My smile was edged with sadness. “No. I am too…” I swallowed hard. “I care about you too much to betray your secrets. Cernunnos might be powerful enough to pry them from me. I could not live with myself if such a thing were to happen.”
“I would share them with you.”
My hand fell away from his face. “And I would keep them if I could.”
He took both my hands in his, callouses scraping over my gloved fingers. “You could take my blood now, nourish yourself.”
The temptation to do so was almost overwhelming. My fangs elongated, the toxin inside filling in preparation. I couldn’t bite him. Things would change if I did so, and not for the better. “I—I’m not hungry.”
“Oh?” he said softly. “There are many different kinds of hunger, Moira.”
“No.” I tugged my hands away. “Thank you for the gloves. I’ll return them later.”
“Keep them.”
I nodded. “Alright.”
As I stepped around him, I stopped. “I want to make it clear that I don’t need your blood. We’re merely trying to figure out whether Cernunnos’s blood is responsible for all my progress or if I can sustain myself on another kind.”
Ethan’s face softened. “Is everything alright, Moira?”
I forced myself to smile. “He’s a god, Ethan. There will be times he won’t be around. If I’m ever in need, I want to ensure I have a source of nourishment.”
I could tell Ethan didn’t believe me. His attention had sharpened, and he watched me like a shark smelling blood in the water. “Speak to him, or I will.”
I straightened. “No. We both know this is not a good idea. You obviously have additional reasons. If he senses something off about you, the last thing you want him to do is get closer to finding out what that is.”
Ethan smiled. “If there was ever someone I trusted to keep my secrets, it is you.”
While his faith in me warmed something cold and dead inside, I was still just me. “I cannot hope to go against a god.”
He tilted his head, a ring of gold around his irises. “If Cernunnos forces you to reveal information you do not want to reveal, perhaps he has not saved you at all.”
And on that note, Ethan turned to go. “I will always feed you when you need it, Moira. All you have to do is ask.”
“That’s not true!” I called to his retreating back. “You’re the one who put conditions on it!”
He turned, his handsome face in profile, and smiled. “I am both a man and a wolf. Why wouldn’t I put conditions on a beautiful woman putting her teeth in me?”
With a flash of light, a silvery wolf stood before me, golden eyes glowing in the moonlight. He huffed at me and leapt into the night.
“Ass,” I grumbled.
Chapter
Four
Evie was waiting on my porch when I got home. Her hair was longer than she’d ever worn it before, and her style had morphed from comfort to quiet luxury. She looked soft and well-loved.
When she spotted me, she pushed off from her wall lean and walked over, opening her arms without a word.
My best friend always knew when I needed a hug. I stepped into her arms and put my arms around her.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey.”
Evie held me tight for a long moment. She’d perfected the art of never letting go of a hug until the other person did first, just in case the other person needed one more than you did.
