by Eve Langlais
“Mmmmm.” The low hum of Colin’s voice sent a shiver over Ellie’s skin. He kissed every inch of her that his mouth could reach. Arms, shoulders, neck, chest, and torso. He kissed the hollow of her throat, her jawline, under her ear. Her forehead, temple, cheek, and back to her mouth. He seemed to enjoy kissing her more than anything else. He took his time as he kissed her, and each time the heat of his mouth made contact with her skin it only made her greedy for more. “I think ‘wow’ might be a bit of an understatement.”
Ellie laughed. In a few minutes, Colin had managed to accomplish something she couldn’t in twenty-four solid hours. The stress and depressing thoughts that plagued her melted away in an instant. Her worries diminished. The future that stretched out infinitely before her didn’t seem half as bleak. He was a one-man antianxiety antidepressant.
But he wasn’t a man, was he?
“What’s the matter?” Colin’s tone turned to one of concern.
“What do you mean?”
Colin ran his nose along Ellie’s throat and she shivered. “Your scent changed. I can smell your worry.”
Not a man at all. No, Colin Courtney was extraordinary. His keen senses posed a problem, though. How was Ellie to have any privacy when little things like a change in scent could give away her mood and thereby her thoughts?
“Today’s just been sort of intense. That’s all. Like you said, it’s a lot to process.”
Colin held her against him, as though unwilling for their bodies to part. The tension in his arms kept Ellie in place, and rather than pull away, she allowed her head to come to rest on his strong shoulder. It seemed such a natural thing to do. Almost too easy. She had so many questions she wanted answered, but she knew if he opened up to her Colin would want a few answers of his own. Ellie didn’t know if she was ready to open up to him. She barely knew him. Her secrets were buried deep in the darkest recesses of her heart. Unearthing them after so long might be more painful than Ellie could endure.
“Intense,” Colin agreed. “And amazing.”
His words warmed her heart. Her fingers moved as though of their own volition and threaded through the silky strands of his tawny hair. “I don’t know if it’s all been amazing,” Ellie said with a laugh. “Rolling down an embankment couldn’t have been any fun.”
“Totally worth it.” Colin placed a kiss on her shoulder. “I’d fall off that cliff again if it meant you’d be the one to find me.”
His words affected her much more than they should have. She didn’t want to feel anything for Colin. She couldn’t. She steered the conversation away from pretty words. “Where were you when you fell?”
He let out a slow breath. “The top of the ridge. Near the trailhead.”
Holy crap. If that was true, she’d found him a good three-quarters-of-a-mile drop from where he’d fallen. A fall like that would’ve killed anyone. If the fact that he was still alive didn’t prove Colin was a supernatural creature, she didn’t know what did.
“You’re lucky you didn’t die.”
Colin gave a gentle laugh. “Luck had nothing to do with it. Werewolf.”
Werewolf. Ellie still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. In the blink of an eye her life, her entire existence, had changed. She didn’t know if she was prepared to deal with the fallout.
CHAPTER 8
Despite his having fallen off a cliff yesterday, Colin’s afternoon was certainly looking up. Ellie remained on his lap, their bodies still joined as they talked. It was an intimate moment, one he wouldn’t have expected to happen so soon. Colin wasn’t about to complain, however. Both he and the animal that inhabited his psyche hadn’t felt so content in years. Hell, decades. The mate bond was truly an extraordinary thing.
“You’re so hot.”
Colin chuckled at Ellie’s remark. “Thanks. It bodes well for me that you think I’m good-looking.”
Ellie laughed, and he swore it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. “No. I mean your body temperature. Your skin is on fire!”
Thanks to his werewolf metabolism, Colin’s body temperature always ran warmer than the average human’s by as much as twenty degrees. “Ah. So you don’t think I’m good-looking?”
Ellie delivered a playful swat to his shoulder. “I have a feeling you know you’re good-looking and don’t need me to stroke your ego.”
