“Ah, Mr McQueen,” said Carr. He glanced across at Billy, and Jenny had the sense of things going unspoken. “Stewart argues that if we can win over the likes of McQueen then we’ve won the argument,” Carr continued.
“And your argument is...?”
Carr shrugged. “My argument is with the authorities who refuse to grant us a license to reintroduce the wolves,” he said. “Not with the likes of McQueen.”
“You really do need some PR help, don’t you?”
The three laughed, and Aileen came back in to clear their plates away.
“The salmon was from the estate,” said Carr. “And so is the venison we’ll have next. The accompaniments all came from the estate gardens and farm; the wine from a place I have in the Loire. All I need is a distillery of my own and I’d be a very happy man.”
They waited while they were served, and then Carr turned to Jenny and said, “Did Stewart ever tell you how we met?”
She shook her head. Billy had only ever said they went way back, but had never gone into any detail.
“As I believe I told you last night,” said Carr, “I used to holiday here as a boy. My father was originally from Nethy Bridge, and he believed that if I had the kind of boyhood he had it would make a man of me, so we used to visit regularly, all times of the year, man and boy.”
Jenny glanced across at Billy, but he was staring past her at the window, lost in contemplation. He’d no doubt heard this tale a thousand times before.
“We came here to shoot grouse, stalk deer and fish for salmon in the rivers,” Carr continued. “We would hike the high moors and spend the nights sharing a blanket in some remote bothy or other. He taught me to tell the direction from the way the moss grew on the trunk of a tree, and how to catch a cock salmon with a feather lure so bright and garish the incensed beast would be unable to resist attacking it and getting caught. He was a fine man.”
Billy stood then, and went to the window.
“Forgive Stewart,” Carr said. “He’s not a fan of this story, whereas I think such memories must be confronted. My father, you see, was killed one night by a werewolf.”
§
Carr raised his hands defensively. “I know, I know. There are rational explanations and I’ve even come to accept them myself. But while now I will accept that my traumatized twelve year-old mind found a somewhat fantastical explanation for events that night, at the time, well, we were out in the forest, following the trail back down to our guesthouse, and all I knew was a fierce snarling, a flurry of fur, being knocked to the ground and my father crying out, the most awful, heart-rending sound you would ever hear. I saw fur and claws and fangs; I saw a flash of clothes, a man. I blacked out, and when I awoke there was my father lying there, motionless, his face dark with blood.”
“And me,” said Billy from the window.
This was the event Billy had told her about when he was in the States. The boy and his father who had been attacked, the boy insisting their assailant had been a werewolf. She hadn’t put it all together until now: that boy had been Jonathan Carr.
“If Stewart hadn’t stumbled upon us just then, I dread to think what would have happened. As it was, I survived, albeit with some, shall we say, horrific scarring that plagues me to this day. And while I was babbling on about werewolves, Stewart looked after me, led me down to the village to the McQueens’ house, where I talked to the police before they took me to hospital.”
“I’d been poaching,” Billy said. “I didn’t mind him jabbering on about werewolves. It distracted everyone from the reason I’d been out that night.”
“We became close friends for a time,” said Carr. “I was only a boy but I had a formidable will, and I insisted that I was able to continue my visits to the area. Stewart and I would go stalking and fishing, and my education in the ways of the wild Highlands continued.”
“I didnae teach you much at all,” said Billy. “You knew it all already from your da.”
Carr spread his hands, smiled, said, “Stewart and I have always been kindred spirits, because of that night.”
“I can’t help but find it odd that after such a traumatic event you’re now keeping your own pack of wolves in your back yard and want to set them free...”
Carr laughed. “They belong here,” he said. “I learned that, the more I studied wolves and their history here. My own experience was irrelevant, other than that it sparked a fascination. The sense of justice prevails over anything merely personal.”
“So what happened that night, really? Did they ever find out?”
“A man, a big dog, maybe a bull mastiff, is the rational explanation. But we were boys with vivid imaginations. We used to talk about what might have happened a lot, making up grand theories about wolves that had survived through to the present day, all kinds of things. It seems fitting that I found a role for Stewart in the work we do at Craigellen, don’t you think?”
The story explained a lot. Carr’s obsession, not only with wolves but with werewolves. Billy’s too.
But more... that odd relationship between the two. The “Stewart” and “Mr Carr” thing. There was a definite hierarchy to Carr’s set-up here, a ranking that inverted how it had started: Carr the victim, Billy the savior. It seemed a part of Carr somehow resented that even now, and he continually made a point of emphasizing his lead role, with Billy only here on his sufferance.
This was a very strange world she found herself in, all of a sudden, and she realized she didn’t really know what to make of the people involved. She remembered her comment earlier that everyone carries their scars. With Carr that was quite literally true, but they each were loaded with their own mental baggage from the past. Carr with his obsessions, Billy with what she could only think of as his darkness, and her with her... her burning need to escape the past and forge her own life.
They were watching her. Carr over the rim of his wine glass, Billy from the window.
