. He kicked backward and grabbed for the muzzle locked around the top of his right shoulder. Adrenaline and rage numbed him to the pain of teeth sinking deep into muscle.

The knife traded hands, and Quentin stabbed over his shoulder, hoping to spear eyes. When the wolf broke his hold with a screeching whine, Quentin came to his knees and slammed the wolf clinging to his back against the wall, at the same time digging his right elbow into a vulnerable belly. With the stunned creature wriggling to come to his paws, Quentin slammed the blood-slick knife into his chest.

With the red haze of rage threatening to steal his intellect, Quentin pitched through the bedroom door, ready to take the next foe.

The sight that met his eyes brought a howl of pain and denial. Before the closed panic room door, Darcy lay beneath the bloody claws of a man-wolf, a gaping maw in her belly, her arms and hands nearly shredded. A gun lay on the ground beyond her feet. Darcy hadn’t gone on her walk without backup after all.

Quentin’s heart screamed, and he crouched, ready to spring at the wolf to tear his head from his shoulders, when he saw the slightest movement of Darcy’s lips.

Thank God!
She still lived.

The monster’s lips pulled back in an unholy grin, and he held up a red, wriggling baby, its placental chord dangling from its round belly.

Quentin had only a moment to note Darcy’s child was a boy with a thick cap of dark curls.

Then the creature placed the child in his mouth and completed his transformation to wolf, dropping on all fours to the floor.

The dark wolf approached him and brushed boldly past.

Quentin clenched his fists and let him pass, fighting the encroaching haze.

Darcy lived. The baby was likely already infected by the bite Darcy had received, and if not, it soon would be from the saliva of the wolf using it as a hostage for safe passage out of the compound. The baby was lost whether the beast ate it or not.

But Darcy wasn’t—yet. And while she had breath, there was still a chance to save her.

He crossed the room and knelt beside her, taking her head into his lap, cupping her face between shaking palms.

Darcy’s eyes fluttered open. “Quentin….the baby,” she whispered, her voice thin, her breath labored. “Save the baby.”

“I will, love,” he lied and bent to end her life.

‡

D
ylan O’Hara contemplated
the many ways he intended to make his wife pay for her interminable teasing throughout the long flight from Seattle. Her lush body, encased in a red pantsuit that hugged every sweet curve, was a flag to his snorting bull. The woman had squandered their one opportunity for a quickie when their companions had sequestered themselves in other parts of the plane. She wasn’t near enough for him to give her the spanking she deserved.

At the moment, Emmy’s lush mouth curved in wicked delight as she pressed her ear to the plane’s bathroom door.

“For fuck’s sake, Em, give them some privacy,” Dylan said, knowing there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell she’d obey, and wishing he had the lack of decorum to join her. Curiosity about the old Master’s new amour was nearly eating him alive. He’d always thought Navarro was strictly
a
-sexual.

“Shhh!” his wife whispered, a finger to her lips. “There’s a whole lot of moaning goin’ on in there.” Emmy cupped her ear and bent closer. “Wait, she’s doing the please-oh-please thing. Oh! Sidney just told him to bang her like a drum!”

Dylan pressed his lips together to prevent a grin—he shouldn’t give the minx any further encouragement, but he couldn’t resist. “And what was his reply?” he asked, his voice straining with suppressed amusement.

“He said he’ll give her the whole damn percussion section if she’ll just be quiet.” She pressed her ear close again and snickered. “God, I wonder if I’m ever that needy-sounding when we’re doing it. It’s kinda embarrassing. Oh! Now she’s doing the praying thing. Must be getting close.”

Dylan grinned. Emmy was a howler, and her eavesdropping was arousing her—her cheeks flushed a lovely rose, her breaths coming faster.

Her eyes widened like saucers.

“What?”

“He told her to shut up, or he’d give her mouth something to chew on for a while.”

Dylan snorted. “Good man! Only thing that works.”

Emmy giggled again, and then leapt back when the door beneath her cheek rattled with an insistent pounding from the other side.

Dylan chuckled and held out his hand. “Em, time to leave them be.”

His wife wrinkled her nose. “Spoilsport.”

“You know, Navarro probably knows exactly what you were doing.”

“Impossible. I was as quiet as a mouse.”

Dylan rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to remind her that she’d just given him a blow-by-blow commentary that grew louder the more excited she’d gotten. So loud a vamp’s superior hearing wasn’t needed. “Be that as it may, Navarro doesn’t need to hear you with his ears, love.”