The Little Magus Who Could. The silly nickname made him smile, and his heart kicked just thinking her name.
Knight helped him finish rinsing off, but by then much of Rook’s strength had returned. He wouldn’t be getting into any wrestling matches or shifting in the near future, but he could handle toweling off on his own. Knight wrung his soaked boxer briefs out in the sink while Rook shimmied back into his jeans. His blood- and sweat-stained t-shirt could stay on the floor where Brynn had dropped it.
He sat back down on the toilet seat while Knight wrapped ointment and gauze around the two fingers missing nails, as well as his wrists and neck. The wounds would scar, thanks to the silver that had eaten down through skin and muscle—constant reminders of the night they’d endured. Worse than his own physical pain, though, was the fact that Knight wouldn’t look him in the eye. Knight hadn’t said anything in the time they’d been alone in the bathroom that wasn’t an order to move this way or that.
Rook had been half-delirious during Knight’s initial conversation with Fiona and Victoria, but he was sure he remembered all of it. The three of them were in that bedroom for a long time. Anything could have happened. Knight may have purchased a shirt to cover up the scratches on his chest, but they were still there beneath the cheap cotton. Despite the strong lingering scent of bleach, Knight’s skin also carried the stink of those women.
Rook had no idea how to talk to him.
“There’s a bag of snacks and drinks on the bed,” Knight said once he’d finished his doctoring. “I want you to eat something, drink some water, then get some sleep.”
“I should call Father.”
“Brynn and I can take care of that. I need you healthy, little brother.” Knight threw his trash into the tiny wastebasket, then pushed the medical supplies to the back of the sink.
“What about you?”
“I’m fine.” Knight picked up the bottle of antibacterial body wash. “I need to take a shower.”
“Knight—”
“Please, Rook.” He brushed past Rook and turned on the faucet in the tub. “Just . . . later?”
It wasn’t a promise to talk, but Rook wasn’t being completely shut out. Only momentarily dismissed. “Okay, I’ll be here. For anything.”
“Thank you.”
Rook reluctantly shut the bathroom door on his brother, hating that he couldn’t do more to ease Knight’s pain. The main room was empty. He peeked out the front window. Brynn was in the front seat of the car wiping her eyes with a paper napkin. The sight of her drying tears infuriated his beast. He hated seeing her so upset, especially after she’d done so much for him tonight. He let the curtain fall shut, ashamed at intruding on her private moment. They’d all been through a lot. Brynn had led a quiet life up until walking into Cornerstone. She wasn’t used to this sort of violence.
None of them were, really, but loup garou were built for violence. It was the nature of their beasts. Magi thrived on magic and order, not blood and chaos. Brynn still had no idea of her dual natures, that she had loup blood in her veins. After all of this, how would they manage to tell her such a shocking secret? Would she hate him for keeping it from her?
He found the bag of food. He’d scarfed down two protein bars and half a liter of water by the time Brynn came back inside. Her eyes were puffy and red, but she smiled when she saw him, and that eased him some.
“You look so much better,” she said. She locked the door, then came around to sit on the opposite bed.
“Cold showers can work wonders.” He winked.
Brynn’s eyes went wide, then she laughed. “I imagine so.” Her smile faltered, then disappeared completely, and he wanted it back. “I called your father and gave him an overview of the situation. It wasn’t my place to tell him about O’Bannen, but he asked. I had to tell him the truth.”
“It’s okay. You were there.”
“I’m so sorry he died.”
“That wasn’t your fault, Brynn. He knew the danger of his plan, and his sacrifice won’t be forgotten.”
“Did he have a family?”
She had so much to learn about run life. “In a way, we were all his family. But yes, he has—had a wife and one daughter. She’s ten.”
Her eyes filled with tears. God, he didn’t want her to cry anymore. Rook slid off his bed and sat next to her. Slipped an arm around her waist, glad when she let herself collapse against his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head, in awe of the easy way she fit there. Her pounding heart sent his own racing to the beat of a new song he’d never heard before. A song meant only for the precious creature in his arms.
“You’re a wonder to me,” he said softly. “You care so much for the feelings of people you barely know.”
