by Zoe Chant
“Now let me see your side.” Fleance set down the first-aid kit and gently lifted her borrowed jacket away from her side. It came off sticky—she didn’t want to look—but Fleance didn’t scream out My God, your guts are spilling out everywhere, so it couldn’t be that bad.
“This looks like a claw mark,” he muttered. “Not deep. I’ll clean it.”
She focused on the gentle touch of his fingers as he dabbed away the dried blood and sprayed antiseptic onto the scratches. His touch. His gentle care. Not the wound itself, not how much it bloody hurt, not how she’d gotten it—
—The monstrous dog moved like smoke. She should move. She tried to, but her side hurt, and her sheep tried to go in the other direction, and all four of her legs tried to go in four more directions, and then he was on top of her and it HURT—
She squeezed her eyes shut. “What is this all about, anyway? Who was that… thing? How did you turn up in the nick of time?”
Fleance looked at her cautiously. “We shouldn’t talk about it here.”
She’d seen that look too many times before. Anger grabbed at the fear rising inside her and used it to launch itself up.
“I’m fine. Really. Between my sheep and me I’ve been hurt way worse than this before.” Too sharp, she thought as the words leaped out. Too snappish.
His expression became guarded. Again, not new. Classic something-he’s-not-telling-me, Sheena thought, and her shoulders went up at the same time her stomach dropped.
He’s my mate, she thought. Aren’t we meant to be able to tell each other anything? Isn’t that how it’s meant to work?
She knew why he wasn’t saying anything. Why he was pushing off answering her questions until later. Because he thought she couldn’t cope.
Something thrummed inside her. It took her a moment to recognize it as the mate bond. Bright and shining, new and already slightly battered… and anchoring her to the powerful, red-haired, fire-eyed man kneeling in front of her.
He looked up at her, one hand stretching tentatively towards hers. When she took it, a shiver went through the mate bond, as though she was feeling him step over some sort of marker.
“I told you, I don’t think you’re weak. I will tell you everything,” he said, his voice hushed. “Just…”
His face shadowed over and when he spoke again, it was inside her mind. *Not here and not out loud. It’s not safe.*
“But—” Sheena stopped herself. *But that other shifter—Parker—he’s gone, isn’t he? I can’t even smell him anymore.*
*And I bet you couldn’t smell him clearly before he appeared, either,* Fleance replied grimly. *Just because you can’t see or sense a hellhound, doesn’t mean we’re not there.”
*What? How?*
*Magic.* His jaw set in a grim line as he finished bandaging her side and moved onto her leg. He hesitated slightly, inspecting the bite marks more carefully than he had the scratches. *Hellhounds can pass completely unseen to all senses. He could be here and we wouldn’t know it, unless we were part of his pack.*
*My sheep couldn’t sense him, even when I could. When he was… making me afraid.*
Fleance frowned. *I haven’t heard of that happening before.*
“Oh, good.” Sheena’s cheeks heated up. *Just my sheep being its usual unobservant self, then. Forget I said anything.*
So, hellhounds could turn invisible to all the senses—unless you were a part of their pack. That sounded a lot like her flock sense. Except sheep didn’t go invisible.
She concentrated. *I can’t feel that… that fake fear anymore. And the only shifter I can sense here is you.*
Fleance looked relieved, and his eyes flickered with possessive fire. *Good. Let’s get to the nearest city, uh…*
*Rotorua?*
*Right. Find a hotel to hole up in, make sure you’re safe, and then I’ll… deal with Parker.*
She didn’t ask what he meant by ‘deal with’. Fleance dabbed stinging antiseptic on the scratch on her leg, and carefully wrapped a bandage over it.
*That’s that,* he murmured. *I think… I think you’ll be all right.*
*Like I said, I’ve had worse,* Sheena began, and pinched her lips together before she could say anything else that might reinforce the impression that she couldn’t leave the house without breaking herself in some way.
