“Why don’t you have a mark? I mean, that I’ve seen anyway,” he said, a sexy, mischievous smile consuming his face.
I bit my lip, trying to concentrate on his question. “We are born in our human forms and branded as babies with our packs’ Bloodmarks—the tattoos we have, that you have. But Father didn’t brand me. He was ashamed of me. I was able to shift into a wolf from birth, unlike all other wolves who shift at puberty.”
Grey just stared at me and nodded, despite the shocking information I was delivering. “Go on,” he said.
“My aunt Calista foretold a prophecy that I would unite the packs. Because of this, Father hid me and Mother on the cliffs of southern Ireland, away from the rest of the pack. They even faked my death to keep my existence a secret. Father didn’t want rumors of a red-haired girl with the Boru Bloodmark flying around Ireland. It would have raised suspicion,” I said.
“He fears you because you’re different,” Grey said, kissing my bare shoulder. “It has nothing to do with you.” His words floated through my mind. Was he right? Did Father’s hate and rejection have nothing to do with me?
“Thank you,” I said, letting his truth comfort me.
“So why does Gwyn have a tattoo on her neck and not on her wrist like Tegan and your brothers?”
“Because she’s not married yet.”
“What?”
I sighed, reciting what I had been taught. “Simply because a woman is property of her father’s pack and then her husband’s. So if you look, both Tegan and Gwyn have marks on their necks signifying their Kahedin pack heritage. Then when we marry, we are branded with our mate’s heritage on our wrists. Gwyn and Quinn aren’t married yet, so the ritual hasn’t been performed, but Tegan’s wrists are branded with the Boru Bloodmark.”
His face was twisted in anger. “Women aren’t property. It’s not like buying a car,” he said.
“In our culture, it’s different. We live as the old ways,” I replied. “That’s the problem when no one dies. It’s hard to progress as a culture when you have members who are centuries upon centuries old; they fear change. But it isn’t all bad. Being a member of a pack is what we are designed for. We live as one, we hunt as one, and we breathe as one. It’s in our blood.”
“So you’re unclaimed then?”
“Until my father brands me with the sacred blood of my fathers, I can’t be branded in marriage. And I belong to no one.”
“Well, I’d never brand you,” he said. It was wonderful hearing him say it, but I knew what it meant if I weren’t branded. It left me vulnerable to other males in our world. And it was still an honor to accept your mate’s pack as your family. It was more than a symbol, it was an idea of belonging.
He kissed my forehead; I closed my eyes, breathing him deep into my soul. It was cleansing to finally tell him the truth. I hated knowing more about him than he did. No relationship could be built on secrets. Maybe now he could finally discover the truth behind his mother’s death, and then we could both be whole again.
He was still such a mystery to me. Half werewolf, half Bloodsucker—but all he brought with him of the wolf was his tempting scent, glowing eyes, and the tattoo from his mother. The rest of him was all Bloodsucker, but he chose to love me.
“What do you remember about your mother?”
“Almost nothing,” he said. “I can’t even remember her face, only her beautiful green eyes. Dad burned all the photos of her . . . like she never existed. My dad said it hurt too much to talk about her, so I stopped asking questions and she began to fade from my mind. But I see her in my dreams.”
“Do you know where her family came from?”
“Dad said she was very secretive about it,” he said. Which might have been true; she was hiding from Willem’s father. How could Grey grow up knowing nothing of his mother? It had to hurt him deeply to not know the other half of who he was. All this time, his father had taught him to hate, fear, and destroy wolves, and yet he ran with me and he set me free before he even knew what or who I was. He had enough of his mother’s spirit to balance out his father’s hate.
I let my heavy eyelids close, and I snuggled in his arms.
I woke up the next morning with Grey’s arms holding my back tightly to his chest. His face was buried in my hair. He must have gotten cold because he was under the covers and his bare skin touched mine. It felt like fire arousing my body. I had contemplated what it would feel like to give up and walk away from him, and every time I thought the words, it made me sick to my stomach. I had been so naïve; no one was strong enough to turn their back on love.
