Blood Wolf Dawning (17 page)

“Fine,” she huffed to herself as she opened the front door of his cabin and headed back outside. She’d gone back to the cabin an hour earlier, after bombing out on getting some answers from her sister, and was tired of wearing down the floorboards with her pacing. “I’ll find something else to do to keep
busy,” she muttered, heading down the porch steps again. She was trying to decide if she wanted to go back to gardening, or if she should just find a cool place in the shade and read a book on her smartphone, when someone called her name.

She turned and saw Max jogging over to her, a wide smile on his handsome face. “Hey, Max. What’s up?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to hang out tonight,”
he said as he came to a stop right in front of her, the wind playing havoc with his dark curls. “I haven’t got to spend much chill time with you since you came home.”

Her lips twitched as she tilted her head back to stare up at him. “Drunken poker games don’t count?”

He laughed as he pushed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and lifted his brows. “Not that it wasn’t fun watching
you get obliterated, but I was hoping you might come over and have dinner. I think Elliot was planning on stopping by, so it’ll be just like old times.”

She almost winced, but somehow managed to hold it back. Old times for her hadn’t necessarily been happy times, though she’d always been grateful for Max’s friendship. He had a mellow, natural cool that made it impossible not to like him,
and she’d always found him easy to be around. Despite what she’d insinuated to Cian the night he’d left the Runners, she never would have gone to Max or Elliot for sex. Their friendship had always been too close for that, and she never would have jeopardized it just to make a point.

Not that she ever planned on confessing any of that to Cian. The guy was already cocky enough when it came
to his appeal. God knew he didn’t need any encouragement.

She accepted Max’s invitation, glad that Elliot could join them, and spent the rest of the evening trying to shake off her funk and simply enjoy spending time with two of her best friends. She’d missed these guys like crazy. Max was still the easygoing, nowhere-near-ready-to-settle-down guy that he’d always been. And Elliot was still
kind of quiet, but funny as hell. He didn’t talk about having a woman in his life, and it made her heart hurt that he was still so wary of trusting himself, after going through a horrific ordeal five years ago. One that had resulted in the deaths of two innocent young women, and had nearly turned Elliot into a rogue wolf. The Runners had saved him, but she knew he still carried the scars of that
experience on the inside, and hoped he’d one day be able to leave it in the past.

When she finally headed back over to Cian’s around nine, she was surprised to find him sitting in the velvet chair in the living room all alone, as if he’d been waiting for her, the only light a soft glow filtering in from the kitchen.

“What’s up with all the plants out on the porch?” was the first thing
she said to him, having seen them as she’d come in. Small ones, big ones, some with colorful flowers and others with big, waxy green leaves that looked so beautiful it stole her breath, like something from the tropics. There was a fortune in plants sitting out on his front porch, and it made her a little giddy to think he might have gotten them just for her.

Leaning forward, he braced his
elbows on his parted knees and answered her question. “I spent most of the day running patrols out in the woods, but I did a quick run up to town with James to check in with the security headquarters there, and we passed the new garden center just as they were getting a delivery. So I asked him to stop so I could grab you a few things. I figured you might want something to keep you busy while we’re
here, and I know it’s something you enjoy.”

She blinked, no idea what to say in response. This guy...he seemed to do nothing but put her off balance. Pull her close; push her away. An ebb and flow that went against everything inside her, every part of her, because fate wanted nothing more than to pull them so close they became one and remained that way. A unit. Unbreakable and unstoppable.

But fate wasn’t life. It wasn’t what would protect her heart. Keep her from shattering into so many pieces she couldn’t ever be put back together again.

“Have a good time tonight with Max and Elliot?” he finally asked her, breaking the awkward silence.

A little surprised that he’d even bothered to find out where she’d been, she said, “Yeah, it was great to catch up. I’ve missed them.”

“I’m sure they’ve missed you, too.” He moved to his feet and hooked his thumbs in his front pockets, his shuttered gaze impossible to read. “Brody and Mic invited us over for dinner, but I told them you were busy.”

“Oh. You didn’t mention it before.”

Voice a little too tight for her not to pick up on his tension, he said, “I didn’t realize you were going to stay out.”

