“What—” she started to say—and then lost all coherent thought, because he was lowering her again. Only now he was bare as well, his hardness pressing into her folds. Just the barest contact, his straining tip stretching her entrance. She writhed, trying to take more of him, but his arms were like iron.
“Rose,” he gasped, holding them right on the edge of fulfillment. "I feel—I know—this is forever?”
Her wetness slicked his shaft, her body completely ready and open. The mate bond was a broad, brilliant path between them, leading straight into her innermost heart. She had a sense of gathering power at the other end, a raging inferno held back by the thinnest of firebreaks. Ready to sweep over her, through her, consuming and transforming.
She wasn’t afraid.
“Yes.” She opened her body and mind and soul to the fire. To him. “Forever.”
His power lanced through her, a white-hot ecstasy as great as the surge of his body into hers. He drove in deep, into her mind, into her soul.
Our mate! her swan sang, black wings stretching wide, welcoming him home. Our mate!
Chapter 9
It was wrong, he knew. But he was so thoroughly damned already, what was one more small sin?
Her fingers intertwined through his. The soft sweetness of her pulse echoed through his own veins. He couldn’t let go.
Not again.
So Ash held Rose’s hand, and let her lead him through the darkening night.
The streetlamp was lit outside the Full Moon, bathing the old, homely building in a warm yellow glow. Rose tugged him up to the front door, casting a shy, hesitant smile up at him. Even in the flickering artificial light, he could see that there was something new in her expression. A tentative unfurling, like the first flower of spring turning to the sun.
He looked away, unable to bear that faint, shining hope in her eyes. But he still didn’t let go of her hand.
After decades apart, every second in contact with her was a gift. A grace. He was not strong enough to refuse it.
Especially not now.
Rose unlocked the door. The main room of the pub was dark, chairs upturned onto tables for the night. By sheer force of habit, he turned in the direction of Alpha Team’s usual corner, but Rose tugged on his hand.
“Not down here,” she said, guiding him past the bar and through the door at the back. “Come on.”
The corridor was even darker than the front room, but he didn’t need light to know the way. The worn stairs were familiar under his boots. He’d climbed them many times over the years, usually due to some crisis. Whenever one of the team needed help, whenever something threatened their mates…it was always to the small private room at the Full Moon that they came.
Dai, Chase, Griff, John, Hugh…he’d witnessed all their struggles and their triumphs here. Helped them, inasmuch as he could. Watched them gather together, friends, colleagues, family. Sometimes at odds with each other, like any group of brothers, but always, ultimately, united.
Tonight the meeting room was locked and silent. He went past it without a pause.
There was a door at the end of the corridor. This one he had never been through. He’d dreamed of opening it so often that it seemed unreal to step through it now.
“Well,” Rose said, peeking up at him sidelong. “Here we are.”
She opened her fingers. After a moment, he made himself open his, releasing her hand. She left his side, moving around to turn on a couple of lamps. Darkness gave way to a soft, welcoming light.
His first impression was vibrant color and warmth. Her room above the pub was not much larger than his own living space, but whereas his territory was plain and utilitarian, hers was filled with homely details.
A thick rug with a geometric orange pattern that reminded him of flames softened the worn oak floorboards. A single armchair, deep and comfortable, with a tangle of half-finished knitting draped over one arm. From the rich indigo color and wave-like texture, he guessed it was a baby blanket f
or John and Neridia’s yet-unborn child. Half the shifter infants in Brighton slept swaddled in the loving work of her hands.
She only had a small kitchenette up here—just a hot plate and a microwave. Of course, she would do her cooking downstairs in the pub, much as he prepared his own meals in the fire station’s kitchen. A single plate and cup were upside-down on the draining board next to the sink. She ate alone, as he did, above the place that was her life’s work.
A half-open door on the other side of the room showed him a glimpse of her bed. He jerked his gaze quickly away, and found himself staring at a wall of framed photos. He recognized some of them—Brighton Pier, the shingle beach, the sweeping view over the city from the top of the enclosing hills. An open day at the fire station, a long time ago, Dai and Chase with their arms draped over each other’s shoulders. Young, so young.
Others were clearly family photos. Aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces. Some of them dark-skinned, some pale, but all with Rose’s elegant, swan-like poise. A succession of pictures tracked half a dozen children growing from chubby-cheeked infants to smiling or scowling adolescents.