There was a noise outside the living room window. Rowan spun us around just in time to see a russet brown wolf dive through the window with a loud shattering crash, sending pieces of glass everywhere.
Rowan let go of me and I ran at Lauren, pushing her down behind the couch.
I peeked around and saw the wolf stand in front of Rowan. He gave a loud growl, baring his teeth. Then he lunged at him, sending Rowan running out the door with Joseph chasing behind him.
I fumbled in my pocket for my phone and dialed. Lauren was huddled behind me. I could feel her body trembling.
“I just got the pizzas—” Nate said from the other end.
I interrupted him. “Rowan’s here. Joseph went after him.”
“What?”
I peeked around the sofa at the broken window. There was a large wolf-shaped hole in the center with pieces of glass littering the floor and furniture. “And you’re going to need a new window.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Sister Charlotte
“I’m so sorry, Nate. I don’t know how he got away. I traced his scent all the way to the other side of town, but he went through the bloody river and I couldn’t pick it up after that.” Joseph had apologized to me, to Lauren and now it was Nate’s turn.
Nate hammered the last nail into the plywood that was now covering the window and then turned around to face Joe. He held the hammer loosely in his hand. “I told you it was fine. I lost his scent too. Stop apologizing.”
“Yes, but you weren’t right behind him like I was. He shouldn’t have been able to lose me.” He pounded the plywood with his fist in frustration. A loud hollow thud rang out, making Lauren and me jump.
“So, how’s the pizza?” I asked her. The two werewolves had spent most of the night fixing the window. They also argued about whose fault it was that Rowan got to me and that he was able to get away. We had cleaned up the glass before Nate returned, but he rushed right out again to help Joseph, after Will arrived armed with the gun.
Will left shortly after the werewolves began arguing. They hadn’t even touched their pizza.
“It’s good. I guess we get to eat the rest of it, since no one else wants any.” She raised her voice, but the guys didn’t hear her. Now they were trying to figure out Rowan’s next move.”
“Nate!” I called loudly, just as they were about to begin another argument.
“Yeah?” he said, holding up the hammer he was now pointing at Joe.
“Are you going to eat or not? The pizza’s getting cold.”
“Oh, right. Come on, Joe, stop worrying. Both the girls are fine. And they wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for you.” He tossed the hammer into his tool box and sat down beside me.
They ate the rest of the pizza and Lauren and I convinced them to play Scrabble telling them there was no way Rowan was going to return tonight. Especially since Nate was back and it would be two against one. For the rest of the night we played the game and I lost miserably. Surprisingly, Lauren didn’t win either. Joe clobbered us with the highest score I’d ever heard of.
Nate didn’t play the first game. He was on the phone most of the time talking to Will. He was trying to convince him it was best if Lauren stay here just in case Rowan came after her. Using the argument of two werewolves as bodyguards Nate finally convinced him.
“Okay, so it’s not a good idea to play Scrabble with…what? A hundred-and -twenty-year-old werewolf? He’s lived so long he knows every word in the English language,” Lauren said, tossing a couple letters at Joe. The letter A bounced off his forehead and dropped into his drink, splashing soda onto the game. I laughed as I watched her wipe up her mess.
“And quite a few more, since I grew up in Ireland.” He picked up the letter Z and whipped it at Lauren. It smacked her in the shoulder, leaving a red mark on her skin.
“Hey,” she gasped, trying not to laugh. She grabbed the rest of the letters and stuffed them inside the box to avoid any more injuries. “Do you live there or here in the U.S.?” Lauren held the game out of Joe’s reach.
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the box stuck under her arm. “Here. I haven’t been home in a very long time. There’s nothing for me there but bad memories.”
Lauren’s face clouded with concern and she forgot all about the game. “Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t want to bore you.” He waved his hand in the air.
“Is it too personal to ask how you became a werewolf?” I asked.
