The Earl picked up a book, turning it in his elegant hands. “I am the only person who understands him. Who knows precisely what he faces, every day. Tell me, wyvern. Do you know what it is to live with constant pain?”
Ivy hesitated, Hope’s thin face flashing across her mind. “Not personally. But my sister does. I know what she endures.”
“No,” the Earl said flatly. “You do not. Until you have lived in pain, until it has been your faithful companion, close to you as your own bones, then you do not know. I do. And I will do everything in my power to save my son from that torment. If you truly care for him, so will you.”
“He doesn’t want to be saved, asshole.”
“I know he does not.” The Earl put the book back, toying with the next one instead. “I did not either. I fought my own father for years, certain that I was right. Certain that nothing was worth giving up my unicorn. Swearing that I was never going to turn into him.”
He took a few steps away, brushing a hand over the back of his armchair, lean and restless as a caged wolf. He didn’t seem to be able to stay still for very long. There were deep, bruised shadows under his eyes. Ivy wondered if he was always awake at this time of night, and how much he slept.
“I held out until my mid twenties,” the Earl said, not looking at her. “Longer than most of us. Nearly as long as Hugh, in fact. But then my father died, and I inherited the estate. I became responsible for a precious treasure, this land that all my forebears loved before me. It was my responsibility to provide an heir. Even if it meant losing my unicorn. And when I did…I finally learned what it was to live without pain.”
He lifted his head, turning to meet her gaze straight-on. There was not a shadow of regret or uncertainty in his clear blue eyes.
“It was worth it,” he said.
“Yeah, apparently it was so great that you’ve been enthusiastically losing your unicorn ever since,” Ivy said in disgust. “Don’t try and make yourself out to be some hero. Hugh knows. He can’t help but know. He told me that you’re unfaithful to your wife. Is that some ancient noble tradition you have to uphold too?”
His hand tightened on the back of the chair, knuckles whitening.
“I should be grateful,” he murmured softly, as if to himself, “that he still hasn’t worked out the truth.”
“What truth?” she asked suspiciously, suspecting some sort of trap.
He didn’t reply for a moment, for once standing perfectly still. Then he let out a long, low sigh.
“I will tell you, because I would not see anyone hurt the same way that I have hurt my wife,” he said. “But you must promise that you will not tell this to Hugh.”
“No deal,” Ivy said promptly. “There’s no secrets between us.”
His mouth quirked a little, just like Hugh’s did when something struck his dark sense of humor. “Knowing my son, I very much doubt that.” He gazed at her in consideration for a moment longer. “But I will tell you anyway. Because I think that you truly do love him. And you will realize that this secret would only hurt him.”
“Now I’m not sure I want to hear whatever it is,” she muttered. “But go ahead. Tell me your so-noble reason why you can’t keep it in your pants.”
“Because none of us can. When the unicorn…departs, it leaves a hole.” He fisted one of his hands, right over his heart. “There is only one thing that can fill that aching absence. Even then, the warmth only lasts a short time. A unicorn cannot stand human touch. An ex-unicorn, however, cannot live without it.”
Ivy folded her arms, unimpressed. “So touch your wife, jackass.”
The Earl’s expression shifted only a fraction, but suddenly she could see the old, deep sadness behind that frozen mask. Her wyvern fell silent, wings half-spread, tail lowering uncertainly.
“I would,” he said. “But then she could not touch Hugh.”
…Oh.
“I see that you understand,” the Earl said quietly. “Hugh’s unicorn is very powerful. For most of us, the sensitivity does not develop until six or seven, but he was flinching away from the unchaste even as an infant. Can you imagine a baby wailing and struggling in his own mother’s arms, unable to bear her touch? It near broke my wife’s heart when I revealed the reason. I had not told her of the family curse before then. She didn’t even know about shifters.”
“You didn’t tell her what you were?” To hide something so fundamental from your partner felt wrong to Ivy. “You let her take your unicorn without any explanation at all?”
He shook his head. “She was not the one to take my unicorn. I did not want to lay that burden on anyone I cared for, let alone loved. By the time I met my wife, I had been a normal man for several years. I had hoped that I would never have to tell her that I had ever been otherwise. Sometimes, the curse skips a generation. But not this time.”
He turned away, going back to his restless pacing. “I could not ask her to choose me over our son. I did not want her to do so. I attempted to be abstinent as well, for Hugh’s sake, but it nearly drove me mad. My wife proposed a solution. I did not want to accept…but I had no choice.”
No one knew better than Ivy what it was like to be trapped in an impossible situation, with no good options. Nonetheless, her shoulders drew up around her ears. It was a shifter thing. Infidelity disgusted her on a visceral level.
The Earl cast her a rather sardonic look. “And now you are thinking that you would prefer madness or death to betraying your own life-partner. I know that Hugh shares your opinion. He has never been shy about letting me know just how much I revolt him. He is right to despise me. But not for the reason he thinks. I am not unfaithful to my wife, Ivy. I have never been unfaithful.”
The blatant falsehood put her hackles up again. She’d come so close to dropping her guard, even to sympathizing with him. Now she susp