by Lucy Monroe
“And sometimes not long enough.” When it came to seeing Percival, new Baron of Heronshire, again, never would be too short.
She’d thought the same about Caelis, but the heart that had gone dormant when she left Scotland began to flutter again. True that flutter brought naught but pain now.
And yet a very tiny part of her was glad not to be so dead inside. She’d felt emotion for her children, but it was a different place in her heart that had been sleeping these past years.
A place that at one time had given her both her greatest joy and most devastating sorrow.
“I will change your mind.” He promised. “We are meant to be together.”
“I used to believe that.” She’d been certain to the very depths of her soul that she and this man had a glorious future together.
A love story to write with their hearts and their bodies so profound, their children’s grandchildren would tell it to their babes. Losing her faith in the future had hurt almost as much as losing him.
“Believe it again.”
“No.” She’d been hurt enough by this man and by her own dreams.
Neither would ever be given free rein in her heart again.
His impossibly blue gaze bored into hers. “Some things in life, we have no choice about.”
“You mean like six years ago?” she asked sweetly.
An expression of relief (no doubt that she’d finally understood) came over his features. “Exactly like six years ago.”
“Then you are a very ineffectual man, Caelis of the MacLeod. Six years ago, you had a choice indeed.”
“I told you—”
“That our laird denied us the right to marry in the clan,” she interrupted. “But what does that signify? Only that your love for his regard far exceeded any small feelings you might have had for me. You denied me. You denied our son. All on the say-so of a despot worse than the man I am currently running from. Do not you claim you had no choice. You had a very real choice, Caelis, and you made it!”
“You do not understand.”
“You think not? I know this. Had the choice been mine six years ago, I would have run from the clan, abandoned my family and followed you across the waters if need be for us to be together. You wouldn’t even leave with me to another clan.”
“I could not!” His bellow was louder than hers, but she was not impressed.
“Then I say again, Caelis, you were a very ineffectual man. And I believed you a warrior at heart.”
“I am. How dare you doubt my fighting spirit!”
“How dare you claim one when you never fought for the right to be with me!” He surged to his feet, towering above her, his rage a palpable force around them.
She was not impressed.
“I thought he wanted only what was best for me. As you said, I was one of his favored ones. He claimed that as my alpha he could tell you were not my true mate. How was I supposed to know he lied?”
“You wanted to believe him. You wanted to believe that some in the clan were more important, superior to others. You wanted to be one of those superior beings.” She put all the derision she felt into that word, letting Caelis know just how unsuperior she considered a man who could abandon her as he had done.
His face contorted as if holding something of great import back. Finally, he said, “I was.”
“I would say that I am sorry you lost your place, but I am not. The longer you held favor with that man, the more of your humanity you would have given up to him.”
“You do not know how true your words are,” Caelis said, his tone subdued, his face cast in shadows so she could not read his expression.
She had no answer for him. He had chosen, no matter that he claimed there had been none, and he had done so poorly.
He sat on the edge of her bed, leaving his scent behind, though she would not tell him so. She’d always been sensitive to it, reveling in his nearness even when she could not see him.
He looked down at the floor, as if it might have the answers he sought. “There are things I did not tell you then. Things you will have to know now.”
“You sound very mysterious.”
He nodded, his expression sober. “It is a great mystery, a secret the humans who are privileged to know must keep at the pain of death.”
“You say humans like you think yourself something greater than.” Was this truly the man she had loved so dearly?
His sense of superiority and excessive vanity might even rival Percival’s.
“Not better than—I understand that now—but not the same either.” Caelis’s expression pleaded with her for understanding.
But once again, his words were more confusion than explanation.
“Will you ever start making sense?” she demanded with asperity. “No matter what your exalted laird would have you believe, you are not some superior being.”
“I am Chrechte,” Caelis blurted out with exasperation, jumping to his feet and turning away as if frustrated with her obdurate behavior.
Really? If he persisted in trying to unite them as a family, he would soon learn that she was capable of far more obstinacy than this.
And the whole Chrechte mystique? Not so mysterious after all. Everyone in the clan knew about the band of warriors that considered themselves elite among the soldiers.
She rolled her eyes. “So I heard on more than one occasion six years ago from you and others. You considered your skills as a warrior something to set you apart.”
He spun back to face her, his expression growing increasingly astonished as she continued speaking.
“My skills as a warrior are above those of other men, Chrechte as well,” he declared with affront.
“And I am an English lady with claim to title and little else. Do you know how it has set me apart?” she asked scathingly. “Not one wee bit. I am still a mother, a friend, a woman with less say in my life than the steward who ran my dead husband’s estates.”
“You ignore everything you do not wish to hear,” he accused, his frustration obviously mounting.
She glared at him, her own ire rising to match his. “If you want me to hear you, may I suggest you try talking sense rather than the ravings of arrogant idiocy.”
