“Where’s yours?”
“It’s hiding within me too. It’s best you meet only one wolf at a time. Is it communicating with you?”
She had no idea. She focused her mind and noticed an influx of sounds and especially scents that had been only a background noise while she had her meltdown. They were incredibly intense, and had probably contributed to her panic attack, but with a little concentration, she was able to discern between them. Rafe, especially, smelled mouth-wateringly good, his bare chest only inches from her face, but even unpleasant scents like sweat felt intriguing. What was truly curious was that none of it was causing her to have a migraine.
“You’ve had a shifter’s sensitivity to scents, but you haven’t been able to process them properly,” Rafe explained when she noted it aloud. If it was true, it was definitely a point for exploring this further. “It’s the wolf that recognises the things that you sense.”
Okay, time to jump off the cliff. “So how do I get it out?”
“Are you sure you want it?” He looked worried so she gave it a proper thought. She could actually sense that there was a sentient being sharing her consciousness now. It was a bit incoherent still, but she understood what it wanted perfectly.
“It wants out.”
“Then just relax. It’s easier to let it out than to force it to stay in. And don’t worry. I’ll put it back if it freaks you out again.”
She had barely thought to relax when the aura surged out again. She didn’t freak out, but she still stared at it uneasily. “I feel like my body’s been invaded by an alien.”
Rafe laughed happily. “Sometimes the beast can make you feel like you’re the alien.”
She watched her wolf curiously as it studied its surroundings with distracting eagerness, conveying everything to her in an influx of thoughts and emotions. It had definitely wanted out. Knowing that it was its own entity, she could understand how it felt for having been incarcerated for decades. She felt everything it felt.
“It’s a bit overwhelming.”
Rafe smiled reassuringly. “You’ll learn to keep its thoughts and emotions from becoming too dominant.”
She tried to process everything the wolf fed back to her, its delight, its anger, its eagerness. Rafe hadn’t lied when he said they were creatures of emotions, but she wasn’t sure she had the tools for handling them. No wonder he allowed his wolf to dictate who he loved.
After a while, the wolf calmed down enough for her to start her own observations. Its fur looked soft and it was black like her hair. Its eyes were black too, shiny buttons with which it studied the world with an incredibly intelligent look in them.
“I didn’t know they were this intelligent,” she noted.
“It’s not human intelligence, but it has its own way of reasoning. And if yours is half as stubborn as mine, you definitely have to reason with it.”
“How?”
“Once it calms down a bit, you realise you can talk with it in your mind. A bit like telepathy, but within your own head.”
It sounded intriguing. She reached out to touch the wolf’s nose, a little over a foot from her chest, and it snapped playfully at her fingers. In their holographic form, they passed right through, but she snatched her hand away anyway. Then she realised how silly that was and touched it again. It seemed to like that.
She sensed its joy for being free, a disconcerting feeling, as it translated to her joy. “I think it’s trying to tell me that it’s been aware of everything through me, but it just hasn’t been able to communicate back.” There was a familiarity to it too. “And I think I kind of remember it. Do little children have auras before they are able to shift?”
“Yes, little cubs. That’s how we know. How old were you when it was blocked?” He asked it casually, but she sensed his anger none the same. Was the wolf helping her with that?
She put her hand on his chest to calm him and he pressed his palm over it, holding it fast against his steadily beating heart. “I was three or four, I think. My parents convinced me it had only been an imaginary friend.” She suddenly remembered how desolate she had been for losing it. How could they do this to her and not even tell her about it afterwards? It would serve them right if she learned how to shift and did so in front of their friends. But even as she thought it she knew she wouldn’t do it. She wasn’t sure she would even bring it up with them. They didn’t deserve to know how she felt.
“So how is it that my wolf is all grown up?” she asked, trying to banish unpleasant thoughts.
