Chapter Seven

Tina answered the back door when someone knocked quietly. It was Stone, and he had a giant bag of takeout in one big hand. He brought it in and plopped it on the kitchen counter for her.

“How is he?” he asked in a quiet, somewhat urgent tone.

“Sleeping. He seems all right,” she told the big man. “Thank you for the food, and thank you for helping earlier. Lance has always been special, and I’m glad to see he’s got such a loyal group of friends around him now.”

“You guys went to high school together?” Stone asked, sounding interested.

“Yeah,” Tina replied. “We weren’t really friends in high school. I don’t think we ever even talked much, but we were aware of each other. Or, rather, I was always aware of him. He had that glow of magic around him, even back then.”

“Did you know what he was?” Stone asked quietly.

“Oh, no. Not at all. Heck, I didn’t even know what I was until I hit my twenties,” she admitted with a chuckle.

“And what, exactly, are you?” Stone’s tone was challenging.

“A witch,” she replied succinctly. She wasn’t going to tell this guy before she told Lance. No way, no how.

“What kind of witch?” Stone kept pressing, but Tina wouldn’t budge. She would make one small concession, though.

“Nothing bad,” she told him. “Nothing that would ever hurt Lance.”

Stone eyed her for a moment, as if considering whether to push further, but seemed to take her words at face value. He backed off, heading toward the back door. “I’m right outside if you need help. I’m taking first watch, then my guys will work in shifts throughout the night. Someone will be available if you need anything. Just stick your head out the door and call out. A wolf will come running.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” she said, meaning every word. Stone merely nodded and headed out, leaving the wafting aroma of barbeque behind.

That takeout food he’d brought smelled darn good. If Lance didn’t wake soon, she might just break down and start in on it herself. It had been a long day, and she was getting hungry.

“I heard voices.” Lance’s words came to her from the entrance to the kitchen. He was up and dressed in sweats. He looked sleepy, and a little haggard, but otherwise all right.

“Stone just brought food. Are you hungry?” She went to the counter and put her hand on the takeout bag.

Lance ran a hand through his hair as he yawned. “I could eat whatever’s in there and the bag, too,” he told her. “Have I thanked you for looking after me yet?”

His voice had dipped low as he moved closer, and she didn’t resist when his arms went around her waist. She allowed him to draw her up against his body, enjoying the warmth of him through the layer of soft fabric against her hands.

“No thanks are necessary,” she told him, wondering exactly what form his thanks would take.

“Oh, yes, they are. You’ve gone above and beyond for me, Tina, and I shudder to think what would’ve happened out there without you. I came back because of you. Nothing else mattered when I was on the sun’s path. I wanted to chase it down. To merge with it. That’s all I knew. But then, I remembered my guys and my business down here. The cars I love and the work and the friends I’ve made. But even all that wasn’t enough. What tipped the scales and allowed me to break the pull was you. I wanted to come back to you.”

Lance’s voice had lowered to intimate tones as he rested his forehead against hers. There was a little bubble of intimacy around them that felt special and pure.

“I’m really glad,” she whispered, feeling the import of the moment.

Lance leaned in and kissed her, deeply. It was a kiss of gratitude and care, tenderness and joy. When Lance pulled back, Tina didn’t want him to go, but she knew there were other matters to tend to now that he was awake. Food was the first item on the agenda.

She stepped out of his arms and went back to the takeout bag. “Sit down. I’ll unpack this and put it on the table. You need to eat. Then, we have to discuss a few things.”

“You’re bossy,” he observed with a grin, even as he sat down as she’d instructed.

She stuck her tongue out at him playfully, unpacking and opening the containers of barbeque Stone had provided. She got plates down from the cupboard and brought it all over to the kitchen table over the course of several short trips. Surely, there would be enough here for Tina to have a few bites of something, just to keep her strength up.

“Don’t wait on me,” she’d told him on her first trip to drop off the plates and a container of ribs. “What do you want to drink?”

