Authors: Susan Squires
“
I’m so glad about you and Jane,” his mother said, hesitantly. “I knew when we were in the wine cellar what had happened. It’s especially important now.”
“
Why now?” Keelan asked. “I mean, we can always use some more powers, especially good ones like Darkness and . . . and whatever it is Kemble does with computers and code.”
Kemble watched his mother’s face go still. It was as if she had just erased all expression.
“Because this is the moment when the torch passes from one generation to the next. With Brian. . . .” Her voice broke. She swallowed, blinked back tears and cleared her throat. “With Brian and me both out of commission, it’s up to you all to fight the Clan and protect the family.”
The faces around the table were somber. Tamsen was crying silently. Out in the yard, Kemble saw Lanyon’s back stiffen. He’d been listening to every word. But he didn’t come up to the terrace
to join the family. He just sat in the grass watching Jesse play with his little kazoo, fists clenched. Not good.
The machines in the house had grown quiet as the crews picked up to leave for the day. Now Kemble heard the front door bang shut.
“Anybody home?” a baritone voice called.
Tris and Maggie were back.
*****
Morgan closed her eyes. They’d have to get another display cabinet for the Cup. She’d brought the bodies back to Las Vegas to work on them
, just for security.
The five of them
were sleeping off the regeneration in the bunkroom down the hall.
Morgan couldn’t quite sleep yet. Her thoughts kept darting between her failure to eradicate the Tremaines and the possibilities that lay ahead to find the fourth Talisman, to bring the boy out from his monastery in Greece,
to regenerate the military strategists who would soon owe their lives to her. All part of her plans for economic and military domination.
The world lay at her feet. Almost. She could at least see it from here.
Peachy. Except for the Tremaines. There they were, poisoning her well again.
But her failure last n
ight was an accident. They had least one power the butler hadn’t known about. She still didn’t know how they’d fixed Brian’s medical equipment.
Of course, she had to admit that s
he should have brought the Sword as well as the Wand to the attack, let someone else wield it. Difficult. She wasn’t the trusting sort. If any of them got too much power, they might get big ideas.
But
the Tremaine well was poisoned too, with sorrow and failure. Brian Tremaine was neutralized. His little nurse/whore too. She wouldn’t be Healing anybody anytime soon. Morgan would have Hardwick figure out if the Clan had managed to kill any Tremaines, as soon as he was up and around. They’d be on their guard even more now, of course.
She was too obsessed with them. She realized that. What could they do to stop her plans at this point? They could find the fourth Talisman, but she could find that out and steal it back.
No, it was time to get cracking on the rest of her plans. Let the Tremaines stew in their losses for a while. Unless one of them dropped into her hands, she had better things to do.
*****
Jane and Kemble were finally alone. They were staying in Kemble’s old room in the Bay of Pigs next door to Brian’s hospital room. If Jane listened carefully, she could hear the faint ping of the monitors. There was no question of living in the house Kemble had bought. It was too dangerous. Besides, she and Kemble were needed here. She didn’t want to believe what Brina had said before dinner, that she and Brian were done leading the Tremaines. But it was a low point for the whole family. It would take all they had to win through to a happier time. She absolutely refused to believe that wasn’t possible.
Or maybe she wasn’t facing reality.
She was somewhere beyond exhaustion at this point. She wasn’t even really sleepy. Kemble looked beat. He sat on the bed with the dark brown and red color blocks and began taking off his shoes. He’d had a messenger service bring over some of their things. Jane at least had a nightgown to put on.
Maybe she didn’t want to sleep in
one of those demure white cotton ones with the lacy collars. Maybe she didn’t want to sleep in a nightgown at all.
Where had that thought come from?
She was so tired she was getting confused.
Kemble unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it.
“Mother can’t mean what she said tonight,” he muttered.
“
She’s just as tired as we are,” Jane said. She was just standing there, watching the muscles move in Kemble’s chest and arms. She heaved in a breath. He was a beautiful man, inside and out, and she felt lucky down to the tips of her toes. “It will be better tomorrow.”
He stood and unbuckled his belt. When he glanced up to her there was something like panic in his eyes.
“What if Senior never. . . .”
Jane closed the distance between them and put her arms around her husband. He felt solid and real against her breasts under the thin sweater twinset she was wearing.
“He will.” Kemble was sending those frissons of need down into her loins. How could she be aroused when she was this tired? She put that away. She couldn’t lie to Kemble either. She looked up at him. Best face it head on. “But if he doesn’t, or until he does, you’re the head of the family.” She put a finger to his lips to stifle his protest. “It’s you, Kemble. It is. And you’ll do fine at it.”
She was relieved to feel
him straighten his shoulders. He swallowed and nodded. “I know it’s me. I’ll do the best I can. I can handle Tremaine Enterprises. Edwards and I can make the Breakers secure. I . . . I’ve had some ideas about that.” He shot her a worried look. “The family part? Not so sure. Did you see Lanyon today out in the yard? His hands were clenched and he wouldn’t come up to be with the rest of the family. And Tamsen? All the girlish joy has just drained right out of her. Mother would know what to do. You probably know. I’m lost.”
“
You’re not lost. You recognize the problem.” She remembered a time when he was totally oblivious to Devin’s pain over his love for Kee. “Tammy and Lanyon will respond to love. That you’re good at.”
His face squ
inched up in pain. “The guy who bought his wife a house without asking her. Rushed her off to a shotgun wedding. He sounds pretty lame at relationships to me.”
