To Eternity. Daisy Banks

had been times like this before. Even when he’d killed, a savage act any creature should remember, he could recollect nothing beyond the satisfaction of blood. But, if he’d harmed Sian, the wolf would have howled its sorrow until the walls echoed his repentance.

      If only there were a way to force himself to remember. Truly, he was cursed.

      Tired, his muscles clinging onto the edge of tension, he flipped on the shower attachment. He stood as the water drained from the tub. Angling the showerhead, he turned on the water and sucked in a breath at the cool blast. Skin tingling from his rinse, he clambered out of the bath. At least he now stood clean. Once he’d dried off, he put on a fresh robe, cleaned his teeth, and combed through his hair, following a morning routine despite the evening. Finally, he shoved his feet into rattan house shoes. Full of fear at what Sian may say, he made his way down the green, wrought iron, spiral stairs to the kitchen.

      Sian sat at the broad table sipping from a big blue mug. Coffee from the aroma, bacon and eggs, too, were ready. Under covered dishes, the food was hot from the stove. The residue of wolf senses fought with his man-brain to analyze all the information. Tonight, a ripe, powerful scent haunted his kitchen unlike any he’d known in an age. The odor of blood, an iron rich tang, packed with a sultry promise, smoldered around him.

      Female blood.

      “I must have wounded you deeper than you think,” he said, reaching for her arm but not touching in case he might cause further pain. “You must be bleeding still.”

      “No.” She shook her head and glanced at the bandage. “It’s not the arm. It’s another kind of bleeding. I think it made things worse this month. I should have left the room once you were caged.”

      “Oh,” he said, registering her meaning at once. “That’s something I’d not thought on.” He accepted the mug of coffee she put in his hand. Her hormones prodded the wolf senses with a fragrant lure. Instead of lying dormant as they should have after his transformation, they set an echo of desire through his bloodstream. “Yes, it may well have provoked the creature.”

      “Hmm,” she murmured. “You could say that.”

      He slid his arm around her, bent his head to her shoulder, and pressed a kiss to the warmth of her neck. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

      She stroked over his damp hair, brushing it back from his forehead. “It’s all right. I’ll know next time—it’s my fault—it took me a day and a half to understand what was going on. I was so worried about you, I’m afraid I got closer than I should have. I looked for you in the dreams as well, but no, not this time. I think you were buried deep within the wolf senses this month, much more than the last time. Me…” She glanced down. “Me being like this made things worse. Please, sit. You must be hungry as well as exhausted. You didn’t eat all the steak I gave you.”

      “I didn’t?” He sat.

      “No, so you must be hungry.” She lifted the lids on the covered dishes.

      Glad to wean back another sense from the wolf for the here and now, he luxuriated in the smell of food.

      Sian dished up several slices of bacon and added a generous helping of scrambled eggs, two cooked tomatoes, plus several mushrooms.

      He accepted the plate. His stomach growled as though the wolf spoke from within, yet still he had to force himself to pick up the fork. “Forgive me?” he whispered.

      “Of course.” Her gaze held his, a shimmer of moisture in her eyes. She swallowed hard, her smooth throat moving fast. “It wasn’t your fault. We both knew this month would be hard, with it being October. I didn’t understand your need, or the way I affected you. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again, but I think this must be another reason why you should consider making me your true mate.”

      “Not yet!” A fresh wave of guilt barreled through him at her teary glance in response to his tone. His hopes to control the vile process of transformation lay in a ruin. Last month, the rage Franklyn had provoked in him by attacking Sian, empowered him to take control of the wolf and change at will. He’d hoped from that time on, he could control the shift even at the full moon, but no, the moon still dominated his world, his life, leaving him fearful for Sian. She could eventually control him, but she needed time to learn how to use her innate skills. “You are my true mate, my woman. But, please, don’t force more, not yet.”

      “Eat.” She wiped beneath her eye with her knuckle. “There’s lots of time, you’ve said so.”

      He swallowed a mouthful, then another, unable to meet her gaze right now, lost in the strangeness of the restoration of human needs. Most of all, he floundered in his anguish, for he’d explained so little to her. She remained at the mercy of the moon tides in his blood. He’d thought ensuring her safety from Franklyn’s cruel obsession his foremost duty, but he needed to do much more to help her find her path in the convoluted ways of the wolf. “You’re not eating?”

      “No.” She shook her head. “I’m too tired.”

      He shoved the plate away. “Then come here, we’ll go up to bed. We’ll sleep. Tonight we can dream together. In the dreams we’re free.”

      “I’d like that, Magnus. Right now, I’d like to be free, just us, with nothing else to think of at all.”

      He moved around the table as she pushed back her chair and stood. She gave a sigh as he took her into his embrace. Nothing could have spoken so loud as her soft breath to tell of the fears she’d tried to hide. “My brave, Sian,” he whispered, brushing his lips against her forehead. “I promise you next month will be easier.”

      “I know”—she glanced down to her arm—“this isn’t too bad, Magnus. Perhaps, if we’d met in June things would have been different.”

      “Yes,” he said, as they made their way up the spiral staircase. Every step he took, he hated himself for a coward. If he’d met Sian in June, things would have been easier for a brief time, perhaps, but she would still have had to meet the beast in its hunting state at some full moon. This month, the wolf within him had longed to hunt.

      He stretched as she kicked off her sports shoes beside the curtained bed. She stripped off her shirt and cropped jeans before she lay down on the crumpled sheet. For the first time in a century, he regretted the arrangement he’d made for his housekeeper to not return until the first morning after a full moon.

      Sian should have fresh, soft linen for her tender skin. He licked his lips and savored a taste of her warmth on the air.

      The ache of need still squeaked through his muscles. A craving nagged in his body that had never followed him through to a waning moon’s dawn. Not the need for blood, or the wish for the savage hunt in the starlit night, but another primeval hunger. Lust. He covered her with the sheet, the quilt, too, until she appeared comfortable. “Sian,” he whispered.

      “What?”

      “I’ll sleep apart from you tonight,” he said. Palms up, he took a pace back from the bed.

      “Oh, why?” She sat up, her eyes wide.

      “Because I understand the power of this. I have no wish to harm you more. We’ll wait a day or two before we share the bed again. Tonight would be a mistake.”

      Her glassy gaze searched his. She blinked, breaking his eye contact. “I know,” she whispered.

      “Remember, you are more important to me than anything in the world.” He turned toward the door, ignoring the little catch in her breath, though it tore at his heart. Her ripe fragrance lured him too much, made him want her with a savage need, a hunger no woman might understand. A she-wolf would, but Sian wasn’t yet a she-wolf. She’d not enjoy coupling with him as though she were. He closed the bedroom door behind him and strode down the corridor.

      A sudden flash of memory hit. The reason for the solid painful muscles, protesting every movement he made despite his soak in a hot bath, thumped between his eyes. For three and a half days in wolf form, he’d