MacRieve (Immortals After Dark) (3 page)

Should Will be denied his mate just because he and Ruelle were born in differing times? How could his parents react so violently to something that was natural? They were not usually judgmental.

Will hugged the blanket tighter, struggling to hide his shudders. Pain was like a drum inside him, beating him, breaking him. His bones . . .

“My precious lad,” Mam choked out, rising to her feet. “ ’Tis a vile perversion,” she told Da. “I doona understand how he survived her hungers when so young! He’s far from his immortality.”

Survived? Could he have
died
? All Will had done was bed a beautiful woman.

“His beast is stronger than most, a pure alpha,” Da said. “Like Munro’s. I’ve spoken of this before.”

Will remembered. Da had sounded both proud yet fearful at the same time. The beast could be a blessing and a curse, lending strength but robbing reason.

“Did your beast rise up when you were with her?”

Will absently nodded.

“Otherwise, she would’ve killed you—a fact she well knew, son.”

Nay, ’twas not true. Nothing could make him believe Ruelle had ever jeopardized his life. She could be demanding, pushing him to his limits, but only because he was strong and could take it. He
was
strong for his age. She’d repeatedly said so.

“Look how our son shakes even now. Her venom’s work. This must be answered!” Mam declared.

“It
will
be, love. I set out for the Woods at dawn. I’ll petition for entry. The Elders will grant it before they let a pup suffer.”

Answered?
Will still didn’t quite comprehend their crime. His older cousins were forever tumbling females, and they’d started when they were not much older than Will was now.

But I started earlier still.
He glanced at Munro, seeking an ally. Munro cast him a baffled look.

“Nay, Dùghlas!” Mam’s own beast was rising once more. “I know her kind! She’ll be winsome and manipulative, and she’ll twist you too. The men of this pack have said for ages they would run her out of the forest, and naught comes of it.”

“They’re no’ our woods to patrol!” Da ran his hand over his face. “And she’s never targeted our young before! She’s never envenomed any of our males. Our lad will be free of this by tomorrow eve. The day after at the latest. I vow it.”

“Free of this?” The only way out was Ruelle’s death. “I-I need to see her. Just tonight.” He and his mate could run.

Leave behind my family?

A lifetime of drowning
 . . . ?

“Nay!” Mam bared her fangs. “Over my dead body! You will never see her again!”

Da wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Take a moment, love. Just . . . take a moment. Collect yourself. Think of the babe.”

“If I canna protect the bairns I have, I doona deserve the gods to give me more!”

“Whisht, love! I will talk to him, and tomorrow we will end this. Go take your tea and calm yourself.”

She lurched from the room, casting a look over her shoulder. The rage in her expression changed to something like . . . pity when she met Will’s eyes. “Never one like
her
, my Uilleam.” Then she was gone.

Pity? Realization struck.
I’ve done wrong. I’ve hurt Mam.

Before, he’d wanted to tell the world about Ruelle; now he felt shame, even though he didn’t quite understand
why
he should. He’d been mating a beautiful female, his female, so why did his skin feel like it was crawling?

His nose burned, vision blurring. Tears? He was sick of tears—had
shed them aplenty in the first year he’d been with her. His voice broke as he said, “I dinna mean to do wrong, Da. Are you angrier about my age or about what Ruelle is? How old
should
I have been?”

“You are no’ there yet, son. And, as your mother said,
never
with one like her.”

“But she’s my mate.”

His father snapped his fangs, as if Will had blasphemed. “No—she’s—no’!”

Will had never seen his da this angry. Still he asked, “How do you know?”

“Because she’s sick in the head!” He shoved his fingers through his thick black hair. “If she were yours, your Instinct would ring loud and clear, telling you that she was. Has that happened?”

Will’s Instinct, the guiding force all Lykae possessed, was usually quiet with her. But it hadn’t been at first, had warned him not to enter the cottage, had whispered of peril within.

Peril from a delicate beauty like Ruelle? The idea had struck him as ridiculous.

“Think, son—if she were truly your mate, you would have felt the overwhelming need to mark her neck. You would have gotten a babe on her after all this time. But I know you have no’ done either.”

Will shook his head, muttering, “Ruelle
must
be mine for me to feel this way.”

“No, she’s entranced you—it’s their way. Grown males are swayed by them, trapped by their wiles and their strewing; at your age, you stood no chance.”

Da was making her sound like a sorceress or worse, a witch. Just like the rumors . . .

“You have doubts. I see it in your eyes. Do you no’ ken, son? When you find your mate, it feels like the hands of gods have reached out to touch you, like your soul’s been branded. There is no
doubt.
And there is no way you could willingly part from her, as you’ve obviously been doing with the succubus for years. Will, heed my words: where your mate goes, you follow.”

Will grimaced as a sharper surge of pain hit. Da continued talking, clearly aiming to distract him. He told Will and Munro all about the first time he’d met Mam, a tale they’d heard before. But tonight it highlighted aspects of Will’s own meeting with Ruelle.

She’d lured him to her cottage with sweets. He’d been reluctant, half terrified of her, half fascinated. When he’d tentatively entered, she’d lavished gifts on him, complimenting him, as if she were . . . taming him.

Or
trapping
him?

The firelight had just begun to dim when Will’s Instinct suddenly commanded —
SAVE HER!
—

Da and Munro must’ve received the same warning. They shot to their feet.

“Ailis?” Da crossed to the hallway with long strides. “Come join us.”

No answer.

“Love?” His father tensed, lifting his face to scent the air. Will and Munro did the same.

Mam was gone. Will didn’t scent her anywhere in the keep.

There was only one reason she would have left home in this storm.

Like a shot, Da charged for the front door. Will and Munro followed him out into the blizzard, sprinting through the snow as he tracked Mam’s scent and footprints toward the forest.

