They dressed in silence and when she was finally done, she sat on the armchair in the corner, Iain perched opposite on the bed, a careful expression on his face, gaze boring into hers. Goddess. What was he going to say? She wished she didn’t have to tell him.
‘Eloise? What did you agree to?’
She flinched at the repressed worry in his tone. ‘How do you know I agreed to anything?’
‘Because he didn’t kill me. He could have, but he didn’t. I know that’s because you agreed to do what he wanted. So what was that?’
‘He won’t attack.’ Her voice sounded so far away it was a mere echo of who she once was. ‘He won’t attack if I do as he says.’
‘And what does he want?’
‘Cain can only do what he’s doing at the moment because he’s split his soul from his body. He’s incredibly dangerous as a Shade. You saw what he did … felt it. He’ll do that to as many of the Were as he can get to for the time he has remaining as a Shade. Unless I heal him, bring soul and body back together.’ She glanced up at him, away. ‘If I do it, he’ll be less of a threat.’
‘We should just kill him.’
‘No! That won’t work. He’s blood bound with Morrigan, drawing from her. And from me. If you kill him, it means he could stay a Shade for months, kill everyone. He’d drain me and Morrigan to do it. And you wouldn’t be able to stop him.’
He was suddenly across the room, kneeling in front of her, hands on her shoulders, forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘Could he kill you if he drained you too much?’
She shrugged. ‘Possibly. But I don’t care about that.’
‘No you wouldn’t. But I do.’ He drove his fingers through his hair. ‘Fuck!’
She grabbed his hand, held it still. ‘Iain, I’m not worried about what he can do to me because before things even get to a point where he might drain me of life, he could do untold damage to your pack. To my friends. To you.’ Her voice broke, but she kept on; had to make him see. ‘He’d do it just to teach me a lesson. But if I bring his soul back to his body, he won’t be able to go where he likes. You’ll have him as prisoner and under your control. You can limit his magic by putting one of those magical restriction cuffs on him.’
‘He’s already wearing one.’
‘That’s why he did this,’ she said, the full horror of it overwhelming her. ‘He needed his magic and you’d cut him off from it.’ She looked up at him. ‘We have to return him to his body. It’s the only way to keep everyone safe.’
‘But if you do that, can’t he just become a Shade again if we don’t let him go and stop him from using his magic?’
‘No. You can only do what he’s done once. If you do it again, there is no coming back.’
‘Won’t he try to kill you himself when he wakes up?’
She shook her head, unsure of how she was able to keep talking. ‘He says I belong to him. He apologised for trying to kill me.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘Yes. You didn’t hear him. He truly thinks I belong to him. He doesn’t want me dead. Besides, you’ll be there to stop him if he tries anything.’
‘You’re bloody right I will. And a dozen other soldiers as well.’ He ran his hands down her arms, gripping her hands. ‘He won’t harm you again. I won’t allow it.’
She looked at his large hands enveloping hers, their strength, their warmth. The burning cold wasn’t as bad when he was touching her and even though she knew it was wrong to fall into the trap of needing him, she couldn’t bring herself to break away. ‘And I won’t allow him to hurt you. To hurt any of you.’
His gaze held hers for a moment and then he was kissing her, fierce, possessive, desperate, and she kissed him back, no less fierce, no less possessive, no less desperate. This might be the last moment they had together, because she had no idea if she was truly strong enough to survive what she had to do tonight.
But that didn’t matter. The pack mattered. Most of all, Iain mattered. She would die before she let any harm come to him or those he loved.
She gave herself to the kiss for as long as she dared, but before it could turn into something more, something she ached for, she pulled away. Breath mingling with his, she held his face in her hands. ‘Call Jason and the others. Marcus and Cordy too. We have to tell them what Cain wants.’
‘They won’t want to agree. They’ll think killing him the better option.’
‘We’ll make them see it’s not.’
‘Yes. We will.’ He paced over to the bedside table, picked up his phone and began to make calls.
