“I do not yet have the control I yearn for over my beast. When I saw that arrogant wolf treating you so poorly, I could not help myself.” A pang of regret momentarily paused his desire. “I did not realize my impetuousness would cost you your position. Rest assured I will help you get it back.”
Gia turned around in his arms and he frowned as her shift put her neck out of his reach.
“Wait a minute,” she said slowly. “Are you telling me that the only reason you issued that challenge was because you feel honor-bound to help me get back the position of lupa?”
“It is my fault you lost your position, is it not?”
Confusion distracted him further from thoughts of her blood. He could tell by the way her body pulled away from him that she was upset with him, but he didn’t know why.
“So I’m, what, some sort of duty for you?”
Anger blossomed in her voice, heating her words until they flew at him like pokers from a hearth fire. He tried to pull her closer, but she rolled away from him. He stared at her dumfounded as she stood.
“Gia, what is wrong? A moment ago you thanked me for issuing the challenge and now you act as though I’ve insulted you.”
“Why did you come here tonight?” she demanded.
Annoyed with her abrupt mood change, Sorin stood as well. He stared into her eyes, searching for some sign of what was wrong with her.
“Are you so vain that you need to hear me say it? Very well. I came to you because I could not stay away.” He stepped forward, the faint beginnings of anger heating his words. “I ache for you, Gia. Every fiber of my being calls out for you. When you left, my beast became a ravenous wild thing, beyond my control. I had to come to you.”
“What took you so long?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?”
“If your beast wanted me so bad, and you were so helpless to control it, than how did you manage to stay away for twenty-eight days?”
Memories of desperately swallowing mouthfuls of Grigore’s concoctions night after night brought a rush of shame to fuel the anger growing in his belly. He had been nothing but a gentleman tonight. He’d defended her honor, issued a challenge on her behalf. He’d done everything honor demanded he do and now she spoke to him as if he were the enemy.
“Ah, so your need to be dominant has not left you with your fall in rank,” he sneered, giving voice to the venom inside him. “You still feel the need to hold your superiority over me, yes? You want to hear that all my years of repressing my wolf left me helpless against it? You want to know all about my pathetic reliance on Grigore and his alchemy?”
She stared at him in silence, an emotion that looked very much like pain shining in her eyes. Even through his cloud of anger he could practically see the wheels spinning in her head. He crossed his arms, refusing to be moved. He’d given her all the information she deserved, he would not spell it out for her.
“Grigore used magic to keep you from coming to me?”
Such a myriad of emotions clouded her face, Sorin couldn’t tell if she was happy, sad, or angry. He gritted his teeth, frustrated.
“Yes.” She continued to stare at him and he growled. “Until tonight.”
“You told him you didn’t want his help anymore?”
Was that hope he heard in her voice? He frowned. “No. He had agreed to help me for one month.” He laughed, an abrupt humorless sound. “I was certain after a month’s time I would be able to resist you on my own. I was mistaken.”
Gia took a step back, staring at him and shaking her head. Her eyes glistened and the sight of impending tears cracked his stony resistance.
“Gia, what is wrong?”
“You don’t want to be with me,” she said quietly.
The pain in her voice was palpable. His heart constricted and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t resist the urge to reach for her.
“That is not true. I want to be with you more than I ever thought possible.”
She jerked away from him, her eyes angry and beseeching all at once. Sorin let his arm fall to his side, baffled by her behavior.
“But you don’t want to want me,” Gia protested.
“Gia, you are not making any sense. I have told you that I had to rely on Grigore’s magic to stay away from you, I’ve come back to you with a passion I cannot imagine finding anywhere else, I’ve issued a challenge for a ritual fight to get you back the position of lupa . . .” He threw up his hands in exasperation. “I do not know what you want from me.”
Her face shut down. Her eyes grew hazy and she dropped her gaze, her shoulders slumped, and her entire body seemed a little less alive. Watching it sent a wave of panic over him, though he didn’t know why.
“If you want to be free of me,” she started softly, “you have to find a replacement. Your wolf craves a mate. All you have to do is find a female that satisfies its primal need for survival and the compulsion you feel to come to me will be gone.”
There is no female that could ever replace you.
“I don’t want to be bound to anyone.” Sorin shrugged helplessly.
“Than why did you issue the challenge?” Gia screamed.
Sorin’s jaw dropped, shocked at her sudden rage. She glared at him with pain brimming in her eyes and her entire body trembling. It was such an abrupt change from the withering pain of a moment before that for a second, all he could do was stare.
“I cost you your position, honor dictates that I help you get it back.”
“By becoming my mate? Did you forget that fighting the challenge with me would make you lycaeon?”
“As I understand it, there is nothing to prevent us from parting amicably.” His voice lacked the conviction he would have liked, but the vehemence of her reaction told him he’d missed something important.
“So you thought you would fight with me, win, get my position back, and then we would just divorce? All that talk about being lycaeon in front of my pack was just a show for them so you could help me become lupa again?”
The shock on her face made it clear that wasn’t an option. Sorin stood there, silent, unsure of what to say. If he were honest with himself, he hadn’t thought much beyond the challenge. Hell, he hadn’t thought much beyond getting to Gia. When he’d been back in his own home, he’d thought only of getting to Gia. Now that he was in her presence, he felt calmer, able to think. Was he fooling himself thinking he could walk away later? If he left her, would the desperate urge to return to her side come back?
