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"What happened next?" I pressed gently.
"This part I learned later. With their leader defeated, the pack had to go find another. There were still lines of allies after the disaster with my father, and so they went and told another pack who'd fought against my father about their run-in with me. They didn't trust that I wasn't after the same goal as my father, and I don't know if I can blame them. I did want a kind of revenge on them all."
"They hunted you," I guessed.
Conall nodded. "They did." He sighed and sagged against me, weary in remembering. "They did. That went on for…a long time. Years. Sometimes I hid, and sometimes I faced them eagerly. Evanthia, I have no idea how I won some of those challenges."
"You were angry, and you wanted to survive. Wanting to survive is the hardest part," I said.
He growled and kissed my cheek, my jaw, licking up to my lips. "I did. I wanted to defy them. I wasn't thinking about what it meant to these packs for me to defeat their leaders, leave their authority broken and the pack in humiliation. No, that's a lie. Eventually I realized, and I relished their shame."
"They should be ashamed," I muttered.
"Should they?" Conall asked lightly. "What my father was doing was pure, selfish ambition. And werewolves live by blood and claw and fang. Our sense of diplomacy is…rickety, at best."
"I can't say what I think of what happened to your parents, only that I wish you hadn't been involved," I said.
We passed under the gates that opened to the castle, and Conall held me in quiet.
"I'm not a tragic hero, Evanthia," he whispered. "I did realize what was happening. One of my father's sympathizing packs finally discovered the rumor and sought me out. They wanted me to take up my father's crown again."
"You didn't."
"Perhaps," he murmured. "Oh, I challenged them, and I won them, and I rejected them. Over and over again. It was… I was searching for a newly-formed clan, enemies of my father, when I found the castle," he said, nodding ahead of us.
"The castle?! Oh, do you mean—?"
"I met Laszlo when I was quite young, maybe twenty, twenty-two? The years are muddled," Conall admitted with a grin.
I looked up in the sky, searching for the glint of gold, catching it as it cut through the clouds and flew into the mist surrounding the castle.
"He all but dragged me in by my tail," Conall said, chuckling. "Restored some of my sanity. Put me through so many baths, I turned into a prune. Bullied me into oils and civilized meals and just…kindness." His voice broke on the word, and I wanted to turn in the saddle and wrap myself around him. "He gave me back to myself."
"He has a tendency to do that," I rasped, and Conall nodded. I wondered if Conall knew that what Laszlo had done was courtship, or if he thought it was only charity.
"It was very tempting to stay. He never really said I could, but he never asked when I would leave, either. When I realized…when I realized howbadlyI wanted to stay and forget everything else, just live in that strange dream world Hywel fueled, I made my goodbye."
"Were you lovers?" I asked, unable to resist the question.
"We came together a few times. I was all appetite back then, no charm at all, and no real…appreciation for what he offered," Conall said, and I was surprised to see him blush. "After I left Laszlo, I decided I could be the hunted enemy or I could be the coming conqueror, and the latter suited my pride. I'm not sure when it shifted. I was on a mad mission to prove to all the werewolves of the world that I was the most powerful—"
"No," I spat, and Conall froze. I swallowed and shook my head, turning to meet that brilliantly green gaze. "No, Conall. You were on a mission to prove to them, and to yourself, that they couldn'thurtyou. You might've been angry, and you might've enjoyed victory. I don't blame you. But you were a young man, a boy, who'd been shaped by violence and fear and a determination to survive. You didn't want to be hurt, hunted, killed."
Conall slid his hand from mine, pulling it free from the blanket, and studied my face as he brushed my hair back, smoothing it and soothing us both.
"When did it change?" I asked, my brow furrowing. "They're not still hunting you, are they?"
He grunted and smirked. "Not so often, no. I'm not sure when it was exactly. I left Ireland, traveled south through Europe first, and somewhere in Spain I realized that word of me was traveling faster than I was. The packs weren't just ready to defend themselves from me, they were welcoming. Eager. Trotting out all their unmated members to me, accepting the challenge as if my victory was a foregone conclusion. It…it went to my head more than I'd like to admit."
"Theywantedyou to defeat their leaders?" I asked.
Conall laughed. "I was as baffled as you, believe me. They gave megifts. Sat me at their tables. It was so strange, but I was sostarvedfor kindness. Finally, I came across a clan with a very old and very noble leader. Everyone knew I would give the challenge, but they made a sort of event of it, held feasts first, revelry, meetings with all the greatest members of the clan. I liked the leader—he was canny and kind and he cared about his people. I didn'twantto challenge him, and I told him so."
"Was he relieved?"
"He laughed at me and said that if I stopped with him, I would just put a target on the clan's back. I'd been so single-minded for so many years. He sat me down, the pair of us alone, and made me really think about what I'd been doing. It was shameful for a pack leader to be defeated and the pack to be rejected, yes.Unless…" Conall said, waggling his eyebrows at me.
I thought, and it dawned on me slowly. "Unless it was happening to all of them," I said, and he nodded.
