by Alyse Zaftig
She wasn’t certain if she was the right fit for them, but it was easier to let go of her concerns and concentrate on possibly building something lasting and meaningful once she knew their intentions. She was quiet for the remainder of dinner, her thoughts heavy, but when the meal ended, and Duncan asked her if they could escort her to her room, she had surprisingly little hesitation when she said, “Yes.”
Chapter 4
The next few days passed in a haze of sensual bliss. It was like living out every fantasy she’d ever had, along with several she hadn’t realized would appeal to her. Duncan and Nick focused solely on her, and it wasn’t all about sex. It soon became obvious they were trying to win her over in every aspect of her life. Of course there was hot, mind blowing sex like she’d never experienced, but there were also quiet moments of cuddling during deep conversations, or lighthearted teasing, along with answering questions that allowed them to know her better.
Only three things had dimmed her happiness the last few days. The first was she’d realized they were far more evasive with answers to her questions than she was. It wasn’t that they didn’t answer them, but it was as though they were holding back and not giving her the full truth. She wasn’t certain how she was supposed to trust them to build a foundation for a longer commitment if they were holding back from her.
The second problem that bothered her was they never stayed in her bed with her, and they hadn’t invited her to either one of theirs. Other than the first time they had all made love, when they had fallen asleep early in the morning and rested through part of the day, she hadn’t slept with either one of them again.
They always made love to her after dinner, but slipped away before bedtime. She tried not to let it hurt, but it left her feeling used for sex and nothing more. She had that reaction during the nights, when she felt lonely. Even reminding herself of how much they cuddled with her and randomly touched her throughout the day, often interrupting her work in the library to bring her food, massages, and perhaps sex, did little to mitigate the loneliness of spending her nights in an empty bed.
The third thing that diminished her happiness was the persistent text messages from Sam. She wasn’t certain how he had gotten her new phone number, but he’d already filled her mailbox three times, and he kept texting on an hourly basis.
She was tempted to just shut the phone off, or throw it out the window, but with her father’s heart condition, and him having had a heart attack less than a year ago, she was afraid to disconnect the lifeline to them. She had yet to see a landline in the house, and it seemed too intimate to ask to pass along Duncan or Nick’s phone numbers to her parents. She didn’t want to explain the situation or the relationship to her mom and dad, and she was embarrassed by Sam’s behavior.
How had she misjudged him so completely? He had seemed so sweet in the beginning of their relationship, but as soon as he’d won her over, he had started spending less and less time with her. She could have dealt with that, but when he started trying to dictate how she spent her time when she wasn’t with him, warning bells rang in the back of her mind.
She’d hung in there for another few weeks, hoping he would calm down, but then there had been that disastrous date at the restaurant. She’d chosen a public place with the intention of breaking up with him, and he had chosen it with the intention of proposing. He hadn’t taken her refusal well, and she was certain he had been humiliated.
Baylee had been embarrassed herself when he’d made such a production of it, and then she’d had to say no. More than one person had scowled at her, but she wasn’t going to accept a marriage proposal from a man she had planned to break up with just to avoid a little public embarrassment among strangers.
At first, the messages had been cajoling, but they quickly turned nasty. She didn’t bother to listen to the voicemails in her mailbox any longer. She simply deleted them, but she grew tired of having to continuously empty her box.
She tried to avoid reading the text messages too, but it was hard not to see at least a few words. Tonight, as she prepared to delete the latest volley, her eyes widened with horror when she realized the vitriol he was spewing. She was certain it was all anger and hurt feelings from her rejection, but that didn’t make it any more palatable to see proof of his mental instability.
She made the mistake of reading one message in its entirety, feeling ill at the way he was trying to lay claim to her. She glared at the phone when she reached the line where he added he couldn’t live without her, and he wouldn’t let her live without him. Melodramatic much?
With a snort, she cleared the messages and laid the phone on her nightstand. She was suddenly restless and felt the urge to be outside. She hadn’t yet undressed for bed, so she slipped on a light jacket to offset the chill in the autumn air and left her room. She exited the house a few minutes later, and it was only when she was standing outside near the edge of the forest that she recalled seeing the wolf on her first night there.
Freezing in mid-step, she decided not to venture into the forest. Just as she was about to turn away, one of the wolves appeared at the edge of the trees, its body mostly obscured by underbrush, but revealing enough to tell her it wasn’t a wolf. She gasped when she made out the massive form with its shaggy head, long fur, and fierce-looking teeth that sprouted from its lips even without it posturing aggressively at her.
The eyes had the same red shine as she remembered, and she started backing away slowly. When a second form joined the first one, she spun on her heels and ran, hoping it wouldn’t trigger a predator instinct that would lead them to chase her. Her heart was pounding in her ears by the time she returned to the house, closing the door and leaning against it with her heart thumping in her ears. She pressed a hand to her chest as though she could hold in her galloping heart and took several deep breaths.
The fear remained, and she needed comfort and reassurance. She also needed to inform Duncan and Nick that it wasn’t a pair of wolves on their property. They were something far stranger and unknown to her.
