Page 132 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
“Oh. Well . . . why not the colony?”
His hand on her skin stilled. “You would live there with me? Leave your life here behind?”
She gazed up at him, smiling, her eyes soft. “Did we not just establish that I was properly wooed? Home is wherever you are, Hawk.” She spread her hand over his chest, above his heart. “Home is this, right here.”
He closed his eyes briefly, gratitude rising up in a wave that overwhelmed him, along with a flare of love so violent he felt burned. “Things aren’t safe at the colony for you. In fact, they’re not safe for any of us. If I hadn’t been voted the new Alpha, I’d probably—”
“Alpha! Voted! What happened to fighting to the death?” She’d jerked upright, was staring at him with unblinking eyes.
“Oh? You’d rather that than a nice, civilized vote?”
“Of course not!” she huffed, shoving his chest. “But—how—”
“I’ll give you one guess. It involves a dragon.”
Jack stared at him, the li
ght of comprehension dawning in her eyes. “The Queen.”
He nodded. “Looks like democracy finally made it to the jungle. Our new Queen is proving herself quite the reformist. So far she’s overturned pretty much every Law we ever had.”
Jack smiled. “I knew I liked her.”
He drew her down against his chest again, combing his fingers through her hair. “And she likes you. God help us if the two of you ever put your heads together: we’ll end up living on the moon.”
Jacqueline grew solemn as she trailed her fingers over his arm. “Is that the only place that will be safe for us, you think? The moon? Do you think your species and mine will ever be able to live together in harmony?”
He thought about it for a long time, looking out into the sky.
He finally said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Hearing her dark sigh, he teased, “Look at the lengths I had to go to just to change your mind about us. Seducing you was a hell of a lot of work, sweetheart. I don’t know any other male who would be up to the challenge.”
“Oh, really?” She bit his nipple, and he yelped in outrage, throwing her onto her back. “And by the way,” she said as he returned the favor but with fewer teeth and a lot more tongue, making her arch her back and her voice go breathy, “if I recall correctly, it was I who seduced you.”
He lifted his head and gazed down at his love, her face flushed, her smile so beautiful. He said, “We seduced each other. That’s what happens when you fall in love.”
“Hmm. So it’s a fairy-tale ending, then?”
Hawk slowly shook his head. “It’s not a fairy tale, but it’s real, and it’s good. And it’s everything I could possibly hope for. It’s more than I deserve.”
Her smile grew dazzling. “Look at you, an expert in wooing already. You just earned yourself a gold star, buddy.”
He smiled back at her. “I see a lot of those in my future.”
She whispered, “Me, too.” Then she drew him down and kissed him, and he forgot about gold stars and democracy and fights to the death, and just let himself fall deeper and deeper into her.
The only place in the world he ever wanted to be.
Jenna bolted upright in bed.
Her heart raced. Her hands shook. She was sweating, gulping deep breaths as if she’d been running. It was very late, or very early, only an hour or so before first light. Beside her in bed, Leander sat up, and cupped her bare shoulder in his hand.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice low.
Jenna looked around the shadowed bedroom, watched the sheer white curtains that enclosed their bed billow and shift in the night breeze. In the air hung an unpleasant smell, sour as a rat’s nest.
“The comet,” Jenna whispered. She sat still upon the bedcovers, listening hard into the darkness. “I dreamt about the red comet. And everything . . . everything everywhere was on fire. The whole world was fire. There was nothing left.”
