Beneath a Midnight Moon - By Amanda Ashley Page 0,61
and yet the blood of wolves, of the Wolffan, runs in my veins. I can’t explain it any better than that.”
“What of our children?”
“They will be like other children.”
“Except the seventh one.”
“Aye. It’s both blessing and curse, Kylene. I can’t change who and what I am, not even for you.” He drew a deep, shuddering sigh. “Not even if I could.”
Kylene bit down on her lip as she tried to gather her thoughts. She loved him, she could not leave him. She nodded as she made her decision.
“Then we’ll have no seventh-born child.”
“You forget, lady, that you, too, are a seventh-born child. Would you rather that you had not been born?”
“But no curse was born with me.”
His eyes were as hard and gray as stone as he looked at her.
“You were born to be mine, lady,” he said softly. “Perhaps that is curse enough.”
The pain in his voice tore at her heart. She longed to run to him, to tell him it didn’t matter, but she stood rooted to the floor.
A muscle worked in Hardane’s jaw as he saw the uncertainty and confusion in her eyes.
Without a word, he turned on his heel and left the room.
The door closed softly behind him.
It sounded like a death knell in her ears.
Chapter 26
Feeling as though he had received a mortal wound, Hardane left the keep.
For a moment, he stood in the moonlight, his head thrown back, his hands clenched as he fought the searing agony that Kylene’s words had inflicted on his soul.
And then, because it was in his blood, because it had always been his way when he was troubled, he transformed into the wolf and began to run through the night.
There was solace in racing across the countryside. His senses were more keen, more alert, and he ran effortlessly, tirelessly. He caught the scent of rabbits, of squirrels, of deer and wild boar. The scent of feral wolves hunting in the dark of the night.
He had, on occasion, met his wild cousins in the forest. They were wary of him, sensing that, though he shared their shape, he was not one of them. And yet he could communicate with them, and they with him.
But it was not wolves on his mind tonight. It was the look of disbelief in Kylene’s eyes, the horror he’d read in her mind when she accepted the fact that he was as much wolf as man, that it wasn’t merely a random shape he assumed at will, but a part of him.
For the first time, he had been ashamed of who and what he was.
And yet he could not blame her. He knew, deep inside, that he should have told her the truth long ago. There had been times when he’d been tempted, times when he’d been on the verge of telling her everything, but he’d lacked the courage to confess the truth.
To risk the possibility of losing her love, of watching the affection in her eyes turn to revulsion.
He ran on, his sides heaving, his breathing hard, and fast.
Had he lost her forever?
After a time, he stopped running. Dropping to his haunches, he lifted his head and howled with misery.
And from the distance, like the echo of the pain in his heart, he heard the answering cries of his feral cousins as they lifted their voices to mingle with his.
Chapter 27
Kylene spent a long and sleepless night waiting for Hardane to return.
Sitting on the window seat staring into the darkness, she heard the far-off cry of a wolf. She knew instinctively that it was Hardane, that he was giving voice to his anger and frustration, to the agony her words had caused him.
Later, she heard other cries rise to meld with the first. Surprisingly, she could distinguish Hardane’s cry from those of the other wolves.
The real wolves.
The wild wolves.
Hardane was a wolf, but not a wolf.
He was a man, but not a man like any other.
Could she live with him, knowing that?
Could she live without him?
If only he hadn’t left her, if only he’d let her explain. And yet, what could she have said? She’d been appalled by what Lord Kray had told her, shocked to learn that the wolf form was not merely a shape he could assume at will but an inherent part of him.
If only he’d told her the truth sooner . . .
She shook her head ruefully. It would still have come as a shock and she probably would have reacted just as she had—with fear and revulsion.