Strange Brew

by Angela Colsin

  Her first question was to wonder when she'd transform into a ferine, expecting to learn of some schedule werewolves followed. But Troy informed her otherwise, and she was grateful. Aislinn didn't look forward to changing, it was simply something she'd have to grow accustomed to over time.

  “How does it feel to transform, anyway?”

  The stream of water ended as Troy described, “You get a little dizzy, kind of like having a head rush. But once you're ferine, it's not much different from now, you're just a hell of a lot more aggressive.”

  Wiping her eyes clear of water, Aislinn supposed that didn't sound so bad, and she was determined not to let these drastic changes in her life dampen her spirits. All she needed was a silver lining, and thankfully, there were a few in this situation.

  For one thing, she didn't have to worry about losing her connection to magic, and in fact, her talents would become even more potent with her transition into immortality—an invigorating thought. She couldn't count how many times she'd turned down one of the lupines in Arkin City for a psychic reading, and knew better than to test any magic practitioner who also possessed an unending lifespan.

  All because she was human.

  Now, she'd be able to do so much more easily. So if nothing else, her transition would be good for business, and though that wasn't her main focus given the circumstances, any reason to celebrate her marking instead of mourn it was a good thing in her book. Her choices may have been stolen, forcing her onto a path she wasn't ready to take, but Aislinn refused to simply waste away feeling sorry for herself.

  After all, the same thing had happened to her as a child. When her father left, she lost a pillar of support, and it wasn't until she stopped looking down on herself that she actually made any progress. It made her wonder if that experience was actually meant to prepare her to handle Troy's unplanned marking more easily.

  She even had his support to help—though that seemed like a double-edged blade. They were becoming tied together irrevocably, and it was questionable how such a forced connection might actually effect their relationship. But the very least she could do was count the blessings she did have, and hope everything else wasn't too difficult to figure out in the interim.

  Wetting a cloth to wash Troy the same way he'd done for her, she listened as he qualified a surprising bit of information. “We'll also be telepathic when we're ferine.”

  Aislinn stopped what she was doing in favor of giving him a blank stare. “Telepathic?”

  Troy smirked, “Don't worry, I'd only hear what you sent to me.”

  She exhaled, glad to hear it, though the prospect still seemed strange. Then again, Troy's power of speech seemed lacking when he was ferine, so maybe that was just the way werewolves communicated in that form.

  Lifting the soapy cloth to swipe over his shoulder, she asked, “Will I be able to hear everyone's thoughts?”

  “If they spoke to you, yes. But you'd both have to be ferine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A mate's bond is stronger,” he explained. “Between the two of us, when only one is ferine, we'd still be able to send our thoughts. With everyone else, you have to transform before the telepathy works.”

  Leaving a trail of suds across his chest, she slowly nodded, remarking, “As long as nobody can listen in on me thinking about riding you until you're coming a river, I think I can handle it.”

  Troy grinned at her joke, but at the same time, his brown eyes turned golden with interest, making it difficult to concentrate on anything else. The fact that she was washing his muscular body didn't help matters either, her eyes fixating on the water trickling over the hard contours of his torso in patterns that she wanted to follow with her tongue.

  Actually, the urge was surprising. They'd spent most of the early morning having sex, but she almost felt as if she hadn't been satisfied in days. Either werewolves had a very healthy libido, or their bonding was putting hers into a state of flux, prompting her next question, “So how long will this bonding last?”

  Leaning against the back of the tub with his arms stretched out, he answered, “Should be a few days,” and there was something doleful in the tone of his voice, which reflected in his eyes when he looked at her and added, “until then, we'll have to stay here and keep close.”

  After last night, she could easily understand the reason for sticking together, but wasn't entirely sure why he sounded so remorseful, asking, “What's wrong?”

  Sighing, he admitted, “This just isn't how I envisioned bonding with my mate.”

  “Why not?”

  Aislinn figured it was their surroundings—being stuck in an old estate that needed several renovations wasn't exactly appealing after all. But the rooms they occupied were fully refurbished and functional, so it could've been a lot worse.

  Regardless, Troy looked to the side with a hard set to his jaw, muttering, “The bonding makes us ravenous for each other, so we always plan to spend that time with our mates in seclusion, like a honeymoon.”

  He'd mentioned before that the marking was sacred, but Aislinn didn't think their situation was terrible, attempting to comfort Troy by pointing out, “It's not that bad here.”

  “It's not what you deserve,” he growled in retort, angrily smacking his fist into the side of the tub. “I waited almost two hundred years to find you, and you brought me back from the brink of insanity. So the least I could do is take you wherever you wanted to go. Instead, I had to mark you before you were ready, and then stay in a place with the rest of my family around.”

  Finally, she understood, and really couldn't blame him for being upset. If she'd waited for centuries to find the only person who could keep her from succumbing to the violent instincts of her beast, just to have an act that was supposed to be sacred between them marred, she'd be pissed, too. So The Trine hadn't simply fucked up her life, they'd stolen something very important from the man she cared a great deal about. Yet another reason to hate them.