With each step, Da was turning, his Lykae beast surfacing. His fangs and black claws lengthened, his face angling into a more wolven shape. His muscles burgeoned, the shadow of his inner wolf rising to hover over him: a vicious, towering creature with maddened white-blue eyes.

Will could see his da struggling to keep the feral beast at bay, to think clearly, to reason.

To best protect his mate.

Will and Munro began to lag behind their desperate father’s pace. Two young Lykae in the Woods at night. They had not reached their immortality yet, couldn’t regenerate from injury.

As the storm strengthened, shadows closed in on them, snow swirling, trees shuddering. The winds howled, disrupting Will’s hearing and
sense of smell. Gusts brought confusing scents all the way from the sea he hadn’t yet beheld.

His teeth clattered. Pain throughout his body had merged until he couldn’t distinguish one area of agony from another, his aching bones from his splitting head. . . .

Will squinted through the snow as they ran, barely making out Da as he closed in on Ruelle’s cottage. Between painted shutters, the windows glowed, softly lit and fogged.

Da barreled through the door. Even over the winds, Will heard his roar.

Of anguish.

No!
Ruelle couldn’t have hurt Mam. Will’s mother was a she-wolf in her prime, fierce as this storm. Ruelle was weak and helpless.

The brothers burst through the splintered doorway and froze at the sight before them. With a sheet secured around her, Ruelle stood trembling behind a terrified lad who looked not much older than Will.

—
Vampire.
—

Their natural enemy. Here, this far north? Will had never seen one, just knew he needed to kill the creature.

The leech was brandishing a bloody sword to protect Ruelle against Da—whose beast was completely risen. It shadowed over him, monstrous and shocking even to Will.

No wonder the vampire was terrified. But why was the male half-dressed? Whose blood coated his sword? Where was Mam?

Will edged deeper into the cottage. Behind a settee . . . he saw her.

Part of her.

Shock robbed him of breath and muted his thoughts. Dimly, he wondered,
Where is my mother’s head?

Da roared, shaking the cottage until dust rained from the rafters.

The vampire could have traced away, teleporting to safety in an instant. Yet he seemed bent on protecting Ruelle—as if he loved her. With a broken yell, he attacked, tracing around Da, landing blows that the older immortal didn’t seem to feel.

The leech disappeared again and again, until Da predicted where he’d appear next. With one swipe of Da’s flared claws, the vampire was no more.

When Da turned on Ruelle, she backed away. As if from a well-pump, her tears flowed at once. “We had n-no choice. She attacked us, had come to destroy me.”

As Da stalked her with a murderous look in his ice-blue gaze, Ruelle eyed the vampire’s sword, could have reached it; instead she clasped her hands to her breast, pleading to Will, “My love, help me! He will kill me!”

She would forgo a weapon in order to plead?

Will realized she still possessed her most powerful weapon: her guile. She looked fragile, defenseless, and so damned beautiful. Even now, the urge to protect her seized him.

“My love, I beg you! Do something!” Her eyes glowed green.

He was horrified to realize that he was stumbling over his mother’s body to reach Ruelle.
I’ve done wrong.
Though he knew he was no match for his father, Will rose up in front of his female—

Da bared his fangs and backhanded him, connecting with his jaw. As Will reeled to the floor, Da raised his hand once more. With another slash of his claws, he decapitated Ruelle.

Vision swimming, Will watched as her head tumbled. But her body collapsed slowly. Even in this, she was graceful.

With her death, Will’s bones instantly ceased to ache, the fever leaving him. His body was free. But his mind . . .

Sorrow, guilt, horror, hatred—all warred within him.

Da dropped to his knees beside their mother’s covered body. Munro must’ve draped a blanket over her.

Will was numb, incapable of moving.
Wrong. Everything’s wrong. All my fault.

Somehow he found the strength to rise. Through watering eyes, Will gazed over his shattered family.

Munro knelt beside Da, squeezing his shoulder, crying openly. Da clumsily patted Mam’s limp hand, his beast receding somewhat. In this
half state, Da was awkward, his hands too big, his claws too long. Tears streamed down his wolven face. His blue eyes were blank.

He lifted Mam’s hand to his face. When it did not lovingly stroke his cheek, as it had thousands of times before, Da roared once more, then whimpered with grief.

Mam had come to this cursed place for Will, to save her son. He didn’t know what disgusted him more, his part in all this—or the fact that he grieved Ruelle’s death nearly as much as Mam’s.

At the thought, he bashed his fists against his head, face twisting.
What is
wrong
with me? Sick, sick!
His beast kept trying to rise, to shield Will from pain. But Will wanted the agony, needed it.

Because of him, all was lost. Their family broken.

Ah, no, the wee babe. Little Isla. He pulled at his hair, falling to his knees beside Munro.
All my fault.

He wished to every god in the heavens that he could die bloody, die on the spot, could trade his life for his mother’s.

Munro turned to him—but instead of the hatred Will expected, Munro’s watering eyes flickered over his face with what looked like pity.
I don’t deserve pity!
He wished his father had struck him harder, and more. He wished Munro would hit him.

As Will’s own tears fell, he and Munro stared at each other.
Hate me, brother! As I hate myself!

After what felt like hours, Da turned to his sons, emotion burning in his eyes. But it was not the grief Will had expected.

It was
resolve.

And Will knew his father would be dead within a week.
Where your mate goes, you follow. . . .

“Fire comes in all intensities. A hotter tongue of flame can devour another. Surely the hottest can sear a man clean.”

—UILLEAM ANDRIU MACRIEVE, CHIEFTAIN OF THE NOVA SCOTIA SETTLEMENT OF CLAN MACRIEVE