Arson. Hellhounds. Invisibility powers. Forget traveling the world; this was more adventure than she’d thought possible, here on her own doorstep. What did those old Tourism NZ ads say? Don’t leave home until you’ve seen the country? And here she was.
The ad hadn’t said anything about getting savaged by a magical shifter before you leave the country, but Sheena’s sheep had always had trouble following instructions.
She swung her legs into the footwell as Fleance tidied away the first-aid kit and got in the driver’s side. The scratch across her ribs was fine, but her leg ached like a bastard.
The pain was more frustrating than anything else. Another reminder that she was physically more pathetic than literally everyone else she knew. She’d injured herself before. She’d been bitten before, and a bite from a fellow sheep shifter had a lot of crunch damage. The monstrous hellhound had barely sliced into her leg at all. And here she was, wincing over a nibble that didn’t even need stitches.
It’s not even as bad as when I tried to run through that barbed-wire fence, she said to her sheep. Remember?
There was no reply. Sheena held her breath.
All her life, even before she first shifted into her sheep form, her sheep had been there. Tucked away in the very heart of her being. Frolicking or dicking around, usually. Now, it was…
Stop hiding! she said suddenly. I know you’re still there, so come out and talk to me!
She dove deeper into her own heart, hunting for the cotton-wool fluff of her sheep. It had to be there somewhere. It had to be. It couldn’t—
She saw a flicker of something just out of each and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, concentrating fiercely on it.
A flicker of black-and-white woolliness.
There you are, she thought, relieved. What are you doing?
Her sheep twitched its ears at her, but she got the feeling it hadn’t actually listened to her. It was as intently focused on her injury as she was.
It probably hurts so much because I’m embarrassed about it, Sheena thought, to herself since her sheep was off in its own world. I thought I could help, but instead I just got in the way.
Shh, her sheep muttered. I’m concentrating.
You’re concentrating? On what?
Shh!
Jeez Louise, all right…
Sheena blinked and focused on the outside world again. Not on her leg. She’d whinged about that enough, even if all the whinging had been inside her own head.
Fleance turned on the engine and glanced her way. “Are you all right?”
His voice brushed against her like heat from a home fire. Sheena blinked.
“Oh, fine. Box of birds.”
“A box of…” Fleance’s face creased with confusion.
“I mean I’m… fine. No worries.” Americans understood ‘no worries’, didn’t they?
She shivered as Fleance put the car in reverse and bumped along the uneven farm road. This Parker character had set fire to everything her aunts had worked so hard for and from what she’d gathered, he’d wanted them to be here to watch.
But why? Who would do something like that? An evil son of a bitch, obviously, but that didn’t answer the why. What does Parker get out of destroying their dreams?
At least Fiona and Rena were safe. They must be, she decided, given how angry Parker had been about not seeing them. Sheena clung to that thought as Fleance drove back onto the motorway.
My aunts are safe, and I have him. My mate.
Her leg still hurt, but it was fine.
Her sheep was still uncharacteristically quiet.
Sheen squeezed her eyes shut. It’s fine.
Fleance d
rove as though the devil was on their heels. Which was closer to true than Sheena was comfortable with. She wanted to know more about who Parker was and why he had attacked her aunts, but Fleance didn’t say anything until they were in the city.
She didn’t remember much of Rotorua itself from the last time she’d traveled there: only a handful of impressions, like photos in an album. The smell. The way steam rose up from the earth and the lake. The Tudor-style Rotorua Museum, like something imported straight from England. And, outside of the city itself, the thermal wonderland of Whakarewarewa, with its geysers, brightly colored silica pools, and bubbling mud.
And the pit she’d fallen into. That wasn’t so much like a photo memory, as it was a memory backed up on the reg by the actual photo of it her mum had kept.
