by Erica Woods
Those three little words stole my breath. Something dark and unpleasant stirred to life in the place where my soul should have been, the place my monster occupied.
“I didn’t love her, but I’d loved her sister so I tried to do right by her.” He paused. Swallowed. “She wouldn’t let me touch her. Could barely stand the sight of me. I . . . I accepted it. Understood how she felt.” A bitter twist of his lips. “Did my best to protect and provide for the woman, but she was miserable.” He angled his face away and rushed past the next sentence. “After a few years of watching her grow bitter and desolate, I decided to fake my death so she could move on.”
The more I learned about Fiona the more I hated the woman. She’d made Ruarc feel like he wasn’t good enough when all he’d done was try do right by her. She really was a—
“Wait, why would you have to fake your death?”
The look he gave me was inscrutable. “She was miserable with me. Better that way.”
“Surely there were other options? You could have lived separate lives, lived apart.” I put my hand on his arm. “Why did you do it, Ruarc? Why take such drastic measures?”
Silver eyes dulled, then sharpened to hard flint. “She would grow old. I wouldn’t.”
Reality came crashing down so hard I couldn’t breathe.
Oh.
My insides tumbled to my feet.
Oh.
If I stayed with Ruarc—which I couldn’t, so why was I even thinking about this?—I’d eventually grow old while Ruarc stayed young and virile forever.
Suddenly the big windows that allowed the sun to stream into the room bothered me. The sun itself was my enemy. Each day it would rise and time would march on.
For me.
I knew how it would go, too. I could see it playing out in my mind as clearly as if it was already happening. Ruarc would stay faithful to the end. Even when I was old and wrinkled and he found me repellent, he’d stay with me. I’d watch him suffer, grieve, as I faded away bit by bit. Or worse, watch him eagerly await the day I died and released him from the prison his life would inevitably become.
But you’re not staying, so it doesn’t concern you, does it?
I blinked back tears and Ruarc’s rugged face swam into focus. Arms braced on the counter on either side of my hips, he was leaning in until our noses almost touched.
“Don’t.” His voice was a dark rasp. “Where you go I’ll follow.”
What? What did that even mean?
Seizing my chin in a bruising grip, he glowered at me with such intensity I was momentarily stunned. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop.”
When he didn’t relent, I whimpered. He’d never been rough with me before, not like this. A part of me was shocked. And maybe a little scared. But deep down, in a place I rarely ventured, I found that I treasured his strength. Treasured his urgency in making me understand.
“You’re mine, Hope,” he growled while his eyes grew darker, the swirling silver glowing from within. “No matter what. You. Are. Mine.”
With a fierce snarl, he dove for my lips.
The first five seconds were nearly violent. He crushed my mouth beneath his, teeth clinking together, tongue invading, his grip just this side of painful. And I found myself responding with a rush of deep abandon.
I couldn’t breathe, yet I didn’t care. Air had ceased to be a necessity the moment Ruarc’s powerful presence invaded my senses and took my mouth in a kiss so brutal, so fierce, so ferocious in its hunger, that only he mattered. Only his lips on mine. Only that tongue stroking, caressing, invading.
When he pulled back, I was panting. The tight grip on my chin had gone from painful to reassuring, and the palm that had, at some point, come to rest above my butt felt like a brand.
“Understand?” It was a sharp growl, heavy with meaning.
“Y-yes.” My heart was a frenzied bird trying to escape a too small cage, and the lie only increased its hysteria.
Because I didn’t understand. I couldn’t.
I was trapped, caught between my heart and my mind. What was right and what was wrong.
And I didn’t see a way out. Not without leaving too much of myself behind.
“Say it. Say you’re mine.”
I swallowed, the hunger in his eyes making me melt. “I’m yours.”
A long groan tore from his throat and his grip on me tightened. “Always.”
The warmth that had been pooling in my belly turned to ice, scattering until only a distant memory remained.
Always.
There were so many reasons why that was impossible. But . . .
I’m here now.
How vulnerable did I want to be? How close to the sun should I fly? Was it better to clutch at happiness with both hands, to bask in the glow of the closest thing to love I’d ever get, or to never know its touch at all and save myself the pain of having it wrenched away when the time came?
My mind felt murky, my head too heavy for my shoulders.
How long did I have?
The Thought was now a drum in my head, a fist around my heart. Not a plan, but an obsession.
An unfinished question.
Whatif-whatif-whatif.
“You okay?”
My eyes flew open, caught Ruarc’s gaze sweeping over my face. He was still close enough that the scent of him wrapped around me like velvet ropes.
I forced my lips to move into a smile and pushed all my thoughts into the sturdiest mental box I could find. “Yeah.”
“You went all pale.”
“I just . . . felt a little lightheaded.”
His eyes narrowed. Turned assessing. “You need breakfast.”
“Maybe.”
The silver were now only thin slits. “You sure there’s nothing else?”
“Yep. So where did you go after you pretended to die?”
He tensed, extracted his limbs, and moved back to the stove. The vegetables got a good stir and was soon joined by cooked rice. He kept stirring, and with each scrape of the spatula his expression darkened.
