[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Instead of seeking out what I couldn’t have in Grey.I probably could have found a level of happiness with Brychan.Maybe the old ways meant a simpler love, but not everyone got as lucky as Mund and Tegan.If I had never found Grey, maybe Brychan would have been a good match.Now, no one else would ever compare.Gwyn and Tegan continued to chatter about their relationships, and they let me quietly sink into my own thoughts.I glanced behind at the Jeep, but the tinted windows made it impossible to see Grey.For all I knew, they tied him with a rope from the back to see how fast he could run.Baran would never have allowed it, but it wouldn’t have surprised me with Mund and Quinn.When I was growing up, they were always causing trouble.I would have thought the two of them would have matured in that time, but no.Quinn was two hundred years old and Mund was over four hundred years old, but the two of them were like a pair of little boys.Father always said I needed to act like a lady.I was only sixteen years old, and my brothers were centuries old, but he never saw a fault in them.A boy could do no wrong, it seemed.I never seemed to do right in his eyes.His only daughter, and he could hardly look at me.If he could see me now, he would be furious.Dressed as a common human, befriending them, loving one.In his eyes, I would be a disgrace to our kind.Mother would be proud of me for following my heart.I would see it in her eyes, her eyes always gave her away.We had a secret connection, she and I.We pulled up to the mall, and the boys parked right next us.Thankfully, Grey actually got out of the Rubicon and was still whole.Tegan swaddled Nia to herself, and we went into the mall.Tegan, Gwyn, and I agreed to shop one level at a time so the boys could linger near.It seemed kind of silly to me, but it made the furrowed brow on Mund’s forehead relax a bit.Once we separated from the boys, we started shopping.“What should I get Grey?” I asked as I watched him across the open atrium of the mall.They looked completely out of place.They didn’t look like normal humans hanging out at the mall; they looked like golden warriors.Not that we fit in perfectly, by any means.Tegan was always wearing floor-length satin dresses, and she was exotic.Gwyn looked as if she jumped off the runway every morning.And then there was me—no matter how I tried, I looked like a wild animal stalking its prey.“I’m not sure,” Tegan said.“Me either, but you’ll know when you see the right gift,” Gwyn said.Two levels of the mall later, our lists were being crossed off, but still I didn’t find anything that made me think of Grey.Nothing popped out to me as something he needed; it all seemed so materialistic.Without a single sighting of Adomnan, Tegan was finally done shopping, and we had more bags than we could carry.As our group rejoined the boys to leave, I noticed all the onlookers; they seemed envious of us.It seemed odd to think a human would envy creatures such as us.Our purpose was to protect them.But after centuries of us not fulfilling that job, they were drawn to us, yearning for what was lost.We were their connection to Old Mother Earth, and the prophecy said I was to reunite the bond.They yearned for our connection to Old Mother.The ride home was eerie—we were always waiting for Adomnan to strike.We cherished every moment because we never knew when it was going to be the end.I hated not knowing.It was inevitable that one day he would be ready to fight—we just didn’t have any idea when that would be.Today, tomorrow, a week, or a year, but it was only a matter of time before the blood of my family would be on the ground, for my life.The vision made me shudder.The only thing I knew for certain: at the next gathering at Carrowmore’s Bloodmoon on my eighteenth birthday, it would all end.Someone would have to claim me.It was daunting to think about, but it was my fate, and I would have to face it.Back at home, our gift bags and boxes overwhelmed the living room.We stopped to pick out a tree for us to decorate.The custom seemed strange to me—to cut a piece of Mother Earth from her core and bring it into your home to admire its beauty as it dies.It seemed morbid.The boys finally hauled in the blue spruce; it had to be nine feet tall, a beautiful creature.I felt bad for her, that she had to die for our entertainment, but I had to remind myself she was just taking a faster trip back to Old Mother’s loving arms.Baran would be home soon, and our pseudo-family would be whole again.Our family felt complete with Grey in it, but he had been very quiet since we arrived home.I knew I would have to grill him later to find out what my brothers talked about.They probably scared him half to death, but he busied himself stacking all the presents under our tree.The lights glittered off his already sparkling eyes.He was ruggedly handsome.Mund leaned close to me.“You keep staring at him like that, and you’ll burn a whole right through him,” he whispered in my ear, laughing at his own joke.I felt my cheeks flush red-hot, and I wanted to disappear.“Come help me make dinner,” he said.I followed him like a puppy.Just as when I was a kid, wherever Mund went, I wanted to go too.That was how it had always been.I was his detached shadow, his very own tiny protégé.We began to banter about dinner, but we finally decided on braised ribs and moved on to cooking it instead of arguing about it.It was mundane and ludicrous that we all continued with life as though there weren’t a wolf huffing and puffing and waiting to blow our house down.Baran halfheartedly smiled at us, his makeshift family, as he stood in the doorway.He seemed pensive.Then abruptly his face went fierce again, and he disappeared to his room.It must have been strange for him to live with so many wolves now.He had been alone for so long, and now he hardly an inch of space to himself.I could tell he was worried about the days to come, but he hid it well.I don’t think the others noticed, but I did.I set the table, and Mund called everyone for dinner.Grey sat next to me, and everyone chatted as we ate, but neither Grey nor I spoke.I was too busy watching him from the corner of my eye.He really was beautiful, almost unbearably so.From under the table, I felt his fingers reach out and lightly graze mine.I looked up into his charming eyes and was lost in the emerald sea.When we were looking into the other’s eyes, nothing stood between us, and every time his skin touched mine, my senses shut everything else out.I felt paralyzed by his penetrating gaze.Slowly I wrapped my fingers between his, holding his hand.I smiled as I remembered the awkward moment in the woods when he first held my hand.I was so afraid of his touch then, and now I couldn’t get enough.“Ashling.”My attention snapped back to the present, and my family was all staring at us.They must have asked me a question.“The two of you are disgusting,” Quinn laughed, shaking his head.“Do you mind coming out of your love trance to join the conversation?”“Sorry,” I said, looking down at my lap.My fingers were still intertwined with Grey’s under the table, but our attention was back on our family.“I’m listening.”“Our family has a legacy of fighters and great battles.Even Mother Rhea herself was a warrior once,” Mund said.I couldn’t picture my elegant grandmother as a warrior.“You must be mistaken,” I said thinking of her silvery hair and quiet presence.“She was in the battle at the Hills of Tara over five thousand years ago,” Mund said.“She even fought several of the Dvergar pack to protect Mother and Lady Faye,” Quinn said.Lady Faye was one of my great-aunts, thought I’d never met her.She disappeared long before I was born.Mund said she once had incredible powers, but now she was barely a myth.“You see, Ashling, you come from a long line of female warriors.Mother Rhea would be proud you chose to stand and fight,” Tegan said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]