Baran peeked around the door. “Tegan asked me to wake you up, Ashling. She would like you and Gwyn to go Christmas shopping with her. We are all going to hang out at the mall, to keep an eye on you,” Baran said. “So up-and-at-’em, little ylva.”
“Thanks, Baran,” I smiled. Grey woke up stretching and yawning. I hopped out of bed quickly to get ready. Considering Adomnan hunted us, it seemed odd Tegan wanted to go shopping, but it was very like her to continue living life to the fullest, no matter the circumstances. It was Winter Solstice and our first Christmas.
We’d had many Yule celebrations over Winter Solstice, but never a Christmas. Yule, held on the shortest day of the year, was celebrated as a symbol of the sun god Mithras being born and involved many festivities I loved. But I found myself excited to celebrate my first Christmas with Grey too.
Once I felt content with my appearance, I walked out of the bathroom expecting to see Grey still in my bed, but he was already gone. I looked around the room, but his clothes were gone too. Only the night pants remained, folded perfectly at the foot of my bed. The only proof he had ever been there and that it hadn’t been a dream. I quickly ran downstairs.
“Ready?” Tegan said. She was nearly bouncing with excitement.
“Sure,” I replied
“I’m not comfortable with this,” Mund said.
“Really, Mund, we are only risking our lives to buy you presents. I thought you’d love that,” I said.
Mund grunted out a small laugh. “We’ll be keeping an eye on you ladies,” he said, kissing Nia and Tegan.
Tegan and Gwyn piled in the front of Baran’s Land Rover. Nia and I hung out in the back as she cooed in her pink ruffled dress. The boys promptly followed us in Mund’s Jeep. I felt strange leaving Grey with my brothers; it somehow didn’t seem fair to him. But if he did love me, he had to love my family too.
“Do you think Grey will be okay?” I asked. “With Mund, Quinn, and Baran, I mean.”
“I think it’s just what he needs,” Tegan said, “and this is just what we need—a little girl time.”
“I don’t get it, Ashling . . . what’s with your obsession with Grey? He’s not one of us. He’s a human,” Gwyn said.
It might have been the first time she ever actually asked me a question directly. She was never concerned with my life, at least before now. Though she asked a valid question: Why did I love him so deeply? Was it his devilish good looks, his rebellious attitude, his scent, or how he made me feel when his arms were wrapped around me? I couldn’t pinpoint one thing, but I knew the moment I saw him.
“I don’t know, really. It was in a look. In one moment, I was his,” I said.
The moment I saw him at Baran’s shop, I wanted to be with him. There was no rational explanation, but the way his soft lips touched my hand that day forever marked me as his and my heart yearned for his love.
“I guess it was the same for us,” Gwyn said. “I met Quinn at a Yule celebration. I smiled at him from across the room, and the rest is history, I suppose.”
“Tegan, how did you meet Mund? I’ve never heard the story,” I asked.
“It’s not nearly as romantic as Gwyn’s story, nor was it as dangerous and mysterious as your story, Ashling. No. . . . I met my Mund when my father betrothed me to him. But when we met, it was instant.”
“Do you think you would have been happy with anyone else, had it not
been Mund you were betrothed to?” I asked.
“I would have made a life with whomever my father had chosen, but it wouldn’t have been what Mund and I have. My father made an excellent choice for me. I am forever grateful to him.”
Maybe I should have taken Father’s choice in Brychan. Instead of seeking out what I couldn’t have in Grey. I probably could have found a level of happiness with Brychan. Maybe the old ways meant a simpler love, but not everyone got as lucky as Mund and Tegan. If I had never found Grey, maybe Brychan would have been a good match. Now, no one else would ever compare.
Gwyn and Tegan continued to chatter about their relationships, and they let me quietly sink into my own thoughts. I glanced behind at the Jeep, but the tinted windows made it impossible to see Grey. For all I knew, they tied him with a rope from the back to see how fast he could run. Baran would never have allowed it, but it wouldn’t have surprised me with Mund and Quinn. When I was growing up, they were always causing trouble. I would have thought the two of them would have matured in that time, but no. Quinn was two hundred years old and Mund was over four hundred years old, but the two of them were like a pair of little boys.
