"She doesn't. But I thought she might have been the reason you were unwilling to really talk about us continuing our relationship."
"And why would you think that?"
He looked away. I touched his arm lightly, feeling the tension in his muscles, tasting the anger that still lingered in his mind.
"We weren't just engaged," he said eventually. "We swore our love to the moon."
My heart just about plummeted to my ankles. Of all the things I'd been expecting to hear, that certainly hadn't been one of them. "What? But that means... "
"I would not be free to fuck anyone." His gaze met mine, dark depths smoldering. "But I am free to be with whom I wish, because the ceremony that should have bound us as one didn't work."
"Because both parties have to be in love to perform that ceremony. Eryn obviously never was."
"In truth, neither was I. It was the drug, not real emotion."
"Yes." I paused. There was more. There had to be more. "But I'm gathering that is the least of her crimes?"
He looked away. "At the time, I did believe the ceremony had locked us together for life and prevented either of us from taking other partners. I discovered her lie the hard way."
Oh dear... "You found her with another wolf?"
He nodded. "And she was pregnant to him."
"Shit." No wonder he hated the werewolf lifestyle so much.
He nodded. "Hence my suspicion that Eryn might have had something to do with your reluctance to get involved with me again."
"Well, she doesn't. But like her, I want a kid, whether now or later. And that makes getting involved with someone who can never offer me that a difficult choice."
Especially when they didn't like being one of many.
A smile briefly lifted the grim set of his lips. "And here I was thinking you were playing games, making me pay for walking away."
"I won't deny that was there as well."
He nodded again. "So, what do you intend to do?"
"I honestly don't know."
"And Misha?"
"I was always intending to fuck Misha. I need the answers he can give me."
"So you plan to become a whore for the Directorate?"
I ripped my fingers from his and stood. "Damn you to hell." I crossed my arms and stomped down the steps. "That's such a human way of viewing the situation. Besides, it's not that simple."
"It is that simple. Rhoan willingly sleeps with enemies to gather news. Isn't that what you'd be doing with Misha?"
"It's just sex." I blew out a frustrated breath. Quinn's views were never likely to change, no matter what I said. "And we don't know that Misha is an enemy yet."
"We don't know that he's a friend, either."
"True. But he may be the only fertile wolf I currently know."
"Then you believe he was telling the truth about that?"
"It would be easy enough to check." I walked to the black metal fence that stopped visitors getting too close to the edge of the mountain. The wind was fiercer away from the cross, chilling my wet legs and feet.