House Of Dragons Page 15

  “Oh, thank God. That’s so good to hear. And what about our side? Any casualties?”

  Alex said no. “None except my grandfather, that is. He was found murdered in his office. I know that Mason did it. He’d even written his initials on the wall with our grandfather’s blood.”

  I told Alex that I was so sorry. “It’s absolutely despicable what Mason did.”

  Alex agreed that it was. “My only comfort now is knowing that my grandfather lived a long and mostly happy life. And I know he’d be so happy to see the two of us together. That’s what I want to focus on right now. That, and being the best commander-in-chief that I can possibly be.”

  I agreed that that would be the best way to honor his memory.

  A few hours later, Alex and I fell asleep in his bed with our arms around each other. However, around three in the morning, I awoke to find that Alex was awake too. On his back, he was staring up at the ceiling in the moonlight. When he saw that I was awake, he rolled toward me and gave me a little smile.

  “My sleeping beauty is awake.”

  I gave him a little smile in return. “I guess my five-hour nap earlier probably wasn’t the very best idea, not that I could really help it after all my adrenaline had left me.”

  He gave me another little smile, pulling me into his arms. And for a little while, he just slowly stroked my hair while I tried to drift off to sleep again. However, after a few minutes, the day’s events suddenly came rushing back into my mind, and I experienced a mini-surge of adrenaline, flicking open my eyes.

  “Alex. I didn’t know I had that in me. That level of fearlessness to just try to jump right into a shifter fight. I did it just because I was so desperate to help you, not knowing that you wouldn’t even need my help in the end.” With my recollections making my heartbeat accelerate, I paused for a second. “When I called your phone, Mason answered, and when he told me what the Darkwings were doing to you, I didn’t even hesitate. All I could think about was getting to you to try to help you, because I knew you’d do the same for me.”

  Almost startling me, Alex planted a few fast, forceful kisses all over my face, then pulled away to look at me with his eyes just slightly shiny in the moonlight. “As terrified as I am in hindsight, if that makes any sense at all, about you coming up on the roof in the middle of a shifter fight, and as much as I wish you hadn’t put yourself in danger like that, I understand why you did it, because love was what was driving me today too. Just love for you, my country, and everyone who lives in it. I felt like all that love was just continually compelling me to keep fighting. And now…after what you just said, I think I love you even a hundred times more. You’re everything I’ve always wanted to find in a woman, and I just want to spend the rest of my life with you and make you happy.” After planting a few quick kisses all over my face yet again, Alex continued. “As far as what you did today, I just want to tell you that you were beyond strong and brave. I think you were just phenomenal.”

  Thrilled with his praise, yet uncertain that I really deserved it, I smiled. “Thank you. And I think you were too. As far as my part in things, though, I wouldn’t actually call an accidental misfire of a gun before quickly being forced to the ground ‘phenomenal.’ In fact, I might even call it pathetic. I did try my best to help, though, and I guess I am pretty proud of myself that I didn’t become dizzy to the point of fainting at any time today, even though I’ve done just that in incredibly stressful situations before. I guess I must just be getting tougher or stronger or something. Maybe it’s just your love that has made me stronger. I can’t think of what else it could be.”

  Looking at me with an unmistakable twinkle in his dark gray eyes, Alex said that he could definitely say the same. “I was trying so hard to fight back against the Darkwing wolves earlier today, but I just wasn’t strong enough to break free of them and defend myself. At least, I wasn’t until I saw you down on the rooftop with Mason’s boot on your back. From that point on, I felt like some kind of a madman, because I’d seen a glimpse of the most precious thing that I was trying to fight for. It was you and your love that finally made me strong. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

  Deeply touched, I found myself a bit misty in the eyes, and Alex brushed a tear from the bridge of my nose before speaking again.

  “Now, we can be together, Kira. Now, we can spend the rest of our lives together.” Looking deeply into my eyes, he paused. “If you want that, that is.”

  With fresh tears welling in my eyes, and with the lump in my throat becoming even bigger, I could only nod for a few moments. “Yes. That is what I want…more than anything. I want you. I want a happy life with you. I want a family someday with you.”

  Alex wiped another one of my tears away, grinning. “By saying that, you’ve just made me the happiest man alive.”

  About a month later, he made me the happiest woman alive when he presented me with a gorgeous, princess-cut diamond ring, asking me to be his wife and spend the rest of my life with him. Overjoyed, I repeated the word yes at least a half-dozen times while tears streamed down my face. Later on, we celebrated our engagement with lobster and champagne at the most exclusive restaurant in New York City, where we’d went to spend a romantic weekend together. Alex teasingly warned me not to have too much champagne, reminding me of the time I’d become just a little bit hostile after overdoing it on wine. Teasing him back, I claimed to have absolutely no memory of that ever happening.

  “In fact, I have a feeling that you’re just making that whole story up. I don’t think I’d ever have more than a single glass of wine, under any circumstance.”

