by Woods, Erica
Never!
“I am human, but there’s something else . . . something wrong with me.”
“There is nothing wrong with you,” Ash bit out while the shadowed presence of his beast filled the room. It unfurled, shook the ceiling and rattled the windows with its storming emotions until Hope’s eyes widened and Ash drew a deep breath, swallowing all that anger, all that fury, and forcing a calm he couldn’t possibly feel. All to reassure our female. “You are just how you are meant to be, banajaanh.”
Hope shook her head and gave him such a gut-wrenchingly sad smile that I choked on my next breath. “You don’t know everything. When you do . . .”
“When we do, we do,” Jason said and moved to the couch. He sat down, threw one arm over the back with studied casualness. Faking, just like Ash. Anything to put our female at ease. “Let’s sit, then we can get this whole sordid tale over with and get on with more important things. Like exterminating those rats once and for all.”
Unable to speak, I gave a jerky nod and sat next to him, placing Hope between us. Having shared her with Jason for a while now, using him as her second shield came naturally.
Speaking of shielding . . .
I bared my teeth at Lucien, dared him to approach. No matter what Hope said, forgiveness wouldn’t come easy. Not when he was the reason she’d made that fucking awful sound.
Gaze sharp, jaw taut, he gave a curt nod and dragged a chair closer than I’d like, but not close enough to antagonize.
Ash tilted his head but said nothing, pushing his chair as close as he could and resting a hand on Hope’s knee.
The need to surround her, to touch our female and reassure ourselves she was safe was not an instinct that could be denied. Not now. Not after what we’d learned.
“Tell us everything, love,” Jason said.
64
Jason
“Tell us everything love,” I said. There were so many questions that needed answers, so many truths to unravel. But it would have to wait. Hope was finally ready to reveal the secrets that had festered for so long their poison had invaded her blood and contaminated her sense of self. They’d twisted her up inside, convinced her she was alone, broken, unworthy.
If anyone knew how that felt, it was me. And knowing my girl suffered through the same hell? Yeah, that ripped me apart faster than a wolf could tear the hide off its prey.
I bit back a curse.
While I’d earned my self-loathing, she had not. And if it took me the rest of my life, I’d make her see herself the way I did; as the only truly luminous star that lit the dark night that’d always been my life.
“I’m scared.”
“I know, love. But nothing you say could ever turn us against you.”
“You . . . you can’t promise that.”
“Of course I can. In fact, I just did.” I shot her a grin, burying all anger, all alarm and apprehension, deep down where it couldn’t taint her. She needed support now. Support and reassurance.
This was about her, not us.
But before she could speak, Ash stilled and Ruarc exploded off the couch. He was halfway across the room before the first knock sounded, and by the second, he’d yanked it open, growling like he wanted to rip the intruder’s head off.
“Ruarc . . .” Blake’s voice was carefully neutral. “Can I come in?”
“No.”
A short pause. “Is Hope alright?”
My girl shivered, Ash closed his eyes, and Lucien cocked his head, so slowly and with such rigid tension he could’ve been carved from stone.
I ignored them all, ignored the unease spiking my pulse and the dread filling my gut with lead, and dragged Hope into my arms. The least I could do while she waited to bare her soul was keep her warm.
“Why’re you here, Blake?”
“Ash texted me.”
My gaze flew to Ash. When?
“Thought you might need help preparing for tomorrow,” Blake continued.
“For the ceremony?” There was a silent ‘are you an idiot’ tacked onto that pointed question, but Ruarc valued Blake enough to leave it unsaid, and Blake knew Ruarc well enough to not be offended.
“What?” A longer pause this time. Tense and disbelieving. “No, the ceremony is canceled . . . Where have you all been the last hour?”
“Here.”
There was a sound, like a laugh that got cut off by a furious glare. “Well then . . . One of the bigger nests contacted the Council. They’re saying we’ve got one of their Bloods and they want her ba—”
“Don’t give a shit!” Ruarc snapped. “Got more important things to deal with, so fuck off.” He slammed the door shut.
“Ruarc . . .” Ash opened his eyes and met the furious enforcer’s glare with an unflinching stare that none the less looked braced. Like he’d been preparing himself for what he was about to say. “We cannot leave Hope alone—”
“Fucking know that!”
“—but Matthew is still out there—”
“Don’t need a fucking reminder!”
“—and he knows.”
A scowl held Ruarc’s expression hostage for a split second before a horrible, cruel understanding slapped it right off. His eyes went wild, as wild as the sudden, raw panic punching a hole through my contorting heart, then he wrenched the door open and bellowed into the night, “Blake!”
My arms tightened, instinctively wanting to protect the trembling female sitting in my lap; staring straight ahead with a fixed, unseeing gaze.
It was unlikely Matthew would tell anyone what he knew—he’d be risking his own life as much as hers—but if he did . . .
Air shuddered down my throat.
She needs you . . .
I shook my head. Not the slow, even shake of humans, but the quick, effortless this-doesn’t-matter shake of the wolf. And it didn’t. It couldn’t. Not now.
Not yet.
“Love,” I said, pressing my lips against the back of her head, her nape, the gentle slope of her shoulder. “Everything will be alright.”