“She was kidnapped before I could go through with it.” His lips peeled back in a silent snarl, and for the first time I bore witness to the change that gave his voice that particular thickness; fangs. Long and sharp and deadly, rising from his lower jaw and dripping from his upper like stalactites waiting to tear flesh from bones if anyone was unlucky enough to be near when it snapped.
And then the rest of his teeth followed suit, no longer flat and dull—no longer human—but those of a wolf’s.
For a couple of seconds I could only stare, until slowly, as if it required great effort, they returned to normal.
Or is it the wolf that’s normal?
“My wife . . . Stolen,” he snarled. “A female under my protection. Had to find her, save her.”
The years had done nothing to dull his fury. The harsh lines of his face gave anger a natural threshold, making him look perfectly at home while volatile emotions raged.
“Know who took her?”
Mute, I shook my head.
“Tighearnan.” He spat the name like it was something foul.
“No,” I breathed.
“Exactly.” Ruarc yanked the pan off the stove. “Had been hunting him for years, and there he was. With my wife.” He slammed the pan down on the counter, not bothering with protection against the heat. It was marble, after all. “Said he would release her if I surrendered. Said he wanted his son back.” A humorless smile twisted his firm lips. “What he wanted was a slave. A monster to control and send against his enemies. Knew it before I went, but what choice did I have?”
I pressed my lips tightly together, willing my stinging eyes to stop watering. Without saying a word, I jumped down from the counter and pushed my way under his arm until I could reach around his waist and give him a hug.
At first he remained stiff, unyielding. Then, when I pressed my face against the bottom of his chest—he was too tall for me to reach any higher—he exhaled. The sound
was heavy. Harsh, almost. But when he pulled me tighter against him, using one arm to hug me to him, I knew I’d made the right decision.
“Went to him. Surrendered. It killed me to do that,” he admitted. “To just give in. But I knew he would keep to the bargain. Was the only good thing about the bastard; he never broke his word.”
I hummed softly and waited for him to continue.
“Brought me to the dungeons, to Fiona. Only . . . it was wrong. All wrong. She was smiling.”
Chills erupted along my spine. Please no. Please, god, no, I chanted in my head. Don’t let it be what it seems. It’s too cruel.
“She was working with my sire.”
My heart lurched.
“Was still in love with her old beau and resented me.”
My throat went dry.
“Wanted to punish me for taking his place.”
My vision blurred though no tears fell. Not yet.
I hurt for him, for the honorable, caring male who’d done everything to save the sister of a girl who’d been his best friend when he was thirteen. He’d given everything to keep Fiona safe and happy. Sacrificed everything.
And she’d betrayed him.
In a flat, cold voice, Ruarc said, “While I was chained to the wall, she spat on me.”
I snapped my head back to stare up at him, almost tearing several ligaments in my neck. His expression was closed. Closed and distant.
“Told me . . . told me she hated me. That she could never love someone like me. Said she wanted a refined man with a genteel face, not some harsh-looking brute who’s only talent lay in warring.”
A burning sensation gathered in my chest. Loud and angry, it buzzed and buzzed until it was a roar I couldn’t silence. My head was my enemy, conjuring up image after image of how Ruarc would have looked—before he was scarred, before he was hardened by this particular betrayal. How he would’ve strode into his father’s domain, proud and unfearing, determined to save the wife who’d openly scorned him regardless of the cost to himself.
And he’d known the cost would be steep.
I saw his face when he realized something was wrong. Felt his heart stutter when the woman he’d come to save flashed a cruelly amused smile. Lived his horror, his shame, when he understood that the two people who should have loved him—his wife and his father—had conspired to destroy him.
And I heard him ask the one question I’d asked myself every night for years as I cried myself to sleep at the Hunters’ compound; what is so wrong with me that I can’t be loved?
“She was wrong. So wrong,” I forced out. It was hard to speak.
A tightening in his jaw was the only indication he’d heard me. “Fiona took my sire’s silver dagger and started carving. Said I was already so ugly no one would notice if I missed a few pieces.”
A strangled sound worked its way up my dry throat only to die at my lips. How would I have felt if it had been my mother, not the Hunters, holding the knives used to hurt me?
“She tried to do more. Wanted to cut off my whole nose, but Tighearnan stopped her. He needed me somewhat whole if I were to be his vassal. She left shortly after.”
Trying to swallow around the gritty lump in my throat, I tipped my head back so I could see his face.
There were lines of tension around his mouth and his eyes were hard and staring straight ahead.
He’s so much braver than me.
He’d exposed internal scars and laid himself bare at my feet, and all because I’d asked. I doubted there was anything anyone could say to make me share the ugly things I’d experienced at the hands of the Hunters.
There’d been a time I thought that revealing what others did to me would be easy, but the viler the Hunters’ actions and the crueler the words, the more I started believing I deserved it. That I’d somehow earned the torment they inflicted upon me and that their ugly whispers were truth spoken aloud.
Even when I didn’t, their shame somehow became mine.
How could I speak about what had been done to me when it was so ugly, so evil, so disgusting that simply thinking about it made the bitter taste of bile appear on my tongue and shame turn to rot in my stomach?