Warmth chased the cold of apprehension from her body at his absolute trust in her; at the way he backed her, no question. She’d never had that. Ever. Not from her parents, or Morrigan or even Cain, truth be told. She knew now why that was; that she was a fool to ever have expected it from them given she had never been theirs. They’d only managed to love Cain because he was what they’d always wanted—a powerful male witch in the family. But she—she was too different. Something they feared as much as hated because of her difference. Because she was reminder of the evil they’d done. She’d been fooled by them for too long into thinking the lack of love was her fault. But the truth was far worse. Morrigan, her parents, the coven, had been her kidnappers. She knew enough about shifters now to know that like the Were, they would never give up their young freely. No, she and Cain had been taken by bloody force and all these years she’d been made to feel less, to feel worthless, because of it. And despite all this, because of her innate need to belong, a need she was only now coming to understand, she’d come to love the liars even though they’d never loved her, believed in them even though they’d never believed in her, believed their truths were her truths even though they were lies. She’d been brainwashed by them. She was their fool.
She wouldn’t be their fool anymore.
Cain thought her weak and unable to think for herself. He thought she would allow him to commit genocide. He didn’t know her at all.
So where did that leave her?
A witch without a coven. A shifter without a pack or pride or family or whatever they called themselves. Fuck, she didn’t even know that. But she was going to find out. Just like she was going to find out where she did come from, right after she’d thought of a way to stop Cain from doing something that would destroy his soul and hers along with it if he succeeded, murdering a whole lot of innocent people along the way. She wouldn’t let him do that. She wouldn’t let him darken his soul any further. She wanted to believe there was some way back for him, even though there probably wasn’t. Something had taken him over. The same evil that was inside Morrigan. She had no idea if there was a way to exorcise it and stop insanity from unfolding.
Perhaps that’s what she’d do after she’d finished tonight. Figure out the origin of the Darkness in Morrigan, what it ultimately wanted. Maybe being the Nexus meant she could stop it. The thought made her breathless. Could she? She had no idea. There was a lot of ground to cover before then. So much to learn. It made her sick to think of it. Sick and small.
No! That wasn’t who she was anymore. She was someone who took action. Who wasn’t afraid of the long term or the bigger picture. She would convince Jason and the others that she had to do what Cain wanted. There was no other choice.
‘It’s going to be okay, Eloise.’ Iain had put down the phone and was looking at her from across the room, his eyes a hot, amber blaze in the semi-dark.
‘I know.’
He pulled her up from the chair and into his arms. ‘You believe me?’
‘Yes. But more importantly, I believe in me.’
A smile broke out over his face that felt like the sun. ‘Let’s go tell them how it’s going to be then.’
‘Let’s go.’ She took his outstretched hand and let him lead her out the bedroom door. She’d expected for him to lead her to the kitchen to meet with the others, but they headed out the front door and to the right of the house. ‘Where are we going?’
&nb
sp; Iain gestured at a large barn sitting at the far side of the home paddock. ‘The others have all headed back to Melbourne. Jason’s called a meeting with Marcus and Cordy and it seemed better to meet at a halfway point rather than make them come all the way down here. And he wanted to give us the night together.’
‘He knows?’ Her face heated, mortification rising over her in a wave. ‘You told him?’
‘Of course not. But it’s hard to hide something like what we shared last night from the pack. They would have felt the excess of positive emotion emanating from me and while they wouldn’t exactly know the cause, many of them know me well enough to guess. And Jason being the Alpha, he feels it all the more. Not to mention, I’m one of his lieutenants, so he’s always tuned into what is going on with us.’
‘Oh.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I suppose that’s okay then.’
He laughed, a short sharp bark, and kissed her head. ‘You’ll get used to it. You’ll have to, if you’re going to be with me.’
Going to be with him? Oh Goddess. She longed for that more than she’d ever longed for anything, but was it possible? Could they overcome all the obstacles in their way and become truly partnered? And did he want the same?
It was a sobering, aching thought. She stopped walking.
