Nobody's Hero (26 page)

"Then tell me this," McClain locked hard green eyes on him, suddenly serious. "It never goes away, Luc. The monster... It's always there, lurking inside me, inside us... How can you risk it? How can you stay here, with her and Lily, knowing it might come out one day?"

"How did you stay there?" he replied. "All those years, with all those people, even your sister?"

McClain shuddered. "That was the second time I ever turned, did you know that? The second time. I think I managed to bury it for so many years, once I put the amulet on, that I forgot how hard it was. I had this... this illusion that I controlled it. Keeping it locked up never hurt as much as it does now. I feel like the monster got a taste of what it feels like to tear through my skin, and breathe the hot, scented air of a desert night. It could smell the people around it, and my mouth was watering at the taste of flesh. At the idea of eating my
friends
." His voice roughened. "It's still there, and it's hungrier than it ever was. It yearns now. It remembers what it feels like to be
free
." McClain swallowed, his voice breaking. "How do I ever risk finding a home again? How can I ever hope... for anything... when it lurks inside me?"

"Because it's not uncontrollable," Luc admitted.

McClain breathed a bitter laugh. "Then what happens when one night it breaks free and you tear your wife to pieces, Wade? You want truth? That's the truth, staring you right in the face, even if you won't admit it. You can't lock the warg away within you forever."

That was fear talking.

"I always used to think that too. I was so afraid to destroy the people I loved, that I walked out on my wife and daughter. For years, I never considered that there could be another option." Luc sighed, reluctant to even remember that night when Riley had held a monster's hand and lived to tell of it. That memory would haunt his dreams forever. "But I've made my peace with myself, and the truth is this: I'm not afraid to live a life with Riley. I'm not. Because I've stared that fear in the eye, and I got through it." McClain shot him a hopeless look, but Luc powered on. "You want the truth? Cane locked me in with Riley, and took my amulet. All night."

McClain's eyes sharpened. "And you didn't turn?"

Luc shook his head. "I turned. I can't even explain it. You know we're always there inside the warg, or at least a part of us is. It scared the hell out of me, that I could lose... lose the one woman I loved, at my own hands. For the first time, I was in control of the beast. I was the one holding the reins as it lurked deep inside me, even when I wore its skin."

McClain breathed out a laugh. "Fuck." He looked utterly haggard. "It's like a dream."

"No, it's not," Luc said. "It was a nightmare, McClain. If Riley had shown a single hint of fear, she'd be dead. The monster would have roused at the scent of it, and overridden me. And I had someone else that I was saving all of its rage for. We were lucky. But... I understand now." Their eyes met. "I don't blame you for what you did to me, not with your own sister locked in the cell with you."

He looked away, toward where his daughter was smiling at Cole, trying to trap the kid's hand in a cat's cradle as they walked around the corner. Lily laughed, and his throat thickened. "You didn't have a choice, and in the same situation I admit now that I might have chosen the same path. And I made my own choices in response to what I'd become, decisions that I could rue until the day I die, if not for the fact that there's no point. You can't second-guess yourself. I can't go back and stop myself from leaving Abbie and Lily, and if I'm honest, my uncle probably would have shot me anyway. Then I'd still not be there when the reivers killed Abbie.

"So I don't blame you anymore. You did what you had to, and then you tried to make amends. Thank you for looking after Lily for me."

McClain's face wore a hard mask. "It was the least I could do."

Both of them stared at each other.

"Even?" Luc suggested.

McClain nodded gruffly. "Even."

Riley walked back out into the yard with a jug of water drawn from the well. Hot sunshine turned the blonde of her hair into a gleaming halo, though Luc had no aspirations that she was anything angelic. Grumpy, fearless, protective, stubborn, brave, and kind... That was his woman. The type of woman who wouldn't back down when those who belonged to her were threatened.

He couldn't help but notice that he wasn't the only one watching her.

"She suits you," McClain said simply. "And you suit her. I'm not going to lie. I don't understand it."

Because he'd wanted her too, and when weighed against each other, who was the better man? Luc's lips thinned. "The problem is you never understood her. You wanted her to be something she's not."

Another laugh. "You're probably right." McClain's voice dropped into wistfulness. "I'm glad she found you. She did what I could not."

"She believes in me." And more than that... "She makes me feel like I'm not just a man, but a good one. She's my everything."

Silence swelled between them.

As if they'd spoken enough on matters that bordered on personal, McClain looked around at the rubble of Haven. "You're going to stay here?"

"It's Riley's home," he replied. "And I like it here. I can keep the reivers and wargs at bay, and Riley's going to see if some of the others from Haven want to return."

"They won't want to live with you in their midst, Luc."

He shrugged. "Then they can stay at Absolution. Their choice." He looked up. "You're going then?"

McClain nodded. "Not much left for me here."

"You made them what they were."

"I'm a warg, Luc." It was hard to meet those eyes. There was none of the forgiveness there that he had found. "And I lied to them. That trumps everything. I'm no longer McClain, the man who built a haven for them. I'm the monster that hid in their ranks. The Council made a decision. For the services I rendered—" His voice thickened with bitterness "—they'll let me live, on the condition that I never return. I'll take Cole with me, perhaps head south."

"What about Eden?"

"What do you mean?" Riley asked, pausing beside them and offering McClain the jug of water. "What's up with Eden?"

"She doesn't know you've left, does she?" Luc asked, sliding an arm around Riley's waist.

"It's not safe for her out here," McClain said promptly, taking a mouthful of water and nodding a thanks at her.

"Does she think the same?" Riley asked.

