Not that he’d known how to fully appreciate Nettie. He’d loved her, sure—she’d been the central joy of his life. But he’d also figured it was only a matter of time before he had a son or two as well.
Then the Lady had gifted him with a Chosen.
A man who’d never failed sure as hell wasn’t going to fail with such a precious gift. Sooner or later, he’d been sure, Claire would become reconciled to the bond. It wasn’t as if she didn’t care about him. She cared deeply, passionately. He just had to be patient, find ways to distract her, make the bond rest as lightly on her as possible. When that didn’t work, he’d focused on keeping her from doing anything irrevocable.
Like driving her car off a cliff.
Benedict had never believed Claire did it on purpose. There had been a cop at the hospital who’d said … but Isen had held Benedict down. The officer had probably never guessed how close he’d come to dying that night.
Claire had always loved to take risks, to push herself, but when he first met her, those risks had been leavened by practicality, practice, and planning. She threw knives for a living, but she’d tried other acts, too—high-wire, trapeze. He’d taught her to skydive. She’d loved it.
Claire had always been restless, too. She’d grown up in the circus and was used to constant travel, but the mate bond wouldn’t allow that. Not unless Benedict went with her. He’d gone with her as much as he could, but she’d hated knowing her freedom was forever limited by what he agreed to do.
The bond also meant that she couldn’t marry. Ever. Wildly unconventional in so many ways, his Claire had wanted marriage, wanted it badly.
The coastal road had been slick with rain that night. Claire had been furious, frantic. And pregnant.
They’d fought when she told him. At least, she had. He’d tried to calm her down, but as usual, that only infuriated her. There was no guarantee he’d be able to give her a baby himself, so in spite of his sorrow that this baby wasn’t his, he could rejoice that she would have a child of her own. He would gladly raise it with her.
That wasn’t what she wanted. He wasn’t sure she’d known herself what she wanted from him by then. Jealousy, maybe. She would have understood that. Or maybe she’d wanted exactly what she said she did. The demand she’d hurled at him had been simple enough: Marry me or get out of my life.
He couldn’t do either one. And she couldn’t understand why. Why couldn’t he thumb his nose at the “lupi don’t marry” dictum? Hadn’t she thumbed her nose at everyone by taking up with him in the first place?
By then he’d been tired of explaining. Tired of her irrationality, her refusal to believe him or accept the reality of the bond. When she’d flung herself out the door and into the jazzy little convertible he’d bought her for her birthday, he hadn’t called her back.
She’d died on the operating table.
As they left the nursery, a big yellow Lab came romping up, trying to coax them to play. Arjenie laughed and rumpled his ears, which reduced him to bliss. Benedict introduced them.
“Mondo?” Upon hearing his name, the dog immediately plopped down and offered his belly for a rub. She grinned, bent down, and complied. “What a perfect name for this big guy. He’s huge, all right. Though I don’t think he fits the Spanish meaning of ‘clean.’ ”
“You know a lot about the meanings of names.”
“It’s sort of a hobby of mine. My name doesn’t have a meaning.”
Startled, he said, “None?”
“Not in our realm, anyway. It comes close to a lot of words or names in various languages, but I’ve never found an exact match.” She straightened, much to Mondo’s disappointment. “Just before he left, Eledan told my mother that if she did bear his child she was to name it Arjenie if it was a girl, Arjana if it was a boy. She always said it was a good thing I turned out to be female. Can you imagine naming some poor boy Arjana?”
“She named you to please your father?”
Arjenie looked wistful. “I don’t know. Eledan told her that names affect the sidhe in ways they don’t affect humans, and that seems to be true. Mom said she didn’t know enough to name me properly herself, while Eledan had had a great deal of practice naming his babies.”
He’d touched her cheek before he had time to remember that touching her was a bad idea. Her skin was so soft. He stroked his thumb across that warm, smooth skin. “That makes you sad.”
“It made her sad. Not all the time, but sometimes. Sometimes I’d see her sitting quietly, looking out the window, and I knew she was thinking of him. Remembering. Wanting him to come back, even though she knew he wouldn’t stay. But he—he’d told her he’d come back one day. Not right away, because he was a foolish and distractible fellow. Those were his words, and when he said it he laughed in this way that always made her smile when she told the story. She wasn’t to expect him on any particular day, for he was blasted if he could see how anyone knew what they’d do tomorrow, much less a year or ten from now. But one day he’d come back to check on her.” She swallowed. “He did, too. He came to check on her … two years after she died.”
He kissed her.
There was no thought to it, no plan, no reason. And every reason. She jolted when his lips touched hers, then went still. He kissed her softly, learning the taste and feel of her mouth, and then he made another mistake. With his lips touching hers, he breathed deeply of her scent.
Fire leaped in him, and need—need so strong it made his breath jerk in his throat and almost, almost, made him reach for her with his hands as well. But some dim remnant of reason told him that if he did that, he wouldn’t stop.
And he had to stop. His head was light and empty, dizzy with hunger, when he lifted it, breaking the kiss. Her hands clutched his arms. She looked as undone as he felt.
“What …” She stopped. Swallowed. “What was that? I mean, I know it was a kiss, but it was—I never—”
“A summary,” he told her, his voice hoarse. “You’ll get the full report soon, but right now we both have to settle for a summary.”
She shook her head. “You’re not making sense. You aren’t … you can’t do a glamour, can you? Like the sidhe?”
Like her father had done to her mother, she meant. He looked at her wide, wary eyes, and sorrow took him by the throat and shook him like a terrier shakes a rat. “No.” He forced that word out, then found a few more. “We’d better get back. Sun’s on its way down. Rule and Lily will be here soon.”
“Okay.” But her brows remained pleated in a small, worried frown. “Are they going to answer some of my questions?”
He managed a wry smile. “I don’t know. Can you wait until tomorrow to have them answered?”
Her chin tilted up. “I can. I don’t want to.”
When he held out his hand she looked more worried than shy. She hesitated for several long heartbeats. But she did take it.
His stolen time was ending. He’d known that it would. The sweetness of their afternoon together was marred now by all he wasn’t telling her. And she sensed that.
Tonight, then. He would tell her tonight. But he would make it clear that if she couldn’t tolerate the bond, there was an alternative. Not a good one, but sometimes all the choices were ill.
If everything went to hell, Benedict would release Arjenie in the only way he could. It was not a solution he liked, nor was it without risk for her. But if she grew frantic and miserable and dangerous to herself … well, Nettie was an adult now. He didn’t fool himself that she’d understand. She wouldn’t. She’d hurt, and so would his father and brother. But it was his decision to make, not theirs.