“I am no idiot!”
“Well, you’re certainly not a lord of logic, either.”
“I am a shape-changer,” he practically yelled. “Chrechte means I share my nature with an animal. Mine is a wolf.”
Her heart nearly stopped in her chest. She’d called him daft, but she hadn’t meant it. Had not truly believed he had lost his ability to think and behave rationally.
His talk now made her cold with dread.
“Stop this nonsense. Please, Caelis, do not show yourself truly insane,” she pleaded with him.
He simply shook his head and then removed his plaid with an economy of movement. He made no move to come closer to her, but she jumped off the chest anyway, sidling toward the door and escape.
“No. Caelis. I will not take you to my bed.”
“Aye. You will, but not right now.”
She shook her head, her heart beating so fast in her chest that it hurt.
He lifted his head, sniffing at the air and then looked with concern at her. “You have nothing to fear, Shona. Not ever from me.”
“You have hurt me more than any other,” she baldly disagreed.
That was one lie she simply could not let stand.
“Let me show you why.”
What did he expect her to do? Give him permission? She just wanted out of the room, but before she could make her move for the unbarred door, a flash of light shown around Caelis.
Then, where he had stood was now a large dark-haired wolf.
Chapter 6
One must have grave reason for revealing the knowledge of the Chrechte’s true nature to a human. For to betray that knowledge carelessly is to invite certain death.
—CHRECHTE ORAL TRADITIONS
Shona blinked slowly.
&nb
sp; Perhaps it was she who had lost her grasp on reality, but when she opened her eyes again, the wolf still stood there.
She backed toward the wall, fear mixed with disbelief making her stomach roil. When her shoulders encountered the hard ungiving barrier, she whimpered.
The wolf whined, tilting his head to one side as if trying to tell her she had nothing to worry about.
“Caelis?” she asked in a voice that trembled. And then immediately began to berate herself for doing so. “No, he is not a wolf. He cannot be. My eyes are deceiving me.”
The wolf stalked across the room, crowding close to her.
Her entire body shook with the terror and confusion gripping her. “No, stay away.”
The wolf stopped, letting out a short bark that sounded so much like Caelis when he was exasperated with her, she gasped.
“Caelis?” she asked again.
The wolf’s head nodded up and down.
“But how? This is not possible.” She knew it was not.
No matter how her eyes deceived her, men did not transform themselves into wolves.
A more practical woman than most, Shona did not believe in faeries, or magic, or any such. How could she accept the evidence of her eyes?
The wolf moved closer, sniffing the air, a happy-sounding rumble coming from his chest.
“Don’t…don’t come any closer.”
The wolf whined again, moving back and then forward again, as if it could not help itself.
“What?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
He took a step closer and she remembered how the stable master had told her to behave with the dogs on her dead husband’s estates.
Shona put her hand out, her arm trembling.
The wolf stretched forward, first sniffing at her hand and then licking it.
“Oh.” It was not so terrible, though it was strange to have a wild animal that could tear her apart with its claws and teeth so gently caressing her hand with its snout.
The beast came closer so that she was crowded against the wall and pressed its body to her.
She stared down at him. “I am not going anywhere. You do not need to sit on me.”
But the animal ignored her words, rubbing against her with its sides, nuzzling at her with its snout.
“You’re very affectionate, aren’t you?” she asked, not remembering the estate dogs being quite so friendly.
Then she remembered this wolf was supposed to be Caelis and she had another reason altogether to resent his nearness.
“Caelis, if that is indeed you in there, you must step back.”
He barked his denial and she had no doubts that was exactly what it had been, either, climbing her so his forepaws rested on her shoulders and he could rub her neck with his snout.
She giggled, the sound shocking her as much as the sensation of being tickled.
He licked her again, growling against her throat in a way that should have frightened her, but it did not.
One thing was certain, while she still feared Caelis the man because of his power to harm her and destroy her happiness, she did not fear his wolf.
At all.
“You are very sweet like this.”
The wolf chuffed, as if he found her sentiment immensely funny and she found herself smiling at him.
The light flashed and then Caelis the man was again there, naked and far too close. “Your smile is still as beautiful and bright as the sun.”
That very same smile slid from her face more rapidly than water going over the falls into her favorite loch.
A small scream escaped her throat, but she pressed her hand over her mouth to keep other sounds inside. She could not afford to alert her friends or her children to her distress.
Caelis had turned into a wolf. Might well do so again. While she’d never doubted her own security, others might not be safe around him. Especially Thomas.
She shoved him from her. “Get away.”
At first, he did not move, but she shoved again. Harder.
He stumbled back a step. “You are frightened of the wolf.”
“No. I don’t want your naked body so near,” she stated without apology.
