Dark Solace (8 page)

With a groan close to pain, Devlin pushed
back from me, then kissed my bites gently. “Enough, Love. I don’t
want to hurt you.”

I nestled in his arms, my head on his chest,
utterly content. Almost instantly, I dropped off to sleep.

* * * *

I yawned, then blinked, wondering where I
was. Then I looked down at Devlin beside me, my face softening.

Lash had been right. I’d have to thank him. I
wouldn’t have given Devlin another chance, if he hadn’t made me.
And it was right to be here in his arms. We belonged together. We
were still Oathed, no matter what the choker had or hadn’t done. We
had a child together. And we loved each other.

In a small corner of my mind that had somehow
not been influenced by Dev’s blood, I affirmed that aside from the
emotional aspect, this alliance was rational. Theo and Danial were
wonderful, but they didn’t have the power and respect Devlin
wielded...and they knew it, which was why both of them had agreed
rebonding to Devlin was necessary for my safety. In the struggle to
come against Perseus and Samuel, his power was going to count for a
lot...

“Penny for your thoughts,” Dev whispered
eerily, kissing my shoulder.

I smacked him hard on his chest. “Stop being
creepy,” I said, giving him a dark look.

“I can’t help it,” he said, nibbling at my
neck. “I’m very happy, Love, and I have always loved teasing
you.”

I didn’t answer.

“What were you thinking? Something wildly
inappropriate, as usual?”

I knew about Harriet from Theo, but Devlin
might have more information. He was likely the one who had actually
talked to Samuel. “Theo told me about Harriet,” I replied
hesitantly, testing the waters. “I’m wondering if they’re planning
on trying for me again.”

Devlin hugged me. “They’re demanding
information. I told them of the different trials you faced in your
pregnancies. So far, they’ve attributed their own failure with
Harriet to bad luck.” He paused. “There is good news; Samuel sent
his condolences about your ‘new barren state’—”

Hope swelled inside me. “He bought it?”

“Hook, line, and sinker,” Devlin said,
smiling widely. “He’s stopped clamoring for me to share you with
him. Once we give him your health records, we’ll be free of
him.”

“That will be such a relief,” I murmured.

“For me, too,” Devlin affirmed resentfully.
“I want them to fuck off, and this should make them get lost. They
are never getting you, Sar. Never.”

“Language,” I cautioned, putting my finger to
his lips. “You are a father now.”

“Sar, if I loved you for nothing else, I
would love you for that,” Devlin said passionately. “Venus is
everything to me now. I miss her if we are apart more than a few
hours. I finally moved her crib to the nursery. I was waking her up
by spending so much time touching her, and she needs to sleep.
Serena is watching her at night. I have cut back on her other
duties a little, and she is enjoying the break.” He paused. “I’m
sorry I didn’t tell you about her and me.”

I shifted uneasily.

“Truthfully, I had forgotten it happened. It
wasn’t for pleasure, it was business—”

“I’m good with that,” I said, covering his
mouth. “You can stop now.”

Devlin reached up and removed my hand. “Then
will you give me your Oath again?”

“Can you keep it this time?” I replied
evenly. “If I should ever walk in on you again—”

“I promise you, you won’t,” Devlin said
quickly.

“—
ever again see you like that with
someone else, there won’t be any more chances, Dev. I mean
that.”

“I’ve learned my lesson, Sar,” Devlin
replied, laying his head on my chest. “It won’t happen again. But
I’m not demanding your Oath, if you aren’t ready to give it.”

That was a relief. But why wasn’t he? “I
appreciate that,” I whispered finally.

“I want you to,” Devlin assured quickly. “I
just want you to know that I’ll protect you either way, and give
you my blood when you need it, though the latter I’d prefer to
administer during lovemaking, to ease the pain you feel—”

That was the only reason, sure. “I appreciate
that, too.”

“Will you do it?” he pressed. “I have your
choker here.”

“Not right away,” I said firmly. “But I’ll
come to stay with you as I did before, every week. If everything is
still okay between us by the end of the year, I’ll Oath to you
again then.”

“I can wait,” Devlin said with surety. “I’ve
waited this long. A few months won’t matter.”

