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"Nonsense," I said. Conall huffed, and we were quiet for a moment.
Asterion's large human disguised form swayed with the movement of his huge horse in front of us, the shadows of trees passing over us. I thought we were close to the castle now, these woods almost welcoming us home.
Conall's lips grazed against the shell of my ear, the teasing touch curling heat through my veins. And then he breathed out a handful of words so gently they almost vanished under the steady beat of horse hooves below and rustling leaves above.
"I'll go mad if I lose you."
I stiffened, and Conall nudged my tangled hair back, pressing a chaste kiss to my jumping pulse. I pulled away, twisting to look at him, but there was nothing to his expression but a barren and serene honesty.
"Sorry," he said, a little brighter and clearer, the corner of his mouth quirking up. "It's dramatic, I know."
"Are you joking?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "It's what happens,mo chroí."
"What happens," I repeated.
Conall's stare shuttered for a moment, eyes dodging away. I was patient.
"If a werewolf loses their mate," he sighed out.
Oh. I recalled the brittle tension he'd arrived at the castle with, the immediate need to devour me, touch me, possess me, the starving man falling upon the feast.
I didn't know what was more surprising—the fact that a part of me had already started to understand what was happening, or the fact that Conall's confirmation didn't make me want to launch from the horse and ramble out protests. I leaned back, resting my head against his shoulder, and he laid his cheek on top of my hair.
"You made the right choice," Conall murmured. "That was a rotten fae trick, but they're a ruthless race. And for all we know, Nimue meant this to happen exactly as it did. You're a nobler hero for freeing that beast than we would've been for killing it."
I knew as much, but I reached under the blanket that covered me and found Conall's hand on my waist, tangling our fingers together.
Conall's voice lowered and tightened. "But you ever do anything so reckless again and I'll…"
I smiled as he floundered for words. "You'll be right there by my side. After all,whowas it who insisted we let him take on two dozen werewolves on his own?"
Conall snorted. "I've faced worse odds."
The shadow of the castle was starting to take shape in the mist through the trees, and I wasn't sure what would happen when we arrived. I hadn't forgotten the way Conall had spoken about being mated just days ago. He wasn't at peace about the fact that he saw me as his mate, and the reluctance in his confession wasn't shyness. He might understand the instinct that made him desperate for me, but he wasn't excited or determined like Laszlo and Hywel.
Was it the competition of the others, like Asterion's reservations, or something else?
"Why don't you have a pack?" I asked, thinking of what Laszlo had recounted to me while we were in the air above the fighting.
Conall was quiet for so long in the wake of my question that I thought he might not answer. His arms remained wrapped warmly around me, our hands linked, his cheek against my head, but it was as if I'd never spoken. I rolled my lips between my teeth and tried to think of something else to say, to let him know I didn't mind moving on.
His voice sounded, low and steady in my ear, before I had the chance to offer him an out.
"I come from a long line of pack leaders. A clan, we call them, when packs join together."
King of Clans.
"A clan is stronger, has a wider territory, more ability to protect each other. They require a hierarchy too. My father was the leader, but there were those beneath him, werewolves he trusted from each pack family line to follow his rule. His father before him had brought in a new pack before he died, when my father was a young man. My mother was that pack leader's daughter. She and my father were mates. It was a happy accident, a good way to secure the pack's cooperation in what is usually a…volatile transition."
"They were mates?" I asked.
"Mmm.Enthusiasticallyso. They were almost obsessed with one another. I don't remember a lot, but… No, we'll get to that later. Suffice it to say, however reluctant the rest of the conquered pack might've been, my mother was very satisfied to be mated to my father, and even more so when my father stepped forward to challenge my grandfather and won. It was a bit of a ceremony to pass it down like that, but a leader must always be the victor of a challenge.
"Our family line was old, and my parents' mate bond settled the nerves of the most recently added pack of the clan, so there was no argument to my father taking the position as leader. My mother was pregnant with me already, and an heir was just another promise of my family carrying on protecting the clan."
Conall's fingers fiddled with mine under the blanket. "I don't…I don't know which of my parents it was who was more ambitious, or if that was just another aspect of their personalities that was so perfectly entwined. When my grandfather died within a year, my father was already looking for another pack to conquer and absorb into the clan. That's very quick. Usually when a new pack is challenged and brought in, a clan gives things time to settle, for werewolves to find mates and start families, settling the new blood in with the old."
