“Not at all. I remember my fever for Auropha well.” Depositing a few bills on the bar, Tynan stood. “Good night.”
CHAPTER TWO
Sunlight blasted Ronan"s eyes like a two-ton bomb. Slinging his arm over his eyes, he licked his lips. Had his tongue grown fur overnight? He stretched, his hair pinned under his shoulders, and encountered another warm body.
Peering over with one eye open, he stared. Dark hair tangled across a woman"s narrow shoulders. She possessed a smooth, bare back, small waist, great backside. Ronan didn"t recall her name. In fact, he didn"t recall much of last night beyond the half bottle of scotch he had consumed. And insisting the woman beside him dim the lights so he could close his eyes and pretend he held Kari in his bed.
This morning, he had no illusions. He"d never seen this bedroom, and the brunette was nothing like Kari. Nor had fantasizing that he made love to her assuaged his ache. Lately, he"d repeated this pattern nearly every night. Different woman, different bed. Still, his need grew.
There had to be more to life than aimless shagging with strangers. What was the point of living centuries if all they had in store were empty embraces and quiet misery?
Sitting up, Ronan scrubbed his hands across his face. He had to leave. Now. Where the hell were his clothes?
Ignoring the pounding in his head, he slid his legs off the edge of the bed and stood, the cold November morning nipping at his bare skin. He studied the floor and found yesterday"s garments discarded among the woman"s. Her bra tangled in his socks, her knickers atop his shirt.
Bloody hell.
“Going somewhere?” asked a woman in a smoky voice.
Wincing, he cursed under his breath, then smoothed out his features and turned to her.
She had lovely brown eyes with thick lashes, flushed cheeks, swollen lips. Abrasions from his stubble chafed her jaw, breasts and abdomen. He"d done that. While thinking of another woman.
It wasn"t fair to her. Or to him.
Ronan couldn"t look at her anymore. He turned away.
Truthfully, he had nothing against whatever her name was. She"d provided a distraction last night, and in turn, he hoped he"d provided her pleasure. Now, he wanted only a drama-free farewell.
“I"m afraid I"m a bit busy this morning. Running late, in fact.” He began grabbing his clothes and yanking them on. He"d love to use his magic…but Raiden had chosen two very human ladies last night. A wave of his hand, followed by a suddenly perfectly-dressed form might induce some screaming and require explanations.
As if sensing his withdrawal, the woman grabbed the sheet and covered everything below the neck. A relief, really. Not that she wasn"t gorgeous, but Ronan couldn"t deny his disinterest in the harsh light of day.
“Coffee?” she offered.
He"d love some, but… “No thanks. I"ll pop home. Don"t want to trouble you. Do you happen to know where my brother might be?”
“With Lily. Two doors down, corner unit.”
Splendid. With Raiden elsewhere, he could leave this lady"s flat and teleport home without any sort of speech from his twin. What he"d do then… No idea. A part of him wanted to drown his sorrows in more scotch, but drinking before eight in the morning seemed a bit much, even for a Wolvesey.
He finished donning his clothes and sent her an awkward wave. “Right. Good bye, then.”
“Before you go…”
Ronan winced again. Pray God she wasn"t going to ask him to fix some bit of plumbing for her, or worse, climb back into bed.
“Yes?”
“I don"t think we should see each other again.”
Hmm. He should probably care that she"d insulted his masculinity or his prowess or some such. But he felt only relief.
“Agreed.”
He left without another word, jogging down the hall, bypassing Lily"s flat, where his brother was presumably sleeping. Or busy. Raiden was a grown wizard who knew his way home.
The sooner Ronan left this place, the better.
He all but jumped down the stairs. Once in the building"s empty lobby, he hid in a dark corner, picturing the manor he shared just outside London with all the wizards in his family.
Then he dissipated from the spot, with an inconvenient trip to Nauseashire when his stomach revolted, before materializing back home.
A shower. And coffee. Damn and blast, impossible to have both at once.
Torn, he headed first for the kitchen. And unfortunately found his father.
“Early morning or late night?” his elder asked.
“Both.”
His father laughed, revealing a row of white teeth, short dark hair lightly peppered with gray, and laugh lines around his green eyes. At nearly seven hundred, Nathanial Wolvesey looked barely forty in human terms.
“Me, too,” Nathanial confided.
Looking at his sire was like looking into Ronan"s own future. Same build, same features, same eyes. Same life of excess, alcohol, and one-night stands.
“You"re frowning, son. Wake up beside an ugly one?”
No. Quite the opposite. But he hadn"t woken up beside Kari. Such a sentiment would incite a great deal of laughter in this house. But he wasn"t certain he could hold it in. His fever for Kari kept raging, and he needed answers. His father was, unfortunately, the best place to start.
“Are you quite certain our family is cursed?”
His father paused, set down his steaming mug, and stared. “You doubt it?”
“Has any of us ever truly tried to find a mate?”
Nathanial recoiled. “Good Lord, why would you want to?”
“I don"t know that I do.” Liar.
“Without the instinct, we could taste a million women and never know if one was our mate. That curse is to blame. So why risk a life of abject unhappiness?”
Because he was already unhappy.
“If it"s children you want, be patient. You know from me, your uncles, and brothers, it"s possible. Conceiving them merely requires a great deal of diligent effort.” His father smiled him and winked as if that fact pleased him greatly. Knowing the elder Wolvesey, it did.
“In fact,” his father continued, “Raiden informed me yesterday that a little witch he met last month is expecting. His first. Right proud, he was. So you see…”
His twin was having a youngling with a witch he barely knew and might never see again.
And he was proud? The thought made Ronan queasy.
“Remind me how the curse began.” Maybe if he heard the story again, he might discern some way to escape it and learn to sense his mate.