Father always said I needed to act like a lady. I was only sixteen years old, and my brothers were centuries old, but he never saw a fault in them. A boy could do no wrong, it seemed. I never seemed to do right in his eyes. His only daughter, and he could hardly look at me. If he could see me now, he would be furious. Dressed as a common human, befriending them, loving one. In his eyes, I would be a disgrace to our kind. Mother would be proud of me for following my heart. I would see it in her eyes, her eyes always gave her away. We had a secret connection, she and I.
We pulled up to the mall, and the boys parked right next us. Thankfully, Grey actually got out of the Rubicon and was still whole. Tegan swaddled Nia to herself, and we went into the mall. Tegan, Gwyn, and I agreed to shop one level at a time so the boys could linger near. It seemed kind of silly to me, but it made the furrowed brow on Mund’s forehead relax a bit. Once we separated from the boys, we started shopping.
“What should I get Grey?” I asked as I watched him across the open atrium of the mall. They looked completely out of place. They didn’t look like normal humans hanging out at the mall; they looked like golden warriors.
Not that we fit in perfectly, by any means. Tegan was always wearing floor-length satin dresses, and she was exotic. Gwyn looked as if she jumped off the runway every morning. And then there was me—no matter how I tried, I looked like a wild animal stalking its prey.
“I’m not sure,” Tegan said.
“Me either, but you’ll know when you see the right gift,” Gwyn said.
Two levels of the mall later, our lists were being crossed off, but still I didn’t find anything that made me think of Grey. Nothing popped out to me as something he needed; it all seemed so materialistic.
Without a single sighting of Adomnan, Tegan was finally done shopping, and we had more bags than we could carry. As our group rejoined the boys to leave, I noticed all the onlookers; they seemed envious of us. It seemed odd to think a human would envy creatures such as us. Our purpose was to protect them. But after centuries of us not fulfilling that job, they were drawn to us, yearning for what was lost. We were their connection to Old Mother Earth, and the prophecy said I was to reunite the bond. They yearned for our connection to Old Mother.
The ride home was eerie—we were always waiting for Adomnan to strike. We cherished every moment because we never knew when it was going to be the end. I hated not knowing. It was inevitable that one day he would be ready to fight—we just didn’t have any idea when that would be. Today, tomorrow, a week, or a year, but it was only a matter of time before the blood of my family would be on the ground, for my life. The vision made me shudder. The only thing I knew for certain: at the next gathering at Carrowmore’s Bloodmoon on my eighteenth birthday, it would all end. Someone would have to claim me. It was daunting to think about, but it was my fate, and I would have to face it.
Back at home, our gift bags and boxes overwhelmed the living room. We stopped to pick out a tree for us to decorate. The custom seemed strange to me—to cut a piece of Mother Earth from her core and bring it into your home to admire its beauty as it dies. It seemed morbid.
The boys finally hauled in the blue spruce; it had to be nine feet tall, a beautiful creature. I felt bad for her, that she had to die for our entertainment, but I had to remind myself she was just taking a faster trip back to Old Mother’s loving arms.
Baran would be home soon, and our pseudo-family would be whole again. Our family felt complete with Grey in it, but he had been very quiet since we arrived home. I knew I would have to grill him later to find out what my brothers talked about. They probably scared him half to death, but he busied himself stacking all the presents under our tree. The lights glittered off his already sparkling eyes. He was ruggedly handsome.
Mund leaned close to me. “You keep staring at him like that, and you’ll burn a whole right through him,” he whispered in my ear, laughing at his own joke. I felt my cheeks flush red-hot, and I wanted to disappear. “Come help me make dinner,” he said.
I followed him like a puppy. Just as when I was a kid, wherever Mund went, I wanted to go too. That was how it had always been. I was his detached shadow, his very own tiny protégé. We began to banter about dinner, but we finally decided on braised ribs and moved on to cooking it instead of arguing about it. It was mundane and ludicrous that we all continued with life as though there weren’t a wolf huffing and puffing and waiting to blow our house down.
