Saving Grace by Bianca D'Arc

line…and
ultimately the beach. Was she going down to the water despite the
danger? He had to at least talk to her before he let her go. Even
as his heart fractured a little, he went after her, putting some
speed on to catch up with her. He had to try to convince her to
stay, no matter how much it hurt his pride. He couldn’t let her go
without at least asking—maybe even begging—her to stay.
    “Grace?” he called, approaching her from
behind. They were both being pelted with rain, lightning flashes
getting closer as the storm grew. She didn’t seem to hear him.
“Grace!”
    Was she ignoring him? He tried again.
    “Grace!”
    Jack felt a chill that wasn’t from the rain.
Something else was going on. It looked like her feet were dragging
along the ground. Her scales were rippling over her skin, trying to
burst out, but unable while she walked toward what could very well
be her doom.
    As if her doom were calling her.
    Sweet Mother of All.
    “Grace!” He ran to catch up. She was moving
surprisingly fast along the wet sand. They’d made it through the
trees and were getting close to the rocky shore.
    Jack jumped in front of her, blocking her
forward movement. She tried to go around him, but he grasped her
arms, stilling her. She kept trying to move, and he saw the pain of
struggle on her face. He couldn’t tell with the rain streaming down
on them, but he thought maybe she was crying.
    “Grace, what is it? What are you doing?”
    “It’s…calling me. It’s…compelling me” she
ground out, every word a trial.
    “The leviathan?” he asked, already sure of
the answer. She nodded. “What can I do?”
    “It’s a little better when you talk to me.”
Her words seemed to come easier, and she was looking into his eyes
now, instead of at the crashing waves just a few yards away. “I
felt it pulling me all night. It was building until…until I
couldn’t resist it anymore.”
    As a bear shifter, Jack had more magic than
most other kinds of shifters, and he recognized the abrasive feel
of evil magic against his senses. It was coming from the water, and
it was aimed at Grace.
    He hadn’t made a study of magic the way some
of his friends had, but a lot of it just came naturally to him. He
had the notion that only stronger, more pure magic, could
counteract the evil coming off the water. Jack’s mere presence
blocking some of it was already helping steady Grace, but he needed
more. They needed more.
    He wondered if…
    Jack bent and kissed her, taking her into his
arms, giving into the desire that had been riding him for hours
now. There was nothing purer on earth than the magic of desire…the
enchantment of love.
    He could feel a shell of protective magic
forming around them as the kiss deepened. Grace wasn’t pushing him
away. On the contrary, she was pulling him closer, wrapping herself
around him as if he was her anchor in a storm-tossed sea.
    Reminded of the dangerous tempest behind him,
Jack started walking them slowly back toward the tree line. He
didn’t stop kissing her. He didn’t let her out of his embrace at
all. In fact, when he grew impatient with their slow pace, he
lifted her off the ground completely and walked at his own pace
into the trees.
    He felt the rage against his back, beyond the
barrier of magic they had created between them. The evil thing in
the water was pissed, but Jack would give it no satisfaction this
night.
    He finally had Grace in his arms, and she
responded to him as if she, too, had been dreaming of this. If she
had, so much the better. He wasn’t going to let her go tonight. Not
when he knew she was being drawn against her will.
    If he had to hold her in his arms all through
the night, then so be it. If, however, things progressed, and she
wanted him as much as he wanted her—which it looked very much like
it was the case—then he’d take her to his bed and keep her there
for as long as she let him. Hopefully, forever.
     

Chapter Eight

    Jack kissed like a dream. A