Altered

  “What?” she asked, seeing the look on my face. She grinned. “What!” she whisper-shrieked.

  “I think we already did that part.” They both gasped and leaned in. “On the beach, right after he saved me. He said ‘you’re mine now’ and I said ‘and you’re mine’. Does that mean…?”

  “Yes!” they both squealed and tackled me in a group hug. “Ohmigosh!” and “You’re mates!” and “So sweet!” were all mixed together in a jumble.

  “Wait.” I stopped them, unable to let the happiness bubble over if it wasn’t true. “Are you sure that’s what it means.”

  “If that’s what he said, that’s what it means,” Regina answered. “Mine means mine. Mine means his. That is the word he would use to claim his mate. He may not have had the official talk with you because, yo, you just died and all, but you’re totally mates.”

  Clara joined the group with a curious look on her face and I was worried she’d be angry. We’d never been close. Even as teenagers, we’d always been more the sisters that fought and avoided each other than the kind that stuck together and did things. When it got quiet, she knew it had to do with Enoch. She made a sulky face, but smiled. “What is it? I can take it.”

  “Enoch…”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I made Fay my mate.” I whipped around at the sound of Enoch’s voice to find him there with a smirk on his face. “That is what we’re talking about, right, ladies?”

  I didn’t know what to say so I just stared. He was alone and his smile was soft as he made his way to us, his steps silent in the grass but strong, and they made his entire body shift. I gulped, suddenly not sure what to do with this man who was stalking over like a panther. His gaze never left mine until he reached me. He handed Clara and me a mug of something.

  “Hot chocolate,” he told us. “Eli and the rest of the guys are coming. Sorry, girls. I only had two hands, but I know I saw Franz with some mugs so I’m sure some is coming for you,” he told Soria and Regina with a wink.

  “That’s okay,” they said dazedly. I laughed under my breath.

  “So, you hate me again?” he asked Clara.

  “Why?”

  “I stole your sister,” he told her, but looked down at me.

  She shrugged. “So we’re even.”

  ___________

  I could hear the river as he tugged me along. It was dark, but the moon was so bright. I looked back and could see tents everywhere. The Colorado group only had about thirty to begin with, so we were the bulk of their mass. Clara had said that Eli and Franz’s money funded most of the cause. And I knew Enoch had money, too, though I had no clue as to the extent of it. Some of the fruits of that money were in my hand. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  I had a backpack full of clothes and stuff I’d need, as did Enoch. We stopped on the way and got some necessities. We were going to be camping after all. For how long, no one knew. We had spies and eyes out looking for word from the Horde and the new councils with the witches and the elves.

  Things would get worse before they would get better.

  “Hey.” I turned to look at him. He was serious and gruff, worried. “You all right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” I half-smiled, holding my sleeping bag to my chest tight. I went ahead of him in the tent and kicked my shoes off outside. I laid my sleeping bag out, unzipped it and, opened it up. He was kneeling beside me, watching me. “If you put yours on top of mine, then we can zip them together and we’ll both fit.”

  He sighed. “You want to sleep with me?”

  I blinked. “You don’t?”

  He chuckled and leaned in to hug me to him. “Of course I do. I just never got to talk with you and when Clara asked me…” I leaned back just enough to look up at him. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to be upset with me about saying you were mine.” I shivered. Regina was right. Hearing I was his… He groaned, but that swiftly moved into a husky chuckle that he pressed to my ear. “Ah, my little human, you’re killing me.”

  “No,” I told him, but it came out as nothing but breath. “I’m not angry.”

  “You stalled outside the tent.” He paused. My Enoch was unsure. “I thought it might be that I claimed you and had not discussed—”

  “I’m yours.” I looked up so he could see my eyes. I knew right away he was mourning my blue eyes, but what I saw in his face couldn’t be real. He had said before that love changed things. He hadn’t said he loved me, but I think it was obvious that we were well past like. You know when you’re on a course that you know is the right one. You can’t explain it, you can’t define it, you don’t know how you got there or what all the obstacles will be, you just know the end result will be amazing and it will be worth it.

