Page 28 of The Iron Flower

“Yes, at first,” Andras says. “But we spent much time together. Many nights under the stars. And in time, we paired.”

Diana’s eyes widen. “You took each other as mates with no formal bond?”

“Diana,” Rafe puts in, “their customs differ...”

She rounds on Rafe. “But this is very shocking.” She turns back to Andras, disapproval written all over her face. “I don’t understand this at all. How can you mate with someone you do not love?”

A shadow falls over Andras’s expression. “What happened?” I ask softly.

He lets out a deep breath and rubs his jaw before continuing. “I began to have feelings for Sorcha. And it wasn’t just the way our bodies fit together, like we had been made for each other. She returned to me again and again, and after lying together, we would talk for hours. It was forbidden, what she was doing. The Amaz are only supposed to seek out men during the fertility rites. But Sorcha seemed as drawn to me as I was to her. During our last night together, I told her that I loved her. That I wanted her to stay with me and never leave.”

He pauses, staring into the fire. “She broke down crying and told me that she could not love me. That she loved the Amaz. And that she could not have both. She said that she was with child and would not need to be with me any longer, and that she had come to say goodbye.” He grows quiet, suppressed emotion heavy in the air. “Then she left, and I never saw her again. And now, I am left wondering if I have a daughter in the Amaz lands. Or, if the child was a boy, did she abandon him in the woods somewhere, as my mother was urged to abandon me?”

Andras’s expression darkens. “A few months after Sorcha left, another Amaz woman came to me during the rites.” His jaw tenses, affront flashing in his eyes. “I sent her away. And the Amaz have stayed away from me ever since.”

Everyone is silent as we stare into the crackling fire.

“Do you still love her?” Tierney asks quietly, and I wonder if she’s thinking of Leander. Andras makes a bitter noise, his private anguish breaking through, but he doesn’t answer.

“You need a life mate,” Diana states with authority. “This way of theirs is unnatural.”

Andras lets out a hollow laugh. “And who will have me, Diana Ulrich? Who?” he challenges. “No one. I am accepted nowhere.”

“Become Lupine,” Diana says. “Wewould accept you.”

Andras shakes his head. “I could never do that to my mother. She gave upeverythingfor me. Everything she loves. It would kill her if I rejected her in that way.”

“But you wouldn’t be rejecting your mother,” Diana persists, confused.

An incredulous look passes over Andras’s face. “She would see it as such. To become Lupine would be the worst betrayal possible.”

“Why?” Diana asks, looking offended. “Are we so beneath you?”

“Diana,” Andras says, as if his reasoning should be obvious, “Lupine pack life is everything the Amaz despise.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Diana replies stiffly.

“Both Northern and Southern packs havemalealphas.”

“And both have had female alphas, as well.”

Andras throws her a disparaging look. “Yes, but they haven’t for some time.”

“We will again.”

“Will you?” A mirthless smile lifts his lips. “Who is next in line to be your alpha?”

Diana eyes him with impatience. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s not a question of politics or lineage. Only power.”

“Then who of the younger Lupines is the most powerful?”

Diana grows still and looks down with a sudden, uncharacteristic gravity. When she looks back up at Andras, there’s a level force to her gaze that sets the hairs on the back of my neck prickling.

“You?”Andras says with obvious surprise. He looks Diana over appraisingly. “What if I was a Lupine?” he asks, curious and slightly amused. “Could you best me?”

Diana tilts her head. Her predatory eyes flick up and down Andras’s huge, muscular frame, gauging his strength. She sits back, decided. “I could take you. I’m very fast. Speed would give me the advantage.”

Andras smirks. “Now I am tempted to become Lupine, Diana. If only to watch this future transition of power.”

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