“Oh, honey, there’s plenty that I need you to stroke.”
Ellie’s head dipped, and her forehead came to rest on his shoulder. He loved how easy it was to get a rise out of her. To embarrass her. To stoke the flames of her desire. She might have behaved modestly at his little joke, but her scent told him she was more than willing to help out with whatever he needed stroked.
“Seriously.” Her voice went low and quiet. “Are you always this warm?”
“Pretty much. Part of my biology, I guess.”
“Wow. I bet you’re nice to sleep next to in the middle of winter. Who needs a fire when there’s a werewolf around?”
Emotion swelled in Colin’s chest at the prospect of a winter when he wasn’t sleeping alone in his bed. It was true that pack life meant he was never alone, but it was entirely possible to be surrounded by bodies and still feel the crushing weight of loneliness. He’d worried about Ellie’s reaction to their bond. About her inability to believe in what he was and what had happened. That she already had knowledge of supernatural creatures was a bonus. However, Colin sensed that her previous experience with his world hadn’t been a pleasant one.
As much as he wanted to hold her close to him and keep their bodies joined, Colin needed to have a serious conversation with her. That wasn’t going to happen when he was still inside of her and ready to have her again. He gripped her by the waist and lifted her. He missed her soft heat and considered putting conversation on the back burner for a little while longer. But that wouldn’t get them anywhere, and Colin wanted their bond to start on strong footing. He shifted so she rested on the couch and he tucked her body against his to keep her warm. He put his mouth close to her ear and breathed in her delicious scent.
“Ellie, how do you know about witches?”
She shivered. Her scent soured with fear and Colin’s wolf rose up in his psyche, ready to defend their mate against any perceived threat. She tucked her body even closer to his and guided his arm around her middle. He’d seen so many sides of her in the short time since he’d met her. This Ellie was vulnerable and frightened and it made him want to hunt down whoever had made her feel this way and make them pay. Silence stretched out between Ellie and him to the point that it sent a ripple of fear down Colin’s spine. They’d barely met; she had no real reason to trust him. She wasn’t a werewolf, no preternatural senses whatsoever, and yet he hoped she would somehow sense the power of their bond and trust him.
“Ellie?” He’d do whatever it took to coax her out of her shell. “You can talk to me. You can trust me.”
She let out a slow, shaky breath. “I want to trust you. But … I don’t even really know you. And I know, considering what we’ve just done, that’s sort of a ridiculous statement. It’s just that I’ve never told anyone.”
No one? It made Colin’s heart ache to know she had no one to confide in. No one to lean on. Secrets were terrible burdens and they only became heavier the longer you carried them. Colin vowed that she would never be alone again. That in him she would always have a confidant. A protector. A lover. And, in time, he hoped a friend. The bond created an attraction between them; it connected them on a spiritual level. But anything other than that, like, for instance, a relationship, whether romantic or not, was entirely up to them.
“I can understand why you’ve never told anyone.” Really, who would believe a story about an honest-to-God witch? Humans had a tendency to be cynical and disbelieving of such things. The supernatural world existed all around them and they were blind to it. It was easy for creatures like Colin to hide in plain sight. Humans didn’t want to believe. So many of them were reluctant to open their
minds to new possibilities. “But maybe it would be easier to talk to me about it, since this is technically my world were talking about. You don’t have to worry about me not believing you.”
“That’s true.…”
Colin didn’t want to pressure her. He wanted her to open up to him on her own, because she wanted to. Not because that’s what he wanted. She had to come to him willingly in all things. “We can just lay here if you want. Take a nap. Relax. Whatever you want.”
Ellie’s fingers twined with his and she squeezed. “I thought you were a jerk that morning at the Sourdough.”
“Yeah, well, I thought you had an unhealthy attachment to cinnamon rolls,” he teased.
Ellie let out a chuff of laughter. “I had a lot on my mind. You weren’t the jerk; I was.”
“I will say you were a little cranky, but hardly a jerk.”