He understood how she felt and he pulled her against his chest. She feared the wolf would crush, but it only surged out from her side to her amazement. “It’s grown with you. You are old enough for it.” She hoped that it wouldn’t be a problem if she chose to release the wolf properly. She hadn’t made up her mind about it, although her wolf held it self-evident that she would. It was odd to have someone else thinking in her mind.
“Can I see yours now?” she asked, saucily, making Rafe laugh. He sat up and a moment later a beautiful light grey wolf with startlingly blue eyes appeared on his chest. It surged forward, eager to get to know her wolf.
Her wolf studied his closely. “I think my wolf likes your wolf,” she laughed, watching the auras sniff each other.
“Oh, I absolutely know my wolf likes yours,” Rafe murmured in a low voice, and when she lifted her gaze to him, he was staring at her, dazed.
Chapter Twenty-two
Raphael had thought he knew what the wolf’s call meant. Turned out he had had no idea. No bloody idea at all. The emotion that took over him the moment his wolf met Charly’s was so overwhelming, so complete, that he couldn’t comprehend it. He could only ride the crest of it, hoping that it would settle before he freaked out Charly again.
Studying Charly as she studied their wolves, he tried to make sense of this new certainty that had taken over him. He had already made up his mind to keep her, whether she accepted her wolf or not, although seeing her with her wolf made him really want her to choose the life as a shifter; but he wouldn’t pressure her. Even though he was not a romantic man, he knew the decision was based on love. He hadn’t thought it was possible to fall in love with someone in only three days, but it had happened. He was displaying all the classic symptoms: his heartbeat quickened whenever she was near; he was planning their future together on her terms; he was unable to imagine a world where she wouldn’t be by his side….
The call took that fledgling love instantly to another level, from stargazing to a certainty that their relationship would work through thick and thin. That was the overwhelming part. There was no wavering, no second-guessing or need to put on brakes just in case they were advancing too fast. As far as he was concerned, the rest of their lives could start right now.
But as Rafe watched Charly, he realised she wasn’t feeling the same. She wasn’t feeling the call. He tried to calm the panic the notion caused by reasoning that she was only getting to know her wolf and couldn’t yet discern everything it conveyed to her, but it was extremely hard. All he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and never let her go. Stepping back and giving her time to figure everything out wasn’t exactly in his wolf’s interests either, but that’s what they had to do.
“So, are you feeling adventurous?”
Charly stopped studying her wolf long enough to glance at him and he felt a tinge of jealousy for being second place in her mind. “What do you have in mind?” Her smile was saucy enough to make him contemplate a change in his plans, but she needed other things more than sex.
“The full moon feast is in full swing out in the park. What better chance to study shifters as they are?” Even as he said it he realised he didn’t want others near her, especially other males, but he managed to ignore that emotion as well. She needed this.
She hesitated. “What if I freak out again?”
“You won’t,” he said, with his most reassuring voice. “We already established that your wolf reacts to me as it should, a
nd Jamie is even stronger. I’ll be with you the whole time. Nothing bad will happen. And besides, everyone is used to new wolves, even if they are usually cubs. They won’t think badly of you even if you do lose it a bit.”
He saw her inner struggle and understood the cause as well. She was used to being in control; the thought of losing it in front of witnesses frightened her. But she was strong and she nodded, making his heart swell in pride.
Half an hour – and a long shower with arousing studying of each other’s bodies – later, they entered the park and headed straight towards the long tables laden with food to collect heaping plates for themselves. “I’m starving for some reason,” Charly confessed, laughing.
“Shifters burn much more energy than humans,” he explained, adding another piece of chicken to her plate despite her protests. She was too thin as it was, and with her body now using much more energy as the wolf took its share, she might waste away if he didn’t take care of her.
