“What happened?” she asked, coming to a stop in front of Emmett.
Tears streamed down Ria’s face. “I screamed right next to his ear.”
“Is that all?” Lifting her hands, the healer cupped them gently over Emmett’s ears. “It won’t take long to heal. He’ll be extra-sensitive for a week, but after that, his hearing will go back to normal.”
Ria felt Emmett squeeze her shoulders, his eyes already looking clearer. But she didn’t breathe easy until Tamsyn drew back her hands and said, “There.”
Emmett turned to Ria. “What was it?”
“A spider,” she admitted, shamefaced. “Teeny, tiny.”
“Scared of spiders, mink?” He drew her into his embrace.
“Very.” Her eyes met Tamsyn’s. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Touching her fingers gently to Ria’s cheek, she took the damp towel Nathan held out to her. “For the blood.”
As Ria accepted the soft cloth with a murmur of thanks, Nathan jerked his head toward the house. “I’ll leave the door open if you want to come in.”
“No.” Emmett shook his head. “I have to get Ria home.”
The couple headed in with a wave. Reaching up, Ria dabbed away the blood with careful hands. Emmett bent his head and let her do what she needed to do. Only when his face was clear did he take the towel and put it on the hood of the car. “You gonna look at me anytime soon?”
She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Emmett.”
“Hey, it wasn’t that bad.” He tipped up her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Excruciating, but otherwise not that bad.”
Guilt threatened to crush her. Then she caught the glint in his eye. “Emmett, if I didn’t love you so much, I’d kill you right now.”
His eyes went night-glow between one second and the next. “What did you say?”
That was when she realized she’d given away everything. Her heart in her throat, she swallowed. “I said I love you.”
Emmett cupped her cheek in his hand, those amazing, wild eyes becoming impossibly wilder. “Say that again.”
She did.
Emmett’s smile was slow, possessive, brilliant. “I love you, too, mink.”
Her lips trembled. Throwing her arms around him, she let him pick her up and kiss the air right out of her. Sometime later, he said, “You’re my mate. Think you can handle that?”
It was hard to speak with her heart bursting open. “Think you can handle me?”
“So long as you’re gentle with me.”
And she knew he was going to tease her about this for the rest of their lives. Her smile almost cracked her face, she was so delighted by the idea.
EPILOGUE
Of course Dorian flirted shamelessly with Ria at her and Emmett’s mating ceremony. But Emmett didn’t carry through his threat to eviscerate the younger man. Because Ria was his now, and Dorian, like every other man in DarkRiver, would rather die than cross that line.
His leopard smiled indulgently as the blond soldier danced Emmett’s mate into a whirl, then caught her laughing form. Her eyes met Emmett’s over Dorian’s shoulder and she blew him a kiss. Smiling, he decided he’d shared his mate quite enough. “Go find another partner, Blondie.”
Dorian released Ria with a mournful smile. “But I like your mink.” Dodging Emmett’s swipe, he walked off with a cocky grin.
“Is your pack always like this?” Ria asked, looking up at him, her arms wrapped around his waist.
“Crazy?”
“That, too. But so . . . like family.”
“Yep. Pack is family.”
A frown gathered between her brows. “What about my parents, grandmother, my brothers, Amber, and Joy—will they be shut out now?”
“They’re family, too,” he told her. “Sometimes, they might wish they weren’t.” Grinning, he directed her gaze to where poor Amber and Joy were being “looked after.” The changelings weren’t touching either mother or baby, but it was obvious they wanted to. Then Ria noticed the beautiful handcrafted baby blanket being held out to Amber. Her sister-in-law looked stunned . . . before a slow smile crept over her face.
“We like kids,” Emmett whispered in her ear.
Pressing herself to him, she stood on tiptoe to whisper back. “Me, too.”
He squeezed her close.
“How come you took so long to find me?” she asked.
“Stupidity.” A nip of her ear. “But now that I have you, I’m never letting go.”
Ria smiled and kissed the edge of his jaw. “Who says I’d let you?”
Laughing, Emmett spun her off her feet and around in a dizzying circle. Ria met her grandmother’s eyes halfway through the first rotation. Miaoling was holding court with the young ones, but her smile was just for Ria. And Ria knew her grandmother understood.
Emmett was it for her. Forever. No matter what.
It was, she thought, looking down into eyes gone cat in joyful play, perfect.
It seems that certain statements made in this column last year were prescient in the extreme. According to every person we spoke to during our research for today’s column, the real power in San Francisco is no longer seen to lie with our elected representatives, but with a group of leopard changelings. Perhaps it’s these cats who should be sitting in local government?
Lucas Hunter, the DarkRiver alpha, had this to say when I put the point to him: “We have no desire to stand for office. But we consider San Francisco our home—and we take threats to that home, and to the people within it, very seriously.”
Bravo, Mr. Hunter. As far as this reporter is concerned, DarkRiver has proven both its determination, and its right, to hold the city. San Francisco is unequivocally a leopard town.
BLOOD AND ROSES
Angela Knight
ONE
The vampire knew how to sit on a horse. He rode with an easy muscularity despite his armor, achieving an effortless rhythm with his huge black stallion. A helm covered his head, red plumes floating in the wind, and gleaming plate mail sheathed his big body, so that he moved with the creak mail sheathed his big
