But it would all have been a lie.
“I would have said you were insane,” I confessed. “I would have walked away and never wanted to see you again. At the very least, I would have accused you of making a sick joke at my expense.”
“Of course. Even so, I was willing to open up to you, because I could feel the connection between us.” He made a low, throaty noise like a frustrated growl and turned towards the window, grabbing hold of the sill. “I wanted to tell you last night, but then all hell broke loose. My world is a dangerous place, and I realized that I’d pulled you too deep inside it by getting close to you.” He turned to face me again. “Do you know where I was last night?” he asked.
“All I know is that you weren’t with me. Were you…” I swallowed hard, only now beginning to learn to confront the truth. “Were you…I mean, was your wolf…”
“I had to deal with an enemy,” he said. “An enemy of Kara’s and my kind.”
A bolt of shock hit my system yet again. “Kara’s kind? You mean she’s like you?” A pang of guilt slammed me in the chest. No wonder she seemed so different, so strange and otherworldly. I’d judged her as though she was human when the truth was that she was in on the secret all along.
Tristan shook his head. “No, not quite like me,” he said. “She’s what’s called a Valkyrie.”
“A Valkyrie? Like the flying warrior women from myths?” Images of women on flying mounts raced through my head. A painting that I’d seen once, or a story read in a book.
“Not from myths, no. She’s quite real. As you know, having met her.”
My chest heated with the memory of seeing her last night, Tristan’s arms around her. “So what I saw,” I said, “You…she…”
“She lost someone very close to her last night. One of her sisters—another Valkyrie. The battle was difficult, and she fought valiantly.” Tristan looked away, but I could see the pain in his face, the tension in his neck. “Kara’s heart was broken for not being there to see her last breath.”
“Oh my God,” I said, for the first time realizing the gravity of what had happened. “You left her at the house with me so she could protect me. She would normally have been with you. If I hadn’t been there…”
He didn’t reply at first. Only the slightest nod told me that I was right. “I couldn’t risk any harm coming to you,” he said after a time. “I couldn’t lose you, not like that. Not when you and I had come so close to….” He stopped talking for a moment, his hands balling into fists and releasing rapidly. “So yes, she stood on watch, looking over you. It was on my command that she was severed from her sister.”
I rose to my feet and walked over to him, and for once it was I who initiated our touch. I reached out and pulled him close, wrapping my arms around his neck. He held onto me, his hot torso pressing into mine, his arms locking tight around me. He seemed to need the contact as much as I did. “Tristan, I’m so sorry,” I said. “About Kara, about everything. I wish I’d known. Promise me that you’ll let me in from now on. Promise you’ll tell her that my heart aches for her.”
“I promise,” he whispered in my ear. “I promise that I’ll do everything I can to ease your transition into my world, Ariana. If you still want it. Because I do. I want you with me.”
“I want it,” I said without hesitation. Somehow, the initial shock had passed. He was no wolf, no monster. In my mind, he was just a man.
A very special man.
We pulled apart. I led him back over to the couch, and we both sat down silently.
“How did this happen?” I asked. “How did you become…?” I wasn’t sure if it was rude or horrible to ask the question.
“It happened a long time ago. I was marked by another man, one who attacked me. He wanted me to suffer for a foolish thing I’d done. I was thirty-three at the time.”
“Wait—you said this happened a long time ago,” I sputtered.
“Yes. Two centuries, in fact.”
My heart began to beat faster. It seemed that my capacity for shock wasn’t quite at an end, not yet. “I’m shitty at math, but I think you just told me you’re two-hundred and thirty-three?” I asked, my jaw dropping like it was made of lead.
He nodded.
“You’re a cradle robber, then,” I said.
Tristan let out the first laugh I’d heard out of him in what felt like decades. “Yes, I guess I am. I’m not so much into women over a hundred and fifty, so I figured you’d have to do.”
“Okay, well, I’m just going to have to let this sink in,” I said. “But there’s something else. That man who came here—what did he want with me?”
I could see Tristan’s jaw clench, something I was learning to associate with his protective instinct. “He wanted to hurt me,” he said. “By going after you.”
“Who was he? I mean, it sounds like he’s Marcus’s boss. I don’t get how he has anything to do with you.”
“He is your housemate’s boss, yes. But he also has a boss, and that boss, Krane…is my brother.”
“Holy shit. You have a brother?”
“I do,” he said, nodding.
I remembered that Marcus and the other man had mentioned the name when I’d first stumbled upon them. “Is he as old as you are?” I asked.
“A few years younger, but yes. He’s pretty ancient.”
“He’s a werewolf too?”
“We prefer shifter, actually. And yes, he is a shifter, but not a wolf.”
“There’s a story here,” I said. “I can tell.”
Tristan nodded again. “I won’t tell you everything just now. Suffice it to say that when he found out what I am—how powerful—he wanted me to change him. He wanted me to change the rest of our family, too, when he realized how long a shifter could live. A rift opened up between us that’s never sealed in all these years.”
“It sounds to me like you didn’t want to change him.”