Some things had changed. The museum was closed—surrounded by temporary fencing to keep people away from the façade, an earthquake-proofing safeguard she’d seen in almost every town she’d been through on her way to Auckland. So much of the country’s infrastructure had been built without regard for the fact they were bang on a massive fault line.
The hotels were all running full steam, though. Literally. Some had steam hissing from water features in the forecourt, or from the private spas that dug into hot-water bores on the property.
After cruising the streets cursing at No Vacancy signs, Fleance pulled up outside a lakefront hotel. His eyebrows pulled together. “Will this work?” he asked.
“Will it work?” Apart from staying with relatives, Sheena had been planning on bunking at hostels, here and overseas. Hotels hadn’t featured in her plans. Hotels with lakefront views and an on-site spa? Not even on the horizon.
She slapped her pockets, remembering too late that they weren’t her pockets. “Shit. My wallet—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Fleance’s smile was barely there, but his eyes were warm. “Letting my credit card take a beating is the least I can do. I’m more worried about them letting us in.”
Sheena stared at him. “What? Why?”
A few minutes later, they were standing in a warm hotel room. Sheena wriggled her toes happily in the thick carpet. Fleance was still shaking his head.
“I still can’t believe they let us past the front door,” he muttered as he shut the door behind them. “The way you’re dressed—not that you’re not—you’re—I mean, you look like—not that I think you are…”
The intensity that had blazed from him after the fight had faded, leaving him looking as weary and off-footed as Sheena felt. Something inside her softened. Maybe she should have felt worried, that something as simple as New Zealand’s lack of concern for proper dress had thrown him, but instead it made her feel more confident. Finally, something where she was the expert.
He trailed off, his expression stricken. Sheena held his eyes until she couldn’t take it anymore.
“I look like I’m what? Dressed in clothing ten sizes too big for me, with no shoes?” she said, laughter bubbling up. “They must be used to it. Everyone who visits here comes for either the hot pools or outdoor adventure. I bet I’m far from the first person to come in looking like they walked backwards through a hedge.”
“That’s not what I was talking about.” Fleance moved closer to her. Somehow, here inside this room instead of out in the wilderness, the contrast between their heights seemed much greater. His voice roughened. “I meant it was obvious you were wearing my clothes.”
Sheena felt split between two selves. On the one hand they were meant to be together. The roughness in his voice, the way his pupils blew out dark and wanting when he looked at her—it was all normal stuff. Right? They were mates. Of course he found her sexy. Hopefully as devastatingly sexy as she found him. And there was no question of whether this path they were going down was the right one. However brash or tentative they were, it was all going to work out.
On the other hand… It was all so new. Her veins hummed with excitement just being near him, and who the hell cared if they knew how it would end up? They were only at the beginning. There was so much more ahead of them, whether they went for it brashly or tentatively or by going straight for a pash in the middle of a street full of burning houses.
She tipped her head back—and back further—to look up at him. “That can’t be too rare either,” she pointed out. “Once you get past the smell, Rotorua’s a pretty romantic place. It’s easy to see how people might end up losing their clothes even if they weren’t shifters.”
Fleance’s ears were going pink. “I…”
Should I do this? Sheena didn’t wait for her sheep to reply. Like it would have anything useful to say, anyway. Fuck it.
“I could lose my clothes now, for example,” she breathed, leaning closer to him.
He closed the space between them in an instant. Desire darkened his eyes, overwhelming his raw embarrassment. Sheena tipped her head back, anticipation thrumming beneath her skin. Inevitable or not, every look, every touch, was brand new and exciting.
Fleance lowered his face towards hers. His arms went around her, strong and warm. Sheena held back; much as she wanted to climb him like a tree, she wanted this, too, him wanting her, coming to her.
He hesitated, his lips so close to hers she could feel his breath as he said:
“We shouldn’t.”
“What?” Sheena jerked back, confused and clinging to that confusion, because the other major emotion welling up inside her was dread. Did I do something wrong?
