by Skye Jones
Brenin
Fae Dating Agency: Book One
Published by Skye Jones.
Copyright 2017 Skye Jones
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or used without the written permission of the publisher.
All events depicted are fictional, and any resemblance to places and persons is coincidental.
This book contains adult situations and is intended only for persons aged eighteen and over.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank my editor, Lisa A Hollett, whose input is absolutely vital.
Massive thanks also go to my husband for designing my amazing cover and for being cool when my stories take me away from movie night!
A huge thank you to all my readers. Words can’t express how grateful I am to everyone who reads my stories.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Wolves at the Door
Chapter 1
She was lost. Not a bit lost. Not lost in the way where she’d be able to find her way back by following the road. No, she’d managed to get completely, utterly, and hopelessly lost. Charlie looked around at the windswept moor to her front, the forest to her back, and tears pricked at her eyes. Crap. She might die out here. How long did exposure take to kill you, anyway?
She pulled her supposedly waterproof and windproof jacket around her tighter, but the piece of crap didn’t keep the bone-chilling wind out.
If she survived this, she’d be suing her employers—or at least the idiots her company hired to take them on this team-building exercise. Who the hell sent a bunch of insurance underwriters off to team build anyway? Everyone knew they were the quiet ones. The sales teams loved doing shit like this. Not her.
Think. She tried to focus her mind on getting back to the group. They’d been walking up a long footpath together, but when they approached the stile leading to the moors, they had been told to split into teams of four and go on some sort of orienteering hell-hike. She despised the great outdoors, unless you were talking a hot, sunny day at the beach. Oh, how she longed for her home and its stunning views over the Menai Straits. Would she ever get to see it again?
“Oh, stop with the melodrama,” she said aloud. “You need to focus. They can’t be far. You only stopped to look at a squirrel and rest your legs, so they must be near.”
The whole situation sent creepy shivers up and down her spine despite her denial of anything wrong. She’d stopped by a rounded hill, enchanted by the small white flowers blooming in this wintery landscape. Two red squirrels ran down a nearby tree and came to a stop right by her. Her colleagues were a few yards away, but she didn’t want to shout for them and scare the squirrels away, given how rare the red ones were. She’d watched them play for what seemed a moment, but when she glanced back at her colleagues, they’d gone.
Maybe she ought to call out for them. But fear of who else might be in these scary woods, or out there on the moors, stopped her. It seemed highly improbable that a murderer would take the time to hang out on moorland waiting for a victim. They’d be waiting a bloody long time up here.
Still, the way the wind moaned and groaned through the trees and the desolation of the moors spooked her no end. Not even a bird sang now. How the hell had the cutesy Disney scene she’d been part of a moment ago turned so somber?
Voices reached her, carried on the wind, and her heart lifted. They came from behind, from somewhere in the woods. Laughing and chatting, they sounded like her colleagues and provided immense comfort in this suddenly forbidding landscape. Perhaps not the team she’d lost but one of the teams. And really, who cared? She needed to find someone, and any team would do. Caught in the moment between lost and found, despair and joy, she headed toward the sound.
She set off back into the woods and followed the voices as fast as she could. Her limp didn’t slow her down too badly. She’d had it for so long now it had simply become another part of her. She still kept active and went jogging regularly, as well as playing netball with her local girls’ team. Other people noticed it more than she did, and she hated it when they stared or looked down their noses at her because of it. Not that she let them get to her. They were no better than the idiots who looked with distaste at her size, her red hair, or her glasses.
These days, Charlie did whatever the heck she wanted. Yeah, okay, so maybe not everything she wanted. She didn’t date or dance anymore. Those two things were off her list.
Memories of the day her carefully built, though thin and brittle, shell of fake confidence cracked assaulted her. She shook them off. Now really wasn’t the time to get all maudlin. She needed to find her friends.
As she hastened through the woods, she strained to hear any more voices over the crashing of her own feet through the undergrowth, but no more came to her. The wind carried only its own mournful song now and she shivered. Scared, suddenly.
She darted glances to her left and right and behind her too, the feeling of someone at her back too strong to ignore.
“Ooof.” Her momentum came to a sudden halt when she slammed hard into a huge tree. Christ, she might have hurt herself. Pausing to catch her breath and take stock, she looked around.
To the side of the tree ran a long, high fence. She peered closer and saw some sort of door in the wood. Fences meant people, right? A doorway meant people! Maybe a farm or something. She circled around the tree but stumbled over the roots at its base. Her ankle twisted and she cried out as she went down, landing on the forest floor with a muffled thud. Her breath left her body and searing pain shot up her leg. Fuck. She’d gone over on the bad one, too. So much for being careful.
Trying to keep calm, she pushed up on her arms, still struggling to breathe. As she got onto her hands and knees, she lifted her head and her breath stalled again.
In front of her, not more than a few feet away, stood a huge bear. No, no frickin’ way! She must be hallucinating. It had to be from the fall. Maybe she’d banged her head up badly or something.
