“But you weren’t. If the warlocks hadn’t taken me, you never would have known about me,” she pointed out. “I would have skipped right by you, with you none the wiser.”
For all his years, he’d believed that if he existed long enough, he would catch his mate’s scent from afar, as Will had with Chloe.
Shock stole through him as it sank in that he’d missed her. He’d lived for a century with false hope, never knowing she’d been cold in the ground.
Munro had been born for one purpose: to find and protect his mate. And he’d failed. Now he was to get a second chance—courtesy of the warlocks—but she remained vulnerable as a human.
Kereny said, “From what I’ve heard, I’d say you’ve been enjoying a feckless and debauched life for some time.” She’d sidled far too close to the truth.
He was just frustrated enough to give it to her. “My brother has been nigh suicidal for centuries. Two things got him through the night: sex and violence. So for all these years, he and I undertook dangerous missions for our king and battled threats to our clan. When we believed vampires had assassinated our ruler, we founded Bheinnrose, a settlement in Nova Scotia, to get Lykae families away from the Horde. But after that, we had no more missions. No more danger. So we prowled for women and hoped for war. You likely would have found me verra debauched.”
Instead of being scandalized, she casually asked, “How many have you been with?”
He shrugged. “More than a few. Are you jealous?”
She shrugged right back at him. “How do I compare to more than a few?”
“There is no comparison.” They were mates; their experiences should mirror each other. Did she not feel the same raw bliss when they kissed and touched?
“How many of them have you loved?”
“Love? You canna pledge your heart when it’s been fated to another,” he said, baffled by her question. “Lykae revere matehood. We believe each of us is unfinished, half of a greater whole, awaiting the right partner. Every second of my existence, I’ve been aware of how incomplete I am.”
She murmured, “Incomplete.”
“Aye. But now everything is different.”
“I find it hard to understand how you’d give up all those lovers for one.”
Then she was not feeling the same as he was. He sat back, troubled. “As I said, wolves mate for life.” What if she was his, but he wasn’t hers? Such a thing only happened if two beings were of different species.
Like a human and a Lykae.
As if reading his mind, she said, “Alas, humans don’t.”
Her words plagued him far worse than her blade had. “Just one more reason for you to become a wolf. I’ll bring you around.” With time, she’d feel their bond and come to the obvious conclusion: immortality.
Still, doubts whispered. If he wasn’t her mate and she became a Lykae, she would spurn him.
No, of course he was hers. All he had to do was recall her response to him earlier. “And mayhap you should no’ knock debauchery since you liked it so well with me.”
She brushed aside his words. “Tell me why you were set upon such a path for hundreds of years. Why was your brother suicidal?” When he hesitated, she gentled her tone. “You speak of bonds and fate, but I don’t know you, Munro.”
He paused with the flask at his lips. “You want to?”
“Maybe.”
If he told her about his family, would she confide in him about her parents? Fuck it, here goes. “When my brother was only a young boy, he fell into a succubus’s clutches, a fiend named Ruelle. . . .”
Munro told Kereny how Ruelle had secretly fed off Will for years, twisting him and his beast. When their mother had found out, she’d hunted the succubus, but Ruelle hadn’t been alone. “One of the succubus’s other lovers—a vampire—beheaded my mother.” Munro and Will’s beloved mam. “Da slew the vampire and Ruelle. Then he . . . died by suicide.”
Or partially. He’d almost managed to take off his own head. A sympathetic friend had helped the rest of the way.
Munro had adored his father, but after that final act, resentment had gripped him. Now that Munro had a mate, he was starting to fathom his da’s actions. Hadn’t I been ready to follow Kereny into an acid pit? “My brother blames himself for everything. He has little control over his beast and even less over his emotions.”
Kereny’s brows drew together. “I’m sorry. As his twin, you must feel his pain keenly.”
“Aye.” Keeping Will afloat meant Munro was sinking himself. He simply hid it better. “Will’s recent torture dredged up every ounce of trauma from his past, and he grew more determined to end his life.”
But suicide for an immortal was difficult to carry out alone. Unfortunately, Will knew of a way. He’d booked a one-way ticket to Hungary, home of the Fyre Dragán, a pit of unnatural flames hot enough to kill even a Lorean—a.k.a. Where Immortals Go to Die.
“What happened then?” Kereny asked.
“He met his mate, Chloe. The two of them appeared to be perfect for each other, except for her mortality. Yet then her true nature emerged. She’s actually a cambion—half mortal/half succubus. Will dinna do well with that fact, even when I reminded him that at least she’s undying now.”
“She feeds through . . . sex?”
“With Will alone.” His brother would never allow anything else.
“Despite his history, you would rather Will be mated to a succubus than to a mortal?”
“In a heartbeat. I canna say this enough: humans have no place in our world.” He’d learned that lesson harshly. Da, how did this happen? How?
A mortal in the Lore was on borrowed time. Hell, Munro himself was at once a protector for Kereny—and a threat to her.
The full moon neared, and his feelings for her were deepening so quickly that he already confused up with down, his fascination with her growing darker. His beast was no better, demanding its own access to her. How much longer could Munro keep the creature leashed?
An out-of-control werewolf . . . around a mortal he was becoming obsessed with . . .
Gods help us both.
THIRTY-FOUR
As the wolf stared into the fire, the urge to comfort him was nearly undeniable. Ren couldn’t believe that he’d lost his parents when he was thirteen, the same age she had hers.
As he’d spoken about his family, he’d been vulnerable, seeming all too, well, human. Over the course of this endless night, Munro MacRieve had shown her many facets to his personality.