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“You don’t fear him because there’s nothing to fear,”
Her rich Irish brogue filled Thea’s mind as they stared wordlessly at each other. He’s important. His future affects your future. He’s important, Thea.
He squeezed, and it was excruciating, but she still enjoyed the way his eyes rounded in horror when he realized her heart was uncrushable.
Her steps slowed as she took in the room and her fingertips whispered across one of the luxurious twin beds. There was something vulnerable in her expression as she turned to him. “This is nice.” Her eyes darted away and she sat slowly down on the bed she’d touched. She looked uncomfortable. She’d known poverty for a long time.
She wanted to visit the place that could crack Conall MacLennan’s ice-cold facade and put that too-attractive boyish wonder in his eyes.
“It’s like trying to hide a T. rex behind a MINI Cooper,”
Conall’s gut twisted as he took in the mass of scars that crisscrossed Thea’s slender back. It looked as though someone had taken a whip to her. Brutally. Many, many times.
If she wasn’t mistaken, the wolf looked like he was trying not to laugh. If he laughed, she’d kill him. “The shadows,” he said pointedly, an arrogant smirk quirking his lips. Oh crap, he definitely smelled her. That was disturbing.
Turning to him, she watched his expression soften at the sight of the tears shimmering in her eyes.
Thea was possibly the most powerful being he’d met, and yet she was afraid of a human man because of the abuse he’d perpetrated on her.
He’d do anything to rid her of that wariness forever. His breath stuttered at the thought. “Well?” she asked.
What made Thea realize that she’d begun to trust Conall, just a little, was waking up almost six hours later to find herself snuggled against his hard chest. His scent wove its way into her consciousness first and not fully awake, she wanted to bury deeper into the smell.
Her head was definitely resting on Conall’s chest. One hand was beneath her cheek while the other laid on his flat, taut stomach. She could feel the ridge of abs between her hand and the fabric of his shirt. Then the weight resting along her back became apparent. He had his arm around her. His hand was cupping her hip. What the hell?
Don’t betray me, Conall. Please don’t betray me. Not you too.
Conall took it out of her hand, checked the size, and then exchanged it for the same shirt in forest green. She stared at him questioningly as she took it. Why did he have to make her feel like she was the only one in the room when he looked at her? He shrugged. “The color suits you.”
Tentatively reaching out, she waited for a sign that Wolf Conall was against being touched. He didn’t give one and so Thea rested her palm gently against the top of his head.
He was soft as velvet. And he liked to be petted. If he’d been a cat, he would be purring. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered.
But she was so tired. So tired of being alone. Of being without faith. The promise she made to Amanda floated across her mind. “Iron,” she blurted out.
shot her a look, wondering at what point she stopped seeing him as most people did.
A small, darkly satisfied smile had curled her lips as she’d listened to Conall’s threat. It’d made him feel about ten feet tall to give her that moment.
“Thea,” he said, his tone gentle, “most planes are made of aluminium.” “Aluminum?” She pronounced the u like “ooh” and excluded the last i. “Aye, that one. But the way I said. The right way,” he teased, trying to coax the taut expression off her face. She couldn’t possibly think she was to blame for her parents’ deaths.
And Conall knew as he gripped her warm, soft body as close to his as he could get her that nothing would stop him from tasting every inch of her. Nothing.
“Dinnae hold back with me, lass. I can take everything you’ve got.” She grinned, and he chuckled.
“You’re just like everyone else.” Her expression turned heartbreakingly bleak. “I can’t trust anyone.”
“Thea.” Vik grinned, shaking his head. “They didn’t just walk among us. They made supernaturals.”
The queen, Aine—spelled A-i-n-e, pronounced ‘awn-ya’—never
This is sending me as if he would stress the pronouncation right after he literally pronounced it
There Aine informed the supes and humans alike that fae children would be born in the human world to human parents. Seven of them.
“You mean … change her into a werewolf?” “Yes. Exactly. And it worked. She was no longer a true immortal.
“I could kill Thea with one bite?” “Or turn her into a werewolf.” Vik shrugged. “Fifty-fifty chance.”
To me you feel like the moon just before the change. An ancient, compelling energy, integral to everything.”
“I care what happens to you, Thea, far fucking more than I should.” “Then stop.” Conall gave a bark of incredulous laughter. “I could sooner ask the sun to stop rising.”
“But how do I sacrifice you for them? Tell me, Thea. How do I do that, when the very thought of handing you over to Ashforth, leaving you alone to this mess, makes me want to rip the fucking moon to shreds?”
“Maybe when you’re old and gray, I’ll come to Torridon and ask you to bite me so one way or another, I don’t have to live forever.” So one way or another, I don’t have to live forever without you.
“Your life will never be empty, Conall. One day I’ll be just a memory.” He bent his head, his words a snarl against her lips, “You’ll be a ghost, Thea, haunting me for the rest of my goddamn life.” He pushed her away from him. “And if you cannae see that, then you dinnae feel for me what I feel for you.”
“Their scents have merged as one.”
“You have mated with the werewolf, Miss Quinn.”
“Touch him and die.”
And it was there, in the depths of her. A golden, sweet, heady, beautiful, terrifying eternity of power. Suddenly, Thea wasn’t afraid. “If you kill Conall, I’ll end you.”
He’d never said he loved her.
“No, no, no, no,” Thea panted. “Conall, you have to drink. You can’t leave me.” She bent over him, pressing desperate kisses down his scarred cheek, her tears splashing onto his skin. She rested her cheek against his, her body shuddering with panic. A sob burst out of her. “P-p-please … p-please don’t leave me.”
The idea was unbearable. Losing her parents left her with a gaping hole in her soul. Losing Conall would obliterate her. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying.
“Us,” she bit out, her eyes bleeding gold. “There’s nowhere on earth he can hide from us.”
“I love you,” Conall said, the words rough as if they’d been grounded out. “But I willnae force you to stay with me and endure a mating bond. Not if it makes you feel like a prisoner. When we get to England, you can leave. I dinnae expect you to come to Scotland with me and I dinnae expect you to heal Callie either. God forbid you see me as anything like that bastard who tore your back to shreds.”
He was choosing her over his sister. By setting her free, he was choosing her over Callie. He loved her so much he was letting her go.
“But when I saw that vampire plunge the silver into your neck, when I felt you dying in my arms …” Her tears fell freely now. “I wanted to die too.
“I don’t think there is a word for this much love. It’s too big.”
The sun burned. A star was something to place a wish upon. All my wishes were bound up in my star.
Conall sighed. They really needed to work on her temper when it came to him. She was worse than he was.
“I dinnae … I dinnae want you to look back and resent me for this moment.” Her smile was sad, weary, far too weary. “Never, Chief MacLennan. Never.”
Thea fisted his heart, not surprised to find it small. “You never had any use for it anyway,” she whispered. Then the third and final move. She tore Ashforth’s useless heart from his body.