She shook her head and blinked twice, then looked again. The bear remained, staring at her like something from her nightmares. Its great head moved side to side as it took another step closer, and it grunted as it sniffed the air.
Her heart raced so fast her head spun. With no oxygen and a rapidly accelerating heart rate, faintness stole over her. Desperate and terrified, she managed to finally drag in a lungful of air and it cleared her mind. A bear! What the hell was a bear doing in the woods in Wales? Her heart nearly came out of her ribcage as the thing continued to stare at her.
Oh, crap, she was going to pee her pants. She pictured the headlines: Girl Found Mauled by Bear in Woods. Had Peed Her Pants. The shame. This would be worse than all her past embarrassments put together. And then her colleagues and school friends really would have something to laugh about. They’d probably feature some sort of super unflattering picture too, probably the one of her grinning with spinach in her teeth and frizz in her hair. She’d asked her so-called-friend, Lucy, to take the damn thing down from Facebook, but she hadn’t complied.
The thing grunted again, and she whimpered. She didn’t want to die. Please don’t let it hurt her. Unable to move, she remained locked in the weird stare-fest with the huge beast.
She needed to think and do something to get out of this mess. She’d spent a fair bit of time watching the National Geographic channel and tried to dredge up the facts she’d taken on board during her viewing. The thing looked to be a grizzly. This animal resembled no small brown bear
or a black bear. Too big, too rough looking. The grizzly news wasn’t good. Not good at all. They were deadly, or so she’d heard.
The bear still watched her. It didn’t charge her or do much of anything; it simply watched her, doing the odd grunting and scenting the air thing it seemed fond of. What did you do when faced with an angry bear? Did you run? Or did you fight it? Throw rocks, perhaps? She remembered the rock-throwing thing from a trip to Yosemite National Park and tips on how to deal with cougars. But bears weren’t cougars, and what the fuckety-fuck was a bear doing in Wales?
It won’t hurt you. What the hell? The whispery soft voice echoed in her mind clear as day, but when she tried to focus on it, the voice skittered out of reach. It came again, dancing around the edges of her brain. It means you no harm. Then a different voice, darker, yet more powerful, made itself known. It will kill you. It wants you. Wants to take you and hurt you. Come with us instead. We have so many lovely things. Come and visit with us.
There’s no time to go insane, she berated herself. You need to deal with the threat before you have the luxury of losing your mind. Deal with the fucking bear.
Desperate for a weapon of some sort, she scrabbled around on the ground. Fingernails dug into the soft soil, while her eyes never left the animal in front of her, until she hit pay dirt. Her fingers wrapped around something cold and heavy. A quick glance down revealed a large, wet rock. Charlie picked it up, slow and steady, as she pulled herself into a standing position. She didn’t want to hurt this animal, but her life depended on making the thing go away.
“Shoo.” She flapped her arms at it, and she swore the animal understood her. It cocked its head, and a grim approximation of a smile stretched across its huge mouth. Then the thing took one lumbering step forward, and she raised her arm, careful as can be, and threw the rock with all her might and a massive scream of exertion. It glanced off the bear’s head, hitting the side, and the monstrous beast let out a roar.
It moved nearer, fearsome teeth on display in a snarl. If the thing were capable of human emotions, she’d say it looked pissed off.
She stepped backward as it neared and glanced around wildly. Maybe she should climb a tree. With her twisted ankle, no way would running save her hide. The thing got so close its hot breath hit her cheek. Odd sounds came from its throat. Low and soft, a growl, but not aggressive. They almost sounded like soothing sounds. A mother bear hushing her cubs. It leaned right in then and sniffed her.
Oh my God, it’s going to eat me.
Her breath came in staccato huffs and her chest hurt as she gasped repeatedly. When it licked its lips and lowered its head, Charlie lost all hope. A strange, rushing sound echoed in her ears, and sparks danced in front of her eyes as her world faded to black.
Chapter 2
Brenin leaned over the prone human female and took another deep inhale. Mate. The word rang out in his great bear head, loud and discordant. He didn’t want a mate—and certainly not a human one. But holy hell, her scent. It called to him like nothing else on earth. He’d caught it from inside the clan’s land and had taken the massive risk of heading out of their territory in bear form.
He nudged her gently with one large paw, but she didn’t stir. Out cold. He chuffed out a breath and pondered what to do. She’d banged her head when she went down in a dead faint, and she still hadn’t come around. He didn’t mean to scare her and only wanted another lungful of her delicious smell. Concussion presented a real risk now. And anyway, there was no way he’d leave her out here, alone, in the cold. They were near the hill the fae folk frequented. The Gwyllion. They normally inhabited the mountains, but they came into the lower lands during bad weather, which this certainly counted as. The biting wind may have driven them here, and they enjoyed nothing more than luring travelers from the path.
Some of the fae were good, kind. Others were mischief-makers and would enjoy tormenting the human female. The Gwyllion, in particular, were known to enjoy misleading travelers and scaring them half to death. Some of the dark fae even took humans as their enchanted prisoners. One man from a local village had spent thirty years of his life living in a lake with a water fairy. When he finally broke free, he thought he’d fallen asleep for a few hours. But on his return to his family, his wife had died and his kids were all grown-up.
