Page 30 of Loving Graystoke's Heir

“I thought I was going to become like his grandfather.”

“No one ever told me what happened to your great grandfather. I certainly didn’t want to ask.”

When he didn’t immediately answer, she startled and backed off.

“You don’t have to say-”

“The family rumor mill said that he went stark raving mad, and that he ran away to Africa to live like an ape. Naked and scratching at himself in the dust.”

Tamsin didn’t move away from him, instead she leaned closer, silently offering him her support. He’d missed her so much.

“He heard voices, and the doctors had told him the same things that they had told me. Only back then they didn’t have all of the fancy equipment that mine did, but that didn’t matter. No one told me that I was a shapeshifter.”

“And you think,” she seemed to measure out the words like a baker measured out their ingredients, “that your great grandfather might have been one too.”

“I know he was.” Donal struggled for a moment to decide how much to share with her, but he knew he had to tell her. Tell her everything.

She deserved that from him.

“Mzamo’s family has known mine that long. His family shares stories much more than mine. For him and his ancestors the stories of my great grandfather were the thing of legends. For my family they were a dirty secret that could make us all seem deranged.” He felt Tamsin’s hand relax in his. “He was the one who found me when I was sure I was about to die. He’s the one that took me to my great grandfather’s house and told me the stories. He’s the one who was there to remind me that I was human. Or at least that I’d become human again if I let myself go.”

“I still,” Tamsin had blurted out the words and then pressed her lips together to stop herself from speaking.

“No,” he nodded. “Say what you want to say.”

It took her just a moment to open up, and he smiled hoping that they were connecting again, bridging the gap that he’d put between them.

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t bring me with you. Why you thought you had to leave me behind. If you thought you were… thought you were dying, I would have been there for you in a heartbeat.”

He heard the passion in her voice and the surety. There was no doubt in his mind at that moment and really, even back then there hadn’t been one either.

How could he tell her? Even though she deserved the truth, the last thing he wanted to do was to scare her away.

“The feelings I was having,” he let out a slow exhale, “the voice in my head, so much of what it said was about you.”

“About me?”

He gripped her hand a little tighter, but she didn’t pull away. Not yet.

“My great grandfather, when he came back to Africa, when he accepted what he was… who he was, he came back because of a woman.”

“But-”

“He knew who he belonged with. Not with his wife who his family had forced him to marry and carry on the line. My great grandfather came to Africa and found the woman who held his heart. His true love. His mate.”

“Mate?” Tamsin lifted her hand to her temple and rubbed it a little.

Letting her hand go, he turned on the bench, straddled it, and turned her to face him. With her leg tucked up between them, he could still reach out and massage her temples with his fingertips.

When she sighed from his tender touch, he continued on. “I didn’t understand it when I left. I heard the voice in my head. He told me that you were ours. That you needed to be ours forever. That I had to take you and make you my mate.”

She took hold of his wrists to keep his hands still as her eyes searched his. “But I… I had already… we had already…”

“We did but I wanted more. He told me I- we needed more.” He saw the question in her eyes, and he wasn’t going to make her ask. “We needed to taste you. To sink our teeth into your skin. I couldn’t let my animal explain the rest. It seemed like he wanted me to kill you. I heard all of that and looked at you, asleep in my arms, and it felt like I had truly lost my mind.

“I didn’t understand that he meant to bond us together. To make us one, Tam. I didn’t know that until Mzamo took me to great grandfather’s house, and I read his own words about what had happened to him. All of a sudden, my curse didn’t seem so horrible.”

“So why didn’t you send for me? Why didn’t you tell me to come to you?”

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