She didn’t reply, didn’t move, didn’t answer.
“Love?”
Making her wait to reveal her secrets had been as cruel as it had been unintentional. Now she was lost to her own thoughts, lost to the dread that pinched her lips, the terror that glazed her eyes, the grief that made her say things like ‘once you know . . .’ and expecting us to turn from her in judgment.
Ash grabbed her hand. It hung limply in his grasp. “Look at me, Hope.”
She did. Slowly, like she was being pulled through water and Ash’s calm, commanding voice was the rope that dragged her through the currents and safely ashore.
“There are only a handful indigenous horses left in America,” he said, and a small part of Hope drifted back into her eyes. “They survived the last ice age and adapted to a land that was cold and harsh and lacking in resources.”
Another piece entered, interest sparking.
“But despite their miraculous survival, despite the nose-flaps they had developed to protect their lungs from the freezing air, the sturdy hooves capable of running over rough terrain, the stomach that had adjusted to digest food no other horses could, they almost went extinct. Do you know why?”
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because of the cruelty of mankind.”
“They’re . . . They’re all gone?”
“No, banajaanh, even that, they survived. Even if only barely.”
“How?”
“Because cruelty is not an affliction that affects everyone. Where there is dark, there is also light. Where there is oppression, there is fight. Where there are many who do wrong, there are also a few who will stand up and say ‘enough.’”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Ash tipped his head. “We will be your light in the dark, banajaanh, like you are ours. We will be the few that say ‘enough.’ We will not let you be hurt. Not by anyone, not by yourself, and not by fears or what ifs.”
&nbs
p; Lips trembling, our girl—our beautiful, brave, breathtaking female—clutched at Ash’s hand and stared deep into the eyes of one of a handful mahír fáinn born in the last thousand years.
“Do not lose yourself dreading what is to come. We will never turn from you.”
Breath hitching, she opened her mouth, trembled, and—
“Hope,” Ruarc barked from the door, and Hope’s mouth closed with a snap. Whatever had passed between him and Blake, I’d been too intent on my girl to catch a word. “Describe Matthew to me.”
In a halting, whispered voice, she did.
“You got that?” Ruarc asked the male we couldn’t see—and who also couldn’t see us. Not while Ruarc used his body as a shield.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Start at the stage, his scent’s there.”
“Too many lycans have been there to find—”
“Fresh blood on the ground. Lucien slashed the bastard’s face open to the bone.”
“Ah. That will make it easier.”
Ruarc jerked his head in a nod. “Get Gideon. Get Trey. Get them all.” His claws dug into the wall. “And don’t you fucking stop hunting until you’ve found him.”
The last part was spoken too low for Hope to hear, too mangled. With his wolf so close to the surface, each word was bitten off and chewed before being spat out.
But the rest of us heard. We knew what it meant.
And we knew what it would mean if Blake failed.
65
Jason
Lucien had not stopped staring at the door since Blake left. Cold, sharp thoughts honed their claws behind his gaze, biding their time, waiting.
“Won’t be any more interruptions,” Ruarc growled, claiming the seat on the other side of Hope. “You still wanna do this?”
She nodded. Shivered. Drew a deep breath. “I guess I-I should start, but . . . I don’t know how.”
“Start at the beginning,” Ash said gently, watching her with the same intentness he applied to every aspect of his life. As soon as the story was out, he’d spend hours going over her every word, hunting for betraying quivers, telling thickness, and the dreaded quiet despair. Every emotion would be dissected, giving us a clear map of our girl’s wounds; which were the deepest and which needed tending first.
“The beginning . . .” She covered the base of her throat with a small, shaking fist. “I guess . . . I guess it started when I was six. I—” The ‘I’ shattered around a helpless, agonizing sob, then her fist moved to her mouth, stifling her cries and breaking my heart.
“Love, you don’t have to—”
“I do,” she whispered, and though she briefly met my gaze, sorrow and resignation in hers, it was Ruarc who was treated to the full force of her despair. It was Ruarc’s hand she gripped so tightly her knuckles turned white and the bones of her hand strained against her skin. It was Ruarc she stared at, hungrily, almost desperately, with lips that trembled and eyes that mourned. And it was Ruarc she focused on when the words finally came, pouring out of her like blood from a shredded artery, “I killed my brother.”
As soon as the confession was out, all color leeched from her face. Her chest stopped moving, her pulse fluttered like a bird trapped underwater, and she shrank back like she was preparing for an explosion.
Or a blow.
My chest constricted. What the hell kind of pain did our girl carry around?
Before I could say anything, Ruarc untangled their entwined fingers, jerking back with a look of horror when a moaning cry rose in Hope’s throat. The arms he’d lifted—frozen in place inches from her waist—dropped back to his sides.
Lucien hissed, Ash rose, and I grabbed at the hands covering my girl’s face, trying to gently peel them away so I could talk to her, find out what was happening. Meanwhile, Ruarc stared, shook his head, stared some more, then set his jaw and hauled her into his lap.
The moaning stopped.
“R-Ruarc?”
“I’m here, mo chridhe.”