She went up the stairs, heading in the direction of their wing of the house. She hadn’t been formally invited to either of their rooms, but she knew the direction in which they lived. When she reached that wing, she started opening doors at random, finding a series of bathrooms and impersonal-looking guestrooms.
It wasn’t until she reached the end of the hall that she found two bedrooms across from each other with doors similar to the ones that opened her room. She chose the one on the left randomly, knocking on it first. She couldn’t explain why she knocked when she had just opened the doors of the previous rooms, other than she sensed someone actually inhabited this room. When there was no answer, she twisted the handle and eased the door open. “Hello?”
Upon receiving no answer, she stepped into the room, searching for the light switch before finding it. She blinked when the light came on, chasing away most of the shadows, and stared around the recesses. It was neat, with everything in its place, but it still had a lived-in air.
As she moved closer to the large bed, she recognized the hunter-green sweater that belonged to Duncan. He had worn it at dinner. It was folded neatly at the edge of the bed, along with his jeans. She was hoping he was simply preparing for bed, so she moved deeper into the room, heading toward the two doors she could see. The first one revealed the walk-in closet, and it was empty. The second door hid a spacious bathroom, which was also empty.
Feeling slightly irritated that he wasn’t available, though she recognized that as an irrational response, Baylee left his room and went across the hall to the one she presumed was Nick’s. She lifted her hand to tap on the wood, but received no response.
She opened the door and slipped inside as she asked, “Nick, are you in here?” There was no answer.
She fumbled for the light switch and turned it on, revealing a room similar in setup to Duncan’s, but with a different style of bed and color scheme. Moving closer, she saw the white button-down shirt and jeans he�
��d worn to dinner tossed haphazardly over a chair near the bed. Checking the doors in his room revealed a walk-in closet and a bathroom, and he wasn’t in either one.
Flummoxed, she exited his room and stood in the center of the hallway between the two. They had to be back soon, right? She didn’t know much about the stock market or trading, but it occurred to her that they were perhaps making business calls to another part of the world, where it was daytime. Feeling frustrated and lonely, she ended up sitting down in the hallway as she waited for them to come to their rooms.
At some point, she must have nodded off, because she dreamed about the beasts that she had seen at the edge of the forest. It wasn’t a nightmare though. In her dream, she was simply running with them, and she didn’t feel frightened until she looked down and realized she was also a beast. That realization rocked her, and she woke up with a gasp. Her heart was pumping as intensely as it had when she had seen them in person earlier in the evening.
After drawing in several deep breaths, Baylee finally felt calm. She got to her feet and checked each room again, though she didn’t really think she had slept through Nick or Duncan’s arrival. If either one of them had come to their rooms, surely they would have woken her to inquire why she was on the floor asleep.
She returned to where she’d been seated, ignoring the ache in her lower back from the hard wall, as she waited for Duncan and Nick to make an appearance. As the time passed, her thoughts grew more fanciful, and influenced by the need to sleep, which clouded her thinking, she found herself reaching a conclusion that should have terrified her—or had her questioning her mental state.
What if Nick and Duncan were the beasts she had seen in the forest? The idea sent a mild shock of fright through her, but it wasn’t terrifying—likely because she wasn’t seriously entertaining it as a true theory. Was she?
It made an odd sort of sense, and it would explain why she never saw them at night. As she thought about it, she realized she’d never seen them during darkness. They weren’t in their rooms, and they hadn’t seemed alarmed by what they had identified as wolves roaming their land. They claimed Mrs. Farley served dinner well before dark because they liked to rise early, but she’d never seen much of them before eleven a.m., or so, at the earliest.
She shook her head, both in an effort to clear away the need to sleep, and to try to dismiss the crazy thoughts. Telling herself there was no way it was possible, that it was completely contrary to logic and reality, she tried to dismiss the notion. It was far more likely that if Duncan and Nick knew anything about the beasts on their land, they were keeping illegal pets, either in an attempt to save a species at risk of extinction, or because they were drawn to danger. The first goal was admirable, while the second would be off-putting. Either way, she was going to wait until they turned up and gave her an explanation.
It was a long wait, and she was on the floor most of the night. It was only when she saw the first rays of dawn peeking through a nearby window that she realized she had sat there all night, sometimes dozing off, but never sleeping deeply. She was somehow unsurprised when she heard the sound of the front door opening a few minutes later, followed by quiet steps coming up the flights of stairs. She almost laughed when she saw their expression as they realized simultaneously that she was there and stumbled to a stop. They were both naked.
Getting to her feet, she was about to ask where they had been, but as they moved closer, there was something in their form and the air surrounding them that reminded her of the beasts she’d seen last night. Recalling her sleep-impaired theory that the men before her were the beasts, she couldn’t so easily dismiss it even in the light of day. As they reached her, she was certain that however farfetched and fantastical the idea, the beasts she had seen last night were now standing before her in human form.
Before she could think better of it, or censor her words, she blurted out, “I saw you two last night in those forms. You definitely aren’t wolves, so what are you?”