I ran my fingers through his hair. “It will
go by in a blink.”

Dev sighed. “With you, yes, it will. Are you
staying tonight?”

“Of course,” I answered. “Go back to
sleep.”

* * * *

Danial was pleased that I’d made up with
Devlin. He was more pleased that I would be renewing the Oath at
the end of year. Still, it gave him a lot of pleasure that his was
the only choker I would be wearing until then.

Theo was less happy, but he stoically
accepted it as necessary. We didn’t really talk about it much. Our
time together was mostly taken up by caring for Devon, or
discussing Elle’s future, the latter being a matter of shared
concern.

“She was playing with Devon all afternoon in
cougar form,” I said to Theo one night, after Devon went to sleep.
“I’m glad they get along so well, but I’m concerned with how big
she is. The patches on her face are white now.”

“She’s an adult,” Theo replied gruffly. “She
looks almost exactly like Tawny, Sar. Elle could probably have a
child herself now, if she mated and stayed in lion form.”

I squeezed his hand, giving him worried
eyes.

“That’s why she’s so provocative,” Theo
continued. “She’s getting the urge from her lion half to mate, and
it’s bleeding through to her human form, intensifying her
desires.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“Take it as it comes,” he said with a shrug.
“There isn’t anything else we can do. She’s going to grow up, Sar.
There’s no stopping it.”

“I know that,” I said, annoyed. “I just wish
she’d gotten a little longer to be a child. I love Devon’s looks of
wonder, those huge blue eyes of his taking in everything. I love
his spots, the way his ears perk up at the slightest sound. I want
his childhood to last a while, Theo. Elle’s was too short—”

“We’ll have longer with Devon. I’ll help him
change form in a few weeks. I want him to appear as a human child
that is at least a year or two old when he first becomes human, to
lessen the time he’s helpless. But after he knows how to walk, we
can let him remain human, so he ages a lot more slowly.” He stroked
my hip gently. “I’m almost fully healed.”

I’d pulled out the last of Theo’s stitches
that day. With each one, I’d thanked Lash for saving him, then
prayed for some peaceful, boring years. I wanted time with Devon as
a child, time for Theo to get those experiences that he’d missed
having with Elle. We’d all had enough drama and excitement lately
to last us a decade or so.

* * * *

I drove to Hayden early Friday morning. After
I parked my truck, I pulled on my gloves, then grabbed my gear from
the truck bed. Time to get after those fallen trees.

I walked down by the edge of the low stone
wall, carrying my chainsaw in my right hand, and the lube and gas
mixture in my left hand. My tools were in the saw’s case along with
extra chains, in case one broke. My mind was ruminating on my
conversations with Terian over the past week, prepping for a report
to Titus.

Terian was gaining in power and confidence.
Yet in spite of his boldness, I didn’t see any traces of evil
behavior to report. In fact, I preferred this new, daring Terian of
action to the old reluctant Terian who’d been afraid of what he
was.

There was a sudden throaty roar of heavy
machinery. Excited, I hurried down the path towards it.

Lash had the bears out in force today.
Several were picking up sticks and branches and mulching them,
another was working on a front-end loader moving mud, and five more
were standing around one crouched down, sawing one of the huge
logs. I watched for a moment curiously, wondering why the scene was
so quiet. Then it hit me; the dumb ass had bound his saw.

The mechanics of chainsawing wood are simple:
one whole log becomes two and both obey gravity. When a long and
wide chunk of wood is on the ground and that ground is uneven, the
wood can shift as it is cut, closing the cut until the blade of the
saw is bound between the two pieces of wood. That had happened to
the werebear, imprisoning his blade. It was now buried deep in the
three-foot-wide trunk.

Tugging was not going to work, even with
supernatural strength. I laughed to myself, then walked over
nonchalantly with a solemn face.

Lash came over to meet me. “Sar,” he said,
nodding once.

“I brought my saw. Where should I start?” I
asked innocently.

Lash folded his arms and looked at me,
clearly dubious. “You sure you want to do this?” he hissed. “You
wouldn’t rather be relaxing in bed?”

“Let’s not have this same conversation
again,” I interjected. “Just tell me what you want done first.”

