Chapter Twelve
Chapter
Twelve
Meg
I’m still shivering hours later as I sit in Beck’s
lap atop Sweeney’s great back. Beck has spoken very little since he saved me.
It seemed like a good thing to let him stew at the time, but it’s been many
miles since he said a word. I’m getting tired of the silence. I want to start
over. I’ve made the decision to give us a real chance and I’m impatient.
After the incident with the homicidal water horse, Beck took
me back to camp and warmed me up. He carefully laid my wet clothes by the fire
to dry. He cleaned and cooked a couple of rabbits and forced me to eat. He lay
under the blankets with me until he was satisfied I wouldn’t die from the cold.
Then he gave me back the dry clothes and packed up our camp. He said all of ten
words to me, most of them commands. The silence is becoming unbearable.
I do the only thing I can think of. If I’m staying with him,
then I need to start training him. Sure, it usually goes the other way. The
submissive gets trained by the Dom, but I’ve decided that my Dom is a dumbass
and things will work differently for us. I never actually got those books I
ordered off the Internet, so I’m on my own. I have to let my instincts guide
me.
Everything I’ve said or done has been consciously
submissive. I’ve been giving in to my every urge. I cuddle up against him,
giving him all of my affection. Even while riding, I hold on to his waist and
bury my face in the curve of his neck. He probably doesn’t notice, but he
relaxes when I cling to him. He prefers to be in physical contact with me.
I watch from my cozy place as the forest gives way to what
looks like an endless field. Still, Beck is silent.
“Are we almost home?” I ask, looking up at him.
“Almost,” he replies stoically.
“I’m sorry.” I nuzzle against his neck. I absolutely love
the smell of him. “Are you ever going to forgive me?”
His eyes are serious as he looks down at me, but he doesn’t
move away.
“It hasn’t been very long, love. My bones are still cold
from jumping in the river after you. Perhaps you should let me warm up before
we start talking about forgiveness.” He sighs and rubs my back soothingly. “I
don’t blame you. I should have known you would run.”
“I wasn’t running,” I protest. Beck’s eyebrows arch
skeptically. “Okay, so I was at first. Then I realized that I want to give this
thing a chance. We really do have a connection, and I want to explore that. I
know you won’t believe it, but I was trying to get back to you. I got lost.”
“Of course you got lost,” Beck says with a frown. “You don’t
know your way around the forest. You could have been killed. You almost were.”
I smile up at him. “You saved me.”
“Barely.”
I think about the strange little man in his red suit. I
shiver as I consider the fact that he told me to get on the kelpie and ride.
“Are those kelpie things common here?”
Beck shakes his head. “No, but they are very famous.”
“So anyone who lives here would know not to ride one.” I’m
starting to believe that little red dude had it out for me.
“This is what we refer to as a neutral plane. That means
there wasn’t a civilization here when we found it. Fae creatures have wandered
off and on the place for centuries. Some stayed. I suppose there are plenty of
beings on the plane that might not understand what a kelpie is.”
“So he might not have known.” He might have been confused.
Though I have a hard time believing that. He seemed to know the forest very
well.
“Who might not have known?” Beck’s voice goes positively
glacial. “Did you meet someone in the woods?”
I might have been better off keeping my mouth shut. “It was
a man, a little man. He seemed old. He said he could take me to my home plane.”
Beck stops the horse and looks down at me, his expression a
mask of horror. “You met a Planeswalker? Oh, goddess, Meggie, that was a demon.
What did you promise him?”
I shake my head vigorously. “Nothing. I told him I wanted to
get back to you, and he pointed me to the kelpie. That was a demon? I thought
they’d be bigger. I also thought they would have more style. I guess red is
kind of their color, though.”
Beck lets out a long breath of air. “He was a short man,
dressed in red from head to toe?”
I nod.
“It was Far Darrig. He’s a trickster. It’s his
mission to trick travelers. He can read your mind, so he knows how to get to
you.” Clicking his teeth, Beck gets the horse moving again. “Don’t talk to
strangers. I don’t want you to be alone until you get used to this place. If
you need to go somewhere, you take me or Cian with you.”
