Dogfighters: Under the Hill Read online

  Chris’s bed was as warm as he remembered, and as comforting. He tucked himself around Chris, who responded by fitting his head under Ben’s chin and holding on tight. They were relaxing moment by moment, bodies slackening and the afternoon filling up with delightfully illicit slumber, when Chris murmured against his throat. “I thought you were going to stay.”

  “With them?” Oh, that explained a hell of a lot. Ben watched the tossed shadows of leaves swirl on the bedroom ceiling, shifted a little so that he could card his fingers through the soft hair and prickly stubble at the nape of Chris’s neck. “That was never going to happen. I wanted to come home. Thought you knew that.”

  A sigh, weary but also relieved. “So glad. Don’t know what I’d have done, really. Without you. Gone to pieces, probably.” Chris’s breath was alternately warm and cold against the hollow of Ben’s throat. “Drunk myself to an early grave.”

  Ben extended his petting, running his fingers through newly washed hair, and tried to think of a way of saying I may have been out of it, but I know what you did for me, that didn’t convey any sense that he was here because of favours owed. Neither of them, he hoped, was the kind of bloke who felt that the princess owed her rescuer sex, or why would he do it?

  “I was always going to come home to you. Thought you knew that. Idiot.”

  Chris laughed, a whisper of drowsy amusement, roused himself briefly to say, “So I’m not getting it wrong, this time? This is boyfriend stuff, am I right?”

  “This is boyfriend stuff,” Ben acknowledged, and for a moment found himself so transparent and fragile with joy he feared to move in case he shattered. “Go to sleep, okay? I think it’s over. We got out, it’s finished, and now we’ve got a future ahead of us. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d kiss you.”

  “I’m all yours…” The words trailed off into silence. Ben’s heavy eyelids closed, and sleep, delicious and dark, pulled itself over him like a quilt.

  Chris woke, torn out of dreamless sleep to the sound of engines. They rattled the window, roared and throbbed through the profound quiet of early dawn. He was out of bed and stuffing himself into trousers before he remembered this couldn’t be a dawn raid, couldn’t be German Dorniers—no air-raid siren, no batman shaking him awake. But that was still the earthshaking throb of propeller engines he heard, making the water in its glass on his bedside tremble and Ben sit up, looking bleary and disgruntled, beautiful with his bed hair and the sleep in his onyx eyes.

  “What the hell is it now?”

  “I don’t know,” Chris said, though he had a hope burning beneath his breastbone like fairy gold. “Come on!”

  They tumbled down the stairs and out into the back garden. Dawn was a pearl-coloured wash across the eastern sky, and then the first arm of the sun slid out from beneath the horizon, and the river in front of Chris’s house turned to gold as the sky above lightened to silver and citrus. Behind them, the moon still hung white in a pale blue sky, and above a flight of geese arrowed, their wings blazing against the sky, their calls completely drowned out by the distinctive whuum, whuum, whuum of a Lancaster banking, the four mighty engines dopplering against each other in what sounded like the beat of a great heart.

  They stood in the dawn freshness, feet in the dewy grass and watched as she came about—little more than a sketch in strokes of light against the lightening sky, transparent as though she were made of glass, though Chris knew perfectly well she was now as tough as diamond.

  He looked up and waved madly at the smudges of men he could see through the smudges of Perspex. Too hard to see if they waved back, but she waggled her wings in salute as she came over again, turned, one more roaring pass, so close she almost clipped the chimney, and then she began to climb, straight for the rising sun.

  He watched until she was swallowed up by the blaze, was incredibly grateful when Ben disappeared inside without a word, leaving him to get his emotions under control and school his face out of the contortion of joy and ridiculous tears. “Good luck, boys,” he said at last, and standing up straight gave them a final salute.

  Then he went indoors to find the kettle was on, and an early delivery of papers lay on the doormat. He handed them to Ben, who was sitting at the kitchen table with his feet stretched out before him, and started to cook breakfast. He felt suddenly a great need for bacon and eggs.

