.Chapter Twelve .

Deven picked her up in his arms. It wasn"t difficult. She was a sweet, light burden.

"Where are we going?" she asked sleepily.

"Somewhere a little more comfortable. The water isn't exactly warm anymore."

"Sounds good." She snuggled against his chest.

He carried her to the edge of the bed. "You sound sleepy." Maybe he should let her get some rest instead of continuing.

"Mmm..." As he relaxed his hold on her, she stretched her legs out toward the floor. Then pressed her naked body tight to his, while wrapping one of those long legs around his thigh and sliding her arms around his neck. She kissed him then and it didn"t feel nearly as sleepy as she had sounded.

His good intentions were fading fast under the rising demand of desire. "Tessa..."

She licked at the crease of his mouth, teasing him into something much deeper. One hand moving lower to find his cock.

He captured her hand before it could wrap around him. "I thought you were tired."

"I am, but here we are naked in front of a bed. And it seems like you might want a little more too."

"I want more." Understatement of the century. He couldn"t get enough of being with her or being inside her too-sexy body. Not only did it feel wonderful, but he was learning that all kinds of things turned him on that he hadn"t expected. Like how she stretched in satisfaction when she was on top of him. The feel of her body quivering beneath him. The way her breath caught, and she whimpered when she came.

Her hand closed around him. "You got even harder."

Much as he loved everything that she did to him, the variety of images in his head had narrowed down to one new desire. Sinking his fingers through her damp hair he pulled her back into a fierce kiss, angling when the kiss deepened. Until he was sure they had become one beast with the same hunger.

Just when she started trying to dominate, he pulled away and turned her to face the bed. "Oh... is that how it is?"

"Yeah." He pushed her forward over the edge of the bed.

"Ah... yeah, wolfie style."

He chuckled. But the humor didn"t distract the rest of his body. Or his wolf. So far, the only time he"d been on top was when they were drugged and out of control. He wanted this, needed the dominance almost as much as the sex.

Not that he hadn"t enjoyed her on top. That had been amazing. Just this was something different.

She started to turn over, but he held her in place with a heavy hand on her lower back.

His other hand pressed between her thighs. With one knee, he spread her legs apart so he could explore her slick entrance fully. He stroked and finger fucked her until she was whimpering and panting. And pushing back into his touch demanding her own satisfaction.

"Deven... please."

"Please what?"

"Dammit, Deven."

He leaned over until his mouth was beside her ear. One hand beside her for balance and the other still teasing her relentlessly. "Tell me, Tessa. Tell me what you want."

Her back arched against him. Her breath came in gasps. She grabbed his wrist and clung to him. "Fuck me already, you gorgeous asshole."

He replaced his fingers with his aching cock and damn near came with the first plunge into the heat of her perfection. He wanted to memorize every motion, reaction, feeling. But he was drowning in them. All he could do was desperately hold on and take her in long deep thrusts.

When she released his hand to dig her fingers into the comforter, he captured her writhing hips and locked them in place. The next thrust was so full and deep she screamed, and he almost did too.

"Ah… no..." She whimpered.

He froze and was about to ask if it was too much? If he had hurt her? Before the words escaped, he gasped in surprise.

Fine white feathers sprouted across her shoulders and then burst into longer ones that unfurled on wings that within seconds spread more than the width of the bed.

"Ahhh... Sorry. I didn"t mean..." Tessa was looking back over her feathered shoulder to meet his gaze. "Why are you even harder?"

"Shit, Tess, why wouldn"t I be? You"re breathtaking."

Her cheeks turned a brighter shade of pink.

And then he thrust into her again. After two more strokes, she was back to clinging to the bed. Her wings, her beautiful fucking wings twitched and flapped wildly with every plunge.

He was lost in pleasure and his wolf howled in joy. He was sure he"d come but he needed more, so very much more. On and on, until his muscles threatened to revolt. As he slowed the pace, he was better able to judge how she was dancing at the desperate edge of her own orgasm.

He leaned over and buried his face in her feathers. Sliding one hand under her chest, and the other around her waist, he picked her up off the bed. She pushed back into his embrace, which tickled him with her feathers.

A slight wriggle of clenching muscles and she somehow got him even deeper. Oh, God, this woman... She was destroying his good intentions. She had to be his. Not just for one more ride, not for one night or even one lifetime. Tessa had to be his forever.

She threw her head back and kissed him, the twist of her body tightening over him and driving him wild.

That moment when she was kissing him with such wild abandon, she stole his control as if it had been nothing but an illusion. And when she broke the kiss, he thrust deep one last final time, as she shattered over him with her release. He bit down on the back of her neck locking them together for just one moment longer.

He released her, turned and sank onto the bed. The room was spinning, and he felt like he might black out from the pleasure.

