MacRieve (Immortals After Dark) Read Free Page B

“Over my dead body! You will never see her again!”
    Da wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Take a moment, love. Just . . . take a moment. Collect yourself. Think of the babe.”
    “If I canna protect the bairns I have, I doona deserve the gods to give me more!”
    “Whisht, love! I will talk to him, and tomorrow we will end this. Go take your tea and calm yourself.”
    She lurched from the room, casting a look over her shoulder. The rage in her expression changed to something like . . . pity when she met Will’s eyes. “Never one like her , my Uilleam.” Then she was gone.
    Pity? Realization struck. I’ve done wrong. I’ve hurt Mam.
    Before, he’d wanted to tell the world about Ruelle; now he felt shame, even though he didn’t quite understand why he should. He’d been mating a beautiful female, his female, so why did his skin feel like it was crawling?
    His nose burned, vision blurring. Tears? He was sick of tears—hadshed them aplenty in the first year he’d been with her. His voice broke as he said, “I dinna mean to do wrong, Da. Are you angrier about my age or about what Ruelle is? How old should I have been?”
    “You are no’ there yet, son. And, as your mother said, never with one like her.”
    “But she’s my mate.”
    His father snapped his fangs, as if Will had blasphemed. “No—she’s—no’!”
    Will had never seen his da this angry. Still he asked, “How do you know?”
    “Because she’s sick in the head!” He shoved his fingers through his thick black hair. “If she were yours, your Instinct would ring loud and clear, telling you that she was. Has that happened?”
    Will’s Instinct, the guiding force all Lykae possessed, was usually quiet with her. But it hadn’t been at first, had warned him not to enter the cottage, had whispered of peril within.
    Peril from a delicate beauty like Ruelle? The idea had struck him as ridiculous.
    “Think, son—if she were truly your mate, you would have felt the overwhelming need to mark her neck. You would have gotten a babe on her after all this time. But I know you have no’ done either.”
    Will shook his head, muttering, “Ruelle must be mine for me to feel this way.”
    “No, she’s entranced you—it’s their way. Grown males are swayed by them, trapped by their wiles and their strewing; at your age, you stood no chance.”
    Da was making her sound like a sorceress or worse, a witch. Just like the rumors . . .
    “You have doubts. I see it in your eyes. Do you no’ ken, son? When you find your mate, it feels like the hands of gods have reached out to touch you, like your soul’s been branded. There is no doubt. And there is no way you could willingly part from her, as you’ve obviously been doing with the succubus for years. Will, heed my words: where your mate goes, you follow.”
    Will grimaced as a sharper surge of pain hit. Da continued talking, clearly aiming to distract him. He told Will and Munro all about the first time he’d met Mam, a tale they’d heard before. But tonight it highlighted aspects of Will’s own meeting with Ruelle.
    She’d lured him to her cottage with sweets. He’d been reluctant, half terrified of her, half fascinated. When he’d tentatively entered, she’d lavished gifts on him, complimenting him, as if she were . . . taming him.
    Or trapping him?
    The firelight had just begun to dim when Will’s Instinct suddenly commanded — SAVE HER! —
    Da and Munro must’ve received the same warning. They shot to their feet.
    “Ailis?” Da crossed to the hallway with long strides. “Come join us.”
    No answer.
    “Love?” His father tensed, lifting his face to scent the air. Will and Munro did the same.
    Mam was gone. Will didn’t scent her anywhere in the keep.
    There was only one reason she would have left home in this storm.
    Like a shot, Da charged for the front door. Will and Munro followed him out into the blizzard, sprinting through the snow as he tracked Mam’s scent and