Ellie tilted her head up to look at him. Her lips quirked into a petulant pucker. “Oh, I was absolutely a jerk. The biggest jerk. Honestly, I’m lucky John only made me take two days off of work instead of firing me.”
Anxiety tugged at Colin’s thoughts. It was too soon to discuss the dynamics of their mate bond, but he would eventually want her to move to Stanley. He couldn’t leave the pack without formally being considered a rogue. A rogue werewolf was never looked upon favorably. It could potentially affect his position as a sentry and he couldn’t have that. But neither could he live away from his mate. The distance between them, no matter how short, would agitate his wolf and make him volatile. Ellie would have to move to Stanley. And likewise, she would have to become a werewolf. It was the only way. Colin only hoped that when it came time to broach the subject Ellie would continue to have an open mind.
“For the record, I’m glad you had a couple of days off. If you’d been at work this afternoon, I’d still be laying in a tangle of brush.”
“True. Maybe it was fate that brought you into the Sourdough to steal Frank’s cinnamon roll.”
Colin laid his lips to her temple. Whatever the outcome, he was damn glad fate had decided to intervene.
* * *
Ellie worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She wanted to open up to Colin so badly that the words practically leaped out of her mouth. Who better to understand her plight than someone familiar with this life? Ellie had always thought things like witches and spells and curses belonged in fairy tales. Never in her quiet, sheltered life would she have ever thought those things could be real. That is, until she’d been on the receiving end of malicious magic.
Maybe Colin could help her? Maybe he could find a way to set her free.
“Colin, how old do you think I am?” Ellie was almost fearful of his response. Worried about his reaction when he found out the truth.
“I don’t know,” he mused. “Twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”
“I was born February 23, 1817.”
She was answered with a pregnant pause that caused her stomach to tie into an anxious knot. Colin reached down and tilted her head so she was forced to look at him. He studied her face, his brow furrowed with confusion. He took a deep breath and held it before letting the air out of his lungs slowly. “I could have sworn you were human. There’s a faint scent of magic around you, but not enough. You’re not a shifter, or a vampire, or anything else.”
“No.” Ellie cleared her throat and willed her voice to be stronger. “I’m not any of those things.”
“Then how is that possible?”
Ellie didn’t have to have superior supernatural senses to know Colin was a little afraid. And for some reason, that scared her even more. She’d always known being cursed wasn’t a picnic. But now she couldn’t help but wonder if it was even worse than she’d always thought.
“A witch cast a spell on me.” God, it sounded even more ridiculous saying it out loud than it had in her mind all of these years. “I’m human, I guess. Honestly, I don’t really know what I am. All I know is that I can’t die.” She drew in a deep breath as she was about to speak the words that gutted her every time she thought about them. “And I can’t ever leave this place. Never.”
Saying it out loud lifted a weight from her shoulders that she’d never realized had been there to begin with. She’d been carrying this terrible secret for so long. Lived through lonely lifetimes without any true friends or anyone to confide in. It felt so good to tell Colin what had happened to her. It was almost as if the witch’s curse had less power over her now that someone else knew about it.
Of course that wasn’t true. It would never be true. But Ellie appreciated the momentary relief.
Colin held her gaze. His hand moved to cup the back of her head and for a long moment he simply stared into her eyes as though to gauge the truth of what she’d just told him. He hid his emotions well and kept his expression passive. But the eyes never lied, and when a golden light lit behind his Ellie knew her words had upset him.
“Ellie…”
She wouldn’t give him the opportunity to downplay what had happened to her. “I tried. To die.” Admitting that was almost harder than admitting she believed in witches to begin with. “Everyone I knew and loved grew old and died and I was stuck here, in this body, in this age, unchanging and trapped. I threw myself off a cliff into the river. I didn’t break a single bone. I didn’t drown. And I don’t even know how to swim.” Her rueful laughter burned with regret. “I tried to set myself on fire, but I didn’t burn. I walked out into a blizzard and stayed outside in the wilderness for fourteen days, but I didn’t freeze. I tended those with scarlet fever, and worse, and never got sick.”
