“Hard at it I see.” Brendon said the next day as he stepped into Dawn’s bakery and saw Ella organizing cakes, pastries and cookies beneath the glass display cases.
“Yes.” Ella replied and Brendon couldn’t help but notice that her eyes lit up when she looked up at him. Those eyes had seemed so lifeless and dead just weeks ago and now he was learning how to read them and loving what he saw.
“You look good in flour.” he teased as he leaned across the counter and kissed a smudge of the white powder off her cheek.
Dawn came walking in from the back and Brendon quickly cleared his throat and stood straight.
“Hello, Dawn.”
“Hello, Brendon. Are you feeling better today?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Brendon replied with a tip of his hat. “Sorry about yesterday. I didn’t hurt you with that couch did I?”
“No, she hits herself with couches all the time just to stay prepared for that off chance that a Hunter will throw a temper and toss one at her.” Grange growled matter of factly as he came into the bakery and immediately went to Dawn.
Brendon watched them both as Grange swept Dawn into his arms and kissed her thoroughly. Dawn kissed him back seeming not to care that he was covered in sawdust, sweat and dirt from working all morning.
Creed cooing loudly from the papoose on Dawn’s back had Grange chuckling and pulling away from her. He walked around her and lifted the boy out and up into his arms.
“Let’s give your mothers back a break for a while, son.” he said with a happy smile. He laid a kiss to his sons head and the boy wrapped one fist tight around Grange’s thick dark hair.
Brendon found himself chuckling at the look on Grange’s face which was a mixture of love, pain and amusement and then Brendon looked at Ella who was watching Grange, Dawn and Creed as well.
Her pale green eyes were full of longing and Brendon felt a pain in his heart. Ella deserved that. She deserved a man who could settle down with her. A man who could give her children and be right there to help her raise them.
She deserved that man and Brendon was going to be that man for her. He just had to convince the council to let him.
“Brendon!” Maggie exclaimed as she came running out of the kitchen toward him. Brendon scooped the limping girl up into his arms with surprise and she held a cookie, that smelled like cinnamon, under his nose.
“Try it! Try it!” she insisted. “Ella made them! Dawn said she’s really good.”
“Dawn is too nice.” Ella countered as she closed the glass display case she’d been organizing. Brendon smiled at Ella. That had almost sounded like a joke.
“Let me have that cookie.” Brendon grinned and took a big bite and then instantly wished he had taken a smaller one.
He forced his jaws to chew the hard, and extremely dry, cinnamon cookie and as he tried to swallow and force the lump of lumpy, bitter cookie down his throat, he nearly choked and began coughing loudly.
“I think your cookie killed him.” Maggie said matter of factly as Brendon sat her down gently on her feet and then clung to the counter, his lung burning from lack of air as he continued to cough.
Ella came around the counter and patted him on the back several times. “I told you Dawn was too nice.”
“Well I’ve never had that problem.” Trig said with a laugh as he walked in to the bakery. “She’s never had a problem being mean to me.” Dawn glared at him.
“You can leave now.”
Trig grinned and scooped her up in a bone crushing hug and the kiss he planted loudly on her cheek had her laughing and Grange grumbling.
Brendon was fairly certain now that he wasn’t going to die yet he still smiled gratefully at Brie who handed him a small glass of water.
“Yes, well….” Dawn said with a flush covering her cheeks as she took the rest of the uneaten cookie from Maggie and quickly tossed it in an empty bucket of scraps she kept for feeding the town dogs. “She’s very good at organizing everything. I’ve never seen my display cases look so tempting.”
“Well, if she’s done with all that,” Brendon stated as he sat Maggie down on her feet. “I’d like to take your display case organizer for the day.”
“Take me where?” Ella asked with a frown.
“Somewhere.” Brendon replied shortly, letting Ella know that that was all the hint he was going to give her.
“Take her.” Dawn conceded with a knowing smile. “I’m sure she’ll have much more fun somewhere than she will here stacking cookies.”
“And then we might have some edible cookies too.” Trig added as he sniffed at another cinnamon cookie from the kitchen.
Ella felt her ears flame red and realized she was embarrassed. How strange a thing to become embarrassed over! She had never been a very good baker, or cook, for that matter. Her father had always teased her and told her that she had better marry a man one day who could cook or they would both starve….. Thoughts of her father made her heart hurt and Brendon leaned closer to her.
“Are you okay? Trig didn’t mean nothing by that. He was just playing.” Brendon assured her quietly. Ella nodded quickly.
“Yes, I know. He is rather dim witted at times but harmless it would seem. I was thinking about my father.”
