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Authors: Dana Marie Bell

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BOOK: Noble Blood
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The hell with this.
Whatever was bothering Duncan, he refused to discuss it. He was heartbroken every night, reaching for something that was never there. No. Not something. Some
one
. She wished with all her heart that someone was her.

Don’t lie to yourself, Moira. Not
all
your heart, girl.

She winced, hoping Duncan hadn’t noticed. No matter how badly she wanted to forget that night, Jaden Blackthorn refused to leave her mind, or her heart. And that was just wrong when her fated mate paced not ten feet away from her.

It would have been so easy for Jaden to hurt her beyond knocking her out. He could have sipped her blood without creating the bond, but he
had
created it. He’d used that bond to reassure her when she was frightened by Ruby’s kidnapping and Leo’s fight with Kaitlynn. She’d felt his pain as the rowan stake pierced his back, nearly killing him.

The flare of agony as Duncan Claimed her had been intense before Jaden cut her off cold. She still wondered at it, wondered if that agony had been for her or for Duncan. She bit her lip. That wondering had begun taking her down a path she’d never thought was possible before.

Was it?

She bit her lip, watching Duncan pace back and forth, back and forth. Nothing seemed to reach him anymore. The only thing that had caught his attention recently was Ian, Duncan’s long-time butler, mentioning…Jaden.

She took a deep breath and allowed the possibility to sink in that what she was thinking might be fact rather than fantasy.

She didn’t expect much resistance from her family if she was right. They understood now that Jaden had been working all along to slow Kaitlynn down. It had been a surprise to her family, but Duncan had known. Duncan trusted Jaden more than anyone in the world except her. That trust Duncan showed her reassured her when nothing else could. If he trusted her enough to let her in, to let her feel his grief and hold him close when no one else could go near him without getting their heads bitten off, then he trusted her enough to fix whatever it was that had gone so wrong between them.

She clenched her jaw and nodded to herself. It was about damn time she got started. If her hunch was correct, she’d need to have a nice, long talk with her intended.
Soon.

She shook her head and stood up, feeling like she was heading into battle with blinders on.

“Moira?” Duncan stood as well, his concerned gaze tracking her every move.

She tried to smile, she really did, but she just couldn’t manage it. Her own depression was nearly overwhelming. She walked out of the room and climbed the stairs to the bedroom she shared with Duncan. She took her cell phone out of her pocket, sat at the vanity Duncan had installed for her, and did the only thing she could think of.

Moira called her mother.

 

Duncan watched Moira leave the room. She was too hurt to even give him a real attempt at a smile, but what could he do? He’d been ripped in two. One half sat upstairs in his bedroom, doing the gods only knew what. Possibly making preparations to leave him, not that he didn’t deserve it.

The other… Ah, the other…

How had this happened? How could he have known that claiming his heart would tear out his soul? Oh, he was coming to love Moira. How could he not? She did everything she could think of to ease the unbearable melancholy that had slowly begun to rip him apart since leaving the Dunne farm. Other women would have ripped into him, or tried to hurt him even more for his seeming indifference, but not Moira. Moira almost seemed to understand what he was going through and tried her best to make it better even though he didn’t understand it himself. But nothing she did could completely erase the ache of Jaden’s absence.

Nothing anyone did could, and it was slowly tearing him apart.

He’d called to Jaden through their bond, but Jaden hadn’t answered, not in all the long weeks he’d been gone. Jaden was off somewhere in Nevada, but Duncan didn’t get what Jaden was doing there. Was he hurt? Was that why he didn’t answer? Why couldn’t Duncan let this go long enough to complete the bond with Moira? He’d kissed her, begun Claiming her, but he had yet to make love to her and complete the Claiming. Without that, the Bonding and the Vow would be useless no matter how many times he uttered the words.

He scrubbed his face with the palms of his hands. Was it possible that, after four hundred years waiting, wishing for his mate, he was finally losing his mind? Why couldn’t he bring himself to Claim her?

To top it all off, there were restless members of the clan who were unhappy with his choice of mate, kin who thought that by bonding with Moira he’d somehow diluted the Malmayne bloodline. There were a few who had come to congratulate him on his mating, but that was the problem, wasn’t it? Instead of paying homage to the clan leader’s wife, the majority of the Malmaynes had stayed away, showing their disapproval in the only way open to them that wouldn’t result in serious reprisals.