He scowled. “It’s not too personal. I’m sure you’ve heard of her before, since Nate and I have the same creator.”
Both of us gasped. “Charlotte Burns.” I heard someone whisper the name and then realized it was me.
“Yes, that witch took my life from me. The name Joseph Burns was moving up in my town. I was an up-and-coming journalist. I even saw the queen once when she visited Dublin. I was about to get a promotion at the newspaper when—”
I held my hand up to stop him. “Wait. Did you just say your last name is Burns? As in Charlotte Burns?”
“Yep. The werewolf that changed me was my sister.”
Mine and Lauren’s mouth fell wide open in surprise. We were speechless.
Joseph chuckled. “Shocked you, didn’t I?” He lifted his knee up, resting his arm on it and sighed. “She disappeared for a few years and when she came back she looked exactly the same. I didn’t really think much of it since it was only a few years. My mother wasn’t happy to see her. They never did get along, but since Charlotte appeared to be fine, my mother figured she worried about her for no reason and that she was out having the time of her life. They fought like the devil. And frankly I was tired of hearing it.”
His eyes turned yellow as he spoke, his hand that rested on the table clenched into a fist. “One night she crept into my room and told me she wanted to show me something. I told her to bugger off and tried to go back to sleep. But she lifted me out of bed and carried me like a bloody baby. She’s fairly small, with not much to her. There is no way she should have been able to lift me. She put me down outside near the edge of the forest. I was speechless. I just stared at her, at a loss for words. She smiled and asked if I wanted to get away from Mother. She said I couldn’t enjoy living with the old bag since all she did was yell. I told her I was fine living with Mother. She was the one who brought out the anger in her.”
His expression changed, eyes narrowing and his jaw tightening. “She told me she wanted me to come with her, said that we could travel the world and do anything we wanted. I told her no. I had a good job and a woman that I loved that I was planning on marrying one day. My rejection set her off. Her eyes changed color as she crouched down and then she pounced on me. When she landed she was a wolf. She bit me in the arm. I could tell it was a struggle to leave it at that.”
Lauren gasped and reached out to place her hand on his arm.
Joe relaxed a little with her touch and continued with his story. “She took off into the forest and I never saw her until the next full moon when she explained what I now was. She wanted me to go with her. She was lonely and she missed her brother. I did at first, until I saw how she treated humans, as nothing more than her next meal. When I was with her she told me everything there was to know about being a werewolf. I left her after I found an abandoned cottage. I learned to control the urges on my own and I was a lot happier without her.”
“Is that when you met Nate?” I asked, curious about their friendship, considering he was related to someone Nate hated so much.
“When I ran into her years later she told me about Nate. I found him in America. I felt remorse about what she had done to him and was surprised that he had the courage to turn her down. I found him on death’s door after a visit from our friend Rowan. I patched him up and we became friends, have been ever since.” We were silent for a few minutes, each of us digesting what he had told us.
Nate finally put the phone down after an urgent call from his nephew Richard and returned to the table. “What
did I miss?”
“Joseph was just telling us about when Charlotte turned him and how you met,” I said to Nate and then turned back to the other werewolf. “But Joseph, I would like to hear about some of that trouble you spoke of this morning.”
“You don’t need to hear that,” Nate interrupted Joe, who had opened his mouth to speak.
“Oh, come on, one story,” I pleaded with Joseph, who was suddenly quiet. He smiled and then began to tell us about a time he tried to set Nate up with a girl.
After he finished and the laughter subsided, Nate felt he had to get even and tell us a few tales about Joseph’s women. Lauren and I mainly listened and asked questions. It was fascinating, hearing about the world before there was electricity and cars and everything that we take for granted. It sounded so much more simple back then. I suddenly wished I were born in another time. We stayed up late. Nate bugged us until we gave in and played another game of Scrabble. Lauren no longer thought it was that much fun with the two of them playing.