“No. I refused. I knew the curse that it was to live inside my flesh. There’s more to it than simply moving back and forth between man and beast. Being a shifter is crippling, at least for a time. Painful in so many ways that I can’t begin to describe it. I could feel my humanity ripping itself away from me over the months and years. Cravings hit me, a desire to kill, to hurt those I loved. So I told Krane there was no way I would curse him in the same way.”
“But someone else did,” I said. “Someone else changed him.”
Tristan nodded. “When Krane couldn’t convince me to turn him, he went to a very powerful man named Drak. He convinced the man to do what I’d refused to do. Convinced him that he would fight for him, be an ally to his cause.”
“But you said your brother’s not a wolf shifter.”
“He’s not,” Tristan said, rolling his fingers into fists again. “He’s far more dangerous than a wolf. But he does have some wolf allies. He uses them for his own means. Shifters, that is, and Lessers.”
“That word—it’s what you called Marcus,” I said. “What does it mean?”
Tristan pressed his head into the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “A Lesser is a person who has the blood of a shifter in him, but who can’t shift. A creature at the mercy of others. It would take a bonding with another shifter to change Marcus, to evolve him fully into what he’s meant to be. People like my brother use Lessers, with the promise that they’ll find them what they need, once they’ve proven their loyalty. They hold them as slaves in the meantime, force them to submit to their will.”
I swallowed hard, remembering that Marcus had defied his boss by shielding me. “But he’ll be in trouble,” I said. “He betrayed Craster to protect me.”
“He did,” Tristan replied, “and I should thank him for that. He may have saved your life, and he’ll be punished for it. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll distance himself from Craster.”
“He may need your help to do that,” I said.
“I’ll help in any way that I can.”
Chapter 20
We talked all night.
For the first time, with the revelation of Tristan’s dark secret, our relationship was evolving beyond sexual tension and awkward moments of tense silence. The words we exchanged were more intimate, even, than sex. We were growing close, beginning to understand one another for the first time.
“Tell me about your family,” he said at one point as I sat lazily on the couch, one leg folded under me.
“I already have,” I replied. “On the way to the plane, remember?”
“You told me exactly as much as you wanted me to know,” he replied, smiling slyly. “But now I want to learn the rest. I know there’s more. I know I’m not the only one harboring secrets.”
I swallowed and looked into his eyes. It was only fair—he’d told me who and what he was, albeit in a pretty unconventional way. It was only right that I should come clean, too.
But something was still holding me back.
Apparently Tristan could sense my pain and confusion, because he reached out and ran his fingers through my thick hair before cupping my chin in his hand. It was the most tender gesture, one that made me feel comforted, cared for. I felt closer to him than I ever had before.
Strengthened by his touch, I finally gained the courage to reply.
“My father was a great man,” I said. “Not in the sense that he was powerful, or any of that. He mostly worked odd jobs as a carpenter or handyman. But he was so good to me, always. He was good to my little sister.”
“See? You haven’t told me about your sister,” Tristan said. He moved his hand away, but kept his body close. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Had,” I told him. “I had a sister. Her name was Grace.”
I felt like I hadn’t said her name in years. Clarissa and I had talked about her in passing here and there, but it had been a very long time since I’d told anyone the details of Grace’s story. Even Marcus only knew the bare minimum. I’d only ever recounted to him, in a moment of tipsy weakness, that my sister had died, that I felt personally responsible, and that I’d come to New York to hide myself from the life I’d left behind. The truth was, talking about Grace just hurt too much. It would hurt to open up now, too.
But I told myself that maybe pain wasn’t always a bad thing. Pain led to healing.
“I’m sorry,” said Tristan, leaning in protectively as though he were shielding me from my own sorrow. “What happened to her?”
“She overdosed,” I told him. “A few years back. But that’s not really what killed her, even if it is what ended her life.”
“Tell me,” he said, reaching for my hand and taking hold. His touch was warm and gentle, and made me want to wrap myself up in his arms and just stop talking forever. It would have been so much easier than what was ahead.
But I knew that wouldn’t help either of us.
I pulled my eyes away and looked at the floor, trying to focus my mind on Grace’s story. Trying to conjure up the memories that I always fought so hard to conceal from everyone, including myself.
“My father died in an accident when I was twelve,” I said. “Grace was eight at the time. It hit us hard, of course. But my mother was determined to look after us. So determined in fact, that she decided we’d be better off with a new man in our lives. A new father, so to speak.”
“You’re saying she remarried.”
“Within a year,” I replied, nodding. “A man named Jack.” I let out a bitter chuckle when his name moved past my lips. “Good ol’ Jack. The stepfather straight from the bowels of Hell.”
“Tell me about him,” said Tristan. His thumb was caressing the back of my hand, but I could feel the tension in his body start to mount, anger already welling up in his blood. The creature who lived inside him—the wolf I’d met earlier—he was in there somewhere, ready to spring to my defense.
Too bad he’d shown up in my life many years too late.
