by Daisy Banks
Fearing he’d not be able to control his brutal need for her, he sought solace. Though he’d learned years ago self-satisfaction was a poor substitute for a woman, it proved one-step better than none at all. Tonight, he fought to achieve release. Only with her image in his mind, and with the lust of the beast rampant, did he reach orgasm.
It shouldn’t be this way.
He clutched a cushion as the moonlight diminished. A thin gray line defined the horizon. When the wedge of light, banishing the waning moon, spread wider, pale gold and pink hues smeared the sky to pronounce dawn’s arrival, no matter his darkest desires. He blinked gritty eyes, but found, at last, some semblance of peace.
Chapter 2
After her careful one-armed shower, Sian undid the dressing to check her wound. A nasty, red heat burned along her forearm. The bright slice mark, about three inches long, throbbed. The pain hadn’t decreased in the night. She squirted another layer of antiseptic onto the tender skin. If her arm showed no improvement by lunchtime, she’d have to make an appointment with the doctor. This scratch hurt more than her palms had done when Franklyn had shoved her down into the road at the beginning of the month. She didn’t recall her hands ever blazing this hot, not even after Magnus took the gravel lumps out with tweezers.
She rewrapped the current injury, making sure the bandage didn’t press too tight on the fresh piece of gauze overlaying the wound. The last thing she wanted to do was make a fuss and pile another layer of guilt on Magnus. He bore quite enough as it was. She pulled on her robe before she walked back through to the bedroom.
The neat side of the bed where Magnus should have slept screamed his loss.
Where is he?
She’d checked the guest suite before she took a shower. The room offered no sign of him. He wouldn’t have used any of the other unaired bedrooms. Perhaps in the kitchen? The household staff wouldn’t appear until about eight-thirty this morning, so until then they had to look after themselves. Hopeful she’d find him downstairs, she descended the stairs to the kitchen.
No Magnus. Not even an empty cup to show he’d been there at all.
She made coffee and decided to take it upstairs to drink in their bedroom before she got dressed. The silver coffee pot held enough for three or four cupfuls. In the hope Magnus might join her, she put an extra cup on the tray.
Her period, the cause of the problem between Magnus-wolf and her, had thankfully almost finished. The last three nights spent observing him in the cage had obliterated any sentimental ideas she might have had about the creature Magnus always referred to as “the beast.”
In wolf-form, he lived in the animal’s reality. She quaked at the memory of him sniffing, inhaling the air, his howls and snarls, along with the powerful pawing at the ground despite his chained limbs. Most frightening of all—the incredible compelling eye contact. The image of golden wolf eyes would haunt her. If not for the restraints and the cage, she’d have run for her life.
He would have caught her in the same way he had done on the beach in their first dream together. A sprint along the sand should have been easy since she still had the speed she developed in high school, but in that dream it wasn’t enough. The essence of the capture confused her for a time but she finally recognized the truth. Her body knew its needs better than her, but it was Magnus the man who held her in their dream, not Magnus in wolf-form.
She didn’t want to consider what might have happened if the wolf had caught her.
“No, not possible,” she whispered. Magnus as a wolf would have ripped her apart with his savage teeth, not fulfilled her passions. “For goodness sake. The change is over for this month. Let it go.”
She peered into the mirror. The dark shadows beneath her eyes told their own tale. While watching over him, she’d not slept after her first failed attempt to find him in the dream state. His howls had dragged her from her fitful doze the first evening. Her fear he might be ill in wolf-form swept everything else aside. She couldn’t stop watching him. Lost in her unease for him, she’d hesitated to take the sleeping pills she’d used at last month’s full moon when she had first witnessed his transformation.
He’d been so different this month, she’d worried something dreadful had gone wrong in the process. Though he’d explained about some elements of his change to wolf, there was much she still didn’t understand. Her concerns had forced her to remain conscious.
He hadn’t lain in the cage as he did last time. This full moon the thick-furred wolf stood and eyed her as if she were on the menu. After the first few hours, when he got no response to his howls, he had struggled against the bonds, much more than last month. Even the second night, when she had finally guessed what prompted his wild-eyed interest in her, she didn’t want to leave him alone while she curled up on the chaise and slept. The sadness in his gold-flecked eyes had kept her focused on him, drowsy as she was, until, at last, the moon changed and the process of his return to normal had started.
“Magnus,” she said as he entered the room wearing the thin house robe. “Where did you go last night?” His strong features held the look of living granite. The pain etched onto his broad cheekbones hurt her. His beautiful mouth, the full firm lips she hungered for, appeared thin today. If only she could ease his sorrow. This cruel tension diminished him to a parody of himself. “You look awful.”
“I know.” His lips moved to create a taut smile. “I’ll shower and dress. We’ll talk after.” He strode past her into the wet room.
Her heart flipped as she swallowed down a new dose of anxiety. She went into her tiny, private boudoir to put on her makeup. This space he’d given her had once been his powdering room. She tried to imagine him with a white powdered wig, with the kind of satin and lace garments she’d researched for the Timeless film. He must have been stunning. No wonder Julia had fallen for him. She couldn’t understand why Julia hadn’t married him when he asked. She sighed, lost in the sadness of the tale of their relationship.
