Iona slowly walked around Latham’s body. Jamie stood over his brother, chest heaving, and with blood dripping from his claws.
“Looks like I’m still living just fine,” Iona murmured to the dead werewolf. She was living, and Latham had finally gotten just what he deserved.
His eyes were wide open. His face twisted in horrified disbelief. He truly hadn’t thought that he’d die.
He’d been wrong.
She stared down into his eyes. She could still see the madness there. Even in death. “I went to Latham…” It seemed like another life. Maybe because it was. “Because I wanted to form a truce between the vampires and the werewolves. I didn’t want more bloodshed.”
When blood was all they had around them.
She looked away from Latham. Stared up at Jamie. “I wish you’d been in the pack when I came calling.”
“So do I.”
Her head tilted as she studied him. “What would you have done?”
“Loved you from the start.”
She blinked and shook her head. “No, you—”
“I know you don’t love me, Iona.”
They were standing over his brother’s body. It wasn’t a place to talk about love. Not the right place. Not the right time. There was too much death here. Too many memories.
And she wouldn’t lie. “I don’t know what I feel for you.” At that moment, she just felt…relieved. One less monster to face.
Finally, she was free. Latham would never hurt her again. Free.
Jamie’s gaze held her own. “Do you think,” he asked her softly, “that one day, you might?”
Her eyes wanted to sting with tears. Tears, from the Blood Queen? What had happened to her? Maybe it was the place. The echoes of pain and sadness. Get away. She couldn’t be there any longer.
Or maybe…maybe it was Jamie. He was asking for things that she wasn’t sure that she could give to him. Fifteen years…gone. She wanted to see the world again. See what had changed. Learn how she’d changed.
She couldn’t talk to him about love then. She needed her freedom.
A freedom that their bond had taken away.
Iona spun around, giving him her back. Then she began to walk away, from Latham and from Jamie. Every step that she took tore at her heart.
What was she supposed to feel for Jamie? Everything had happened too soon. Love couldn’t come this way for her.
She needed time. Time was stolen from me. Now I have to learn to live again.
Good thing that she was a vampire. Time was on her side. Always.
“Iona!” Jamie’s cry stopped her. Not because he yelled after her with fury or desperation. But because he said her name with…love. Maybe he’d been saying it that way for a while now, and she just hadn’t noticed.
He’d stopped calling me ‘baby’ and he’d been calling me ‘love.’” Her throat ached. She glanced back at him. He hadn’t moved. He wasn’t trying to stop her from leaving him. Maybe because Jamie knew that she’d have to come back to him, sooner or later.
The blood would always bind them.
“Do you think you ever might?” Jamie said the words softly, with blood on his flesh, with his claws out, and with his eyes so fierce and bright.
She needed to give him an answer. Iona just wasn’t sure what to say. So she didn’t speak, but, almost helplessly, she found herself nodding. It was a small movement, and she wasn’t even sure he noticed it. Then she saw the hope on his face and knew that he had.
“But I can’t stay with you because we have to be together.” She’d come to hate him then, just as he’d hate her if she forced him to stay at her side. “It should be…we should be together because that’s what we want. Because anything else is unthinkable to us.” That was why she had to get away then. Latham was dead. The battle over. Now she had to figure out what the hell she wanted. What she needed.
So with her head up and her back straight, she began walking once more. She passed by the dead. Passed a silent Sean. She didn’t let her tears fall. After all, she truly was the daughter of a king, and she wouldn’t let anyone see her break. Not Sean. And not even the one man who’d managed to touch a heart she’d long thought was ice-cold.
Chapter Eight
“Are you sure that you’re ready for this?” The witch stood over Jamie, a silver knife gripped in his hand.
The tip of that knife burned molten.
“It’s going to hurt like a bitch,” the witch warned then the guy gave a long whistle. “I sure as hell hope the woman is worth it.”
Jamie gritted his teeth. Ray was a smart-ass, some witch that Sean had literally dug up from a hole in Mexico, but the guy knew his magic.
Well, his dark magic anyway.
And he knew how to break the bond that locked Jamie’s blood to Iona’s.
Two months. Two long f**king months had passed since she’d walked away from him in LA.
He knew where she was, of course, because it wasn’t easy to overlook a woman like her.
He’d sent his blood sent to her. Werewolf take-out. But he hadn’t gone to her, because he couldn’t offer her the one thing that she needed.
Choice.
He’d taken that from Iona when he gave her his blood.
I can’t stay with you because we have to be together. Her voice haunted his nights. And his days. It should be…we should be together because that’s what we want. Because anything else is unthinkable to us.
Anything else was unthinkable to him, and without her, he was going insane. Slowly, moment-by-brittle-moment insane.
He needed her. He wanted her. And, hell, yeah, he’d get his heart cut out for her. Not because you have to be with me. Once the spell was broken, she could stay because that was what she wanted to do.
“You have to sever the bond to free your vampire.” Ray looked a little too comfortable holding that knife three inches above Jamie’s chest.
Sean stood in the background muttering once more about bad ideas and wrong choices. The same song he’d been singing when they first went to wake up Iona.
“Am I gonna live through this?” Jamie asked the witch.
Ray frowned at that. “You expect to live?” He seemed surprised. “I thought it was just about her living.” He began to lower the knife. “I can’t make any guarantees for you.”
Sean lunged forward and grabbed Ray’s wrist. “Guarantee it.” Lethally soft.
Ray swallowed.
Jamie stared at the tip of the knife.