“At first, Jack seemed great,” I told him, the admission enough to make bile churn in my belly. “He didn’t fill the gap that our father had left behind, but he made the transition easier. He used to bring us toys, books, games. Played with us. He seemed particularly fond of Grace. He called her his little monkey, and used to get her to sit on his lap, just like our dad had done. I think he gave her the sense of security that she’d lost. At least, until things went sideways.”
At that, Tristan’s hand went tight, squeezing my own almost to the point of pain. I could feel him fighting some internal battle, the same one I’d fought so many times. He’d already figured out where my story was going.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that he could read me like a book. I’d always known it, from the moment we’d first locked eyes in Carlotta’s.
“What did he do to her?” he asked, his voice a wild snarl, his expressive eyebrows coming together in a look that would make a giant shudder in fear.
“I don’t know the details,” I muttered. He let up the tension in his fingers, probably sensing how much pain I was in from the turmoil of the memories. “I really don’t know. She never told me, not exactly. All I know is that he did something. One day, a few years after Jack came into our lives, she just…changed. It was like she retreated into another world, one where I couldn’t reach her. She wouldn’t speak to anyone, not my mother, not even me. But I could tell by the way she looked at him and flinched when he came near her. I just knew.”
“Did you or she tell your mother about it?”
I nodded miserably. “After a while she tried to, once or twice. But my mother didn’t believe her. She wouldn’t hear it. She was too enthralled with her perfect husband to take the word of a child.” By some miracle, I was finding the courage to look Tristan in the eye as the rage roiled inside me. “That’s when I got really mad. By that time, I was seventeen. Grace was thirteen. I confronted my mother, asked her how she could possibly believe her idiot husband over her two daughters. But she made the choice and stood firm. So I took Grace and moved us both away to a small town called Collins. I got a few jobs—working at convenience stores, doing cleanup shifts at fast food joints—you name it. I put a roof over our heads for as long as I could. I changed my name legally to protect us, even, so that Jack would never find her. I did what I could to shield her from him and from the past.”
“You’re telling me that Ariana’s not your real name?”
“It is my real name,” I replied. “At least it’s who I am now. But my birth name was Claire Simmons. I hardly remember her, though. I left her behind a long time ago. She died when we left home. She died when I lost the last of my true family.”
“But it sounds like you got Grace to safety. What happened then?”
Hot tears welled up in my eyes. “I tried, Tristan. I tried to help her, to save her. I tried to let her know, every day, that I loved her. That she was worth something in this awful world.”
“But it didn’t help,” he said. “At least you don’t think it did.”
“No. I suppose some part of me realized over time that I was never going to be able to help, at least not really. Grace was broken inside.” I swallowed a sob. I’d never said the words out loud, though I’d replayed those moments a million times in my head. The sight of my sister’s hollow eyes staring into space, as though the girl I’d known who had so, so much energy, so much love in her heart, had emptied out until there was nothing left. She’d become no more than a husk of a human. “I blame myself,” I added. “For losing sight of her.”
“It sounds like you tried to hold onto her as long as you could, Ariana.”
Hearing him say my name soothed my insides like a panacea. “I did try. I know I should give myself credit for that, but sometimes it’s hard, you know?”
“I know. Tell me more.”
I looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he really wanted to hear everything up until the bitter end. But all I saw in his eyes was support, as if he knew it would help me to let the words out. “She made some friends near where the
apartment where we lived,” I told him. “They seemed like decent people, and they seemed to genuinely like her. By the time I was nineteen, she had a boyfriend, even. I guess I was happy because I’d never been sure she’d be able to get close to anyone. When I saw her flourishing, I let her be, at least as much as I could. I wanted her to live a normal life. I wanted her to forget.”
“You know,” said Tristan in a deep, low tone that almost came out as a whisper. “What happened to your sister was not your fault. What happened to you was not your fault, either.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Nothing happened to me.”
“You’re wrong. Everything happened to you. You were a child. You were betrayed by your mother, the one person on earth you should have been able to trust, and who should have trusted you above all others. She forced you to make a choice. It seems to me that your sister wasn’t the only one who broke inside. Your mother robbed you of your faith in people. Even now, I can see it in you. You don’t want to trust anyone. It’s one reason you push me away… not that I could possibly blame you for it.”
My instinct for defensiveness threatened to kick in again. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that I trusted many people. But I fought the stubbornness back. Tristan was right. It was why I’d shied away from intimacy for so long. Why I’d never wanted to let a man get too close to me. It was probably why I’d worked so hard to convince myself that he was wrong for me, too, even though I knew how much I wanted him.
I felt like I was unworthy of the love of a man like him.
“I don’t think my mother ever loved me,” I said, my voice hoarse from the pain of my own words. “If she cared about Grace or me, how could she have done what she did?” The tears came then, hard and heavy, my body shuddering silently. The next thing I knew, I was pressed into Tristan’s chest, letting out years’ worth of agony as he held onto me tight.
“She loved you,” he said. “She made a bad choice, though, and she didn’t deserve you after that.”
He didn’t say anything more. He didn’t need to. He just held me close until I’d let it all out, drained of every last ounce of energy.
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