Beck returns to his silence, his eyes on the road, watching
for threats.
“Will you kiss me?” I don’t want to think about all the
creatures on this plane that might kill us. I have other things to worry about.
I have a husband to train.
“You want me to kiss you?” His voice rises slightly as he
asks the question, as though he isn’t sure he heard me correctly.
“Yes,” I reply with as much innocence as I can manage. “I
have since the moment I met you. Kiss me, please. It makes me feel safe.”
His gray eyes look slightly mystified, but he bends his head
down and softly kisses my lips. I hold still, letting him control the kiss.
It’s gentle, tender even, and when he pulls away, he kisses the top of my head
as well. He settles his cloak around my shoulders, surrounding me with warmth.
I try pushing my contentment outward. I’m not sure about how
the whole psychic connection works, but I know it’s there. He needs to know and
come to trust that I’m happy with him.
When I feel him chuckle deep in his chest, I know it worked.
That chuckle is the sound of a man satisfied with himself. For some reason,
Beck is unsure of his ability to please a woman. His instincts are all screwed
up. Something happened to make him doubt himself and turn his back on his true
nature. I have to smash that wall down if we’re going to be happy. I’ll use our
connection to do it. Somewhere along the way I fall asleep, happily thinking of
all the ways I intend to get past his barriers.
“Wake up, love.” His voice pulls me from my nap.
I try to sit up and realize Sweeney has stopped moving.
“Well, finally,” a familiar voice says from below. I rub my
eyes and see Dante standing with crossed arms, looking up at us. He looks
haggard and tired. “It took you forever. I expected you late this morning.”
“Meg decided to take a ride on a kelpie,” Beck replies
sardonically. “It caused me to push back my schedule.”
Dante’s green eyes go wide, and his mouth drops open. He’s
utterly fangless now.
“Seriously?” He turns my way. “What the hell were you
thinking? Kelpies like to eat people.”
I stiffen at the thought of what might have happened. “It
was going to eat me? You didn’t tell me it was planning on eating me.”
“Well, it wasn’t inviting you to tea.”
Beck hands me down to the vampire. Dante sets me squarely on
my feet.
“It was a close thing. The kelpie took her deep. I had to
slit its throat before it would let her go. I damn near drowned myself.”
“That explains it.” Dante rubs a palm across his forehead.
“Early this morning, Cian stopped breathing. It freaked me out. I really
thought he was dead this time. He started again after a minute of my
frantically shaking him. I was surprised that worked. He’s weaker than I
thought.”
Beck slaps his cousin on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine now.”
He turns to his horse and releases the saddle on its back. With an easy
strength, he hefts the heavy saddle with one arm and smacks the horse’s rump
with the other. “Go on now. Go rest.” The great beast lumbers off to wherever
it goes to rest.
“You haven’t seen him.” Dante rushes after Beck. “He’s worse
than ever. I don’t know if you can bring him back.”
I follow the small procession, trying to take in my new home
as I hurry to keep up. It looks a little like a farm out of the shire from Lord
of the Rings. If the inhabitants had averaged six and a half feet and let
everything decay around them.
The front yard is badly in need of attention. There’s a
small flower garden, but whatever grew there lost the battle against invading
weeds long ago. There’s also an odd-looking motorcycle leaning against a fence.
The bike proudly boasts a Harley-Davidson logo. So weird.
Beck sighs as he looks at the garden, completely ignoring
the bike. There’s an air of unsurprised disappointment about him. “I suppose
the vegetable garden is the same.”
“Worse.” Dante’s boot kicks the dirt where there should have
been flowers growing. “Flanna and some girls from the village came and saved
what they could. She said she would preserve the vegetables and make jelly from
the strawberries, but that was all she could promise.”
Beck nods. “I’ll be sure to thank her in the morning. Her
family is good to us. We’ll need every bit we can salvage if we’re going to
make it through the winter.”
“Damn it, Beck. I can help.”
Whatever the vampire is about to say is cut off by Beck’s
low growl. “I’ll provide for my wife.”