“Dear gods.” Colin put his forehead to hers. Sorrow, commiseration, pity, and anger vibrated off of him, the emotions almost tangible as he drew in a breath through his nostrils and then let it out in a rush. “Who is this witch? Tell me and she’s as good as dead.”
Ellie brought his hand to her lips and placed a gentle kiss on his fingertips. “All I remember about her was that her name was Sarah. She was a sour, bitter, hateful woman and I was punished because a man I didn’t love, loved me.”
Colin swore under his breath. He kept his forehead braced against hers as he breathed through the apparent rage that caused his limbs to quake. “She condemned you to immortality?”
“She condemned me to an eternity of loneliness,” Ellie whispered. “In a place she vowed civilization would never find. She bound me to the land and I can’t ever leave here.”
People always wondered why the tiny town of Lowman never grew into anything. It could’ve been a booming tourist hub. Instead, Sarah had used her magic to draw heat from the earth, which created hot springs all along the river. Because of the mineral deposits, fish didn’t thrive in these waters. Devastating fires devoured the forests every several years, driving out the game. Businesses opened and failed and people continued to pass through Lowman on their way to somewhere else, barely pausing long enough to blink.
This place was as lonely and isolated as Ellie felt. She was tied to the land. They were one and the same. What would Colin think of her now that he knew the truth? He claimed she was something important to him. Something she still couldn’t grasp the concept of. But he had a life beyond this place. He had a job and, she assumed, a family. No matter what he claimed Ellie was to him, she couldn’t see him giving up his life to live in isolation with her. Who would want that? He’d shrivel up and die here just like she saw others shrivel up and die here before him. She couldn’t condemn him to share in her fate no matter how desperate she was for companionship. If she asked him to stay with her, she’d be no better than the spiteful witch who had done this to Ellie in order to hurt her for something that wasn’t her fault.
“Have you tried to leave?”
Ellie had just told Colin that she’d tried to set herself on fire in order to escape immortality. Did he seriously think she hadn’t tried to walk beyond the borders the witch had set for her?
“Yep. You know that saying ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’?
Well, what doesn’t kill you nearly drives you crazy with unimaginable pain.”
Colin pulled away to study her face. His brow furrowed with worry and gold blazed hot behind his irises. “Pain?”
Well, “pain” was sort of an understatement. But it was the easiest word to get her point across. “The border of the curse starts just past where the Sourdough is now,” Ellie replied. “It runs within a perimeter that encompasses about thirty square miles. After Sarah had cursed me, I walked right up to that line and stepped over it. I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t believe her hateful words and that there was no such thing as magic. I believed in magic after that day. And curses. I can’t even describe to you what it felt like, it was that horrible. Blinding. Excruciating. A torture that has no equal. I experienced that pain three more times as I tested every single border that boxed me in. I never crossed those lines again. I haven’t come within ten feet of them in two hundred years.”
“Ellie, I promise you we’re going to figure this out. I’m going to help you.”
The fierce resolve in Colin’s voice made her heart ache. Because she knew no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t help her. No one could. Her fate had been sealed a long time ago.
CHAPTER 9
Colin’s wolf snarled in the back of his mind. The animal was enraged and thirsty for blood. He was ready to hunt, to track, to maim, and to kill. The animal needed to avenge their mate, to free her from this vile curse and protect her from the unimaginable pain reflected in her deep blue eyes.
Easier said than done. The animal, on the one hand, was driven by pure instinct. Colin, on the other hand, used logic. The odds of finding the witch who cursed Ellie were slim to none. If she still lived, she could be anywhere. No amount of skill, or instinct, could help them to track a ghost. That didn’t mean he was giving up, though. He was incapable of lying to his mate. He’d meant every word. He was going to help her out of this situation no matter what.
He just needed to figure out how.