was right. It was wrong to keep a male from his fated mate, but shit, they were doing the right thing, doing what was best for Ainslee.
Aren't we?
I scowled and stared at my reflection that looked back at me in the glass. “He’s dangerous in the state he’s in. Right. Wrong. Good. Bad. It does no’ matter. I’m tired of second-guessing shit. Until he can calm down, he canna be near Leelee.”
I saw Tavish’s reflection nod. “I know. I’m just saying—”
I looked at the male beside me, an identical replica of me and Lennox and us of him. “There’s nothing tae say. If anything happened tae Ainslee, if we let her go tae Luca and he inadvertently harmed her because his mind is no’ right, then what? Ye think ye can live with yourself? ’Cause I sure as fook canna.”
Tavish clenched his jaw, his eyes narrowed, and a low, dangerous growl left him.
“Until we can gauge the situation, until we can figure out what the best course of action is, this is the only route we can take.” I took another long pull from the scotch bottle and turned back around to stare out the window. Luca bellowed again, and I growled low.
I heard the anguished, aggressive sound come from Luca again and couldn’t even imagine what he was feeling right now. Was his mind so far gone he didn’t fully understand why we’d done this? That we kept him away from Ainslee for her own protection? He wasn’t making his point of view very convincing that he could control himself, not when he kept howling like a wounded animal in a trap.
I supposed that was a pretty fair and accurate description of the situation and what he was going through.
We had sentries guarding the property, big Lycan motherfuckers who guarded King Banner and the Scottish Lycan “royal” family—us—with their lives. But I wanted to be out there doing the job of protecting the ones I held closest.
Although, by all accounts, Luca couldn’t get through the wall—not with the thick magic woven within the stone and metal—I wouldn’t underestimate the need for him to get to Ainslee.
We’d only been back in Scotland, in our ancestral estate in the Highlands, for a week now. After we’d gone to Romania to help celebrate Ren Lupinov’s mating with his human female, nothing had been the same. Not when Ainslee saw Ren’s brother, Luca, there. Then the Linking Instinct had kicked in for the male… and all fucking hell broke loose.
And the wolf had been hanging around for the last week, showing up damn near as soon as we’d gotten back home. And he wouldn’t leave. He’d just pace. And pace. And pace some more on the other side of that wall, touching it every once in a while, testing how the magic drained his strength before he relinquished his hold and bellowed again to see his mate.
“Sometimes I regret how sheltered we’ve made her,” Tavish said softly, a whole lot of remorse in his voice. I wouldn’t let myself feel those emotions, not right now, not even if a part of me agreed with him. “We should have been teaching her how tae protect herself, defend herself. We should have been letting her train with us and the Guard.”
“We should have done a hell of a lot of things, but right now none of that shit is gonna help us.”
It was our fault Ainslee knew nothing about the world, and in a matter of days her entire life had been turned upside down. She was strong, but she wasn’t that strong, and it was our fuckup.
“Overbearing assholes, the lot of us,” I grumbled.
Tavish grunted in agreement.
I didn’t know what else to say, so I took another long drink from the bottle before passing it off to Tavish to take a swig. I didn’t know what else to do but stare out that window at where I knew Luca was ever pacing.
All I knew—felt—was this bone-deep fire in my belly to keep the ones I loved safe. And I knew short of the world swallowing me whole or, hell, me finding my mate, nothing would deter me from making sure I stayed on this path.
3
Darragh
I’m going to die. This is how my life ends. I know it.
I tightened my hands on the steering wheel, my body small even by female standards, but right now, shoved into this sardine-sized car I’d rented in Scotland, I felt like I was a giant stuffed in a clown