At least as long as Satanan kept his evil claws out of his mind.
But as he approached the door of Natalie’s room, his steps slowed. He’d promised her answers, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to tell her. What was there to say? I played God and fucked up your life. I’m sorry.
He rapped on her door.
“Come in, Wulfe.”
He unlocked her door and let himself in, wincing at her look of dismay.
“What happened?”
“I needed to fight. I sparred with some of the Therians.”
She dropped her book on the bed and strode toward him. “You need an icepack for that eye.” As she reached for his face, he grabbed her wrist, holding her back.
“I’m fine.”
Though she looked like she wanted to argue, she said nothing more, just watched him, her eyes alive with a dozen emotions, a hundred questions. The air sprang to life between them.
“I need to understand what’s going on, Wulfe. All of it.”
Slowly, he released her arm. “I know.” Pressing his lips together, he walked to the window. Peering out over the drive, he began to relay everything said in the war room. Several times, he swallowed back one truth or another, then forced himself to spit them out, sparing her nothing. Sparing himself nothing. He’d made her a tool of evil. The least he could do was be completely honest with her.
As he spoke, as his voice rang low in the silent room, he heard the faint squeak of mattress springs and knew she’d sat on the bed. Keenly aware of her behind him, he told her how Strome believed he’d made her a channel key when he took her wound with his heart open. His feelings were his problem, not hers, and she didn’t need that burden, too. But she wanted the truth, and he gave it to her.
When he’d finished, he continued to stare out the window for several more minutes, the regret and shame thick as mud in his stomach. Finally, he forced himself to turn around, to face her.
Natalie watched him with troubled eyes, her brows drawn, tiny frown lines marring the flesh between them. Part of him itched to stride from the room and lock the door behind him. Part of him longed to pull her into his arms. If he thought she’d find any comfort there, he might have. But he’d done this to her.
For long minutes, she said nothing, just watched him with that troubled frown.
“You have more questions,” he murmured. “Ask them, Natalie. I’ll tell you anything.” He owed her that much.
“How did I get the wound that made me a channel key?” she said at last. “If you won’t give me back my memories, at least tell me what happened.”
He sighed heavily. “Do I have to?”
To his relief, she smiled, if all too briefly. “Yes, my wolf, you have to.”
My wolf. He liked those words. The animal spirit inside of him gave a low bark of agreement. They both liked them.
“Do you mind if I sit?”
The soft welcome that suffused her features as she patted the bed beside her eased his heart as nothing else could have.
As he sat on the edge of her bed, his hands between his knees, he turned to her. “What’s the last thing you remember before . . . everything happened?”
She looked away, her gaze unfocused. “Two high school friends of mine and I wanted to spend the day playing tourist and catching up. We decided to drive out to Harpers Ferry. One invited her younger brother and his girlfriend to join us, so I asked Xavier to come along, too. The last thing I remember—and I’ve told the police this a dozen times—was walking through one of the old cemeteries. A woman walked up to us with coupons for free ice cream in town. I vaguely recollect her placing that coupon in my palm, but nothing more.”
“She must have been a Mage. The moment she touched your hand, she enthralled you and led you away.”
Natalie turned to him, shadows in her eyes. “Why, exactly? Were we supposed to be the Daemons’ food?”
He turned away, the memories of that day far too clear. Memories she didn’t need to share.
“Don’t, Wulfe. Don’t hold anything back. I need to know.”
With a pained sigh, he told her. “They needed bait. The wraith Daemons are drawn to pain and suffering.”
“How did they make us suffer?”
“Natalie . . .”
“How, Wulfe? You don’t have to share every gory detail, but I need to know something.”
He looked down at his hands. “The Mage . . .” Goddess, he didn’t want to share this with her.
“Wulfe . . .”
“They injured your two girlfriends. Cut them . . . badly. The Daemons never touched them, Natalie. Your friends fell into the spirit trap when the Earth opened and died because of that. But it’s unlikely they could have survived what the Mage did to them.”
