She shrugged, still keeping her arms locked around him. “Until now, I’ve never tried to help a person. I wasn’t entirely sure it would work.”
He tried being dispassionate and dragged his hands across his eyes. “What would you have done if it hadn’t?”
“I don’t know.” She kissed him again, a whisper of her lips along the rigid line of his jaw. “I guess I’d have gone for help.”
He shuddered; he couldn’t help it. Though he didn’t really understand how or why, her nearness calmed the storm inside him. His wolf leaned into her, drawing comfort from her presence. His human self...felt more confused than anything else.
“I think you should leave me alone.” Trying for contempt, the most he could manage was a sort of tormented defeat. This too infuriated and enraged him.
“I’ll never leave you,” she promised. “Now let me help you.”
“Do I have a choice?” Forcing himself to relax, which seemed counterproductive, he tried to harden his heart against whatever foolishness she would try to use to convince him he wasn’t—
“Evil? A madman? A killer as bad as him?” She indicated Chad. “You’re not, I promise you.”
Glowering at her, he shook his head. “How did you do that?”
Again she lifted her slender shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. I simply hear your thoughts inside my head.”
Like a mate. Gut knotting, he closed his eyes. This couldn’t be happening, couldn’t be real. For all he knew, he was in the throes of a dream and would wake to find his madness had manifested itself once again while he slept.
“Whatever,” she scoffed, softening her words with a quick kiss. “Magic is real, you know. And one thing I have learned is that magic takes individual forms with different Sidhe.”
She caressed him, her touch sure and comforting. Even though he wasn’t sure he wanted comfort, he held still, feeling a bit like she was trying to free him from invisible bonds, like he was a wild animal caught in a trap.
Which, he reflected grimly, he actually sort of was.
“All right,” he finally managed. “Go ahead and try.”
Chapter 18
Warmth flowed from her fingers. More than that. Enchantment. Shimmering, beautiful, glorious.
Bright.
Stunned, he could feel it heating his skin, and deeper. His blood and his soul. Forgiveness, acceptance and hope. Hope was something he’d lost sight of a long, long time ago. Even as it washed over him, cleansing him, he tried to push it away, to resist. He wasn’t certain he believed in such a thing any longer.
“Of course you do,” she said, once again inside of his head.
As her fingers kneaded his skin, he closed his eyes, letting his head drop until his chin rested on his chest.
Inside, his wolf luxuriated in the sensation. No—he luxuriated. All of him.
“That’s right,” she murmured encouragingly. “You are no longer separate. You are one.”
“Easy enough for you to say,” he told her slowly. “But you don’t know how it’s been for me. Becoming the wolf is like a drug for me. I love it so much—and when I’m wolf I don’t want to ever change back to man.”
“That’s because you’ve been so busy suppressing the wolf inside you. When he finally got a taste of freedom, he didn’t want to go back to his cage.”
Reaching inward, he realized she was right. “How do you know this?” he asked, letting wonder fill his voice.
She smiled again, the beauty of it lighting up her face. “I told you I talk to animals. Your wolf part told me. You could have found this out yourself, if you’d only taken the time to ask.”
Inside, his wolf rumbled his agreement.
Stunned, Ruben looked at her. This lovely woman who had come to mean so much to him. So much—he cut off the thought, afraid she would pluck it from his mind.
In truth, perhaps she already had. She beamed at him, contentment shining from her brown eyes. The same satisfaction filled him as well, making him realize until now, he’d never been fully alive.
Was this a new kind of magic? She was Sidhe after all.
“Yes.” She gave him a tremulous smile. “All my life I’ve believed I was without magic. An outcast, bastard born, so different from everyone that even my own mother could hardly bear to look at me.”
The sorrow in her voice touched him, breaking past the barriers his own inner agony had erected. “And now?” he asked.
“Now I’ve learned there is so much more to me than I ever could have imagined. My