That quickly, the tension left Adalynn’s limbs, and she lowered the gun to the ground. She could feel every bump and bruise she’d suffered, every hurt; the pain had been swept aside by terror and adrenaline.
She shifted her attention to Merrick. The magic around him faded until all that remained of it was a lingering afterimage, which itself was gone in a few seconds.
He turned to face her. His wounds were already sealed—in fact, they looked like they’d been healing for two or three weeks—and his eyes still glowed blue. “We should get back inside. I’ll tend to this mess tomorrow.”
Adalynn stepped up to him, cupped his cheeks, guided his head down, and kissed him. She pressed her mouth hard against his, tasting the magic on his skin. It tingled on her lips, as arousing as it was soothing.
Merrick submitted to her kiss, but his body was tense, as though he were holding himself back. She didn’t want him to. She didn’t care about what he was, didn’t care about her own pain; all she wanted was to feel his arms around her, to feel him—all of him—alive and well, against her, holding her.
She met his gaze when she pulled away. “Thank you.”
The hardness that dominated his features since he’d woken her smoothed away. His tongue slipped out and flicked over his lips. “For what?”
“Everything.”
“Gross,” Danny said from behind her. “Dude. Are you having sex with my sister?”
Adalynn’s cheeks warmed, and she pressed her lips together in a failed attempt to contain the laughter bubbling up within her. She dropped her hands to Merrick’s shoulders and let her head fall against his chest as she quietly chuckled.
Merrick slipped his arms around her and held her close. “It’s well past your bedtime, young Daniel. I think it’s time we remedied that.”
“Oh, no way. I am not a little kid,” Danny replied. “I think I have the right to know what your intentions are. She’s my sister.”
“And you’re what, ten, eleven? Ask again in twenty years and we’ll decide if you’re mature enough to know.”
“Dude, I’m thirteen! And I stabbed a werewolf tonight! I think I’m mature enough.”
“And I killed three werewolves, dude. You have a way to go, I think.”
“That’s not the point. What are you planning on doing with my sister?”
Adalynn glanced up at Merrick, who shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“You do realize, Daniel, that it is incredibly rude and inappropriate to be asking those questions of a lady?” Merrick said. “Especially your sister.”
“Nope. Don’t care,” Danny said. “And stop sounding so old.”
Adalynn stepped away from Merrick. She felt his hesitation, but he released her, his arms falling to his sides. She turned toward her brother. Danny wore a very unhappy frown on his face, his expression a blend of upset and frustration.
Her heart ached. She walked over to him and enfolded him in her arms. He hugged her back without delay.
“Danny, I’m old enough to make decisions for myself. You don’t need to worry about me.” She pulled her head back and met his gaze as she lowered her voice to a whisper, though she knew Merrick would likely hear her anyway. “You trust him, right?”
Danny glanced at Merrick over her shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about, because I trust him too.”
Danny shuffled his bare foot in the dirt, looking down for a moment. “Do you like him?”
“Of course I like him.”
“No, I mean, do you like him like him?”
Adalynn’s breath caught. It was strange that a phrase like that—one she probably hadn’t heard since she was about Danny’s age—could cut so directly to the core of what she felt. Just the thought of Merrick made her heart quicken and her body react, filling her with the need to be close to him, to feel him, to touch him and be touched by him in return. Her soul called out to him.
But those weren’t things she could admit out loud—not to Danny, and most especially not to Merrick. Those feelings were hers to harbor. Because despite the intensity of those feelings…she hadn’t really come to understand them yet. She didn’t know how deep they ran, or what they really meant.
And because she was dying. She didn’t want to encourage anything more than a physical relationship with Merrick, didn’t want him to get so involved that he’d be crushed when the inevitable came to pass. But she couldn’t stop what she already felt for him—and she would embrace it, cherish it, and cling to it for as long as she could.
She smiled softly. “Yeah, I like him like him.”
“Okay, well…just don’t let me hear or see anything, okay?” His face screwed up in an exaggerated a look of disgust. “I’m not a fan of puking.”
Adalynn chuckled, pecked a kiss on his cheek, and released him before turning back to Merrick. There was a smirk on his lips, and though it was a tender expression, it could not conceal the mixture of relief and concern lingering in his still-glowing eyes.
“If you vomit on my floor, Daniel, you’ll be sleeping outside for the foreseeable future,” Merrick said.
“Can’t you just”— Danny waved his hand vaguely—“magic it away? And don’t you know it’s rude to eavesdrop?”
“It’s a bit difficult not to overhear when you’re standing five feet away, and it doesn’t matter whether I can magic it away. I don’t want my floors soiled. They’ve been pristine for a century, and I don’t need a ten-year-old mucking them up.”
“Bet you don’t care if Addy does,” Danny muttered.
“I would rather she not,” Merrick replied, “but for entirely different reasons.” He gestured at the house. “Now let’s get inside before anything else slithers out of the night to say hello.”
Danny sighed and turned toward the manor. “Gotta admit, though…you were pretty cool, Merrick. You’re like a badass superhero.”
Merrick leaned down to pick up the shotgun. “I’m just going to assume all that was a compliment.” He led them back up the porch steps, opened the door to the kitchen, and stood aside, looking at Adalynn. “We can move into one of the guest bedrooms for the rest of the night. I will repair the master bedroom in the morning.”
Danny released a dramatic sigh and moved ahead of Adalynn, walking past Merrick and into the house.
“We?” Adalynn stopped just inside the kitchen, glancing at Danny as he turned into the hallway.
Merrick stepped through the doorway and tugged the door closed behind him, pausing directly in front of her, leaving barely a few inches of space between them. “I would prefer to have you back in my bed, but I fear there’d be something of a draft in there tonight.”
Adalynn lifted her hand and lightly ran her fingertips over the new scars on his chest. “So, you want me to sleep with you?”
She wanted to be back in his arms, lying next to him, feeling his hands and lips on her skin; she wanted more than anything for him to erase the memory of the werewolf’s touch with his own.
He leaned slightly closer. Even though magic no longer pulsed along his skin, he still radiated that thrilling power. “Is that not what we were doing before this interruption?”