* * *

Tessa heard the knocking and tried hard to ignore it. She snuggled deeper into the blankets that smelled so much like Deven. Patting the bed around her confirmed that he"d already left.

That must be why the knocking sounded muffled. It was coming from her room. She could hear it through the open connecting door.

Then she heard the door open. "Tessa? Are you up?"

She really didn"t want to respond, but she was pretty sure Harley was going to see her through the doorway anyhow.

Sure enough, "Oh... I see."

The cat was out of the bag. She sat up and pulled the blanket around her. "Morning."

"A good one, I hope."

"Very good." She tugged the sheet until it came loose and pulled it around her toga style. "Just a second. I"ll grab some clothes."

Harley followed along but didn"t comment.

Her muscles were delightfully weak from their early morning rounds. She might even be sporting a few bruises, but she had no regrets at all. She dug through her closet and pulled out a fresh pair of jeans and the nicest silky blouse she had. She wasn"t even sure she"d see Deven today but if she did, she wanted him to know how sexy he made her feel.

By the time she ducked back out of the bathroom fully dressed she finally asked, "What did you need?"

"Oh right. You got a package. It was too big for me to carry up so I thought you could come down if you felt up to it."

"Thanks for letting me know. It"s probably from my folks. They said they"d be sending the rest of my stuff over now that I was settled in."

"That was nice of them."

"Eh, it was probably just in their way."

They made it to the front door and there was the package. She"d kind of expected it to be bigger. Then again, they"d probably just passed any of the clothing down to the younger kids. Which is what she would have suggested anyhow. What else had she left behind? There was some weight to the one by two box. She carried it to her office.

"You make it look light."

"It is a bit heavy. I'm glad you didn't try to carry it up those stairs. I"m just going to rip it open and probably throw it all out anyhow."

"Well, let"s take a look then."

"Feeling bored?"

"Yeah, you know it. Zeven won"t let me do anything at this point."

She understood how that might be annoying but since Harley was as big as a house and due any day now, she wasn"t going to advise any extra activities. She settled onto the sofa, glad to see that someone had kindly cleaned up any blood she"d left behind.

Harley passed her a letter opener before sitting next to her.

A couple quick slices made short work of the tape. "Books, books and more books. Guess none of the kids were interested." They were all focused on the basics of computer programming. She devoured them all when she was in middle school. By high school she was writing her own programs.

"I"m surprised they didn"t just dispose of them?"

"Those two are very serious about ownership and personal property. Except for clothes which were shared and passed down to whoever they fit."

"There"s something else in there. A smaller box."

She moved the books aside and pulled out the narrow box that had been on the bottom. There was a small note attached to it. She opened it up and read it out loud. "Sorry to send this to you so late. We had both forgotten about it long ago. This and the blanket wrapped around it were the only items left with you when you were placed in the first care home."

"How young were you?"

"A baby. They thought only weeks old, maybe less." She opened the box and tipped it to the side. A long ornate dagger slid onto the table. The blanket still inside the box came out with a light tug. It was so thin it was almost transparent. It surely wasn"t designed for protection or warmth. "I"m not sure you can even call that a blanket."

"It"s sort of shaped like a scarf or shawl." Harley caught it with her fingers. It flowed through her grip almost like a liquid. "So strange. Almost impossibly soft. And this was wrapped around you and a dagger?"

"So, it seems." She picked up the dagger and jerked as if slapped. The power it held... Even still in the sheath, it was strong and exactly like her own. An inky sweet magic. Something pure like starlight in a moonless sky.

"What are those designs? They almost look Norse, but sort of Egyptian too..."

"It looks old." Would she be able to track that design on any of the antique sites? Surely something like this had a history before it ended up as her inheritance. "Let"s see what the blade looks like." She carefully pulled it out from the sheath.

The power from the dagger whooshed out around her, filling her with more strength than she"d ever felt before. "Ah." She sucked in a hard gasp of heavy air. The power tingled over her skin and made her back itch like crazy. If she wasn"t careful, she was going to transform right here in front of Harley.

The door to the office slammed open. Quinn stepped into the room brandishing the decorative sword he kept displayed above his bedroom fireplace. "Put it back in. Sheath the damn thing."

She did at once. Almost like a vacuum, the power pulled back to the dagger. As if when sheathed, it was caged. "What was that all about?"

"Shouldn"t you be asleep?" Harley asked.

Quinn leaned his antique sword against the door and shoved trembling fingers through his rumpled hair. "I was asleep, right up until someone unleashed a Tol'daen dagger in my home."

"Say again, a what?" It was a word she'd never heard before but somehow, it felt familiar.

"That thing is an angelic weapon used to hunt rogue demons. Just having it unsheathed so close… It was pulling at and devouring all my strength."

