Arms touched me, turned me around. I sunk into the warmth of his embrace, enjoying the momentary peace it offered.
"If there's one thing I've learned over the years"—his breath stirred warmth past my ear—"it's that nature often has its own way of sorting out right from wrong."
"Nature has very little to do with what is happening to me now. If nature had its way, I would still be infertile."
"Then perhaps there lies the answer to your problems."
I pulled back a little, and met his dark gaze. "There could be more than a little self-interest in that statement."
He grimaced, and raised a hand, brushing my cheeks with his fingers. Longing shivered through me. "There is."
I stepped out of his arms, not wanting to be distracted by the warmth and promise of his touch. "Even if I make the decision not to go ahead and have a child, the situation between you and me is still a difficult one—and for many different reasons."
"There is nothing to stop us resuming where we left off."
"Where we left off was you declaring you had no intention of getting involved with another werewolf." I took a deep breath, and slowly released it. "My soul mate is still out there, somewhere. I won't risk losing him on top of maybe never being able to have a child."
"That doesn't mean we can't come to some arrangement—"
"But could you come to an arrangement?" I cut in. "Knowing that I have the intention of doing what I have to do—even if it means kissing or fucking every sinner in the goddamn state—to stop these bastards coming after me ever again?"
Which didn't mean I intended becoming a guardian—not unless the drug left me with absolutely no choice. But stopping these bastards was a priority, and if that meant I had to sleep with some of them, so be it. At least if I did my bit to help stop them, I could safely follow whatever path fate wanted me to go down without having to look over my shoulder at the ghosts I'd betrayed.
And if that future path meant a life without kids, then I guess I had to accept that.
Which meant the decision I'd come up here to make was, in the end, easy. The drug running havoc through my system had caused my fertility, and because of that, I dare not fall pregnant, no matter how desperately I wanted to take the chance. The future I faced was unknown, and as much as I didn't want to, I had to face the fact that any changes the drug forced on me would make me a guardian. It was either that, or be compelled into military service, as the other half-breed recipients of the drug had been.
I had no right to bring a child into that sort of environment, especially when neither Rhoan nor I had the support of our pack to help care for, and raise, a child if anything happened to us.
Quinn didn't answer my question, but he didn't really need to. We both knew he could never put up with me taking on all comers in the sex stakes. That sort of acceptance wasn't in his all-too-human attitudes.
"Look, Quinn, I'm not denying I want you, but I want you without strings. If you can't handle that—can't handle what I am, or what I intend to do—then back off and leave me alone."
Though his face was carefully neutral, I could see the annoyance burning in his eyes. Feel the force of it crawling across the electric night. It reminded me that he was a very old vampire, and obviously, despite all his urbane and courteous mannerisms, well used to getting his own way.
He might want me, he might be quoting pretty words about compromise, but deep down he was a territorial creature and he wasn't at all willing to share.
"So if I want you," he said, voice a little clipped, "I have to put up with you being the whore I think your race is?"
Anger surged and I clenched my fists, battling the urge to hit him. "You want to know why I'd rather fuck a stranger like Kade than you right now? Because he accepts who and what I am. You, on the other hand, want to change a basic part of me."
Anger burned around me, through me, and I wasn't entirely sure if it was mine, his, or a combination of both. But all the frustration that had built up over the months since Quinn had walked away came spewing forth, and I didn't have a hope in hell of stopping it now.
"I don't—"
"Then why do you call all wolves whores? Why even> thinks that when the moon dance, and the celebration of life and love, is a basic part of what we are? We're not human. How dare you even try to judge us by human standards."
"I'm not—"
"Then why call us whores?"
"Isn't fucking someone for money or information a definition of prostitution? Isn't that what you'd be doing?"
"It's a human definition. Werewolves have no such word, because we don't think that way."
"So you'll happily sleep with all and sundry to get information?"
"Happily? No. Will I do it? Yes, because his only sex, and sex is as vital to wolves as blood is to vampires."
"A vampire can die without blood. I doubt a werewolf would die without sex."
"Maybe not." I crossed my arms and continued to meet him glare for glare. "But we can certainly die if we don't meet our soul mate."
He snorted. "I doubt—"
"Don't doubt, just listen. Werewolves believe that true love is not something that happens by chance, but rather, it is something determined by fate itself. We believe that love is as immortal as the soul, and that we are destined to meet the same lover over and over again, right through all of our lifetimes. For wolves, there is only one person on this earth who is destined to be our perfect mate. One person who is our match, heart and soul. And if we do not find that person, our heart and soul suffers. Many do fade away, and many do die."
He didn't answer for a moment, then said, "Could not the connection we share mean there is something worth exploring between us?"
"Definitely. But I have cared deeply for two other men in my life, and loved one. None of those three were my soul mate. The connection between us might have been emotionally and physically deep, but it wasn't soul deep." Something that had been proven when Haden, the wolf I'd loved so much as a teenager, had met his soul mate exactly one year into our relationship. Had we been exclusive, that would never have happened.
"So, where does that leave you and me?" Quinn asked.
"You tell me. I'm not the one trying to place boundaries on our relationship."
He sighed, and looked past me. The anger burning the air seemed to dissipate quickly on the cool breeze. "I'm a vampire. We tend to be very territorial."
I nodded. "Then it is you who has the decision to make, not me. I want to continue exploring what we share, but I will not risk restricting myself to you alone. I cannot. Nor, might I add, do I expect you to restrict yourself to me. I cannot be the only supply of the blood you need to sustain yourself."
He snorted softly. "A small comfort that makes little difference in the scheme of things."
"That's all I can offer right at this moment."
"I don't know if I could handle an open relationship. I'm just not built that way."
I raised an eyebrow. "We weren't exactly exclusive a month ago. I was still with both Talon and Misha then."
"A month ago I thought it was nothing more than a casual dalliance, one that would be easily forgotten once I got home."
"So what changed your mind?"
His look just about liquefied my insides. "The fact that you kept invading my thoughts and my dreams."
He'd invaded my dreams, too. I wondered if, somehow, we'd been reaching out to each other through the link we'd created. "Yet you rebuked just about every attempt I made to see or talk to you. Even when I finally got you to come to dinner, you still stated you weren't interested in continuing any sort of relationship."