I slip my hand into Beck’s. Now is a good time to continue
his training. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
I’m not. I am slightly terrified. The house, or brugh
as Beck calls it, is small, and though solidly built, there’s an air of neglect
about it. I have more work to do than I could have imagined. I try to let none
of that slip through. I focus on giving off an air of trust and love.
“I promise you won’t go hungry,” Beck says, stroking my
hair. He does it unconsciously now. He hasn’t started reaching for me yet, but
when I touch him, he pulls me close and seems to revel in the contact.
“I know,” I say, giving him a sweet smile.
Beck sighs and squeezes my shoulders. “I’m going in, love.
You stay out here for a moment with Dante. Let me get Cian ready. He’d kill me
if I let you see him at his worst.”
The door opens and closes behind him. I’m left alone with a
grinning Dante.
“The human learns,” Dante snarks.
I roll my eyes and punch him on the arm. I’ve never had an
obnoxious brother, but that’s what Dante feels like. In some ways, I’m more
comfortable with him than Beck. “I’ll have you know I’m highly educated,
asshole. I have two degrees. How many do you have?”
“Only the one,” Dante allows. His chest puffs with pride. “I
graduated from the most respected business college in America.”
“You mean Vampire America.” I really want to see what
America looks like with vamps in control. “What did you major in? Boozing?
Partying? Falling asleep in class?”
Dante looks thrilled with my new attitude. “The real Meggie
Finn comes to life, thank the gods. I thought you were a little boring there
for a while, but I caught the faintest hint of bitch, so I had hope. I merely
minored in boozing, though I was excellent at it, thank you. I have a degree in
management systems. How about you?”
“English and history,” I reply, looking out at the barn. It
needs a coat of paint, but it seems solid. There’s a pen with what I hope are
regular, non-homicidal sheep in the far field. I’m not going to presume. After
all, the horses here try to eat people.
Dante snorts. “You studied English? Seriously? You got a
degree in a language you already speak?”
“There’s more to it than that.” It’s not the first time I
had to defend my choice of degrees. “There are novels, and the study of how to
write.”
“The schools must be different there. I knew how to write in
first grade. I guess you’re slower. All I know is my parents would never have
paid for me to lounge around for four years studying a language I already knew
how to speak and reading DLs. Maybe you should have taken a course in how to
avoid getting eaten by deadly forest creatures.”
I plant my feet and scowl. “It wasn’t like there was a sign
saying watch out for woman-eating horses. How was I supposed to know?”
“You weren’t supposed to run,” Dante says with a sad shake
of his head. “You were supposed to listen to my advice and stick it out with
Beck. They didn’t teach common sense at your school, did they?”
“I’m not running anymore. I am done with running away. It
only gets me into trouble. For your information, I’ve decided to take your
advice and work on Beck.”
Leaning against the side of the house, Dante’s smile becomes
slightly lascivious. “Have you got him to top you yet, sweetheart?”
I return the smile without a hint of self-consciousness. I’m
also through with feeling ashamed of the things I want. Nearly dying in an
icy-cold river trapped by a horse with Super Glue for skin cured me of that. In
some ways I feel different. Like the river changed me. I feel…fierce. “Not yet,
but I’m working on the problem. So you know something about the type of
relationship I want with Beck?”
The vampire shrugs. “Sure. It’s common where I come from.
You’ve got to understand, he has his reasons for being afraid of what he needs.
You’ll have to pull it out of him.”
“That might be hard. I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s not
like I’ve had a Dom before. I know what I want, but I’m not sure how to get
it.”
“I can help you with that.” He pulls out that ever-present
tablet. It apparently has a home inside his jacket. He types something on the
keyboard and flips it around. The LCD screen flows as an enormous list of
downloadable material on the subject comes up.
“Have a problem? We’ve got a DL to solve it.” He lets his
lanky body slide down to sit in the dirt by the front door. “Sit with me, Meg.
We’ll see what we can learn.”
I take a deep breath and stare at the vampire. It’s time to
make a deal. “I will, but only on one condition.”
“I’ll bite,” Dante says with an ironic grin.
“Later, you have to take me for a ride on that motorcycle.”
The bike looks cool.
“You got it, sister,” Dante agrees.
I’m satisfied and sink down beside Dante.