What Rough Beast [Blood Oath 1] (23 page)

She smiled with malicious glee at how easily she'd outmaneuvered them.

Then her nose wrinkled.

Too bad
she
hadn't consulted
them.

Turned out the pair of them had been right about the physical drain on her body. Luc had been horrified when she'd drained Garrick to share the ruinous effects of wolfsbane on his body. Kate was half convinced the strength Garrick had drawn on to return to her had been spurred by his fear that the poison seeping into her might kill her rather than him. Probably because it almost had. Even under Garrick's care and vigilant attention, Kate had nearly died.

She shivered.

Still, neither man had ever hinted that blood-mating would intensify more than their physical union.

They'd focused on the physical hazards.

Not a word about the mental and emotional ones.

She hadn't been prepared.

Not for that.

She sighed.

She didn't understand why they'd been so fearful of the physical aspect of blood-mating. She had to admit that, yeah, things hadn't gone so hot at first. For a few heart-stopping minutes, until Garrick had fastened his mouth to her wrist, she'd been sure that, rather than saving him, Kate had killed them both. Scary. But most of her new life was.

Kate—and Garrick—had survived blood-mating, though. With her body to share the burden of poison polluting his, his strength had returned at an incredible rate. Just as she'd suspected. The weres wouldn't spare medicines to heal Garrick, but they'd been desperately eager to give Luc whatever he needed to save her.

She'd outsmarted them all.

She'd been pleasantly surprised to find she enjoyed the escalation that cementing their blood bond had wrought in her physical ties with Garrick.

Kate
liked
listening to the faint echo of Garrick's heartbeat. She'd grown fond of the steady thrum of his pulse alongside her own. She reveled in the heady bouquet of his scent now always with her. Inside her. An integral part of her. Still couldn't fall asleep without his arms around her, but at this point, she didn't want to.

And boy, hadn't that been a vicious blow.

She'd anticipated their bodies working in harmony with each other, the physical unity between them.

She hadn't anticipated the mental one.

The psychological union forged by completing their blood bond had set her already precarious equilibrium floundering. His mind in hers, intimately joined and now cemented, had raised the fine hairs at her nape to urgent attention from the moment Kate had realized she couldn't push Garrick away.

She'd hoped that the separation from him might help her regain her distance.

Allow her to harden her heart.

Steel her mind.

So although the notion of his being out of her sight pained her, she'd asked him to go earlier that evening.

If he wasn't near her, his warm eyes on her, his ready embrace so close, maybe she'd be able to shore up her defenses. She'd plant her feet on solid ground again. She'd sort herself and her wildly chaotic emotions out. She'd been so sure.

She'd been wrong.

He was in her head.

To stay.

She couldn't shut him out.

And Kate had grown more and more certain with each passing minute that the only solid ground she'd ever find was at Garrick's side.

He was where she belonged.

So she'd come to him.

Only to discover, while she'd been struggling toward her earth-shattering epiphany, Luc and Garrick had been busily plotting their stupid war.

She glared at him.

"You are such a jerk."

Garrick chuckled.
"Am I allowed to link with you, then?"

"No."
She pulled at his arm.

He didn't budge.

"You were whipped within an inch of your life a few days ago. And poisoned!” Her lips thinned. “You should be resting. Rebuilding your strength. This is ridiculous. Outrageous. Even for you,” she said, accusing eyes flashing at Garrick.

"We haven't allowed the war to intrude on you. The rigors of mating, adapting to your new nature, they are trial enough.” Luc darted a glance to Garrick, then settled back in his chair. “Fighting hasn't ground to a halt, bebe. The war goes on, and as long as it does, we must be wary."

Garrick nodded. “Masters hunt us."

Kate rolled her eyes. “According to you, they've hunted us all along.” Mindful of the circle of welts Peter's silver manacles had burned into Garrick's wrists, she snatched at his fingers and dragged at them. He simply smiled at her. “An hour of downtime won't make any difference to your war, and it'll do you a world of good. Come on."

He dug in his heels, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Downtime?"

"Entire minutes when neither one of us is sucking blood out of the other. No whacked-out vampire mojo. No werewolves either. No war."

