Lucan swallowed and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “You are my everything, too, love. It’s why I Called to you again. It’s why we’re going to have a youngling this fall. She will be a girl. And we will do everything to protect her. Banshee hunters still exist. This secret can’t get out. No one can know.” He frowned. “How did Mathias discover that you’re a banshee?”
“When he first took me to his lair, he stripped me and started cutting me with a knife. Lots of little deep cuts, a stab here and there.”
“Why didn’t I feel your panic?”
“I tried to close off our bond so you couldn’t. I knew if you attempted to rescue me, he would only kill you.”
Even when she’d been terrified and at her most vulnerable, Anka had tried to protect him. The fact that she hadn’t given him an opportunity to help her both crushed him and sparked his tenderness. “Anka…”
“He kept carving his name into my flesh over and over.” She closed her eyes. Her breathing turned choppy again, her skin pale.
“I’m so sorry. You felt your life in jeopardy and you wailed?” he guessed.
“Yes.” Her voice cracked. “It just happened. After that, he managed to put a strip of duct tape over my mouth so I could no longer let out the banshee cry, then he grinned maliciously and left me to heal. In the middle of the night, he dragged me from my cell to that family’s house and—”
Pale and trembling, Anka dissolved into sobs. Talking about it would eventually be cleansing for her, but right now, she seemed to be reliving the horror. Lucan tightened his embrace.
“It’s all right, love. I’m here for you. Let it out.” He caressed her back in soothing strokes. “Being taken from home must have been traumatic in itself, but what a terrible blow, to suddenly realize you’re a banshee, and to be forced to use your power against your will. How the hell could your parents have kept your origins from you? How frightening and devastating that sudden discovery must have been in that terrible circumstance. Bloody hell.”
She swallowed, gaped for a long moment. Then she wrenched out of his arms and leapt off the bed, throwing her little robe around her naked body and curling in on herself, as if she sought to hide from him. Lucan stared, confusion plaguing him. What the devil was wrong? Pacing furiously to the far side of the room, Anka looked back at him with stormy eyes, dragging in a breath as if it would help her find her courage. But for what?
“Love?”
“Oh, God! You thought…” Panic tripped across her face again, followed by guilt so terrible, he could see it crushing her. “This is why you will hate me. This is why the youngling growing inside me will be all I have left of you after today.”
In the past, Lucan would have waited for her explanation, reluctant to spook or upset her more. He was still reluctant, but he wasn’t about to leave all the responsibility on her back. The past few days had taught him to fight for her with everything he had.
He jumped from the bed and stalked to her, cornering her against the wall and gripping her silk-clad shoulders. “Don’t tell me how I’ll react or feel. I could never hate you, nor ever imagine leaving you. Give me your troubles, Anka. We will work through them together.”
She tried to shake off his hold. Lucan was having none of that. He gripped her tighter, raised a brow at her, and waited.
“All right, then.” She swallowed nervously. “Mathias’s terror didn’t prompt any self-discovery on my part. I’ve known I’m a banshee my whole life.”
Lucan stared at her beautiful, beloved face. He heard her words, but they simply did not register. How could they? Because if she’d said what he thought she had… “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“And risk losing you?” She bowed her head, shook it. “I was too afraid.”
“So you kept this knowledge from me during our entire mating?”
Anka’s eyes slid shut. She nodded, a little furrow creasing between her brows as she frowned. “I felt as if I had to. Try to understand—”
“Understand what?” he snapped. “That you lied to me for over a hundred fucking years?”
Lifting her lashes, she locked her gaze with his. “If that’s how you want to see it, yes. But you know that there are still hunters willing to sell a washerwoman to the Council for profit! Those women—most have done nothing, yet they are shuttled off to camps where they are rarely seen or heard from again. So many have sought our extermination. Can’t you understand my fear?”
He gripped her tightly and shook her. “So you imagined I would sell you to monsters likely to imprison or kill you? God, Anka! Did you actually believe that?”
She shook her head. “I never thought that you’d allow me to be taken by hunters or tell anyone my secret. But I didn’t want to burden you with the terrible truth. Growing up, my mother urged me every day to keep our secret, above all else. She never breathed a word of the truth to my father in all their centuries together. She said we could never tell anyone our true origins.”
Lucan sucked in a sharp breath. As much as he hated to admit it, her mother hadn’t been totally wrong. There were plenty among magickind who both feared and loathed banshees for the death they often left in their wake. But he would never have allowed anyone to detain her. He would have taken her secret to his death. She must have known that.
Or maybe she didn’t.
Fury sizzled like a river of fire in his veins.
“I’m not just anyone, Anka. I was your mate for over a blasted century. Even after all that time, you still didn’t trust me enough with the fucking truth?”
In his arms, Anka trembled. She bit her lip, then ran her tongue over the abused flesh. Fury and desire both blindsided him. He wanted to toss her on the bed, rip that robe off of her, and fuck her into oblivion as much as he wanted to make her hurt the way he did right now.
“Lucan…” She placed a trembling hand over his chest, right over his heart, and goddamn if his flesh didn’t burn with the need for more of her touch. “I was afraid to tell you because then you would know how unworthy I was of you. Your family is of greater consequence, your uncle on the Council. I feared that if you knew, you would—”
“What? Spurn you? Leave you? Cast you aside for some Councilman’s daughter who could add more consequence to the family name?” When she tried to look away, sobs wracking her, he shook her as if that would make her understand how deep this betrayal ran. “Damn it, witch! Did you never trust in my love? I would never reject you for your birth, unlike those thick, paranoid idiots among magickind who fear the very sight of a banshee.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was small.