“Water,” he told her. “Lots and lots of water.”

“Coming right up.” She bustled around the kitchen while he attacked the food she’d put out.

Tina noticed that he’d put a small serving out of every container on her plate before he scooped a much larger portion onto his own. He’d provided a full plate for her, even as he took care of his own hunger. That was the mark of a true gentleman, as far as she was concerned—and a sign that he cared, which touched her heart.

She joined him at the table after procuring two big glasses of water. She noticed that he had a pretty sophisticated purification system on his tap. She’d seen that kind of thing before, in shifter homes. They tasted the impurities more than regular folk and preferred the cleanest water they could get when they were in human form.

She sat, and they ate in silence for a few minutes. The food was delicious, and after the first few bites to sate her hunger, she slowed down and savored it. Lance was more in the mode of shoveling it into his mouth, chewing a little and swallowing to make room for more. He just kept going and going as she watched in surprise. But Stone had known Lance would be really hungry.

Shifters must burn a lot of calories when they shift, and the mass quantities of food helped replace what he’d lost, she supposed. Flying like that had to take a lot out of a being. At least ground shifters could stop moving and rest a while, but when you were in the air, you had to keep those wings beating or you’d plummet. Maybe flight shifters burned even more calories than their land-based counterparts. It was a theory. She’d run it by Kate and see if she knew whether it was plausible or not.

When Lance finally slowed down, most of the food was gone. He’d systematically gone back to the containers and cleaned them out, one after the other. She’d kept refilling his water glass too, which he drained with regularity. He’d asked her, each time he went for another of the containers, if she wanted any more of a particular dish before he demolished it, which she thought was very thoughtful, but she declined. It was clear he was in more need than she was, and to be honest, the plate he’d fixed for her when he opened everything had been more than enough to satisfy her hunger.

“Were you able to get any more information on my situation from your contacts?” Lance asked at one point when his inhalation of barbequed meat had slowed to a more human pace.

“I wanted to discuss it with you before I talked to them again. Now that we’re sure of what you are, the decision about who knows what and how they hear it is up to you,” she told him. “I didn’t want to overstep. I mean, Kate and Slade know it’s possible that I know a phoenix here in Phoenix, but they don’t know for sure, and they don’t know the particulars. I wanted to make sure you were okay with them knowing more before I said anything else.”

Lance paused, lowering his fork, and looked at her. “Thanks.” His tone was pleased, and she was glad she’d decided on that course of action.

Of course, her first impulse had been to call Kate, but she’d reined herself in. She was happy now that she had.

“You know, I wasn’t kidding before when I said it was your presence that called me back, Tina. I think that’s probably the key. If someone like me doesn’t have a strong enough bond to something, or someone, on the ground, there’s really no reason to return to Earth. Not when the sun’s call is so strong you can feel it with every fiber of your being.”

“I can only imagine something so powerful,” she whispered. “But I’m really glad you came back. We need you here, Lance. The world needs you.”

“What about you?” He gave up all pretense of eating as he faced her and looked deep into her eyes.

Tina swallowed hard. Dare she put her heart on the line here? He had only just come back into her life, and she didn’t really know all that much about him as an adult. But…she knew enough. She knew how he lived and the powerful friends he’d gathered around him. She knew he was still as pure of heart as he had been as a teenager. She couldn’t not take that leap of faith and tell him the truth.

“Yeah,” she whispered softly. “I need you, too.”

He was out of his chair in the blink of an eye. In the next moment, he raised her to her feet and took her into his arms. His lips were on hers before she could even catch her breath, and then, he stole it again with the most intense passion she’d ever experienced.

She sensed movement but wasn’t really aware of her surroundings until she felt the world tilt and she found herself on a bed. Lance’s bed. The bed she’d tucked him into a little while before. He’d been naked, then, and he was fast becoming naked again as she pushed at his clothing and he assisted by removing it, piece by piece.