We won’t end like that, not if I can persuade him to make us permanent.
Love should be about romance, tenderness, hopes for a future together, but for her it meant many other things. She swiped on her blusher, but the bronze pink only seemed to highlight her pallor. A quick slick of lipstick did nothing to help her. She didn’t bother with more than one light coat of mascara.
In the dressing room they shared, she sorted through her armoire for clothes. Though her current mood screamed Gothic Queen, she donned some lime green leggings with a long silk shirt decorated in a Celtic lattice design. She peeked out the tiny window. The day looked cold with an ice-blue sky. From the sway of the tall trees, it was windy, too. She rummaged through one of the drawers and found a clingy knee-length sweater.
Heartbeat rising with concerns for their discussion, she went through to the bedroom. She dumped her sweater on the chair before she opened the door to the wet room. She caught a glimpse of his slick, dark, wet hair dripping on his broad shoulders. The water cascaded down his back to his firm-muscled ass. Still, his pain beat at her like a night fury. Not anger, but an aching hurt she could do nothing to relieve. She called into the shower. “Shall I pour you some coffee?”
The full power of the spray, along with a waft of steam, drowned out his response. She closed the door. Rather than wait, she poured two cups anyway. Curling her hand around her cup, she settled herself in the huge, oak chair in front of the hearth to wait for him to join her. The carving at the end of the curtained four-poster bed, of two wolves with bodies entwined, spoke to her the same way it had the first time Magnus brought her into this room he’d kept as a private sanctuary for so long. This hand-chiseled image, a reference to his parents who had commissioned the monumental bed, gave her hope. They’d loved, as humans and wolves, their pairing bound in a permanent connection. They’d produced offspring. A son, this magnificent, wonderful man, wolf, person. A wave of emotion brought a lump to her t
hroat while she weighed the possibilities against the current reality. Blinking fast, she swiped at her eyes.
This mood would bring her no good. Crying wouldn’t solve a thing. She’d end up with a sore throat, red eyes, a swollen nose, and none of it would help. If Magnus found her in tears, it would stoke his guilt further. He might even try to send her back to her flat in London. The line she trod with him demanded the balance skills of a gymnast on the beam. Yes, he cared about her, she was certain…up to a point.
Maybe he loved her enough to send her away. Fresh tears welled for she could imagine his explanation. I can’t hurt you like this anymore. You must leave.
Heaven help her, he’d mean every word of it. He’d send her away, then bury himself in majestic misery here while he waited for her to age and die.
“Bugger it all.” Her voice cracked as she set her coffee cup down on the small table beside her chair. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll not leave you, not unless you take me back to London and dump me there, Magnus. I belong here.”
The oak wolves stared back from the wood panel with a silent offer of agreement.
“Too right,” she said forcing herself to relax. “I agreed to stay with him and I will. He’ll just have to get accustomed to a female being around all the time. I’m going nowhere.”
“Had you planned on going somewhere?” he asked, toweling his dark hair as he walked in from the wet room.
“No, I was giving myself a bit of a pep talk.” She sucked in the sight of his broad shoulders, the ripples of muscle on his chest. Her gaze moved down to the towel he’d draped around his middle, clinging snug to the damp curve of his ass. Rising from the chair, she hurried to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and laid her head on his smooth damp shoulder. Her previous experiences had been nothing like this compulsive need for Magnus. When she was nineteen, she’d had a bit of a glow about one boyfriend, but it was a timid kind of affection, rather like standing under a warm shower. With Magnus, she swam in an ocean of unfamiliar sensations, and though some might be scary, she didn’t want them to stop. She wouldn’t stand by silent if Magnus tried to end their relationship because of his guilt for who and what he was, even if he thought it would be good for her.
He laced his fingers through her hair and cupped her skull with his palm so he could tilt her head back until she stared up into the depths of his gaze. He angled his head to take her lips with his. After so many days with no contact, not even in their dreams, their kiss dragged her into a whirlpool of desire. Her heart raced fast. He rubbed his freshly shaved jaw against her chin. Smooth like a coil of moist silk, his tongue rolled with hers, twined, twisted, teased. She moaned.
Fighting for breath, she lifted her lips from his and pulled back. “Not now, not yet,” she whispered.
“I know. Allow me to dress. I think it is best we deal with this situation by distancing ourselves from it.”
A rush of determination hit. The same way she’d once dealt with Franklyn’s mercurial moods, she prepared to counter whatever arguments Magnus might have for her to leave. “I’m not going back to London. Not on my own. I swear to you, I’ll find my way back here. I’ll home, just like the pigeon on a ship that crossed the Atlantic. It still got back to where it belonged. I will, too. You want me to stay, I know it.”
“If you go to London, I promise I will be with you.” A smile followed his words, tender, needy, and half-amused, lifting his former gloom to the expression she’d become more familiar with, the one that so touched her heart.
“I meant merely to suggest,” he said, “we might leave the house today, perhaps go to a public place where…” The gleam in his gray eyes met her gaze, sending a torrent of need for him pounding through her.
“I want you, right this second.”
