"Nay, Dughlas!" Mam's own beast was rising once more. "I know her kind! She'll be winsome and manipulative, and she'll twist you too. The men of this pack have said for ages they would run her out of the forest, and naught comes of it."
"They're no' our woods to patrol!" Da ran his hand over his face. "And she's never targeted our young before! She's never envenomed any of our males. Our lad will be free of this by tomorrow eve. The day after at the latest. I vow it."
"Free of this?" The only way out was Ruelle's death. "I-I need to see her. Just tonight." He and his mate could run.
Leave behind my family?
A lifetime of drowning . . . ?
"Nay!" Mam bared her fangs. "Over my dead body! You will never see her again!"
Da wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Take a moment, love. Just . . . take a moment. Collect yourself. Think of the babe."
"If I canna protect the bairns I have, I doona deserve the gods to give me more!"
"Whisht, love! I will talk to him, and tomorrow we will end this. Go take your tea and calm yourself."
She lurched from the room, casting a look over her shoulder. The rage in her expression changed to something like . . . pity when she met Will's eyes. "Never one like her, my Uilleam." Then she was gone.
Pity? Realization struck. I've done wrong. I've hurt Mam.
Before, he'd wanted to tell the world about Ruelle; now he felt shame, even though he didn't quite understand why he should. He'd been mating a beautiful female, his female, so why did his skin feel like it was crawling?
His nose burned, vision blurring. Tears? He was sick of tears-had shed them aplenty in the first year he'd been with her. His voice broke as he said, "I dinna mean to do wrong, Da. Are you angrier about my age or about what Ruelle is? How old should I have been?"
"You are no' there yet, son. And, as your mother said, never with one like her."
"But she's my mate."
His father snapped his fangs, as if Will had blasphemed. "No-she's-no'!"
Will had never seen his da this angry. Still he asked, "How do you know?"
"Because she's sick in the head!" He shoved his fingers through his thick black hair. "If she were yours, your Instinct would ring loud and clear, telling you that she was. Has that happened?"
Will's Instinct, the guiding force all Lykae possessed, was usually quiet with her. But it hadn't been at first, had warned him not to enter the cottage, had whispered of peril within.
Peril from a delicate beauty like Ruelle? The idea had struck him as ridiculous.
"Think, son-if she were truly your mate, you would have felt the overwhelming need to mark her neck. You would have gotten a babe on her after all this time. But I know you have no' done either."
Will shook his head, muttering, "Ruelle must be mine for me to feel this way."
"No, she's entranced you-it's their way. Grown males are swayed by them, trapped by their wiles and their strewing; at your age, you stood no chance."
Da was making her sound like a sorceress or worse, a witch. Just like the rumors . . .
"You have doubts. I see it in your eyes. Do you no' ken, son? When you find your mate, it feels like the hands of gods have reached out to touch you, like your soul's been branded. There is no doubt. And there is no way you could willingly part from her, as you've obviously been doing with the succubus for years. Will, heed my words: where your mate goes, you follow."
Will grimaced as a sharper surge of pain hit. Da continued talking, clearly aiming to distract him. He told Will and Munro all about the first time he'd met Mam, a tale they'd heard before. But tonight it highlighted aspects of Will's own meeting with Ruelle.
She'd lured him to her cottage with sweets. He'd been reluctant, half terrified of her, half fascinated. When he'd tentatively entered, she'd lavished gifts on him, complimenting him, as if she were . . . taming him.
Or trapping him?
The firelight had just begun to dim when Will's Instinct suddenly commanded -SAVE HER!-
Da and Munro must've received the same warning. They shot to their feet.