  Champagne flowed again that May, when Alex and I were married in a beautiful outdoor ceremony in the countryside. At our lavish reception, which was held in a ballroom about a half an hour away, he and I danced until midnight, which was when he carried me off the dance floor, kissing me, to the sound of wild cheers from the several hundred guests in attendance.

  Once in the limousine that would be taking us to the airport where we’d be boarding a private jet to Hawaii, where we’d be spending two weeks for our honeymoon, I told Alex that my only regret of the day was that his grandfather hadn’t been there to see us get married. “And I mean, I regret that my parents and your parents weren’t able to be there either, but with your grandfather…well, he’s the whole reason that we got together in the first place.”

  Alex said that was partially true. “I guess if we really want to find the party truly responsible, though, we’d have to go back a little farther in time, to my grandmother. After all, without her prophetic dream about a woman with different-colored eyes, my grandfather never would have summoned you to come stay in the capital, and then we never would have met. So, really, I guess the whole thing was a multi-generational effort.”

  Alex smiled at me, and I smiled back, then asked him what his grandmother’s name was. He told me it was Rose Elizabeth Iverson, and I thought about that for a few moments before responding.

  “For our first child…if it’s a boy, how about Daniel, for your grandfather, and if it’s a girl, how about Rose? I just think that might be a really nice way to honor one of them and kind of say a thank you for the role they played in our getting together.”

  Alex said he thought that was a wonderful idea. “First, though, before we have any babies, I think I’d like to spend a year or two alone with my beautiful wife. Maybe even three years.”

  It turned out that that wasn’t meant to be. Having apparently experienced some sort of a very unexpected birth control failure, I began experiencing frequent bouts of nausea just three months after our honeymoon. My breasts had also begun to hurt a little too. A trip to the doctor’s confirmed that I was pregnant, just one month along.

  On the way home in the back of a government sedan with bulletproof glass, I asked Alex if he was really as happy about my pregnancy as he’d seemed in the doctor’s office. “You know you can tell me if you’re not, because I know you wanted to maybe wait a year
or two before starting our family.”

  Looking incredulous, he snorted, then gently took my face in his hands. “Kira, believe me when I say that I’m completely elated. Yes, my thinking was that maybe we’d wait a little while, but now…this is just the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my life, other than you. I don’t care that we’re starting our family a little earlier than I’d planned. I think this is a miracle.”

  A few months later, while I received an ultrasound, our “miracle” increased. Or, to be more precise, it doubled. We were having twins. With my pregnancy hormones in full force, I cried with joy, and Alex’s dark gray eyes became a little pink and shiny as well. This time, though, I didn’t later ask him if he was truly happy. I just knew in my heart that he was.

  That March, on a sunny, unseasonably warm day, our twins were born, one boy and one girl. Like we’d planned, Alex and I used the family names, naming our son Daniel and our daughter Rose. Both over six pounds each, they were remarkably healthy for twins, having been born exactly at full term.

  Holding them both on their first day in the world, one in each arm, Alex studied their faces briefly, smiling a little, then looked at me in the hospital bed. “I think looking at them is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  Smiling, I told him that looking at him holding our twins was mine.

  A few months later, the twins really began to get their eye coloring, and it was clear that while Rose had “normal” dark gray eyes like her daddy, Daniel had inherited my heterochromia. Just like my own eyes, one of his was a very pale blue, and the other was a deep vivid green.

  Anticipating all the annoying questions and comments I was sure he would receive one day, I told Alex that I was going to have to prepare him for all that before he started school. “Because that’s when I started getting all the questions and comments about my eyes. I remember that one little boy in my first-grade class even called me a ‘mutant’ and a ‘freak.’ It wasn’t really too good for my self-esteem; I can tell you that much.”

  Pulling me into his strong arms, Alex gave me a little smile. “Well, that little boy was clearly a bully, and I hope that our son doesn’t encounter too many of those. Even if he does, though, I hope he’ll have enough confidence in himself that he won’t let those types of comments bother him too much. After all, we’ll tell him that his eyes are beautiful, just like his mommy’s. We’ll also tell him that sometimes, wonderful things can come from things that at first we might not really like.”

  I cracked a smile. “Well, I can’t argue with that. I always wished that my eyes would just be ‘normal,’ but now, I’m so incredibly glad that they weren’t. Without them, I never would have met you. Then, I never would have had our twins.”

  The mere thought made me suddenly emotional, and I looked into Alex’s eyes deeply for a moment before speaking again.

  “I really just thank God for my eyes now. I’m grateful for them, and I can’t imagine my life without them.”

  Alex brushed a brief, tender kiss against my lips. “You’ll never have to.”

  Smiling, I nodded, with my heart feeling light as air.

  * *

  Hiiii

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  SUCKERS

  A PARANORMAL MENAGE ROMANCE

  AMIRA RAIN

  Copyright ©2016 by Amira Rain

  All rights reserved.

  About This Book

  When the bloodsucker apocalypse began you only had two choice. Run or die.

  Eva Blake chose to run.

