by Erica Woods
“We are not so different from humans,” Ash replied, frowning when Lucien made a sound of disagreement. “But our lives are prolonged and we are harder to kill.”
I had so many questions. How long did they live? In what way were they harder to kill? Were there other things out there that were also real?
Things like . . . me?
My breathing grew rapid.
I couldn’t ask. If I did, I’d have to tell them everything. Not only what I’d been through—and the thought of picking at the open wounds of my past did not appeal—but why. If they ever found out what I’d done to end up with the Hunters at the tender age of six . . .
No.
But . . . Tim had called me human. He’d seemed almost disgusted by it.
“How do you know if someone is human or . . . something else? Like a lycan,” I hurried to add before the sudden pity in Ash’s gaze unraveled me.
Why was he looking at me like that?
“There are several indications,” Ash said in a strangely gentle voice. “But the easiest and most reliable way is scent.” He tapped his nose. “Someone’s scent cannot lie.”
“You can smell what someone is?”
“Everything has a distinct scent. Grass. Water. Dirt. Cats and dogs and deer and bears. Everything, including lycans and humans. And below the scent that tells us what you are, lies the scent that tells us who you are.”
“W-what do you mean?”
Ash spread his hands to his sides and leaned back in his chair. Watching me. “Your scent is human”—boom went my heart—“and it is also Hope. If you left a piece of clothing in a store, any lycan who knew you would be able to tell it belonged to you.” He looked at Ruarc. “Ruarc’s scent is lycan and—”
“Pine cones,” I said numbly. The first layer of the complex scent that made Ruarc . . . Ruarc. I didn’t have the energy to list any other.
Human. I’m . . . human.
A human abomination.
I guessed, in a way, it made sense. If there were such things as lycans in the world—magic—then it stood to reason any type of supernatural could exist. And maybe far up the branches of my family tree, a monster had lurked. A monster that had passed its genes to me.
But not to anyone else in my family, I thought.
They’d all been human. My mother, my father, my—
My vision went black, then red, then a startling white.
I gathered those treacherous thoughts and slammed them behind a heavy, metal door.
Shivers rushed up my back, scuttling like tiny insects and feeling just as unwelcome.
Other questions, I reminded myself before the silence grew any more strained. You had other questions.
One deep breath later, my brain had stopped screaming.
“I’ve noticed . . .” I hesitated, darting a glance at Jason, who was still silently avoiding us all. “Your eyes, especially Jason’s, they sometimes change color. Or glow. Sometimes both.”
Ash nodded. “Yes. When our emotions run high, the wolf bleeds out into our human form. The first sign is the eyes. Then come the claws and teeth. After that, fur sprouts and the ears can pop up.”
Ears? Fur? While human?
It was hard to imagine the cold and unaffected Lucien with fur and wolf ears on top of his head. It was enough to twist my lips as I struggled not to smile. Then I remembered all the times it had seemed like there was something wrong with one of the guys’ mouths. Was that the teeth growing?
“But . . . doesn’t that cause problems? With humans seeing you? And why do Jason’s eyes so often change from brown to amber, when none of you guys change eye color?”
“Jason is young,” Ruarc grunted. “Less control.”
To my right, Jason bristled. He shot a deadly glare Ruarc’s way before he looked back down with his jaw clenched.
“Ruarc is right to a degree,” Ash said. “Jason is the youngest of us and has the least practice controlling his wolf during times of heightened emotion. His wolf’s eyes are amber, while his human eyes are brown. Most of the time our eyes are exactly the same in both forms, just a little brighter and maybe a little deeper in our wolf forms. The glow also comes from the wolf. Ruarc, on the other hand, has spent so much time as a wolf that his eyes remain silver regardless of his form, but the glow only occurs when he struggles with control.”
I thought back to all the times I was struck dumb by Ruarc’s luminous, silver gaze. Mostly I’d noticed the glow when he was angry. Furious even. Or when we’d been kissing.