"Masters are drawing closer. I was careful while I hunted for him, but not enough.” Luc frowned. “They haven't tracked on to us yet, but they will. We need to prepare."

"You are such a drama queen, Luc. Don't think I haven't noticed that about you."

He scowled at her.

Ignoring her guardian, she focused on Garrick instead. “You can do what regular people do for sixty lousy minutes without life as we know it coming to its bitter end in some grand vampire apocalypse.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “And if that's too much of a stretch, you can damn well
pretend
."

The corner of his mouth kicked up.

"And you have to keep your pants on."

He laughed.

"Zipped too."

A boyish grin lit his face, softening his autocratic features.
"What's the fun in that?"

She glowered at him.
"I took care of the poison, but you're still too beat up from Peter's whip. No sex. So can it."

"I will never be so weak or damaged that I don't want you, love."
His fingers covered hers, his hand squeezing hers with easy affection. His eyes shone, sparking with wry humor.

Embedded in his mind as he was in hers, Kate felt his bright pleasure like a kick to her solar plexus.

Just when she thought he couldn't surprise her, that he'd never catch her off guard again, he floored her.

Garrick was happy.

For the very first time, he was truly and genuinely happy.

Lighthearted even.

She gaped at him.

"You bring the worst out in me."

Then he winked.

"All right. Let's give it a try,” he said. “I can't guarantee you the human perception of normalcy, but I can give you ours. For the next hour, we'll pretend there's no war."

Luc bolted upright in his seat. “We've evacuation plans to review. We may need them. Garrick! Where do you think you're going?"

"To show Kate the garden.” He lifted their joined hands to his lips, kissed her fingers. “With any kind of luck, she'll seduce me. Don't wait up."

The night sang.

A light breeze stirred needles in scraggy pines along either side of the flagstone path and swished spears of prematurely green foliage underneath.

Still shoeless, she felt the stone smooth and cold against the soles of her feet. Garrick slung an arm around her shoulders and when she shivered, pulled her against the furnace of his body. “Stay close to me. The early spring brought on the first blooms, but the nights can still be cool,” he murmured into the shell of her ear. “Your eyes have adjusted now, yes?"

She nodded.

The half-moon washed the planes and angles of his face in an eerie, muted silver.

The night was alive with nocturnal creatures.

Kate was too disturbingly aware that she was now one of them. Rather than wallowing in the strange turn her life had taken, she sank blissfully into the warmth of his embrace. She'd hauled him out, away from his war. The least she could do was pretend to be normal too. “Tell me about your garden. You don't strike me as the digging-in-the-dirt type."

He chuckled. “Usually, no. The garden began as a practicality. For the weres,” he said at her bewildered gaze. “See the hood-shaped flowers that run down those stalks there?” He pointed to sprays of drooping blue ahead. “That's Aconitum, also called monkshood from the shape of the bloom.” His brow winged up in droll mischief. “You'll know it as wolfsbane."

She shuddered.

"They're among the first to come out every spring. The flowers are beautiful in the moonlight. Poisonous but beautiful.” He smiled down at her. “And necessary. Every pack needs wolfsbane to keep its weres in line. Which is why I began these woody shrubs.” He tipped his head to stems that barely reached her knees off the path to their right. “They'll grow almost as tall as you are. By midsummer, they'll be dotted with dull purple bell-shaped flowers."

She bent to take a better look. “What is it?"

"Belladonna."

She jerked back.

"I see you've heard of it.” He laughed. “I grow belladonna, deadly nightshade, to treat accidental exposure to wolfsbane. The pack's whelps know to steer clear of my garden, but wild patches have seeded and spread to high ground in the swamp. I thought it wise to provide the pack with the ability to make medicines. Just in case."

She gulped and then stood. “But isn't belladonna poisonous?"

"In this form? Very. But atropine, a thoroughly modern medicine, is derived from it.” His mouth curved. “You tricked the pack out of its supply of belladonna, love. It saved our lives."

Poison to treat poison?

She shook her head in amazement. “Are all of the flowers deadly?"