She crumbled, twisting in his arms and throwing her body against his chest with a loud thwack.
The reason behind her erratic behavior confounded me, but I couldn’t stop myself from responding to her pain, her grief, the terrible weight of her guilt.
Our sweet little female was hurting so we all hurt with her.
While Ruarc stroked her back, muttering Scottish endearments in a voice too deep to be comforting, he glared at me over the top of her head, a wordless demand for assistance.
“Sweetheart,” I murmured as I leaned over, kissing away a tear and pulling her long hair away from her face. “We would take your pain if we could. You know that, right? We’re all here for you, matter what.”
She gaped at me, mouth opening and closing, pain flaring in her eyes before a stark, terrible determination took its place. “I killed my brother.”
“We heard you the first time, banajaanh.” Despite his even tone, I knew Ash pitied her. Not because of what she’d done, but because of the guilt still eating her alive after so many years.
I knew that feeling all too well. But while I’d done nothing to help Hope heal, she’d done more for me than she’d ever know. Nothing could absolve me of the choice I’d once made, but the circumstances of my childhood, what I’d been born into, who I’d come from, that was beyond my control. My girl had helped me see that.
I don’t care about your past. I love the man standing in front of me today.
I’d clung to those words like a drowning man to a life raft; brought them close and examined them from every angle, found comfort in them whenever I’d felt that familiar, old darkness creep in to remind me I could never be good enough for our girl.
“But I . . . I killed my brother!” Her eyes were wide, unseeing, her confession a knife she slashed through the air—like she thought if she waved it around long enough, looked threatening enough, we’d run away scared.
Ahh, love, don’t you know you’re stuck with us?
“Surely an accident,” Lucien said. “No six-year-old would purposely kill their sibling.”
Hope gaped, and I wondered if she’d expected Lucien to blindly condemn her. “I did! At least . . . At least my m-monster did. It . . . It made me . . .” She clutched at her stomach. “It made me kill him.”
“Your monster?” I exchanged a wary look with Ruarc. If she thought she was possessed by some dark creature, the road ahead might be longer than we’d first expected.
“Y-yes.” Her chest heaved with the force of her too-rapid breaths. “It’s this . . . darkness. This terrible, evil . . . thing.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Whispered, “It’s a part of me.” Trembled. “It craves blood and death and violence and . . .” She rubbed an unsteady hand over her chest. “It’s a part of me.”
Lucien arched a brow. “How do you know it craves those things?”
Her eyes flew open. “Because I felt it! For years, while the Hunters hurt me, its only thoughts were of tearing them to shreds!”
For years, while the Hunters hurt me . . .
A rock dropped into my stomach. It lay there for a moment, moving in tune with my shallow breaths, turning sharper and heavier with each inhale, growing bigger and deadlier with each exhale, until my girl’s words took another incomprehensible jog through my thick skull—the Hunters hurt me—and the rock exploded. It rushed toward air, crushing ribs and bruising organs, lodging in my throat so the only thing I could say was nothing. Just a sound, a hoarse, ruined sound of pain for everything my sweet, innocent, kind girl had suffered.
A tormented snarl ripped from Ruarc, Ash’s eyes flashed dangerously, but Lucien didn’t move. Beyond the tick in his jaw, he let no emotion show, focusing only on healing our female.
“What being would not?” he said in a voice too reasonable to belong to him. “Show me a creature that sits idly by and allows others to abuse it, and I will show you a creature devoid of a soul.” When Hope only shuddered in response, Lucien went on. “Even the lowest animals on this earth fee
l pain, my Hope. And while they may choose to flee if confronted by danger, back them into a corner, hurt them, and they will show you their teeth.”
“It killed my brother!”
I squeezed my eyes shut, the pain in her voice tearing at my heart. “It was an accident, love.”
“You don’t know that!” She twisted around to face me, eyes wild and chest heaving. “You weren’t there!”
“But you were. Tell us what happened.”
66
Hope
I closed my eyes and thought back to that day. I’d avoided the memory for so long—refused even the slightest touch to its raw, bleeding edges for fear of losing the few pieces of myself I had left—that when I finally allowed myself to look, to see, the memory was there, clear as day, as though it had been waiting for me to gather my courage and remember.
It had happened so fast. I was playing tag with my three-year-old brother, chasing him from my bedroom upstairs through the small hallway and back to his room. Bubbling laughter erupted from his small chest, giggles trailing after him as he ran in that halting, stumbling way young children run, while I pretended my six-year-old body was slower and clumsier than it was. With the deliberate caution my dad had instilled in me, I herded my brother away from the dangerous stairs, and into the small TV-room. One moment I was a happy child, playing with the person I loved the most in the whole wide world, the next, that world shrank, my vision grew sharper, scents exploded in my nose. I could hear everything; from the sound of my brother’s suddenly racing heart to my neighbor talking on the phone two houses down.
I shook my head, panic pounding at me like a living heartbeat, but the noise didn’t recede, smells still overpowered me, and when I looked up at my brother, terror was stamped across his tiny, chubby features.
A stumbling step backward, and then he turned to flee.
Something deep inside me woke, a part of me I hadn’t fully been aware of before that moment.
