The wounded wolf who’d escaped torture. The brutal warrior fighting his kind in the rain. The immortal lover with his divine kisses.
He intrigued her; after a few shots of whiskey, infatuation was setting in. But as long as she believed going home was a possibility, and as long as the wolf ignored her wish to remain human, she couldn’t allow her feelings for him to deepen.
She gazed at his strong profile in the firelight. Easier said. When Munro had remarked that he’d felt incomplete, she’d barely concealed her reaction. What if she’d been yearning for him?
He turned to face her. “I dinna want to burden you with such a tale. But you would learn of it eventually.”
“You asked Ormlo for another means to power the gateway. You were going to use it for your parents, weren’t you?”
He nodded. “I went to Quondam partly to investigate rumors of their gateway and see if I could retrieve my family. Now I’ll use the ring.”
She stiffened. “Would I be your first or second wish?”
“My first. O’ course.”
With a roll of her eyes, she said, “I think you’ve forgotten that my plans for Dorada’s ring don’t coincide with yours.”
“What would you do with it if you had it right now?”
“I would wish to return to my life with all my loved ones and for my parents to have survived.”
His eyes flickered gold to blue and back. “I’m no’ in any existence that you envision,” he said in a toneless voice.
“You can’t be. Even if I didn’t have commitments, the two of us could never be together. You said it yourself: humans don’t belong in your world. Whether you like it or not, that’s my species. And I intend for it to stay that way.”
Instead of rehashing their argument about changing her, he asked, “Why do you think the ring will allow you to live in the past?”
“If I died, then I can go back without fading. There won’t be another version to compete with.”
“Even with the ring, you canna return as you were because you would alter events of the past—which is no’ possible. Think about it this way: if the warlocks could change history, then they would no’ be hiding in their own sphere, which is a prison in itself. With such an ability, the Forgotten would rule all the worlds.”
That was the first thing he’d said about time travel that hit home with her. Oh, Doamne, he’s . . . right. “So even with magic, I couldn’t go back and whisper in my parents’ ears to save their lives. I couldn’t get more grenades delivered to the circus earlier.”
“Nay, my lass, you canna.”
Her lips parted. Then my existence is gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Ren would never again wander through the circus fairgrounds, awash in a feeling of unity.
“Your loved ones could theoretically be brought forward,” Munro said, “but they could no’ avoid their deaths back then.”
“Then I will wish them all forward.” She would seize the ring from Dorada, then recreate the circus in this time.
“How would your parents feel knowing you used an evil sorceress’s talisman to resurrect them?”
They would rather stay dead. Ren doubted her mother and father would ever accept such machinations. Still . . . “I will wish them forward, then work to earn their forgiveness.”
Munro gazed at her meaningfully.
Comprehension dawned. She planned to take away her parents’ choice about resurrection, just as the wolf planned to take away her choice about transformation. “It’s not the same.” It’s a bit the same. “They died. I’m still alive.”
“In any case, the wishes likely must come from an immortal like me. And I’ll do it gladly if that’s what it takes to make you happy here.”
“But only after you’ve made me undying?” Ren considered continuing her ruse with Munro, arguing about a bargain with Dorada that would never be. Yet she was just so tired. “I might not be able to return to my time, but that doesn’t mean I have to sign on for a life with you.” She rose from the settee. When he did as well, looking like he’d follow wherever she went, she said, “I want to be alone. To decompress. Do I get a choice in that?”
He held up his hands. “O’ course. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
After the door closed behind him, she climbed up into the window seat. Gazing into the rainy night, she hugged her legs to her chest and replayed their conversation.
Could she use a stolen wishgiver to bring souls back from the grave? Ren had been born and raised in Transylvania amid tales of restless spirits. Hours ago, she’d shopped with one! If she used that ring to wake her loved ones from their eternal rest, might things go awry? How many wishes could she make before the ring misinterpreted her desires?
Ren’s heart broke as she concluded that she couldn’t risk it. I can’t go back; they can’t come forward.
Desolation threatened. Her people were gone, and she was alone in a new world. She peered down at her wedding ring, tears welling. Strange, she didn’t feel like a widow. . . .
As her tears began to fall, she replayed favorite memories, wrapping them tightly around her. When she’d lost her parents, the Night War had saved her from a deluge of grief. Now it must again. Into this time, she would carry her memories—and an ever-expanding mission.
Sinister forces still existed. Tonight she’d learned of a veritable rogues’ gallery of high-value targets.
Jels the Conniver. The Enemy of Old. The very Queen of Evil.
Ren would kill Dorada, then use the ring to destroy the warlocks and any vampires who preyed on humans.
I’ll fight evil immortals wherever, however, and whenever I can.
She caught her reflection in the window. Her face looked almost lupine in the rain-slicked glass. Fitting. From tonight on, she would be the wolf.
In sheep’s clothing.
THIRTY-FIVE
Munro liked this solitary night not one whit. He was unused to being alone—had spent nine centuries all but attached at the hip to Will. And yet Munro often suffered from loneliness. Being around Kereny had allayed that feeling, making it all the more acute now.
As the wolves outside continued their plaintive howls, he paced the guesthouse, haunting it like one of Loa’s spirits. When he meandered upstairs and put his palm against the bedroom door just to be closer to Kereny, he realized he’d been like those gray wolves for his entire life, desperate for things tantalizingly out of reach.