“Yeah,
well, I didn’t realize you were coming back,” she replied just as tightly, a fresh wave of irritation spiking through her at the way he’d avoided her for almost the entire damn day.

He frowned as he rubbed a big hand over his mouth, and she realized this conversation was going nowhere fast. Getting it back on track, she exhaled a rough breath and added, “You know, you should probably give
Max a big ol’ thank-you.”

His dark brows started to draw together. “And why’s that?”

“Because I tried to get him to tell me the big secret,” she explained, crossing her arms over her chest, “but he held firm and wouldn’t budge.”

Agitation spilled over the quick spark of surprise she’d spotted in his sharp gaze, veiling its light like clouds over the gleaming heat of the sun. “You
questioned Max about me?”

She gave a soft snort. “Cian, I’m not stupid. I know something went down at the ‘briefing’ you held with the others yesterday. It’s obvious that everyone knows something big that I don’t. Not even Jillian would tell me, and that
hurt
. She just kept saying to ask you about it.”

He lifted his powerful arms and gripped the back of his neck, then ran his hands up
the back of his head, his body so tense and hard he seemed even larger, when his presence was already so overwhelming it blotted out everything else around him. He constantly burned like a pulsing star in the center of her existence, blindingly white-hot and elusive, always too far away to touch, even when he was right the hell in front of her.

She couldn’t help but wonder if she would still
feel that way if he were buried deep inside her. Would she stare up into that beautifully masculine, fallen-angel face and finally feel at home? Or would it be like staring into the eyes of a stranger, cold and lonely and empty?

Swallowing her grief like it was a bitter pill she’d been forced to take, she choked out, “Is it another woman?”

Slowly lowering his arms to his sides, he shot
her a startled look. “What?”

“If it’s about your brother, I can’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me. So is there someone else? Up in town? Or somewhere else? Did you learn you have a child with someone? Is that what everyone’s hiding from me?”

His shoulders dropped as if the weight of the world had just landed on them. “Sayre, stop,” he said, shaking his head. “There are no kids, and
there’s sure as hell no other woman. I don’t want anyone but you.” Scrubbing his hands over his gorgeous face, he muttered, “God, life would be a whole lot simpler right now if I did.”

She flinched, hating that he noticed, those molten eyes darkening to stormy gray.

Giving her a piercing look, he took a step closer to where she stood. “Let me finish, lass.”

“What more is there to
say? You want me—I believe that. But it’s the connection. You can’t help it. And you don’t
want
it, Cian. You don’t want to feel that way.
That’s
why you keep pulling away from me.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, softly but with an unmistakable vein of anger. Or maybe it was...hopelessness. Something lost and filled with pain. “Despite everything, how wrong and completely shit this is for you,
the truth is that I
wouldn’t
change it. I know that’s unfair as hell to say, but I wouldn’t want this connection with anyone
but
you.”

She blinked, more than a little undone, and thought
God
. Just
God
. They were pretty words from a pretty mouth on a pretty face. Hard, rugged, masculine—but undeniably beautiful. And yet, it was what was beneath his skin that had her tied in knots. Ever since
they’d returned to the Alley, the pieces had been coming back to her. Fragments and memories and emotions. The ones that had drawn her to him all those years ago. That had made her fall for him so hard she was still crashing through space, waiting for the landing. Terrified it would be unforgivably brutal and break her, but secretly hoping, like a fool, that he would be there to catch her in the
end. That when she crashed, it would be
into
him, into the private, most intimate part of him, and she’d be safe. Rather than against the hard, jagged edges he kept trying so hard to hide behind.

Drawing in a slow, steadying breath, she asked, “If not another woman, then what?”

Frustration scored his words. “Why, Sayre? Why do you keep pushing this?”

“Because everyone knows but
me
. And I deserve to not be left out in the dark, because it’s my life that this brother of yours supposedly wants.
Mine
, not theirs. And after everything that’s happened, that’s happening
now
, you owe me this. The truth. What are you so afraid of?”

The skin around his eyes pulled tight, that muscle pulsing like a heartbeat in his hard jaw. “If I tell you, it will...change things.”

“What
things?”

