War of Hearts

by S. Young

  “So I see.” His eyes watched her every movement. “Why the questions?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking about last night and how it was nice we got to be ourselves.” It was more than nice that she could let go with Conall without worrying she’d break him. “But I remembered what you said in Düsseldorf. And last night, you were careful with your teeth.”

  “Habit.” He shrugged. “I doubt I can change you from whatever you are, but I’m used to being careful in bed with non-wolves.”

  The reminder he’d done with other women what he’d done with Thea made her instantly and irrationally upset. Maybe if she had more experience, it wouldn’t bother her so much, but Thea somehow doubted it, and that worried her. She’d never imagined she’d feel so territorial or possessive of someone, and it did not sit well with her. Conall wasn’t hers. A person couldn’t belong to another person.

  “Sorry.” His gruff apology brought her eyes up from her plate. “I shouldnae have mentioned … that.”

  Thea gave him a half-hearted smile, wondering what the hell had possessed her to think she could handle this with Conall. But it was too late. The damage was done. No going back. “We should get going if we don’t want to miss the ferry.”

  Once they’d cleared their table, he took her hand again, pulling her into his side, holding her close as he checked out of the hotel.

  It was as if he knew she had the sudden urge to run as far and as fast from him as possible.

  And he wasn’t letting her go.

  Conall led her out to their car, opened the passenger-side door for her, and just as she moved to get in, he pulled her against him.

  He kissed her as if he were trying to steal the very essence of her into himself.

  Thea was panting by the time he let her go, her body humming with renewed desire. Her hazy gaze lifted to his, and he slowly released her with a very smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face.

  The haze instantly lifted. “Neanderthal,” she said as she stepped into the vehicle.

  Thea heard his chuckle as he rounded the SUV and she shook her head, bemoaning the fact she found everything he did this morning funny and charming. Not that she’d let him know that. Conall swung into the driver’s side and grinned at her scowl.

  “Werewolf,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Werewolf, not Neanderthal.”

  Thea rolled her eyes. “I don’t think there’s a difference.”

  She tried very hard not to smile at his answering bark of laughter.

  It was a mistake.

  Rationally, Conall knew it was a mistake.

  However, calling what he felt for Thea a mistake seemed like a betrayal.

  As he drove them into Denmark, Thea sleeping soundly in the passenger seat beside him, Conall used the icy control he was known for to keep the fullness of his emotions buried deep.

  Letting them out was dangerous.

  Before her, he’d been a fairly simple wolf. The world was black and white, and although wolves felt deeply, his emotions had been pretty black and white too. There was right and there was wrong; there was loyalty and responsibility.

  Everything he felt now was complicated and confusing.

  His eyes kept moving from the road to her. Glancing off her cheek, her mouth, her lashes fluttering in her sleep. The urge to pull the car off the road somewhere so he could haul her into his arms was nearly overwhelming. He tried to squash it down deep too, but the animal in him made it difficult.

  When they’d arrived in Frederikshavn at the ferry terminal, Conall had kissed Thea awake, and she’d pushed willingly into his kiss. It took a lot not to dwell on the feeling that rose swiftly in him. The same encompassing euphoria he’d felt as Thea came apart in his arms last night.

  She’d trusted no one for years.

  Until him.

  It was a privilege and responsibility but more, it was a gift. A gift that made him want to howl from the tallest peak back home in Torridon. A gift that made him want to claim a woman he had no future with.

  Now the ferry was on the move, cutting through dark waters to Norway, and Thea sat across from him in the busy restaurant. Conall’s control was slipping. There was an invisible hourglass between them, the sand falling faster and faster with every second.

  It made him feel powerless with despair, much like how he’d felt when Callie was diagnosed.

  And from the way the tension thickened between them, Conall knew Thea felt it too.

  They should never have touched each other.

  But he couldn’t regret it.

  He’d never regret it.

  In fact, he’d hold on to the memory of Thea in his arms until his dying fucking breath.

  Thea pushed back from the table. “I’m not hungry.”

  Oh, aye, she was.

  Conall’s heart pounded hard in his chest as he nodded and stood, leaving cash for the meal on the table. His body brushed hers as he followed her through the wind of tables to the exit, all blood rushing south in anticipation.

  As they turned the corner and into the narrow hallway that housed their small cabin, Thea suddenly slammed him into the wall, tugging his shirt front and him with it down to her so she could reach his mouth. The taste of her filled Conall, and he groaned, sliding his hands under her shirt to feel her hot skin.

  Abruptly, he was flying.

  Conall had never moved so fast in his life, and he was bloody speedy.

  He heard the crash of a door seconds before he landed on his back on the small double bed in their tiny cabin.

  Amusement and arousal flooded him as Thea was a blur of movement, undressing.

  “Are you trying to get caught, lass?” He grinned, taking in her nakedness with much appreciation as she crawled over his body. She’d just used the full force of her speed to take them back to the room, and now Conall knew that when she ran with him, she was holding back.

  Thea pushed his shirt up just enough to bare his stomach, and Conall’s breath stuttered when she pressed kisses along his waistline. She stared up at him with those soulful eyes. “I’ve never kissed a man like you kissed me last night.” She tugged on his belt and then his zipper, shrugging him free. “I want to.”

