Moon Sworn (39 page)

After a moment, she smiled—a short, warm smile that said more in the few seconds it appeared than any words ever could.

I took another shuddering breath and felt like the weight of the world had lifted off my shoulders.

The horn rang out again, haunting, mournful. As the last notes died away, I said, not raising my voice, “By this death, and by right of
ad vitam aeternam
, I now lead this pack.”

My gaze swept around them. No one looked away. No one countered or objected. They were all tense, waiting. It made me wonder just what Blake had told them about us.

I continued on in the same soft tone. “And my first order of business is this: The Jenson pack will no longer suffer the rule of one man, or one wolf. By my right of leadership, I declare that from now on, the Jenson pack will be ruled by a council of three.”

A murmur ran through the crowd, a sound that was excitement and satisfaction and surprise all mixed together. For a pack that had been ruled for so long by tyranny, being given the right to have a say had to come as a complete shock.

“I hereby declare that Evin and Rayanne Jenson will rule in my stead until formal elections can be organized and held. These
will
happen within two months.” I paused, my gaze sweeping the arena, searching for my stepbrother. He and Lyndal were standing near the gate, and there were tears in Evin’s eyes. We hadn’t told him this part of the plan. “Evin Jenson, do you accept the duty?”

He stood up a little straighter, his eyes shining. “I do.”

My gaze returned to my mother’s. “And Rayanne? Do you accept the position?”

“In honor of my father, who would be so proud of what his grandchildren have done here today in this arena, I most certainly do.”

Tears stung my eyes and I had to blink them back.
Proud
was a word I’d never thought to hear when it came to our grandfather and us.

Rhoan squeezed my hand lightly, and I cleared my throat. “Then I formally step down from the leadership and hand over control to you both.”

A roar erupted, the sound almost deafening. Rhoan tugged me into his arms and hugged me fiercely. “It’s done,” he said. “We made it.”

I didn’t reply immediately, just held on to him as reaction set in and my body shook. After a while, the awareness that someone was near grew and I pulled away, turning to see Evin and Lyndal.

“Come and meet your brother and sisters,” he said softly, then spun around and walked away.

“Brother and sisters,” Rhoan said, a silly grin on his face as he glanced at me. “How damn good does it feel to say that?”

“Brilliant,” I said, as we followed Evin.

And it
was
brilliant. This place might not be home anymore, but we had
family
.

Finally, after all those years in the wilderness, we belonged somewhere.

Epilogue

T
he wind meandered through the treetops, filling the dusk with the whisper of leaves. The mountain air was cool, fresh with the recent rain and rich with the humus of the forest.

I walked through the trees, my bare feet sinking into the grass and leaving a trail of wet prints behind me.

In a couple of hours, the full moon would rise and I would become a wolf.

But before then, before the sun had fully set, there was the time of promises.

Soon Quinn would become mine, and I would become his.

It was all I could do not race up the remainder of this hill, to where he and Rhoan and Liander waited, to say the words that would bind us as one forever.

The only thing that could have made this night more perfect would have been for Rhoan and Liander to perform the ceremony alongside us. But Rhoan was still refusing, and Liander wouldn’t push. He understood Rhoan’s reasons. We all did, even if we didn’t agree with them.

But I wasn’t about to spoil this night by dwelling on such matters.

Not when I was about to commit to the man of my dreams.

My pulse was racing and my heart was light, and every now and again the sheer force of it all had my feet breaking into a happy little dance.

High above the treetops, the sky was a blaze of color, and though the moon had yet to crest the horizon, the heat of her was in the air. Her music sang through my veins—a richness that was sweet and intoxicating. The change would come with darkness, but before it did, our promises would be made.

I walked up the rest of the hill. The last of the day’s sunlight broke through the trees as I did, warming the clearing ahead and spotlighting the three men who waited there.

Rhoan and Liander stood to one side, their arms entwined and grins as silly as my own on their faces. Quinn stood in the middle, as naked as I was despite what he’d said earlier. And oh, he was beautiful. Simply beautiful.

He smiled as I stopped in front of him, and briefly reached out to caress my cheek. I pressed into his touch and silently said,
Do you know all the words?

They have been very firmly drummed into my brain by
your brother and his lover
, he replied.
They made sure
no mistakes would be made
.

They’d made sure I would make no mistakes, as well, hammering the words into my still somewhat faulty memory banks. Despite Quinn’s best efforts, not all the past had been recovered. Some of it would remain forever gone. But the past no longer mattered. The here, the now, and the future did.

Good
, I replied softly.
I did threaten to cook for them for the next year if things went awry
.

His laughter was like quicksilver through my thoughts, bright and shiny. Then he dropped his hand and bowed formally.

I watched him, struggling to contain my joy, struggling to reach the seriousness this ceremony required.

“Does my lover know what night this is?” I said softly.

His eyes shone like black jewels in the dusk, filled with such warmth and love that it threatened to steal my breath and words away.

“It is the night of the full moon,” he returned solemnly. “The night of promises.”

I stepped forward, pressing my body against his. Feeling in the no-longer-slow beat of his heart an echo of my excitement. Feeling in the rigid heat of his erection the equal of my desire. “The night of destiny.”

The air stirred around us, running with slivers of energy that raised the hairs at the nape of my neck.

“You are my heart, my soul,” he said, his arms going around my waist and holding me tightly.

“As you are mine,” I repeated. The magic in the air got stronger, thrumming through the forest, matching the rhythm of our breathing, matching the beating of our hearts.

“Dance with me, this night and for the rest of our nights,” he said. “For as long as the moon shines in the sky and for as long as we live underneath her.”

I shifted my stance slightly, readying myself for the more intimate requirements of the ceremony. “In her name, I offer you my body.”