  But the coven could wait. After everything Troy had done for her, Aislinn was more interested in offering him whatever sense of comfort she could, starting by leaning in for an affectionate kiss.

  She just hoped her idea worked, but either way, she had to try.

  Troy met Aislinn halfway for a slow kiss that relieved some of his ire, but not all of it.

  The last thing he wanted to do was complain about the circumstances of her marking when she was the one having the most difficult time. She was alive, healthy, and didn't hate him, and that meant more than any number of getaways they could've planned for their bonding. It was even satisfying to answer her questions during a hot bath so she'd know what to expect.

  But damned if he didn't feel cheated, and couldn't shake the sensation regardless of how many things he'd tried to remind himself that he was thankful for. He simply needed a way to make up for this situation, and not just to soothe his own sense of loss, but because Aislinn deserved it.

  So he was all ears as she broke their kiss and whispered, “When everything's taken care of, could we go sailing?”

  The request seemed random, prompting him to ask curiously, “Sailing?”

  “Yeah, you know, charter a yacht or something, and just spend time together doing whatever the hell we feel like doing. I've never been on a boat before, anyway.”

  It was plain to see that she was trying to offer him comfort—which was ass backwards in his estimate. He should be comforting her, but even still, his mind instantly seized on the chance to bring Aislinn joy.

  “You've never been fishing?”

  “No, though I did go kayaking with my family when I was eleven,” she qualified thoughtfully. “We had fun, but I didn't like all of the paddling and wanted to be on a boat with its own engine.”

  He grinned, murmuring the question, “Why don't I just buy you a boat?”

  “Because I might not actually like sailing.”

  Considering it was possible for her to be unwittingly prone to seasickness, he con
ceded the point. “Okay, we'll take a boat out on Arkin Lake to see if you like it first.”

  The smile she gifted him with warmed his heart, and Troy pulled her in, his tension and regret fading almost instantly when Aislinn sweetly nuzzled the crook of his neck. Regardless of the circumstances, holding her close in such a way was indescribably satisfying. He couldn't stop touching her, wanting nothing more than to stay right where he was as long as possible—or take her again.

  Aislinn's thoughts must've been going along the same lines as well because she suddenly asked, “Know how you said we'd be ravenous for each other?”

  A devious smirk lifted his lips. “Feeling frisky again?”

  “Very,” she sighed. “Here I thought I had a healthy libido as a human, but this just isn't right.”

  He grinned over her coy tone, suggesting she might actually enjoy having a strengthened sex drive—that was, if he gave her reason to. And I'm going to give her every reason.

  Playfully, he asked, “So, are we going steady now?”

  Aislinn grinned, her hand clasping the rose pendant around her neck as if recalling the night she'd made the comment. But her mirthful expression slowly grew somber when she asked, “Do we even have a choice?”

  Troy sighed, knowing she was worried about their future. Aislinn would think like a human for a while to come, and still needed to learn to trust her newly developing instincts. But there was a time when even Troy was daunted by the idea of having a mate, and though it'd been ages ago, he remembered talking to his father about it as clearly as if it'd happened yesterday.

  The advice his old man passed on seemed pertinent now, relating, “When I was a teenager, my dad explained how we found our mates, and what I should expect. He said it was all fate's decision who I'd end up with, but I didn't like the idea of not being able to choose for myself, and told him so.”

  Curiously, Aislinn asked, “What'd he say?”

  “He told me that even though I wouldn't choose her, I'd still cherish her like I had,” Troy answered, pinning her gaze before concluding, “so I'd give you a choice if I could, Aislinn. I don't want you feeling like you're trapped or being forced into something. But my dad was right, I cherish you, and I always will. I couldn't imagine having another woman here with me right now.”

  “Do you love me?”

  The question seemed to have slipped out of her mouth before she could think better of it, but Aislinn didn't take it back, and Troy didn't mind. It was high time he told her exactly how he felt.

  Without pause, he leaned in and pressed a loving kiss to her lips, murmuring once it broke, “I've fallen a little more every day since we met, darlin', and I know I won't stop until I love you more than any woman's ever been loved.”

  Her breath hitched, and Troy smiled, wondering if the way he'd been forced to mark her had happened for a reason. Nothing good ever came easy, after all, and as long as he could love her, he could handle whatever came their way.

  Closing her eyes, Aislinn rested her forehead to his and admitted, “I don't know what to say.”

  “Don't say anything. We need to keep this simple for now.”

  He must've said something right because she whispered his name and kissed him gratefully. Still, with the way her body shifted against his, Troy's blood rapidly heated. In only moments, he was as hard as he'd ever been, but Aislinn broke their kiss with a playful smirk as she quickly slipped off his lap and turned away to douse the candles at the opposite end of the tub.

  Hearing his disapproving grumble, she asked, “What? The sun's up, and I'm coming right back.”

  “I know, but if you can make them burn with magic, why not just put them out the same way?”

  Bending forward to pinch the wicks, she looked over her shoulder at him with a wry grin. “You don't like the view?”

  At that, his brown eyes ran down along her body to her round, glistening ass, and he smirked, remarking, “Point taken. Carry on.”