"I... I"m sorry, Quinn. I didn"t know."

"How could you?" He stood up straighter. His pajama bottoms sagged a bit on a body far too toned for his age. "We should talk more. Give me a moment to get dressed."

Harley caught her hand and held it in a tight grip. "What do you think it means?"

"I have no idea." That was what she said but she had a thought about it. Here she was an abandoned child that could sprout white wings and use magic. And she had an angelic weapon of some kind? Was she an angel? Or half angel? What other conclusion could she draw?

Quinn had disappeared. But he"d surely be back soon enough and then she could at least hear more about his thoughts on the topic.

"Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"No, I don"t think so." Or maybe... "Sometimes I dream about an ornate golden sword. I"ve even tried to search for it, but never found even a hint. It was definitely a sword though, not a dagger."

"Maybe this one isn't a dagger but a baby sword."

She couldn"t help giggling. "A baby sword. You just have babies on the brain."

"And the bladder. Speaking of which, I"ll be right back. That dagger got the brats all excited too. Though they seemed happy about it not pained like Quinn." Harley stood up and rushed from the room.

How curious. The vampire was harmed but the wolves were excited. She"d certainly felt a positive reaction. Not that she was a wolf. Or maybe she was, who knew? And didn"t being Deven"s mate mean he"d be sharing his powers with her? Sharing his wolf spirit? How would that change whatever she was? Shit, it was all too confusing.

She set the dagger back down on the table. Only then did she notice how her fingers were tingling. Almost like they"d fallen asleep or gotten very, very cold. She rubbed at them until the feeling came back to normal.

Harley stepped back into the room.

"That was fast."

"This drama is too exciting. I wasn"t about to miss anything." She settled back down on the sofa. "He did say angelic, didn"t he?"

"He did."

Her hands settled over her round stomach. "Easy kids."

"Are they still riled up?"

"Yeah. They settled down some when I left the room, but got excited again the moment I came back in."

"Maybe you should keep some distance until we can be sure it"s safe."

"I thought about that, but their emotions are coming through clearly. They are definitely happy about it, not stressed or scared."

The idea that Harley could communicate with her unborn babies seemed so curious to her. She"d heard them talking before and it seemed even Zeven could share emotions with them. She picked up the blanket again letting it fall over her hand until the length extended its full reach. "Must be about five feet long and maybe ten or twelve inches across."

Harley reached out and touched the edge. "It"s got some kind of designs woven into it."

She stretched it a bit and held it up to the light. "What the..."

"Are those images?"

"They"re moving." Like translucent videos streaming across the thin fabric. She folded it back up and set it carefully onto the table.

"Are you afraid to look?"

"Yeah, but I"m more afraid that they only play once, and I might miss something." She couldn"t be sure what those magical images might mean. Maybe nothing more than bedtime stories meant to calm a baby. Or maybe they might explain her existence. Who she was, where she came from, what she was meant to do with this life she"d been given.

Quinn knocked on the open door while stepping inside. "Sorry about that."

"You look a bit more together." He hadn't bothered with a suit jacket but otherwise had all his usual attire, dress shirt, slacks, loafers.

"Indeed." He sat in the only remaining seat in the room, the computer chair that spun and rolled and yet when he sat in it, the chair stayed completely still.

She smiled.

"I"m sure you have questions."

She was amused by his transformation. The glimpse of Quinn earlier had been startling evidence that he wasn't always calm and composed. Not that she wanted to see him unsettled on purpose. It had been a little scary. And now he had returned to normal. "I do, such as how you recognized the dagger without even getting a good look at it?"

"Tol'daen weapons feel the same as sunlight does. A defined relationship with God. A holy item with holy powers. All of which are intrinsically dangerous to those without souls."

"I don't understand. Why would those cause you any harm?"

"Even I don't know the reason why. But it just is that way and always has been."

She wasn"t even sure she believed in God. But here she was maybe an angel? It was a lot to accept. "Okay so you"re affected by the dagger"s magic the same way as you are by sunlight or holy objects."

"Yes, all of those will weaken me just by exposure."

"But I"ve used my magic in front of you and it has never caused you any problems at all, has it? To me the dagger feels the same as my own magic. Just stronger. Much stronger."

"That is true."

She didn't want to accidentally cause him any pain after all he'd done for her. If she couldn't find a way to handle the dagger without causing him trouble, she'd have to put it into storage. "Should we try an experiment?"

"What kind?" He looked cautious.

"Just comparative measures. My magic against that of the scarf and the dagger."

"Everything in me says I should tell you no. That you should destroy or pack away that dagger and never unsheathe it again."

"But?"

"Considering our line of work, you should not be refused a strong weapon." He nodded just slightly. "Yes, let"s do some tests and learn what we can."

He was being too reasonable. "Don"t try to bear it if it causes you pain. We can stop at any point."

