“Yes. No.” She scowled at him. “But you have, haven’t you?”

He shrugged. “Does it count if it was three hundred years ago, give or take a decade or two?”

She huffed a sigh, her expression wistful. “No matter what we do, you’ll always have already done it with someone else.”

“Ah, darlin’,” he murmured, “nothing that happened before I met you has any meaning.” He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Don’t you know one of the reasons I love you is that, when I’m with you, everything old is new again?”

“Gideon …”

He stroked her cheek, his knuckles lightly caressing her skin, as his gaze moved over her face. “It’s true, Kiya. You make me feel alive. What’s even more amazing is that you make me feel young again.”

“I love you, my husband.”

“And I love you.” Grabbing a horse blanket folded over a stall door, he draped it over his shoulder, then drew Kay into his arms and willed the two of them into the loft.

Setting Kay on her feet, he spread the blanket over a pile of fragrant hay. “Your bed awaits, my lady wife.”

Smiling at the endearment, she sank down on the blanket, then reached for his hand and tugged him down beside her. Holding his gaze, she slipped out of her shirt and bra, kicked off her sandals, then slowly wriggled out of her jeans.

He watched her every move, the heat in his eyes bringing a flush of pleasure to her cheeks.

“So,” she murmured, dragging his T-shirt over his head and tossing it aside, “who was that woman you ravished in the hayloft three hundred years ago?”

Gideon shook his head. “I forget,” he said, his voice thick as he stripped off the rest of his clothing, then tucked her beneath him. “Kiya, my sweet wife, there’s never been anyone but you.”

* * *

Chapter 39

It was nearing midnight when Gideon and Kay left the barn. Hand in hand, they strolled across the yard toward the main house.

“You’ve got hay in your hair,” Gideon remarked.

“And stars in my eyes,” Kay said, grinning up at him.

Chuckling softly, he plucked the hay from her hair, then drew her into his arms and kissed her.

She sighed when he released her.

“We haven’t talked about where we go from here,” he said as they continued toward the house.

“I know.” She’d been reluctant to bring it up.

“So?”

“I guess it’s up to you,” she said.

“I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the one with a home and a family. Responsibilities. Not me.”

Kay nodded. For the first time, she felt the full burden of being Alpha of the Shadow Pack weighing down on her. She hadn’t really considered what it would entail, becoming the Alpha. Her only thought in challenging Victor had been to save her aunt’s life.

“So,” Gideon said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “I guess the question is, what do you want to do?”

“I want to be with you.”

“I’m here.”

“For how long?” Finally, the question she’d been afraid to ask was out in the open.

“Ah, Kiya, love, I’ll be here for as long as you want me.”

It was the right answer. The perfect answer. And reminded her, all too clearly, that he had already lived over three hundred years and would likely live three hundred more after she was gone.

It was, she mused, a most depressing thought. But before she could remark on it, something slammed into her left shoulder, followed by a sharp report that echoed off the hills. The next thing she knew, Gideon had pushed her down on the ground.

“Stay there!” he hissed, and vanished into the darkness.

A moment later, she heard a harsh cry of pain, and then only silence.

By now, her shoulder was throbbing and her arm was numb. A warm stickiness told her she was bleeding. Pressing her hand over the wound, she realized with something of a shock that she’d been shot.

A few minutes later, Gideon strode into view.

Kay gasped when she saw him. He was dragging a body with one hand and carrying a rifle in the other. A second body was draped over his shoulder.

Gideon gestured at the body on the ground. “Recognize him?” he asked.

“His first name’s Aaron. I don’t remember his last name.” She turned away, sickened more by the thought that Rudolfo had tried to kill her in the dead of night than by the sight of Rinaldi’s assassin with his throat torn out.

Gideon lowered the second body to the ground.

“Bobby!” Kay exclaimed. “He was guarding the fence line.”

“Yeah? Well, he didn’t do a very good job. Rinaldi’s man took him unawares, then broke his neck and ripped out his heart.”

