“Ian,” she murmured, “hold onto me.”
The acceptance in her voice choked him. His claws snagged on the satin as he clung tighter.
“I had a son.” The confession broke from him without thought. Acid burned in his throat. “Maccon.”
Her fingers sifted through his hair.
“He was perfect. A good lad.” The weight on his chest crushed into him, and the words came out hard. “Brooding at times, but a smart lad.” Ian’s throat worked. “I was so proud.”
“Tell me, love,” she whispered.
“Una. She was human. We met before I had reached maturity. She told me that our differences wouldn’t matter.”
Daisy continued to hold him and keep him steady while his heart raced and his chest ached.
“Then I became lycan. I did not age, and she did.” He closed his eyes and pressed his face into the safety of Daisy’s bosom. Her heartbeat strong and true. “It did not matter to me. I loved her still. But Una could not stand it. Nor could she stand the wolf within me.
“And Maccon. She made him her confidant, told him that his life would be an endless misery, that he would become an animal. Stupid, bloody Una.” A growl of rage rumbled in his chest. He hated Una in the end. “Maccon was thirty, so close to the change. There are signs when the time approaches. He tried to enjoy life, women, but he began to withdraw. And then he… Shit…”
Ian could not breath. “He f**king killed himself… Christ…” His voice was too high, too thin.
Daisy’s arms held him tight, so tight he could not fall through the black hole that opened up beneath him when he thought of Maccon. Maccon who had flung himself off the high tower of their ancestral keep in Scotland. Maccon’s head crushed on the pavers, blood pooling around him. Maccon’s body twisted and broken.
“Ian. Oh, Ian.” She rocked him gently.
“He left a note. Said he would not turn into me. Wouldn’t become a thing destined to be alone. Trapped in a body that would not die.”
And everything in Ian’s world had stopped. He would no longer be a lycan. He would ignore that side of himself. Until now.
“Una faded away after that.” And cursed him with each dying breath she took. He hadn’t found it in himself to grieve her loss until years afterward.
“A broken heart,” Daisy whispered, and then kissed the top of his head. “Ian, love.”
“God, I am a hypocrite,” he said. “I tell you to let go of the past when I cannot release mine.”
Her hand was in his hair, stroking, petting. “Perhaps there are some things we can’t let go of, but simply accept as over.”
He would. If she was his future, he would accept the past for her.
She held him until he could breathe properly, and the black thing that threatened to take him slipped back into the shadows. Ian’s grip upon her skirts eased, and his hands slid to her hips. “He did not want to become like me. He didn’t want to be a monster.” When he looked up at her, she touched his cheek tenderly.
“You are not a monster, but a man.” Her fingers spread, bracketing his jaw. “The best man I’ve ever known.”
Ah, but she killed him. She had cut out his heart and taken it for her own.
“I want to marry you.” He winced, cursing himself for letting the words spill out.
Daisy’s hand fell away. “What?”
He wouldn’t let her go. “It’s happening again, and I can’t seem to fight it. I want to be with you. Take you to the theater, to parties and balls. I don’t want the world to assume you are my mistress because you deserve to be a wife. A wife who can hold her head up high when out in public. My wife. And it tears into my soul because I should not want it. I should let you go.”
He leaned into her. She smelled of cool silk and warm roses. She smelled of home. “I am afraid, aye? Bloody terrified of history repeating itself.” He wrapped his arms about her waist and held on tightly. “But I want you more. Do you understand? I feel free when I am with you. Happy. You are the gift I never saw coming.”
She was quiet, and he knew it would end now. But a man could ignore his fate for only so long. Soft hands touched his cheeks, saving him from further humiliation. She tilted his head back, and he made himself look at her.
“Then have me,” she said, throwing him off kilter.
He blinked up at her, not understanding. “Have you not heard a word I said, lass?”
Her cheeks trembled as she smiled, a weak smile but there, shining in the moonlight. A rustling sounded around them, fingers of grass brushed his bare legs as they began to lengthen. “We’ve both lived in fear for so long, denying what we are to the world, to ourselves. And what good has come of it? I don’t want to live that way anymore, Ian.”