He was also removing her clothes, helping her fling them across the room. She didn’t want anything between them. No fabric. No air. No nothing. She wanted to be skin to skin with him and learn what it felt like to be joined with him completely.

She needed him like she needed her next breath. She wanted to finally know what it would be like to be with Lance. Her girlhood dreams come true, only so much better. They were adults now. They had lives and experiences. They were coming together out of mutual attraction and respect, not just teenage hormones.

Although…he sure did make her feel horny as a teenager again. He was so hot. Handsome-hot, but also just hot-hot. His skin temperature was warmer than a normal person, but she figured that was the phoenix part of him influencing the human part. Her own power often made her cooler than normal, so they were perfect opposites. He warmed her, and she cooled him.

She wondered what would happen when his fire met her icy energy in passion. Would they combust, or would they fizzle? Somehow, based on the way he was making her feel so far, fizzling probably wasn’t on the menu. Far from it.

Tina held onto his broad shoulders as he came down over her. There was no time or need for too many preliminaries. She’d wanted him for a long time, and their reunion had rekindled the desires she hadn’t fully understood as a schoolgirl. Now, however, she was fully prepared to act on the longing that had never faded. The passion that seemed eternal.

Lance came down over her, blanketing her in his warmth. His magic reached out to hers, twining together in a dance mirrored by their bodies as their legs entwined.

“Do you feel it?” he asked, breathing as hard as she was, caught up in the moment.

“Our magics like each other,” she told him, rubbing against him and loving the feel of his skin against hers, his hardness heading toward where she wanted it most.

“More than that. Our souls…” he whispered as he found his place between her thighs. She wanted to know what he had been going to say, but she wanted the climax that was so near even more.

He moved, taking her rapidly from passionate expectancy to the most amazing feelings she’d ever experienced. He touched her everywhere—if not physically, then magically. His power enveloped her and felt like little licks of flame all over her body. Delicious. Primitive. And enticing her to follow him into the fire.

That was really something for a mage whose power generated as ice. Nevertheless, she went where he led and had no regrets when they went up together in his flames, reaching a climax unlike any she’d had before in her life. The gold of his fire and the silver of her ice twined around them, bathing them in the extremes of power and pleasure.

Tina cried out his name, and she thought she heard him call hers, too. She couldn’t really be sure, though. The roar of his flames was in her ears along with the shriek of her power.

As she came down from the heights he’d flown her to, she realized he’d been saying something about their souls. She reached out with her magical senses, and then, she gasped. They were connected now on the magical plane. Where there had been two separate entities—one of golden fire and one of silver ice—there were now two beings joined by a twining pillar of silver and gold.

They were bonded.

Had he realized this would happen even before they’d made love? If so, how? Lance hadn’t even known what he was until today. How could he have known about the magic that would bind them?

She turned her head to look at him. He’d settled on his back at her side. They were both still breathing hard, coming down from the intensity of their joining.

He met her gaze, his internal flame glowing in his eyes. “You’re my mate,” he said in a soft, sure tone. As if he’d always known and had just been proven right.

“Mate? How do you know about shifter mating?”

She had no idea where he’d heard anything about the bonds shifters were said to form with one special person. And she wasn’t even sure if that’s what this was. It sure seemed like maybe it was, but she’d need to ask Kate to be sure.

“I had a talk with Stone. He explained a few things,” Lance said with a hint of smugness in his voice. He turned on his side and put one arm around her waist, drawing her closer. “Who, other than my mate, could pull me back down to Earth, away from the sun? The drive to just keep going up and up and up, until there was no air and no way back, was so strong. You have no idea,” he told her, his expression going deathly serious. “But I knew you were on the ground, waiting for me, watching for me to come back. I couldn’t leave you, no matter how strong the draw of the sun. As long as you’re here, I will always come back to you, Tina. You’re my mate, and that means forever.”