First Beast

by Faye Avalon

  Today was different. Something urged her out toward the craggy peaks and hidden valleys. She pulled off the road and got out of the car. Although there was nobody else around, she knew that myriad creatures roamed through the eerie, yet comforting, silence. The wind moaned softly, brushing against her like a memory. She closed her eyes and drew in a long, slow breath…remembering…

  The tender touch of a soft paw. The gentle tongue that bathed her wounded knee. The warm and reassuring presence beside her, as thunder crashed and lightning forked. Golden eyes…eyes that held hers…eyes that promised so much, that drew from her young heart so many things.

  Moisture filled her eyes and she opened them. An awful sadness pierced her chest, a feeling that she had taken a desperately wrong path. Perhaps that night on the moor had been the fanciful imaginings of a lonely young girl who desperately sought a connection, a union with someone…something. Who needed to feel that her life had meaning. That she had meaning. What if she really had taken a wrong step in coming to Bodmin? What if she was never meant to find that connection out here on the moor? What if this wasn’t meant to be her path, her life?

  She brushed at the tears the wind had already dried on her cheeks, and took another deep breath. Too late now. Believing Joshua had been her destiny, she had married in haste. Did she really love him? She honestly didn’t know, but it seemed she had a lifetime to repent at leisure.

  Chasing away her morbid thoughts, she got back in her car.

  A little over an hour later, she pulled into the driveway of Tor View Nursing Home. The home, painted white with black shutters and trim, was set in the center of extensive grounds. Lush green billiard-table lawns, courtesy of copious sprinkler systems, surrounded the building and an abundance of well-tended flowers filled oval-shaped beds.

  Talia followed the signs for the parking lot and pulled into a space beside a large fountain with little cherubs spouting water from their cupid mouths.

  She got out, locked the car and headed up the steps toward the swing-door entrance. Inside, the large airy hallway with its marble floor and opulent surroundings reminded her more of a five-star hotel than a private nursing home. Staff bustled about in their pristine navy blue uniforms, some wheeling patients in chairs while others carried files, clipboards and tea trays.

  The reception area was straight ahead, between two massively wide curving stairways carpeted in dark burgundy with gleaming balustrades. Talia strode across the marble floor, her stomach fluttering uncomfortably at the thought of what Josh would say if he found out she had come to visit his mother.

  Almost from the moment they had met, he had told her that his mother couldn’t receive visitors as they only distressed her fragile mental state. That most of the time, she didn’t know who they were anyway, which sent her into a frenzied panic. Talia had felt so sorry for the woman, but had understood and agreed to her husband’s wishes, although not visiting her new mother-in-law had never entirely sat right with her.

  It felt even less so now, seeing as the woman was in effect mother to both her husbands.

  Both her husbands. She’d never get used to that.

  “Can I help you?”

  The receptionist, in the same navy uniform as the other staff, greeted her with a smile.

  “I wonder if it would be possible to visit with Mrs. McLeod? I’m her daughter-in-law.”

  “Oh, Mrs. McLeod. Of course. Your husband is already with her.”

  Talia swallowed. Damn. Josh was here? Oh Lord. Now she’d be in for it. Once he saw her he would be furious she’d disobeyed his wishes. Now she’d not only have Caleb glowering at her every chance he got, but Joshua too.

  “If you’d like to come this way,” the receptionist said, coming around the desk, obviously unaware of Talia’s thumping heart, “I’ll take you to see her. Would you like some tea?”

  Whisky would be more welcome, Talia thought, following the woman toward a bank of elevators. “No. I’m fine, thank you.”

  The elevator took its sweet time getting to the second floor and by the time they exited, Talia’s pulse was racing so fast she actually felt lightheaded. She could turn around, of course, make a run for it. But they knew she was here now and would likely report to Josh that his wife had arrived. That she behaved extremely erratically and had taken off like the devil was on her tail.

  Whichever way she looked at it, she was screwed.

  The receptionist stopped outside a room facing the front of the building and tapped lightly before opening the door. She stepped back to let Talia enter.

  The bed, placed behind the door, faced the huge bay window through which the afternoon sun streamed in. A screen was positioned halfway along the bed so that Talia couldn’t see the person in it. Tentatively, she moved into the room and jumped as the door clicked close behind her. She peeked gingerly around the screen, only to be confronted by an empty bed.

  “Who is that?” The startled voice came from behind a matching screen on the other side of the bed, and echoed around the lavishly furnished room with its copious ornaments and obviously personal memorabilia. “Who’s there?”

  Moving quickly, so as to allay the woman’s anxiety, Talia stepped around the screen. And froze.

  Sitting in an easy chair beside the woman who was her mother-in-law, was indeed her husband.

  But it wasn’t Joshua.

  Chapter Eleven

  Refusing to acknowledge her trembling knees, and forcing herself to ignore Caleb, Talia walked toward the small, fragile woman. The woman held out her hand as if she recognized Talia, but then her eyes filled with anxiety and she huddled closer to Caleb.