  That was the road I was on.

  Full speed ahead, no blinkers or turn signals, just cruise control.

  He cupped my face and didn’t ask, he took. This was the Enoch I knew. He pushed the backpack from my shoulders and tossed it in the far corner. He pulled away to reach over and zip the tent up. When he returned, he grinned cockily as he took my face again.

  “See, didn’t I tell you I’d get us our own place.”

  I nodded with a smile and tugged him closer with his shirt. He groaned as we crashed together. I knew with everything that had been going on, he hadn’t fed in a while. He hadn’t said anything, but I was beginning to notice the little signs. I let everything come forward, all my feelings for how he saved me, how he cared for me so obviously, how he pushed all his old self away the past few days and really stepped up to show me how much he wanted me, all of it.

  He sucked a breath against my lips. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I’m just being me.”

  He chuckled in that way that said he was annoyed. “You are so going to be a handful.” He swept my hair back. “My little beautiful handful.” He sighed. “I can wait. I know what you’re doing. You’re pushing extra hard to feed me. You’ve been through so much…” he looked down at my neck as if he couldn’t stand to think about it, “…the last couple days and I can wait.” He looked back up at my eyes. They were harder. “Besides, I don’t want you to think this is just me needing to get my fix all the time. I want to touch you because I want to touch you, not just because I need to feed.”

  I nodded. “And you don’t think I want you to touch me?” He paused, still. “You don’t think that when you touch me it doesn’t make me insane?” I breathed. His eyes became a little more lidded as he watched me. “You don’t think that when you look at me like that I don’t want you to kiss me? To put me on your lap and make me sit there for hours?” He gulped. Actually gulped. I felt so much triumph. “The goal is to kiss you, Enoch.” I pushed my arms around his shoulders and kissed his neck. He groaned, the tiniest moan. I moved up on my tiptoes and faced him. “It’s my honor to give you what you need, but the goal is to touch you. Feeding you in the process is just a perk.”

  I felt his hands on the backs of my thighs before he lifted.

  “You aren’t real, Fay,” he whispered harshly against my mouth.

  I wrapped my arms all the way around his head, bringing us as close as we could get. I loved feeling his hands on my legs and our bodies pressed together all the way down, warm and right.

  “I’m real. And I’m yours.”

  “Gah, I love to hear you say that you’re mine,” he growled. We laughed into our kiss, but his kiss was barely a whisper as he lowered us down to the sleeping bag. “You know I’m asking for forever, right?” His eyes closed for a moment and I knew exactly what he was thinking. “As forever as human life will let us have.”

  When he opened them, he tried not to let me see, but it was hard to hide the pain there.

  “Forever is what I want,” I whispered.

  It had crossed my mind, too. Of course it had with all the thoughts of the bonds. But with the way this life was going, we didn’t know what was going to happen. I almost died yesterday. Who knew if I would even mak
e it to fifty. I wasn’t wasting time worrying about that.

  Apparently, neither was he.

  “Come here, little human,” he ordered, cupping my chin and pressing me into the blanket. “No more talking.”

  He covered my mouth with his and his breath caught immediately, picking up on all my feelings, right on the surface. He dove deep, devouring me, and let his hand coast agonizingly slow up my ribs. He stopped and rested it dangerously close before easing himself on his elbow on his other arm and tangling my hair in his hand. Every now and then he would tug and use it to maneuver me, causing me to gasp and groan. That, in turn, would make him groan as he felt what I was feeling. He looked so blissfully happy as he smiled down at me.

  I wrapped a leg around the back of his knee and put my hand under his shirt, using that to pull him as close as I could get him. The torture was exquisite. He tugged my hair to give himself access to my neck, his lips finding new places they’d never ventured. Behind my ear, my collarbone, the hollow of my neck.

