Blood Wolf Dawning

by Rhyannon Byrd

  But there was no guarantee that he would ever reach that point—and she no longer knew if she could continue to play it safe. Doing so went against everything her instincts were telling her to do. She might have started out hiding behind her emotional armor, afraid of the damage he could leave behind—but she understood him better now. The damage was already done, which meant it was time to go all in or go home. And she didn’t have a home without him.

  She wanted Cian. The wolf, the vampire and whoever else he might have living inside of him. She didn’t care, she simply wanted them all.

  She wanted her man.

  Chapter 15

  Twenty-seven hours later...

  Pure green, for as far as his eyes could see. That was what always caught Cian off guard when he came back to the land where he’d been born. The deep, vibrant green.

  Would look incredible against Sayre’s golden red hair, his beast murmured, its guttural voice as dejected as his own. He kept having to blink goddamn moisture out of his eyes, so what the hell was that about? He’d never cried in his life, and now this. He felt like he was in a sappy romance flick. And it didn’t help that he’d spent the entire seven-hour flight across the Atlantic poring over all The Green Witch videos that he’d downloaded onto his phone before leaving, still marveling at what Sayre had achieved at such a young age, and completely on her own. He was so damn proud of her there weren’t even words to express it.

  And he missed her so much it was killing him, each moment that took him farther away from her cutting him like a blade.

  Though it’d been the hardest thing he’d ever done, Cian had left her sleeping beneath the covers just after the sun had set, and gone to speak with Brody, pulling the Runner away from his dinner. Hating that he hadn’t been able to tell her goodbye, he’d been in a grim, miserable state as he told Brody that he’d devised a plan for dealing with Aedan, and would need his promise to keep Sayre under heavy lockdown, whether she wanted it or not, as soon as he was gone.

  Then he’d climbed in the Audi and left her. Again. Only this time had been a thousand times worse than before, because he damn well knew what he was leaving behind.

  As he’d held the witch in his arms after she’d fallen asleep, Cian had finally started to understand what they’d been doing. How they’d both been navigating a minefield of emotion, both gut-wrenchingly terrified of getting hurt...and so determined to protect themselves, they were living in lies and half-truths.

  At least he was. He had been for...God, for too many years to count.

  And with that stunning realization came another one that would have taken his damn legs out from under him, if he hadn’t already been lying down. One he still couldn’t think about without feeling like the biggest idiot on the face of the planet. All these years since he’d discovered the truth about his old man, he’d always been convinced he couldn’t love because he was too much like him. Because he carried his blood in his veins, and had done so many wrongs. But the truth was that he was too afraid of being vulnerable, just like his mother. Of giving his love to someone who didn’t love him in return, and ending up completely destroyed.

  He’d wanted to stay there in that bed with Sayre, and keep working these stunning revelations through his mind, feeling like a man who’d always been blind suddenly discovering the gift of sight. But as always, the timing hadn’t been right. He’d been forced to leave her, and yeah, he knew how she must be feeling about that. No doubt cursing him to hell and back for walking away from her all over again.

  That seemed to be another constant, the way that doing the right thing always made him a massive dick. Maybe that’s what he should ask them to put on his tombstone. Then again, maybe not. He could just imagine the questionable array of “objects” that would be left on his grave as mementos.

  Though that last thought made him snicker, the quiet burst of laughter quickly died as he steered his Range Rover onto the winding country road that would take him to Killian’s Mount, the seaside estate where he’d grown up. Despite the fact that the sun was still shining, he was nothing but a cold, aching shell, every cell of his body suffering from withdrawal.

  But nothing about the way he was feeling changed anything. In fact, it only made him more determined to follow his current course of action.

  An alive and kicking Aedan Hennessey meant that Sayre would never be safe.

  So Aedan had to die. As soon as possible. By whatever means necessary.

  It was as simple as that.

  Stopping at his first destination, an overgrown-with-ivy cottage that sat on the edge of his father’s land, Cian went inside and set his plan in motion. Within minutes, he was back in the Range Rover and driving toward the main house, the salty scent of the sea crashing against the nearby craggy cliffs clinging to his hair and clothes.

  More cottages had been added to the estate since he’d last visited, but it didn’t surprise him. His old man had never managed the art of self-control when he’d been younger, and he obviously wasn’t any closer now. God only knew how many half siblings Cian had within the borders of the estate. Aedan might have been the first of his father’s illegitimate children, but he was hardly the last.

  He was also the only one that Cian had claimed. A mistake he wished more than anything he could go back and change.

  By the time he was climbing the stone steps leading up to the front door of his father’s palatial home, he had his teeth clenched so hard he was surprised they hadn’t cracked. He didn’t bother to knock—simply let himself in, and hoped like hell that the bastard took offence at it. Pissing off his old man was one of his favorite pastimes—though it didn’t come anywhere close to spending time with Sayre, or kissing Sayre, or making the beautiful little witch come so hard she screamed. Hell, anything that involved Sayre topped his list of favorites. Even when she was frustrating him to the point of tears, his life was better than it had ever been without her. And he knew, without any doubt, that particular little fact wasn’t ever going to change.