  But now in a world that has been taken over by half-dead bloodsucking vampires known as “Suckers” there is hardly anyone who is alive. And those who are still alive are hard to trust.

  That was until Eva came across a pair of men who were willing to help her. They were WereLion Nick and WereTiger Blaine. Sworn enemies forced to team up together to survive the apocalypse and the dangerous bloodsuckers.

  But with both men finding themselves attracted to her and no other living females around for miles they soon realized they would have to compromise.

  They would have to SHARE her...

  CHAPTER ONE

  I could deal with the Husk People. They were pretty easy by this point. Usually, anyway, as long as they weren't in a group of more than two or three. I'd just take out my trusty screwdriver, lunge, stab through the heart or through an eye, and move on to the next. Repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

  Often, I didn't even bother to attack and kill them. Not unless I'd already set up camp for the night, or one of them was directly in my path, or one of them had somehow backed me into a corner. Otherwise, I just out-walked them, or jogged around them, or hid from them. They weren't very fast. So, because of this, and because I was now a seasoned pro at killing them, they usually didn't cause me much trouble.

  It was the roving groups of men who did. Currently, one group of four burly, raggedy-looking men was chasing me across a vast open land filled with high Kentucky bluegrass, which was slowing me down a bit. My enormous duffel bag filled with supplies was also slowing me down, more than a bit. If I'd had to guess, I would have said it probably weighed close to forty pounds, and was feeling heavier with each step I took. Not to mention that I was also wearing a backpack that probably weighed eight or ten pounds. I may as well have been running across the meadow with a child over one arm and a baby on my back.

  It was my own stupid fault. Realizing earlier in the day that I'd gotten a bit off track from my course south, I'd decided to redirect myself by cutting across the grasslands. Normally, I avoided traveling without cover of trees, or at least without cover of trees very close by, which wasn't very hard to do, considering that the back roads I'd taken for most of my journey were flanked by thick forestland.

  But on this particular day, with the sun just beginning to sink low, I'd just wanted to get myself back on course quickly, then walk a few additional miles before setting up camp at nightfall. Now it seemed I was going to pay for my desire for haste, but I wasn't going to let that happen without trying like hell to save myself first.

  I was a fast runner, normally maybe even incredibly fast. Though saddled with my bags at present, I was maybe just fast. Still, I knew I had a good shot of outrunning the men behind me, who I'd happened to spot when I'd paused for a sip of water. The one-second glance I'd taken before sprinting off had told me that they were all big men, potbellied, and maybe not very used to running.

  If I could just beat them to the tree line, I might have a real shot at losing them. I was good at zipping through the woods, good at stealthily picking my way across rugged terrain where there wasn't even the hint of a trail. Something told me that the men behind me would be more likely to crash through the forest like a herd of wild elephants, their noise alerting me to their location.

  Currently, their location was maybe sixty or seventy feet behind me, close enough that I could hear when one of them shouted, voice low and menacing.

  "Stop, you bitch! We'll shoot you dead if you don't!"

  I was going to call their bluff on this. During my recent travels, I'd learned that most people had long since run out of ammunition. And even if the men behind me did still have some, I was just betting they wouldn't use it to kill me. Try to scare me or wound me to stop me, maybe. Possibly. Though I knew they'd avoid even that at all costs, since sudden noise, especially gunfire, drew the Huskers in droves, and nobody wanted that. But even if the men were reckless and didn't care about that, they wouldn't kill me.

 
I was pretty confident about that. Women had become far, far too rare and valuable a commodity to just summarily execute for running.

  It had all started about two years earlier. One day, the world was normal. The next, it wasn't. It was as if some otherworldly portal had opened, releasing hell. Some strange, deadly virus had spread, killing millions and millions of people literally within forty-eight hours. The hospitals had overflowed. The morgues had overflowed. The streets had overflowed with piles of bodies ten feet high.

  In the midst of it all, there were some people who hadn't gotten the virus, some of them terrified, some of them grief-stricken, and some of them both, that had ended their lives right out in the open. From my third-floor apartment balcony, I'd witnessed one woman helpfully place herself atop a high pile of bodies, ranting about God and the "end of days," before putting a gun to her temple and blowing her brains out, joining the other corpses in repose. Sickened, horrified, and saddened in some excruciatingly profound way, I hadn't been able to stop vomiting for an hour.

  Later that day, I'd gotten word that my two figure skating coaches, Sandor and Marta, who'd coached me from my preteen years all the way up to an Olympic bronze medal and present day, had both succumbed to the virus. They'd been like parents to me. I'd even lived with them for the remainder of my teen years after my biological parents had been killed in a car accident when I was sixteen.

  The virus killed young and old, men and women, but it hit women the hardest, by far. As to exactly how many women died, I really had no idea, but some fellow travelers I'd come across in my journey south estimated that when it came to the decimated population, men now outnumbered women ten-to-one. Some put that figure even higher, even a lot higher, guessing that men now outnumbered women fifty-to-one. Others said that it just depended on where in the country you were.