Little did they know. Jaden would…

That knife blade of sorrow was becoming all too familiar. Because Jaden wouldn’t.

Jaden wasn’t here.


Mrow.

Duncan looked down at the only real link he had left to Jaden. “Hey, Furball.” He picked up the calico cat, smiling as he petted her. He’d have to see to it that she bred soon. He couldn’t imagine not having one of Jezebel’s grandchildren living with them. The stray Duncan had rescued all those years ago had lived a long and comfortable life. Between Jaden and Duncan they’d raised generations of Jezebel’s descendants.

Duncan stared at the door Moira had disappeared through. What in hell he was going to do? For the first time in a very long time he didn’t know the answer. The loss of Jaden was an open wound, pouring out his heart’s blood, leaving him empty and cold. But Moira… Moira stemmed the tide, keeping the wound from being lethal. If Jaden had left him
completely
alone Duncan would have bled out long since.

He blinked as Ian entered the room without knocking. “My lord, there’s someone to see you.”

The brownie wouldn’t bother him without some justification, especially after he’d given orders not to be disturbed. “Who?”

“Henri Malmayne, my lord.”

Duncan refrained from rolling his eyes. “Show him in.”

The butler nodded and regally turned toward the door.

“Ian?”

The butler turned back. “Yes, my lord?”

“No refreshments. I don’t plan on this taking long.”

Ian’s expression remained blank, but his eyes danced. “Yes, my lord.” Henri was a pompous prick when he visited, treating the brownie butler with barely leashed contempt. Under his father’s rule there had been nothing Duncan could do about it. Now that Cullen was dead, however, he’d rectify that attitude in all of his Malmayne relatives. As far as Duncan was concerned Ian was family, and that was that.

Soon enough Henri was shown into the library. Duncan had moved to sit behind the massive, ornate desk, leaving his cousin to approach while he remained seated. It was a small display of dominance that would have tickled both Jaden and Moira if they’d been in the room with him. He could even picture it: Jaden leaning against the edge of the desk, all edgy defiance, Moira next to him, her green eyes ablaze with curiosity and that unique fire that was all her own. He shook the vision away when Henri reached the desk. “Cousin.”

“Duncan.” Henri smiled, but his gray eyes, so much like Duncan’s own, remained chilled.

Duncan waited.

Henri’s smile dimmed. His eyes narrowed, the smile becoming sharper. “My lord.”

Duncan nodded. “Have a seat, Henri.” He waited until Henri was seated, desperately wishing his mate and best friend were here. “What seems to be the problem?”

“The family is becoming restless. You know this. They want to see the Dunnes punished for their destruction of Cullen and Kaitlynn and are wondering why nothing has yet been done.”

Duncan held on to his temper by a thin thread. This was the third visit from Henri, the third demand that the Dunnes pay a debt they hadn’t incurred. The fault lay solely on the shoulders of Cullen and Kaitlynn, but most of the Malmaynes refused to see that. Their spokesman, Henri, made sure Duncan was aware of it, too.

Now he was going to lay down his final answer in a way not even Henri could misconstrue. “There will be no debt paid by the Dunnes.” The Malmaynes, on the other hand, had only just begun to pay for the crimes committed by Kaitlynn.

He saw Henri’s teeth clench behind that smile, a quick flexing of his jaw muscles that betrayed him. “The Dunnes killed our lord, your father. Duncan, honor must be satisfied.”

“Honor has been satisfied, Henri.” He leaned back and began ticking off on his fingers. “Kaitlynn and Cullen conspired to kidnap Shane Dunne. They kidnapped and tortured Ruby Holloway, the wife of Leo Dunne. Kaitlynn,
not
Leo, killed my father.”

“And who killed Kaitlynn?”

Ah, there was the sticking point, wasn’t it? “I did.”

“You mean your pet vampire did.”

It was Duncan’s turn to unclench his jaw. Jaden didn’t deserve the way the rest of the clan treated him. He never had. “Under my direct orders.”

