A heartfelt statement, but then he dipped his head his head down to say, “And you are at this verra moment carrying my bairn. And that means I canna allow you to go to New Zealand or anywhere else where I am not.”
Milly went utterly still. Not because she was afraid. But because she’d never been so clear in her life about anything as she was about what she said next. “Those four days did mean something to me. They meant really fantastic sex with a man who filled my heart with love and gratitude. But obviously for you it meant going to extraordinary measures to hold on to your assistant, so you would never, ever have to put up with change. You complained about your village never changing, but I don’t think you realize how much of that attitude you brought with you to Edinburgh.”
She scooted back from the table then. “I quit. Effective today.”
“What?” he asked. “You can’t quit. I’ll sue—”
“Then sue,” she invited, interrupting him. “Sue me to hell and back. But I’m not going to let you control me like that cancer’s been controlling me since I was nineteen. I deserve better than that. I deserve to live my life without you dictating what I can and can’t do. And you know what, Iain? I’m done living to your standards. So you can take your lawsuit and your job, and you can shove both them up your ass.” She threw him the deuces. “Because I’m out.”
“Nay! Nay, you’ll not leave—” he said, his voice at such a low register, she knew he was gearing up to make another threat.
But this time she didn’t stick around to hear it.
Just stood, shouldered her purse, and walked right out the pub door.
It was raining. Of course, it was raining. And in her mind’s eye, she could see her umbrella, clear as day, right where she left it in the container at the front of the AlgoFortune office doors. But she stepped onto the busy sidewalk anyway. Anywhere else was better than where Iain Scotswolf was—
A hand grabbed her arm, pulled her back, and turned her to face…Iain. He was also without an umbrella. The pelting rain instantly drenched them both, but he didn’t seem to notice. His only point of focus was her.
“I canna let you quit. I canna let you go.”
“Iain, that’s enough,” she said, tugging on her arm. “Just let me go!”
“Don’t you think I would if I could? I dinna like feeling this way about someone who is so keen to leave me behind. I hate it, as a matter a fact. And I can see now why our Scottish council declared it against our laws to carry on with a human for too long.”
She shook her head. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I ken… I ken…”
Iain scrubbed the rain-soaked hair from his forehead. Then as if reaching a difficult decision, he said, “I’m the wolf. I’m the wolf that bit you. And for that reason I canna let you walk out on me. Bonded wolves cannot be without their mates. You wondered if I was mad before. I’m not. But being apart from you for more than a few hours, while you’re pregnant—that would truly drive me into a state of madness.”
Milly stared at him.
And he shook his head with a bitter laugh. “Ach, I can hear you not believing me. Like it’s a thought in my own head. But every word I’m saying is true, Millicent. I am a werewolf. Or what is it you Americans call them? A shifter. Whatever the name, my kind can’t carry human diseases. That’s why I turned you. That’s why you’re cancer free now and why you’re able to bear children despite all the radiation you underwent. Turning you into a werewolf like me was a kind of fixing, which is why I needed you to stay here in Scotland until the next full moon. Of course, I had no notion you’d go into heat before I’d be allowed to officially tell you the full story of what I’d done. But the point is, I saved you. And the even bigger point is you’re my mate. Carrying my bairn. So I canna let you go. Do you understand? It would be physically impossible, and against everything a werewolf is—especially a Scottish werewolf—to let his pregnant mate go.”
Iain stopped then. Breathing hard in the rain. Obviously waiting for her response.
It didn’t take long for him to get one.
“You need to get help,” she told him quietly. Then she very deliberately disengaged his hand from her arm and threw herself into the rush hour crowd.
“Millicent, wait,” she heard him call out behind her. “Please wait!”
She’d never heard him say please before, and his voice sounded tortured as if it was killing him to watch her go.
But she didn’t turn back. She didn’t engage. And this time, she didn’t give him a chance to catch up with her. Instead, she quickly crossed the street onto a square stuffed with so many tourists he couldn’t possibly find her in the crowd.
Chapter 10
That parting scene probably would have been much more final and triumphant for Milly if not for the immediate sense of abject loss that overtook her as she arrived at an empty bus shelter a safe distance away from where she’d last seen Iain.
At first, she tried to dismiss it. She was a virgin until five days ago, after all. Someone who’d never even been kissed until yesterday. Of course, she’d find it hard to leave behind the first guy she’d ever gotten truly intimate with—even if that was the only way to finally start living her life and making her long-held dream of traveling to New Zealand come true.
Also, Iain was at worst a complete sociopath and at best a seriously deluded nutjob in need of professional help.
So there was that…
But as she waited at the bus shelter, questions started piling up inside her head. Questions about her new cancer-free status. Questions about her seemingly perfect 20/20 vision. Questions about her hair…
Milly looked at herself in the shelter’s semi-reflective window. Her hair was nearly dry, and despite the absence of any product, her curls looked lush and amazing. No longer at war, on the contrary, she could almost hear them singing a cross-cultural round of “Kumbaya.”
The questions kept piling up inside her chest, along with a longing ache…like she’d left a limb behind.