Her finger traced his ear. “I am afraid, too,” she said. “Afraid that when the time comes, I will not be any different than Una.”
“You are already different than Una. You are… you.” Brave, proud. His other half.
Fragrance bloomed as the grass grew lush and wild flowers burst free beneath the moon’s bright glow. It was magic perhaps, or all in his mind. He did not care. Not in this moment when his hope had finally returned. His only care was for her.
Daisy’s thumb traced his bottom lip, and he caught it up as she let go of a sigh. “But I’ll have you,” she whispered. Joy surged through his chest like wildfire. “Because I too want you more than I am afraid.”
He pulled her down into his lap, and she laughed a bit as he peppered her face with kisses.
“Daisy.” He tumbled them down onto the dewy grass, now thick with flowers, and rolled on his back to protect her even as his hands slipped into her gown. She made an appreciative noise. Greedy thing that she was, she ripped his robe open and ran her hands over his chest. His beast preened right along with him. A sigh escaped her when he pulled her close, laying them skin to skin.
She raked her fingers through his hair. “This is madness, Ian. You know that, don’t you?” But her gaze was without fear.
He brought her closer, until there was no space between them. “And yet it is the only thing that has ever felt completely right.” His mouth found hers, and he drank her in. His Daisy-Meg. She would be his wife.
In the comfort of Ian’s bed, Daisy smiled. I want to marry you.
She’d awoken in his arms, her fingers threaded through the strands of his hair that shone with glints of copper and bronze in the morning sun. Barbaric and untamed, his hair might be, but Daisy rather liked it long. She’d stroked the glossy mane, enjoying the feel of it running through her fingers, until he opened his eyes with a smile and a sigh. He’d canted his head into her touch and closed his eyes with a grunt of satisfaction.
“So it’s true,” she’d said. “Wolves do like to be petted.”
“Men too.” With a contented grumble, he’d moved his warm, hard body over her, and then into her, making them both sigh as he sank deep.
He made lazy love to her in the morning sun, whispering wicked things in her ear, kissing her mouth until she fell into a haze of lust and need. He made her laugh and dive under the covers when he rang for a bowl of melted butter. And she’d made him cry out and beg when she followed through on her promise.
She ought to be afraid at the depth of her happiness, yet she was not. When she thought of marrying Ian, and of sharing mornings just like this with him, she felt not shame or worry but a fluttery warmth that made her lay a hand upon her belly to calm herself. And yet she was calm. Surprisingly so. He would not hurt her. He’d seen her worst and not turned away. In the comfort of their bed, Daisy smiled, too.
Now she could relax, and perhaps the throbbing headaches that plagued her of late, the sore throats, and the constant tightness in her muscles would fade. In fact, she would celebrate now by soaking in a hot bath.
Sun dappled the room with brilliant strips of gold as she padded na**d over to the bathing room. Waiting for the tub to fill, Daisy brushed out her hair. A glimpse in Ian’s full-length mirror stopped her short. Just below her hairline was a red bump. It might have been the odd pimple or a bug bite, but the sight of the sore sent a violent chill through her, for it lay in the exact spot where the werewolf had bitten her. With trembling hands, she inspected it.
Hard and red, just touching it made her heart flip. Dread clamored like warning bells. Daisy swallowed with difficulty and prepared to dress instead.
Chapter Thirty-four
Ian had woken up surrounded by the soft warmth of Daisy. If there was a better way to greet the day, he could not think of it. They had continued their play, and his happiness had swelled. But when he’d finally left her to dress for the day, dark thoughts began to creep in.
She would marry him. Despite everything he’d confessed, she had agreed. The baser part of his soul wanted to haul her down here, find a priest, and bind her to him now, before she came to her senses. But he knew full well that marriage vows were not a guarantee, nor a promise, of everlasting happiness.