  And then I wasn’t in our tent anymore but in a house, on a big bed with the sun peeking through the windows at us. I sat up swiftly, making him lean back a little and almost fall on his butt. He laughed at me as I looked around. I latched my gaze onto the ceiling fan above us, watching it whir and go round, even feeling the wind from it on my face. “How is this real?”

  “Devourers have other charms,” he murmured and pushed me to lie back down, following me and pressing me into the soft bed. I sighed for more than one reason, but pushed him back.

  “So this is real?” I looked around. “This is like really real right now?”

  “No, this is really a reverie,” he said smugly. “I made this with my mind. I can take you anywhere you want to go, anytime you close your eyes.”

  “I don’t even have to be asleep?”

  “No,” he said evenly with a little smile. He was enjoying this.

  “Why have you never done this to me before?”

  “Because we’ve been a little busy trying to not die,” he said with a raised brow. “And I wanted to save it for when you would least expect it. For when it would make you the happiest.”

  I grinned. “Got any more tricks up your sleeve?”

  “Maybe,” he grunted into the skin under my chin. “Do you like it?”

  “What is this place?”

  “This could be our place one day. Maybe.” He smiled and looked around. “This is a very human home, isn’t it? This is what you would want?”

  I stared, stunned silent. “It’s beautiful, Enoch. You made this home up…from your imagination?”

  “Yeah,” he sighed gruffly and let his thumb sweep my jaw line. “Where else would you like to go?”

  I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “Where else can we go?”

  His smiled smugly, sexily. “Anywhere you want to, baby.” He leaned his chin on my chest and looked at me. “I’m your genie. Rub me and make your wishes.” He smiled wider at my laugh.

  “Oh, gosh,” I mused. “I haven’t been to the beach in—”

  I gasped aware on his chest as we laid on a large blanket in the sand.

  He chuckled. “I knew you were going to say the beach. So adorably predictable.”

  I could hear the waves, see the blinding sun and feel the heat of it on my back. I was in a bathing suit—a barely-there little two piece of scraps of material that I was sure Enoch had conjured from the depths of his mind to torture himself into a frenzy. I fingered the strap and looked at him in awe. His grin slid away and he looked a little guilty.

  “I was just kidding with the suit. Here.”

  He moved to sit up and take his shirt off, to give it to me I assumed, but I stopped him, pushing him back down and making him groan with the force of it.

  “The suit is fine,” I said with an awe-filled chuckle. “I’m yours now, right? And your mine? I’m sure we’re going to be seeing…lots of each other.”

  I even sat up and pulled him with me, peeling the shirt from his body for good measure and tossing it away to prove my point before easing him back down and climbing back over him.

  His breath was really loud and rough when it released. He swallowed. “Then what—”

  I basically attacked his mouth and felt every feminine bone stand up and clap for joy when his entire body jolted as he coiled around me. He was so strong. He could lift and move me with just his hands. His big, warm palms settled on the backs on my thighs and I thought that would be where he would end his torture, choosing to kiss me and murmur his words there on my lips for the night, but no. He had other plans obviously. With one arm around my waist and the other holding us up, he maneuvered us so that I was now under him. I gasped at the feel of warm sand under me and warm devourer over me. He settled on me and continued his assault wholeheartedly, his lips sucking little places on my neck, his palm sweeping down my thigh and up my side, his chest pressing mine, skin to skin.

  “So this is what I have to look forward to,” I murmured, my head raised to give him full access to my neck as he kissed the place where my shoulder and neck met. “You taking me anywhere I want to go in the world and making me infinitely happy forever? How is all this really happening to me?” I smiled, but he didn’t say anything.

  I looked up and he was watching me with a sobered face. He scooted up to be directly over my face and cupped my chin, his finger raking over the hump of my jaw. “Say that again where I can watch your face when you say it.”

  I smiled slowly and gripped the forearm of the hand that was caressing me. “You make me happy. Is it really that hard to believe?”

