Page 41 of Titan’s Mate

Brock sighed, rubbing the back of his neck and looking troubled. “I don’t know. This has really been hard on him. He feels like he’s failing you.”

“I didn’t want this,” she said fiercely. “I had no idea, when I came here, about his village and what happened to them. I just thought he was someone who might be able to help me, when the time came. I was only thinking about myself, not about what I was asking from him or what it might cost him.”

He sat down next to her at the kitchen counter. “It’s not your fault.”

“But it is,” she said. “I would just go, and leave him in peace, but I don’t know if that would make it better or worse. Because he’d know I was out there, and that he didn’t help me. But if I stay…”

Brock heaved a huge sigh. “I guess you better know,” he said. “About his clan? It’s worse than I told you.”

Worse than the fact that they’d all been murdered? Mari felt herself getting cold all over. “That Raines person and his rogues killed them all. How could it be worse than that?”

“Because Titan wasn’t there when it happened.”

“Oh,” she said. She should have figured that out—he was still alive, after all. “I’m sure that wasn’t his fault.”

“Of course it wasn’t.” Brock turned to her. “When you looked up polar bears and their death customs, did your research tell you why they have shamans to cross them over?”

She frowned, thinking back. “No.”

“Okay, well, all the bears in his clan have special powers, to do with seeing spirits. But the Draken who gave them those powers, centuries ago, didn’t realize they came with a price. It made their spirits powerful, prized by demons. So whenever one of them dies, demons are attracted to them. They take the soul while it’s in the spirit world, confused, not understanding it’s dead and not knowing how to cross over.”

They were like her, Mari thought. Demons everywhere, just waiting.

Brock went on, “The Draken couldn’t undo what she’d done, so she gave some of them an added power—that of guiding the souls across before the demons could find them. But Squatch wasn’t there when his people died. They had no one to protect them on the journey.”

“Oh, gods,” she said, finally understanding. She remembered the flames she’d seen during the ceremony, the demonic faces. They weren’t her demons after all. They weren’t even his, really. “They didn’t make it,” she whispered. “The demons got them all.”

This was the true burden Titan carried, the thing that had destroyed him.

Brock said, “I think he’s still hoping he’ll find some way to rescue them. To get them out of the demon realms and finally cross them over.”

Mari put her fork down, feeling sick. “And I asked him to take responsibility for my soul.” No wonder he’d told her he couldn’t do it.

What have I done?

Chapter 17

Mari bolted from the kitchen and up the hill to the cabin. She had to talk to Titan. She had to tell him how sorry she was.

As she ran up the porch steps, she glimpsed him through the studio window. He’d pulled one of his stone sculptures into the middle of the room and was standing in front of it, gazing down.

It was a breathtaking piece. A beautiful angel about four feet high, standing in profile to her, wings partly open.

But then she saw the back. It was a hideous demon, with bat wings and a smile of evil glee. Evil hiding behind good.

She’d never seen the sculpture before; the tangled canvas cover tossed down beside it showed her why. It must have been hidden in one of the crowded corners of the workshop.

As she watched, Titan picked up a huge sledgehammer and raised it overhead, the muscles of his bare torso bunching and flexing.

With an anguished roar, he swung it straight down on the sculpture, cracking off half its head. He swung again, smashing a wing, and then over and over with terrifying ferocity, beating the stone into dust and pebbles.

When there was almost nothing left, he dropped the sledgehammer and sat heavily on the floor, hands threaded through his hair, head on his knees. She could hear him growling, his body shaking as his bear fought his way to the surface like a volcano about to erupt.

Finally he got up and stumbled to the big rolling door in the back of the studio. Half-changed, he slammed his hand on a metal plate that opened the door.

With another feral roar, his bear burst all the way out and raced out the opening, heading for the forest.

Mari leaned against the window, shaking. She’d done that. Instead of helping Titan, instead of bringing him joy, she’d brought back the devastating anger and violence that churned inside him and his bear.