“Dimwitted and harmless?” Trig asked with a frown as Grange chuckled. Brendon took Ella’s hand and led her toward the door.
“Brendon, will you come and play cards with me tonight? Trig was teaching me poker and I’m pretty good.” Maggie asked quickly and Brendon smiled.
“Sure will.” he promised.
Ella had no idea where Brendon was taking her as he led her from the bakery and helped her onto the horse he had hitched to the rail out front before taking his place in front of her.
They rode in silence, out of town and down a trail into the woods. The hills became steeper and Ella realized they were entering the mountain range that bordered the town to the west.
“Where are we going?” she finally asked.
“A lake.” Brendon replied. “It’s up in the mountains and the view is amazing.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are we going there?”
“To spend time together.” Brendon replied, his lips brushing against her ear and causing her to tremble as that familiar heat spread between her legs.
“You’re leaving soon aren’t you?” Ella asked with a frown. Brendon sighed.
“I don’t want to talk about leaving.” he replied. “I just want to be together while we can.” Ella gripped the saddle horn tightly in her hands.
“You’re leaving tomorrow aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Brendon admitted. “I have to get back before they get suspicious over what’s taking me so long. And I have to let them know about the Georgia wolf pack before the pack tries to come after Grange.”
“I need you here.” Ella admitted. “I have no idea how to be without a master…” she heard his angry intake of breath and stopped.
“I am your lifemate, your man, your beau, whatever you want to call it, but I am not your master and no one else will ever be your master again.”
“I know. I’m sorry I say the wrong words sometimes.” Ella replied. “Can I try again?” She heard him chuckle, his breath teasing her ear.
“Sure.”
“I need you here. I have no idea how to make it without you. You have become everything to me in just the short time I’ve known you. What am I supposed to do without you?”
Silence met her question and after several seconds, Ella turned her head to look at his face. She saw that he was staring at her and his dark green eyes looked incredibly sad. His jaw was tense and his nostrils flared as he breathed deeply.
“Damn woman, you know how to make a man feel like a giant horses ass.” he finally muttered and Ella frowned.
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything I just said. Why are we talking about the backside of horses?” Sometimes Brendon made no sense.
He sighed and shook his head.
“Being away from you is going to be hard on me too, Ella. Harder than you realize, but it has to be that way. At least for awhile. I’m hoping the council will release me from my duties. I have served them for over three hundred years, longer than any other hunter…”
“So they’ve released Hunter’s before?” Ella asked hopefully as she looked back ahead of them.
“Not exactly. I just have lived longer than any other Hunter ever has before.”
“Oh.” Ella’s voice was flat and her hopes were crushed.
“But I’m still hoping they’ll grant me my freedom, Ella. I want to be with you always. I want us to settle down in that town with Grange and the pack, or another town if you don’t like that one….”
“I like it.” Ella cut in. “Farrah and I even spoke this morning. It was… pleasant. We agreed that Faugrimm did not bring out the best in either of us.”
“Or anyone else he ever met.” Brendon agreed and Ella nodded. “But I don’t want to talk about him today. I don’t want to worry about tomorrow or even think about leaving you. I just want to enjoy this day with you. Enjoy the time we have left.”
Ella felt a smile tug at her lips and she let it come. She didn’t fight it as her lips curved upward and her cheeks crinkled.
She raised her hand to her face and realized that she still had those dimples she had had as a child. She hadn’t realized they were still there since it had been longer than a century since she had brought them out with a smile.
Her smile faded slowly as she settled with contentment against Brendon’s chest and let the rhythm of the horses gait and the warmth of Brendon’s body lull her into a sense of peacefulness.
She gasped when they stepped out of the trees and she saw the lake stretching out in front of them.
The water was crystal clear and beautifully calm. The mountain peaks surrounding them, reflecting in its cool depths.
“It is beautiful.” Ella admitted.
“I told you it was.”
Brendon stopped the horse beneath several big oaks and sycamores and dismounted, pulling Ella with him.
Ella walked down to the waters edge while Brendon secured the horse.
She felt the warm sun on her face and the breeze gently blowing her hair. She felt….
Free.
Brendon’s strong arms wrapped around her waist and she leaned back against him.
“Why are we here?” she asked softly and Brendon kissed her hair.
“I want to talk.”
“About?”
“Your favorite color. What you like to do. Your favorite season. Anything.”
“Why do you need to know those things?” Ella asked with a frown as she turned and Brendon smiled as he settled down on the grass and motioned for her to sit beside him.
