Her musical gift was as rare and fine as any he’d ever heard, weaving her heart and emotions into a brilliant, visceral tapestry. A tapestry he sometimes thought only he could see. Tonight was a prime example. Could no one else hear the anguish in the music flowing around them? Could no one else sense the fear?
The sound of it seeped into his flesh, tearing at him until he felt as if he’d bleed from the plaintive cry of Julianne’s heart. Not since she was nine had he heard such anguish torn from those keys.
She’d been sent to them from the New York enclave after her parents disappeared in an apparent Mage attack. For two weeks, she’d shed no tears, but she’d played the enclave’s piano incessantly, pouring her grief into her music. Beethoven. Only Beethoven.
Even then, she’d had an extraordinary ability to weave the music. From the start, he’d heard the depth of her grief in her music.
She’d had no one her own age, for children were rare among the immortal Therians, so he’d befriended her and found a delightful and precious friend in return. He’d watched her grow up, watched her turn from a cute child into a beautiful young woman. A woman he’d eventually come to desire.
She’d been eighteen the first time he’d realized it. Eighteen when his love for the child began to morph into something altogether different. Altogether inappropriate. She was seven years too young.
Therian law forbade the young from entering into the highly physical, carnal world of their elders until they were twenty-five. A not-unreasonable demand as most Therians lived for millennia.
For two years, he’d played the role of best friend as his desire for her had grown. And as her own for him had blossomed. When she was twenty, she’d come to him, raw desire burning in her virgin’s eyes, and told him she wanted him to be her first. That very night. She couldn’t wait another five years.
He’d sent her to her room with barely contained control, then lain awake all night in a fever of need, imagining her beneath him.
The next morning, he’d packed his suitcase and returned to Scotland, where he’d trained with the Therian Guard years before. He’d known he wouldn’t survive another night in that house with Julianne, let alone five years.
But he hadn’t stayed away five. He’d drunk himself into a stupor the night she turned of age, but he hadn’t come home.
Now he was furious with himself for leaving her unprotected from whatever had hurt her this time.
“Hey, Squirt!” Grayson called into the living room, using the name for Julianne only he used. “How about some show tunes?”
Serenity rose, signaling the end of the meal. The half dozen with kitchen duty started clearing tables while the others sauntered into the living room, most gathering around the piano.
Zeeland stayed back, propping a shoulder against one of the ornately carved pillars holding up the high ceiling, where he could watch the pianist without crowding her. Yet.
With the others pressing around her, she dutifully switched to livelier music, holding her heart and emotions at bay. The music, while beautifully played, rang flat and false. As false as her smile.
No one else seemed to notice.
Hell, from the way the men were watching her, he suspected she could play nursery-school ditties, and they wouldn’t notice.
From out of nowhere, a fist of raw jealousy punched him in the gut. His hands clenched as the primal need to rip out their throats barreled through him. They had no right to look at her that way. She wasn’t…
Wasn’t what? Old enough?
With a slam, he remembered she was. And had been for more than five years.
The thought of what that meant nearly brought him to his knees. Five years, she’d been of age. Sexually active.
And Therians were nothing if not sexually active. Unlike humans, Therians saw neither need nor desire to be monogamous.
Conception was rare. Having different partners increased the likelihood that a female might conceive. And taking a mate was even rarer. The mating bond between two Therians was more than a mere promise. It was a physical bond that could never be broken. No one in his right mind willingly bound themselves to another…any other…for eternity.
He watched Julianne, his gaze caressing her lovely, pensive face. A Therian female five years past her maturity had likely made love scores, if not hundreds, of times by now. A woman as beautiful as Julianne would have males lining up, seeking her attention…and her bed…every night.
Jealousy threatened to choke him. But it was regret that tasted like bile in his mouth.
She’d asked him to be her first. Perhaps he might still have been had he come back when she turned of age. But he hadn’t.
Goddess, he was an idiot.