Or a mate.
And none of these questions had answers except…
Technically, every single one of her questions could be answered perfectly by Iain’s crazy claims.
The sound of an incoming bus brought her head up. It wasn’t the one that would take her home to Holyrood, but she recognized it nonetheless because it went right by Tara’s place of work—
An idea came out of nowhere, freezing her in place as the bus’s accordion door opened. And just as suddenly, she animated, waving down the bus driver before he could close the door again.
“Wait! Wait! I want to get on!” she called out as if it were a matter of life and death.
It wasn’t unusual for Tara to come down to find her best friend waiting for her in the ornate lobby of the elegant domed building where the Royal Scottish Bank had been headquartered since the 1700s. But it was unusual for Tara to find Milly there in the middle of the morning, with only a text sent a minute beforehand to alert Tara that her best friend was waiting for her downstairs.
So Milly wasn’t at all surprised when Tara literally ran off the employee elevator, eyes wide with alarm.
“Are you okay?” she called out, her voice echoing across the old building’s cavernous lobby.
Was she okay? That was a long story with the final answer still TBD.
Instead of responding to her friend’s concerned question, Milly said, “Hey, Tara! How’s it going? Um…can I borrow your car?”
Whatever questions Milly might have had about whether Tara was a true blue friend or not were answered that morning. Not only did she give Milly the keys to her little Skoda hatchback, but she also she insisted on taking the rest of the day off and coming with her. Though as a fellow North American who’d grown up driving on the “right” side of the road, she didn’t offer to take on chauffeur duty. That would just be crazy.
Also, from what Milly could tell, her hale and hearty friend who never got sick must have been coming d
own with something. Because she kept sniffling as they sped down the highway toward the destination.
“Do you need a tissue?” Milly asked sympathetically when Tara sniffed for the umpteenth time. “I’ve got some in my purse.”
“No, it’s just allergies,” Tara answered, waving her off. Then she asked, “Why are we going back to Faoltiarn again?”
Because my boss is crazy, she replied in her head. And maybe I am, too.
Aloud she simply said, “There’s something I need to check out. It doesn’t make any sense, and I know exactly what I’ll find. But I need to see it for myself.”
Then off of Tara’s confused look, she said, “I swear I’ll explain everything on the way home.”
Tara sniffed again, and then carefully asked, “So Iain...invited you back to his place in Faoltiarn?”
“Well, not exactly,” Milly admitted with a grimace.
Another sniff, followed by, “Then what exactly is it you hope to find there? Because last I checked that pa—er, clan doesn’t like outsiders on their mountain without invitation.”
“How do you know so much about Faoltiarn and Iain’s clan?” Milly asked, glancing over at her friend.
A beat passed. Then Tara said, “I don’t know. Must have heard about it on the news or a documentary. You know how they always seem to have programs out here about Scottish heritage…and those hillbilly Highland clans, still doing it the way they used to back in the day.”
Milly narrowed her eyes, feeling weirdly defensive of Iain’s hometown. Yeah, it might be a bit old-fashioned but…“Don’t judge until you see it. It’s a neat little place, based on what I saw when I drove out there. Plus, Iain grew up there, but now he has his own tech company—so, you know, it’s not exactly a breeding ground for hicks.”
“Whatever you say,” Tara grumbled.
And Tara’s attitude didn’t improve much once they reached Faoltiarn. She eyed the cute Victorian-era postcard town suspiciously as they drove down the main street. Which struck Milly as odd. There were a few people milling about, and none of them wore overalls—though every male—young or old—wore a kilt, she noted. However, the effect was more charming than creepy. And though many of them stared as she and Tara drove by, Milly thought they looked more curious than menacing.
“See, totally Mayberry,” Milly said as they turned off the main street and headed left around the loch toward Iain’s house. “Maybe you mistook this town for another one you saw on TV?”
“There aren’t any kids here,” Tara pointed out.
Milly gave her a bemused sideways look. “Because they’re probably all in school,” she answered. “It’s the middle of the day.”
But Tara just harrumphed and continued to stare out the window, eyes squinted like she expected the entire last act of the movie, Get Out, to pop off any second.
When it came time to get out of the car, Tara grabbed her large umbrella from the back seat. And to Milly’s surprise, she was holding it like a baseball bat when she came around the front of the car.
“Um…if you’re scared, you don’t have to come in,” Milly offered.
“I’m not scared, and I’m definitely coming in,” Tara answered, her voice flat.
Oooo-kaaay, Milly thought, looking sideways at her friend as they walked to the front door together.
But unlike the last time she was here, the door wasn’t unlocked. Milly cursed under her breath.
“Oh, that’s a shame,” Tara said, in an entirely unconvincing tone. “We should probably just head home now, right?”
Milly shook her head. Tara wasn’t wrong, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how tortured Iain had looked when he’d told her he was a werewolf. He hadn’t looked like a crazy man as he told her his story, but like the man she’d come to know over the past few days. The one who’d sat beside her in that waiting room. The one she’d realized she loved in the moments before she was set to receive what she thought would be the worst news of her life.