My face heated and I stared into my lap, struggling with the meaning behind his behavior. Was it possible that I affected him as much as he affected me?
Don’t be stupid, Hope.
Almost as if he’d read my mind, Ruarc shot me a wolfish grin—complete with the typical Ruarc twist; all teeth, very little smile—and gave me a wink.
A wink.
I almost fell off my chair.
“I believe there was a point to this other than Ruarc’s flirting,” a cold voice said.
“This must come as a shock to her, Lucien. She is allowed to ask whatever she needs.” Ash tapped five fingers against the desk with the kind of contained impatience that spoke of power waiting to be unleashed. “You are free to ask questions whenever you want, Hope, but Lucien has a point, however poorly put. There is a reason we are telling you about us now.”
Right away I knew I wasn’t going to like where this was going.
39
HOPE
“Because of . . . because of Tim?” My voice shook.
“In part.” Ash kept his face expressionless, but something hovered behind that blank mask, something sharp and cunning and so dangerous all the hairs on my arm rose and my monster jerked awake. “What he did to you yesterday, what you saw . . .” One by one his fingers stopped tapping to lay still against the desk’s polished surface, and that stillness, that lack of movement seemed somehow . . . ominous. “Had it not happened . . . But it did. And with Ruarc’s display, your relationship—”
My gaze shot to Ruarc. “You told them?”
An eerie silence descended. Thick and heavy, it swept through me like a tidal wave of hot, humid air as three pairs of eyes flashed and landed on me at the same time.
The lack of noise and movement, the utter stillness made my mind reel. I glanced at Ruarc, took in his glittering eyes and the hint of a smug, feral smile spilling across his face. My cheeks heated at the hungry way he looked at me. Like he wanted to devour me right there and then, in front of everyone.
“Told us what?” The pressure Jason put on that last word made it snap like the boom of a gun.
Again I looked to Ruarc, but he just stared back at me with the same heavy-lidded gaze. “I . . . I mean, we, uh . . . we only just decided to . . . to be together?”
Silver eyes narrowed. “We are together.”
Jason flew out of his seat. “Are you kidding me?” When no one answered, he glared at Ruarc. “I know what you said to Blake, but I thought . . .” His breath was a harsh exhale, fingers lifting to press between brows that were drawn together. “You should have waited.”
Tension snapped like a whip through the office.
“For what?” Ruarc snarled, his touch disappearing as he turned to face off against Jason. “For you?”
“Maybe!” As soon as the word flew from his mouth, Jason froze. His gaze darted to me, doing a quick scan of my face before his jaw set and he stared back at Ruarc.
“Choose your next words wisely, pup.”
“Like you did?”
Ruarc snarled, and my chest felt tight. Hollow.
This is my fault.
My mouth opened but no words came out. I didn’t know what to say, so I settled for looking at Jason, silently pleading for something . . . something I didn’t understand. But when our eyes met, he jerked back, shook his head once, then dropped back down into the couch and looked away.
Dismissing us.
“Enough.” Lucien rose with the fluid grace I now
believed had something to do with his werewolf nature. His cold stare brushed past me only to settle on Ruarc—who bared his teeth in response but stopped snarling. “Though I admit I fail to see the need for such theatrics, if you insist on continuing you can do so in your own time. Away from the rest of us.”
Arms already wrapped around my middle, I resisted the urge to draw up my knees and curl into a ball.
Ruarc uttered a low curse, then he . . . left.
A sick feeling spread from my chest, but before it could swallow me whole, Ruarc returned.
“Up,” he barked, grabbing my arms and lifting me up when I didn’t move fast enough. A huge black sweatshirt was wrapped around me. “Better?”
I glanced at Ash, looking for clues to this bizarre behavior, but he looked back at me with the same, blank expression he seemed to have perfected.
“You were shivering.” Ruarc gave the arms I’d gone back to wrapping around my middle a pointed stare. “You tell me if you’re cold.”
