Stone Destiny (Stone Passion #3) (26 page)

Betrayal

Ferris lay pressed against Armand’s hot and heavy body, a drowsy smile on her lips from the explosive reunion. His heart thudded beneath her ear, the most wonderful sound in the world, one she would never spend another night without listening to again. It felt so unbelievably good to be back in his arms, as if she could breathe for the first time in an eternity. Her skin tingled beneath the idle stroking of his fingers and she could stay that way forever.

“Where’s your dragon?” his smooth voice rumbled beneath her ear.

Tilting her head back, she looked up at his wonderful face to find him looking down at her. God, she had missed his green eyes that saw so deeply into her soul, to the places she kept hidden from everyone else.
“Fray? He’s the tattoo on my back, though sometimes he prefers my stomach or my thigh….”

His lips curved up in a sexy smile as he pushed the hair away from her face and cupped her cheek. “So the two of you have bonded?”

“A few years ago.” A shiver went down her spine at his innocent question. There was so much that she had to tell him but where would she even begin? Shrugging, she twisted around until she was up on her elbows looking down at him. Unable to prevent a smile, she grinned and started telling him about everything. “It’s amazing, Armand. Fray has kept me sane all of these years and when we bonded I felt this incredible jolt of electricity throughout my entire body. Now he is with me wherever I go and as an added bonus I have the coolest tattoo in a variety of places.”

“So you like the dragon?” he asked wryly, his eyes lit with amusement.

“I love him!” she beamed, pressing a kiss in the center of his chest. Resting her chin on the spot she just kissed, she looked up at him with all of her heart in her eyes. “Thank you, my love.”

His thumb brushed over her lips and the laughter faded from his expression
as he became the brooding, pensive Armand that she had fallen in love with when she was sixteen. He looked at her with such seriousness in his beautiful green eyes that her stomach tightened in apprehension. “I should have known you’d find a way to be here when I woke up. Even if I was frozen for sixty years you would have still found a way to be here, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course,” she said matter-of-factly, as if there was any other outcome. “At first I contemplated vampirism but the only person I want to bite i
s you and I don’t think gargoyles are biteable, at least not during the day. Granted, you’d be a man at night when I’d be biting, but…”

“Ferris,” he teasingly warned, tugging a strand of her hair.

“Then I considered becoming an incubus’s sex slave but that would have only worked if you were the incubus,” she continued, loving how he smiled at her absurdity, loving how his fingers toyed with her hair as he listened to her. “There was even a brief flirtation with the black arts and coming back as a zombie but I don’t think you’d appreciate body parts falling off, especially during sex.”

He closed his eyes with a wince at the thought. “That’s disgusting.”

“I know,” she agreed with a dramatic flourish. “But imagine the possibilities.”

“I’d rather not,” he grimaced. “How’d you do it?”

Sticking her tongue out at him, she answered, “I was fortunate that I found a man who had a vial full of Medusa’s blood.”

“Only you, Ferris,” he chuckled, his fingers tracing the curve of her full bottom lip, the line of her jaw. “You do realize that taking her blood’s incredibly dangerous,
don't you Ferris? You could have taken too much and been killed.”

“Fray always made sure the dosage was right,” she said, swallowing against the sudden thickness in her throat, knowing she had to tell him everything. Biting her lower lip, she raised her eyes and met his gaze, “And
if not Fray, Marick kept the dose safe.”

His eyes moved over her face and she was afraid of what he would see. He must have seen something because his lips pressed together and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “Who’s
Marick?”

Sitting up, she brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. Her body felt like a separate thing as it began to shake. Her stupid voice wasn’t working either and all she could do was
stare at the man she loved more than life itself as the world turned to ice around her.

Abruptly, he sat up and framed her face in his hands, holding her eyes, “Sweetheart, I didn’t expect you to remain celibate when I left.”

She let out a nervous giggle that was unsteady because she was so grateful for his warmth and so afraid of his reaction. “I wanted to. I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”

“
Shh,” he murmured, pulling her head against his chest, resting his chin on the top of her head. His heart was racing in his chest and he was shaking a little but he just held her.

Tears welled in her eyes but she wiped them away and tried to laugh again. It wasn’t funny. “God, I don’t want you to hate me.”

“I could never hate you,” he breathed. He pressed a kiss against the top of her head, holding his lips there for an eternity. Pulling back, he rasped, “Did you love him?”

“Yes,” she
answered honestly even though it was so much more complicated than that. Because she was looking so closely she saw the flash of pain in his eyes and she knew she had to explain. Covering his hands with hers, she shook her head. “But not like I love you, never like that. I loved him like I love Ajreis and Raphe and the boys and I never, ever meant to sleep with him.” Now that she started, the words came pouring out, “On the fifth anniversary of you, um, leaving me, I got a little drunk and, well, it just sort of happened and that was going to be that but then it wasn’t, you see, and….”

