Page 118 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

“I don’t want you to go,” she said softly.

His heart picked up under her cheek. “I don’t want to go.”

“I know you love your work in London, that you love the museum. And you might not love me,” she hastened to add, though it was like biting into unripe apples. “But I love you, Aidan. All of you.”

There was a beat of silence in which she shriveled into ashes and blew away.

And then he eased back just enough to look at her, slowly, almost ominously. “Not love you?” he demanded, outraged.

She blinked up at him—his eyes gold, a growl in his throat—and felt much better.

“Sorcha, I’ve loved you since the first moment we met.” He still sounded insulted that it was even a question.

“That can’t be true.”

“It’s entirely true. A wolf knows.”

“You couldn’t wait to get away from me,” she reminded him. “I was there. I remember.”

“Do you know why I was able to fight off the Nightmare?” he asked.

“Because your wolf was stronger,” she said with smug certainty.

He shook his head with a crooked half-smile. “Not exactly.” He rubbed circles on her back, trailing up to her nape. “It’s because it didn’t show me anything I had not already seen or imagined countless times before. I had nightmares of being turned for months, years. Sometimes nightly.”

She hugged him closer. “That’s what I said,” she insisted. “The wolf was stronger. And so was Aidan.”

“But they were nothing compared to the nightmares I had when I first saw you.”

She scoffed. “That’s not very romantic, Lord Coventry.”

He didn’t smile this time. “I’ve never known fear like the fear that I might be a danger to you, Sorcha.”

She kissed his chest, over his heart. “I’m not afraid of your wolf.” She would say it as many times as she needed to.

“You don’t know the things he did, even before the moon madness took him. The memories he passed on to me when he bit me.”

“He did those things, not you.”

“But there’s no guarantee it won’t take me as well one day. The moon madness.”

“If it hasn’t taken you by now, I highly doubt it ever will. And there’s no guarantee a kelpie won’t bite me either. Or a vampire. In fact, those are far more likely. It doesn’t mean you stop living your life, Aidan. He doesn’t get to win. He’s taken too much from you already.”

“Do you know why I’ve been at the museum so long?”

“You like dusty old things?”

“Well, yes. That, and the magical bindings at the Museum of Magic are the best in all of Britain. Europe, probably.”

She stared at him. “You’ve been jailing yourself.”

“Aye.”

“I don’t like that.” It was too easy to picture him pacing the dark, empty halls, hating himself.

“I stole an iron collar from the Order once,” he confessed.

She sucked in a breath. Never mind the punishments involved if he’d been caught—there was nothing more painful than having your magic bound in that way. And only a Keeper from the Order could release you. The turmoil he must have felt… “What happened?”