“What would be the fun in telling him?”

“That’s mean.” There was no answer; the Hob had already left. “He certainly knows how to make an exit.” She shook her head and made her way to her convertible. She had a plane to catch and a vampire to watch over.

She just hoped Robin knew what he was doing.

Moira watched Duncan pace the length of the library and back again. What was wrong with her? The better question might be, what is wrong with him? Weren’t they mated? Hadn’t he Claimed her, taken her to his home? Told her he cared for her? So why? Why hadn’t he touched her? Beyond a few kisses and some increasingly sad smiles, he was so…distant. Why did he pace night after night, mourning something he couldn’t explain?

Why did she feel like mourning?

If it wasn’t for the fact that she and Duncan were destined mates she would have left by now, her heart and pride in tatters. But Aileen had told her to be patient, that something was desperately wrong. It was up to Moira, as Duncan’s future wife, to find out what that something was and rectify it. So far, Moira hadn’t been able to figure out anything other than Duncan was steadily growing worse.

She was tired, oh so tired. Duncan’s depression dragged at her, and not even the comfort of her mother could ease the pain. She accepted that Duncan wanted her, needed her. He’d made it clear the one time she, in desperation, offered to leave him alone. She hadn’t meant forever, she’d meant just for a few days, but the desolation in his eyes had made her stay. She’d fallen asleep in his arms, calming him, soothing him. Letting him know that she was there for him, whether he wanted her or not. But the Binding and the Vow remained undone, and without that connection Moira wasn’t certain how much more she could take before she broke. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Duncan needed her, that the Claiming wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t destined to be together. But something held them both back from taking the final steps that would bind them together forever. If it hadn’t, she would have gotten him drunk and taken care of the matter herself.

Something tugged at both their hearts, and she was desperately afraid of what it might be. Not even the cheerful Christmas decorations she’d roped the entire household into putting up brightened her mood, and she loved watching Christmas lights twinkle at night. The human holidays were her favorite time of year, but she just couldn’t get into the spirit of it.

The hell with this. Whatever was bothering Duncan, he refused to discuss it. He was heartbroken every night, reaching for something that was never there. No. Not something. Someone. She wished with all her heart that someone was her.

Don’t lie to yourself, Moira. Not all your heart, girl.

She winced, hoping Duncan hadn’t noticed. No matter how badly she wanted to forget that night, Jaden Blackthorn refused to leave her mind, or her heart. And that was just wrong when her fated mate paced not ten feet away from her.

It would have been so easy for Jaden to hurt her beyond knocking her out. He could have sipped her blood without creating the bond, but he had created it. He’d used that bond to reassure her when she was frightened by Ruby’s kidnapping and Leo’s fight with Kaitlynn. She’d felt his pain as the rowan stake pierced his back, nearly killing him.

The flare of agony as Duncan Claimed her had been intense before Jaden cut her off cold. She still wondered at it, wondered if that agony had been for her or for Duncan. She bit her lip. That wondering had begun taking her down a path she’d never thought was possible before.

Was it?

She bit her lip, watching Duncan pace back and forth, back and forth. Nothing seemed to reach him anymore. The only thing that had caught his attention recently was Ian, Duncan’s long-time butler, mentioning…Jaden.

She took a deep breath and allowed the possibility to sink in that what she was thinking might be fact rather than fantasy.

She didn’t expect much resistance from her family if she was right. They understood now that Jaden had been working all along to slow Kaitlynn down. It had been a surprise to her family, but Duncan had known. Duncan trusted Jaden more than anyone in the world except her. That trust Duncan showed her reassured her when nothing else could. If he trusted her enough to let her in, to let her feel his grief and hold him close when no one else could go near him without getting their heads bitten off, then he trusted her enough to fix whatever it was that had gone so wrong between them.

She clenched her jaw and nodded to herself. It was about damn time she got started. If her hunch was correct, she’d need to have a nice, long talk with her intended. Soon.

She shook her head and stood up, feeling like she was heading into battle with blinders on.

“Moira?” Duncan stood as well, his concerned gaze tracking her every move.

She tried to smile, she really did, but she just couldn’t manage it. Her own depression was nearly overwhelming. She walked out of the room and climbed the stairs to the bedroom she shared with Duncan. She took her cell phone out of her pocket, sat at the vanity Duncan had installed for her, and did the only thing she could think of.

Moira called her mother.

Duncan watched Moira leave the room. She was too hurt to even give him a real attempt at a smile, but what could he do? He’d been ripped in two. One half sat upstairs in his bedroom, doing the gods only knew what. Possibly making preparations to leave him, not that he didn’t deserve it.

The other… Ah, the other…

How had this happened? How could he have known that claiming his heart would tear out his soul? Oh, he was coming to love Moira. How could he not? She did everything she could think of to ease the unbearable melancholy that had slowly begun to rip him apart since leaving the Dunne farm. Other women would have ripped into him, or tried to hurt him even more for his seeming indifference, but not Moira. Moira almost seemed to understand what he was going through and tried her best to make it better even though he didn’t understand it himself. But nothing she did could completely erase the ache of Jaden’s absence.

Nothing anyone did could, and it was slowly tearing him apart.

He’d called to Jaden through their bond, but Jaden hadn’t answered, not in all the long weeks he’d been gone. Jaden was off somewhere in Nevada, but Duncan didn’t get what Jaden was doing there. Was he hurt? Was that why he didn’t answer? Why couldn’t Duncan let this go long enough to complete the bond with Moira? He’d kissed her, begun Claiming her, but he had yet to make love to her and complete the Claiming. Without that, the Bonding and the Vow would be useless no matter how many times he uttered the words.

He scrubbed his face with the palms of his hands. Was it possible that, after four hundred years waiting, wishing for his mate, he was finally losing his mind? Why couldn’t he bring himself to Claim her?

To top it all off, there were restless members of the clan who were unhappy with his choice of mate, kin who thought that by bonding with Moira he’d somehow diluted the Malmayne bloodline. There were a few who had come to congratulate him on his mating, but that was the problem, wasn’t it? Instead of paying homage to the clan leader’s wife, the majority of the Malmaynes had stayed away, showing their disapproval in the only way open to them that wouldn’t result in serious reprisals.

Little did they know. Jaden would…

That knife blade of sorrow was becoming all too familiar. Because Jaden wouldn’t.

Jaden wasn’t here.

“Mrow.”

Duncan looked down at the only real link he had left to Jaden. “Hey, Furball.” He picked up the calico cat, smiling as he petted her. He’d have to see to it that she bred soon. He couldn’t imagine not having one of Jezebel’s grandchildren living with them. The stray Duncan had rescued all those years ago had lived a long and comfortable life. Between Jaden and Duncan they’d raised generations of Jezebel’s descendants.