Jane pushed him gently back down on the bed, and settled herself in his lap.
“You arranged for a beautiful dress for me. A private fitting no less. I loved it.” She shrugged and smiled a little ruefully. “At least once I got used to the idea. You settled my mother. That was a problem I couldn’t see my way through and you knew just what to do. You, Kemble Tremaine, are a loving man.”
“
I love you,” he said, pulling into his body more tightly. “God, how I love you, Jane.”
“
I know.”
“
Is it just genetic? Why did I not realize sooner? I’m so sorry you had to spend all that time thinking I’d never love you the way you love me.” He kissed her hair.
“
Who cares why it is? Let’s just be grateful for what we have.”
“
I feel guilty about that piece of me that’s so happy to have your love, what with Senior on life support and Mother suffering, and the Clan probably regrouping even now….”
He’d been doing so well. She’d been glimpsing the man Kemble would be all day today, and she loved what she saw. She couldn’t let him feel guilty about becoming that man.
She twisted in his arms to take his head in her hands, and made a startling discovery. Kemble had an erection. Which matched the slick tingling between her thighs exactly. How could they be aroused when they were both so exhausted?
“
Sorry,” he apologized, apparently realizing she felt his “issue.” “I know this isn’t the time or the place. It will pass.”
He wasn’t going to make love to her.
Maybe it was how tired she was. Or maybe something more had changed inside her than just her magic blossoming. Drew was right. She’d never confessed her love for him for all those years because she didn’t think she was worthy of being a Tremaine. She slid through the shadows in the background of the Breakers, never asking for anything, not accepting even what they wanted to give her.
But she was special too. She had the gene. Some cosmic fate, some stars aligning, had brought her to just the place that she should be.
She wanted Kemble Tremaine, and now he was hers. Maybe he could have been hers sooner if she hadn’t been so timid.
It was time to start asking for what she wanted.
“I love you. We are going to support this family together, Kemble Tremaine. And if that means figuring out together how to help Lanyon and Tammy, and Brina and Brian, then we’ll do that. You’ve already stepped up to the leadership of the family. And you’re going to find a way for me to go visit my mother as soon as her thirty days are up.”
“
Of course I will. And I’ll come with you. I’d never let you do that alone.”
“
I knew that. Don’t interrupt.” He looked a little startled. “Right now you are going to make slow, sweet love to me, and we are going to treasure the urge to life that sex represents. Some very frequent lovemaking will give us the strength to do what we must for the family.”
He blinked at her and began a sexy smile. Then she saw the panic flash in his eyes again.
“I don’t have a condom. I loaned my last to Devin.”
Jane had to laugh.
“Silly man. You are my husband. I am going to have your babies, and they are going to have magic in their genes, more magic than you and I have. Why would I want you to wear a condom? I’m thirty and I want to get started.”
“
Bring babies into this mess?” He pressed his lips together.
“
Life finds a way,” she whispered in his ear. “What better symbol of life to the family than a child? Besides, Maggie’s baby needs a playmate. Jesse will be too old. He needs a playmate too. Which reminds me, we need to send Mr. Edwards over to Tammy’s animal shelter and pick up Suzie the Rottweiler. I bet that will cheer Tammy up, and Jesse will love her. Now are you going to make love to me, or leave me needy and gasping here like a fish?”
“
Great metaphor, my love.” He moved in for the kiss. “I’m going to make slow, sweet love to you until you’re gasping. Very unlike a fish,” he added. He pulled her back onto the bed. “I might even make you a baby.”
About Susan Squires
Susan Squires is
a
New York Times
bestselling author known for breaking the rules of romance writing. She has published five novels and a novella with Dorchester Publishing and nine and two novellas with St. Martin’s Press. Whatever her time period or subject, some element of the paranormal always creeps in. She has won multiple contests for published novels and reviewer’s choice awards.
Publisher’s Weekly
named
Body Electric
one of the most influential mass market books of 2003 and
One with the Shadows,
the fifth in her vampire Companion Series, a Best Book of 2007.
Time for Eternity,
the first in her Da Vinci time travel series, received a starred review from
Publisher’s Weekly.
Susan has a Masters in English literature from UCLA and once toiled as an executive for a Fortune 500 company. Now she lives at the beach in Southern California with her husband, Harry, a writer of supernatural thrillers, and three very active Belgian Sheepdogs, who like to help her write by putting their chins on the keyboarddddddddddddddddddddddd.
Follow Susan on Twitter, like her Facebook page at AuthorSusanSquires or check out her website at
http://www.susansquires.com
Coming soon, Book Five in the Magic Series:
The Magic’s In the Music
CHAPTER ONE
“You can’t seriously be considering turning down this role,” Greta’s friend Jax shouted over the din at Magma. Though the band was on a break, the place was not exactly ripe for intimate conversation. It was full to overflowing tonight. “Any woman in her right mind would kill for it.”
Greta raised her brows at her friend. “Girlfriend of the superhero in a comic book reboot?” The whole place was lit with red, like the inside of a volcano she supposed. It was sure to give her a headache.
“Hey, playing true love with Jimmy DeBrett and a franchise that will still be going when you’re forty?
And
a chance to kick butt. They’re gonna give you martial arts lessons, for heaven’s sake.” Jax sipped her drink. “Correction. Every woman
and
half the men in Hollywood want that gig. You can’t turn it down.” She giggled. Greta kind of felt bad that Jax had always dreamed about having what seemed to come so easily to Greta. And Greta didn’t even want.