“Who did this?” he demanded, his voice a threatening rumble that made her heart skip a beat. She felt his fingers close around her throat, fitting over the impressions Rye’s hand had left on her. “Answer me, kébé, or I will take the answer from you.”
“No! Please.” She gripped his wrist, pulling at his hand so she could lower her eyes back to his. “It was an accident.”
“An accident? The grip of a man’s hand around a woman’s throat?”
“Something you’ve done yourself in your temper,” she argued. “To this very same throat. He was grieving terribly. You cannot…”
“This was Pack?” Reule surged out of his chair, taking her with him until she was hanging in his grip by her arms. “Someone from the Pack put their hands on you like this?” Reule wanted to shake her as her accusations penetrated his rage-blind brain. “Don’t dare talk to me of my temper! I restrained you. I didn’t hurt you, bruise you, and I most certainly would never lay a hand on you if I thought I couldn’t control my anger! Do you really mean to compare my actions to this…this act of brutality against you?”
“No,” she whispered, knowing how it would make him feel if she did. “But I’m begging you to understand that the volatile mix of grief and anger, the suffering…”
“We’re all suffering! Does that give us all the right to strangle you? What next? Beating? Whipping our frustrations out on you? No, Mystique. There is only one being we may injure in grief, and that is ourselves. With the jihmak, the cutting that you are so disturbed by, for honorable remembrance. Don’t tell me there is any excuse for a Packmate to hurt you!”
“Isn’t there? What if he felt that I had failed him? Or that I was responsible for Amando’s death? Or what if,” she said quickly when she saw protest about to explode from him, “the rage he feels is really toward himself because he survived while his friend has been ripped away from him? From you?”
“Rye,” Reule breathed as understanding dawned.
“He blames himself! Cutting himself is never going to allow that feeling to escape. He lashed out at a convenient target—”
“Then let him target me! I made the choice! Lord damn him, I’ll kill him with my bare hands for this dishonorable treatment of a woman! Of my woman!”
“Reule!” she gasped.
Mystique froze for several long beats, her eyes wide, her lips quivering. She gripped the fabric of his shirt, feeling his chest rapidly rise and fall with his emotion. Then she flung herself at him, clinging to his body with all her strength. She dragged herself up his height, cursing the confinement of skirts that prevented her from using her legs to aid her. It turned out not to be necessary because he helped her with hands at her waist and drew her tightly against himself as he met her questing mouth. The kiss was soft, despite her demand, and brief, but it was still more than enough to heat their blood in anticipation of more.
“Say it again,” she begged him against his lips. “Without the anger, Reule, please say it again.”
“My woman, Mystique,” he said, his breath and lips as hot as the passion behind the phrase. “Did you doubt it? Did you think I’d simply forget how you make me feel? How extraordinary you are? By the Lord, I’d be insane to let you slip away from me.”
She laughed tremulously as he kissed her cheek and chin. He made it sound so simple. So logical. When he knew it was positively outrageous. “I’m not Sánge,” she breathed as his hands slid up the length of her spine and into her hair. “I’m no one. I have nothing to offer you.”
“You have everything to offer me,” he said roughly, giving her a warning shake just before he sealed his mouth to hers and burned her to her soul with sentient hunger. She became keenly aware of it with each deep stroke of his seeking tongue. She was gasping for breath when he finally broke away. “Beauty, intelligence, power, courage. These are all I crave in a mate, Mystique.”
“A history. A homeland,” she argued breathlessly. “A name.”
His mouth trailed away, striking out for the length of her throat and scorching her with kisses of need and temptation. “I’ve given you a name,” he coaxed softly. “You will make new history with us here. We will be your homeland. Let us love you, sweetheart.”
The phraseology curled a fist of anxiety between her lungs.
“I will let you love me,” she responded quietly.
