Aveoth Read online

  “I’m sorry. You’ll only have to dress that way when we leave my home.”

  “How often will that be?”

  “I’m not leaving you alone, so you’ll go to work with me.”

  “More judging?”

  “Sometimes. I have a lot of meetings, too, in the main hosting room with various clansman about our general welfare and needs.”

  “That’s what Kelzeb called your living room downstairs.”

  “That’s the formal living room. We host friends there. It’s an old term. We have a clan hosting room where I keep a desk and hold meetings. It isn’t inside my home.”

  “Oh.” She gave her attention to the robe and lifted it, studying it. “Nice. It belongs to a woman. Who donated it?”

  He said nothing, so she stared at him. He looked uncomfortable.

  She dropped the robe as if it were hot. Jealousy was the emotion that hit her. She resented that, too. It shouldn’t matter if Aveoth had tried to give her something that had probably belonged to one of his ex-girlfriends. She sure didn’t plan on becoming his new one.

  “I’ll just put my dirty clothes on.”

  “Use the robe.”

  “No thanks.”

  The frown lines around his mouth deepened.

  “I’ll guess that belonged to someone you used to sleep with.” She figured that wasn’t a far stretch to make. “Tacky, Wings. Very tacky.”

  “She never wore it. It was something I bought as a gift. She died before her birthday.”

  A flash of pain showed on his face. It made her inwardly wince at her harsh words. “I’m sorry.”

  “I wasn’t in love with her. The robe is new. You should wear it. It’s the only feminine thing I had. I sent her belongings back to her family but forgot about the robe until I was searching through my closet to find something for you to wear.”

  “I’m good in my own clothes.”

  “I never slept with her.” He stepped closer. “We were occasional lovers but she slumbered in a guestroom below. This room and my bedroom were off limits to Lane.”

  Jill found that kind of sad and cold at the same time. “That doesn’t help any.”

  Aveoth lifted his hand and ran it through his hair. He strode over to the bed and sat down hard. “Damn. I’m making a mess of this.” He locked gazes with her. “You’re as foreign to me as I am to you. Everything I say seems to make you dislike me. I want things to work between us.”

  To see him looking and sounding so vulnerable tugged at her heart. It reminded her of what a crappy childhood he’d had, the stories he’d told her. An image flashed of a small boy with wings breaking the rules to spend time with his mother. There was so much she didn’t know about him. “Tell me about this ex of yours.”

  “I’m the lord of this clan, Jill. Certain things have been expected of me. Lane was one of them. She was a VampLycan.”

  Jill moved closer and actually sat on the bed a few feet from him. “I don’t understand. What did your girlfriend have to do with your clan?”

  “Unmated lords tend to keep a lover. It’s a status thing.” He sighed, rubbing his legs with both hands and staring at the rug on the floor. “I didn’t have one for years. It wasn’t a secret, so sometimes women in the clan would offer to become my lover. I turned them all down. They didn’t want me. To be the lover of a lord puts them in a position to expect certain favors and advantages. I only accepted Lane because she wasn’t from my clan, and she didn’t want anything from me except to escape her own. I understood that.”

  “Why did she want to escape her clan?”

  “She had fallen in love with a man she’d become a lover to. They were together for seven years. He was an enforcer who was sent on missions sometimes. He went to help a Lycan pack that was being attacked by Vampires and met a woman there.” Aveoth turned his head to stare at her. “This VampLycan had lost his own mate to death years before Lane came into his life. He swore he wouldn’t take another mate, but Lane had hoped he would fall in love with her. Sometimes a deep bond grows between lovers. They aren’t true mates, but they make a lifelong commitment to be together. Instead, he fell in lust with a Lycan on that mission, and she agreed to come home with him if he’d make her his mate. He made that commitment to her. It deeply hurt Lane.”

  “Oh man. That’s so messed up.” Jill felt bad for the woman.

  “Lane couldn’t stand to see them together, and told me as much when she pleaded her case to become my lover. I accepted her. I thought I was doing a good thing. It would give her time to heal and part of me hoped she’d meet someone here who would pull at her heart.”

  That stunned her. “You wanted her to fall for someone else while she was with you?”

  “We weren’t what you’d consider in a relationship. I allowed her to live in my home. Lycans go into heat, and Gargoyles experience the same thing, only we call it the ravage. Do you know what that is?”

  “I can figure it out. I fed a stray cat for a while. She wasn’t fixed and I couldn’t catch her to take her to a vet. She’d go into heat and disappear for days to go meet up with boy cats.”

  Aveoth nodded. “It’s the only time I went to Lane’s bed. And she needed me when she was in heat. It was just sex. I didn’t even sleep next to her. I’d leave her bed to go to my own. It worked for us both. Then one day I came home and couldn’t find her. She’d jumped to her death. I didn’t know she had grown despondent here. She could have returned home at any time. I made sure she knew she was free to leave.”

  Unlike me. Jill didn’t say it aloud. “I’m sorry. I’ve heard most people who are really set to commit suicide don’t give warning signs that are easy to pick up, or it’s often a sudden decision. They just do it so no one can stop them.”

  He stared at the rug again. “I was angry that she died. Some of my clan believe I might have thrown her off my ledge. I didn’t. I’d never harm a woman.” He looked at her again, his expression pained. “Please believe me.”

  She didn’t have to think about it. He hadn’t hurt her and she wasn’t afraid of him. “I do.”

  “Good. I liked Lane here. I had my selfish reasons.”

  “Sex?”

  He shook his head. “She kept other women from approaching me.”

  “How long did she live with you?”

  “Four years.”

  She did the math. “What happened to the lover you had before her?”

  “There wasn’t one.”

  That surprised her. “She was the only woman you’ve ever had sex with?”

  He smiled. “No. I’m older than I look, remember? I flew to human areas and had one-time sex encounters with women, but it was rare.” His humor faded fast. “The woman who was supposed to be my first lover was arranged by my father. He couldn’t resist using me to form an alliance with Decker. I was sixteen at the time and had no say in the matter. Neither did the girl. She was a blood relation to you. I discovered later that she was the younger sister of Decker’s mate. Your grandmother’s sister. I—”

  Shit. “You did my great-aunt?” That was creepy and a big ewww factor.

  He shook his head. “We never became lovers. She was only thirteen at the time the alliance was made, and it was luckily decided to wait until she reached eighteen to be sent to live with me. I wouldn’t have touched her if she’d come to me that young. I’m not sick enough to steal someone’s childhood away from them, unlike Decker and my father. It wasn’t long after that when I had to challenge my father.”

  He paused. “Decker offered her to me as soon as word spread that I’d won. I refused, demanding we keep the original timeline in place. I should have taken her from her clan, but I didn’t know she was in danger. She would visit once a month but never told me what she was being ordered to do.”

  “What was that?”

  He clenched his hands into fists. “Decker had a tendency to use some of his unmated clanswomen as assassins. I believe he trained Margola to be one so he could one day order her to kill m