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“Both.”
He grins, revealing a row of white teeth and subtle laugh lines. His short, dark hair is lightly peppered with gray. At nearly seven hundred, Nathanial Wolvsey looks barely forty in human years.
“Me, too,” he confides.
Looking at my sire is like looking into my future. Same build, same features, same eyes. Same life of excess, alcohol, and one-night stands. Same lack of anything meaningful in life.
“You’re frowning. Wake up beside an ugly one?”
Quite the opposite. But I didn’t wake up beside Kari. Uttering such a sentiment would only incite howling laughter. But I’m not certain I can hold it in. My fever for Kari still rages, and I need answers. My father is, unfortunately, my best source of information.
“Are you quite certain our family is cursed?”
My father sets down his steaming mug with a scowl. “You doubt it?”
“Has any Wolvsey ever tried to mate?”
Nathanial recoils. “Good Lord, why would you want to?”
“I don’t know that I do.” Liar.
“Without the instinct, we could taste a million women and never know if any was our fated one. That curse is to blame. So why risk a life of abject unhappiness?”
Because I’m already miserable.
“If it’s children you want, be patient. Your uncles and I have proven that conceiving them is possible. Outside the mate bond, that requires a great deal of diligent effort, but I’m sure you won’t mind.” My father winks. “In fact, Raiden informed me yesterday that a little witch he shagged last month is expecting. His first. Right proud, he was. So you see…”
I freeze. My twin is having a youngling with a witch he barely knows and might never see again. And he’s proud? I don’t understand, but I have to press on. “Remind me how the curse began.”
Maybe if I hear the story again, I can discern some way to sense whether Kari is my mate.
Nathanial shrugs. “My great-grandfather married a Councilman’s daughter. Ugly thing, but a powerful family. He had no instinct for her, but such are political matches among magickind. Not long after, he met a beautiful human. He burned for her, but confessed that he was… What is the human word? Married. Yes. The woman cried. He kissed away her tears and discovered she was destined to be his. When he tried to break his bond with his current mate, the witch screamed and cursed the family—she swore no Wolvsey mating would ever last. My great-grandfather paid her no heed, broke their bond, and mated with the human. She delivered him a healthy son. Then she died, as have all Wolvsey mates since. We’re not fit for one woman, son.”
So I’ve heard—over and over. “When was the last time a Wolvsey mated?”
My father strokes his chin with a frown. “Your great-uncle Martin, I think. He Called to this tall, exotic witch. I was a lad, but I recall her beauty. Shortly after their pairing, a freak accident separated her head from her body.”
My great-uncle Martin, hundreds of years ago. I’ve never even met the wizard. “No one has tried since?”
“Of course not.” My father peers with concern and drifts closer. “Our mates all die, and the wizards are miserable for centuries. Are you daft enough to think of tempting fate?”
“Precisely what I want to know.”
I jump at the sudden boom of the voice behind me. Raiden. Damn it all. Shit is going to hit the fan.
As I turn to my twin, I can’t think of a single reply. I know better than to ask whether he’s tired of shagging a different woman every night. I would lay money that Raiden is living his dream.
My twin and I used to be identical—except Raiden has a golden mane of hair to my dark. But lately, our ideas and attitudes have diverged more each day.
“I’m merely asking a few questions about the family curse.”
Raiden raises a golden brow. “For the same reason you screamed Kari’s name last night while you shagged Sophia?”
So that was the brunette’s name? Wait. I screamed Kari’s name? “I don’t remember that. Shit.”
“After you dashed away, Sophia, full of tears, visited her best friend, Lily. You cheated me out of a very promising morning. I had to assure her that you were far too inebriated to remember your own name, much less hers. Both friends decided we’re womanizing prats, so there ends my association with Lily.”
I refrain from pointing out that Raiden would never have darkened Lily’s doorstep again anyway. He rarely spends the night with the same woman twice, but my twin wouldn’t welcome the observation just now.