He felt the sharp sorrow in her resistance, like a weight tied to her spirit. She might not have actual memories, but she reacted with emotional instinct to things. He suppressed a frown, opting to be accepting rather than confrontational. They’d worry about this later, when their mourning for Amando wasn’t so keen.
For now, the exclusivity of her offer thrilled him. There was a possessive need that was immensely satisfied by the offer. He was all too used to sharing everything, in spite of having the power to shut his thoughts away from others. He craved this exclusivity between them.
“Thank you,” he said very softly. “I intend to do exactly that.” He ran his fingertips around the marks on her neck and frowned darkly. “After I beat Rye to within his last breath for treating you this way. And don’t think you can reason with me,” he warned her sharply when her grip tightened convulsively. “There are matters on which you will find me intractable, and this is one of them.”
“Please, Reule. Please. Let me approach him tonight at the banquet. Give me a chance to resolve this with him before you do something that could turn him against me forever. I will have no future here if your heir despises me. You have to know that.”
“Then he’ll no longer be my heir!” Reule thundered. “This is about what is and isn’t acceptable behavior within my Pack! Rye knows my rules and, by the Lord, he will obey them or he’ll suffer consequences!”
“Then devise another penance, My Prime, because I cannot see how an act of violence can rectify another act of violence!”
Her emotional explosion set Reule back a step, his anger mutating into honest puzzlement as he searched her stubborn features. “Why do you do that? Why do you use my title like a castigation?”
“I…I don’t.” She flushed, her slim neck turning red enough to rival her hair.
“You do. You deprive me of my given name when you’re angry with me.”
“Reule, this isn’t about me,” she said haltingly, her words flustered.
“This is all about you,” Reule corrected her. “All of this ties into this past you think you know nothing about. I believe you know more than you realize. Even I know more than you realize just by observation of your behavior. For instance, you won’t trust anyone but me.”
“That’s not—”
“You behave as though abuse is to be expected,” he pressed. “The larger the group, the more you’re resigned to it.” She pressed her lips tightly together, stepping back farther from him, but he wasn’t letting her get off that easily this time. “What is it you think to accomplish by speaking to Rye? What do you think will appease me? An apology? The act is unpardonable, kébé. No apology will ever be sufficient. Tell me, what would you have me do instead of violence? Give him a stern talking to? What reprimand do you wish?”
“I wish tolerance! I wish understanding! You of all people should grasp that!”
“I understand that when my parents were killed, there was a price due, and I saw it paid. My tolerance has limits, else I will be made a victim, Mystique. And victimization is something you should understand. Something chased you into this wilderness, something so bad that you would rather crawl on your hands and knees across the flatlands with broken bones than stay still where it might catch up with you. You dragged yourself up three flights of stairs, through mildew and mold and Lady knows what, just so you could hide behind crates on a floor this close to collapsing under you!”
“I…I didn’t have…broken bones?”
She ended the protest in a confused query, staring at him as she tried to decode what she’d heard. It didn’t take long for a frightful sort of understanding to dawn in
her faceted eyes. Reule cursed himself for his loose tongue, for not picking his time as he’d told himself he would, and instead allowing his temper to rule him. He just couldn’t control himself when he thought of someone causing her harm.
“You did. You fell from a horse,” he said. Her eyes went wide as she crossed tight, protective arms over herself. “I guess you healed in your sleep over the next few days while you were in the attic. Darcio,” he explained at last with a sigh. “His third ’pathic power is the ability to learn a body’s history. Not your memory, but the experience of what your body has been through.”
“And how long have you known all of this?” she asked chillingly.
“Since the first night we found you. I asked him to read you so I would learn how to care for you. To protect you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why haven’t you told me any of this? You let me struggle not knowing…”
“It isn’t about punishment!” he roared furiously, making her jump in her own skin. “Can’t you understand that? You aren’t being punished! No one wants to see you disciplined, taught a lesson, or anything else! Not here. Not in this place and, by the Lord, not as long as I draw breath!”