He turned, fingers brushing her cheek in that way that made her heart race and ache with warmth. ‘Eloise? What’s wrong?
‘Can we? Be together? I mean, Bron has told me a little about what it is to be a Lone Wolf. I know you feel something deep for me, something that confuses you as much as it confuses me, but feels right at the same time …’ He nodded, encouraging her to go on. ‘But Lone Wolves, by nature, long to be alone. So can we truly be together? I know you don’t mate. I can accept that.’ She shrugged, smiled. ‘I don’t know if I can mate with anyone anyway. There’s so much I don’t know about myself. I don’t even know what the future might hold after tonight. I don’t even know why I’m thinking about any of this, why it matters, with Cain and Morrigan out there determined to destroy everything important to me.’ She raked her hand through her hair. ‘I’m not even making sense to myself, so how can you figure out what I’m trying to say?’
He made a huffing sound. ‘I know what you’re trying to say, Little Bird, because the same thought worries me too.’
‘It does?’
‘Yes. You deserve every good thing in life there is to experience and I worry that I can never be that, not truly, for you. But what I do know is, I have never felt like this before about anyone else and my wolf feels connected with you in a way that has never happened before. Not even with our Alpha. I’m not sure what that means or if it will last forever, but what I know is that even the Lone Wolf needs a place to call home; something to come back to. My pack has always been that for me, always there to support me and take me in, no matter how long I wander alone. I think, perhaps, you are becoming that for me too. That without you to come home to, my wolf would go rabid, just as it would have gone rabid in the past without my pack. A part of me belongs to you. I want you to know that.’
Oh, his words thrummed through her, an ache she never wanted to be rid of. Perhaps she was an idiot, standing here, talking about belonging when there was so much at stake, but she needed those words. Needed to have them twine with her soul, to strengthen the beat of her heart. And Iain knew it. Knew exactly the right thing to say. How did he know her so well?
My beloved.
The voice was a mere breath in her head, but she felt it shudder through her, making her gasp.
‘Eloise?’
‘I feel the same about you, Iain. There’s a part of me that will always belong to you.’
He cupped her face, eyes blazing with heated passion, but his lips met hers with the lightest of caresses. She whimpered as he pulled away and his lips twitched into a satisfied smile. ‘No matter how much I want to explore this and what it means, we have to go. Jason and the others will be waiting.’
‘Yes. Of course.’ She forced herself to step back, to move to the door. ‘So what’s in the barn?’
His smile widened. ‘You’re going to like this.’ He pulled open a panel in the wall. Behind the panel was a keypad. He pressed a couple of numbers and then put his thumb onto a plate that slid out of the wall. A moment later the large double wooden doors slid open. ‘After you.’
She tried not to show her surprise as she stepped inside—she really shouldn’t be surprised about anything after what she’d seen and been through in the weeks since she’d woken, especially after what had happened today—but it was difficult when instead of the scent of dry hay she’d expected, there was the sterile scent of cleaning fluids, the slightly sweet scent of wax and a hint of oil. Instead of rotting wooden walls, there was gleaming black polished cement. Along one wall ran a workbench with all the tools a motoring enthusiast could ever need, and at the far end of the barn was a car hoist. Dust motes danced in the stream of sunlight that came in through the dust-covered window set high in the far wall. The sunlight danced across a line of gleaming cars, each one more expensive than the next.
‘Holy shit!’
‘I knew you’d like them.’
‘Like them!’ She took a few steps forward on stiff legs. ‘This is like something out of a dream.’ Her gaze roamed greedily over the ten cars before her. Cars. They weren’t just cars. They were works of art.
‘Want to work on them, do you?’
‘Oh, Goddess, yes.’ She clasped her hands together. ‘Although these are nothing like the old cars we had in the coven. My dad used to talk about cars like this when I’d help him with the old Rovers and Holdens we had. He spoke their names in a hushed, reverent tone.’ Names like Porsche and Ferrari and BMW and Jaguar. ‘Special. Exotic. I never thought I’d get to see one, let alone be close enough to touch.’