Weird feelings popped up. Some banged at my skull, insisting I pay attention, while others stroked across my heart and made the poor organ work twice as hard.
It’s just a sweater, Hope, don’t be stupid.
But . . . he’d noticed. Ruarc noticed everything. And while it was unease that had made me cold, he’d seen and made an effort to fix it. To make me comfortable.
I whispered my thanks, got a one-armed hug in return—accompanied by a quick nuzzle to my neck—and was guided back down in my chair.
“We were not . . . aware of your relationship,” Ash said while Ruarc fussed with the hood of my borrowed sweater, trying to make it lay flat. “I was referring to how Ruarc—” An unnatural pause while something flared in his eyes, there and gone in less than the time it took me to blink. “It does not matter any longer.”
They hadn’t known?
I darted a glance up at Ruarc.
He cocked his head. What?
I licked at my suddenly dry lips, trying to ask him for help with my eyes alone. They hadn’t known, and I’d blurted it all out like a moron.
Fire flared and molten silver heated in time with a slow, toothy smile that said one word, and one word alone. Mine.
My whole body flushed with a strange heat and something low in my body clenched.
Flustered, I cast my eyes away from the potent male in search of something safer, anything really. But what captured my attention was Ash. His gaze was still locked on my face, one of his fingers having renewed its slow tapping, the tk-tk-tk scraping along my nerves. His undivided attention was a lot to handle at any time—those blue, intelligent eyes seemed to see everything, noticed every insecurity, prodded at every secret—but under these circumstances it was nearly unbearable.
By the time he finally spoke, I was fidgeting and picking at the fabric of my pants. “If you want a relationship—a romantic relationship—with a lycan, there are certain aspects of our nature you need to be made aware of.”
A small thread broke off between my nails. Staring down at it, I barely noticed when Ruarc went behind the desk and rooted around in one of the drawers. When he returned, he pulled at my hand, gently unwrapping the tight fists I hadn’t been aware of making and placing something soft and semi-squishy in the palm of my hand.
I stared at the gray lump, uncomprehending.
“Squeeze it,” he said gruffly, closing his hand around mine. “Can use it to keep your hands busy.”
This time, a whole heap of strange feelings rattled between my ribs, kicking against the restraints of my human body and trying to reach the surface. Ruarc was . . . He was . . .
Not nearly as scary as he tried to be.
I smiled, and if it felt like my face was cracking it was nothing compared to the rest of me. “What is it?” Prodding at the weird mass left small indentions. I pulled on a small piece, fascinated when it tore off from the rest of the body only to reattach when I rubbed them together.
“Eraser.”
“Really?” I remembered erasers. They were square and white and quite firm.
“It is a special kind,” Ash said. “You can shape it into thin points, so it is easier to erase lines with a narrow margin.”
“What’s it used for?”
“Drawings,” Ruarc said. He moved back to his place behind my chair and placed his left hand on my neck, squeezing gently. Then his thumb moved, putting slight pressure against tense spots.
A small sigh slipped past my lips. “You draw?”
“No.”
“Then . . .” I trailed off, distracted by the tight circles he was making with his thumb. Besides relaxing me, the movement had springs coil in my lower belly.
“Lucien. For his designs.” He pressed harder and my muscles turned to mush.
“What . . . what designs?”
Lucien said something. I couldn’t hear what—too focused on what Ruarc was doing—but his tone conveyed as much cool displeasure as any words ever could.
“Feel good?” Ruarc growled near my ear.
“Mm . . .”
The rasp of a stubbled cheek against my own. “More?”
My head dropped back, lids so heavy I almost missed the way his lips tilted up at the corners.
His thumbs dipped down to my shoulders, pressed against a spot that made me groan—
“I’ve gotta get out of here.”
I snapped upright in time to see Jason cross the room without moving his gaze off the floor. He didn’t slam the door, but I almost wished he had. The quiet, almost careful way he closed it seemed infinitely worse somehow.
