“You’re hesitating,” Lucan pointed out.

Wasn’t it obvious why? “You have no instinct to mate with me.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t make the words any less binding, Sabelle. Certainly, you’ve long known Bram would make a political mating for you. But Ice … If you believe nothing I’ve said, believe that he likely has many reasons to make you his mate, none of which has a thing to do with love or instinct.”

Sabelle bit her lip. Though ugly, it was quite possible Ice had kept the truth from her.

“With a long friendship to build on, we could do worse, Sabelle.” He cupped her cheek. “But this isn’t about us; it’s about all the lives we will be saving.”

That was the one truth she could not argue. Bram needed to nominate someone for the Council quickly to compete against Mathias. Of all Bram’s allies, Lucan had one of the better claims to a seat through his uncle.

Even if Ice genuinely loved her, and God knew she loved him, nothing could change the fact magickind needed her to mate with the next wizard who occupied MacKinnett’s seat. It had been a fairy tale to think that she would not be united for political advantage.

The reality filled her with a helpless rage.

“Sabelle.” Lucan cupped her face in his warm hands, and the sting of his warmth against her cheeks brought her gaze up to his blue, blue eyes. “I will be good to you. Always.”

Lucan leaned closer, erasing half the space between them, his lids half-closed. He wanted to kiss her. Was waiting for a sign from her.

She swallowed. Could she mate with Lucan? Could she share intimacies with him when she wasn’t focused on providing energy and healing?

Clutching his forearms, she gulped and raised her chin a fraction, tilting her face toward his. Could she be with him? Could she honestly give herself to Lucan as a mate? Sabelle had to know.

She leaned closer. Exhaled. Then Lucan’s mouth brushed hers, soft, lingering … compelling. She’d never experienced this side of Lucan while providing him energy. Then, he’d always been demanding, taking her greedily. Now, everything about his kiss cajoled and persuaded. The urgency was all in the finesse, and she’d be lying if she said she was oblivious to his touch. In fact, he roused a gentle desire as he dipped deeper into her mouth so she tasted the flavor of coffee and nascent longing on his tongue.

But he didn’t scorch her, didn’t make her ache and claw and beg for him.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself. This wasn’t awful or torturous. She and Lucan were going to save lives. She would give Bram no reason to disclaim her. And in case Ice was lying, she would prevent him from breaking her heart.

Sabelle eased out of the kiss, eyes closed, and turned her head away. “Speak the words, and I will Bind to you.”

And break my own heart. For as pleasant as the kiss had been, she knew she would never love Lucan.

“Tomorrow?” Lucan asked.

So bloody soon … And yet she knew there was no time to spare. Mathias would realize his nefarious plan if Bram did not reach the others of the Council quickly.

“No!” A male’s voice shouted, sharp with outrage and pain.

She opened her eyes to find Ice barreling toward her, his stomp and furious eyes both shouting possession.

“Back off,” Lucan warned, reaching for her.

Ice grabbed her wrist first and dragged her closer. “Fuck off.”

His touch exploded a thousand conflicting emotions inside her: need, duty, love, anger, desire, determination. They flashed through her like a strobe light, fast and blinding.

Suddenly, the chilly drizzle of Sterling’s garden was gone, replaced by a bedroom housed in, of all things, a cave. A sprawling bed with mussed black sheets, sparse furniture, no windows. Utilitarian. Bleak. Cold. Oh God.

Ice had just teleported her to his bedroom.

Fury pounded through Ice as he stared at Sabelle, Lucan’s kiss fresh on her lips. Every breath came in a harsh rush and exhalation, his chest working furiously.

Speak the words, and I will Bind to you. Ice heard Sabelle say that to Lucan over and over in his head, stabbing him in the heart with every echoed syllable.

“Were you going to Renounce me before you accepted Lucan’s claim? Do I not warrant at least a refusal now that your brother has painted me a villain? Certainly, you want to put me in my place.”

Sabelle hesitated, looking at him with beseeching blue eyes that nearly imploded his chest. She silently begged for understanding. But the sight of her with Lucan, knowing she would accept a wizard who did not love her, bubbled him over his boiling point.

“Ice, the fact I must Renounce you has nothing to do with your station and everything to do with my role in stopping Mathias. Without me as Lucan’s mate, Bram may not be able to sway the Council to vote against him. They’re so fearful of their own shadows … we don’t dare leave magickind’s fate to chance. Besides, you were not completely honest with me. You vowed to show Bram what it was like to lose a sister and—”

“Meaningless words spoken in anger, long before your birth.”

“Even so, you two hadn’t spoken since, had you? When the opportunity to join the Doomsday Brethren arose, you must have seen the chance to join your two favorite causes: defeating Mathias and making Bram pay for not helping you with Gailene. Your suit was sudden, and left me no time to think. You Called to me nearly as soon as we were alone.”

Did she really believe he could fake such passion and abiding love?

“Instinct, princess. I knew from the first kiss you were made for me. If I tasted you now, the same ripple of pleasurable certainty would slide down my spine and dig into my bones. The fact that you’re brave, strong, giving, caring, and bright simply tells me I would have loved you, regardless of instinct.”

Uncertainty tinged with disbelief tightened her face, and Ice felt the crash of rage inside him again, like powerful waves pounding the craggy rocks on the shore outside his dwelling.

“And still, you don’t believe me.” He cursed.

Sabelle said nothing for long moments, as if she waged some inner battle. Finally, she exploded. “You said nothing to me of your sister or avenging her death! Not a word of being Bram’s friend, seeking a Council seat. Stupidly, I believed that you and Bram disliked each other for no more reason than your resentment of his position, and his disdain for your behavior. You had a million chances to tell me all—any—of this. You remained silent. The only reason I can conceive is to hide your perfidy.”