“Not because I don’t want to,” Fleance said quickly. He smiled crookedly, and the stumbling passion that Sheena felt through the mate bond made her dread melt away. “Don’t ever think that. But I promised you that I would explain about Parker, and hellhounds, and everything. And…”
His voice halted. She didn’t need the mate bond to see how hard it was for him to continue, but she didn’t know how to convince him to go on, either. She’d spent so much of her life keeping people at a distance. Now that she’d found someone she wanted to come close to, she felt as though she was picking her way through a dark room. She couldn’t see her way forward and she couldn’t see all the obstacles in her way, and she didn’t even know what they were—just that they were there.
But that was what the mate bond was for, wasn’t it? To show them that whatever the obstacles, Happily Ever After was on its way. Fleance had used it to show her that he wasn’t rejecting her, just the moment—could she do the same thing?
She picked up his hand from around her waist and twisted her fingers around his. Her chest felt full to bursting. All she had to do was let it out. Right?
How do I know if it’s working? It had been easy to push through all her own defenses in the heat of the moment. Finding a connection and grabbing onto it when they were both terrified for their lives—no problem. But now?
“Whatever it is, you can tell me,” she said.
Fleance looked down at their joined hands. He closed his eyes and pressed Sheena’s knuckles to his forehead, then kissed them.
The ground disappeared from beneath Sheena’s feet. She’d seen Fleance’s strength and passion already, his halting attempts to slow down, but this tender gentleness almost undid her.
Almost? She let it undo her completely.
She reached out with her heart—and it was easy again, the road ahead as clear and brightly lit as the golden cord that bound them together—and found…
She shuddered.
“I’m sorry,” Fleance said, and Sheena’s eyes widened as she realized what she’d just felt. It was like he’d closed a door in her face. Was that what it felt like to other people when she put her defenses up? “I told you, I have to explain everything. And I don’t want you—us—to do anything you’ll regret once you know the truth.”
5
Fleance
He hated to push her out, but it was for the best. In the rush of first seeing her and the fight with Parker, he hadn’t thought of what it would mean for Sheena to be his mate.
Be
ing with him had already left her injured. He could promise until the sun went down that he would protect her, but the truth was he’d never been able to keep anyone safe. She deserved to know that before they decided what to do next. And until then, he couldn’t risk letting her in. With his experience keeping his thoughts hidden from Parker, it was disturbingly easy to avoid her attempts to reach him via the mate bond.
A real mate wouldn’t hide from his fated mate like this, he thought bitterly, but kept the thoughts close. Locked away, where no one but him and his hellhound could hear them.
Still, his gut twisted when he saw her react to him closing himself off. An apology was already on his lips when she squared her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye.
“All right,” she said, her voice barely wavering. “Everyone’s always telling me not to jump into things blind. You pulling back on my reins is just more proof you’re my perfect match, eh?”
“I…”
“If we’re going to take things slow…” She stepped back and smoothed her hands over her sweater. His sweater. Fleance’s chest clenched. If this conversation went the way he expected, the shirt and pants Sheena had borrowed from him were the closest anything of his were going to get to being that close to her. “Let’s take it real slow. I don’t know about you, but I could do with something to eat. Healing really takes it out of me. And a shower, cos, you know, rolling around in the dirt tends to…”
She shook her head and winced. “Geez, listen to me rabbiting on. Shower. Food. Sound good?”
Fleance didn’t let himself check the mate bond to find out what she was thinking behind her bright-eyed smile. Relying only on her body language made him feel more unmoored than he expected. As unexpected as the sinking feeling in his stomach that the unmoored-ness gave him. He was so used to hating the choking chains that anchored him to another person, that he didn’t know what to do with this new feeling.
Get used to it, he told himself firmly as Sheena ordered room service. He held on until she disappeared into the bathroom and then dropped his head into his hands with a groan as he sat down on the bed. She won’t want anything to do with you when she knows the truth.