Nathanial shrugged. “My great-grandfather married a Councilman"s daughter. Ugly thing, but powerful family. He had no instinct for her, but such are political matches among magickind, eh? Not long after, he met a beautiful human. He burned for her quite badly, but confessed to her that he was…what"s the human word, married? The human cried. He kissed away her tears and discovered she was destined to be his. When he tried to break his bond with his current mate, the witch wailed and screamed and cursed the family—she swore no Wolvesey mating would ever last. My great-grandfather paid her no heed, broke his bond with the witch, and mated the human. She delivered him a healthy son, but died shortly thereafter. As have all Wolvesey mates since. We"re not fit for one woman, son.”
So Ronan had heard before—over and over. “When was the last time a Wolvesey mated?”
His father stroked his chin with a frown. “It was your great-uncle Martin, I think. He mated this tall, exotic witch. I was a lad, but I recall her beauty. Shortly after their pairing, a freak accident separated her body from her head.”
His great-uncle Martin. Since Ronan had never met the wizard, he assumed that was hundreds of years ago. “But no one has tried since?”
“Of course not.” His father peered with concern and drifted closer. “Our mates all die, and the wizards are miserable for centuries. Are you daft enough to think of taking a mate?”
“That is exactly what I want to know.”
Ronan jumped at the challenging boom of a voice. Raiden had arrived. Damn.
Turning to his twin, Ronan couldn"t think of a single thing to say. He knew better than to ask his brother whether he was tired of shagging a different woman every night. Ronan would lay money that Raiden was living his dream.
Ronan and his twin were nearly identical, except Raiden had a golden mane of hair to his dark. But their ideas and attitudes diverged more each day.
“Just asking a few questions about the family curse.” He tried not to wince.
Raiden raised a golden brow. “For the same reason you screamed Kari"s name last night when you shagged Sophia.”
So that was the brunette"s name… wait. Screamed Kari"s name while having sex with Sophia? “Shit.”
“Oh, yes. Just after you dashed away, Sophia, all full of tears, visited her best friend Lily.
You cheated me out of a very promising morning. I had to assure her that you were far too inebriated to remember your own name, much less hers. Both friends decided we"re womanizing prats, so there ends my association with Lily.”
Ronan refrained from pointing out that Raiden almost never spent the night with the same woman twice. His twin wouldn"t welcome the observation just now.
“Congratulations on the impending birth of your first youngling.” Ronan quickly changed the subject.
Unfortunately, Raiden wasn"t diverted. “You"ve changed. Since our transition into magic, we"ve frequented pubs and sampled many ladies. We"ve never failed to secure a night with the lovelies we most wanted because we work well as a team…until recently. Last night, I had to work damn hard to talk both Lily and Sophia into coming with us because you were too busy mooning over Kari. It"s making my evenings more difficult. It"s crap, and it"s going to stop.”
Didn"t his brother think he"d tried to stop the constant thoughts of a woman he couldn"t have, who wanted little do with him? In truth, Raiden had probably never thought of this from any point of view but his own. Until the past few years, Raiden"s perspective had been his own.
The more Ronan talked to Kari, the more that changed.
“Son,” Nathanial interjected. “I hope you know better than to mate. It"s no state for a Wolvesey.”
Especially if it meant Kari"s death. In his head, Ronan knew that. He should walk away, refuse to return to The Witch"s Brew, never set eyes on her again.
But Ronan couldn"t do that, not until he knew for certain the curse wasn"t crap. Kari was a fever in his blood that he simply couldn"t cure—at least not until he had her. Perhaps if he took her to bed once, he could purge his need for her, as he had every other woman.
Ronan had no other option.
CHAPTER THREE
Sunday night at The Witch"s Brew. Always quieter than any other day of the week, but the wintery snow on top of the slush of the last storm had made roads unbearable.
A few customers sat in dark corners of the pub. Tynan had come and gone for the evening, and she hoped he was all right. His Auropha had died a month ago today, and his grief was still so raw. The usual collection of rowdy wizards remained in the back with their billiard sticks and ales. A smattering of men and women collected around the room, some magical, some not. She didn"t always know the difference.
And she watched the door. Nearly ten o"clock, minutes until closing. Kari sighed. Ronan wasn"t coming. Likely, he already had a woman for the night and was pleasing her with those large hands, that sinful mouth… She shouldn"t care. After Edward, she"d given up men, particularly gorgeous ones with one thing on their mind.
Too bad she couldn"t seem to forget Ronan.
Suddenly, the bell chimed and the door swept open, bringing a dusting of snow on a pair of combat boots. Long legs in black trousers, a heavy charcoal duster, long hair the color of midnight, piercing green eyes that saw right to the heart of her desire.
Ronan. And he was alone.
He shut the door behind him, never looking away as he strode to the bar, shedding the duster in favor of a crisp white shirt beneath that revealed a sinuous roll of muscle with every move.
God, he was a beautiful man.
Kari swallowed. “Scotch?”
“Double, no rocks.”
Quickly, she poured his drink, then set it in front of him. Before she could move away, he grabbed her wrist. “Kari, I came to talk to you.”
And she knew exactly the subject he wanted to discuss. If she had sex with him, he would only find someone else to grace his bed tomorrow, and she would crumble.
Over the past two years, she"d come to know Ronan slowly. At first as a laughing flirt with a quick wit and an even quicker mind. He"d chatted, told jokes, and made her feel beautiful at a glance. She"d begun fantasizing about him. Discovering he was a wizard hadn"t deterred her.
But seeing him leave with other women, night after night, had taken its toll on her heart.
Her desire only deepened when he"d started taking time during each visit to talk to her.