Looking at Ruarc, I knew he believed Fiona’s insults to be true. And yet he’d still shared it with me, letting me hear what he believed were the ugliest truths about himself.
How had he found the strength?
“How . . . how did you escape?” I asked, wanting to get the rest of the story over with so I could begin repairing some of the damage the telling had inflicted.
“Took three years before they grew careless. I broke free, killed him and left Scotland.”
Good, I thought, fiercely glad he was dead. “And what about Fiona?”
“Couldn’t harm her. She was Ailsa’s little sister. I left and never looked back.”
Something dark and vengeful rose up inside me. I wanted to hurt her. Even though I knew she was long dead, I wanted to hurt her for what she’d done to Ruarc.
He left her alone. He just . . . left.
That, more than anything else, proved once again that the streak of honor running through Ruarc’s core, was so ingrained, so strong, that nothing could ever tear it apart.
“Thank you for telling me,” I whispered when I could speak again.
Ruarc didn’t reply, just stared straight ahead with flinty eyes.
Standing on the tip of my toes, I could almost reach his neck. I leaned in, pulled on his shirt until a fleck of bare skin was revealed, and brushed my lips over his collar bone.
He jolted at the touch, then flinched, before he finally looked down at me.
As our eyes met, I tried to infuse all my feelings into my gaze. The respect and admiration I felt for him, the desperate want I harbored for him—his body, his mind, his soul—the pain I felt at the terrible things he’d been through, and the very real awe at how he’d not only survived, but moved on and left the horrible woman without a backward glance.
It made me question my choices, my motives. Did I want to destroy the Hunters so I could keep what had happened to me from happening to anyone else, or did I want vengeance?
I didn’t think revenge was what drove me, but maybe the darkest, vilest part of me, the part that sang my monster to sleep every night with promises of ‘soon,’ maybe that part wanted something else?
As I stared up at Ruarc, trying to convince him with my eyes alone that he was worthy, that, to me, he was perfect in his imperfections, the bleakness in his eyes slowly retreated. They glowed, brighter than ever before. And then he slumped forward and buried his scarred face in my neck with a broken sound that split my heart in two.
Without thought, I embraced him. My lips searched for purchase against his silky hair. I wanted to offer comfort. Give back some of the safety he’d given me. The home I’d found in his arms. “Your past doesn’t define you, Ruarc,” I whispered as he crushed me to him. “Your scar isn’t ugly, not at all. It’s a badge of honor, proof that you have survived terrible things and come out the other side stronger.”
A shudder went through him. He didn’t speak, didn’t make a sound, but neither did he move away.
“You are so handsome.”
That got a reaction. A strangled sound of disagreement drifted up from where his face was pressed against my neck.
“You are,” I insisted. “When I look at you I see someone strong. A protector and a warrior. An honorable man who would do anything to shield the people he cares about from harm.”
Ruarc leaned back, tilting my face up. Wonder and something soft, something tender and foreign and bright stared down at me. “A chuisle,” he breathed, cupping my face between his hands.
At that moment, he was my whole world.
We stopped speaking in favor of feeling, of touching. Sweet caresses and breathless kisses become our language, our only sounds that of Ruarc’s possessive growls and my soft gasps whenever he found a particularly sensitive spot to graze with his teeth. Whatever it was
he did with his mouth at the crook of my neck made my toes curl and my stomach feel like it was in free-fall.
When I pressed my body hard against him, sweeping my hand across steely muscle and digging my nails into the top of his shoulders, he yanked back with a snarl.
My heart hammered in my chest, but when I caught his wild gaze, it came to a crashing stutter, then a full stop.
A wild animal. He looks like a wild animal.
Though he looked human in all the ways that mattered, in that moment he seemed more wolf. Feral. Predatory. Ferociously hungry.
I shook my head, wanting to thump it against the wall.
How had I not seen it before?
Now that I knew, it seemed so obvious. Ruarc wasn’t human. He wasn’t even close. This form, this human form, could barely contain the animal that pushed against the flesh-prison that contained it, and for some reason, that fact comforted me.
After all, the monsters who’d hurt me had been nothing if not human.
“Food.” One word, distorted by the sharp teeth crowding his mouth and the deep bass of his voice.
“M-me?” I squeaked, thinking, if only for a moment, that he’d lost it and I was on the menu.
His eyes flashed—heat and hunger—but he shook his head, turned, and grabbed a plate and a fork from the cupboard. “Made you breakfast,” he growled, and dished up a plate of rice mixed with vegetables from the pan I’d all but forgotten.
As soon as the plate was heaped full, he thrust it into my hands, dragged both of his through his hair with another low snarl, and prowled across the floor while I stared.
“What?” he asked, when I didn’t eat but just stood there. Unable to look away.
“Nothing.”
He growled, but the sound was softer than it had been. “Eat.”
“Will you . . . will you join me?”
He looked at me for so long I thought he was going to say no. But then he grabbed himself a plate and herded me to the table only to yank me down in his lap. “Feeding my female,” he grumbled to himself, adjusting me until I was comfortable.