“I know you in a way none other ever could,” he argued.
She shook her head.
“I have killed for you,” he claimed.
Her body went rigid with shock. “What?”
“Your father told me you wondered where I had gone. He told you I was hunting.”
The import of his words was not lost on her, but it was only secondary in that moment. “You spoke to my father first?”
“It is proper. And he needed to know it was done.”
“What? What was done?”
“The men who hurt you. They are dead.”
TEN
How?” She did not doubt his wolf’s prowess at the hunt, but how had Bryant found the men whom she had not seen in five years?
“Lais helped me. Based on your descriptions and what he knew of his former clansmen, he was able to guess at the identity of the one who did this.” Bryant ran his thumb over the scar on one of her wrists.
“He was Donegal then?”
“Aye. Lais did not participate in the kill, but he helped us to track your tormentors.”
“But why?”
“Justice.”
“What of mercy?”
“You were not their only victim.”
“How do you know?”
“They confessed . . . boasted more like.”
“And for that, they had to die?”
“Aye.”
She tried to feel shock, or dismay, but all she experienced was a profound relief. “I am glad.”
“Aye, because they did not break your spirit.”
“My father thinks they did.”
“He knows better now.”
“Because you told him?”
“Yes.”
“Is killing love then?” she asked, not mocking, but trying to understand.
“Let me show you what it means to be mated to the one destiny created just for you and then you will tell me what love is.”