“It’s also a huge responsibility.”
“I don’t think I can handle it.” Cara had never admitted that out loud. It wasn’t like she could go to her father or any of the other people in her Tribe and admit to them that her power felt too strong for her. If she had, they would’ve made light of the situation or taken great pains to assure her that it wasn’t, but nobody would’ve asked her why she felt that way.
Her mother had had a huge amount of power and that had not saved her. If Cara was indeed stronger than all of the other women of the Tribe who might be Queen, how could she save any of them?
“Maybe you just haven’t been taught how,” Sebastian suggested.
“There’s no maybe to it, Sebastian. I have power that I can’t control and that I don’t want. I have never been told that it’s okay to want just what I do want and nothing else.”
He reached across the table and took his hands in hers. The warmth of his hold immediately calmed her fears. “What you want is not so odd. You want to be yourself. It sucks when you have to deal with being whoever your family decides you have to be, or the person that everybody thinks you should be, just because they know who your family is.”
How had he known that? She couldn’t have put it better herself.
“Will you help me find these two rogues?” she asked.
Sebastian sighed. “You said there are others who want to Hunt them. Why not let them?”
“Because they don’t have anything to help them. They’re just ordinary people, and those wolves will tear them apart. That’s not fair. They don’t deserve to die that way. What’s more, you know the consequences of being bitten and surviving. I don’t want to meet one of the other Hunters in an alley some night just to find out that they’re also rogues.”
She had loyalty to the humans, even though she could’ve turned her back on them. She wanted to be a lawyer and a prosecutor. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Was it possible that she was of Queen Carida’s line?
If she was Kris, everything had just become even more complicated. He was a werewolf, one of the Fallen. She was his sworn enemy and he knew it, and yet he had mated with her.
Now she wanted to hunt down two rogues, one of whom was possibly his brother. He should walk away.
If he had any sense at all, he would walk away.
Why wasn’t he walking away?
Because he couldn’t walk away from her. Everything about her captivated him. But how long would she want to be with him when she discovered his true nature?
Maybe he should just tell her. Maybe if she knew, they could find a way around it. Or maybe she should come clean and tell him she was Tribe. She would not do that now and he didn’t blame her for that. For all she knew he was a simple Hunter, and most Hunters rarely crossed paths with the Tribe if at all possible. They were as cursed as the Fallen, in their own way. That thought softened his heart.
“If they just fed yesterday, they will probably not be out tonight,” he said.
“I think they will be. I think they’re out to destroy as much as they can and as quickly as they can.” Cara’s voice was strangely calm. She didn’t feel calm at all. There was a raging bloodlust inside her, one she had never known she could possess.
“If you really want to find them tonight, I’ll go Hunting with you.”
“Do you mean it?” She stroked her fingers along the top of his hand, mesmerized by the feel of his flesh below her fingertips. “It’s not really your battle.”
“All rogues are my battle.”
“I think I could love you just for saying that.”
Her words fell between them and for long seconds neither of them spoke. Cara’s heart beat far too rapidly. Had she just said that? My God, she had! And she had meant it.
It was insane. She’d never felt so much for a person before in her entire life. She barely knew him, yet she felt like she had known him forever. He was the first person who didn’t expect her to be the things that she didn’t want to be.
If she had said to anybody else that she didn’t think she could handle her magic, they would have started giving her all sorts of tests to prove to her that she could. They would have told her stories of how great her mother was and all the rest of her line. She would have been reminded, yet again, of her lineage.
Remorse struck her. Sebastian did not know who she was, and he could never know! What would he say if he knew that she was Tribe? The Tribe was not known to be kind to outsiders and while the Hunters killed many of the creatures that caused havoc to humankind, like vampires, werewolves, snow beasts, they feared magic of most kinds.