  “It says here…” Ben looked up as Chris put a mug of coffee in front of him. The folded paper he held showed a blurry picture of outlandish people taken with a night-vision camera. “…that a police helicopter was called in to break up an unauthorised fireworks display at a live role-playing convention yesterday night. Up by the Nine Ladies.”

  He turned a page, smoothed it out. The bacon sizzled in the pan and the scent of it permeated the kitchen. Chris examined his feelings again and discovered that beneath the quiet awe and joy of the sight of his crew going home, he was still a little bruised. But that should heal in time, and time was something he now had. “Is that so?”

  “Oh, and apparently there was a midair collision between a stolen Mosquito and the Tornado sent to intercept it. Both pilots killed.”

  Chris kicked the door open, and the stray cat who always breakfasted here slid in and wound about Ben’s ankles, purring. “He was a hero,” he said, turning the bacon, cracking the eggs into the pan. “That pilot. No one will ever know.”

  Ben’s quick smile deserved to inspire a sonnet, but Chris wasn’t much of a hand with poetry.

  “That makes two of you then.”

  “Just don’t. All right?” Chris decanted the eggs and bacon onto plates. He brought them over and set them on the table with brown sauce and salt. The cat got her own slice, which she pulled straight off the saucer it was served on and played with like a mouse, spreading grease over the kitchen floor, much to Ben’s disgust.

  “It’s all part of the job, isn’t it? And this…” Chris dropped a kiss on the edge of that smile, saw it widen in response. All of this—keeping the home fires burning, honey still for tea, crows cawing in the garden outside, friends to phone and reassure, someone to come home to at night—this was what it was all about. “You and me. This was what it was all for.”

  A future, Ben had said, and yes, it was time he stopped living in the past and finally learned to be here, now, working towards a future.

  “Speaking of which, are you still interested in a job with the MPA?”

  Ben laughed and nudged him with his bare foot under the table. “Are you joking? You couldn’t keep me away if you tried.”

  About the Author

  Alex Beecroft was born in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and grew up in the wild countryside of the Peak District. She studied English and Philosophy before accepting employment with the Crown Court where she worked for a number of years. Now a stay-at-home mum and full-time author, Alex lives with her husband and two daughters in a little village near Cambridge and tries to avoid being mistaken for a tourist.

  Alex is only intermittently present in the real world. She has led a Saxon shield wall into battle, toiled as a Georgian kitchen maid, and recently taken up an 800-year-old form of English folk dance, but she still hasn’t learned to operate a mobile phone.

  You can find me in many places, but chiefly at my website www.alexbeecroft.com.

  Look for these titles by Alex Beecroft

  Now Available:

  Captain’s Surrender

  Shining in the Sun

  Under the Hill: Bomber’s Moon

  The faeries at the bottom of the garden are coming back—with an army.

  Bomber’s Moon

  © 2012 Alex Beecroft

  Under the Hill, Part 1

  When Ben Chaudhry is attacked in his own home by elves, they disappear as quickly as they came. He reaches for the phone book, but what kind of exterminator gets rid of the Fae? Maybe the Paranormal Defense Agency will ride to his rescue.

  Sadly, they turn out to be another rare breed: a bunch of UFO hunters led by Chris Gatr
ell, who—while distractingly hot—was forcibly retired from the RAF on grounds of insanity.

  Shot down in WWII—and shot forward seventy years in time, stranded far from his wartime sweetheart—Chris has been a victim of the elves himself. He fears they could destroy Ben’s life as thoroughly as they destroyed his. Chris is more than willing to protect Ben with his body. He never bargained for his heart getting involved.

  Just when they think there’s a chance to build a life together, a ghostly voice from Chris’s past warns that the danger is greater than they can imagine. And it may take more than a team of rank amateurs to keep Ben—and the world—out of the elf queen’s snatching hands…

  Warning: Brace yourself for mystery, suspense, sexual tension, elves in space and a nail-biting cliffhanger ending.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Bomber’s Moon:

  Ben studied the gesture of self-control. His mouth turned up at the ends. “Thinking bad thoughts, Wing Commander?”

