The Hunger (The Lycans 3)

I supposed that was a pretty fair and accurate description of the situation and what he was going through.

We had sentries guarding the property, big Lycan motherfuckers who guarded King Banner and the Scottish Lycan “royal” family—us—with their lives. But I wanted to be out there doing the job of protecting the ones I held closest.

Although, by all accounts, Luca couldn’t get through the wall—not with the thick magic woven within the stone and metal—I wouldn’t underestimate the need for him to get to Ainslee.

We’d only been back in Scotland, in our ancestral estate in the Highlands, for a week now. After we’d gone to Romania to help celebrate Ren Lupinov’s mating with his human female, nothing had been the same. Not when Ainslee saw Ren’s brother, Luca, there. Then the Linking Instinct had kicked in for the male… and all fucking hell broke loose.

And the wolf had been hanging around for the last week, showing up damn near as soon as we’d gotten back home. And he wouldn’t leave. He’d just pace. And pace. And pace some more on the other side of that wall, touching it every once in a while, testing how the magic drained his strength before he relinquished his hold and bellowed again to see his mate.

“Sometimes I regret how sheltered we’ve made her,” Tavish said softly, a whole lot of remorse in his voice. I wouldn’t let myself feel those emotions, not right now, not even if a part of me agreed with him. “We should have been teaching her how tae protect herself, defend herself. We should have been letting her train with us and the Guard.”

“We should have done a hell of a lot of things, but right now none of that shit is gonna help us.”

It was our fault Ainslee knew nothing about the world, and in a matter of days her entire life had been turned upside down. She was strong, but she wasn’t that strong, and it was our fuckup.

“Overbearing assholes, the lot of us,” I grumbled.

Tavish grunted in agreement.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I took another long drink from the bottle before passing it off to Tavish to take a swig. I didn’t know what else to do but stare out that window at where I knew Luca was ever pacing.

All I knew—felt—was this bone-deep fire in my belly to keep the ones I loved safe. And I knew short of the world swallowing me whole or, hell, me finding my mate, nothing would deter me from making sure I stayed on this path.

3

Darragh

I’m going to die. This is how my life ends. I know it.

I tightened my hands on the steering wheel, my body small even by female standards, but right now, shoved into this sardine-sized car I’d rented in Scotland, I felt like I was a giant stuffed in a clown car.

I’d landed in Edinburgh hours before. Since I hadn’t checked my luggage, I’d gone straight to the rental car agency, pretended like I wasn’t scared as hell driving on the “wrong side of the road,” and accepted the paperwork with a smile and nod. I’d thought about video chatting Evelyn as soon as I’d gotten off the plane, desperately wanting to latch on to something familiar, but it had been barely seven in the morning—Scotland time—so it would have still been the middle of the night for Evelyn back in the States.

So after a quick text letting her know I’d landed safe and sound and giving her the B and B address once more for good measure, I was on my way to what would be my home for the next couple of weeks.

I was now only a few short minutes from entering the little town of Búraló, which an Internet search told me was a Gaelic word for wolf. It had been so weird as I’d looked at that name, at the translation, and felt something so familiar about it. It had been this tingling sensation at the base of my spine as if it meant something more, as if that hadn’t been the first time I’d ever heard, read, or seen it.

The female, slightly robotic voice of the GPS that came with the rental alerted me that I was to turn at the next intersection.

I shifted on the seat, my entire body stiff and aching. The long drive, coupled with the crappy sleep I’d gotten on the plane thanks to the only seat I could afford being “luxurious economy,” had made me feel like shit warmed over. It also wasn’t helping that I was anxious as hell for so many reasons it wouldn’t do any good to try to list them all.

I moved on the seat again and felt every ache and creak in my body as if I were an eighty-year-old woman. I tried to relax, as the road was now a little wider than it had been almost the entire trip. If I pushed my anxiety away, I could actually notice the beauty of Scotland. The lush greenery, the magnitude of thick trees. The rolling hills.