Kiera nodded.
“I want to hear all of it,” she said. “And I have about a million questions.”
That made him laugh—a real laugh this time, low and rough and rusty from disuse.
“I’ll tell you anything you want,” he promised.
Kiera smiled and for a long moment they just looked into each other's eyes and the terror of the morning, the dead spooler…the missing fences…the charging Vorn—all of it seemed to fall away. It was just the two of them in the warm golden light of the home-dome, her in his lap, his arms around her, his mind clearer than it had been in longer than he could remember.
Brux knew it couldn’t last forever.
Not yet…not until he could convince her to Bond with him. And before he could ask that of her, she needed to know his past.
And so he held her close and prepared, at last, to tell her the truth.
20
KIERA
Kiera sat very still in Brux’s lap, hardly daring to breathe as he began, haltingly, to tell her what had happened.
At first, his voice was low and rough and uneven, as though the words themselves hurt him. Maybe they did. He looked away from her as he spoke, staring at some point over her shoulder as though the curved wall of the home-dome had turned transparent and he was seeing another world entirely—a world that no longer existed.
“My people had a home once,” he said at last. “A real world of our own. Forests…and mountains…and snow so deep it would cover a male to his chest in the cold season. The air smelled of trees and ice and wood smoke. We hunted there…lived there…raised our young there. And I had a mate–so beautiful, so sweet and kind…” He swallowed hard. “But then the Darklings came.”
Kiera didn’t interrupt. She only sat quietly in his lap, listening, though she could feel the tension growing in him with every word.
“They came like a sickness,” Brux went on, his deep voice going even rougher. “Like shadows with teeth. They poured across our world and took everything. Villages, cities…whole bloodlines.” He shook his head. “There was no fighting them. Not really. You could kill one or two, sometimes more, but there were always more behind them.”
His jaw tightened and for a moment he couldn’t seem to go on.
“And your mate?” Kiera asked softly.
At once, pain flashed across his face so nakedly that her heart fisted in her chest.
“She was in our home when the Darklings came, and I couldn’t get to her in time. By the time I reached her…she was gone.” His voice went hoarse and he paused for a moment, his face twisting in pain. “She was the one the Goddess gave me. The one meant to steady my mind and share my life. Lykans are not like some other Monstrum, Kiera—we do not take mates lightly. The Goddess grants us only one. One true female in all the universe.” He looked down at his hands for a moment and then back at her, his blue eyes dark with sorrow. “One mate to tether us to reason and call us back from the void. One Soul—Bond for a lifetime.”
Kiera felt a little chill run over her skin.
“Only one?” she asked softly.
He nodded.
“Yes. That is the way of my people. Or it was.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “The Goddess gave me mine, and I failed her.”
“Brux—” she began, but he shook his head sharply.
“No.” His voice cracked on the word. “You don’t understand. She died because I couldn’t save her.” He drew in a ragged breath. “I should have gotten her out. I should have protected her. I should have died before letting the Darklings touch her.” His hands clenched into fists. “Instead, I lived. And she did not.”
Kiera’s heart ached for him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she protested. “How could it have been? You said yourself there was no stopping them.”
“But I was her male.” Brux’s voice dropped to a rough whisper. “Her mate. My whole purpose was to keep her safe, and I failed in the one thing I was made for.” He looked at her then, and the naked grief in his gorgeous blue eyes nearly undid her. “So how can I deserve another? How can I ask the Goddess for a second blessing when I could not keep the first?”
“Oh, Brux,” Kiera whispered–her heart was breaking for him.
He laughed then, but there was no humor in it—only pain.