He hazarded a glance and met her pained gaze.
“What about the rest of us?” she asked quietly, her voice still strong as steel despite its softness. She would spare herself nothing. The least he could do was find the courage to give her as much of the truth as she demanded.
“Humans don’t see the wraith Daemons until one has made them bleed. You were clawed in the cheek, Christy across her chest. The other male . . .” He shook his head. “He died of his wounds, and I’m not describing them to you. Yours and Christy’s injuries were both shallow, and I was able to stop the bleeding on the battlefield.”
“And Xavier?”
“Was never touched. I’m not sure how, but the wraith Daemons must have known he’d never be able to see them.”
Natalie lifted her hand to her unblemished cheek, to the spot where she kept feeling the pain. “The Daemon cut me here.”
“Yes.” Deep inside, his wolf growled, as angry as the man that she’d been hurt by such a creature.
“You say you stopped the bleeding on the battlefield. Mine and Christy’s both.” Confusion clouded her eyes.
“I did. I didn’t take your wound until later.”
“How did you take it? Why?”
He looked away. “I don’t know why. You were too pretty for such an ugly gash. And it hurt you. I didn’t like seeing you suffer.”
“Wulfe?” When he turned back to her, she watched him with stubborn eyes. “Tell me how you made it disappear.”
“I’m a healer. I took it.” He shrugged. “I just did.”
Sudden understanding leaped into her eyes. “You took it. You literally took it for your own.” Her calmness shattered, and she leaped to her feet, whirling on him.
Lifting a single finger, she traced the path from his left cheekbone nearly to the corner of his mouth. He jerked back.
“That’s the one, isn’t it?” she said. “That’s the scar from the wound you took from me. It’s yours now. When you take a wound, you keep the scar.” Her eyes widened. “Your face . . .”
Wulfe grabbed her hips, lifting her out of his way as he stood and brushed past her.
But she followed. “My god, Wulfe, how many people have you healed?”
“It’s not important.”
“You must have healed hundreds.”
He turned on her. “I didn’t,” he snapped. “I’m no hero. I healed two. Just two.”
She stared at him, her mouth slowly dropping open. “Out of all those scars, only one is mine?”
His jaw clenched hard, but he nodded.
“The other person . . .” Her eyes filled with pain. “Who was it?”
He didn’t want to talk about it. He’d never talked about it, not with another living soul, and he wasn’t starting now. She’d demanded truths, and he’d given them to her, enough for one day. More than enough. With long strides, he headed for the door.
“I hadn’t figured you for a coward, shifter.” Natalie’s cool words stopped him cold, and he looked at her over his shoulder, everything inside of him clawing to reach the door.
“It’s none of your business.” He’d meant to sound fierce, or at least certain, but he heard the plea that rang in his voice.
As she moved toward him, he found himself unable to turn away, not when the annoyance slipped out of her eyes, leaving only pain.
“Wulfe.” Natalie stepped in front of him and reached for him, laying her palms against his scarred, miserable cheeks.
“Don’t touch me,” he whispered. But he couldn’t pull away.
“Tell me what happened. The story is festering inside you. It’s poisoning your soul. Share it with me.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” Her thumbs stroked his cheekbones, a featherlight touch that raked furrows in his mind even as it caressed his heart. With one hand, she pushed a lock of hair back from his forehead, her touch like the softest down, and his wolf whined with pleasure.
She said nothing more, made no more pleas, no more demands, as she stroked his face and his hair, pulling him completely under her spell, shattering his defenses. He didn’t want to tell this story. He didn’t even want to think about it himself. But he was helpless to deny her when she stared at him like that, with a softness bordering on adoration. And when she stroked him so tenderly.
“Her name was Liesel.” The sound of her name after all these years felt like a punch to the gut. He pulled away and stepped past Natalie, needing to put some distance between them before he spilled this miserable tale. Moving to the window, he gripped the frame with both hands, looking out over the front yard, seeing only the past.
