Creed

“Fall? What does that mean?”

“My father swore me to clan service for the first hundred years of my life, to the previous lord. It was done at my birth. I was given no choice in the matter, but I must honor the vow he gave. To do anything else would be dishonorable and not be tolerated.”

He walked to her and lowered to his knees. He reached out and took her hands in both of his, holding them. “I’m not allowed to take a mate until my service is over. My life isn’t my own. I should have told you this. The punishment will be a lashing in front of my clan until I’m required to shell my body. I’ll be so weakened by then from blood loss that it’s easier to stay in that form for longer periods of time, since we suspend our bodies in that shape. They encase the punished in a sealed cavern for ten years. It won’t kill my kind, but there’s no sound, not even the brush of a breeze. There’s nothing but darkness and being locked with your own thoughts, between sleeps, until the uncasing. It’s a very effective way to make certain the laws are followed.”

“That’s horrible, but—”

“I’m not done,” he cut her off. “Lord Aveoth will decide what will happen to the mate. His father swore he’d have them slaughtered. He threatened to make the punished watch. Some lords in the past considered it a mercy if they just enslaved the mate while the punished were encased for those ten years. That way, he wouldn’t lose her forever. Remember when I told you that Gargoyles nearly died out as a race because our birthrates for having males is much higher than girl children?”

“Yes but—”

“What is worse than making the punished go into darkness, knowing that his mate will be forced to breed with any single male who wishes to try to impregnate her? Any children born would be taken from her after birth, to be the sole property of the father, her parental rights stripped. It helped keep our race alive, despite the cruelty of it. The mate wasn’t given a choice.”

His gaze left her to glance at the bed and his mouth pressed into a tight line. “I will never allow them to enslave you. You’d be tied down and taken by any male who was willing to have a youngling with a human vessel. Some of the older full-bloods could use your body to give them sons. They’d keep you locked up until you birthed, take the child away from you forever, then turn you into a vessel for the next one who chooses to make you birth him a child. It would continue until I’m freed. You wouldn’t survive it, Angel. Not your body or your mind. And I won’t allow that.”

She wasn’t shocked by the laws he’d just explained. She’d grown up in a Lycan pack. Some of their laws were downright barbaric. “Why would they want to do that to me? Why are you telling me this?”

He paled slightly. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

He closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest.

“Know what? Creed?”

He looked at her, and she saw a deep sadness in the depth of his gaze. “I lost control. I thought you goaded me into it on purpose by biting me.” He held her hands a little tighter. “I changed forms while we were on that bed.” He paused. “While I was inside you. I lost control of my forms and I bit you back. I was drinking your blood during sex.”

Angel was grateful she was already sitting on her ass. The implications sank in. “Oh God.”

He nodded. “We mated. The bond is weak since I only bit you near the end…but it’s done.”