  “You just said it, sweetheart. How is all this happening to me?” He shook his head, but kept his eyes right on mine. “How the hell do I deserve this?” he whispered.

  “We accept the love we think we deserve,” I repeated what I’d told him before. “And I’m falling so hard for you, Enoch Thames.”

  He leaned down and pressed his mouth hungrily to mine before he took both my hands and put them above my head, pressing them to the blanket, and it was there that a decision was made. As he laced my fingers with his, I felt something warm wrap around my chest. I didn’t know what to do but trust it. As I looked up into his eyes, I felt his smile in my very soul. I felt the tendrils of my heart reach out for his and hoped that it was what he wanted, too.

  He had asked me for forever and now I was asking him for the same thing.

  He was kissing me so deep and then he must have felt it, too, because he just stopped moving. His tongue was pressed against mine and then he was pulling away. His eyes looked up and latched onto our entwined hands. Then they were searching my eyes and asking the question. I swallowed and opened my mouth to say something, anything, but he stopped me with a kiss. A kiss that was so soft and thankful, it made me ache.

  He ran his hands through my hair and licked his lips as he pulled back. “I can’t feel happiness, but if I could, it would feel like this.”

  “All right, kid,” I whispered and pointed at the targets placed on the tree line along the bank of the river. The weapons training was taking place and we watched as Aries and Regina practiced with a crossbow. “This is how we do it. You gotta know the ins and outs of every weapon.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I turned to find Clara and Fay and grumbled. “Fun’s over, little man.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “I wondered where he went…you know, since he can’t walk yet and all.”

  “You know if he’s gone that I’ve got him,” I griped and hoisted him higher in my arms. “Come on, Ben. Can you believe these women?” Ben had been Clara’s father’s name. There were going to take the name of her parents, whichever it was going to be, boy or girl.

  Her laugh got louder as she took him from my arms. He started crying and she laughed even harder.

  “See,” I told her and held out an arm for Fay to walk into. “Uncle Enoch knows what he’s doing.”

  “Uncle Enoch has let Ben sit in a wet d
iaper,” she scolded with a smile.

  “Pssh,” I said, brushing the comment off. “Diaper, smiaper. Who needs a clean diaper when there’s male bonding going on?” She rolled her eyes and took him away. I yelled. “I’ll come rescue you later, buddy!”

  I heard Clara’s peals of laughter over the sound of the river. I heard it a lot lately. Fay’s fingers played with the buttons of my shirt. I covered them with mine and looked down at her.

  “One day he’ll understand you and be grateful,” she said with a smug smile.

  “What are you so happy about?” I asked, suddenly intrigued, and put my arms around her, lifting her feet from the ground a little.

  “I got off duties for the night, too.” She grinned. “So I’m all yours.”

  “Ooh,” I said low. “A drive up the mountain? You and me under the stars? Camping? Alone?”

  Her smile left so fast. “Camping? Seriously?”

  “But when we’re way out there, we can make as much noise as we want.”

  She slapped my shoulder, but I gripped her tightly as she giggled. “Enoch Thames!”

  “I meant singing. I don’t want to be embarrassed.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what you meant—”

  “Shut up,” she laughed her words and held my face as she kissed me. “I don’t care where we go,” she whispered and the sincere voice had come out. “I just want to be with you.”

  I opened my eyes to see her face and there it was, the face that told me she was mine and she loved me despite everything I was.

  I smiled. “We’re not camping, princess.” I ticked my head toward the water and my grin widened. “We will be under the stars though.”

  She took one look at the boat and I knew I had scored major points. I lifted her dropped jaw with my fingers. “How did you—”

  “Franz knows people. It’s on loan for the weekend. You saved like…the entire camp. They owe you this one weekend.” I leaned in close. “There’s a bed under the deck and everything.”

  She looked at me and her nose brushed my chin. “Like with springs and stuff?”