Broken Heart 08 Must Love Lycans (8 page)

Jarred Dante wanted love.

“You look pale,” he said. I detected the barest whisper of concern in his words.

It was as if his words sparked the reaction. Cold rushed through me, followed by a wave of prickling heat. My knees buckled, and he caught me. I stared at him, wide-eyed. “I don’t feel well.”

The room started to spin, and I clutched Jarred’s arms, trying to right myself. Instead, I tumbled into the awful vortex. I spun and spun … away from the light, the room, the man holding me … and into the thick, cloying darkness.

Down, down, down into the rabbit hole once again.

Chapter 3

“Y
ou were quite unexpected.”

The woman’s lilting voice drew me out of the spinning dark. When I opened my eyes, I stood within a circle of trees so tall that their myriad thick branches nearly blotted out the moon overhead. Lights glimmered among the branches, and I had no doubt the flickering dots were fireflies—and there were certainly a lot of them. I wore a blue dress of the sort I associated with Greek goddesses, my hair loose and flowing over my shoulders. I clutched the soft fabric in my hands, wondering at the significance of being dressed in such a manner.

Before me, sitting on a throne carved out of beautiful polished wood was a woman so gorgeous, she couldn’t be real. She had long black hair that coiled in tight ringlets down to her waist. Her skin was as pale as cream, her features refined and delicate. Her dress was a dark blue satin, it seemed finely cut and expensive, yet her feet were as bare as mine. On her head rested a crown that seemed to be woven from both polished wood and gold; in its center was a bloodred ruby the size of a kiwi.

“I am the Moon Goddess and this is my mate, Tark.” My gaze was drawn to where the woman’s hand rested on the scruff of a very large black wolf. His collar was made of the same materials as the lady’s crown, with the same size and shape ruby. His jade green gaze assessed me in such a haughty manner that I immediately felt unworthy of his scrutiny.

He reminded me of Damian—not only that familiar green gaze, but the proud stance, the arrogant tilt to his head. He didn’t look too thrilled with me, and I took a step back.

“You’re frightening her, darling. Be nice.”

Tark snorted and raised his snout. Hoo-kay. Was that wolf gesture for “I won’t eat you now, but watch it”?

“Where am I?” I asked.

“I redirected your consciousness. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to visit Damian’s intended. You are an unusual choice for a lycan bride,” she said, her brown eyes assessing me. “But I approve.”

The wolf barked, turning his visage to the lady, his head cocked in a silent query.

“What else can we do?” she asked him. “Damian has been lost to us for so long. He must reclaim his rightful place as the crown prince. He must heal the wounds of his past and look to the future.”

“I know I’m dreaming,” I said. “And I know I have this very inappropriate … er, thing for Damian. But maybe you could explain. You know, everything.”

“There’s no time to explain it all,” she said. “I’ll try to cover the basics. Damian and his brothers are royal lycanthropes—the only ones. You see, they can trace their bloodlines directly to me. They are different from the other lycans, just as the full-bloods are different from the Roma.”

I blinked. I latched on to the last of her words because the rest made no sense. “What’s a Roma?”

The lady sighed. “I’m going about this completely wrong. We have so little time and there is much you must know.”

The wolf yipped, putting a paw onto her thigh. She leaned down and planted a kiss on the wolf’s snout. “Yes, darling. Of course.” She looked at me. “Damian abandoned everything he once held dear because he believes that he failed his people. He also believes that I abandoned him. Neither he nor his brothers will talk to me. Not anymore. I used to hear their prayers every night. After Danielle died, they stopped.”

The wolf at her side whined and she tugged on his ear.

“Who’s Danielle?”

“His adopted sister. She was orphaned when she was only an infant and she was raised as royalty with the triplets. She was killed, and her death broke Damian’s heart. He couldn’t forgive himself for not saving her.”

Damian had said his sister died. Was this … No. I was creating this fiction. I was dreaming, and wow, my mind was working overtime to fill in the blanks of Damian’s life.

“The full-bloods are dying, their numbers dwindling. They have no faith,” she said sadly. “They are lonely for the old ways, the times when they had a real community. Damian believes that his time is past, that another rules that which belongs to him. This is, of course, incorrect.”

Tark barked in a way that seemed to convey annoyance.

“They are still werewolves,” she admonished. “And you know they have a different destiny from our dear ones.” She drew in a breath and offered me a dazzling smile. “Damian has chosen you.”

“Chosen me for what?” I felt a vague panic swishing around inside me.

“To be his mate.” Her tone had gone quiet, serious.

This was the craziest dream I’d ever had. I wasn’t the mate of anyone, much less the schizophrenic who’d attacked me. “Damian thinks he’s a werewolf. You’re saying he bit me so he could … uh, marry me?”

“I really wish we could skip the ‘convince you it’s the truth’ part of this process,” said the lady. “Perhaps you could simply believe all that I’m telling you.”

Yeah. Right. If I believed even a tenth of the crap she’d just spewed, I’d be getting my own patient suite at the Dante Clinic.

Tark pawed her thigh, his nails rustling in the folds of her dress.

“Yes,” she said. “I know.” She glanced at me. “Our natures include robust passions that prove wearisome for lesser creatures. It is rare that a lycan will choose a human for anything other than a temporary lover. You see, our children have been unable to breed with humans.” She stroked the wolf’s head. “Tark is worried about your ability to procreate—even with your unique attributes.”

“You mean my sunny disposition and gazellelike legs?”

Her laughter was like the ringing of wind chimes. “You don’t yet know the secret locked within you.” Sadness flickered in her gaze, but she still managed to keep her hopeful smile. “Sometimes that which begins in sorrow ends in joy.”