Henri waved his hand. “Still, Kaitlynn’s death was a direct result of the Dunne’s refusal to abide by the marriage contract. If Leo Dunne had simply done his duty none of this would have happened.”

Duncan wasn’t so sure of that. Leo had made it clear he wasn’t interested in fulfilling the contract when first approached. Duncan had the feeling that by the time they’d approached Leo he’d already been ensnared by his pretty little Ruby, and no amount of persuasion would have been able to force his hand. “Shane Dunne might have been willing to fulfill the contract, if approached correctly.” Duncan held up a hand to stall his cousin’s rejoinder. It was well known that the hybrid was unacceptable to the bluebloods of the family. That unusual power of his made him less in the eyes of the Sidhe, something Duncan could not understand. The power to create objects out of thin air? How could someone
not
prize that? “However, the point is moot, as I have fulfilled the full terms of the contract.”

Not even Henri had the balls to sneer in Duncan’s face over Moira. “Still—”


Enough.
” Duncan’s power rolled through that one softly spoken word. He allowed his eyes to sparkle with silver. Silver motes of light danced in the air as he allowed his human Seeming to drop, reinforcing his command, turning him into a being made if silver and gold. “The Malmaynes and the Dunnes have no quarrel. That is my final word on the affair.” He stood, noting that Henri hesitated before following him. He wrapped his human Seeming around himself once more and allowed the motes of light to die out. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

Henri bowed, but not before Duncan caught the defiance in the man’s eyes. “My lord.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the library without a backwards glance, his dissatisfaction in every line of his body.

Duncan waited until Henri was out of sight before slowly sinking back into his chair. Fuck, he needed Jaden. He buried his head in his hands and sent out a psychic tendril, hoping against hope that this time Jaden would answer.

When only darkness met him, he damn near howled.

 

 

Moira touched her lips, stunned to find out that she might be right. “It’s a what?”

“A failed or interrupted Claiming or Bonding.”

“Well, we’ve Claimed each other, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

She blushed. “Ma.”

“Hmm. Kissed then, but not gone beyond that. Have you tried going naked in front of him?”


Ma!

Aileen Dunne giggled like a little girl. “How about those lacy underthings you and Ruby bought together? Have you tried those?”

She didn’t want to admit it, but she hadn’t. She didn’t have the nerve. She’d blushed enough when Ruby, visiting with Leo, had dragged her to the Frederick’s of Hollywood in the mall in Omaha. “Ma. Please. I…I don’t know what to do.”

Her desperation must have gotten through. “My poor child. All right, then. This started almost immediately, you said.”

“Yes.”

“It hasn’t lightened up at all? For either of you?”

“No.” She only wished it had. They might have been able to complete their bond otherwise. Hell, she wished now that neither of them had decided to get to know each other better. Maybe if they’d just boffed like bunnies in the back of that limo two months ago neither of them would be suffering like this. But who could have predicted that Duncan’s gallant desire to get to know her before bonding her would backfire like this? If they’d completed all the steps of the bonding would either of them be suffering like this, or would it have been even worse?

“Anything else happen around that time that was…odd?”

Other than Jaden abandoning us, no.
It was time to stop hiding that fact, even from herself. This problem was linked to Jaden, and refusing to discuss it was no longer an option. “Just Jaden refusing to come home.” Damn if she didn’t miss the cocky son of a bitch. She missed the sense of him rattling around in her head, making her laugh, keeping her calm. But he wouldn’t talk to her either, and their blood bond wasn’t nearly as strong as the one he had with Duncan.

Her mother sighed. “Jaden.”

She had one last chance to prove her theory wrong. The men had lived together for a century. She
had
to be wrong. “You think this has something to do with Jaden’s leaving?”

“I think it has everything to do with Jaden’s leaving.”

“Why would you think that, Ma?” She was nearly on the edge of her seat, the sensation that she was about to fall down the rabbit hole stronger than ever.

“Because I think Jaden is Duncan’s, and your, unfulfilled bond.”

She’d known it, but it was still something of a shock to hear her suspicions confirmed. “You think all three of us are true bonds?” She scowled. “How in the name of all that is holy could they have
missed that
?” She got up and began to pace, the phone glued to her ear. She couldn’t wait to hear an explanation.

BOOK: Noble Blood
12.1Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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