Free Jace by Sarah McCarty Page A

he’d gotten her here before the sun had come up. “You were burned because of me.”
    “I was burned because of bad timing.”
    “How long were you in the sun?”
    “Not too long.”
    She told herself it didn’t matter, that it changed nothing, but that was a lie. “‘Not too long’ meaning not long enough to kill you?”
    She felt his smile against her hair. Only Jace would smile now. “Pretty much.”
    He would think that way. Jace and his brothers defined “tough.” “When we were together before, did I mention how much I hate the big macho-man thing you and your brothers have going?”
    His lips brushed her hair and his tense laugh vibrated through her. “I think you were too distracted to bring it up.”
    She rolled her eyes. “I would not have been that distracted.”
    Which wasn’t exactly true. From the moment she’d seen Jace standing in the moonlight by the pool where she was bathing eighteen months ago, she’d been drawn to him. So much so that she hadn’t called for help when he approached, hadn’t resisted when he’d drawn her into his arms, hadn’t protested when he’d kissed her. Just responded with that instinctive drive to submit to him that a female wolf experienced with her mate. To give him whatever he wanted. Being with Jace had been addictive. When he’d asked her to meet him again in secret, she had. When he’d asked for her virginity, she’d given it, so caught up in him that she’d ignored all caution and tradition. Way too sheltered to understand what she was doing, she’d opened her heart and mind to Jace’s, welcoming him as her mate with total abandon, assuming he saw her the way she saw him. Assuming that “mate” meant the same thing to him as it did to her. Nothing had mattered but being with him, being his. She’d wanted to give him her mark, the final act of commitment for a wolf, the final act necessary to complete a vampire/were mating; and she had intended to take his blood in return. She’d thought it so fitting, an act so perfect its symbolism rose in her mind more powerfully than the taboo of a wolf woman doing such a thing.
    And then Jace had announced he was leaving, as if it were nothing, taking her joy, leaving her with pain. Right up until the moment he’d walked out the door to go on his mission, she hadn’t truly believed he’d do it. True mates didn’t separate—but he had. And her pain had begun. Pain worse than what now consumed her, because illusion died hard, and when it was gone there was no avoiding reality. She loved more than she was loved and nothing could close that inequality.
    And yet today, the man she thought didn’t care for her the way she cared about him had faced the sun for her. For duty? For love? For something else? Miri grazed her fingers over Jace’s, skimming the edge of the burned flesh. It was no small thing. Burns were the worst thing for a vampire. The only thing that didn’t heal at their normally rapid pace. Which was why all vampires feared them. “You must be in so much pain.”
    “Will pity for my suffering soften a bit of that anger you’re feeling toward me?”
    Yes. No. She shrugged. “Probably.”
    “You don’t sound too happy about it.”
    “I told you, I’m working on not being so nice.”
    With a flex of muscle, he cradled her closer. “I told you before, I like you nice.”
    “Everybody likes me nice because that gets them what they want. The only catch with that is everybody but me is happy and when things go wrong, I’m the one who suffers.”
    The glow in his eyes deepened. “I didn’t mean to make you suffer.”
    “I know.” She understood that now. “The misunderstanding was my fault for taking up with a man who’s not pack.”
    “How the hell would taking up with pack have been any better for you?”
    She let go of his hand. He didn’t let go of hers. It didn’t matter. His holding on now wouldn’t mitigate the differences between them. There was no returning to innocence