I couldn’t think of a response, so I said nothing and tried to keep my stare polite. All I had to do was wake up. When I did, this dream would fade like any other. I would probably even laugh at the way my subconscious had played around with my attraction to Damian.

“You must help him to find his way again, Kelsey.”

The wolf turned toward me and dipped his snout in recognition of the lady’s words. I wanted to help Damian, but I knew the reality of his situation. His delusion held him in thrall, and apparently me as well. We both needed to shake free of this madness.

As I watched, the wolf rose to stand on his hind legs. His fur receded with feathered hushes as his bones snicked under his flesh. Within moments I beheld a naked man as strong and handsome as Damian with jade eyes, an aquiline nose, and thin-as-blades cheeks. His curtain of black hair brushed his buttocks. The collar around his neck remained. He was tall, well muscled, and regarded me with something between curiosity and suspicion.

“You know how stubborn these humans are,” he said in a low, raspy voice. “They require proof.” He looked at me reproachfully. “Faith is too often discarded by your kind.”

“Sometimes it’s taken from us,” I said softly.

“Yes,” he agreed. “How pathetic that you give it up so easily.” He sighed. “If but one would stand and hold firm, others would follow.”

“Doubt is its own monster, with teeth and claws and poison,” said the Goddess, “which is why two faithful souls are stronger still.” She pointed at me. “I bestow this symbol so that both you and Damian will embrace the truths we have given you.”

Blue light sizzled from her fingertip. The bolt smacked into my flesh inches above my left breast and seemed to burn a hole right through me. Pain exploded. I cried out, grabbing on to my shoulder, only to let go when the spikes of agony worsened. The ground beneath my feet gave away, and once again I was spinning into the clasping darkness.

 

When I awoke, I was in my own bed. My eyes felt puffy and heavy, my limbs ached. Fever flushed my skin, the heat of illness buried into muscle and bone. A single lamp on the nightstand offered a small glow of light that did nothing to dispel the shadows of my bedroom. I was tucked in tightly, the covers thick and suffocating.

I wanted to push them off, but neither my arms nor my legs obeyed the commands to move. I turned my head, my mouth dry and my lips cracked.

Just outside the circle of light sat a man in a chair that had once graced the left side of my bedroom hearth. He was leaning forward, his elbows balancing on his knees as he cradled his head.

“Water,” I managed. “Please.”

His head came up instantly, his eyes wide. “Kelsey.”

“Mr. Dante.” Even through the haze of pain and unbearable heat, I saw how crumpled his suit looked, how his hair looked as though he’d furrowed his fingers through it numerous times, and how worry weighted a gaze I once thought so cold.

He rose from his chair and moved into the darkness where I could no longer discern his figure. I heard the clink of ice and the sweet sound of pouring liquid. He returned to the bed, sitting gingerly on its edge. Carefully, he slipped his hand behind my head and held me gently as he lifted the glass to my mouth. “Sip only,” he said.

I did as he asked, even though I wanted to gulp it all down. My stomach roiled at even the small tastes I allowed myself, so I reluctantly stopped imbibing.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked.

His expression was wintry. “Nothing that you asked for, I assure you.”

His response confused me, but I couldn’t croak out any more questions. Exhaustion battered me, competing viciously with the streams of agony that flowed from temples to toes.

He put the glass on the nightstand, and then readjusted the mountainous bedding that covered me. “We are dealing with too many unknowns. Despite the legends and myths surrounding werewolves, the truth is that until now, lycans were born, not made.”

Something about his tone, not to mention the actual, crazy words, caused alarm to leap through me. “Lycans?”

Not this again! It seemed as though my contact with Damian had infected me with his delusion, for why else would I keep having conversations with people who believed werewolves to be real?

“This is not how I wanted to introduce you to my world,” he continued, his words clipped. “But the choice was taken from me. I did us no favors by rescuing Damian from his captors.” His smile was thin and sharp. “Had I known he would take what I sought for myself, I would’ve left him to rot in his prison.”

His tone was strangely formal, and the words still on this side of infreakingsane. I was trying to take it all in, but my aching head felt stuffed with cotton. Surely I was dreaming again, having dropped out of a forest where a goddess and her wolf-mate told me outrageous lies and into this nightmare of Jarred spouting nonsense.

“Lycanthropes are real,” he insisted. He brushed limp strands of hair away from my face. Bitterness turned his gray eyes as flat and hard as river stones. “Like it or not, you’ve been claimed by the prince of werewolves.”

Jarred’s preposterous announcement propelled me back into the exhaustion of illness and nightmares. Every so often, I would surface from the fevered terrors, feeling as though I had somehow ripped away my own skin to reveal my true self: a dark, craven creature that pawed and growled and bared its teeth. This was the very creature Robert Mallard had said that I bore inside me, the one he wanted to set free. He’d wanted to kill the “outer me,” so that the “inner me” could join him in his life’s work. He’d even brought along a present for the occasion: a seventeen-year-old girl with long blond hair and terrified blue eyes.

No!
I pushed away the images. I couldn’t relive those moments again. I’d gone through that agony numerous times already—talking to police detectives and FBI agents and psychiatrists. I knew the firmament of my own mind. I was not broken. Robert had taken so much from me, and from the world, I would not give him anything else.

“Sshh.” I felt a tender hand upon my brow; then a cold, wet cloth was pressed against my burning face. “Rest, Kelsey. It’s all you can do now.”

I closed my eyes again and slipped once again into nightmare-ridden slumber.

 

“How long will it stop the change?”

Jarred’s voice filtered through the twilight of my consciousness. I struggled through the thickness of sleep that didn’t feel natural.

Had I been drugged?

The thought panicked me. I couldn’t get my limbs to move, or my eyes to open. My ears were working fine, however, and I strained to hear the low conversation. I teetered on the edge of sliding back into oblivion, which made it difficult to concentrate.