Magnus shook his head. “I know. I’m afraid the consequences might be to neither of our liking. As long as you don’t have to work on the preparations for the film shoot today we will go out. We can visit”—he gazed up to the ceiling—“anywhere you like in a twenty mile radius.”
She couldn’t still the smile or stop the tingle in her nipples. When she first visited to check the house out for the Timeless shoot, he’d been a total recluse for more years than she’d been alive. He might look like a man in his early thirties but his true age was far older. That he would suggest a trip out of the house today thrilled her, despite the cause for his suggestion. A journey away from what had nearly become his tomb showed a kind a trust she’d wondered if she’d ever get.
She offered him a smile. “Well,” she said, pressing a kiss to his smooth chest, “as it happens, everyone thinks I am out of contact until tomorrow. No details about the full moon being the reason, of course, but I had to tell them I’d not be available. I can’t do anything to move the project on until I get a few e-mails back in answer to questions I’ve asked. I also need Richard’s fresh response to my running order. Therefore, I have time on my hands that I can devote all to you. So, yes, we can go out. I’d best do something with my hair. After that, I’ll get the local attractions leaflet printed out.”
Magnus cupped her chin with his palm, then brushed his lips over hers. “An excellent idea.” A single judder on contact told her how he forced control over his baser urges. She was still struggling with hers.
* * * *
“This house feels so homey, so comfortable,” she whispered.
“I agree. Hatfield has magic in the air.”
“Have you visited here before?”
“Yes, I’ve visited once or twice, but not for some time.”
She darted a glance to him. “Not for some time” might mean fifty years, two hundred years, or perhaps longer. Not a topic they could discuss in such a public place. She held the questions inside and stared at The Rainbow Portrait of Elizabeth I. “I think this image is magical.” She was conscious others in the wood-paneled Great Hall wished to have their own moment of rapport with the daring virgin queen, yet she lingered for another second of admiration.
“It’s one of the best pieces of propaganda produced in the period,” Magnus said, when she took a pace away from the portrait.
“Propaganda? But it’s beautiful.”
“We’ll go to get coffee now.” He ushered her along toward the doors at the back of the hall.
“Propaganda is a strong word to use. Explain what you mean about the picture?”
As ever, his smile moderated his gaunt air. “The sweet virgin queen was in her fifties when The Rainbow Portrait was made, an age when many women of the era were already dead or contemplating their demise.”
“But she looks so beautiful, so… Oh, Magnus, was she?”
“No. Queen Elizabeth made sure her portrait painters worked to her specifications. If their work didn’t fit her desired image, the paintings were never made public, thus preserving the goddess myth.” He squeezed her half-gloved fingers tight as he gave a low chuckle. “As far as I am aware, none of my genus has ever taken a place on the British throne.”
“Hmm. I still think she must have been very beautiful. The way she manipulated the media of her day was awesome. Clever.” She linked her arm through his, glanced up to once again admire his profile, the set of his jaw, his sensual lips, the strong cheekbones, each lured her the same way today as they had the morning they met. No man could compare with this one. He was all hers, at least for now, and she’d do her damndest to make sure it stayed that way.
They entered the coffee shop. She took a seat at a table looking out onto autumnal gardens and he went to the counter. Several female heads turned as he passed. She couldn’t fault the women for their admiration, and he didn’t seem to notice their interest.
Magnus joined her, placing the tray with coffee and slices of walnut cake on the table. He set out the cups. She added cream and sugar. “I’m glad we came here. I like it,” she said, sipping her coffee. “There are some fabulo
us places for a still camera shoot.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’m glad we came here, too. The grounds are magnificent.”
“There’s a kind of permanency to it.”
“No,” he murmured. “I can’t feel such a quality here. We’d need to travel a little farther to find such a thing.”
“Farther? Could we?”
Magnus stared across the table at her, his expression guarded as he set the cake fork down. “Yes, we could, but not today. We’ll visit the chapel. You’ll like it, I’m sure. The stained glass is exquisite.”
He’d distanced himself again. After finishing her coffee, she left him at the table for a few moments. Attending to herself in the ladies’ lavatory, she understood the reason for his intent focus on the grounds. In his effort to ignore her menstruation, he had pinpointed a laser beam of concentration to their surroundings instead. Perhaps another day or so, but goodness, how she longed for this month’s period to finish.
Magnus, wearing a light colored mackintosh that emphasized his height over the other visitors, waited for her in front of the large window at the entrance to the café. His smile of greeting dissolved her, sending her senses reeling.
“Sorry if I kept you waiting. Chapel now?”
“Yes. You’ll enjoy it. After, we’ll take a walk to find the oaks. I need a reminder of their power.”
A reminder? What did he mean?
The chapel proved as beautiful as he’d said. The exquisite stained glass captivated her. The delicacy the craftsmen of a distant age had created spoke of eternally relevant emotions, hopes, and fears.
“Are you ready to go?” she finally asked after they’d stood to admire the windows.
He took her hand in his to lead her out into the autumnal sunlight. She stretched her paces as he hurried her down the path. A fitful breeze swirled leaves, creating a flurry of shadow dancers in the afternoon light.