Everything had seemed so clear during their fight at the pub. She wanted to go to New Zealand, and he wanted her to stay on as his assistant. To the point that he’d say anything to keep her there…
But now there was a crushing ache inside her chest that wouldn’t go away…
And she wanted to believe him. God, it scared her how much she wanted to believe him.
Also, she had enough money in her account to pay him back for a new window.
“Milly, what are you doing?!?” Tara asked, her voice strident with censure as she followed Milly around the house with her umbrella still raised.
But then she lowered her umbrella and asked, “No, seriously, what are you doing?” when Milly bent down and pick up a large moss covered stone.
Milly answered her question by throwing the stone through what she hoped to God was Iain’s office window.
“Can I borrow that?” she asked, holding her hand out for the long yellow umbrella in Tara’s hands.
Tara reluctantly gave it to her but said, “What the hell, Milly?” when she used it to break the rest of the glass.
“I just need to see about something,” she said, dropping the umbrella and hefting herself up onto the window ledge to look inside…
Yes! It was the office. And thanks to her seriously improved vision, she could see into the dark room despite getting zero assistance from the gray skies overhead. And, there it was! She found what she was looking for next to Iain’s desk. As clear as if a light were shining directly on it. The cage where he kept his wolf. And…
Her heart soared. “It’s empty,” she said to Tara. “The cage is empty!”
“Milly…” Tara said carefully. “I think you should come down from there.”
“No, you don’t understand the cage is empty!”
“Milly…” Tara said again.
“Fine!” Milly dropped back down to the ground to appease Tara. “But let me explain,” she said turning to face her best friend. “Iain told me this crazy story about him being a werewolf. Like, according to him, he was the wolf that bit me last week…”
“Milly…” Tara said, shaking her head.
“I know, I know. I didn’t believe him either. Of course, I didn’t believe him. I mean, how could I? But, like I said coming up here, I had to see for myself. And the cage he was keeping the wolf in…it’s empty! That means there’s a good chance Iain wasn’t lying. He really is a werewolf, and I guess that means I’m one now, too…”
A sudden shift in the wind took the “too” out of Milly’s mouth. She smelled someone. No, not just someone. A lot of someones… With a turn of her head to the left, she discovered the real reason Tara had wanted her to come down.
A group of what had to be at least twenty or so townspeople, all wearing kilts or long plaid dresses, were gathered in an arc in Iain’s large backyard. And though their ruddy Scottish faces looked pleasant enough, every single one of them was staring at Milly.
“Um…” she began, trying to come up with some kind of plausible explanation for why she’d driven into their village and thrown a stone through one of Iain’s windows.
But the opportunity to explain was soon lost.
“Ach, clear the way. Coming through, coming through,” a familiar voice rang out.
And then Magnus appeared. He wore his usual kilt and sweater combo. But unlike during his visits to the AlgoFortune office, he didn’t stand out so much in this crowd.
Not like Milly and Tara did.
He was flanked on one side by a very large man. And both he and the large man were holding guns. Old guns, the kind of rifles you might see in period dramas starring time traveling nurses. But still…
“Hi, Magnus,” she said, raising her hands in the air. “Good to see you again…”
But Magnus didn’t seem particularly happy to see her. Or at all flirtatious when he said, “You and your friend—you’re coming home with me.”
Chapter 11
So apparently Magnus lived in the castle on the other
side of the loch.
Milly made that discovery when Iain’s brother and his big friend escorted her and Tara to a stone bridge that led to a point directly beneath the castle in the distance.
The twenty or so villagers who had witnessed her small attempt at breaking and entering had followed them, whispering in excited Gaelic the entire way. But when they reached the bridge, Magnus turned toward the group and spoke a few short sentences in Gaelic.
And while Milly didn’t speak a word of Gaelic, she was pretty sure he’d said something like, “I’m taking these women home with me” and “you’re not invited.” Because the crowd didn’t follow them across the bridge, which looked like it had been hand built by a group of their direct ancestors at least two centuries ago,
However, Magnus’ silent, hulking sidekick apparently didn’t get the memo. Because he followed behind them, gun—musket?— raised like he wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
“I’m sorry,” Milly whispered to Tara who was still wearing the red blazer, black-and-white polka dot dress, and bright yellow heels she dressed in for work this morning. Obviously, her best friend had no idea her business day would end like this when she chosen her outfit.
Tara shook her head, despite teetering on the uneven stones in her heels. “It’s not your fault. Iain should have told you his clan was a bunch of backward ass fucks when he hooked up with you.”
Milly frowned, because how did Tara know she and Iain had hooked up? She’d been purposefully vague when she texted Tara in the car on the way to the hotel, and then again two days later. Something about Iain wanting her to work over the long weekend and putting her up at a hotel near the office because a project was running behind schedule.
In other words, Milly had purposefully given Tara zero specifics. So…
“How did you know—?” she started to ask her friend.
Her Scottish Wolf (Howls Romance): Loving World Page 9