“Am I to take from the tears and damaged iris that your Lycan hunt didn’t go as planned?”
“Ben!” Elspeth hissed. “Ye are no’ helpin’.”
Lord Benjamin shrugged, stepped into the room, and then dropped into a chair across from Sorcha. “Tell me your problems, lass. I may have a different way of looking at them.”
Meaning he was a man. Her eyes dropped to her lap and she said nothing.
“Come now,” he said softly. “I know you had your heart set on one of Eynsford’s brothers. But you wouldn’t want to be a relation of his.”
Elspeth returned to the settee and resumed her spot beside Sorcha. “Ben, ye’re no’ helpin’,” she said again.
“Besides Cait has told her more times than I can count that a Lycan is no’ in Sorcha’s future.”
“Cait can go hang,” Sorcha grumbled, which earned her twin gasps from both Elspeth and her Lycan husband. But Sorcha wouldn’t take it back. She didn’t want to hear another word about Cait or her visions. No, there were no Lycans in Sorcha’s future, according to Cait. The only man she could look forward to was a vampyre who could never love her. It wasn’t fair! “If I want a Lycan, I doona think I should let Cait’s vision stand in my way. Besides…”
“Yes?” Lord Benjamin sat forward in his seat, shifting Rose from one arm to the other.
“I ken what Cait has seen for me, and I doona want any part of it.”
“She told ye?” Elspeth gasped. Everyone knew it was unspeakable for Cait to share the futures she saw. It went against the very principles of her gift.
Sorcha turned back to her coven sister. “Do ye ken what she saw for me?” It would be beyond the pale if Cait had told others, but never her. Elspeth simply blinked at her, which really didn’t answer Sorcha’s question in the least.
“Well, it doesna matter. I willna marry a vampyre who canna love me. Ye healed a wolf who was broken, El. There’s got ta be a way ta mend my heart. Tell me ye’ll try.”
“Vampyre?” Benjamin echoed. “Caitrin says your future is with a vampyre?”
“It doesna matter what Cait says. I’ll make my own future. Just as soon as Elspeth heals me.”
“For yer heart ta be broken, ye must have fallen for this creature. Perhaps ye should listen ta Cait.”
“Perhaps ye should just—”
“Alec,” Benjamin muttered.
Sorcha sucked in a breath and stared at the Lycan. How had he figured that out so quickly?
He shook his head as though he hardly believed the story. “It is him, isn’t it?”
Tears sprung to her eyes again. “I doona want ta talk about him.”
~*~
Alec paced back and forth at the foot of his bed, trying to decide how on earth he’d gotten into this mess. One minute, he’d had Sorcha in his arms and very nearly had her in his bed, and the next, she was gone, leaving him with a rakish vampyre and two whores, one of whom appeared to be suffering from that vague human affliction called love, or perhaps it was simply jealousy. He scrubbed his forehead in frustration.
When Sorcha left, she’d taken everything that was bright in his life with her. His passion. His happiness. His future.
She’d walked right out the door and taken it all with her.
Now he had to get it back. He just had to. The utter look of devastation on her face would have broken his heart, if he still had one. In his case, it just worried him. It worried him to no end that he’d messed up his only chance with her. He worried that he’d somehow hurt her. And that was just intolerable. He’d kill anyone who dared to wipe the smile from his witch’s face. Here he’d gone and done it himself.
A scratch sounded at his door. “Go away,” he groused at the noise.
“Mr. MacQuarrie,” Gibson called out hesitantly. “I’m sorry ta bother ye, but ye have a visitor.”
Alec opened the door with such force that the old man tumbled into the room. “Haven’t you let enough people into this house for one day?” he snapped.
The butler adjusted his jacket and squared his shoulders.
“I admitted the others a few days ago,” he amended. “Mr. Browning assured me that he and his sisters were great friends of yers from London. And that ye’d be highly irritated if I didn’t see ta yer wishes and allow them ta stay until yer return.”
Alec shot Gibson a look of incredulity. “You know good and well that those women