“I don’t need to know.” he replied, picking a strand of grass and tearing a long strip off of it. “But I want to know. I want to know everything about you.”
“I haven’t thought about anything like that in so long….” Ella admitted as she stared off into the water.
“Think about it now.” Brendon urged as he nudged her gently with his shoulder.
Ella chewed on her lip and thought about his question. Her favorite color?
“Gray.”
“What?”
“My favorite color. It’s gray.”
“That’s….. a unique choice.” Brendon replied with a raise of his brow. “Why gray?”
“Why not?” Ella asked with a shrug of one shoulder. “The sky is gray in the mornings before the sun pokes through and burns the fog away, revealing the blue sky. The ocean is gray just before a big storm. Gray is a color that lets you know something is coming.”
“I never quite thought of it that way.” Brendon admitted.
“What is your favorite color?” Ella asked him.
“Black.” he replied without hesitation. Ella looked at his black clothing, his black hair and nodded.
“It suits you.”
“What do you like to do for fun, Ella?”
“Fun? I haven’t been able to do things for ‘fun’ in a long long time.” Brendon nodded and tossed the now shredded grass aside before picking a new one.
“What about before you realized you were a vampire?”
Ella thought about that time that now seemed as if it had been one hundred lifetimes ago.
“I loved sewing. Making clothing, curtains, quilts and blankets. I was fascinated by fabrics. The different patterns and feels.”
“When I first met you, you were coming out of a fabric store.” Brendon remembered and Ella nodded.
“Yes… but fabrics have long since lost their meaning. Everything seems to have lost its meaning. I don’t feel anymore….”
“Really?” Brendon questioned as he brushed his lips across her ear and she trembled.
“I didn’t feel for a long time.” Ella corrected herself. “That’s changing.”
“I hope I have something to do with that.”
Ella looked at him and tilted her head.
“You have everything to do with that.” she replied, wondering how he could not know that already.
A broad grin split Brendon’s face, the crinkles on his cheeks defined beneath the three days worth of stubble.
“Good.”
Ella could not stop herself from kissing him hungrily and the love making that followed was slow and tender.
“How long are you going to be gone, Brendon?” Ella asked as they lay skin on skin together in the long grass. She listened to his thundering heart beneath her ear and savored the taste of his blood still clinging to her tongue.
“I told you I didn’t want to think about that.” Brendon grumbled and Ella lifted her head and frowned at him.
“Does that mean it will be a long time?”
“It could be.” Brendon admitted, his eyes focusing on the puffy white clouds in the sky instead of on her. “But I will get word to you as often as I can. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and only be gone a month or two.”
“That long would be lucky?!” Ella exclaimed, sitting up quickly. Brendon sat up as well and sighed .
“I’m sorry, honey. If I could stay, I would, but I can’t. You don’t understand how the Council is. They own me.”
“They are your masters? Just the same as Warren was mine.” Ella observed and she saw Brendon tense momentarily and then he sighed with defeat.
“Pretty much.”
“Then I’ll just have to kill them and free you.” Ella stated very matter of fact. Brendon shook his head, his gaze hardening.
“You will stay here where you will be safe. You let me worry about the Council.”
Ella didn’t say a word, simply looked out at the water and Brendon grabbed her arm and forced her to look at him.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yes.” Brendon shook his head and let go of her before rubbing his face roughly.
“I’m going to miss you.” Ella finally whispered after a long stretch of silence. Brendon put his hands on her waist and lifted her up, pulling her into his lap.
“I’m gonna miss you too, honey. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,”
“I am?” Ella asked, truly shocked by those words. She had never been the best thing to ever happen to anyone. She was always a murderer. A whore. A prisoner. A place for fists to land. Never a ‘best thing’.
“Of course you are.” Brendon assured her, burying his nose in the hair at the base of her neck. “I am going to come back to you Ella. I am going to find a way to be your man and only your man.”
“Okay.”
“It is Grange’s orders that I remind you before I leave not to kill anyone. He worries about the people in his town.”
“I won’t harm anyone.” Ella assured him. “I don’t want to get you in trouble with the council and I respect your relationship with Grange.” Brendon kissed her cheek.
“Thank you. Animal blood only while I’m away. Grange is very stern about that.”
“I don’t mind feeding off animals.” Ella said. “Thought I’d rather feed off you.”
“And I would rather let you.” Brendon assured her, holding her a little tighter. Ella felt his arousal, hardening below her.
“Do we have time before we have to go back to town?” Ella asked and Brendon nodded and flashed her a devilish grin.
“Yes, ma’am, I believe we do.”