“First, tie your shoe,” he said, smirking. “I
want you not to trip and fall.”

“Lash!” one of the bears called. “The blade
isn’t coming free.”

Lash hissed in irritation, then walked away
scowling. “I told you to lever it up.”

I put my saw down, annoyed, and crouched down
in the soft mud to double knot my steel-toed boot. As I went to
stand, I slipped sideways and caught myself, smearing my work shirt
sleeve in muck.

I brushed it off the best I could. No big
deal. I’d just get dirtier before the day was over. I was looking
forward to that actually. I hadn’t done real physical work in a
long time. Besides, it was a beautiful summer day: a perfect day
for working.

There was another roar from the front-end
loader. The operator had made rapid progress. The fallen rock wall
was quickly being fixed, water receding as the huge rocks blocking
one of the drainage ditches were moved one by one.

The werebear and his pals were still trying
to get the bound sawblade free. But the tree was huge, a good
hundred feet long with roots and branches still attached. Even with
their combined strength, all they could do was roll it over, making
the saw’s handle and engine go up in the air as the blade remained
bound. They tried this several times, with the same result. In
short, it was hilarious. Since no one had asked for my help, or
told me what to do, I remained where I was, watching and smirking.
It was good for men to know humility.

Another throaty roar sounded, turning my
attention from the tree back to the tractor. The werebear moving
fallen rocks was almost done. The last one was safely in the
loader, the tractor straining under the weight, the tires almost
flattened in the front. The operator dropped the rock with the
others, the front tires springing back up as the load lightened.
Then, to my surprise, the tractor headed back to the ditch.

Curious, I walked towards it. What was he up
to?

As the operator parked at the very edge of
the ditch and lowered the loader down into it, my eyes opened wide
with horror. He was going after a boulder sunk deep into the mud of
the bottom of the ditch. Not only would the loader overbalance
picking up the rock, he’d be lucky if it didn’t pin him under it
when it fell in.

I sprinted towards the tractor, yelling.
“Hey! Stop! Stop!”

Either he didn’t hear me over the engine or
he didn’t listen. The operator reached down with the loader for the
rock, scooped carefully under it, and went to lift it.

“Hey! Don’t go for the last rock!” I yelled
desperately.

The rock came free from the bottom of the
ditch, as the operator slowly raised the dripping loader. He
levered it up just enough to clear the ditch edge.

“What are you yelling for?” Lash said
irritably from beside me. “He’s got it.”

“No, he’s going to—”

The operator went to shift gears to back up.
The rock rolled sideways in the loader and the wheels promptly slid
forward, the front-end of the tractor slipping down into the
ditch.

“—
fall in,” I finished.

“Christ, could anything go more wrong today?”
Lash hissed loudly. “Jazz already broke one chain, and cut himself
so badly he had to take off the rest of the day.”

“Why do none of you know what you’re doing?”
I said, trying hard to make my tone nonjudgmental.

Lash narrowed his flat eyes. “I know what I’m
doing, Sar. As for the bears, they’re doing the best they can.”

I gave him an incredulous look. “Then their
best isn’t good enough. They need training.”

“I used to have a crack team for this kind of
shit,” Lash hissed, looking at me meaningfully. “They’re all dead.
You remember Kev and Vince, I’m sure?”

I narrowed my eyes, wondering why he was
being an asshole. “Dev has enough money to hire talent outside his
guards for—”

“No,” Lash said coldly. “No strangers are
allowed inside Hayden’s grounds. What I can’t make or fix with my
hands, Titus does with his magic.” He flicked his forked tongue at
me. “Devlin doesn’t hire for this type of skill. They’ll learn by
trial and error, just like the last bunch did years ago.”

The operator in the ditch was swearing now as
he tried to back the tractor up out of the ditch. But the back
tires wouldn’t grip, they were spinning in the mud, covering the
tractor and him in sludge.

This was wasted time and wasted effort,
specifically mine if I sat here and did nothing. There was a better
way. “Do you want my help?” I said, folding my arms over my
chest.

“You can’t get that tractor out of there,”
Lash said, flicking his tongue at me again.