Baran halfheartedly smiled at us, his makeshift family, as he stood in the doorway. He seemed pensive. Then abruptly his face went fierce again, and he disappeared to his room. It must have been strange for him to live with so many wolves now. He had been alone for so long, and now he hardly an inch of space to himself. I could tell he was worried about the days to come, but he hid it well. I don’t think the others noticed, but I did. I set the table, and Mund called everyone for dinner. Grey sat next to me, and everyone chatted as we ate, but neither Grey nor I spoke. I was too busy watching him from the corner of my eye. He really was beautiful, almost unbearably so. From under the table, I felt his fingers reach out and lightly graze mine. I looked up into his charming eyes and was lost in the emerald sea.
When we were looking into the other’s eyes, nothing stood between us, and every time his skin touched mine, my senses shut everything else out. I felt paralyzed by his penetrating gaze. Slowly I wrapped my fingers between his, holding his hand. I smiled as I remembered the awkward moment in the woods when he first held my hand. I was so afraid of his touch then, and now I couldn’t get enough.
“Ashling . . .”
My attention snapped back to the present, and my family was all staring at us. They must have asked me a question.
“The two of you are disgusting,” Quinn laughed, shaking his head. “Do you mind coming out of your love trance to join the conversation?”
“Sorry,” I said, looking down at my lap. My fingers were still intertwined with Grey’s under the table, but our attention was back on our family. “I’m listening.”
“Our family has a legacy of fighters and great battles. Even Mother Rhea herself was a warrior once,” Mund said. I couldn’t picture my elegant grandmother as a warrior.
“You must be mistaken,” I said thinking of her silvery hair and quiet presence.
“She was in the battle at the Hills of Tara over five thousand years ago,” Mund said.
“She even fought several of the Dvergar pack to protect Mother and Lady Faye,” Quinn said.
Lady Faye was one of my great-aunts, thought I’d never met her. She disappeared long before I was born. Mund said she once had incredible powers, but now she was barely a myth.
“You see, Ashling, you come from a long line of female warriors. Mother Rhea would be proud you chose to stand and fight,” Tegan said.
“We will
win,” Gwyn said. “Adomnan can’t take our freedom and happiness.”
But she was wrong. He could and he would. I’d seen it all in my dreams. He would take everything from me. Quinn changed the subject, and they began babbling on about how great the battle would be and something about . . . I didn’t remember. My mind wandered to Grey’s perfect, supple lips and his wild hair. . . .
Before I knew it, dinner was over and Grey and I were being shooed away. Grey held up a bit of mistletoe over my head, hoping for a kiss. He couldn’t have realized the mistletoe’s meaning in our culture. It was considered a sacred plant, and the custom of kissing under the mistletoe began as a fertility ritual. The sight of the plant set fire to my desire. I quickly kissed him on the cheek, and we ran up to my room.
I was a love-struck mess. We sat in my window seat, intertwining our legs. I leaned my face against the cold windowpane, trying to bring my rising temperature back to normal, but my heart fought against me. He smiled at me, and my lips involuntarily slipped open and a small sigh escaped. I blushed as his warm lips captured mine, and I delighted in his touch.
My hands found his chest. I could feel his chiseled muscles through his thin shirt—he was all mine. I greedily kissed his lips; I wanted all of him. Grey leaned back against the window, and his breath continued to gust out in short bursts, stopping our lust. How could he stop? His willpower was so much stronger than mine. I wanted to devour every bit of him. My desire burned through me, filling my stomach with butterflies. “Why are you stopping?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Out of respect for your family, I suppose . . . and I just don’t want to push you too fast,” he replied. It was a ridiculous statement, considering I was the one trying to urge his thin shirt off his beautiful torso.
I studied every contour of his delicious body, and I noticed his leather wrist cuff was over the opposite wrist, no longer covering his Killian mark—it was covering his Bloodsuckers’ mark. Had he chosen? Or did my brothers have something to do with it?
“So what did you talk about with my brothers?”
Bloodmark Page 21