“You had a child,” he said on an exhalation of breath.

“Twins,” she told him softly. Shaking her head, breathing in his heavenly and familiar scent, she relaxed into his arms, “Can you imagine? I get a little drunk and I get knocked up.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he crooned. “You really shouldn’t drink.”

“I know,” she agreed. Tilting her head back, she admitted, "But I wouldn’t trade them for the world, even if they aren’t fully human.”

His eyes widened as he stared at her for an entire heartbeat before his gentle caress became frantic as he ran both of his hands over her face, her shoulders, her back. He pulled her forward and over his lap, his rock hard thigh
s pressing against her pelvis as he ran his hands over her naked bottom. With a squeak, she twisted around and grabbed his hands to stop the manhandling, which she wouldn’t have minded if it weren’t so impersonal. "What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for horns or a tail,” he said wildly, pulling one hand free, scrubbing his fingers through her hair, running his hand down her back once more. She giggled as his fingers moved over her ribs. “What did you do?”

“It's complicated and I promise to tell you the whole story but there are a whole bunch of people who will be excited to see you,” she grinned. The reality of everything that had happened to her smacked her upside her head and she sobered a little. Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she hesitantly told him, “My children are here tonight if you want to meet them?”

“I do. Of course I do,” he said with an odd smile, standing up with her still in his arms. “But we might want to get dressed first
.”

Giddily, she beamed at him as she pulled out a robe she had stashed up there for this moment. She hated handing it to him because that meant he was going to be covering up his gorgeous body and it had been ten long years since she had gotten to ogle it to her heart’s content. Well, at least in real life
. Her canvases were filled with Armand. “This night has been so amazing, Armand. Don’t ever leave me again.”

His gaze heated as his eyes roamed over her nude body and she felt the blush begin along her chest. With a smile, she grabbed her clothes and dressed, tying the skirt at her waist to keep it up. Armand’s laughter washed through her and settled in her soul, making her deliriously happy. She was soaring on the euphoria flooding her system as she weaved her fingers with his. “Um, don’t freak out when you see them.”

He stopped dead in his tracks and looked down at her, arching a single eyebrow and looking absolutely, deliciously imperious. “Pardon? Are they green-skinned metamorphs?”

“Well, they spent most of their lives in a faerie realm where time moves differently,” she said slowly, her brows drawing together in trepidation. “They’re not small children. And, um, no one knows that they’re mine.”

Armand’s lips parted but no words came out and she grinned. She had managed to render Armand speechless. Pressing her finger beneath his chin to close his mouth, she tugged on his arm and grinned, “Come on, everyone is going to be so excited to see you. It’s going to be such a surprise!”

Armand hadn’t been sure what to expect
when Ferris had suddenly sat up and physically closed herself off to him but it sure as hell wasn’t a confession to being a mother. It pained him to admit to the surge of jealousy that threatened to burst through his skin when she told him she hadn’t been celibate, which was ridiculous since he told her to find someone to love. He hated the idea of anyone else touching her and he knew it was hypocritical since he had touched so many women.

Hell, because he didn’t have enough faith in Ferris he had given up his nights to Felicity. What right did he have
to feel jealous because Ferris found comfort in another man’s arms? She was with him when he woke up. She found a way to wake him up early.

His brows drew together in a slight frown as he recalled her words about getting drunk and he wondered if perhaps
it was not entirely consensual. He remembered how muddled she got when she drank and if some asshole took advantage of her by getting her drunk he was going to kill someone. Obviously it was a supernatural creature since humans normally didn’t have access to any other realm and if they did they didn’t survive long. If Ferris had been in a place where time moved rapidly she should have aged and she hadn’t, which only made him even more curious to hear her story. It was bound to be interesting.

Only Ferris.
She was the only human he knew who was accepted by everyone that wasn’t human. Draping an arm around her slender shoulders, he pulled her against him, smiling that she was back where she belonged. Gods, he had been a fool to not give her his nights. Out of all of the women in the universe she was the only one who would never have left him.

The only one.

A surge of panic welled up within him as the ramifications started to hit him: Ferris moved Heaven and Earth to be with him. How was he ever going to live up to her expectations? When he only had a month he was able to be the man she believed him to be but the thought of being that man every day for the rest of his life was exhausting. Ferris deserved so much more. How was he ever going to be what she needed?

His smile felt strained as his doubts and concerns waged war in his head, as his heart beat frantically in his chest. She was going to want him to give up his nights for her
and it was the very least she deserved after proving her steadfastness and loyalty. But the idea of giving up his nights for a third time turned his stomach to lead and filled him with dread unlike any he had ever known. Even knowing she would accept his gift and complete the ritual wasn't enough to alleviate his anxiety.