"So, it is your wolf that wants to keep me."
Chapter 20
A starburst of understanding went off inside Talorc.
He grabbed his precious wife and held her close, looking down into her soft brown
gaze, he spoke aloud as well as through their mindspeak. "That is what I told myself. I
believed my wolf felt possessive of you, that he wanted to protect you at all costs," he said
as the knowledge came over him.
"Are you and your wolf such different beings?" she asked in her soft voice with new
tears shimmering in her eyes. "Emily does not speak of Lachlan as if he and his wolf are
different beings."
"They are not. My wolf and I are not. We are one in the same, but in my desire to
protect myself from making my father's mistakes, I tried to separate my feelings as a laird
from those of my wolf. It does not work. I love you with every bit of my wolf's essence, but
that is even truer as a man because my wolf cannot share physically in that final
consummation of our mating."
"You love me?"
"More than my own life. So much that life is not worth living without you in it."
"You don't mean that. You can't."
"I can. I do. Please, believe me, sweet wife. My own precious angel." He looked at
her with nothing less than naked longing. "Do not leave me to the loneliness I knew before
you."
"You had a whole clan before I came."
"With not one the true mate of my soul. It took a clever Englishwoman to fill that
place inside my heart, to complete the other half of my Chrechte spirit."
"You said I am no longer English."
"You are not."
"I am yours."
"And I am yours."
He said words in her head that she remembered from their mating. "Say them for
me, this time speak the vows with truth in your heart."