“Sorry? That’s it?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “For over a century, I believed with every beat of my heart that you knew you could count on my love. I counted on yours. But you didn’t trust me at all, did you? Not enough to tell me your secret, not enough to believe that I would protect you from Mathias, not enough to love you no matter what. Having so little faith in me as a mate must have made your decision to live with Shock so much easier.” He grimaced bitterly. “All the while, I tried to worship you. You merely schemed to keep your little secret.”
“That’s not true! I loved—”
“You didn’t love me! You couldn’t. Not if you thought me so shallow that I would break our bond over the blood you’d been born with.”
“I didn’t know what to t-think.” More tears ravaged her face, and he tried to be unmoved by them. “I felt so inferior, so unworthy. I-I couldn’t bear to give you any more reason to regret taking me as your mate.”
“I never did, Anka. Not until this moment.”
Her face fell; she looked stricken. He almost wanted to take the words back. Almost, but he didn’t.
“Lucan—” She reached out for him, her face pleading.
“No!” he roared, pulling back. “Why would you want to touch me at all when it’s clear you’ve always lacked respect or confidence in me as a worthy mate? You saw my privilege and what, decided I was a shallow prat? Was that what you believed?” An incredulous growl erupted from the depths of his chest. “You assumed that I would never truly love you unless I believed you to be my equal?”
“That’s not it. I wanted to be your truest love, not your deepest regret. I never wanted to tell you because…then you would know I wasn’t good enough for you. You always touched me so gently, were polite to a fault, advised me on what to wear, how to speak, who to befriend. I always knew you were trying to present me in the best light for others so that you’d have no cause to lament Calling to me, so I couldn’t imagine telling you that I’m a banshee.”
Lucan reeled back. “You thought my guidance was for appearances? That I give a fuck all what others think? It was for you. You seemed lost half the time, afraid. I was trying to help you find your way. I was…” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I was a fool.”
“You weren’t trying to make me into what you wanted?”
“Bloody hell, no, witch! There were times I missed that girl I met, the one with spark and fire. She’d been replaced by a demure, polite stranger. I thought you wanted a gentle wizard for a mate, one who would treat you with deferential adoration. Sometimes I gritted my teeth because all I really wanted to do was throw you against a wall and fuck you into next week.”
Her plump red lips formed an O. Even as he fought the urge to pound a hole in the wall, Lucan ached to cover her pretty mouth with his own and ravage her.
“I-I didn’t know.”
“Clearly, I’ve been in the dark about a number of things myself.” He clenched his fist as anger bottled up inside him. The pressure kept building until he feared he would explode and say something he couldn’t take back, do something he would forever regret. “Goddamn it! I can’t stay.”
He zipped around and strode for the door. Anka’s delicate fingers wrapped around his arm. Desire sparked deep inside him. Her touch seared him down to his soul.
“Let go.”
“Please…don’t leave! This is my worst fear come true. This is why I never told you.”
Her face crumpled into grief, and her anguish shredded his heart. Shutting her out was killing him, but if she had so little faith in him, what did they have but a tainted past and a coming youngling? He was too angry to talk now. Too stunned, too hurt, too furious.
“Let. Go.”
She jerked her hand back, shrinking away at the look on his face. Then her own anger seemed to take hold. She clenched her fists and faced him defiantly. “You said you don’t care that I’m a banshee, yet here you are, walking out the door the moment I confess.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck that you’re a banshee. I care that you lied. I care that you didn’t trust me with the truth. I hate that I now must question whether our mating was only good in my head.”
Anka gasped, her eyes flaring with fury. “No, most days it was a dream come true. I loved you so much. I even broke my childhood friend’s heart and made him endure a hundred years of celibate misery because I was impatient to be mated to you. Every day, I couldn’t wait to wake and see you smile. Every night, I looked forward to being the witch in your arms, feeling your touch. I used to pinch myself, half-convinced that my joy couldn’t possibly be real. Don’t you ever think I didn’t love you! Or that I didn’t trust you. Don’t you dare take my insecurities and my futile wishes that I could be perfect for you and toss them back in my face!”
Half of him wanted to rail at her and make her understand his rage. The other half…blast it, that primal part of him wanted only to shove that thin little robe away from her beaded nipples, push her against the wall, and remind her who she belonged to.
But even if he did, the lack of trust would still be there, widening the chasm between them.
“Anka, if you trusted me totally, you wouldn’t have hesitated to tell me for a moment. I would have known the truth decades ago. If you truly believed that it wouldn’t matter to me, you never would have kept it from me.” He shook his head, crumbling inside. His whole fucking world was falling apart again. “Without trust, we have nothing.”
Blast it all, he couldn’t look at her now, the colors of her signature ripe with his Call and his youngling, and to love her so completely…only to find that perhaps he didn’t know her at all.
He ripped his arm free from her grip and turned away.
Anka raced around him, standing between him and the door, her face pleading. The pain there nearly tore him apart. “I love you. I trust you, with my life, my heart, my protection. I swear it.”
Everything inside him quaked. His fists clenched. His gut clenched as if he’d been stabbed. How fucking badly he wanted to believe her… “Words are easy, Anka. They mean nothing.”