He didn’t fight her, moving back quickly, his expression unreadable. But the intensity of his regard was unsettling.
She hugged herself. “You need to put your plaid back on.”
He laughed, the sound harsh, almost bitter, and he turned away. Not to get his clothing, but to drop to the floor.
He knelt there for several seconds, breathing deeply.
“Did it hurt you?” she asked in a halting voice. “Changing into a wolf?”
“Do not speak,” he rasped out.
She closed her mouth, once again not understanding. Why couldn’t she speak?
“My control over my wolf is precarious,” he answered as if she had spoken aloud.
“Is it always like this after you shift between forms?” she asked and then regretted doing so when an animalistic sound came from his mouth. Did the wolf wish to return to his animal form?
Mayhap he did not like living as a man.
Caelis’s muscles corded with some great effort. “No. But I have not claimed my true mate in six years and she stands alluringly before me in a bedchamber. What do you think my wolf wants to do?”
This was about sex? “Control yourself, like you didn’t six years ago,” she answered immediately and with some bite.
He leapt to his feet, his naked body turning to face her all in one smooth movement.
There was ample evidence that he was indeed very aroused. Whether it was by her or by shifting, or would have happened with any woman in a similar circumstance, she could not know.
“You think I did not control myself six years ago?” he demanded, his expression stark, his tone feral.
“No,” she replied starkly and then added, “Had you, I would not have become pregnant.”
“And do you regret that? Can you regret our son?”
“Of course not.” And how unfair of him to ask. Caelis had not been the one to live with the consequences of pregnancy outside of wedlock. “I love my children with my whole heart, but having our son the way I did came with great cost, not the least of which was the regard of my parents for the rest of their lives.”
“They were angry with you?”
“Do not jest. You know full well how furious they would have been. They were disappointed in me and disgusted by the shame I had brought on our family name. My mother called me a whore and never forgave me. My father, either, though he was less vocal in his criticisms.”
Horror washed over Caelis’s features, though whatever he was feeling had no apparent effect on his arousal. “They loved you so much.”
“And that made my betrayal of them that much greater.”
“You did not betray them.”
“I did. You know well a woman is to save her innocence for the marriage bed.”
“It doesn’t always happen.”
“Nay, but you were not there to make it right, were you? You and your laird had judged me and found me wanting as a mate for the beast, is that it?”
“Not me.”
“Just the laird, but you went along.”
“I did. To my own shame.”
“You do not know what shame is until you have had your husband treat you like a dockside whore on your wedding night.”
Caelis looked sick. “I am sorry.”
Three little words. They shouldn’t have mattered, and in the great expanse of life probably didn’t, but in that moment they healed wounds still bleeding in her heart.
“I am sorry I left you, but I cannot be sorry I claimed you. I wanted you from the moment your body showed itself to be fully a woman. I waited a full year to make you mine.” And then he’d let her go.
Did he expect her to cheer his supposed restraint? “You should have waited forever since you had no intention of marrying me after.”
“It was not my intentions that were at fa
ult.”
She might begin to believe that. Might. “Merely your dedication to keeping your vows to me,” she mocked.
“Do not provoke me.” He growled, the sound just like a wolf.
“Or what? You’ll lose control?” Heavens above, what was she doing? Did she want to see his beast come out?
Mayhap, she did.
“Yes,” he ground out, stalking closer, his once again fully tumescent sex testimony to the veracity of his passions at least.
Though again she had to remind herself there was nothing to say that he would not physically desire any woman after shifting from his wolf form. It was a very primitive action and there was nothing more primal than sex.
He towered above her, the beast in his eyes so clear she wondered how she’d ever been able to miss it. “My wolf would claim you, mo toilichte.”
“Your wolf and you are the same, are you not?” It had certainly seemed so when the beast stood before her.
The wolf had shown the understanding of a man.
“We are.”
“Then you want to claim me.”
“Aye.” He closed his eyes, his head tilted back, his tone so guttural it was barely more than a whisper. “I crave you as no other.”
“Me? Or any woman’s form?”
His head jerked down, blue eyes snapping open and filled with rage-fueled desire. The sound that came from his throat was not human. He had not liked that question at all. It was as if she was casting aspersions on some intrinsic element to his nature, or maybe even something deeper.
“You. My sacred mate. I have told you, I can have no other. Six years…” His neck muscles corded, he let his words trail off.
Had he said that, or merely claimed he had not had comfort in all that time? “What do you mean?”
“As Faol—a wolf shifter. I mean—once I have had sex with my sacred mate, I cannot do so with another.”
“Explain the cannot.”
Something seemed to snap inside him and he grabbed her hand, pressing it to his hard flesh.
Her fingers curled around the erection of their own volition, squeezing before she was even aware of what she was doing.
He groaned, the sound both pained and filled with ecstasy. “This does not happen.”