Joseph kept his word and stayed a fair distance from Lauren, although I did notice him staring at her when she wasn’t looking. I’d kick him under the table and he’d snap out of it. In only one day I became very attached to him. I felt like he was the brother I had always wanted.
We eventually went to bed. Joe convinced Lauren to sleep in the spare room and he slept on the couch.
I came out of the bathroom after changing into my nightshirt. “So do you think it was a mistake for me to ask Lauren over?” I asked Nate, who was sitting in the bed with the blanket up to his bare chest.
“No, I wanted him to get to know her before he made his decision. So this was a good way. Did you notice how hard it was for him to follow your rules?”
I laughed. “Yes and they were basic rules. When he first saw her I know he freaked her out by standing right in her face and staring at her. I just wanted him to give her some space. Was it hard for you not to be near me?”
His smile disappeared. “You have no idea. When you dated Aaron Wilder and Billy Collins, I didn’t realize I had so much restraint. Lauren told me my eyes changed quite a bit during that time. I’m just glad you didn’t date either of them for long.”
Picking up my brush and making my way to the bed, I sat down and began brushing out the ponytail I had worn all day. “I only did it to make you jealous. After you came up to me that day I kept expecting you to do it again and maybe talk to me. And when you didn’t, I went up to you. Remember? You turned the other way every time. I eventually gave up, but I was never interested in anyone else. I suppose it wasn’t fair of me to use them.” Setting the brush down onto the nightstand, I climbed under the covers.
Nate clicked out the light and turned to face me. I was so content here, as if we had been living together for years. It just felt right. I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to leave him and go back home when this was over. Just the thought of it brought a tear to my eye.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, touching the tear and wiping it from my cheek. I wasn’t sure how he saw that I was crying in the dark. Sure, the moonlight was coming in through the windows, but it was only one tear.
“Nothing,” I said softly, suddenly embarrassed. He glared at me, telling me without speaking that he didn’t believe me. “I’m just thinking about how hard it’s going to be to leave you.”
His eyes widened in panic. “You’re leaving me?”
“I mean when I go back home.”
He breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh. I don’t want to think about that. It just feels right having you here. It’s going to be hard to let you go.” I wanted to say “then don’t” but I couldn’t. It had to come from him.
He leaned in and touched his lips to mine, softly at first but gradually the kiss deepened. He thrust his fingers into my hair and used them to pull me closer. He lifted me up above him and leaned up to kiss my neck and collarbone. The feel of his soft lips on my skin caused a stirring inside me. I pushed him onto his back and wrapped my arms around him, lifting my leg up on his hip, until every inch of our bodies were touching. I kissed him with a hunger that exploded inside me. He answered my need with a matching hunger and ran his hands down my sides and then gently along my back.
“We should stop,” I whispered, only because I wanted to continue.
“You’re right,” he said softly, falling back onto his pillow. “It’s hard to keep my hands off of you. I love you so much.” His voice was a soft whisper as he gently rubbed a finger down my cheek and then my chin, until it reached my neck. His touch was so light it created a tingle along my skin. “I never imagined I could be this happy. I knew I would love you, but in a million years I couldn’t have guessed you’d love me back knowing what I was.”
It was ridiculous how low his opinion of himself was. “Nate, I think I loved you that first day I saw you in the cafeteria. Nothing would have changed how I felt about you. At first I thought you were a killer, but that was because you lied to me. As long as we’re honest with each other nothing will keep us apart. Now that you’ve found me, I’m yours forever.”
He stared intensely into my eyes. There was love and sadness in his gaze. “Well, not forever, but long enough.” He bent down and kissed my nose. “It’s late, we should get some sleep. I want to be alert. I won’t risk another attack.”
I turned on my side and he spooned me from behind. I felt his fingers twisting my hair. “Fiery sun,” he said below a whisper.
“What did you say?”
