To Crave a Blood Moon (27 page)

Then it was over. He was gone.

On shaking knees, she watched him stride to the waiting car in a long-legged stride. Without glancing back, he climbed into the back seat. She clutched the edge of the door so hard her nail splintered. Behind the
tinted windows, he was a shadow. Impossible to see, to know if he even looked at her, staring after her like she stared after him.

Raspy breath fell from her lips as she closed the door, closed herself. Locked herself away where she couldn't feel anything at all.

Adele emerged from the kitchen, her expression questioning. She glanced to the door, then gave a small shake of her head. “You actually let him go? I didn't think you would, actually. Didn't think you could.”

“He wasn't mine to keep, Adele,” she snapped. “Besides, he wanted to go—”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he left!” Her voice vibrated with hot emotion. He left. Like they all did. Her father. Even her mother. It was just too hard to love her.

Adele was silent a moment before saying, “Did you ask him to stay?”

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “I don't want him to stay.”

“Yeah.” She snorted. “Right.”

“My life is fine. Almost like it was before I ever left on that awful trip—”

“And that's a good thing? You want it that way? That
awful
trip finally woke you up, shook you from your cocoon. Found you someone who loves you, if
you would just see it. How many men suffer what he did for a woman they
don't
love?”

“He's an honorable man.”

“This is such shit.” Adele grabbed her handbag from the bench near the door. “I need to go. I've got a date. Unlike you, I want Mr. Right to walk into my life. And when he does, I won't let him walk out.” One hand on the doorknob, Adele hesitated, and tossed her a sad smile. “Call you tomorrow.”

“I'll be here.”

“Of course you will.” The door shut with a reverberating thud.

She shifted and rubbed her nose. What did Adele know? She was wrong. Ruby didn't need anyone. She made certain of that. Made certain she was strong enough to manage on her own.

She had her home. Work she enjoyed. She didn't need anything else. Or anyone. And for one moment, as her legs moved in angry strides through the living room, she almost believed that.

From the car window, Sebastian watched as Ruby disappeared back inside the house. His gut in knots, he turned and gazed blindly at the back of the front seat. Soon, tall pines whipped past… and he wondered, marveled at what the hell he was doing leaving such a huge part of himself behind in that house.

He leaned with the car as the road curved, fingers tapping his knee anxiously. Returning to his old life . . . but who was he kidding? It wasn't something he wanted anymore. Not without Ruby.

He loved the woman—the
lycaness
. Maybe she didn't feel the same about him, but he could at least tell her, convince her she loved him, too. That they belonged together. Maybe more than any two souls did. Once, he
would have said they were both aberrations of mankind, creatures that should never have come into existence. All his life he hated what he was… because his mother had taught him he should. Then Ruby happened. Even if against his will, she had become something he always hated. Even more than himself.

And he loved her.

The very thing he spent a lifetime hating and hunting and killing. If he could love her, then maybe he wasn't something to be held in contempt either. Ruby deserved love, happiness and all that life offered. Didn't he deserve the same, too? Didn't he deserve her?

Dragging a hand over his face, he bit out in a hard voice, “Driver, stop. Stop the car.”

Ruby paused, the flat of her hand resting on the kitchen's swinging door, exerting only the slightest pressure as the panic set in, rising high in her throat, suffocatingly thick as it dawned in her that Sebastian had left. Was gone. Forever.

She didn't need him.

But she wanted him. Oh, God.

She may not need him, but she wanted him. Loved him. Loved him.
Loved him.

She had been too scared to find out whether he
could love her. Whether he would walk away like everyone else, preferring another life—
any
other life—to one with her.

Her eyes jammed tight in a fierce blink, the tears burning, spilling through, hot liquid on her cheeks. She opened them to a blurred world. A world that she had never seen so clearly before.

She wanted him
.

Before she could stop to think, before she let stubbornness and fear stop her, she moved. Spinning around, she rushed to the door. Yanking it open, she staggered onto the porch with a hoarse cry. Leaves scuttled across the lonely yard. Legs suddenly weak, she clutched a porch post, staring ahead, seeing nothing. Seeing everything.

My God, what did I do
?

Her fingers flexed weakly over the post as she looked out at the empty space. He was gone.

She let him go.

More hot tears slid down her cheeks. A sob scalded the back of her throat.
Idiot
. She didn't have any way of knowing where he went. She couldn't find him. Couldn't tell him what she just figured out.

She loved him.

Wind whispered through the trees, rustling the tall tops, and she felt it move through her, a cold, lonely wind that chilled her from the inside out.

Unless she somehow found Sebastian.

She started to turn back inside, desperate thoughts churning through her on how to find him. To track him down. The back of her neck prickled. Rubbing a hand against her nape, she turned and faced the empty yard again, her gaze fixed on the drive… at whatever she sensed coming down the long stretch of dirt road.

She tensed, thinking of her last unexpected guest. No longer afraid to use her abilities, old or new, she cleared her head, and opened herself to it.

It struck her in a warm rush, sweeping up her chest, coiling tighter and tighter; an emotion she had felt only one other time—at a wedding she catered years ago.

Standing in the back, she had watched as the groom lifted the bride's veil. Nerve or curiosity got the better of her and she spied inside his soul. She had felt
this
same emotion then.
Peace. Deeply sublime love.

A figure emerged, clearing the trees, late afternoon sun glinting off his dark hair. A duffel bag hung over one shoulder.

He stopped, his gaze finding her on the porch. They stared at each other, devouring with their eyes.

Her lungs seized, a single breathless word—a name—escaping her lips. “Sebastian!”

She was off the porch running. He met her halfway. Dropping his bag, he caught her up in his arms.

Between kisses, they spoke.

“You came back,” she gasped.

“I never should have left.” He seized her head with both hands, gazing into her eyes and forcing her still. “You were mine the moment you joined me in that dungeon. I don't care if you need me or not. I need you. I'm staying. Forever.”

She tried to nod, but he held her too tight. “You're right. I don't need you,” she agreed. “But I want you. I love you. I do. I do…”

A smile split his face. “Thank God you said that. I love you, too.”

“I know,” she choked, feeling every bit of the love in his heart, sensing their future through him right then. Side by side. Long and happy and together. “I know.”

He shook his head, still smiling as he brought his lips back down to hers. “Of course you do.”