“Long before I was marked to be a Feral Warrior, in my early years of adulthood, the mortal daughter of one of the Therians came to live with the enclave where I’d been born. Liesel was pretty, though not as pretty as you. And I . . . I wasn’t scarred in those days. The women thought me beautiful.”
“You’re still beautiful,” Natalie murmured.
He didn’t know what to say to that obvious lie. “All of the males of the enclave became smitten with her. But I was the only one who interested her. And my interest in her was primarily . . . physical. One day she cut her hand, a small cut across the palm, and I stopped the bleeding as I’d done with mortals a few other times. But it still hurt her, so I held it tight and willed it away, completely away. Suddenly, it was on my hand, but it healed within moments, leaving a scar as no other wound before it ever had. I was stunned. I spoke to the enclave’s mystic and was told I had a rare Daemon gift. Any strange gifts in my enclave were called Daemon gifts. The mystic told me the gift would only work on mortals and that I should never use it. No good would ever come of it.”
Wulfe ran a hand—the one that still had that faint scar—across the back of his neck, feeling the dampness of perspiration. The words felt like glass in his throat. He heard Natalie’s soft footfalls as she crossed to the window, then felt the light pressure of her slender hand on his back, stroking him. He tensed, wanting her to move away, to put distance between her and this ugliness. But her sweet scent filled his nose, easing the terrible pressure, calming him. And all he wanted was for her to stay.
His gaze glued to the trees outside, he continued his tale, keenly aware of the woman at his back.
“Liesel was too young for sex, only eighteen, but she enjoyed my kisses, and I enjoyed kissing her. Several times, we snuck into the woods together. She was a pretty thing, but my mind was on more important matters. Despite my own relative youth—I was in my thirties—I was not only the biggest male, but the finest fighter in the enclave, and our clan chief had told me I had what it took to be a leader.
“One afternoon, I promised to meet Liesel in the woods after the midday meal at our usual rendezvous point. But before I could slip away, our chief took me aside and told me he wanted to make me his second-in-command, a tremendous honor. I followed him into his hut, where we talked for hours.” He shook his head. “I was so full of myself and my own self-importance that I completely forgot about Liesel.”
Strong, slender arms wrapped around him from behind as a soft body pressed against his back, filling him with a tenderness he thought might crush him.
“While Liesel waited for me, three young human males found her. Even a Therian female is as strong as a human male, and Liesel knew how to fight.” His mouth twisted wryly. “The girl hadn’t possessed an ounce of caution. When the males appeared, she’d likely welcomed them as friends until they’d proved they had less friendly sport in mind. Then she undoubtedly fought like a wildcat. When I found her . . .” He had to suck in a breath against the stark picture that still throbbed in his mind six centuries later. “She was still conscious. Her only words, ‘I cut his face. He cut mine more.’ Goddess, but he’d cut her, Natalie. They were just shallow cuts, but he’d slashed her everywhere, every which way. And not just cuts. He’d hit her repeatedly, shattering her nose. The blood . . .”
He loosened Natalie’s grip on him and turned within the circle of her arms, needing to face her. “You can see exactly what he did to her by looking at me. I was desperate to make it up to her, so I used my gift. She was so pretty, Natalie. All I could think about was that I couldn’t be the reason she lost her beauty. I took wound after wound, feeling the burning cuts erupting all over my face, then the misery of her broken nose. Finally, I got them all. With the hem of my tunic, I wiped the blood from her face, once more as lovely as it had been at noontide. For one perfect moment, she opened her eyes and looked at me with such sorrow. And then she died.”
Natalie’s brows furrowed. “Why?”
“They’d raped her. She’d hemorrhaged. I never even thought to look, never noticed that she was lying in a pool of blood, that her skirts were soaked with it. While I’d been intent only on restoring her beauty, she’d bled to death.”