The Pagan Stone

“You know zero about engines,” Gage pointed out.

Fox shot up his middle finger. “Sugar in the gas tank. Engine’ll run for a couple miles or so, then it coughs up and dies. Now my truck’s DOA.”

“That’s urban myth.” Cal gestured with his own beer. “It sounds like the sugar got through, clogged your fuel filter or your injectors, and that’s what stopped your engine. You just need your mechanic to change the filters a few times, and drop the tank, clean it out. Cost you a couple hundred.”

“Really? That’s it? But I thought-”

“You’re questioning MacGyver?” Gage asked him.

“Lost my head for a minute. Anyway, I got the sabotage, and it wasn’t a stretch to who. I just angled myself with the bat behind me when Napper showed up.”

“With a gun,” Layla added.

Fox squeezed her hand. “Bullets bounce off me. Almost. And we think of it this way. Napper’s going to be behind bars and out of our hair. I was prepared because of Gage and Cybil, so instead of lying by the side of the road, I’m sitting here. It’s all good.”

“Positive,” Cybil said. “A positive outcome, and one more in the plus column for us. That’s important. Over and above the fact our Fox is sitting here, he was able to turn a potentially negative outcome into a positive one. Destiny has more than one road.”

“I’m real happy to be off the road for the moment. In other news…” Fox told them about the progress at the farm. He gri

“No. Sorry. I guess it’s part of the baby thing.”

“What baby thing?”

“Oh God, we didn’t tell you. With all the bullets bouncing off you and Porta Potties, we forgot. I’m pregnant.”

“What? Seriously? I’m busy getting shot and digging latrines, and the next thing I know we’re having a baby.” He pushed out of the chair to cross over and kiss her, then punched Cal in the shoulder. “Take the woman to bed. Obviously you know how.”

“He does, but I can get myself there. And I think I will.” Rising, Qui

“I’ll be right up.” Cal got to his feet. “We could all use some sleep. We didn’t get very far with the link, being rudely interrupted. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Gage agreed.

“I think I’ll go up, too.” Cybil stepped over to Fox, kissed him. “Nice work, cutie.”

She heard Qui

She was a little tired herself, Cybil admitted. She supposed they all were, with the bombarding dreams and restless nights. Maybe she’d try a little yoga, or a warm bath, something to soothe her system into relaxation.

Gage came up behind her, and as she started to glance back, he took her hips, turned her. He moved her back against the door to close it, held her there.

“Well, hello.”

His hands moved from her hips to her wrists, then drew her arms over her head. The system she’d thought to relax went on high alert. Braced for, anticipating the demand she saw in his eyes, she could only sigh when his mouth descended to hers. Then could only tremble when instead of demand there was tenderness.

Soft, quiet, the kiss soothed even as it aroused. While his hands held hers prisoner, adding an excited kick to her heartbeat, his mouth took its time exploring and exploiting hers. She sank into the pleasure of it, with a purr in her throat when he cuffed her wrists with one hand and stroked her body with the other.

The light, almost delicate touch stirred desire in her belly, weakened her knees. And all the while his lips slid and skimmed against hers. He flipped open the button at her waistband, danced his fingers under her skirt, closed his teeth lightly, very lightly over her jaw.

She imagined herself pouring into his hands like cream.

Then he hooked his hand in the neck of her shirt, and tore it down the center.

He saw the shock in her eyes, heard it in her quick gasp. Once again, his fingers played lightly over her skin. “Seduction shouldn’t be predictable. You think you know.” His mouth took hers again in a long, drugging kiss. “But you don’t. You won’t.”

His hand tightened on her wrists, a kind of warning while the kiss shimmered like silk. He felt her melt into it, degree by degree, that lovely body yielding, those lovely limbs going limp. So he shot his hand between her legs and drove her to a fast, almost brutal peak and muffled her shocked cries with his mouth.

“I want you in ways you can’t imagine.”

Her breath shuddered out; her eyes stayed on his. “Yes, I can.”

And he smiled. “Let’s find out.”

He whipped her around so she was forced to brace her hands against the door, then fist them there as he did things to her body, to her mind, things that pushed her past desperation into surrender, then ripped her back again. Then he slowed, and once again he soothed, and he lifted her into his arms. At the bed she would have turned into him, curled into him in absolute bliss, but he pi

“Not quite finished.”

“Oh God.” She shuddered when he lowered his head to flick his tongue over her nipple. “Do we have a crash cart?”

His lips curved against her breast. “I’ll bring you back.” And he took her hungrily into his mouth.

She shivered under him, and she gave. She yielded under him, and she surrendered. Her body lifted, held trembling before it fell again. And always, always, he knew she was with him, bound with him, need fused to need. She was strength and beauty, beyond any he’d thought to possess, and she was with him.

When he was inside her again, hard against soft, he knew her blood pounded as his did. Knew when she said his name, they were lost. Lost together.

She floated, what else could she do but float on the warm lake of pleasure? No stress, no fatigue, no fears for tomorrow. Exhaustion was bliss, she thought. Gliding on it, she opened her eyes, and found him watching her.

She had enough energy to smile. “If you’re even thinking about going again, you must’ve suffered brain damage the last round.”

“It was a knockout.” How could he explain what happened inside him when they came together? He didn’t have the words. Instead, he lowered his head to touch his lips to hers. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Better than asleep. In the lovely, lovely between.”

He took her hand, and she saw what was in his eyes. “Oh. But-”

“When better?” he asked her. “What’s more relaxing than sex? What releases more positive energy, if it’s done right? And, sweetheart, we did it right. But we both have to want to try it.”

She let herself breathe. He was right. Linking now when they couldn’t be any closer in mind and body might break through the block that had frustrated them the last several attempts.

“All right.” She shifted so they lay on the bed face-to-face, heart-to-heart. “The same way we were going to try it earlier. Focusing on you, Cal, Fox, then the stone.”

Her eyes. He could see himself in them. Feel himself in them. He let himself sink, then drew himself out until he stood in the clearing with the Pagan Stone. Alone.

He thought the air smelled of her-secret, seductive. The sunlight glowed gold; the trees massed with thick green. Cal moved to his side, fully formed, his gray eyes quiet, serious. And an ax held in his hands. Fox flanked him, face fierce. He held a glistening scythe.

For a moment they stood, only the three, facing the stone atop the stone.

Then hell came.

The dark, the wind, the blood-soaked rain attacked like animals. Fire roared in bellowing walls and sheathed the stones like blazing skin. He knew, in that instant, the war they’d believed they’d fought for twenty-one years had been only skirmishes, only feints and retreats.