  Arrogant little sod. What did he expect Chris to say with Grace in the room? Oh, Ben might have poured out the whole story—the boy was young, and youngsters these days had no shame when it came to sex…

  Wait, though, that was an interesting thought. Youngsters had no shame these days, and there Ben was, smiling like he’d got one over on Chris. It came up like the lava in a lamp, shouldering everything aside with a great glossy welling up of relief; Ben was smirking.

  And smirking was not, perhaps, the expression of a victim, of a man betrayed. Not even of a man embarrassed and ill at ease. If anything, Ben was exuding the smugness of a man who’d found buried gold and intended to keep it all to himself.

  “Bad thoughts, Mr. Chaudhry? I never have anything but the best of thoughts, and my instincts are splendid.”

  “For an old man.”

  Oh, Chris swallowed. That was…uncalled for. And rather delightful. “If you have complaints, I will of course try harder next time.”

  “Harder? How much harder?”

  Grace set her flask down on the work surface with a click, leaned back, crossing her arms. They both started guiltily. Just for a moment it had been as though she hadn’t been there at all. “I don’t think I want to know what this is about.” She pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows, then snorted, blowing out exasperation through her nose. “I can see I’m in the way. Here.”

  She handed the vial of water to Ben, who sniffed at it cautiously, the little plastic stopper held in his other hand. “It smells of snuff. I thought you said there wasn’t any witchcraft in this.”

  Grace chuckled. “I think it’s funny—holy water in an imp. The smell does cling, though, even when you’ve used all the perfume up and washed the bottle twice. Think of it as the odour of sanctity. I know I do.”

  “And this”—Ben looked askance at the tiny test tube full of water, with its plastic lid and remnant of torn-off label—“will protect me from…them…so well I can go back to work?”

  “Yes.” Grace poured out a cup of very stewed tea and gulped it down. “It needs to be on you at all times, though. I suggest you sew it into one of those tennis sweatbands that goes around your wrist—something you can sleep in. Don’t take it off. If you’ve had the sort of fright that makes coming for help to Matlock Paranormal seem sensible, then you don’t want to risk ever putting this down. Not until the larger problem is sorted. All right? And bear in mind that you haven’t even addressed the larger problem yet. That has to be done if you’re to be secure in the long run. This isn’t a solution. This is just buying you time.”

  Ben looked at the door with an expression of uncertainty. Chris had not shut it properly and the wind, gusting over the peaks, kept opening and closing it—a stripe of bright morning and the skirl of cold, granite-scented air, and a creak and thud as it shut again. “What do I have to do to get rid of them permanently?”

  “You could convert.” Grace refolded her arms and the brief moment of cordiality was over.

  “Even that might not help,” Chris said. “Remember Tam Lin? The old star on his brow? But they still grabbed him and held him.”

  Responsibility hit Chris like flying into turbulence. There was nothing beneath his wings holding him up. He fell, heart in mouth, hands slippery on the joystick, brought the nose up, increased speed and won through, plunging back into confidence on the other side. They would not get Ben. He didn’t know what to do to prevent it, but he would. Dying in the attempt was acceptable, but failing was not.

  Wiping his hands on his shirt, he wished for a shower. Wished, in a moment of weakness, that he had left all of this alone, as the RAF had advised—or that all of it would have been content to leave him alone. But that way lay madness. You couldn’t un-see what you’d seen, or un-know what you’d known. Besides, he’d never have met Ben if it wasn’t for them.

  No one survives unchanged.

  Convergence

  © 2011 Ally Blue

  Mother Earth, Book 3

  When the Carwin Tribe Pack lost Rabbit, a little bit of Lynx died along with his Brother. Their feelings went far beyond the Pack bond. The ensuing years have never erased his sorrow, only dulled the edges.

  Kidnapped during a desperate mission to save Carwin, Lynx awakens to a completely foreign civilization where slaves and masters exist in a unique symbiotic relationship. And to a face he never expected to see again—Rabbit. Yet Lynx’s shock and joy are tempered by the changes in his lover.