A feeling much like guilt writhed in his guts. He should have left things as they were and not pressed her into this rash action. Guilt and fear. Fear was gaining. Every time he stopped moving, it crept along his spine with insidious hands. What if she came to regret him? What if he couldn’t stand seeing her age and die?
Dressing without the aid of a missing, and most likely surly, Talent, Ian spent the time waiting for Daisy to finish her much longer dressing ritual by going for a walk in his garden. Prowling his garden would be more accurate. He longed to run, but had no intention of leaving Daisy alone.
When he thought of what she’d endured, his blood boiled. If the bastard Craigmore weren’t already dead, Ian would surely tear his cods off and feed them to him.
No closer to feeling content, he ended up in the corner of his terrace, taking solace under the shade of a potted peach tree as the sun started to rise higher in the sky and the heat of the day took hold.
Through the twitter of birdsong, he heard the light swish of skirts as a woman approached the terrace doors and then her scent as she opened them to step out into the sun. Unfortunately, it was the wrong scent. A wash of ambergris and figs touched his nose. Her golden brown hair gleamed in the light and then darkened as she walked beneath the shade of the peach tree.
“Ranulf,” Mary Chase said with a nod of her head.
He’d ignore her cheek for addressing him by his brother’s title for now. “Miss Chase. You have news for me?”
“Yes, Sire.” Spending much of her time in her spectral form lent her physical body an effortless grace as she glided closer. “I believe I’ve found your werewolf.”
Ian tensed. “You’ve been following Conall.” He knew this; thus he knew what was coming. In his heart he was almost glad. Glad to have a reason to overthrow his brother that did not involve the machinations of others. Despite what sort of leader Conall was, or what he had done, he was still Ian’s brother. Regret and soul-deep sorrow was the constant mix of emotion when Ian thought of Conall.
Mary Chase’s luminous eyes took in his struggle, and she lowered her lids as if in sympathy. “I believe so.” Her rosebud mouth opened to continue but she suddenly stiffened.
Ian turned to watch Talent walk onto the terrace. He’d been aware of Talent drawing near but hadn’t thought that Mary Chase would realize it so quickly as well. GIMs did not possess the lycan’s superior sense of smell. His curiosity grew as Talent skidded to a stop upon seeing her.
His valet’s face twisted in an ill-disguised sneer of disgust. “You.”
Mary Chase’s expression remained serene. “Yes, me. How observant you are, Mr. Talent.”
Dark clouds gathered over Talent’s countenance. Any moment now the lad would go off. Ian didn’t understand the animosity between them. As far as he knew, they’d met only twice before, and on both occasions hadn’t exchanged more than two words, but Ian needed to hear information, not play nanny to bickering children. “Your news, if you please, Miss Chase.”
Mary inclined her head in that floating manner of hers. “Last night, Lyall and Conall talked about the werewolf and Ian Ranulf. I could not get too close, but I heard them say they were going to address the problem tonight.”
“How?” Talent asked.
She flicked him an irritated glance but looked to Ian when she answered. “I don’t know what they plan to do, but they are going to Buckingham Palace.”
Ian straightened. “That little bugger.”
The palace was abandoned and so large and isolated by its massive grounds that the howls of a werewolf might go unnoticed.
“They are set to go at midnight,” Mary said.
“Then we will go there before they can move him.”
“You can’t be thinking about trusting her.” Talent’s scowl twisted. “She’s an unholy body thief.”
Mary Chase bristled. “And you? Whose identity do you steal when you think no one is looking?”
Talent went as white as paper and then five shades of red, but he got ahold of himself and turned his back on her. “Sir,” he said to Ian, “let me take you in. If it is a trap, at least I’ll be there to help you.”
“I need you to watch over Daisy.” Talent frowned, and Ian placed a hand upon the lad’s shoulder, for he knew the tenderness of a man’s pride. “I’m leaving you to watch my heart, Jack.”
The lad appeared a bit mollified but Mary Chase’s expression made it clear what she thought of Talent’s assignment, and the color was soon rising once more up Talent’s neck. Ian stepped between them before any more squabbles broke out.