  Conall shuddered at the question in the words. Another gift from his Thea. He nodded, reaching out to caress her beautiful face. His heart almost exploded out of his chest watching her mouth bend toward him, and then he was in fucking heaven.

  Hours passed.

  Everything ceased to exist beyond Thea. She was everything. Every inch of her. It had never been this way for him. To want with this kind of madness. When he was inside her, he wanted the world to stop—to freeze them in that moment—with a desperation that fucking terrified him.

  And yet he couldn’t stop.

  He couldn’t stop touching and tasting and wanting her.

  Needing her.

  At one point their fucking was so primal, he cracked the small wooden headboard of the cabin bed right down the middle, he was holding onto it so hard. In fact, Conall was almost sure they were moving the entire bloody boat with their thrusts.

  As the night wore on, they became less frenzied, less savage with fear that time was running out. They began to savor the moment instead. It became an exploration. Conall was certain no woman would ever know every inch of his body as well as Thea, and no man would ever know hers. The thought of any man touching her, knowing her like this, caused him pain he buried as quickly as he felt it.

  He stared at Thea, her lush breasts cupped in his hands, as she rose slowly up and down his length, a tight sheath of heat slowly wrenching a climax from him. He held taut beneath her, wanting her to come first. Her low-lidded gaze locked with his and Conall mentally captured the image, to keep with him always.

  Thea’s panting grew faster, her rocking a little more frantic, until finally she tensed, her fingernails biting into his shoulders as she rippled in deep, throbbing tugs around him.

  Conall let
go, burying his hoarse shout of release in her breasts.

  She trembled in his arms and he lifted his head to kiss her, but the shimmer of tears in her eyes made his heart stop.

  He cupped her face in his hands. “What’s this, Thea?”

  In answer, she slid her arms around his back and buried her nose in his neck. Tremors moved through her, different from those brought on by their lovemaking.

  Worry pierced him.

  He should never have touched her.

  He’d let this go too far … and he was hurting the one person he didn’t want to hurt.

  Fuck.

  “Thea?” he asked, voice gruff with an emotion he hadn’t wanted to feel. He slipped his arms around her back, holding her tighter, closer.

  She turned her face from his neck, just enough so he could hear her whisper, “It’s been so long since anyone just held me.”

  His hold on her tightened, his throat thickening, burning. His eyes stung strangely too.

  Who would hold her when he had to let go?

  And why did the thought of Thea alone, without him, make him want to tear the world apart for its cruelty?

  Conall knew before he even opened his eyes that Thea wasn’t in the room. He could smell her on the pillow beside him, but it was a lingering scent. Panic slammed through him and he bolted upright. Where was she?

  He tapped into his connection with her, relaxing a little when he sensed her near. Of course she was close. They were on a bloody boat, for Christ’s sake.

  Still, he didn’t like that she’d left the cabin without him.

  The smell of sex was thick in the room as he got up to use the facilities he could barely squeeze into. He wished Thea were here. The scent of their time together was making him hard again.

  Conall closed his eyes and hung his head as he stood over the tiny sink. Would this want of her never go away? Would it drive him fucking mad for the rest of his life?

  Why her? He growled.

  Why not Sienna, the dutiful werewolf he could have a future and family with? Even barring the fact that Thea was possibly immortal and would stay the same as he aged and died, there was also the fact they couldn’t have children, and Conall was bound by duty to produce an heir to Clan MacLennan.

  But more than any of that was the reality that Thea Quinn had a massive target on her back and keeping her indefinitely among the pack was putting his people at risk.

  Sienna Canid was the right choice for his pack.

  Conall ignored the pain in his chest that might as well have been a fucking silver bullet.

  The Canids were still in Torridon, waiting for Conall to return so they could sign the betrothal agreement. Conall scowled at his reflection in the mirror. There was no way he could take Thea back to Torridon without telling her about Sienna.

  How would he feel if Thea introduced him to the man she would spend the rest of her immortal life with?

  The cold water tap head snapped off in Conall’s hand. “Fuck.”

  Well, that answered that.

  However, that didn’t mean Thea would feel so strongly. It was possible her feelings were not his, and the better half of Conall hoped for it.

  After he washed and dressed, a knot tightened in his gut as he strode out of the cabin to find her. He followed that tug on his mind and found her near the back of the ferry. She leaned against the railing, watching the boat push through the morning water toward Oslo. The low, mountainous coastline of the city grew steadily closer. Although it didn’t bother him, Conall could feel how cold it was, and Thea wore only a shirt and jeans.

  Her dark hair blew in the breeze and he greedily drank in the sight of her as his muscles tightened with the memory of her wrapped in his arms. Unable to resist the urge, he slid in behind her, pressing the length of his body to hers as he covered her hands on the railing and nuzzled her neck. That floral, sweet, exotic scent of hers flooded him and heaviness filled his groin.

  It wasn’t even about sex. Well, it was. But it was also just about wanting to be as close to her as he could get.

  Thea rested against him, relaxing deeply into his body in a way that satisfied him beyond measure. “Morning.”

