Munro (Immortals After Dark #18) by Kresley Cole

            “How old are you?” he asked. “Twenty? Twenty-one?”

            Grappling for control of herself, she answered, “Twenty-nine. And you?”

            “I was in my early thirties when I froze into my immortality.”

            Froze? Ah, when he’d stopped aging and started regenerating.

            “Technically we’ve just a few years of difference between us.”

            “You haven’t told me your chronological age, which means you must be very old indeed.” No wonder he’d shaken off the effects of her blade so quickly. Immortals grew stronger with each passing year.

            When he inclined his head in silent acknowledgment, she said, “Yet another way we aren’t suited.”

            “We are suited. You’ll see how much so with time.”

            Exasperation filled her. “Since you don’t know me, that assessment must be based on looks.” Typical.

            “Oh, I know you. You’re brilliant and courageous and such a good leader that your hunters would follow you into hell. You’re loyal, and the Lykae value few traits above loyalty.” He leaned in even closer. “I know that when I recall your cocky wink after you pierced my heart, I grow hard as steel. You ken how good you are, and that’s sexy as hell. I know that you’ve gotten me so fucking twisted up inside.”

            You make him hard, Ren. And twisted up inside. Somehow she had the presence of mind to say, “And yet, I know nothing about you. Not even your name.”

            “I told you . . .” He frowned. “No, no’ you. I told another in Quondam.” He straightened his broad shoulders and said, “I’m Munro MacRieve.”

            “A sheer displeasure to meet you, Munro MacRieve.”

            He ignored her barb. “Tell me how you got to lead your circus at so young an age.”

            Deciding to share more, she said, “Jacob’s uncle became the leader when I was a teenager. After he perished in a demon ambush, I was the strongest candidate to fill that void.”

            “No’ the leader’s nephew?”

            “Jacob backed me.”

            “Did he, then?” The wolf sounded disbelieving.

            “Yes. I told him that the hunters wouldn’t follow the orders of a woman, much less a young one. He replied, ‘They will if you’re the leader who makes the most sense. Show them how much sense you make.’”

            In a grudging tone, Munro said, “No’ terrible advice.”

            “So I understudied with each hunter to gain new skills. I learned all about weaponry and developed more effective traps. I worked twice as hard as anyone else, proving myself.”

            Had she dreamed of a wider existence? Of course! She’d fantasized about lying abed and reading for an entire afternoon. Or gift-shopping for loved ones in a big city. She’d wished she could travel the world.

            She had forever longed for something out of reach, something nameless, and had felt incomplete without that unidentified want. She’d once confided this to Jacob. He’d thought that she might be yearning for children or that she’d been missing her parents.

            Yet she had always suffered that incompleteness—even before she’d grown old enough to think about having her own family and even before her parents had died. She’d thought everyone felt that way.

            She glanced over at Munro, found him studying her face, as if he might discern all her thoughts. She gave an uncaring shrug and said, “Luckily, my hunters recognize a good thing when they see it.”

            His voice went low. “A talent I possess as well.”

            “Yet you plan to take me from a life I’ve worked hard to create with no care about how I feel.”

            He parted his lips, closed them, then clenched his jaw. Did he do that whenever he was biting back words? Finally he said, “Why does your life have to be filled with misery and risk? Who made that decree?”

            Jacob had posed a similar question this very night. “I told you, fighting evil is my noble responsibility, passed down through generations of my family.” When she was young, all she’d wanted to do was work with the circus’s horses. But she’d assumed the mantle after her beloved mother and father had perished.