  Not wanting to distress her, Talia sat on the bed and placed the flowers she’d brought on the table beside her. “How are you today, Mrs. McLeod?”

  Vivien McLeod reached for Caleb’s hand. “Who is this? She’s not my nurse.”

  “This is Talia,” Caleb said. “She’s my wife. I told you last time I visited. Do you remember?”

  Of all the things she’d been expecting, that had been the least of them. But the hard set of Caleb’s jaw signaled that she was not to question, argue or elaborate.

  “Your wife?” Vivien positively beamed and held out her hand again. “Yes. Yes, you’re Caleb’s wife. Come here, let me look at you. My, but you’re pretty.” She turned to Caleb. “I wish Joshua could meet someone like her. But he’s so busy, isn’t he? You always tell me he’s so busy. That’s why he can’t visit me.”

  Caleb smiled. “That’s right.”

  “I’m not feeling my best today,” Vivien explained to Talia. “I get confused.”

  Right then, Talia felt as confused as poor Vivien. She took her free hand, mindful not to crush the bony fingers. “I’m sorry I haven’t visited before, Mrs. McLeod, but I’d like to visit you again, perhaps when you’re feeling a little better. Will that be okay?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes. That will be lovely, won’t it, Caleb?”

  “Talia can visit when I do.”

  Vivien obviously didn’t notice the harsh tone. “I want to know all about you. How did you meet him?”

  “That’s a long story,” Caleb leaned across to kiss the woman’s cheek. “And one we’ll save for another time. Okay? You rest now.”

  When he stood, Talia took it as her signal to leave. On impulse, she leaned down and kissed Vivien. “It’s been very nice meeting you, Mrs. McLeod. I hope you feel better very soon.”

  Then she was whisked around and marched from the room.

  Saying nothing, Caleb led Talia by the arm down the stairs and outside toward the car park. It felt like his heart had been sliced in two. More fucking fool him. After last night and the connection they’d shared—he knew she’d felt it too—he’d begun to believe that she would come to understand that he was her true mate. He’d hoped that she’d start to realize she had to ditch Joshua and start building a
future with him. With him alone.

  Then she’d walked into his stepmother’s room and all his fears about her came rushing back. Had she come to do a story? Maybe to discover something about the pack that she could store away and use to her own advantage when the time was right? Had to be. What possible other reason did she have for being there?

  Talia said nothing until he’d marched her to her car, but her anger was palpable. She shook off his hold. “Will you stop manhandling me?”

  “What exactly did you intend to accomplish by this?” He grabbed the keys from her hand and stuffed them into his pocket. She wasn’t going to escape into her car and go on her merry way until he found out exactly what her intentions were in visiting his stepmother.

  “Accomplish? You make it sound like there was some sort of plan involved. I simply wanted to visit my mother-in-law. It’s long overdue.”

  “And why now, exactly? News a bit slow during the summer break?”

  Her cheeks burned bright. “Just what are you insinuating?”

  He leaned close and glared down at her. “I think you know, sweetheart. Maybe it’s time for a fat juicy story about an old, mentally unstable woman who plotted to have the leader of the local shifter clan incarcerated in South America so her son could take a grab at the top job.”

  “That’s absurd, and bloody insulting.”

  “But true.”

  “No. It’s not. I wanted to meet her, and for her to meet me.”

  “And if there just happened to be a story in it, all the better, that it?”

  “You bastard. I told you, I just wanted—”

  “To meet your dear old mum-in-law. Yeah. I got that. Loud and clear.”

  Lifting her chin, she looked up and met him straight in the eye. “Obviously not loud enough or clear enough to penetrate that suspicious brain of yours.”

  “Hurling insults won’t exactly help your case.”

  He thought she might actually stamp her foot. “I don’t have a case!”

  “But you have a story, or would have if I hadn’t marched you out of that room before you could start questioning a frail old woman.”

  “I’m not here for any story, you idiot. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “You’re a reporter.”

  “Oh, and none of us are to be trusted, of course.” She planted her hands on her hips and continued to glare up at him. “You can fuck me, but you can’t trust me, is that it?”

  “One doesn’t necessitate the other.”

  Something akin to hurt flashed across her eyes, but he ignored it. He still couldn’t reconcile the timing of this. Why had she chosen now to visit the nursing home when she’d never come near the place since she’d been married to his stepbrother?

  “If you really want to know, I came to meet the woman you used to blackmail Josh,” she said, as if reading his mind. “Apart from anything else, she’s my mother-in-law, twice over, although it seems you chose to leave out that one important detail in your conversations with her. And I deserve to meet her, to build some sort of relationship with her. She deserves the same with me. I have to question why you’re so keen to visit the woman allegedly responsible for your incarceration. To wield some further power over her? Remind her who she has to thank for her freedom? You make me sick, you really do. Using a frail woman to get your way.”