  “Good morning.” He kissed her neck and rested his cheek against her temple.

  “We’re nearly there.”

  Aye. Soon they’d be at Vik’s place. Then once he, hopefully, gave them the answers they needed, they would be on their way back to Scotland so Thea could face Ashforth. But first they’d stop in Torridon.

  Where the Canids were waiting.

  “Thea,” he said, clearing his throat, “I need to tell you something.”

  He felt her grow rigid before she slipped her hands out from under his and turned in his embrace. Conall didn’t move. He wanted to keep her there so she couldn’t run from him when he told her about Sienna. He needed her to understand and to do that she had to stay put and listen.

  She trailed her fingers down his chest, her brows pinched together. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing, really.” Then why was his heart pounding like fuck? “Just … you should know that before Ashforth approached me about you, I was just about to sign a betrothal agreement.”

  She stopped touching him. “What?”

  “It’s purely pack politics.” He wanted to assure her. “The Canids are a large North American warrior pack. Peter Canid, the alpha, and I agreed an alliance between us would benefit both packs. We have money and Canid has wolves. Strong wolves. It was to secure the pack’s safety. As our wealth grows, we become more susceptible to blackmail, fraud, challenges. Other packs, lone wolves, would be less likely to pick a fight with our pack knowing we had one of the largest North American packs as our ally.”

  Thea said nothing. She just stared up at him with those gorgeous eyes, wariness he thought he’d never see in them again when she looked at him creeping its way back in.

  Fuck, he hated that.

  “Thea”—he bent his head toward her, his tone almost pleading—“Peter’s daughter, Sienna, has agreed to be my wife but we dinnae know each other. We’d barely just met, let alone anything else, when Ashforth arrived. But she and her father and brother are still in Torridon, awaiting my return so we can sign the betrothal agreement and move forward with the …” Conall’s voice trailed off as he watched gold bleed into the cognac of Thea’s eyes. The surrounding air stirred, growing static-like. “Thea?”

  She shoved him with enough force to knock him back on his feet.

  Panic made his breathing difficult.

  “You son of a bitch,” she whispered and even her voice sounded different.

  Cold.

  Unearthly.

  Her hair moved around her head like it was floating in water and Conall shot a look down the boat at all the passengers who might witness the strangeness, or worse, get caught in the crossfire of Thea’s anger.

  “Thea, you need to calm down.” He strode over to her and the boat lurched unnaturally beneath their feet, causing passengers to cry out in shock. “Thea!”

  He watched her squeeze her eyes closed, her hands fisting at her sides as she took long, slow, deep breaths. Her hair abruptly dropped back into place, the static disappearing. When she opened her eyes, they were brown again.

  Conall would have breathed a sigh of relief if she wasn’t looking at him like he’d betrayed her. “Thea, I barely even remembered Sienna’s existence until the other day.”

  If looks could kill, he’d be dead.

  Thea brushed past him but Conall had to make her understand. He grabbed her arm, hauling her close. “Thea, please.”

  She jerked out of his hold and his panic intensified.

  He was losing her.

  He felt it.

  Fuck.

  “But you knew.” She glared at him in disgust. “And you touched me anyway, knowing you’re practically engaged.”

  “It’s not like that,” he spat out in angry desperation. “You’re simplifying it. I barely know the woma
n and there are no promises between us. We never signed an agreement. I didnae betray her and I didnae betray you. This …” He gestured between them. “You know neither of us meant for this to happen.”

  “Yeah, well,” she said, her voice as flat as her expression, “it happened. Now it’s over.”

  No! His mind vehemently denied it, taking him even by surprise. “Thea.” He reached for her, but she flinched away.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  A burn scored across Conall’s chest, turning fiery with pain as she continued. “You’re just like everyone else.” Her expression turned heartbreakingly bleak. “I can’t trust anyone.”

  Something snapped in him. He hauled her into his arms, refusing to let go. “That’s not true.” His voice was rough with impatience. “You can always trust me.”

  “Conall, let go of me.”

  “I cannae.” He pressed his forehead to hers, realizing the tragic truth in his words. “Fuck, Thea, I cannae let you go.”

  Her voice was small, a whisper of pain. “You have to. For Callie.”

  The impossibility of his choice had never been clearer or more agonizing. “Whatever I choose … I risk a woman I care about.”

  Thea tensed in his arms and then abruptly pushed out of his hold. Her eyes were hard, her countenance cool, unfeeling, her words even more so. “You know your choice. You save your sister, you marry a wolf who can give you a future and a family, and you forget about me. Just like I will forget about you.”

  Conall watched her walk away. He wanted to hate her for her words. But the only person he loathed right then was himself.

  He’d damaged the trust between them.

  It would be easier to let things lie. Let Thea build her walls against him. Going their separate ways wouldn’t be so difficult with animosity and distrust between them instead of intimacy.

  Yet as they drove off the ferry, the SUV’s sat nav leading them toward Vik’s apartment, Conall couldn’t stand Thea’s icy silence.

  There was no way he’d last a day with such fucking awful distance between them.

  Never mind a lifetime.

  20