Kay covered her mouth with her hand, afraid she might be sick. When the nausea passed, she said, “It’s my fault he’s dead. I shouldn’t have sent Bobby out alone.”

Gideon lifted her to her feet, then swung her into his arms. “Self-recriminations are useless. Let’s get you into the house before you bleed to death.”

“We can’t just leave Bobby lying out here in the dirt.”

“Yes, we can. You can send someone out to look after the bodies. Right now, we need to get you cleaned up.”

Kay swallowed a groan as her aunt washed the bullet wound, doused it with a strong disinfectant, and then bandaged it up tight.

“I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss,” Kay muttered. “It’ll be healed by tomorrow.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” Greta said, tying off the bandage. “The bullet I dug out of you was silver. I don’t want to take any chances on an infection.”

Silver didn’t burn werewolves the way it did vampires, but a silver bullet to the head or the heart was always fatal.

Kay looked up as Gideon and Brett entered her room. “What is it?” she asked, alarmed by their expressions. “What’s happened?”

“Gideon thought we should go out and take a look around.” Brett cleared his throat. “We found another body by the back fence.”

“Killed the same way as the other one,” Gideon said.

Her mouth went suddenly dry, making it hard to ask, “Who?”

“Stewart,” Brett answered. “I’ve already notified his family. We’ll lay him to rest tomorrow night, along with Bobby.”

Kay nodded. She wasn’t ready for this, she thought in despair. She had no experience, no training. Her father had been born to be Alpha, like his father and his grandfather before him. From the day of her father’s birth, everything he had been taught had been with one thought in mind, that he would one day rule the Shadow Pack. He had grown up on that knowledge; it had colored everything he did.

“Anything you need me to do?” Brett asked.

“I don’t know.” Kay shook her head. “I need time to think.”

Greta looked at Brett, then jerked her head toward the door. Brett nodded, and the two of them left the room, closing the door behind them.

As soon as they were alone, Gideon sat on the bed and drew Kay into his arms, careful not to jar her wounded shoulder.

“Go on and cry,” he said. “You’ve had a rough couple of days.”

She shook her head, determined to be strong even though her throat was tight with unshed tears.

“Kiya, everybody needs to cry once in a while.”

“Not you,” she said, sniffling.

“Even me,” he admitted.

She looked up in surprise, her own hurts momentarily forgotten. “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, it was a hell of a long time ago,” he said with a wry grin. “I was still human at the time, and very young.”

“That doesn’t count,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We all cry when we’re young.”

“I cried the night I woke up as a vampire. Does that count?”

She blinked at him. It had never occurred to her that vampires cried for any reason.

“It’s true,” he said. “I woke up alone in Lisiana’s house, my stomach cramping, my veins on fire. At first, I thought I had to be dreaming, but the pain was too real. She’d told me what to do, how to survive, but she hadn’t told me that I would have to turn my back on everything and everyone I knew. I found that out the hard way, for myself.”

“What happened?”

“I went home. My father was there, alone. The smell of his blood drove me wild. I would have killed him if my uncle hadn’t come in. He stabbed me in the back. The shock of it brought me up short, made me realize what I was doing. I fled the house and never returned. I killed a man that night. I killed him and I drained him of blood. And I reveled in it. And then I sat down by his body and cried like a baby because I didn’t want to be a killer, and I knew he would be the first of many.”

“But you learned to control the urge to kill.”

“In time. But too many others died along the way.”

“What did you do with Lisiana’s house?”

“I still have it. I go there from time to time to remind me where I came from.”

Kay laid her hand on his arm. It was a sad story. Her childhood had been mostly happy. She had grown up in luxury, her every wish granted. She hadn’t had a normal life, but until she moved away from home, it had been a happy one.

“Where were you born?”

“In a small town in France. My parents were shopkeepers.”

“Is that where you were turned? In France?”

He nodded.

“You don’t have an accent.”

“No, I lost it years ago. I left the country soon after I was turned.”

“Did you have brothers or sisters?”

“No, there was just me, and I came to them late in life.”

“And you never saw your father again?”