McClain shrugged and looked away, tracking the horizon with his gaze. "Cole and I left before dawn. I've risked her life enough, I think."

"Man, you really don't understand women, do you?" Luc said.

That earned him a hard look. "What would you have me do? I know what her choice would be."

"Then let her make her choice," Riley said.

"No. At Absolution, she has a place, a voice on the Council, and the prospect of more... A husband, children. I want that for my sister."

McClain didn't say what else he was thinking, but it was clear in the tone of his voice – he wanted that for himself too. Luc knew what that felt like, the longing for something you didn't think you were worthy of. Finding it had come when he'd least expected it, but accepting it had only happened when he'd laid the demons of his past to rest.

He still wasn't certain he deserved it, but he was damned sure he wasn't going to let the chance slip away from. He squeezed Riley a little tighter.

"I'll keep an eye on Eden," Luc told him. "As payback for what you did for Lily."

A sharp nod. McClain didn't thank him, but then that had never been the way they'd worked. "We'd best get moving then," he said. "Before Eden sends out a search party."

"If she does, then I'm going to tell her exactly where you went," Riley muttered, taking the jug of water back from him.

"Wouldn't expect anything else," McClain said dryly.

Cole joined McClain, and they both kicked their starter motors over.

Lily's hand slipped into Luc's again as she watched McClain get on his bike. It filled him with hope. Each small gesture was a step forward for their relationship.

"Hope you find what you're looking for," he said softly, knowing McClain would hear him.

McClain gave them all one last nod, waved good-bye, and then he and Cole headed out into the Wastelands.

Luc didn't bother to watch them go, turning his little family back to the half-ruined house. The past was done. He was only looking forward from now on.

W
ant
to find out what McClain's going to do with his life now? The story continues with The Last True Hero...
Read on for an excerpt...

-
I
f you enjoyed
Nobody's Hero, then get ready for The Last True Hero! Book two in the Burned Lands series, it will be available in early 2017, so make sure you sign up for my
newsletter
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-
C
an't wait
for more Burned Lands action and romance? Check out my
London Steampunk
series. I recommend starting with Kiss Of Steel. Not only is it the first book, but it also features a cocky, bad boy anti-hero who captured my heart from the very first moment he came onscreen. There's humour, heroes to die for, dangerous plots, sexy corsets, kick-bustle heroines, duels, steamy kisses (not-just-kisses), and vampires. They may not be your regular sexy vampires either.

-
T
hank
you for reading Nobody's Hero! I hope you enjoyed it. Please consider leaving a review online, to help others find my books.

N
ot ready to leave the
Burned Lands? Read on for a preview of what's next for Adam McClain...

E
ight years ago
...

T
HE FIRST TIME Adam McClain
put the gun in his mouth, he couldn't pull the trigger. He'd found a nice lonely spot out in the Badlands, far enough away from his sister that she wouldn't find the body, and one with a beautiful view over the Great Divide, which split the continent in half.

He didn't want to die. Maybe that was what stopped him. Or maybe it was the thought of his sister, Eden, who would be left alone in a harsh world, with no one to protect her. Or maybe it was his shame–the knowledge that he was not alone in feeling this way. The partner he'd once ridden with, Lucius Wade, would be staring at the same sky, feeling the same rush of blood through his veins that Adam felt as the moon became a glint on the horizon.

And it was because of Adam that Wade shared the same predicament.

So he took the coward's way out. He pulled the gun out of his mouth, and dropped it to the ground. Night was slowly falling, and with it came the heat in his blood, the moon's curse. He could feel it whispering through his veins, as the monster within fought to free itself.

Thou shalt not suffer a warg to live.
That was the first law he'd ever learned, at the knee of his stern bounty hunter father. Adam had followed in his footsteps, hunting the wargs and shadow cats that lurked in the shadows of the wastelands, and it was only now that he recognised the irony.

As muscle ripped and bones tore themselves in half and reformed, he screamed his rage out into the empty night. It was the first time he'd shifted, and the agony of it was blinding. Soon there was nothing more than a monster remaining, and the man that Adam was, lay buried deep inside the brutish beast's heart.

When the sun rose in the morning, he found himself a man again, naked and panting on the blistering sands of the desert floor, with blood on his hands, and the taste of it in his mouth. It was a long walk back to where he'd been, his feet healing even as the harsh rocky floor tore them apart.

Adam put the gun in his mouth again. This time he knew the bone deep truth of what he'd become. His hands shook. Eden flashed into his mind again.

'Promise me, you'll watch over her, boy,'
his father's voice whispered in his mind, from a memory long ago, when his father had ridden out that last time.

Adam had always kept his promises, even if he'd had to stab his best friend in the back to do so. His hands were shaking so hard when he pulled the gun out of his mouth the second time, that he actually crushed the handpiece.

A wink of pewter caught his eye from the black bag he'd brought with him. Adam stared at it for a long time, knowing that he didn't deserve it. The amulet was a promise too. A dream of another life. He'd taken it from Bartholomew Cane, the man who'd changed him into... this. Cane wore one himself, as did his warg partner, Johnny Colton. Though Adam wanted both their heads, he'd wanted what the amulet represented more.

A way to keep the beast at bay. A way to hide what he was in a crowd of humans. A means to pretend that nothing had changed, that he was still the man he'd always been.

Wade had promised them all vengeance. That was the only thing that kept his once-partner sane after what had happened between them. But Adam had something else to live for.

Atonement.

So he dressed himself in the spare clothes he'd bought–perhaps he'd known he couldn't really do–and then he started back toward the beaten up old motorcycle that had brought him here.

Eden would be wondering where he was, and Adam had promises to keep...