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And soon, she was really going at it with the speed.
As she leapt over fallen trunks, and dodged around boulders and stumps, while she tested her strength and endurance, a part of her soul started to sing—and the uncomplicated joy was like a drug to her, the feeling of freedom mixing with the cold night air to intoxicate her, especially as the ground began to rise and her ascent of the mountain’s base steepened.
The harder the going, the faster she went.
She needed the exhaustion that she would find when she reached the summit. She needed the solitude, too.
An hour later, when she finally crested that last rise and trotted around to the clearing that facedthe valley, she was panting so heavily that her ribs were like fists around her lungs, squeezing and releasing to pump air. And as she looked up at the heavens above, the clouds decided to part like stage curtains, the full glory of the moonlight piercing down from the sky.
Lifting her head, she began to howl.
And tried to take solace as her nocturnal call… was answered by others of her kind.
She had meant what she’d told Xhex. She already knew that the mountain was her home—
Crack.
At the sound of the stick off to the side, she wheeled around, bared her fangs, and began to growl.
And that was when a male voice spoke to her: “You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Blade had known that his wolf would have to come to the mountain. It had been in her grid the night before when she had been up here. And it had remained in her grid when she’d been down at that house. In fact, the intention was perpetual—although after she’d stood in the pines with Xhex, what had been impulse became obsessional to her.
He was going to have to thank his sister for encouraging this.
So yes, he had been certain Lydia Susi was going to be here, and all he’d had to do was wait for her—and he hadn’t been worried that she’d bring Daniel Joseph.
Her memories told Blade that she preferred to come here alone.
This was her solace away from her dying mate, the place where she could breathe and shore up her strength for the sadness and grief she stewed in down below.
Thus, she was before him. And she was magnificent.
“You were told to come find something on the mountain,” he said in a low voice—and he knew she understood him in her wolf form. He could tell by the way she tilted her head. “Therefore, I am here for you.”
He’d deliberately kept his red robes on because he’d anticipated she would ascribe to him a religious connotation—and with the way those glowing lupine eyes stared up at him, he knew she had.
“Your mate is dying. There is nothing you can do. You are in the transition between what is your present and what will soon be your past. You worry what is next, but that is no longer a concern. I have found you. I am here… for you.”
On a lot of levels, he couldn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth, but then he reminded himself that he was just trying to get her to staywith him a little tonight and then come again tomorrow. He needed time to understand this reaction of his, time to figure out—and neutralize—the burning he felt in his veins when he saw her.
“I will never hurt you,” he repeated. Like it was a vow.
And strangely, he meant it.
In response, her nostrils flared, and her twitching jowls relaxed a little, less of her very impressive set of fangs showing. Likewise, the muscles in her thighs stopped spasming. But she didn’t trust him yet, not by a long shot—and he was under no illusions. If she didn’t like something, anything, about him, she was going to be off into the night, possibly never to return.
Either that… or she was going to attack him.
And he would have welcomed that.
For a moment, he had an image from back in his private quarters: his beautiful scorpion, so small, so deadly.
Ah, so that’s what this is, he thought with some relief.
Lydia could kill him. Not easily, because he would fight back to the death against her. But it was impossible for him to respect anyone or anything that was not a threat to him and likewise… he was compelled by anything that presented him with a mortal danger.
“You will come here,” he told her, “and I will bewaiting for you. That is all for now. I shall see you on the morrow at this time—and worry not. There is no threat down at the house, not against you. You are safe to come and go.”