She raised her own glass now, and said, “A toast.”
Billy returned to the table for his glass.
“To getting the fuck over ourselves,” she said, and they laughed and raised their glasses and drank, and the evening moved on.
14
Carr had a talent for conducting conversation without saying much at all. If he could turn that knack for managing a dialog to public relations he wouldn’t need Jenny here at all.
Some time later, she found herself finishing another dram of that Balvenie, putting her glass down on the table and realizing the evening was drawing to a close.
She still hadn’t adjusted to the change in time zones. To her body it was still early, but in her head she felt as if it had been another long day. She should go to bed and try to force herself to sleep, but she knew that rarely worked when her mind got like this. Too much to think about, too many experiences to absorb, too many pieces of the story to slot together and make sense of.
She said her goodnights in the grand entrance hall, watched as Carr retreated upstairs, then turned to Billy.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” she said. Had she had a glass or two too many this evening? This wasn’t the best time to say anything important – she knew that much. “I like you and I can talk with you but if you don’t mind me saying, you can get a bit creepy sometimes, you know? There’s dark and dangerous and then there’s plain creepy, you know? Do you mind me saying this?”
She wished she could read that smile. Was he amused by her? Was it a defensive mask because, well, she’d just called the guy creepy?
“I don’t even know where you live.”
“I have a place in the village.”
Did he stay with the McQueens? Was this the equivalent of a grown man still living at home with his folks? She stopped herself from asking. She’d probably insulted him enough already for one night.
There was a moment.
A split-second, when it seemed he was towering over her, looking down. Those dark eyes smoldering. Soft lips parting. When his phy
sical presence was suddenly a thing, and her breath snatched in her chest, and her heart thumped like a trapped animal.
She’d drunk too much. She would regret this, if this moment turned into a kiss. Even though it suddenly felt so right, she knew it was all wrong.
Did she start to turn away first? Avert her eyes, a slight turn of the head...
Or was it him?
That smile. Amused that she should even be in this position, all of a sudden, out of nowhere.
The moment passed. She didn’t know where it had come from, or where it had gone.
He stepped back, away from her, and then he was in the doorway, reaching for the handle. “I’ll be off,” he said. “I... If you still fancy that tour I’ll be around in the afternoon. Shall we say two?”
And then he was gone.
§
What had just happened?
Was it the wine and whisky? She hadn’t drunk that much, but maybe it was deceptive, and she knew those single malts Carr favored could be strong. Combine that with a long day and the brain-addling effects of jetlag, and maybe that was some kind of excuse for suddenly finding herself about to kiss Billy Stewart.
She didn’t do this stuff. It’s not as if she was on a break from dating, more that she simply kept finding reasons not to. She didn’t open herself up to people, didn’t trust them. She was sure that even a dirt-cheap therapist would be able to find plenty of good reasons for this, starting with her father and probably not going much further than him.
So why now, why tonight?
The alcohol, the jetlag, the disorientation of being somewhere so different, among people who were unlike most people she’d ever spent time with...
She should go to bed, but she knew she would just lie there, mind spinning.
She went to the door, pushed it open, went outside.
It was the middle of summer, but the air still had a chill bite to it. She hoped that would at least subdue the midges. She still wore the riding boots Lilian had given her – in fact, she was secretly hoping she could get away with wearing them when she left, they were seriously cute as boots went – and they would protect her from the bites, too. Someone had told her the midges tended to stay low to the ground.
Her footsteps crunched on the gravel. She paused, breathed deep, tipped her head back.
The stars were incredible. Crystal clear, a million bright pinpricks dusted across the sky.
She straightened, allowing her eyes to adjust. Would she see the deer again?
She started to walk, finding the trail that led up to Lilian’s lab. It wasn’t that she hoped to find the scientist, but simply that she recalled the walk from earlier, the church-like atmosphere beneath the trees.
She breathed deep, taking in the pine-needle scent. She heard a screeching sound, distant, but didn’t know if it was a bird or some kind of animal.
She felt like the dumb blonde in a horror movie. The one who hears a sound and goes outside alone.
Trying to spook herself. That made her smile, and she knew that walking alone in the forest at night and grinning like a loon was the clearest confirmation yet that she’d had a little too much of the wine and whisky.
She thought again of that moment. Had she really been close to kissing him?
It was ridiculous. She was flying home in a little over a week. Even if she actually thought there was something there, it would never work. And the guy was a creep!
She came to the point where the track straightened out, the hill falling away on the left, the lab ahead. She made out the dark shape of the building, saw the glimmer of light from within, but didn’t know if that was someone still working or just some kind of security lighting, or lights left on by mistake.
She turned, and peered into the darkness, the mountain opposite visible as a dark patch against the star-speckled sky.
Beinn Madadh. Wolf Mountain.
She remembered the wolf enclosure now, off beyond the lab building. Remembered McQueen’s claims that the locals believed wolves had already been released.
She really was trying to creep herself out now.