“Compassion isn’t so mysterious.”
“It is when the compassion comes from a Magus to a loup. You saved our lives tonight, Brynn. My father won’t forget it. Neither will I.”
“I’d do it again. You’re important to me.”
He couldn’t stop his smile, or the way his blood hummed with awareness—of her, of her nearness, of the significance of her words. “You’re important to me, too.”
She pulled back, and for a moment, he thought he’d offended her somehow. She didn’t move away, though, just studied his face, his eyes, his mouth. Her fragrance overtook his senses—flowers and bitter orange and something perfectly, wondrously female.
Brynn.
He inhaled deeply, drinking her in. His pulse thrummed. Her nostrils flared.
They moved together into a gentle kiss, just a lingering brush of lips. Duct tape had abused his skin for hours, and the softness of her lips was a balm to the roughness of his. He wanted to draw her in, to devour her mouth, but that would lead them to places they weren’t ready to go. A place that, as a Black Wolf, he was unable to go with her because of her loup blood. But by God and heaven, he wanted her. Wanted her like he’d not wanted a woman in his life, and despite his exhaustion, felt the first stirrings of arousal.
The kiss ended too soon, without nearly enough contact, and left him breathing much too hard for its gentleness. Brynn blinked at him, eyes wide, arms trembling. She smiled and any fear of a negative reaction from her evaporated. He pulled her back into his arms, overcome by the urge to keep her close, keep her safe. Even his beast agreed.
Mine.
She curled into him and rested there. “This is impossible, isn’t it?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“We’re from two different worlds, Rook. A bird cannot live in the ocean with a fish.”
“Penguins can swim there, though.”
She laughed, her breath warm against his neck. The melody of her laughter rumbled from her chest to his heart, and he committed the sound to memory. “What if the penguin has never learned to swim?”
“Then she’ll have to find a dedicated fish who will teach her.”
The shower turned off, and the small motel room was suddenly too quiet. The spell around them shattered as the world came rushing back in. Brynn got up and rummaged through the bag of groceries for water and a snack. Rook watched her slow, graceful movements, mesmerized by such a simple thing as her unwrapping a granola bar, while all of the challenges they still faced came racing back into his head. He had to take care of Knight. They had to get home in the morning and face the near extinction of another loup garou run. Rook had to deal with the failure of letting his ass get kidnapped. Some kind of Alpha material.
Alpha material. The run would never accept someone with Magus blood as the Alpha’s mate. Sharp understanding stabbed his heart—if he wished to be the Alpha of the Cornerstone run, he could never be with Brynn.
They truly were an impossible match.
***
Brynn stared at the shadowed ceiling of the motel room, listening to the comforting sounds of two men breathing in the other bed, unable to find the sleep they’d both captured long ago. Images of the last few hours continued to haunt her thoughts and fuel her anxiety.
Her kiss with Rook played over and over in her mind, a steady revisit of an unexpected intimacy. It wasn’t her first kiss, of course. She wasn’t a blushing virgin. She was, however, far from being a skilled lover, and she imagined Rook—former rock star and handsome college student—had expectations exceeding her limited experience.
The first boy who’d shown any interest in her had preyed upon her seventeen-year-old heart’s need for affection and attention. Robert’s seduction had been perfect—flowers, compliments, gentle words. She hadn’t realized until years later how skillfully he’d trained her to accept his smothering kisses without complaint, to perform oral sex on him without expecting anything in return. She fell in love with him despite the warning signals in her head. He was the son of a highly placed family who was expected to make a good marriage match, and she would never be an option.
Emotion won out over logic. After five months of keeping their relationship a secret, Robert’s promise to tell his parents about their “perfect love” coaxed her into giving up her virginity. Her first time was brief, rough, and ended with Robert kicking her out of his house with the snarled demand to “never look at me again, you powerless whore.”
