Radiance (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #3) Read Free Page B

right and wrong. As a werewolf, I have my own moments of unshakable desire for fresh-killed meat, but I don’t take such an evil path as the vampires. What they have done to humans is a crime against nature. By comparison, vampires make werewolves look like the angels of the supernatural world.”
    I nodded, my throat closed up with anxiety. I was so defeated by Delilah’s last words that I was close to losing it and just throwing myself to…well, to the wolves.
    “Come on, old werewolf,” I choked out. “Let’s get you home before you lose your human feet to frostbite or before your wolf friends come back and eat me.”
    “ I wouldn’t let them. Don’t worry. You are safe from them when I’m near.”
    “ Good to know. How do you deal with this anyway? I mean, your transformation and ending up naked in the forest, in the snow? It’s worse than a woman’s time of month.”
    He chuckled. “It’s only about 12 hours each time. Just before the moon sets, I usually run home to the gatehouse and go in through the biggest doggie door you ever saw and then I turn back into a human in front of my own snug fireplace.”
    “Makes perfect sense to me,” I said. “Here.” I gave him my mittens for his feet.
    “ Bless you,” he said and clumsily put them on.
    I carried him on my back toward the gatehouse where he lived, my eyes and nose throbbing the whole way and tears streaming from my eyes and freezing on my skin.
    “Why did you even come back for me, Rand?”
    “ I can’t talk right now. I need my breath to carry your ass.”
    “ Don’t dodge my question. Why did you come back to get me after you wounded me and left me to die of exposure?”
    “ I came back because I forgive you,” I said, huffing and puffing.
    “ Why?”
    “ Because, if I was a werewolf, I’d want Ambra to be with me forever, too.”
    “ If you were a werewolf, you would turn her?” he asked, incredulous.
    “ I would try to talk her into it, every day for the rest of her mortal life,” I said. “I wouldn’t do it without her permission, like you were going to, but yeah, I wouldn’t want to go into eternity without Ambra. It would destroy me to be without her.”
    “ She’s something, all right,” Corbin said.
    “ Look, I lost my wife to vampires. I don’t want to lose Ambra to vampires, too, or to a werewolf either. In fact, I don’t want to fight with you over Ambra ever again,” I said.
    “ Nor do I,” Corbin said. “What are we going to do about it?”
    “ I think she made her choice clear,” I said firmly.
    “ Aye, she has.” Corbin paused. “You severely weakened me by stabbing me with silver. Otherwise, I could have taken down that vampire. It’ll now take me several days to heal up that shoulder and the frostbite on my feet and get back my strength.”
    “ I did what I had to do to protect Ambra from you.”
    “ I know. I’m still not happy about being stabbed with silver. It burns like fire! Even still. And you could have killed me.”
    “ I’m not going to apologize. Your behavior as a family member of Blackstone Castle was reprehensible.”
    “ It was. Would you believe me if I told you I deeply regret my temporary insanity? It was the moon, you know. And her in the moonlight with that poignant, suffering look on her face. The violet shadows under her eyes, her trembling cherry-red lips.”
    “ Shut up about her beauty. You don’t even know her.”
    “ Longer than you have.”
    “ Not the way I know her.” I swallowed hard. “I’ll carry you all the way to the gatehouse so you don’t lose your feet. Please respect my relationship with Ambra and never try anything like that again. If you can manage that—” I took a deep breath and let it out.
    “ What will you do, Rand?”
    “ I’ll do what I can to find…someone like you.”
    “ You mean it?”
    “ Yeah. I’ll make inquiries.”
    “ That would make me happy, to find one of my own kind, so I don’t have to turn anyone. Ambra has