“You are a fool,” Gia said quietly, anger ringing in her words. “Pack law says that once two wolves have joined to fight a challenge, barring an infraction that warrants expulsion, they must stay together for no less than a full year. That law is meant to discourage wolves from pairing up just to fight in the challenge.” She shook her head. “Mating was not meant to be treated so carelessly.”
“Byron seemed to join with Rhianne without much thought,” Sorin pointed out.
“Byron’s hatred for vampires is stronger than any other emotion or thought that he has. He would have joined with anyone if it meant keeping you out.” She laughed mirthlessly. “And now he has the added bonus of getting the chance to kill you in the challenge circle.”
“Gia—”
“How could you not know all this?” Gia exploded. “You were a werewolf, for Artemis’ sake, how could you think you could just become my mate for a challenge fight and then walk away?”
“It was not like that in my country,” Sorin responded hotly, anger beginning to make a comeback under her insulting tone. “In my pack, being alpha was not so guaranteed. If another male wished to become alpha, he challenged the current alpha, whether he was part of a mated pair or not. If the challenger won, he could keep the same female or choose another. The same was said for the female alpha, if another female wanted to be alpha she issued a challenge.”
“So the alpha who wasn’t challenged just had to stand by and watch while a fight went on to determine who was their new mate?”
The horror in her voice spoke of a romanticism Sorin hadn’t expected. He almost smiled.
“No. If an alpha wished to fight in his mate’s place, he had that option. Obviously, that usually discouraged female challengers.” He tilted his head. “Though I had one alpha who enjoyed watching his mate fight challenge fights. He felt it kept her from getting lazy.”
“He sounds like an ass.”
Sorin shrugged. “Our pack was very strong under his rule.”
“So you think it’s better to have a mated pair that’s strong than to have a mated pair that is in love?”
Again, the hint of vulnerability in her voice nearly undid him. Still, he couldn’t lie to her.
“Yes.”
She couldn’t have looked more crushed if the entire sky had collapsed on top of her. Before he realized what he was doing, Sorin stepped forward, holding his arms out to her. She held up a hand and stepped away from him.
“No. Don’t touch me.” She dropped her hand. “You’re right. I’ve failed my pack long enough. Their safety matters more than my happiness.” She turned away. “I will meet you here tomorrow at sundown.”
His wolf reared its head, scrabbling to stop Gia from leaving. The sensation nearly bowed Sorin’s back and he actually took a step forward.
“Gia, come back to my home with me.”
She didn’t even look back. “I’ll sleep in the woods.”
“What if Rhianne decides to eliminate you before the fight? She must know she has a strong chance of losing.”
Gia paused. “She won’t try anything. Byron would know she had a hand in it and he would kill her.” She glanced over her shoulder. “That’s the problem with taking a mate who’s stronger than you.”
Sorin just stood there as she disappeared into the forest. He stared down at the tatters of her clothing on the grass around him. The scraps seemed symbolic somehow, as if he’d torn them away to reveal the vulnerable woman underneath. He’d hurt her somehow, hurt her in a way he didn’t understand.
“She’s in love with you.”
The new voice startled Sorin out of his confusion and he whipped around to find Claudiu standing a few yards away, his body partially hidden by a large tree. He wasn’t sure if the fallen lycaeon was deliberately using the tree to shield himself or not, but either way Sorin was furious that he hadn’t noticed his arrival.
“If you have come for a re-match you are in luck,” Sorin snarled, baring his fangs. “I am in precisely the right mood for it.”
Claudiu tilted his head to the side, his pale hair looking almost white in the moonlight. It fell over his eye and Sorin couldn’t help but wonder again how the man managed to see where he was going.
“Gia’s mother was a lupa, you know.”
The scent of Claudiu’s fear rode the night air, but his face didn’t betray the emotion whatsoever. Despite the emotional turmoil feeding his rising temper, Sorin had to respect Claudiu’s façade of calm.
“It is too bad then that your foolishness has cost Gia the honor of carrying on that family tradition.” A rush of satisfaction soothed his frustration. It was nice to be sparring verbally instead of physically for once. Somehow it just seemed more gentlemanly.
As he’d intended, Claudiu’s eyes tightened at the corners and he looked at the ground. Like a wolf spotting a wounded deer, Sorin pressed on.
“Gia carried you like a pup for how long? A decade?” He took a step closer to Claudiu, straightening his spine as much as he could as he looked down at the taller man. “You sullied her name with your pack, betrayed her with her rival, and publicly humiliated her when she needed you most. Did it never even occur to you that when Rhianne proclaimed that Gia was no longer lupa, you could have taken her back?”
Claudiu’ s face shot up and Sorin was shocked at the fury burning in his eyes.
“She wouldn’t have taken me back.” He straightened up, all traces of fear gone from his scent. Sorin stared in amazement as the cowering werewolf glared at him with the force of a vengeful deity. “She’s in love with you. Don’t you get that you pompous corpse? She
loves
you. Aphrodite herself brought you two together and she wouldn’t have gone back to me even to save her position.” He shook his head and laughed, a cold bitter sound. “Gia would rather be a lone wolf than take another man as her mate now.”