Robert had come back into her life two months ago in an entirely new way—as the father of the five-year-old girl who had been her newest tutoring pupil. He was still handsome and charismatic, and he’d married the daughter of another Prime Magus. Their daughter was exceptionally bright and would have been a joy to teach—except that Brynn was fired three weeks later. Robert had picked his daughter up one afternoon from her tutoring session and asked Brynn for a private conversation. He made a very blatant pass at her, and when she shut him down, he threatened her job if she didn’t sleep with him. “No man will want to marry you, so you should take what you’re offered,” he’d said.
Her only true shame from that encounter was that she’d spent a full day considering his offer, almost believing that she would never find anything better than a life as someone’s mistress. Then she steeled her spine and told Robert’s wife. Robert denied it, of course, but the scandal had been created. He had a friend lie for him and say that Brynn accused him of the exact same thing, which led to her dismissal as a Congress tutor. Her own father could barely look her in the eye, and he never asked for her side of the story.
Robert had been her first and only lover so far, but his kisses had been harsh, demanding. Rook kissed her like she was precious, a thing to treasure and not take advantage of, ever. His kiss was the only one that had ever truly mattered, and would matter for the foreseeable future. She couldn’t explain the connection she felt to Rook, the desire to stay close and be part of his life. She was attracted to him, and she shouldn’t be. A Magus simply could not fall in love with a loup garou—the pairing was impossible.
And yet she had the distinct impression that it could happen quite easily with Rook. He gazed at her like no man ever had, as if she was the only thing in the world worth looking at. His touch warmed her skin. She wanted to tease him, to make him laugh and smile and tease her back.
What you want and what you can have are not the same, foolish girl. Understand it now and save yourself the heartbreak later.
Logic warned her to not get involved, to keep her distance from Rook. Her heart urged her to stay close, to get even closer if he was willing.
She didn’t know what to do.
Her thoughts were also occupied by Knight and her vision of him in front of that steaming bathroom mirror. He’d emerged from his shower with an odd stiffness to his gait, his skin scrubbed red and smelling of the soap he’d purchased. He hadn’t spoken a word, just checked Rook’s bandages, then checked his pupils and pulse. Brynn had told him about the phone call home and the plan to call again in the morning. He’d nodded, crawled under the covers of one of the beds, and that was that.
She didn’t know Knight well, but Rook’s open concern and her own intuition told her something was wrong. She had no expectations of gaining Knight’s confidence, and perhaps he’d have discussed it with Rook if she wasn’t there. The brothers had shared an experience during their captivity, one she had no hope of ever understanding—even if it was her place to try to do so.
The frequency of her visions continued to worry her, as well. She might experience two in an entire month, and she’d had multiple visions in just the last two days. Her own father had never seen any value in her ability, while Rook’s father put his faith in her word and allowed her to track down his missing sons.
Her thoughts churned and raced in a thousand directions, slamming into each other and bouncing away. And then something shrill squealed nearby, startling her into sitting upright, her heart racing. Morning sunlight peeked through the blinds, paling the shadows in the room.
Rook took his hand off the ancient alarm clock and blinked bleary eyes at her from the other bed. “You sleep?”
“A little,” Brynn replied. Six o’clock meant she’d drifted off at some point. “Not much.”
“Me, either.”
They roused themselves and cleaned up. Knight gave Rook a new t-shirt from his bag of supplies, then started wiping down the room with a washcloth and diluted bleach. She understood the need to hide their presence here. After a brief swing through a fast food drive-thru for breakfast and coffee, Knight typed their destination into the GPS and set a course for Cornerstone.
Once several sausage sandwiches apiece had been consumed—even Brynn ate two, and she wasn’t normally a breakfast person—Rook set the cell phone on speaker and called home. Brynn shifted forward between the two front seats while they listened to it ring.
“McQueen.”
Rook visibly relaxed at the sound of his father’s voice. “We’re on the road and heading home.”
“Rook.” She’d never heard so much relief in a single word as in the way McQueen said his son’s name. “How are you?”
“Better. The fever’s gone, and the cuts are healing.”
“Knight?”
“Sir?” Knight replied.
“How is he really?”
Brynn glanced at his profile in time to see Knight’s mouth twitch.
“He’s telling the truth. We cleaned the wounds with a cold vinegar bath. We also bleached the room before we left and took all of our trash with us.”