Bloody hell, that she thought so little of him was like an ax to his soul. He’d sought to protect her from the ugly truth and the worst skeletons in his family closet. They shamed him. He hadn’t wished to taint Sabelle with the nasty history between him and Bram, or the other details.

Now, to have any chance of preventing her mating with Lucan MacTavish, the wanker, Ice must reveal all.

God. How badly would that hurt?

Ice loosed a rattling breath, then tightened his grip on Sabelle’s wrist and dragged her closer. Surprise widened her eyes, and she stared at him before her gaze cut to the unmade bed with panic.

“No, I don’t seek to work my way between your pretty thighs.” At least not yet.

God willing, he hoped Sabelle would be his forever, and he would spend a great deal of time there absorbing her pleasure and listening to her cries of completion. First, he had to get through the next half hour.

“I want to show you something. I will tell you every fucking detail of the terrible reality I tried to keep to myself.”

She dug in her heels but was no match for his strength and anger. He pulled her out of his room, down the cavernous hallway cut from the cave’s grayish, windowless rock. His conscience twinged him, but he ruthlessly squashed it. Sabelle wanted the truth? She was about to get every last hideous grain of it.

Nor had he wanted to bring her here before their vows were exchanged. She was used to far finer. But it was done. Perhaps it was for the best. She’d known he was Deprived, yes, but did she really know what it meant?

“Ice, stop,” she protested. “Where are you taking me?”

He said nothing. Almost there . . .

“Damn it, Ice. I—”

“If you want the truth, even the truth Bram didn’t know, then shut up. You want me to tear off the scars so you can see inside my soul? To determine if I’m a liar and you should Renounce me? Then come along and listen.”

A hopeless fury had come over him, the sort that hadn’t gripped him in two centuries. After Sabelle heard about the train wreck of the past, instead of convincing her of his sincerity, she’d likely Renounce him on the spot. And the fact he was powerless to stop his beloved from leaving him for another crushed him just as profoundly as Gailene’s murder.

At the end of the cold hall, he threw open a small door and pushed Sabelle inside. He knew exactly what she would see: a wardrobe, nearly empty, a palette of two ragtag blankets and a dirty, worn pillow, a faded red ribbon tied to a spur of the cave’s stone wall.

He swallowed, throat tight, as he prepared to hammer the nails into his own coffin. “My father believed all females, unless used for pleasure or to breed sons, were useless. My mother gave birth to me, and much celebration ensued in the Rykard clan. Three years later, my mother gave birth to Gailene.”

Sabelle paled. “Three years?”

Yes, she would be shocked by that, when the difference between magical siblings was often decades or centuries. A witch’s fertile time did not come often unless . . .

“Which should tell you something about the frequency with which my father bedded her.”

“C-constantly?”

Seeing Sabelle react exactly as he’d known she would was both gratifying and frustrating. From this, he knew precisely how she would feel about the rest of his story.

“So I’m told, yes. When Gailene was born, my father had no use for a girl child. In his eyes, she was but another mouth to feed. She would never add to our wealth or defend our dwelling. She would never advance our family in magical politics or marry well enough to distinguish us in any particular way. So the day she was born, he tried to kill her.”

Sabelle gasped, and Ice could see the horror streaking across her face. But he wasn’t done.

“My mother convinced him otherwise, and because he had high hopes of getting another son on her, and quickly, it behooved him to keep her happy. He allowed her to keep the girl child, with the understanding that their every spare moment would be consumed in the conception of another son. But the girl was to be given no comforts. Food was only hers if there were leftovers.”

Hell, she looked at him now with a mixture of pity and horror, and it was all Ice could do to keep his fist from finding the nearest wall or breaking down the damned concrete wall he’d encased his tears in long ago.

“This … was Gailene’s room?”

Ice nodded. “I gave her my blankets. She had none. I often gave her my food. I tried to protect her from my father’s rants and punishments. Though I told him I did those things in order to become a tougher wizard, he knew I lied. He mocked me and said that no warrior of merit had such a soft heart. He said it would be my downfall and resolved to cure me of it.”

“Dear God, she was a child. You were protecting her. How could he be so cruel to his own flesh and blood?”

Ice shrugged. “My father was not a good man. He and my mother tried for many years to have another son, but after delivering two children so close together, my mother did not become fertile again as quickly as he liked. Finally, she conceived again when I was twenty, Gailene seventeen. My mother and infant brother died shortly thereafter. My father’s only reason for allowing Gailene to stay in the house was dead.”

“What did he do?” Her face said that she wasn’t certain she wanted to know, and Ice hardly blamed her.

“My father, who had encouraged my friendship with Bram and others associated with the Council, ordered me away from our house.” Ice remembered clearly the foreboding, the finality in his father’s words. He’d tried every excuse imaginable to stay with Gailene.

“My father had promised me that he would allow Gailene to remain as long as I continued to cultivate the friendships that could return us to the glory the Rykards had known before the Social order stripped us of our titles, wealth, and lands. For her, I made friends of many related to the Council, but I genuinely liked your brother. I saw that his ambition to rule the Council someday was motivated by a very clear vision of leadership for magickind. For that I was jealous, but I supported him. Believed in him.

“But that day, I came home. Gailene was gone.”

“Your father let Mathias kill her?”

“He sold Gailene to Mathias and told the bastard that he cared not what became of her.”

“And she was seventeen?” Sabelle’s face had turned an even chalkier shade of white, and perverse satisfaction filled Ice.

“Yes. Mathias told me her screams as he took her virginity were delectable, but she became regrettably weepy, which forced him to give her to the Anarki, who quickly used her up. Finally, Mathias had one of his minions dump her body on the beach just outside. I found her.”