Desire and something else—something more ethereal and powerful—swirled around us, warming my heart, tugging at my soul. The heat of him slid inside of me, so deeply that it felt like he was claiming every single inch of me. And lord, it felt
good
.

“In her power,” he said, as he slowly began to rock inside of me, “I offer you my heart.”

The energy in the air was becoming fiercer, burning across my skin, making all the little hairs stand up on end.

“In her shadow, I offer you my soul.” My words were breathless, almost inaudible, lost to the pleasurable assault on my senses and the thrumming in the air. It didn’t matter. The magic in the night heard and acknowledged it.

His hands slid down to my rear, gripping my butt fiercely, holding my body tightly against his as his movements became more urgent.

“Do you accept the gift of my seed?” he growled.

His thrusting was deep and hard and urgent, and the world was spinning, burning, with power, until it felt like there was no separation between any of us, that our flesh, the magic, the moon, and the night were all one being.

“Yes,” I gasped. “Do you accept the binding of the moon and the promises we have made on the night?”

“Yes,” he cried. “Yes!”

The words were barely said when he came, his body going rigid against mine, the force of his release tearing my name from his throat. Heat and power and magic exploded around us, through us, and my climax came in that moment, stealing all thought and plunging me into an abyss that was sheer and unadulterated bliss.

I rested my forehead against his, desperately trying to catch my breath, desperately trying to ignore the rising heat of the oncoming night. I would change soon, but there were still words to be said.

So I took a deep breath and raised my head, staring into the beautiful dark pools that were his eyes. “May the moon bless this union and grant us a long life together.”

He smiled and gently brushed the sweaty strands of hair away from my forehead. “And what the moon has bound, let no man or woman sunder.”

He leaned forward and kissed me. Gently, sweetly. Then he bent and gathered a small, silk-wrapped package by his feet. “And now, for the human part of the ceremony.” He opened the silk, revealing two identical, black onyx rings. He plucked the smaller of the two free and slid it onto my finger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

I smiled and repeated the process. Then I flung myself into his arms and said, “You can’t get away from me now, vampire. You’re mine until eternity ends.”

“And a better place to live and die I couldn’t think of.”

“Run with us tonight.”

“Oh, I intend to. No bride of mine is spending her wedding night with her brother and his lover.”

I laughed and kissed him, with all the fierce joy in my heart.

From behind us came a whoop of delight, then suddenly Rhoan and Liander were all over us, hugging and kissing and crying.

It was the perfect way to start our new lives together. As a family, as a pack.

But as the call of the moon got fiercer and fiercer, and the thrum of the change began to tingle across our skins, Liander made the night just that little bit more perfect.

“Here,” he said, and handed me a small photo.

I took it and looked at it, but wasn’t really able to make sense of the odd black-and-white image. “What is it?” I asked, looking up.

“Those,” he said with a grin that lit up his entire face, “are our babies. Riley Jenson, you and I are having twins.”

At long last, Keri Arthur’s riveting

Myth and Magic series

continues with

Mercy Burns

Coming in Spring 2011

This stand-alone novel expands on the mysterious world of sea and air dragons as one young woman’s quest to right a wrong leads her into more danger than she ever anticipated.

Read on for a special preview …

Mercy Burns

On sale Spring 2011

W
e’ll have you out in a minute, ma’am. Just keep still a while longer.”

The voice rolled across the gray mist enshrouding my mind—a soothing sound that brought no comfort, only confusion. Why would he say I shouldn’t move?

And why was he saying it just to me? Why wasn’t he saying anything to Rainey, who’d been driving the car?

Ignoring the advice, I shifted, trying to get more comfortable, trying to
feel
. Pain shot through my side, spreading out in heated waves across my body and reverberating through my brain. The sensation was oddly comforting even as it tore a scream from my throat.

If I could feel, then I wasn’t dead.

Should I be?

Yes
, something inside me whispered.
Yes
.

I swallowed heavily, trying to ease the dryness in my throat. What the hell had happened to us? And why did it suddenly feel like I was missing hours of my life?

The thing that was digging into my side felt jagged and fat, like a serrated knife with a thicker, heavier edge, yet there were no knives in the car. People like me and Rainey didn’t need knives or guns or any other sort of human weapon, because we were born with our own. And it was just as dangerous, just as accurate, as any gun or knife.

So why did it feel like I had a knife in my side?

I tried to open my eyes, suddenly desperate to see where I was, to find Rainey, to understand what was going on. But I couldn’t force them open and I had no idea why.

Alarm snaked through the haze, fueling my growing sense that something was
very
wrong.

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to keep calm, trying to keep still as the stranger had advised. The air was cool, yet sunshine ran through it, hinting that dawn had passed and that the day was already here. But that
couldn’t
be right. Rainey and I had been driving through sunset, not sunrise, enjoying the last rays before the night stole the heat from us.

Moisture rolled down the side of my cheek. Not a tear; it was too warm to be a tear.

Blood
.

There was blood on my face, blood running through my hair. My stomach clenched and the fear surged to new heights, making it difficult to breathe. What the hell had happened? And where the hell was Rainey?

Had we been in some sort of accident?

No
, came the answer from the foggy depths of my mind.
This was no accident
.

Memories surged at the thought, though the resulting images were little more than fractured flashes mixed with snatches of sound, as if there were bits my memory couldn’t—or wouldn’t—recall. There was the deep, oddly familiar voice on the phone who’d given us our first decent clue in weeks. And Rainey’s excitement over the possible lead—our chance to discover not only what had happened to her sister, but also to everyone else who had once lived in the town of Stillwater. Our mad, off-key singing as we’d sped through the mountains, heading back to San Francisco and our meeting with the man who just might hold some answers.