  Her laughter filled the alcove, but despite his amusement, Troy's smile faded when he noticed something peculiar.

  “Hold on, what's this?”

  “What's what?”

  She sounded confused as he sat up behind her, grasping her hips in his hands to inspect a blemish on her lower back. It looked as if she'd bumped into something, but the strangest part of all was the fact that it was shaped in a perfect circle the size of a tennis ball.

  Had Aislinn been human, he wouldn't have taken notice, but her marking should've erased all injuries—even older scars and tattoos.

  So what the hell was it?

  Chapter 28

  Aislinn thought Troy was about to play a prank, but his troubled tone of voice proved he was serious.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “This,” he replied, running his fingers over a spot several inches above her hips and left of her spine.

  She tried to crane her head, but couldn't quite make anything out, stating, “I … don't know.” Reaching back to touch the same place, she felt nothing. “What does it look like?”

  “It's red, like you bumped into something, but it's shaped in a perfect circle.”

  “A circle?” she repeated, trying to wrap her head around what he was explaining.

  “Yeah, did you fall while we were separated?”

  “No.”

  Narrowing his brows, he sat back and asked, “Then what the hell is it?”

  “I have no idea,” she admitted, turning to face him. “Isn't there a mirror on the wall in the bedroom? I could use it to look in the one over the sink.”

  “Yeah, I'll go get it.”

  They climbed out of the tub together and dried off before Troy left to grab what she needed. Just a moment later, he returned with the rectangular mirror in hand, and she pulled her wet hair over a shoulder and turned to face the one above the sink as he stood behind her.

  It took a little work to get the right position, but he finally angled it where she could plainly see the strange blemish on her back. Still, getting a look at it didn't help to figure out its origin. Like any other bump up, the mark was light red, but almost looked as if it'd been drawn on because of the perfectly circular shape.

  It wasn't even painful, and in facing Troy, Aislinn tried to come up with any explanation possible, asking, “Could it be part of my transition?”

  He propped the mirror against the counter and shook his head. “The only mark that should be on your body is my bite. Even old scars and tattoos disappear with it.”

  Aislinn brushed her fingers over her neck where his bite was located, glimpsing it in the mirror. Though he'd bit her only yesterday, the wounds were nothing more than four pink welts now, about the same color as the strange area on her back.

  Idly, she wondered if the inexplicable pattern might disappear along with it, suggesting, “Maybe we should wait and see if it gets better or worse before worrying.”

  Troy didn't look satisfied, but agreed at length. “Alright, if my bite heals, but that mark's still there, we're looking into it.”

  It seemed like that was their only choice anyway, making Aislinn wish her intuition would offer some hint as to the nature of the odd blemish. But she hadn't had a single premonition since she'd woken the evening before, making it seem as if her ability was being bogged down by all of the new instincts she was developing as a werewolf, like an overloaded circuit.

  It seemed plausible anyway, particularly when she heard her phone ringing in the bedroom, but was clueless as to the caller's identity.

  Still, Annika could use her own talents to figure out what the strange place was, and Aislinn wouldn't be surprised to learn she was the one calling now. Exiting the bathroom without bothering to cover her body, she relayed her thoughts to Troy, who followed and stood nearby the dresser just as naked while she grabbed her phone.

  Surely enough, Annika's name was on the ID, and Aislinn answered, “Hey, what's up?”

  Her cousin didn't beat around the bush. “I wanted to know how yo
u're doing, and ask what this mark on your back is?”

  Aislinn couldn't help her grin, inquiring, “Why? Do you know something?”

  “Nope, I just got the sense you were perplexed about a mark on your back when you picked up.”

  “Oh,” she muttered in disappointment. Still, her cousin may have simply needed to take an actual look at it before she'd glean any answers. So Aislinn explained the situation, then concluded, “We don't know what it is either, but I'm gonna wait to see if it disappears before making a fuss.”

  “Fair enough,” she agreed. “Are you feeling any better?”

  Recalling the way she'd snapped at her cousin the night before, Aislinn admitted, “I should've just taken your advice. I feel much better now that Troy's with me, but we can talk about that later. Do you have any news?”

  “Yeah, actually, I have both good and bad news,” she drew out.

  Aislinn grumbled, requesting the good news first to give herself time to prepare.

  “I called the curator,” Annika started, “and she knows for a fact that Eliard has some records on The Trine, so she's gonna look into it and call me back.”

  That was definitely positive, but still didn't subdue the doubt that it would soften the blow of whatever was coming next. So Aislinn braced herself. “Okay, and the bad part?”

  Her cousin hesitated before admitting, “I had a vision that The Trine, or Cindy and Lisa anyway, is gonna use your dad as leverage.”

  Troy listened intently to Aislinn's conversation, able to pick up a few words on the other end, but not enough to paint a clear picture. Still, whatever Annika said must have been surprising at the very least because Aislinn suddenly exclaimed, “You're fucking kidding me?”

  It was hard to resist asking what was going on right away, but he forced himself to wait as she threw a few uh huh's into the phone, and finally stated, “Okay, I'll call. Love you, too,” and hung up with an unhappy sigh.