He entered without closing the door behind him, cracked the window open, then pulled a chair to the bed. He sat with his forearms pressed to his thighs, head bowed. Silent.
A minute passed, long enough for my emotions to tie themselves into anxious knots. “Drayven, you’re making me nervous.”
“I can’t allow myself to be around you.” He blurted the words, then closed his eyes as if annoyed with himself. “Fuck…”
“Is this about the mate mark, scent thing?”
“Yes and…no. I thought I could control it. That once my scent on you faded, I’d be fine around you. But when you passed out in my arms after the Wyrm attack, I marked you again.” He squeezed his eyes closed. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“But I wasn’t physically hurt. I mean, my hand was, but it wasn’t bad and?—”
“I know.”
But he’d done it anyway… Oh…
“I can’t seem to stop myself from trying to claim you,” he admitted.
I wasn’t sure I wanted a relationship with him, and I certainly didn’t want to be mated to him. So it hardly mattered that he was trying to stay away from me, but my curiosity was an insatiable beast, and I needed to know.
“Why are you fighting this thing between us?” Because despite my intentions, there was definitely athingbetween us. An attraction, an inexplicable connection usually only born of long-term familiarity.
He looked up, stunned. “Youwantme to claim you?”
“I didn’t say that. I just… I want to understand your reluctance, because my gut tells me it’s about more than my consent.”
He sighed. “You’re too damn smart, too damn perceptive?—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m perfect, I get it. Now, please, tell me why.”
He cracked a smile, and my heart melted a little. “You are all those things, Anamaya, and more. You’re resilient and determined and loyal and I… I admire you, which is why I’m so drawn to you. But…I made a vow a long time ago that I wouldn’t move on with my life, not until I ended the life of the male responsible for Brenna’s death.”
Brenna…the woman he’d loved. He’d mentioned that she was dead, but… “Someonekilledher?”
His nostrils flared. “Yes.” His hands curled into fists. “My kind, my pack, do not live together like most. We own vast territories in which we make our homes separate from each other, yet close by. We are solitary beasts until we take a mate and have our own families. Brenna was human, so she could never have a full mating because she had no beast—but she agreed to come live with me on pack land. We had a family. A boy and a girl. But six years ago, I was called away urgently, and in my absence, our territory was stolen. Set ablaze by the thieves who wanted to claim it.” His throat bobbed. “Brenna and my children died in that fire.” He swallowed hard again. “She couldn’t shift and run like the barghest, so she perished. I found her corpse wrapped around our children. She’d shielded them with her body, protecting them for as long as she could with her flesh and bone.”
Oh Trinity. “Who… Who did it? Who set the fire?”
“Our land stood in the way of a Damascus development project. My father, the alpha, refused to sell. We thought that was the end of it. After all, the Thorns and the Damascuses had been close friends for decades. I grew up with Sterling. He’d been like a brother to me. But it was Sterling who called me away that day. Summoned me to help him with some important business, and while I was with him, his father burned my land and killed my family.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Oh, Drayven…I’m so fucking sorry.”
He looked away. “I wanted to die too. But Brenna and I made a pact when we had our first child. We vowed that if anything should happen to either of us, the other would learn to go on with their lives. That we wouldn’t mourn forever. She was sunshine and happiness, and I couldn’t disappoint her. But I made another vow on her grave. I vowed not to move on with my life until the person responsible for taking my family and most of my pack was dead.”
“Sterling?”
“Yes.”
“Then why… Why haven’t you?—”
“Killed him already?” His mouth turned down. “Oh, believe me, I’ve tried, but I can’t. When we were ten, we made a blood pact. A stupid oath that bound us to protect one another. I can’t kill him, and he can’t kill me.”
Vampires and their fucking blood pacts. Wait… “Is that why you joined me when I was facing that Wyrm? To force him to protect you—and me by extension?”
“I would have been by your side regardless, but yes, it forced him to act. Forced him to bring down the Wyrm.”
If it had been just me, Sterling would have let me die.
“I can’t break the pact,” Drayven continued. “But I’ve been told that with time, as long as we don’t replenish it, it will weaken. So, I’m waiting. And in the meantime, I can be here, a constant reminder of what he did. I want him to see Brenna in my eyes every time he looks at me. To remember Tabitha and Troy, the children who once called him Uncle Sterling. I want him to know that there is no running away from me, and as soon as the bond breaks, I’ll claw out his fucking heart.” The pain dripping from his words echoed mine, resonating in a way that made me want to wrap my arms around him and cradle him to me.