The most riotous part of the feast, the shifting, was already over. Only the cubs remained in wolf form, running around the large park and the surrounding woods, unwilling to shift back. Their joyous behaviour was a far cry from the sulky teenagers most of them were in human form, and along with the children who were still unable to shift, they formed a boisterous group. Rafe and Charly paused to watch their antics, laughing when they managed to steal food from someone’s plate. Then Jamie approached them. He was Rafe’s alpha and the only male stronger than him, so his wolf instantly considered him the biggest threat to his claim of Charly. Not since his youth had he felt so great a need to lash out and attack his brother. If Charly hadn’t been standing so close to him, calming him with her presence, he might have acted on the impulse.
Jamie recognised the signs and didn’t come too close. But even the smile he gave Charly made Rafe growl, earning him an admonishing glance from her. “Welcome to Greenwood clan, Charlotte. I hope you’ll consider us your clan whether you choose to unblock your wolf or not. You’ll always have a place here.”
She seemed touched by his words and she nodded, unable to speak. Rafe placed his free hand on her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. “No one here will force you to unblock the wolf. We might want you to be one of us, but we also know it won’t be easy. But we’re here for you.”
Now she had tears in her eyes. They caused wolf and man so much distress that he had to lean over and kiss them away. She gave him a watery smile. “I never used to cry this much before.”
“The emotions will settle soon enough. Your wolf has three decades worth of them bottled up.”
Nate, Ken, and Kieran, the unmated males Charly had met earlier, approached them next, but Rafe didn’t allow them near, halting them with a snarl. They greeted her from afar, welcoming her. Rafe could see they wanted to tease him about her, but they wisely kept their words to themselves. There would be time enough for good-natured bantering at his expense when he wasn’t so on edge.
But he couldn’t lock Charly up, and if she were to become one of them, she would have to know about them. She was staring at all the auras in wonder, all of them different, like their human hosts, clearly eager to study them closer. So he steered her towards the mated females, judging them to be the most harmless of the lot.
The women were all very nice to Charly, giving her a warm welcome, but their auras had ideas of their own. Charly’s wolf might have been newly released, but it was exactly as dominant as Rafe had thought, and all their females were submissive. Charly stared in dismay as her wolf snapped its teeth at every wolf they met, trying to establish its superiority to them and succeeding. “I’m usually much better behaved,” she said, aghast, after her wolf had nipped yet another wolf on its muzzle, causing the other wolf to retreat.
“Don’t worry,” Helen, the middle-aged woman thus treated said, smiling. “We’re all born to wolf hierarchy. We’re used to this. Once your wolf has found its place, it’ll behave better.” It took some more convincing from her and the other women before Charly was able to relax. Their good-natured calmness was exactly what she needed, and little by little her wolf settled down too. Rafe smiled at Helen warmly, pleased that everything was going so well. And then the trouble came calling.
Charly noticed Rafe tense briefly, and then he moved to meet a leggy blonde in tight leather pants and a very low-cut top who had just hailed him from across the yard. Shrieking in delight, the woman rushed to him and wrapped herself around him, pressing her ample breasts tightly against his chest, and the bastard hugged her back.
Charly had never been particularly jealous in her relationships, but now a deep rage surged through her, as uncontrollable as all her other emotions since Rafe had come into her life. If she had doubted her feelings towards him, there was no second guessing anymore, her possessiveness was so all-encompassing. Woman and wolf both agreed that he belonged to them and they didn’t share.
Ours.
A growl rose from deep inside her, much lower than her normal voice, but the sound was so natural it didn’t even startle her. She just walked to the embracing pair. Her wolf surged forward in her chest, urging her to attack the intruder, and that was exactly what she did the moment the bitch unwrapped herself from Rafe.
Or at least her wolf did, the human half being a bit more civilized. It bit its holographic teeth tightly into the other wolf’s muzzle, taking it by surprise. Earlier, her wolf had put other wolves to their places with mere nips, so Charly was satisfied, expecting the bitch to keel too.
It didn’t happen.
“What the hell?”
The blonde’s white wolf with amber eyes didn’t wait for her, but attacked, trying to take Charly’s wolf by its throat. And the woman wasn’t far behind. A second later, both of her hands shifted to paws and she charged at Charly too.