He reached out and grabbed hold of her, dragging her against him and forcing her gaze onto his. “Don’t you see? This is the whole point, Mystique. You’re safe here. I swear it. No one will harm you. I won’t allow it. That’s why Rye must pay consequences for his actions. Why didn’t I tell you about Darcio? Frankly, because I’d be damned happy if you never, ever had to remember what that crowd of laughing, jeering people did to you! Everything I tell you is a potential step backward toward that memory and, since I couldn’t protect you from it the first time, I’ll damn well do it now if I can!”
“I-I don’t…” Understand. She couldn’t seem to make herself understand what he was doing for her; the significance of his efforts to protect her at all costs. Why was that? She wasn’t a stupid person. Mystique stared up at him in open-mouthed shock. Yes. It was shock. She was always stunned by his vehemence as he went about championing her. Did that make his point? Did she behave as though she didn’t deserve such consideration?
The question was, what did she believe in her heart? Instantly she knew there was a furious streak inside her that refused the notion of her being a victim. Instinctively, she knew she had never been the type to meekly accept punitive retaliation. It wasn’t her nature.
“I have this question that keeps going around and around in my head,” she said, reaching up to toy with the fabric of his shirt over his chest. “I keep wondering what it was. What could I possibly have done? What terrible, awful thing did I do to deserve being chased out of my homeland?”
Reule sighed and, cupping the back of her head in a large palm, he drew her closer, cuddling her against himself. “Sometimes people don’t need legitimate reasons to do what they do. They make up reasons to justify their desires. This Sánge tribe once lived in a beautiful place of sand, of warmth that lasted all year round. I swear,” he insisted when she made a sniggering sound of disbelief. “It’s very far from here, over some of the most hostile lands and waters you will ever know. It was a treacherous route that made this place instantly look like a haven when we found it. We were chased from our home of tropical beauty because we were Sánge, but also because greedy people coveted the beautiful place we lived in.”
“Like Jakals. They take what they want,” she said with disgust.
“Yes.”
“Why did you never go back? Why not reclaim what was yours? You’re certainly powerful enough now.”
“And I’m also content. So are my people. We’re safe here. A journey like that would cost more than it would be worth. I used to think that way—about vengeance and righteousness—when I was young, but luckily there was too much for me to do while I was maturing for me to act on those impulses. By the time I could actually return, it was no longer important.”
“And that’s what you wish for me. That I will find my place here, with you, so when I do remember where I’m from, it’s no longer important?”
She watched him swallow visibly. “Yes. Is that terribly selfish?”
“Selfish?”
“Yes, damn it. I want you for myself, understand? I want nothing to take you from me. Mystique,” he said vehemently, “I would make you my Prima. Don’t you understand that?”
“You…”
Mystique gasped for breath as everything suddenly seemed to close in around her. The enormity of the offer was too much. It was all too much. Blackness, starting in spots, began to blossom in her vision. Now she couldn’t breathe at all. Her mouth was open, she tried to draw breath, but it wouldn’t come.
“Mystique!” Reule swung her around and sat her down in a nearby chair, kneeling beside her as she struggled to draw in a breath. “It’s all right, baby, just breathe. Slow. Small breaths.” He drew her forward, leaning her against himself. “Stop this.” He gripped her head in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “If you don’t want me, that’s one thing, but by the Lady, kébé, stop thinking you don’t deserve my regard. If you truly trust me, then believe me when I say there has never been and never will be anyone so suited to me and the Sánge people than you are.”
Mystique reached out, her hands clinging to his shirtsleeves. Her eyes were tearing from her fight for breath, but she was looking at him and he knew she comprehended him.
She breathed.
A single, deep gasp that instantly faded the bright red of her face and chest. She sobbed out the breath she’d taken and drew a second as she threw her arms around his neck. She was sensitive, so he’d seen her struggle for control over tears before, but never had he felt her sob as hard as she did now. Her entire body shook as she was racked over and over with them, the sorrow she’d kept so carefully at bay suddenly everywhere.