"Of course."

Harley joined in. "How should we start?"

He looked at her belly seriously for a long moment.

She held up one hand to still his objections. "We already decided that the little ones like the magic and aren"t harmed at all, so I"m not leaving unless I have reason to think differently."

"By the way, where are the boys?"

"There was a small side mission they needed to tend to today. And no, it wasn"t anything you needed to worry about. Just checking in with the Coyote Clan to be sure they were still solid."

"Any reason to think otherwise?"

"None."

"What about Joseph? Isn"t he going to be bothered by this magic too?"

"He was. I reassured him and told him there was a chance it might happen again. And if it did, he needed to focus on how it felt so he could identify the specific signature and know it wasn"t going to be a threat."

"Maybe we should wait."

Quinn reached over the table and caught her hand in his. After a squeeze he released her. "I"ll check on him again after we run a few tests."

"Okay. Should we start with my magic? I should be able to pool it as if I"m calling visions without activating it." Though honestly, she felt filled to the brim with her own magic and it felt different than usual. It felt calm and ready for her command.

"Go ahead."

She pulled out her cell phone and set it on the table between them. "I want to try something slightly different." She held her hand out over the phone and willed her magic to reach out to go to the screen. Almost at once she felt that power gather in her hand and flow into the phone.

"No blood this time."

"It"s never worked this well before." But there was no doubt at all that the power was doing as directed, the screen of the phone swirled with energy, waiting only for her desired target. "Do you feel any pain or weakness?"

"None."

She was about to pull her magic back from the phone when an image started to appear. "Oops... Looks like I wanted to see Deven more than I thought." The swirling had settled into the image of Deven and Zeven standing around with several other men drinking beer. "They look good." She pulled the magic back and in just a moment the phone was just a normal phone again.

"What did you have planned for next?"

"The dagger I guess." She picked it up and held it out to Quinn. "Can you hold it when it"s sheathed?"

He reached out but pulled his fingers back before actually touching the dagger. "I might be able to, but it would not be without great pain."

"Call that a no."

"But it is not the same as before."

"Not the same, how?"

"The difference, how to explain it... Consider how a scared dog can snarl and bite at everyone, but a calm trained one will stand protectively in front of its master." He leaned forward and his eyes sparked with excitement. "Have you tried to talk to it yet?"

"Talk to the dagger? No, not really."

Just a few years ago the idea of talking to an object would have made her laugh but since joining the agency she"d seen a lot of things that were surprising. A talking dagger might not be all that odd. She"d seen plenty of weirder shit.

"You should try."

She focused on the weapon, holding it in both hands. And then she reached out with her mind and voice. "Hey there little baby sword. It"s really nice to meet you. I hope we can be friends..." She would have rambled on longer, but the dagger reacted.

It responded. Feelings filled her to overflowing. It had been so lonely and worried for so long. And now it was happy, overjoyed to be in her hands again.

"Oh..." She held it close and let all its feelings pour over her until tears stung her eyes.

Quinn asked, "Does it have a name?"

The dagger quivered.

"La-Rin. It means.... Something like a love of justice?" The name had come through clearly but almost everything else was just a jumble of feelings.

"Weapons with names are always more powerful. Same for ones with personalities. Yours seems to have both."

Strangely the dagger... La-Rin didn"t feel like a weapon. The feeling she got from it was more like a lost puppy. But that was okay. She didn"t really need a dangerous weapon for her daily life here in the agency. She"d probably still be more useful with her computers.

"What about the scarf?" Harley reached out as if to pick it up but then pulled her hand back. "Maybe you should be the only one to touch it too."

She started to set the dagger down and immediately felt it reject the idea. As a compromise she set it on her lap before reaching for the cloth. The thin fabric slipped around her hand almost as if it was alive. Then again... Maybe it was? She held it out toward Quinn. "Does this one cause any pain?"

He caught it gently in his hand and tugged it free from where it had wrapped around her wrist. At first there seemed to be no reaction at all. The last few inches tightened around her refusing to let go. When he pulled a little harder the loose fabric shifted, taking form... Becoming a snake that bit at the air near his hand. It hadn"t connected but was a clear threat. As soon as he released it, the fabric coiled back over her arm.

"Well now, that was interesting." Harley had scooted a little further away on the sofa.

Quinn watched the fabric with a slight smile. "A snake? How fitting."

For a moment she didn"t get the connection. Then it dawned on her. She was dating or rather married to a man of the rattlesnake clan. "Yeah." She stroked her fingers over the cloth affectionately.

"Didn"t it have images on it earlier?"

She looked closely at it. "It did, but it doesn"t now." Had she really missed out on her only chance to see what it was trying to tell her? Considering how attached it seemed, surely there would be other ways later on.