Page 106 of Caretaker

“Wormwood.”The dark, lonely whisper slipped through the air on a warm breeze, and chills chased each other over my body. I turned to look at Angus.

“What did you say?”

He shook his head, his eyes full of something other than pain, finally. They held only awe. “I didn’t say anything.”

And then we stepped over an invisible line, and into the graveyard. The world outside disappeared at that moment.

The graveyard seemed to stretch on for miles, limitlessness, endless. The vast sky stretched overhead, full of tiny, bright stars, and it was like holes had been poked in the dark fabric and I could see into the brightness waiting behind it.

The moon hung there, white and round and low, watching. Adding magic and mystery and shadows.

Inside the graveyard was perfection. “We’re safe here,” I realized. “There is no pain. Not for us.”

It was like a deep well holding the sweetest water into which we could submerge our weary spirits. It would renew us.

And still, my body’s need grew stronger, irresistible, undeniable.

Once the awe inspired by the graveyard faded just slightly, the lust took control once again. I didn’t question it.

Silverlight buzzed gently and I drew her from her sheath, then let the leather case fall to the ground. It hit the dirt and disappeared. Just disappeared.

It didn’t belong there.

The sword expanded, lighting up with something different than her killing light. It was a paler, gentler version of her usual cold, silver fire. I pushed her blade into the ground, just a little, and she stood tall and quivering and bright. And she didn’t disappear. Silverlight belonged.

She created a circle around the werebull and me, bathing us in the perfection of her glowing halo.

Angus turned to me and with no warning, gripped the front of my dress and ripped the fabric apart. He tossed the tattered cloth away, growling as he looked at me.

Danger poured from him, but it didn’t scare me. It got me hot.

Hotter.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but oh, was it possible.

He reached out to touch me, to run his fingertips over my face, then wrapped his fingers around my upper arms and pulled me to him.

My body was more sensitive than it’d ever been. I felt everything a thousand times more intensely. His clothes rubbed against my bare skin and I cried out, unsure, for a moment, if I were feeling pleasure or pain.

He buried his fingers in my hair and lowered his mouth to mine, and I swear the world tilted. I put my palms on either side of his face and held him to me, kissing him as he kissed me, with a hunger so intense it hurt.

I’d been waiting my entire life for that moment. That was how big that moment was. How consuming.

I panted as he pulled his mouth from mine and ran his teeth down the side of my neck. If there had ever been a time I’d felt so alive, so greedy, so excited, I couldn’t remember it.

I wanted everything. And I wanted him. All of him.

Even his darkness, though I hadn’t realized it.

Especially his darkness.

My men were a crush of heat pressing in on us, and I felt their need as strongly as I felt my own. They surged against Silverlight’s circle but didn’t enter it. Not yet.

But they would.

Angus returned his lips to mine and I opened my mouth as he deepened the kiss, and I knew, I knew, there would never be another kiss like that one. Never.

He pulled his mouth from mine, finally, and smiled down at me, and there was fierce satisfaction in his smile. And something else…primal, animal lust.