His expression sobered. He bent down a little, cupping her face in both hands.
“I will never leave you again,” he said, his voice low and intense. “My place is at your side. I will always protect and guard and cherish you…as you do me. You are my strength. And I will never again be so arrogant and foolish as to forget that.”
“Good.” Rose tipped her head back, drawing him down to her parted lips. “Don’t.”
Warmth spread through her chest as they kissed. The mate bond pulsed in her mind, urging her to press closer against him. Even though they were standing in plain sight in the middle of a smoldering battlefield, need roared through her blood.
She’d felt that overpowering, overwhelming instinct before, twenty years ago. In a run-down motel room, just after they’d escaped the warlock base, as she’d bandaged his wounds…
“Ash!” she exclaimed, jerking away in alarm. “I don’t think we’re fully mated!”
He pulled away a little, brow furrowing. She had a sense of him turning inward, examining the restored connection between them.
“You’re right.” He didn’t sound at all dismayed. Rather, a pleased, wicked heat lit in his dark eyes. His strong hands drew her closer to him, his body hard and hot against hers. “The bond is there, but it’s not fully consummated yet. Which means there’s something we need to do…”
A scream split the air. Ash let out a muffled, frustrated groan, burying his face in her neck.
She had to laugh, even though her own body ached at the interruption. “One day,” she said ruefully, “we might actually be able to have five minutes to ourselves without some crisis interrupting.”
He bit her neck lightly, making her toes curl. “I plan to take more than five minutes.”
At the moment, she would have taken thirty seconds. But reluctantly, she pushed him away. “Well, right now I’d better go see what I can do to help Neridia. But I will hold you to that.”
He caught her hand, raising it to his mouth. A delicious shiver ran through her as his breath brushed the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. He planted the softest of kisses over her trembling pulse.
“Soon?” he breathed.
“Soon,” she promised.
Chapter 26
Soon could not come soon enough.
But no matter how Ash’s blood burned with impatience, there were tasks to be done. That was the price of being the leader—those you led instinctively looked to you for guidance, out of habit, out of trust. And a good leader never let his team down.
He could tell his men were riding the razor’s edge after all that had happened—the false, brittle high of adrenaline that came from sustained, intense stress. If they stopped for a moment, they would collapse.
So he didn’t let them stop. He assigned and organized and ordered, with the same calm tone of voice that he’d used through countless fires. He held them together.
And as for himself…he had Rose. Her warmth in his soul was all the strength he needed.
There was no further opportunity to speak, let alone do anything else. She was busy, providing a focus for the women as he did for the men, keeping them occupied with bright, cheerful encouragement.
But every time they passed each other in the corridors, they could share a look. A stolen smile, a swift caress. Every glance, every touch, stoked the fire in him higher.
He had waited twenty years. Yet waiting this final day nearly killed him all over again.
He found an outlet for his frustration in personally scorching away every trace of the warlocks. Both he and his inner animal took a deep satisfaction in that. He reduced even the iron cages to smoke and cinders. No shifter would ever be trapped here again.
By the time Hugh emerged, exhausted but triumphant, to report that mother and newborn were doing well, both menagerie and mansion were scoured clean. Only blackened stones and a rapidly-dispersing pile of ash showed that anything had happened here at all.
Even once they arrived back at Shifting Sands Resort, there were tasks. Explanations and apologies—unsurprisingly, Chase’s version of events had left much to be desired in terms of clarity. It took several hours for Ash to more fully explain matters to Scarlet, the resort manager. She wanted to know everything about the warlocks—especially how to recognize them, and their weaknesses.
“I do not know if the danger is fully passed,” he admitted to her. “Their leader is dead, but there may still be others remaining, in hiding. And they know about this place now.”
“And now I know about them.” Scarlet leaned back in her office chair, a dangerous glint in her eye. “If they come here again…they will regret it.”
He almost pitied any warlock who tried to set foot on Shifting Sands in the future. He couldn’t tell what manner of shifter the strange, red-haired woman might be, but there was no doubt that she was formidable.