A heavy weight settled across my chest.
“Are you quite finished?” The snap in Lucien’s voice could’ve made rock crack and bleed.
“S-sorry.”
“Not your fault. I have that effect,” Ruarc growled, a teasing sound to his deep voice. I hadn’t known he could sound like that; light and almost carefree.
I gave him a smile, a tiny, timid one that broadened when he bared his teeth back at me.
I loved the scary but lovely affair that was Ruarc’s version of a smile. It was almost enough to make me forget the look on Jason’s face when he’d left, and the way I kept messing everything up.
Almost.
Then I looked at Ash and my smile slipped. He was frowning. Actually frowning. Not properly, not like I frowned and certainly not like Ruarc frowned—that man looked downright terrifying when angry—but a mild one, one that showed mostly around the eyes and only a little around the mouth.
“You should know, Hope,” he began, watching Ruarc but speaking to me, “that you are free to leave here at any time.”
A dark rumble erupted from the man—the lycan?—at my back, drowning out my sharp intake of breath.
“Of course, we want you to stay, but we will not force you.” His eyes, still on Ruarc, hardened. “Not if you want to leave.”
“I . . . O-okay.”
“Our . . . courtship rituals . . . are a bit different from human ones. Our males are territorial, more aggressive than those of other species. Conflict between males can be . . . unpleasant. Especially if a female finds herself drawn to more than one male.” Ash’s finger kept tapping against the table while I tried to control the thundering drum that had suddenly replaced my heart. “Of course, if neither male is willing to back down and the female wants both, they may end up sharing her.”
They may end up sharing her.
The drum battered at my ribs.
Share?
“ . . .in control.”
I held up a hand, head spinning. “Wh-what did you say?”
Ash did that thing where he tilted his head and studied me in a way that felt distinctly non-human. “All you need to do is say no.”
“No, the other thing.”
The hand Ruarc had placed on my neck tightened to the point of pain. I winced and he immediately let go, stroking his thumb across the sensitive skin in apology.
“The sharing?”
My nod was shaky at best, my mind a jumble of impossible thoughts.
“Are not the consequences of such a pairing more important than this?” Lucien cut in. “Should she not be made aware of what she’ll take from y—”
“No,” Ruarc snarled, but I barely heard him. All my focus was directed at Ash, waiting for what he would say next.
“Our females”—my stomach dipped at the use of our—“sometimes take more than one mate.” He returned my attention with an intensity that threatened to flay me open and reveal all the ugly hidden inside.
“B-but . . .” I swallowed hard. The conversation was making me uncomfortable. Feelings I didn’t understand bloomed in my chest only to be swallowed whole by crushing guilt. I couldn’t even look at Ruarc. “Why would any man agree to share? Why not find someone he can keep to himself?”
A strange light glimmered in Ash’s eyes. The corner of his lips tilted ever so slightly down, and his voice lowered, got rougher. “At some point in your life, if you are lucky, you might meet someone who touches a part of you you had thought long dead. A part no other has been able to see, let alone reach. It could take you completely by surprise and be someone you would never expect, or it could be a person who buries under your skin in such a gradual way you do not notice until it is too late.” His gaze grew sharper. Assessing. “If you meet someone like that, what does it matter if you have to share her? If the thought of losing this person is as appalling as the thought of losing a limb, you would do anything to keep her. Anything . . . as long as it meant you would be a part of her life.”
My breath caught.
He’s speaking from experience.
Some unnamed emotion set my heart to throbbing. Who was this faceless, nameless woman that Ash so obviously longed for?
And why do you care? I asked myself, too much of a coward to look for the answer.
“While Ash’s view on the matter is very romantic,” Lucien began, “there are other reasons for this practice. For one, the male lycans outnumber the females five to one. It may not always be a matter of choice, but a matter of necessity.”
“Hardly,” Ruarc snorted. “Could always mate with a human.”