I stretched into his touch. His hands moved higher up my legs.
“Mmm, that feels lovely.”
My robe slipped opened as his hands moved over my hips to my waist. He lifted me to carry me to the bed. I leaned back onto my elbows as he fully opened my robe. His eyes roamed over my body. Even without his touch, the hunger in his eyes excited me.
“You are stunning,” he said as he removed his robe.
I moved onto the bed and crooked my finger at him.
“I’ve been waiting for you since before I met you,” I said as he slid into me.
Suddenly, he rolled off me, leaving me feeling exposed.
“Ian?”
“There are things you do not know about my past. It is selfish of me to continue this without giving you a fair choice. I have already let it go too far.”
I stared at his profile wondering what the hell could be so horrible.
“What could make you think my feelings for you will change? I may not know about your past, but that’s just what it is: your past. I know the Ian you are now, and that’s the Ian I fell in love with.” Crap! I stopped short after that, I hadn’t meant to say it, and I stiffened waiting for him to respond.
When I felt him stiffen too, I tried to pull away from the arm he still had around me, but he tightened his hold and rolled to his side to face me.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I, um, I didn’t mean to say that. I just wanted you to know your past is your past. I’m not going to judge you by things you did before I knew you.”
“So, you did not mean it? You are not in love with me?”
“Um…”
“Does it help to know that I am in love with you?”
“You are?”
“Yes.”
I tucked my head under his chin. “Yes, it helps. I love you,” I mumbled into his chest.
“What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“Yes, Ian MacBeaghne, I am in love with you. I think I always have been. I lost my heart to you the day we met… maybe even before we met. There, I said it. Happy?”
“Yes.” He pulled me closer and kissed my forehead. “I appreciate you saying my past does not matter to you, but there are still some things you should know.”
“So, tell me. I can’t imagine it will change my mind.” I kissed his neck and smiled against it when he moaned.
“I will tell you everything, but Bryce should be a part of the conversation.”
“He said the same thing when I asked how you guys knew each other. I mean from before we moved in with the clan.”
“How could you have known that?”
“Because I’m not stupid. I could tell that night there was something between the two of you. Besides, Bryce wouldn’t have just moved me in with a stranger so easily.”
“That is part of what I need to tell you, but I think it best if Bryce joins us.”
“Why? Whatever it was between you two it was not friendship.” I got out of bed to dress. The mood was so ruined.
He made a noise like, “Hmph” and shrugged. “No, we were not friends, but I like to think we are now. Part of my past includes him, and he should be there when we discuss it.”
“Then let’s go get him. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”
“Please remember the reasons you fell in love with me.”
“Okay, let’s go find Bryce, you’re starting to worry me.” I took his hand as we left the room.
We found Bryce in his room with his nose in a thick book that looked older than time itself. It was one of his Fey spell and potion cookbooks. We stood quietly for a few moments, giving him time to acknowledge us, but of course he had no clue we’d entered.
“Brycson,” Ian said, “we would like to speak with you.”
Without looking up from the book, Bryce mumbled something that sounded like, “About?”
Ian cleared his throat. Bryce finally looked up and focused on Ian’s face. Whatever he saw there made him frown.
“Oh,” he muttered as he gingerly placed the book onto a podium and covered it with a piece of cloth. “I had hoped to wait a little longer.”
“No. No more waiting,” I said.
“Okay,” Bryce said with a sigh. “Well, let’s have a seat, shall we?” He motioned to the window seat and the chairs in front of it. I sat on the window seat facing the two men. “Now, where to begin…” He drifted off in thought.
I snapped my fingers in front of his face to bring him back to the present. “How about at the beginning? How do you guys know each other? I assume from all those years ago on the Fey lands.”
He gave me a smile and gave Ian a sidelong glance. Ian just nodded for him to begin.
“Yes, that is how we knew each other.”
“Why the animosity?”
“I… Well, Ian, you wanted to do this, so do it.”
“Go on, Ian. It’s okay,” I said.
“You say that now,” he muttered under his breath before standing to pace the room as he spoke. “During the war I lost my family and my… wife. I’m sorry I never told you that I have been married.”
“Ian, you’ve been alive for a long time. I am not surprised because you once had a wife. I’d be more surprised if you’d never had one.”
He nodded. “All I had left was Rufus, but because his wife had also been killed, he left without a word. As you know, banshee do not like being alone. So, I joined a clan. I had not been familiar with the head of the clan and quickly discovered he was… extreme.”
“Well, that’s putting it lightly,” Bryce interjected.
“Yes, well, he was extreme in the treatment of his subordinates. Worse with the mortals from whom we fed. In some ways, he makes Gabriel look like a pussycat.”
Well, wasn’t that just delightfully peachy news?
“He ordered us to do unspeakable things. Especially me.”
“Why especially you?”
“He believed I was weaker than the others. I refused to follow his savage commands.”
“Ah, because you are compassionate, that made you nice.”
‘Nice’ was always a dirty word to the evil-minded.
“Correct. The more I refused him, the more I suffered at his hands. The things he’d ask of me… Anyway, after I escaped the clan, I reluctantly agreed to work for the Elders in return for their protection. I bided my time secretly training and building my own clan. Then they ordered me to execute a half-breed child, an infant. I could not kill an infant. Instead, I told the family with what I had been tasked. I pleaded with them to hide the child. I returned to the Elders and lied, saying I had slain the babe.”
“I don’t see what you have to be ashamed of here.”
“The master of my former clan somehow discovered I had lied to the Elders. He blackmailed me into a meeting. When I arrived, he restrained me and locked me in a chamber. I was tortured as punishment for leaving his clan.”
“Oh, Ian.” When I rose to go to him, he held up a hand telling me to let him finish.
He paced the room a few times before he turned to face me. “It was almost two months before Rufus found me and assisted in my escape. He stayed behind while I ran, again.”