  For the first time ever, Cian was actually letting himself be happy about it. Was embracing the hell out of it, and holding on as tightly as he could, ready to fight for it with everything that he had.

  As he made his way through the sunlit halls, it didn’t take him long to track down the object of his visit. He found his father in the library, sitting in a heavy leather chair by the far wall of windows, a book on his lap. Colin Hennessey was a big, robust man who looked no more than fifty, and Cian had definitely inherited his father’s height and his broad shoulders. Everything else, thank God, he’d taken from his mother. Her coloring. Her eyes. He was grateful for each and every trait that she’d passed on to him, wanting to see as little of this jackass as he had to when he looked in a mirror.

  “Father,” he murmured, crossing his arms over his chest as he propped his shoulder against the door frame. “I wish I could say it’s good to see you, but we both know that would be a lie.”

  Colin sighed heavily as he set aside the book he’d been reading, and it was clear that he was unsurprised to see Cian standing there. But then, he knew one of his father’s security detail had no doubt notified him the instant he’d driven onto the property. Steepling his fingers together as he rested his elbows on the padded arms of the chair, Colin said, “Still angry, I see.”

  Cian slowly lifted his brows. “Did you honestly expect a hug?”

  Exhaling a tired breath, Colin replied with a question of his own. “How long are you going to make me pay for a sin that you know I’m sorry for?”

  “I don’t care if you’re sorry,” he said tightly. “I could have forgiven you for anything but breaking her. Betraying her. So your answer is forever. Any love or respect or care I held for you died the day I realized what a miserable excuse of a man you are.”

  “You hold me to your standards, but I’m not a Lycan, Cian. I�
��m part man, part darkness, and you don’t know how impossible Alice was to resist.”

  “Don’t. I know exactly how easily you fell into bed with Aedan’s mother. And she was simply the first of many.”

  Colin frowned. “I’m not like you,” he repeated.

  “If you’d loved your wife, you would have been true to her. You wouldn’t have wasted your time on trash.”

  “Damn it, I did love her.”

  A gruff, bitter laugh jerked from his chest. “No, you didn’t. You loved the way she made you feel. The way her love made you feel. Powerful. Strong. Worthy. But that was her mistake. She should have ran the instant she ever set eyes on you.”

  “Just because we never completed the blood bond doesn’t mean she didn’t belong with me. She was my wife, Cian! Her place was at my side!”

  He shook his head, his tone thick with revulsion. “She always said you couldn’t bond with her because of the darkness in your heart. The evil flowing through your veins. But I know differently. I know firsthand,” he growled through his gritted teeth. “You. Lied.”

  Leaning forward in his chair, his father gave him a penetrating look. “You’re not bonded. I would be able to tell.”

  “You’re right, I’m not. But not because I can’t.” No, he knew damn well that if he’d lived his life differently, he would have already claimed the hell out of Sayre Murphy and forged a bond with her that was more powerful than anything their world had ever seen. “I haven’t bonded with my woman yet, because unlike you, I’m willing to put her first.”

  Colin’s thick brows rose. “And is that why you’re here? Because you’re putting her first?”

  “I’m here because I’m ending this thing between Aedan and me once and for all. This is where it began, and this is where it will end.”

  Those thick brows pulled together in a frown. “You really intend to kill your own brother?”

  Shaking his head again, he said, “The monster walking around with Aedan’s face isn’t my brother. The boy we both loved was lost a long time ago. There’s nothing of Aedan left in him.”

  Colin’s chest lifted with a deep breath, the look in his dark eyes almost painfully piercing. “I know you blame me for not helping you before.”

  “I blame you for a hell of a lot more than that. But I’m not here to ask for your help. The only purpose of this visit is to make my position clear. I will fight Aedan to the death when he comes, and I will kill anyone who tries to stand in my way. Anyone. So if you want your bloody family safe, tell them to stay the hell away from me.”

  He pushed off from the door frame and started to turn away, when Colin’s next words stopped him. “I...I made a mistake.” At Cian’s look of disgust, Colin grimaced. “All right, many mistakes. We’ve already been over this, but your mother—what I did to her—is the greatest of my failures. I had something...something unique, and I tossed it away for what amounted to nothing.”

  Cian narrowed his eyes. “If you knew what you had to lose, then why did you do it?”

  “Because I was...” He paused to clear his throat, and then went on, looking as if the gruff words were being torn out of him against his will. “I didn’t handle the things she made feel at all well. After you were born, those feelings grew. And she was somehow even more beautiful. More precious to me. I didn’t know how to embrace that, and it wasn’t long before I started to resent the pull that she had on me.”

  “That’s why she could never bond with you,” he muttered, his insides churning. “What you felt for her, you never allowed it to take hold. You fought it every step of the way. But you were too selfish to let her walk away and be happy without you.”

  Colin gave a weary nod, and for the first time that he could remember, his father actually looked his age. He looked old. Hollow.

  “And your loyalty to Aedan?” Cian asked. “How do you explain that?”

  Sighing, Colin said, “Despite what he became, he’s still my son.”

  “Not for long,” he grunted, turning away again.