“Your hair. It’s as yellow as the sun, but when you get close you see a faint red tinge. Just like the sun, it looks yellow from a distance, but up close it’s a ball of fire. When you’re not around I look up into the sky on a sunny day and think of you.” His voice was slightly louder, but I still had to strain to hear him. I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I stayed silent, taking his arm and wrapping my arms tightly around it. “Good night, Megan.”
“Night,” I said, suddenly feeling sleepy. I closed my eyes and soon drifted off, wrapped in his warm embrace.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Family Heirloom
The first thing I saw when I woke the next morning was bright, piercing, blue eyes staring at me. “What time is it?” I mumbled, turning to lie on my stomach, pulling the covers over my head. I breathed deeply, basking in Nate’s scent that still lingered on the sheets. I peeked out from under the pillow to see that he was dressed in cargo shorts and a blue V-neck T-shirt. His hair was brushed and still damp. He looked fresh and ready for the day. I felt drained and content to stay buried under these blankets forever.
“Ten o’clock. I woke up a few hours ago.”
“Where are Joe and Lauren?” I asked. The words were muffled by the pillow under my mouth, of course he heard me.
“Lauren took Joe up to the main house for breakfast. I already ate, but I can make you something if you want.”
“No, I’m tired. I’m just going to stay here all day.”
Soft fingers brushed the back of my lower left leg. I shivered from his touch.
“Are you sure you want to stay here?” His voice was soft and sexy. The fingers wandered down to the back of my knee, moving in slow, swervy lines. He switched to the other leg. “I thought we could go for a walk in the woods today. There’s something I want to show you.”
His fingers traveled slowly up my leg to my upper thigh and I suddenly felt more alert. The thought of sleeping was now farthest from my mind. I groaned, faking annoyance. “Go away.”
His finger stopped moving, I thought he was going to do what I asked, but instead I felt his weight on top of me. “Fine, I’ll go all by myself,” he whispered. His lips brushed against my ear. His breath was hot and smelled of coffee. His fingers linked through mine, where my hands lay above my head.
I turned on my back. Nate sat up to allow the movement.
“I’m awake now, feed me.” I smiled at him, as he leaned in for a good morning kiss.
An hour later,
I was trekking through the woods dodging branches and waving at the bugs buzzing around my face. They didn’t seem to be bothering Nate. I was wearing a pale pink tank top, jean shorts and flip flops. Not the best choice in footwear for hiking.
“Whatever it is you want to show me had better be good,” I grumbled at the same time I slapped my upper arm after a mosquito took a chunk out of it. It was a hot, stuffy July morning and I could tell that it was only going to get worse. I just hoped this little adventure wouldn’t take long so I could get back into the cool, air-conditioned cottage.
“We’ve barely walked ten feet. I guess you’re not much of a hiker.”
I waved at the swarm of mosquitoes hovering in front of my face. “What’s not to like?”
He laughed under his breath. “Don’t worry. It’s just around this corner.”
We were following a well-used path. The grass in front of us was worn away from frequent use and was now nothing more than dirt and the occasional patch of mud. We turned the corner Nate had spoken of and he pushed a pine branch out of my way to reveal a small house nestled in the trees. It was a two-story, stone building that I would call a cottage, only because it was so small. The small porch looked newer against the aging stone. Obviously it was added years after the house was built. Two windows framed a screened door and an old wooden rocking chair sat in front, just waiting for someone to sit down and enjoy the view of the forest. Smoke rose out of the chimney to complete the fairy tale appearance. I was waiting for the dwarfs to come out of the house, whistling while they worked.
“Why is this here in the middle of nowhere?” I whispered. I was afraid that if I spoke loudly the scene before me would disappear.
“It’s where our groundskeeper lives, but it used to be the Stewarts’ house.” He paused a moment to let me process what he had just told me. I was standing in front of my ancestors’ home, where the original Lucy had lived. Now countless other Stewarts had the same name. It was surreal to stand in front of where our namesake grew up.
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