She shuddered, hugging herself.
Just how had she thought this might help her sleep?
She started to walk, heading back down to the castle. She had wifi. She would go to bed and watch kitten videos on YouTube. That would do it: right now, she just needed a bit of cute and fluffy and mindless.
15
Scents everywhere!
Vivid, intoxicating in their intensity. The crisp sharpness of pine needles. The musk of deer. Roe deer. Not fresh. Scuffed earth, raw soil. Birch trees, grass mown in the day. Petrol and metal and humans.
And the sounds! A cacophony of everyday sounds made sharper and louder and more distinct. Insect whines and chitters, the brush of pine needles and creak of branches in the breeze. Distant engines. A voice, so far away. The even more distant screeching wail of a vixen.
The sound of human footfalls.
He pauses, ears pricking, swiveling towards the source of the sound.
Everything mixes in his senses: the sound of movement, the scents...
Heart pounding, saliva flowing, falling in long silver ribbons.
Everything is so unfamiliar! So new...
He is unsettled, skittish.
There is a pack near here. The scent is on the air, although there are no territorial markings in the forest here.
His pack?
It’s all a blur. Only the present makes sense: the scents, the sounds.
He peers through the trees, but sees only the trees.
He feels alive. More alive than ever before.
He is the alpha male.
He needs she-wolf. He needs blood. Prey. Death.
All of these things are not words to him, just shapes in his head. Base, primal needs.
§
Footfalls, much closer now. He parallels the track that leads through the trees, listening, tasting human scent on the air.
The footfalls stop.
Instantly, the alpha male stops too, one front paw poised in mid-air.
He lowers the paw, his body hugging the ground, edges forward, making no sound.
He sees her through a gap in the trees.
He pauses again, the only movement the dripping trail of drool spilling from drawn-back lips, and the slight flick of his tail.
A sound. The scuff of a boot as she turns full circle.
The scent... familiar. Known.
His heart thumps harder. He takes another step closer through the trees. Another.
All this feels so wrong... so right. A distinction that no longer seems to matter. All there is: the senses, the physical response, the need.
Movement, the sound of boot on compacted mud, the scuff of a dislodged stone. She is walking again, faster now.
He tracks her, still among the trees.
He wants those steps to get faster yet. To break into a run.
“Hello?”
He stops.
“Is somebody there?”
She has paused, turned full circle again, resumed her long-strided walk.
He has to trot now, to keep up. He feels the excitement bubbling in his chest, the roll of muscles as he lopes. Less concerned now at any sound he might make as paws strike ground, body barrels against the undergrowth of bracken and gorse by the side of the track.
“Look, this isn’t funny.”
The sound of his body passing through the bracken is a hiss, a susurrus, like the flow of water or the rush of breeze through treetops.
She stumbles, breaks into a half-jog, half-power-walk.
He pushes through a tangled wall of bracken and emerges onto the track.
She is a short distance ahead of him, hasn’t noticed him yet.
He lets the low rumble of a growl build up in his belly and spill out.
She stumbles again, twisting at the waist to look back while she tries to keep going. Gives a soft gasp as she sees him.
“Holy fu
ck!” she groans, then straightens and breaks into a run.
Ahead: the trees thinning, the castle grounds. She is almost clear.
He increases the length of his strides, an easy doubling of speed. Pumps harder, faster, the chase instinct triggered by fleeing prey.
Covers the ground in no time at all.
Leaps.
Paws land on each shoulder and he feels the frail body give, tumble forward. He comes down on top, the full weight of his body on hers and his jaws clamped tight around her slender neck.
She is dead in an instant, nerves severed, vertebrae crushed, the carotid artery ripped in two.
For a split second, he lies there, unsure what has happened, and then the taste of hot blood in his mouth reawakens those instincts and he stands, moves. Jaws still clamped around the neck of his prey, he drags her into the undergrowth.
16
Jenny had fallen asleep quite quickly last night. The chilly Highland air must have done the trick, sobering her up and clearing her head.
She had walked back down through the forest, determined to find some brain-dead nonsense online to distract her, but in the end she’d just brushed her teeth, pulled her clothes off and dumped them on a chair and then climbed into that big four-poster bed, suddenly taken by a limb-heavy tiredness.
She woke to morning light angling in through the windows whose curtains she hadn’t bothered to close.
She stretched, and considered turning over and hoping for another hour or so. No. That was her jetlag speaking. It was still the early hours of the morning back home, but here it was gone nine o’clock.
When she finally stirred, the pattern of the previous morning repeated itself, enough so that she wondered if there was some kind of monitoring system in place. Padding along the corridor to the bathroom, clutching a towel to herself, she wondered if anyone was about or if they’d all been up since the crack of dawn. She took a long, luxurious shower and then, by the time she returned to her room, breakfast awaited on a silver tray on the table by the windows.
Later, the low-dose caffeine from that weak tea starting to kick in, she wandered downstairs.
Last Alpha: A Highland shifter romance Page 7