  Inside him something snapped. He’d been willing to let Joshua’s half-baked explanation to Talia go, seeing as it basically served his interests at the time, but damned if he’d let this woman talk to him like he was some heartless monster who used the sick and vulnerable to get his way. He grabbed her wrist and frog-marched her to his SUV parked across the lot. Ignoring her vehement protests, he yanked open the passenger door and all but shoved her inside. He pushed the lock down before slamming the door closed.

  Rounding the car to the driver’s side, he could hear her screams of insult, her furious banging on the window. Bracing himself against the tirade of abuse she’d throw at him the minute he entered the vehicle, he pulled open the driver’s door and got in.

  As expected, she railed on him. “Let me out, you moron. I could press charges against you for kidnapping. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “You’re my wife, in case you’ve forgotten. The law doesn’t get involved in minor domestics.”

  “Minor? You think this is minor?”

  He pushed the key in the ignition and gunned the engine. “You may as well settle down for the ride, unless you want to wear yourself out with your protestations.”

  From his peripheral vision, he saw her open her mouth, but the words she might have thrown at him were lost in a furious sputter of expletives.

  “I think I just learned a few new choice words there, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t you make light of this,” she said, her tone lower now but no less furious. “Ever since you came back from South America, you’ve been a constant pain in my backside.”

  “And such a fine backside.”

  With a huff, she sank back into the seat, folding her arms. “There’s no point talking to you. Where are you taking me anyway? I need to know so I can give the police a full account.”

  He let out a laugh. “You’ll want to buckle up, sweetheart.”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, around here it’s against the law to drive without a seat belt. For another, the terrain is about to get bumpy.”

  Surprisingly, she complied and without any further backchat. She folded her arms again and turned her head to look out the passenger side window, a clear indication she wanted as little to do with him as possible during the drive.

  He took the opportunity to question himself as to why he felt the need to take her onto the moor. At first, he’d thought it would be as good a place as any to tell her some home truths about the reasons behind Joshua’s agreement to the ménage, but in doing so he’d be forced to betray a confidence, a promise made.

  That was not an option.

  So right now, he wasn’t entirely sure why he was heading across the moor with his very reluctant and pissed off wife.

  Talia’s breathing was finally slowing down. Her heated blood had cooled and now she felt a chill trickle along her arms. Bereft of her anger, hurt filtered through her frenzied brain and now all she could think of was that Caleb still didn’t trust her.

  He’d actually thought she’d visited the nursing home to get fodder for a story. A story that would not only harm a vulnerable woman, but that would put the community in which she now resided at risk.

  It hurt her heart to think that he considered her capable of such treachery. But at least it had put things back into perspective a little. That whole connection thing she’d felt with him last night had been a fantasy. It was merely a product of the surreal nature of her current situation.

  She didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t know how she was going to cope with an unconventional marriage, two alpha males who thought they could boss her around—one of whom didn’t trust her—and a community which would likely never consider her one of them.

  Her earlier feelings, when she’d stopped on the moor on her way to the nursing home, came rushing back. She wished to heaven she’d let her brain rule her heart…and her hormones. She wasn’t sure she could bear it much longer.

  She didn’t know her husband anymore, and by husband she meant Joshua. What Naomi had told her had to be correct. The receptionist hadn’t queried that Caleb was her husband. What did that mean? That Joshua actually never visited his mother? And why had Caleb been there if not to visit his stepmother because he cared about her? What other reason could there be? From the short visit she’d been allowed to have with the poor woman, it was obvious she wasn’t exactly of sound mind.

  No. Naomi had to be right. And if Joshua had lied to her about his mother, what else had he lied to her about?

>   Her throat tightened. Oh God. She would so dearly love to have her own mother to confide in. She could barely remember her anymore, and had it not been for her beloved grandmother, she might never have known what it was to experience that unconditional, nurturing love.

  It was never available from her father. All she was to him was a big fat disappointment. He’d barely acknowledged the fact she’d graduated with an upper second-class degree, or that she’d chosen journalism as a profession. It was beneath his contempt. Most certainly not on the same exalted level as her brother with his first from Oxford and high-flying career in high finance. She imagined her father considered her a throwback in a family of academics.

  Over the years, she’d trained herself not to care too much. She was proud of all her achievements and that was really all that mattered, wasn’t it? But it didn’t stop the desire for that acceptance.

  She missed her grandmother with all her heart, and would give pretty much anything right then for her sage advice. Desperately, she tried to remember any words of wisdom her grandmother might have conveyed that would help her current situation, but all she could remember were those about the triangle. The triangle that had to be accepted before her true destiny was revealed.

  But what the hell did it mean?

  After traveling a good half hour, Caleb drove off the track. They bumped over a rocky interface toward a clearing.

  “What is this place?”

  “Shifter territory.”

  The remnants of Talia’s anger faded, to be replaced by anticipation and excitement. “You actually have places where you go to do that?”

  “Well, it’d be hard to shift in the High Street. People would talk.”

  “Ha, ha. What I meant was, I thought you just went onto the moor and, you know, did your thing. I thought any place would do.”

  “Mostly it does, but we try and keep to the remote areas when we can.”