  The Pack’s strength lies in love, sex and a brotherhood forged from a lifetime of living and fighting side by side. Rabbit’s seeming acceptance of his lot as a slave makes Lynx wonder if he’s lost his soul mate forever…and if he can trust Rabbit with knowledge of his plan to escape.

  As Lynx learns to navigate the complex hierarchies of Queen City, he begins to realize all is not as it seems. He finds he can’t simply take Rabbit and run, leaving an entire city to a grisly fate. Even if it costs him the one bond closest to his heart—the love he and Rabbit still share.

  Warning: This book contains Lynx-napping, futuristic farming, eavesdropping (minus the eaves), daring escapes, bloody battles, and Pack sex.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Convergence:

  They moved cautiously toward the ruined building east of the nest, with Lynx in the lead and Kitten in the rear. All three of them wriggled through a swaying curtain of ivy into a tiny open space fashioned partly from the ancient walls and partly from the weeds, trees and vines crowding all around.

  “Be careful,” Fox whispered, scanning the landscape with narrowed eyes. “It’s too quiet around here.”

  Lynx peered out through the tangle of greenery. Nothing stirred in the dusty heat outside, not even a rat. Not even a bug scuttling through the dirt, for that matter. He frowned. “Do you smell them?”

  “No. Well, yes, but it’s residual.” Fox ran the hand not gripping his knife handle over the back of his neck. His dark skin gleamed with sweat in the heat. “I just don’t like the feel of the place, that’s all.”

  “I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.” Lynx turned to Kitten. “Do you hear anything?”

  Kitten shook his head. “No one’s around other than us, but Fox is right. It’s way too quiet. I don’t think they’re very far off. We need to hurry.”

  Leaning as far through the ivy curtain as he dared, Lynx studied the ruins in every direction he could see. Heat-shimmer rose from the ground, breaking the line of the horizon into strange, wavering shapes. Nothing moved. Even the breeze from earlier had died, leaving the air thick, damp and dead.

  The whole world felt tense. Breathless. Lynx didn’t like it any more than his Brothers did.

  He flexed his fingers around his knife handle. “I’m going to make this fast. Stay alert. I’ll scream if I’m caught. If you hear that, don’t wait. Get out. Understand?”

  After a moment, Fox nodded. Kitten wrinkled his nose but eventually nodded as well. Lynx clapped each of them on the shoulder, then ducked under the tangle of vegetation hiding the wi
de crack in the northern wall.

  He ignored the dread that coiled in the pit of his stomach when he left his Brothers behind.

  A minor wilderness of briars, young trees and tall grasses lay between Fox and Kitten’s hiding place and the nomads’ nest. It was easy enough to cross the space and slip through the gap in the eastern side of the old building without much chance of being spotted by anyone who happened to be watching.

  The cavernous room beyond the opening wasn’t in much better shape than the space where he, Fox and Kitten had spent the previous night. Shade-dwelling weeds sprouted through a thick layer of dirt and splinters Lynx figured had once been a sturdy wooden floor. In the southwest corner, an oak tree sprouted straight up through a hole in the ceiling. Vines spilled through the opening and spread out to cover the walls and creep across the floor.

  Glimpses of a tremendous window showed through the vegetation on the southern wall. A window Lynx and his Brothers hadn’t spotted while watching the nomads earlier, because it looked like brick from the outside. Lynx had never seen anything quite like it. He resisted the urge to go take a closer look. There wasn’t time for anything but his mission. Get in, look for signs of the nest, get out. He couldn’t allow himself to become distracted by one of Char’s little mysteries, no matter how interesting.

  Jogging past the window, he scanned the western end of the south wall for the place where the nomads had entered. He found it after a few seconds, a narrow rectangular entry with a rusted metal door hanging crooked from one hinge. A trail of trampled grasses and footprints in the dirt led from the door to a spot on the northern side of the room where the ivy hung in a curtain too thick to be natural.