Kissing Sin (15 page)

My heart just about plummeted to my ankles. Of all the things I’d been expecting to hear, that certainly hadn’t been one of them. “
What?
But that means…”

“I would not be free to fuck anyone.” His gaze met mine, dark depths smoldering. “But I am free to be with whom I wish, because the ceremony that should have bound us as one didn’t work.”

“Because both parties have to be in love to perform that ceremony. Eryn obviously never was.”

“In truth, neither was I. It was the drug, not real emotion.”

“Yes.” I paused. There was more. There had to be more. “But I’m gathering that is the least of her crimes?”

He looked away. “At the time, I did believe the ceremony had locked us together for life and prevented either of us from taking other partners. I discovered her lie the hard way.”

Oh dear…“You found her with another wolf?”

He nodded. “And she was pregnant by him.”

“Shit.” No wonder he hated the werewolf lifestyle so much.

He nodded. “Hence my suspicion that Eryn might have had something to do with your reluctance to get involved with me again.”

“Well, she doesn’t. But like her, I want a kid, whether now or later. And that makes getting involved with someone who can never offer me that a difficult choice.”

Especially when they didn’t like being one of many.

A smile briefly lifted the grim set of his lips. “And here I was thinking you were playing games, making me pay for walking away.”

“I won’t deny that was there as well.”

He nodded again. “So, what do you intend to do?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“And Misha?”

“I was always intending to fuck Misha. I need the answers he can give me.”

“So you plan to become a whore for the Directorate?”

I ripped my fingers from his and stood. “Damn you to hell.” I crossed my arms and stomped down the steps. “That’s such a
human
way of viewing the situation. Besides, it’s not that simple.”

“It
is
that simple. Rhoan willingly sleeps with enemies to gather news. Isn’t that what you’d be doing with Misha?”

“It’s
just
sex.” I blew out a frustrated breath. Quinn’s views were never likely to change, no matter what I said. “And we don’t know that Misha is an enemy yet.”

“We don’t know that he’s a friend, either.”

“True. But he may be the only fertile wolf I currently know.”

“Then you believe he was telling the truth about that?”

“It would be easy enough to check.” I walked to the black metal fence that stopped visitors from getting too close to the edge of the mountain. The wind was fiercer away from the cross, chilling my wet legs and feet.

“Sounds to me like your decision has been made.”

I closed my eyes. “It might have been, except for the fact that it was ARC1-23 that kick-started my fertility.”

“Meaning?” Though he was still sitting on the steps, his soft words cut through the rush of the wind as clearly as if he was standing beside me.

“Meaning, ARC1-23 can have deadly side effects on us half-breeds. They won’t know for at least another few months what, if any, effect it will have on me.”

And if they couldn’t predict what effects the ARC1-23 would have on me just yet, then how could they predict what effect it might have on any child I conceived? If the drug could totally mutate my system, then what the hell could it do to a child growing in my womb?

That
was the problem.
That
was the choice I faced.

Did I have the right to endanger my child in such a manner? Did I have the right to bring a life into this world who might not even live to see their first birthday?

Deep in my heart, I knew the answer was no.

But that would mean blowing the only chance I had of having a child myself. Oh, there were other options—freezing eggs, finding a surrogate, but it just wasn’t the same. Wasn’t what I’d dreamed of all these years.

I closed my eyes and took a shuddery breath. God, fate was a bitch sometimes.

Arms touched me, turned me around. I sunk into the warmth of his embrace, enjoying the momentary peace it offered.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years”—his breath stirred warmth past my ear—“it’s that nature often has its own way of sorting out right from wrong.”

“Nature has very little to do with what is happening to me now. If nature had its way, I would still be infertile.”

“Then perhaps there lies the answer to your problems.”

I pulled back a little, and met his dark gaze. “There could be more than a little self-interest in that statement.”

He grimaced, and raised a hand, brushing my cheeks with his fingers. Longing shivered through me. “There is.”

I stepped out of his arms, not wanting to be distracted by the warmth and promise of his touch. “Even if I make the decision not to go ahead and have a child, the situation between you and me is still a difficult one—and for many different reasons.”

“There is nothing to stop us resuming where we left off.”

“Where we left off was you declaring you had no intention of getting involved with another werewolf.” I took a deep breath, and slowly released it. “My soul mate is still out there, somewhere. I won’t risk losing him on top of maybe never being able to have a child.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t come to some arrangement—”

“But
could
you come to an arrangement?” I cut in. “Knowing that I have the intention of doing what I have to do—even if it means kissing or fucking every sinner in the goddamn state—to stop these bastards coming after me ever again?”

Which didn’t mean I intended becoming a guardian—not unless the drug left me with absolutely no choice. But stopping these bastards
was
a priority, and if that meant I had to sleep with some of them, so be it. At least if I did my bit to help stop them, I could safely follow whatever path fate wanted me to go down without having to look over my shoulder at the ghosts I’d betrayed.

And if that future path meant a life without kids, then I guess I had to accept that.

Which meant the decision I’d come up here to make was, in the end, easy. The drug running havoc through my system had caused my fertility, and because of that, I dare not fall pregnant, no matter how desperately I wanted to take the chance. The future I faced was unknown, and as much as I didn’t want to, I had to face the fact that
any
changes the drug forced on me would make me a guardian. It was either that, or be compelled into military service, as the other half-breed recipients of the drug had been.