He hadn’t felt a truly anguished woman up close like this in a long time. One of the disadvantages of a bachelor household and an exclusively male Pack. Still, he knew enough to cradle her close and tight and let her cry herself out. He felt her small hands gripping him convulsively wherever she could catch hold. Her tears soaked his shirt, but he paid it no mind. She felt warm and real, and somehow more whole than mere minutes ago. It was his empathy feeding him that knowledge.
“Hush, baby,” he soothed her softly. “Everything will be well. I promise you that.”
“I know,” she hiccupped. “I know!”
He smiled against her hair at that, amused at her contradictory responses. It was several more minutes before she calmed enough to let him turn up her ravaged face to his.
“I was lost,” she sniffed, her eyes seeming so much bigger now with the flushing sparkle of tears. “I know I was. I had nothing, and I was lost, and now you want to hand me the world. You want to give me a place again. And I feel in my heart that you’d never let me be lost again. You are so beautiful, Reule,” she whispered fiercely, leaning into him so their warmth meshed and her mouth stroked over his. “There is poetry to your culture, your honor, and the values you hold dear, and I would be a fool to deny you anything. And whatever I was in my former life, I know I was no fool.”
Reule smiled against her seeking lips. “You cry as though the world were ending, kébé, but you speak words that breathe exhilaration into my soul. But it’s not your gratitude I want. This request is wholly selfish, remember? What I want you for has nothing to do with charity. Knowing this, speak plainly to me, Mystique. Will you be my Prima? Will you be my wife, bear my heirs, and rule me with that sweet wisdom of yours for all the rest of your days?”
“Yes,” she breathed into his mouth, her lips nibbling his in hungry little bites that incited unruly needs. She intensified the pressure, connection, and heat with each successive kiss, her small hands cupping his face and holding him to her demands. This was why it took so long for him to truly hear her, the response sinking slowly into his brain.
“Yes?” he repeated, doubting what he wanted so
badly to be true. He was afraid he was imagining it.
“Yes.”
In his lifetime, Reule had known moments of certainty that were outside explanation. They came as a clarity beyond all compare. He had known it each time he’d sworn in a Packmate. He had known it when he’d stepped into the Jeth Valley for the first time.
He knew it now.
She was his match. His soul mate. A part of him had been aware of it since the moment he’d first sensed her, and it had refused to let him leave her behind. Their connection was undeniably unique and powerful. It was the sort of bond upon which great kingdoms could be made. She was made to be a queen. To be his queen. He was made to be her husband. As he drew her soft, welcoming body forward out of the chair and onto his, he knew he’d been created to be her lover. No chemistry so potent could be a mere trick of chance. It was a destined thing.
His heart told him so.
When she had won it, Reule didn’t know. He hadn’t even had a chance to balk at the idea of loving a woman. In his ninety years, he had dealt with enough women to know the only thing he understood about them was that they were hard to fathom. Mystique was even more of a mystery than most. But he wouldn’t fear that if it meant feeling the rush of adrenaline and joy that he was feeling now. He ought to have quelled it, curbed it for the sake of his mourning Pack, but he couldn’t. It was dusk, the fading light outside the windows telling him that the Depths had ended. He also knew Amando would never have forgiven him for letting this moment pass in repression because of grief for him.
So he felt, letting it all wash over him to open his mind and senses in uncanny ways. The wind-washed scent of her clothes and hair ebbed over him with the sweet perfume of woman on its back. Her hands dove into his hair, fingers skimming his scalp until he involuntarily shuddered from the sensation. Her mouth, soft and luscious, teased against his in long, shallow kisses. Her soft bottom was seated on his thighs now that he had pulled her into his lap, and her warm thighs caged him in at his sides. All he needed to do was grasp her sweet backside and drag her a few more inches forward and he would be fitted perfectly against her.