Duncan and Nick’s eyes widened, and they shared a look before turning back to her. “I’m not sure what you think you saw—” started Nick.
She put up a hand. “Don’t even try to convince me I didn’t see that. You were both huge, massive beasts, and you had red eyes. The second day I was here, I told you about seeing those eyes, and you told me there was a wolf pack on your land. You aren’t wolves.”
“Baylee, what makes you think that was us?”
She turned her attention to Duncan, giving him a scoffing look. “It sounds ridiculous, but all the facts add up. If I hadn’t seen the beasts with my own eyes, I never would have reached this conclusion, but it’s obvious. It’s in the way you both move, and the way they stood. Your eye color is different, but there’s something in your eyes that reminds me of the beasts, and vice versa. How did this happen?”
She was startled by her own persistence for answers, and even more surprised to discover she wasn’t afraid of Duncan and Nick, despite what she had figured out. She didn’t know how this could be possible, but she was confident that they meant her no harm.
“Let us get dressed, and we’ll have a discussion about everything,” said Nick.
She nodded, stepping back a bit so they had room to enter both of their bedrooms, but she didn’t go anywhere. She waited for them to emerge, and they joined her shortly. They had both opted to slip on robes and nothing more, though the last part was pure speculation. Imagining them wearing nothing but the fleece covering their body was somehow more erotic than seeing them fully naked a few moments before.
She cleared her throat and tried to push away the thought. Now wasn’t the time to focus on sex. “Okay, so start talking.”
“Let’s at least move somewhere more comfortable,” said Duncan. He held out a hand to her, and he seemed startled when she put hers in his with only a brief hesitation.
She was a little startled herself, but still convinced they wouldn’t hurt her. She followed along between them as they moved a few doors down the hallway before opening one. Duncan slipped inside first, and she followed him. Nick brought up the rear, closing the door behind himself. Duncan had dropped her hand, so she moved to a chair situated in an inviting arrangement in the small sitting room. After sitting down, she waved a hand toward the other furniture before saying, “Start talking.”
“It’s a long, strange story, and you probably won’t believe it—”
She laughed softly, interrupting Nick. “Actually, I think I will. Having seen it with my own eyes, it’s difficult to pretend like I didn’t. I know what you are, but I don’t know how you became this way. Were you born like this?”
Duncan shook his head. “No, we weren’t. I was born in 1792 in Edinburg, second son to a Laird.”
“And I was born in London in 1794. My father was a nobleman, and my mother was from a rich family of Spanish merchants,” added Nick.
Her head reeled, and she realized the explanation was going to be even stranger than she had anticipated. “You’re telling me you’re both more than two hundred years old?”
“Aye,” said Duncan. “It was part of the curse.”
She blinked again. “What curse?”
Nick shot his friend a quelling look before looking at her. “He’s jumping ahead. Duncan and I had never met, but we were both similar in that we wanted adventure, like young men often do. We persuaded our parents to allow us to come to America, and though we arrived here a year apart, our journeys were basically the same. We integrated into society, and I soon fell for a woman named Ellshonna Hapervic. My affections were returned, and I assumed we would be married.”
Duncan interjected then. “I also fell for Ellshonna, meeting her at a party. I courted her for months, but when I proposed marriage, she was evasive. She started pulling away, though I was convinced she still loved me, and I loved her. I was suspicious of her behavior though.”
“I was still oblivious at that point,” said Nick. “I often avoided parties and stayed here at my estate. I
found my excitement in gambling and duels, and in seducing women before Ellshonna.”
“I followed her from the city one weekend, finding her here.”
Nick said, “She was due to stay with me for the weekend, and though it was all very proper, including her own chaperone, I was hopeful that she might finally accept my proposal of marriage.”
Baylee swallowed, doing her best to organize her thoughts and keep track of the story they were telling. “So this Ellshonna woman had turned you both down for marriage?” A slight chill went through her as she recalled just how unbalanced Sam had been after her rejection. Was she dealing with two more men cut from the same cloth? That gave her the first hint of apprehension she’d experienced since confirmation that they were the beasts.
“Yes. She claimed it was too soon, but I was hopeful that she would finally relent.”
Duncan snorted. “I couldn’t contain myself for long after I followed her here, and I burst in on them. She was in his arms, and I immediately challenged him to a duel.”
Nick shook his head. “I was eager to return the challenge, until it finally sunk in that he was challenging me because he thought I was stealing his woman—the woman I thought was mine.”
“We turned on her together, demanding an explanation.” Duncan snorted. “She told us she’d fallen for both of us, and she didn’t mean to lead us on, but she couldn’t possibly choose.”
Nick shook his head. “We insisted she make a choice, and when she refused, we both told her we wanted nothing more to do with her.”
Relief swept through Baylee at his words, and she was happy to realize they hadn’t been cursed, or whatever the circumstances that had changed them into the beasts, because they had been stalking her or trying to force Ellshonna to take them. “I guess she didn’t like that much?”