Munro (Immortals After Dark #18) by Kresley Cole

            “I canna claim much wisdom about women, but I do know that a bloke should always avoid being one thing.”

            “What’s that?”

            “A regret.” He met her gaze, the firelight making his golden eyes glimmer. “When I take you, Kereny, you will never regret trusting me with such a gift.”

            She almost believed him. Almost.

            As they traded the flask a couple more times, she reminded herself that he was trying to seduce her to a dark side, a side she’d fought tirelessly.

            The logs in the fire crackled, and an ember took wing, flitting upward on a journey into the night. If Ren wasn’t careful, she’d end up like that ember, tumbling into a completely different life.





THIRTY-THREE





            “Since you will no’ tell me more about your family, what should we talk about?” Munro asked, gauging her sleepiness. Mayhap the whiskey was starting to work.

            He himself was wide awake and still hard. Kereny’s nightgown—one that Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother would covet—had been no match for his wolven eyesight.

            He’d seen everything from Kereny’s upturned breasts and tight little nipples to the V of curls between her thighs. Mercy, woman!

            “We should talk about you.” Her sudden smile hit him like a gut punch. “I discovered no lethal allergies during our meal, but a girl can keep hoping. Tell me all about yourself. And don’t leave out the weaknesses.”

            “I have few beyond you,” he said easily. “What else do you want to know?”

            “Where did you grow up?” She began braiding the length of her hair, entrancing him.

            What had she asked? Ah! “I was raised at Conall, my family’s ancestral home in the Highlands. It borders the Woods of Murk, a forest rife with creatures and portals, much like your Cursed Forest.”

            In the distance, thunder rolled over the mountains, the rain intensifying. If it kept up, there’d be no field trip tomorrow.

            Kereny asked him, “What was your childhood like?”

            Idyllic, then tragic. All extremes. Keeping his tone as light as possible, he said, “As young lads, my twin and I made much mischief for two loving parents. Will and I are the last of the Sentinels, a line of Lykae tasked with making sure those creatures in the Murk never invaded the neighboring peaceful lands. Once we grew older, we assumed those responsibilities.” Munro and his mate had little in common, but he would draw on their few similarities. “You patrolled your forest, and I patrolled mine.”

            “Uh-huh.” With an arch look, she asked, “And when was the last time you patrolled?”

            The last Accession. “I admit it’s been a minute. But in the end, we waged a full-out war against the malevolent beings that had gathered.” Among them were evil succubae. Munro had suggested clearing the woods as a means of catharsis for Will, who’d been raped by one as a boy.

            The catharsis hadn’t worked. But Munro had found Tàmhas in those woods. Some Pravus creature must’ve stolen and then abandoned the infant.

            Munro had been determined to locate the birth family—to no avail. Despite how attached he’d grown to the wee babe with his tuft of red hair and toothless grin, he’d placed Tàmhas with adoptive humans. Yet each situation had been worse than the last—drink, dissolution, sickness. Finally, Munro had taken Tàmhas in to raise as his own.

            A mistake. He debated telling Kereny about his son, but the tale was a sad one, and she’d already experienced far too much sadness with him. They had time.

            “What happened in your war?” she asked.

            “We wiped out our enemies, and the woods grew light once more.”

            “And then what did you do? What were you doing a hundred years ago?”

            Wallowing in the past. Drinking. Tupping. Anything to break up his and Will’s interminable lives. He’d had no drive other than to keep his twin from self-destructing. “I wish I’d been in Transylvania finding you.”

            “But you weren’t. If the warlocks hadn’t taken me, you never would have known about me,” she pointed out. “I would have skipped right by you, with you none the wiser.”