  “By the way,” Colin called out, “I have the bachelor’s house ready for you, and your guests are in the lodge.”

  Stopping dead in his tracks, Cian slowly turned back around, his hooded gaze locking with his father’s through the open doorway. “My what?” he asked in a low, ominous tone.

  Studying him with a deep, measuring stare, Colin said, “Your guests.”

  “Aw, fuck!”

  Without another word, Cian turned and slammed out of the house, stalking across the lush lawn as he headed toward the massive stone-and-timber lodge that sat near a thicket of trees. Fear sat in the back of his throat like something threatening to choke him and his pulse thrashed in his ears like the straining roar of an engine. He knew exactly who his goddamn guests were, and he was furious that he hadn’t guessed they would do something this outrageous. God only knew how long they’d been here waiting for him. His trip had taken longer than usual because he’d flown directly into Dublin so that he could stop by his apartment and arrange to have his things packed and ready to ship out, once he provided the moving company with an address. He knew where he hoped he would be going after this nightmare was over, but he wasn’t going to presume until things were settled. He just knew he wasn’t going to keep hiding in Dublin, pretending his entire world wasn’t back in Maryland.

  You know damn well where we’re going, his beast rumbled. If we have to camp on her doorstep until she gives in, we’re going back. Going after the girl!

  “Yeah, well, the bloody girl is already here,” he bit out, catching Sayre’s mouthwatering scent as he neared the lodge.

  Oh, hell no. I’m putting her over our knee for this and swatting her little ass!

  “Not if I do it first,” he snarled, throwing the front door of the lodge open and letting out a thunderous roar. “Sayre!”

  A group of people walked into the high-ceilinged entryway from various rooms, and his jaw clenched as he took them all in. The mercs must have been handling things back at the Alley, because nearly everyone else was standing in front of him. All the Runners and most of their mates. Even Max and Elliot were there.

  But there wasn’t any sign of Sayre.

  Scraping the words from his tight throat, he demanded, “What the hell are you all doing here?”

  Jillian came toward him, and for a split second, he thought she was going to slap him again. But she didn’t. Instead, she shocked ten years off his life when she threw her arms around his middle and hugged him so damn tightly he could barely breathe.

  “Uh...”

  Tilting her head back, she looked up at him and said, “You left before I got the chance to talk to you.”

  His right eyebrow slowly lifted. “You came an awfully long way for the two of us to talk, lass. You could have just used my number.”

  She smirked, the spark in her brown eyes telling him that she’d figured something out. He just didn’t know what it was.

  “Jillian, what’s going on?”

  She gave him another hard squeeze, then let him go and moved back to Jeremy’s side, before she said, “I knew I couldn’t have been as wrong about you as it seemed.”

  As relieved as he was that Jillian no longer looked like she wanted to kill him, he needed to find Sayre. Cutting a sharp look toward Jeremy, he growled, “Where’s Sayre? And for the second time, what the hell are you all doing here?”

  “What do you think we’re doing here?” Jillian asked, looking at him as if he were being ridiculous.

  He tried to catch Brody’s eye, but the Runner was purposefully avoiding his gaze. The bastard. Cian knew that Brody had told them all where he was headed, even though he’d asked the Runner not to say anything until he’d contacted him.

  And if he hadn’t heard from him by the end of the week, well...he’d given the Runne
r strict instructions on what he wanted to happen then.

  Struggling for patience, he cast another frustrated look over the group. “Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”

  Eli Drake, who was mated to the only female Runner, muttered something under his breath that sounded like stubborn jackass, but it was Cian’s old friend Wyatt Pallaton who finally took mercy on him. “We’re here to help you, man.”

  “I don’t need anyone’s bloody help,” he argued. “I have a plan.”

  Brody finally looked him right in the eye and snorted. “You have an invitation to the psycho to come and face you, knowing damn well he’s going to be foaming at the mouth. But you don’t have the answer.” His partner’s green eyes narrowed with suspicion. “At least not one that you’ve shared with the rest of us.”

  “I know what I’m doing. That’s all you need to know.”

  “What the hell, Cian? You never used to be this stupid,” the Runner yelled, taking an aggressive step forward. “You really think that’s how we’re going to let this play out?”

  “You aren’t letting anything happen one way or another. This is my fight.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t be here to support you,” Mason said, speaking up for the first time.

  Cian rubbed his tongue over his front teeth and seethed with frustration, a goddamn red haze falling over his eyes as he snarled, “You’re not doing jack shit but getting in my way.”

  “Even me?”

  He flinched, that soft voice dragging his gaze up to the top of the stairs at the back of the entryway. And there she was. Sayre. Dressed in jeans, sandals and a summery white blouse, she kept those storm-dark eyes locked tight on his as she walked down the stairs, the group parting to make way for her as she came toward him. She was so beautiful to his starved senses, he didn’t know how to take it all in. Luminous skin, fiery hair in a wave of curls that fell around her heart-shaped face. Those eyes...her pink, glossy mouth...and that pale, tender throat that he wanted to bite so badly it was a physical pain that ripped through his insides and twisted him into knots.