“Sayre.” He sounded like a man being forced over the edge from a terrible height, but she knew if she backed down now, he might never tell her. Not until it was too late and she was being faced with a cold, hard reality in the middle of Hell.

If Aedan were coming for her, she wanted to know what she and everyone else here was up against.

Thoughts spinning, she studied him,
using everything she had to understand him...read him and pick the clues out in not just what he was saying, but what he wasn’t. “Is it me, Cian? You think whatever you confess is going to change
me
?”

He scowled, turned away from her and stalked to the window, then braced his hands on either side of its dark, reflective surface. His posture was rigid, his powerful muscles bulging beneath
the tight stretch of his skin, making him look exactly like the hard, dangerous creature she knew he could be. He squeezed the sides of the window frame so tightly she was surprised the wood hadn’t cracked, sensing a deep-seated anger and pain seething inside him, and in a dizzying moment of clarity, she suddenly understood what had been holding him back.

“You think it will change this.
Us
. The way that I feel about you.”

He smacked his open hands against the window frame so hard it made the glass shake. “I know I don’t
have
you. I
know
that. But I don’t want to lose you, either. I don’t want to lose the small part of you that I
do
have.”

“Then you’re just going to have to trust me.”

A low, humorless laugh jerked from his chest. But he remained silent, his shoulders
heaving with the harshness of his breaths.

“It isn’t that hard, is it? I’ve trusted you. With my life. With my body.”

He groaned as he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the glass. “Don’t want to lose that.”

“Then trust me when I say that you won’t,” she told him, taking a few cautious steps closer, wanting so badly to reach out and run a soothing touch over the rigid
length of his spine, his broad shoulders stretching the cotton of his T-shirt until she was surprised it hadn’t shredded. “So long as you’re honest with me, you won’t lose anything.”

Quietly, he said. “No, Sayre. I’m going to lose everything. I don’t see any other way.”

“Just tell me.
Now
.”

He turned then, the look in his beautiful eyes so dark and pained, it made her gasp. Voice
little more than a choked thread of sound, he rasped, “I’m...a...vampire.”

She blinked, thinking she must have heard him wrong. “Um, say that again, please.”

“My father is part vampire, and he passed the bloodline onto me. It’s not as dominant as my wolf or my human sides, but it’s there. A part of me.”

“Ohmygod,” she breathed, her thoughts flying so fast she couldn’t keep up with
them. So many things were crashing together in her mind, mysteries that suddenly made sense, holes filled with an answer that she’d never,
ever
expected.

He drew an unsteady breath. “God didn’t have anything to do with it, lass. It’s pure evil.”

She straightened, glaring daggers at him. “Bullshit.”

* * *

Cian figured it was his turn to look surprised, because she’d just shocked
the hell out of him.

“Don’t look so stunned,” she snapped. “You’re a lot of things, Cian Hennessey, but evil isn’t one of them.”

He laughed low and rough, the bitter sound making him cringe. “I wish that were true. But you don’t know the things I’ve done.”

Her gaze glittered with challenge. “Then tell me. If this is part of the reason you left me, then I deserve to know.”

“Sayre,” he said with a tired, wrecked sigh.

“
Tell me
, Cian.”

Almost as if he had no control over himself, he could hear the graveled words bursting from his throat. “At the age of fifteen, we’re fully matured, at least physically. At that point, if we consume blood as one of our main food sources, we can halt the aging process.”

Her eyes went wide. “Have you ever done that?”

He gave a jerky nod, and stared at the pulse rushing at the delicate base of her throat, unable to meet her eyes as he said, “I spent a decade by Aedan’s side at the age of sixteen. I...I was angry, at my parents, because of...well, because of
him
.”

He turned, braced his shoulder against the wall beside the window and explained it all. Everything. How he hadn’t learned of Aedan’s existence
until he was fifteen. Aedan’s mother had been killed, and the boy had come to live with them at his father’s estate in Ireland. He’d been...God, he’d been so angry, when he’d realized what it all meant for his family. That his father had betrayed their mother, their vows, their so-called love, and taken another woman. He’d felt as if everything he’d ever believed had been turned upside down, torn
apart and destroyed, his rage toward his father so consuming he’d burned with it. A raw, seething rage toward everyone and everything, except strangely enough, for the boy.