Yeah, Brenin couldn’t leave her here.
He nudged at her with his nose, but she didn’t move. Why was she here in the first place? The Hiraethog wilderness area didn’t attract swarms of tourists the way nearby Snowdonia National Park did. Certainly not their remote corner of it. Even during the summer months, the woods and moors often lay silent, with only the odd walker to disturb the peace. However, midwinter, the land reverted to its inherent wild loneliness. Few people bothered to walk about the hostile moors and thick forest out of season.
His bear clan’s burgeoning tourism business closed down for the winter, and during this time, he and his fellow bears often changed form and spent time exploring their acreage. There had been a lot more space for them to roam in Canada, at least until the frackers turned up and everything went to shit. But they had more freedom here since he owned the land outright. No one could come and frack here without his permission. And no way would he be giving it. The summer tourism business provided them with enough income for their basic needs. Once again, he thanked his human mother for leaving him the land here. He’d wanted his father to come and live with them, but his dad had ended up living with another clan back home in Canada.
This place had turned out to be perfect for them. The isolation of the area meant they could easily hide their true nature and find time to change into bear form when no humans were around.
Today, he’d been heading back home after a good explore in his grizzly suit when her scent hit him. An olfactory slap to the face, sweet, but also fresh. Sensual, feminine, and warm, it dragged him off course and into the path of the female lying at his feet.
Now, he had a problem. Unless he picked her up in his teeth, he’d hardly be able to carry her, which meant shifting and having to take her back in his arms, buck naked. Still, once beyond the fence and back on clan land, no one should see.
Decision made, Bren lowered his head and shifted into his human form, the change almost instant. He kept his bear front and center though as he picked up the human female, pushed the entrance in the fence open, making sure to lock it on the other side, and sprinted back over his land at superhuman speed. His hearing and sense of smell stayed heightened in order to avoid any accidents.
As he moved over familiar ground on his way back through the clan’s territory, something cold hit his nose. He looked up and his heart sank. Snow. The female in his arms already shivered, her stupidly light coat doing nothing to protect her from the cold. He powered forward, lungs screaming as his feet ate up the ground. He didn’t need to look down as he let his preternatural senses guide him safely back. Only once near home did he begin to slow. The sight of the large, old farmhouse soothed him and he began to calm down. Now he could get the woman warmed up.
Once the adrenaline of the run began to wear off, he became achingly aware of the soft, curvaceous female in his arms. Her scent once more wrapped itself around him, calling to him, enticing him.
She began to stir already. He knew a little about brain injury and remembered that being out for less than thirty minutes meant her injuries were hopefully mild. Worry for her health nagged at him, and he already found himself wanting to care for her and protect her.
Oh no, he didn’t! No falling for the human female. Yes, she might be excellent mate material; her scent told him as much. In fact, they were almost made for one another. But it rarely worked between bears and humans. He ought to damn well know.
He banged on the door with his bare foot, wincing as pain shot through his toes. Great, now he had a sore head from the glancing blow of the rock and sore feet.
It peeled back to reveal the face of his cousin, Kyle. Dark blue eyes widened in surprise as Kyle t
ook in a naked and surely disheveled Brenin and the female in his arms.
“What the fuck?” Kyle moved back as Bren entered the hallway.
“What the fuck, indeed. Came across her in the woods. She fainted, my fault as she saw me as my bear, and she hit her head on the way down. She may have a concussion, so we need to watch out for her.”
“She witnessed you as a bear, and you’re bringing her back here?” Kyle’s expression darkened.
“What else should I do? I can’t leave her out there in the woods. She’d get hypothermia. Plus, I sensed the fae out there. I’d never leave anyone to them.”
“Why the heck is a human female wandering around the forest alone?” Eric entered the room with his mate, Aiyana, by his side.
Eric and Aiyana made up two more members of his small clan. They’d happily agreed to move to Wales, to come live on Bren’s ancestral land, when the alternative was staying to see their home spoiled by fracking and open-cast mining.
“I don’t think she’s alone,” he told them. “There are a lot of humans out there today, doing some sort of orienteering shit or something. Crawling all over the place, they are. I scented her, near the border of our land, and I stopped.”
“Why did you stop?” Eric asked the question Brenin had been dreading.
Bren swallowed and looked at the expectant faces. “She’s a perfect match as my mate.”
“Your mate?” Eric echoed his words, eyes wide.
No wonder Eric seemed so surprised. Bears were notoriously fussy when it came to finding their mates, and the idea of Bren finding his on a cold day in the middle of nowhere seemed…crazy.
“But…she’s human,” Kyle supplied. “And we all know how you feel about human and bear matches.”
“I’m not going to take her as my mate, obviously.” He climbed the stairs to the bedrooms, wanting to get the female laid down. His clan came after him, hot on his heels.