I had no right to bring a child into that sort of environment, especially when neither Rhoan nor I had the support of our pack to help care for, and raise, a child if anything happened to us.

Quinn didn’t answer my question, but he didn’t really need to. We both knew he could never put up with me taking on all comers in the sex stakes. That sort of acceptance wasn’t in his all-too-human attitudes.

“Look, Quinn, I’m not denying I want you, but I want you without strings. If you can’t handle that—can’t handle what I am, or what I intend to do—then back off and leave me alone.”

Though his face was carefully neutral, I could see the annoyance burning in his eyes. Feel the force of it crawling across the electric night. It reminded me that he was a very old vampire, and obviously, despite all his urbane and courteous mannerisms, well used to getting his own way.

He might want me, he might be quoting pretty words about compromise, but deep down he was a territorial creature and he wasn’t at all willing to share.

“So if I want you,” he said, voice a little clipped, “I have to put up with you being the whore I think your race is?”

Anger surged and I clenched my fists, battling the urge to hit him. “You want to know why I’d rather fuck a stranger like Kade than you right now? Because he accepts who and what I am. You, on the other hand, want to change a basic part of me.”

Anger burned around me, through me, and I wasn’t entirely sure if it was mine, his, or a combination of both. But all the frustration that had built up over the months since Quinn had walked away came spewing forth, and I didn’t have a hope in hell of stopping it now.

“I
don’t
—”

“Then why do you call all wolves whores? Why even
think
that when the moon dance, and the celebration of life and love, is a basic part of what we
are
? We’re
not
human. How dare you even try to judge us by human standards.”

“I’m not—”

“Then why call us whores?”

“Isn’t fucking someone for money or information a definition of prostitution? Isn’t that what you’d be doing?”

“It’s a human definition. Werewolves have no such word, because we don’t think that way.”

“So you’ll happily sleep with all and sundry to get information?”

“Happily? No. Will I do it? Yes, because it
is
only sex, and sex is as vital to wolves as blood is to vampires.”

“A vampire can die without blood. I doubt a werewolf would die without sex.”

“Maybe not.” I crossed my arms and continued to meet him glare for glare. “But we can certainly die if we don’t meet our soul mate.”

He snorted. “I doubt—”

“Don’t doubt, just listen. Werewolves believe that
true
love is
not
something that happens by chance, but rather, it is something determined by fate itself. We believe that love is as immortal as the soul, and that we are destined to meet the same lover over and over again, right through all of our lifetimes. For wolves, there is only
one
person on this earth who is destined to be our perfect mate. One person who is our match, heart and soul. And if we do not find that person, our heart and soul suffers. Many do fade away, and many do die.”

He didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “Could not the connection we share mean there is something worth exploring between us?”

“Definitely. But I have cared deeply for two other men in my life, and loved one. None of those three was my soul mate. The connection between us might have been emotionally and physically deep, but it wasn’t
soul
deep.” Something that had been proven when Haden, the wolf I’d loved so much as a teenager, had met his soul mate exactly one year into our relationship. Had we been exclusive, that would never have happened.

“So, where does that leave you and me?” Quinn asked.

“You tell me. I’m not the one trying to place boundaries on our relationship.”

He sighed, and looked past me. The anger burning the air seemed to dissipate quickly on the cool breeze. “I’m a vampire. We tend to be very territorial.”

I nodded. “Then it is you who has the decision to make, not me. I want to continue exploring what we share, but I will not risk restricting myself to you alone. I cannot. Nor, might I add, do I expect you to restrict yourself to me. I cannot be the only supply of the blood you need to sustain yourself.”

He snorted softly. “A small comfort that makes little difference in the scheme of things.”

“That’s all I can offer right at this moment.”

“I don’t know if I could handle an open relationship. I’m just not built that way.”

I raised an eyebrow. “We weren’t exactly exclusive a month ago. I was still with both Talon and Misha then.”

“A month ago I thought it was nothing more than a casual dalliance, one that would be easily forgotten once I got home.”

“So what changed your mind?”

His look just about liquefied my insides. “The fact that you kept invading my thoughts and my dreams.”

He’d invaded my dreams, too. I wondered if, somehow, we’d been reaching out to each other through the link we’d created. “Yet you rebuked just about every attempt I made to see or talk to you. Even when I finally got you to come to dinner, you still stated you weren’t interested in continuing any sort of relationship.”

He shrugged. “I thought it was for the best. After Eryn, I had no wish for anything permanent.”

“I wasn’t suggesting anything permanent.”

He looked at me, and didn’t answer.

“And despite all those refusals,” I continued, “here you are, all but demanding I be with you, and you alone.”

“Because what we have deserves exploration.”

“To what end, if you have no wish for anything permanent?”

Again, he didn’t answer. Maybe that was a question he had no answer for.

“How many exclusive relationships have you actually had over your many years?”

His expression could only be described as dark. “Two or three.”

I snorted softly. “In how many centuries?”

“It is hard to love someone when you know you must watch them grow old and die.”

“Then why did you commit to Eryn?”

“As I said before, that was more a product of the drug than love. Had I been in my right state of mind, I would never have attempted that ceremony.” His eyes were hard as he added, “I swore never to marry another woman four hundred years ago. It is a promise I hold to.”