Storming over to the pair, his gaze darted between Shock and Anka, the kick in his gut reminding him that because Anka hadn’t spoken the Binding to him, she was free to do anything she wanted with Shock. Anything at all. Succumb to every lascivious, raunchy, wicked demand the wankstain had.
Fuck, Lucan felt sick to his stomach. Anka claimed to love him. He was the mate of her heart. She would give birth to his youngling. And yet…she’d disappeared into a bedroom with her former lover.
“What’s this?” He stared at Anka, willing her to speak some truth that wasn’t going to kill him. Instead, her legs crumpled under her, and Lucan lunged to catch her in his arms as she fell to the floor. He turned to Shock with an accusing glare. “What the fuck did you do?”
The other wizard’s face closed up immediately. “Don’t panic, Sir Galahad. She’s all right. I told her to lie down. Stubborn witch doesn’t listen.”
“How do you know she’s fine? What did you do to her, damn it?”
Shock growled. “I said she’s all right already.”
“I don’t care what you said. This whole ‘he who must not be fucked with’ persona might scare others. Me? I don’t give a shit what you think you can do to me. If you threaten her—”
“After everything I’ve done for her, you can accuse me of that with a straight face?”
Lucan unclenched his fists. Slowly, he backed away. Shock would never harm Anka. He cared. He might even need her in some odd way. Or at least Bram had hinted as much. Bram might be a scheming prat, but he was a smart one. But Anka’s safety wasn’t Lucan’s only concern.
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t slide her between your sheets,” he snapped.
But Sabelle had mentioned just minutes ago that Shock arrived at the manor brimming with energy. Lucan saw no hint of Anka’s energy in Shock’s signature now.
“I wish.” Shock hadn’t touched her, and his expression said that he sorely wished otherwise. “Don’t I fucking wish. But you won that battle, so back the fuck off.”
“Sorry.” Lucan was forced to admit he’d been wrong. He sighed, cradling Anka against his chest. “What’s wrong with her, then? Did something happen?”
Shock grimaced. “No. Really, give her ten. She’ll be right as rain. Where’s Bram been? I need to talk to him. Mathias is getting antsy.”
Before Lucan could stop it, his memory flashed a picture of heading down to the dungeon with Bram to talk to Rhea.
The other wizard snarled in his face. “What did they discuss?”
Lucan intentionally blanked his mind. “Does Mathias care about Rhea much?”
“Mathias doesn’t give a piss about anyone.”
As he’d suspected. “Then there are no worries.”
“Fucking wanker,” Shock muttered and stalked off, jogging down the stairs in his leathers.
Lucan watched him go with mixed feelings. He didn’t like Shock, or trust him much, but the way he’d behaved with Anka proved that when he was loyal, he was loyal to the core. Too bad they couldn’t transfer some of that allegiance to the Doomsday Brethren. They could use someone fearless and reliable with connections to both sides.
There would probably be a month of full moons before that happened.
Anka roused in his arms, her dark lashes fluttering up over her amber eyes. When she realized where she was, or more precisely who was holding her, she gasped. “Where’s Shock?”
“Gone downstairs. What were you doing with him?” Lucan tried to keep the accusation out of his voice, but feared that he was falling miserably short.
She squirmed in his arms until he set her on her feet, carefully keeping her near in case she needed his support. Anka hesitated in answering him for such a long time, Lucan feared that she’d refuse to speak at all. Yeah, so much for honesty. Finally, she drew in a resigned breath.
“I can’t tell you that. And I’m sorry, truly. He’s kept my secret since my childhood. In exchange, I agreed to keep his. I chose to tell you and the others mine so that I was no longer deceiving you and I could be helpful to the Doomsday Brethren. But I can’t divulge his, not even to you. I owe him too much. If you’re angry with me and can’t accept that, I’m sorry.”
The speech stunned him, and he watched, open-mouthed, as she headed for the stairs on wobbling legs. Jolted into action by her unsteady gait, he jogged to her and made her hold the rail with one hand. He gripped her other arm.
He tried not to feel shut out, betrayed. It didn’t work. Instead, he focused on getting her downstairs safely. Then they’d have a nice row.
“You’re not steady enough to fight tonight.”
She didn’t look at him, didn’t pause. “I’ll be all right. Surely Shock told you that.”
And he was simply supposed to trust Shock? Lucan scrubbed a hand down his face. “Yes. But Anka, after everything that’s happened, you’re asking me to just…believe him?”
Anka paused, her pale curls swinging over her breasts, still tightly encased in a T-shirt. “No. I’m asking you to believe me. And to trust that I know I’m going to be perfectly well to fight. You want me to trust you, but you have to do the same in return. If you can’t trust me to be truthful about that …” She blinked up at him with such regret in her eyes, his heart lurched. “I love you, but maybe it’s best that I didn’t speak the Binding.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Bram called everyone back to the dining room to await Mathias so they could ostensibly share the plan with him. Anka fidgeted in her seat. Lucan sat beside her in silence, scowling at his former best friend—before turning his silent glower on her. Clearly he didn’t like what she’d said earlier, but she couldn’t take it back. She wouldn’t even if she could. She owed Shock too much, and Lucan had to understand that. If he didn’t…God, she couldn’t be caught between them again, forced to choose. It hurt too much.
The more Bram talked—Anka wasn’t listening as she should—the more Shock looked ready to crawl across the table and throttle him. In fact, Shock and Lucan might not agree about much, but it was clear they both violently hated Bram’s insistence that Mathias go with them to the site where Merlin had hidden Morganna’s killing potion. But Bram overruled them. Without Mathias, there was no way to know if the potion was still in its place.
Lucan turned to her during a lull in the conversation around the table. “Are you truly all right to fight tonight?”
“Of course.” She was nervous, but she refused to burden him with that. But she had fully recovered from her few minutes with Shock.
“Anka…” The warning in his voice couldn’t be mistaken. “Don’t lie.”