‘When we’re done with Cain and Morrigan, you can do more than touch.’
She spun, breath a clutch in her throat. ‘Really?’
Iain touched her cheek. ‘Of course. I’m sure Gareth won’t mind sharing his domain with you. Not after you helped to save him last year.’ He looked around, his grin a lopsided slash in his face. ‘Besides, I think we’re going to have trouble keeping you away from this place now you’ve seen it.’
‘I think you might be right.’
Iain’s lips twitched as he walked over to the wall and pressed a switch. Lights came on overhead.
The cars’ highly polished duco gleamed like starlight. She knew she should be concentrating on getting to Cain, but with such beauty in front of her, it was difficult to focus on anything else. A little dizzy with lust, images of her sitting in those cars, driving them, or bent over the open bonnet, greasy hands inside the darling engines, swept through her.
She pressed her hands tighter against her stomach.
‘We’ll take my car.’ He gestured at a red Ferrari.
‘This is yours?’ she breathed, moving closer. The dancing horse badge was something she never thought to see up so close. She wanted to touch it. But couldn’t. She’d leave a smear on it or something. ‘One of these is worth the price of a house.’
‘I earn good money.’ Iain grinned as he thumbed the keys in his hand. The door nearest them swung up. ‘I like to go fast. Do you want to drive?’ He held the keys out to her.
Her heart leaped into her throat. That he would trust her that much was a gift beyond words. But she couldn’t. Not now. Not with her mind in too many places to take care of such a precious gift and treat it with the homage it deserved. ‘Next time?’
He smiled at her, understanding in his eyes. ‘Definitely.’ He walked her around to the passenger door, opened it up. ‘Now in you hop.’
Tentatively, she lowered herself onto the seat, breathing in the scent of leather. Her mouth dried as the door closed with a swish and click. Reality pushed forward again, past her awe and the luxury of the car she was in. They were heading to Melbourne and she had to convince the Alphas of two packs that what she
had to do tonight was the only way.
Iain slid into the driver’s seat, his gaze immediately on her.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Let’s just go.’
Iain’s hand curled over hers and she looked up into his kind, deep amber eyes. ‘They’ll trust you. Just like I do’
She managed a small smile. ‘I know.’
The question was, would the burgeoning strength she had found inside be enough to gain her what she wanted more than anything else? To belong. To be loved. Her gaze flickered to Iain and then back to the road ahead.
Only time would tell, and right now, time wasn’t on her side.
The car started up with a rumbling purr and then they were flying out of the barn and down the driveway to the road beyond.
Chapter 17
Bridgette stood in front of the altar, perspiration running between her naked breasts, prickling at the base of her spine. Exhaustion made her upraised arms tremble. Her knees locked tight against the quiver she could feel in the marrow of her bones.
She had to keep going only a little while longer. This was the last pack in the Highlands and as of a moment ago, she’d linked them to herself as she had all the covens in the area. She’d repeated this ceremony hundreds of times in the last months since she’d begun her quest to save her race from the destruction of their own power. Her best friend and the high priestess of their coven, second to her in power, Morghanna Cantrae, had travelled to the European nations to bring as many of their brethren there into the fold as she could. Cecily, their coven’s healer was doing the same in the Baltic States. Connor, the coven’s medium, was contacting as many other covens and packs as he could through the spirits and the ether, to invite them into the fold. Once the main working was done, she could welcome others in dribs and drabs if they came to her asking to be included in the pact. She would not force anyone.
Sadness swept through her at the thought of Morghanna’s beloved yet headstrong sister. Morghanna still wept over Morrigan’s denial of the need for the pact. She had railed at Morrigan for her stubbornness—stubbornness that was mystifying given how both their parents had died. One would think Morrigan would side with them in the fight for their people and their survival. But no. She said she would find another way and Bridgette had made Morghanna let her go, inviting her to come to them with any discovery she might make that would solve the duel problem of their powers imploding and the need to hide who and what they were from the inquisitors.
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