The two women were surprisingly similarly built and equally tall, but the lean muscles in the stranger’s arms indicated far greater strength than what Charly possessed, even without paws giving her the advantage. But Charly was beyond caring how much she might hurt. She had to get rid of the interloper.
Only, the fight never happened. Before the bitch had so much as swiped her paws at Charly, Rafe had thrown himself between them, breaking up the fight between the wolves as well. “Enough,” he commanded sharply, his voice laden with such power that the wolves flinched and retreated. The other woman pressed her head down too, but only for a moment.
“The bitch attacked me,” she growled, her eyes full of menace.
“I. Said. Enough.” This time his low command froze both women. He waited a moment to make sure he was being obeyed, taking in the wolves’ submissive stances. Then he turned to Charly and pulled her to him, wrapping his arm around her. She leaned against him, glad for the show of support. Her wolf believed they had won.
“Charly, please meet my niece, Harriet, Jamie’s daughter. Harry, this is Charlotte Thornton, my mate.”
The mysterious Harry froze for a heartbeat. Then her face melted into a smile that made her look a more delicate version of Jamie with long, wheat-blonde hair. Not that it was easy for Charly to believe they were father and daughter, even knowing how old Jamie was, because Harry looked to be her own age and Jamie seemed about forty.
But she got even more bewildered when Harry pulled her into a hug, the change in her demeanour complete. “Welcome to the family.”
Charly stiffened for a heartbeat before relaxing into Harry’s embrace. This was going too fast. It was one thing to be welcomed to the clan, but that Harry would assume Charly was family was too much. As if guessing she was about to baulk, or fearing she would freak out again, Rafe tightened his hold of her. To the outsiders it probably seemed like a warm embrace between lovers, but Charly knew he couldn’t possibly have meant his words. He would have said something to her in private in that case. He had only made his claim to diffuse the tense situation.
She didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his family and friends, however, so she just smiled an
d accepted the felicitations other clan members were offering them. Rafe accepted their well-wishes with pride, as if things were progressing in the usual fashion. Charly’s wolf didn’t question his announcement either.
But the human who was used to making decisions concerning her life found this to be overwhelming. A bit surreal even. Here she was with a man she barely knew, who claimed he would keep her for the rest of her life, without asking her opinion about it, and with a new entity inside her that seemed to agree with him. She felt like an outsider in her own life all of a sudden.
The sense of detachment followed her the rest of the night. Her face smiled and her mouth said nice things to people, and once her wolf calmed down she dared to approach people on her own even. But all the while she felt like it was someone else doing these things. She didn’t recognise herself anymore.
It wasn’t until the night was turning to morning that the feast dwindled down, children having left earlier, and everyone retired to bed. Rafe took her hand and led her to his bedroom, as if she belonged there. Part of her knew she did, his hand feeling perfect in hers, but she halted him at the door nonetheless.
“I don’t think I can do this,” she said, tiredness making her voice more curt than she intended.
Rafe looked hurt and a bit angry too, but he nodded. “I understand you need to process everything on your own. You can have all the time you need. But you will sleep in my room. I’ll find another place.”
She wanted to tell him he could stay in his room as long as he didn’t expect anything from her, but she was too tired so she just nodded and disappeared into the bathroom. When she emerged again, he was gone. She spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, arguing with her wolf who told her that driving their mate away was the biggest mistake of her life.
The human was beginning to agree.
Chapter Twenty-three
The next few days were incredibly straining for Charly. Rafe had been true to his word and had given her space. He’d driven her and Bob back to Jack’s on Sunday afternoon, an awkward ride, as her rejection had put a strain on their earlier easy companionship. For a man who claimed to be her mate, he had given her up pretty easily, without so much as a kiss goodbye. He hadn’t even stayed in town; he had driven back to Epsom, and she hadn’t seen him since. He hadn’t even called.
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