"Most of them are ordinary,” he said, “but I developed a taste for more exotic plants once I'd gone beyond gardening for practical purposes and decided to incorporate a moon garden into the grounds."

"What's a moon garden?"

Smiling, he held her hand, leading her down the path. “Just a little farther. You'll see."

The path widened to a small clearing beyond a bend ahead, and as she drew nearer, the scent of jasmine and roses tickled her nose. When she rounded the curve, her eyes widened. Her heart fluttered in her chest.

Flowers, white and luminescent by the soft glow of the moon, seemed to float in the air, green stems and leaves lost in the darkness. Five-pointed stars, blooms drooping from shadowy vines, and trumpet-shaped blossoms shimmered magically. Shiny leaves she recognized as silver sage clustered beneath, joined by gray sprigs of lamb's ears and others she didn't recognize.

"A moon garden is one designed to be enjoyed by moonlight, Kate."

Her heart skipped a beat.

He'd planted a garden she could take pleasure in, even at darkest midnight.

Because she wouldn't be able to tolerate the sun until her skin recovered, which wouldn't happen for years.

Roses climbed a shadowy trellis behind a swing hanging from a tree to one side. Carnations in enormous terra cotta pots bracketed each end. And before them, he'd tamed the swamp into an ornamental pond dotted with white blossoms that climbed inches above the water.

The night was perfumed with a heady mixture of rich fragrances. Her calf brushed against potted elephant ears marching in a line down the entrance to the magical world Garrick had created, the heart-shaped leaves like velvet on her skin.

"I start most of the flowering plants from seed, then transfer them once the danger of frost is over. Without the early spring, I wouldn't have dared transplant so soon, but I couldn't wait for you to see it.” He grinned. “The five-pointed stars with the dark pink centers? They're four o'clocks. They bloom in the afternoon and close up at dawn. It's still too soon for night phlox or my angel's trumpets, but they're night bloomers too. That vine? Night-blooming jasmine. It's flowering, but it won't really take off for another couple of weeks."

Awestruck—and humbled—she took in the banquet of lush blooms and spears of silvery plants.

"How long have you worked on this?"

He shrugged a diffident shoulder. “I needed something to do while I waited for you."

Emotion tightened her throat. “You did this for me?"

"Of course I did it for you.” He looked down at her, tucked a lock of her hair behind one ear. “I can be much more romantic than a colonoscopy."

She laughed at his crooked smile, the mischievous sparkle in his eyes, but that glimmer slowly faded, replaced by beseeching warmth. His hand lifted to cup her cheek, cradling her jaw so that his thumb stroked her smooth skin. “Just give me a chance, Kate. That's all I've ever wanted."

Her shoulders sank. “You want a lot more than a chance."

"You're right. I want an end to this bloody disaster of a war. No more killing. No more brutal slavery and death. I want a home. A safe haven for my weres, for weres everywhere, and a sanctuary for Luc to mature into adulthood.” He bent so that his forehead kissed hers. “But none of it would mean anything without you. Give me the chance to win you, Kate. Let me prove myself to you."

His eyes glimmered in the silvery darkness, bluer than any sky Kate could remember, purer than the sunlight she could barely recall and hardly missed. The love shining in his stare warmed all the cold spaces inside her. Made her heart wish for more and fear it all at the same time. “But we've mated,” she said, waiting in trembling anticipation of his mouth on hers. “I killed you and brought you back. It's done."

"Our blood-mating has ended.” Gaze never faltering from hers, he slowly shook his head. “Another step, an important one, but blood-mating completes only the most elemental aspects of pair-bonding among our kind."

She gulped, heart knocking against her ribs. “There's more?"

His lips curved. “You know there is."

That was the problem.

She did.

And she wanted no part of it.

She pulled away from him, jerked her glance away.

She crossed her arms over her chest, and without his body's shelter against the night's chill, she rubbed to warm herself. “Talk to me."

He sighed.

She moved to the bench that had been strung to the tree with chains to form an old-fashioned swing. Goosebumps pebbled her skin when she settled on the seat. She shivered when it swayed. So cold. Without him, she was so cold. “Tell me about your war."