Shifter Bound

by Leisl Leighton

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jumpy Little Bird, aren’t you? I just wanted to know if you were ready.’

  She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t ready, was so afraid he was wrong and she was right and wouldn’t be able to do this—especially after what she’d just heard. But Bron and Cordelia and the others had been so certain that this was the only way forward. That she could help them as much as they could help her. She knew Bron. Knew Iain. She didn’t know Adam or Shelley at all. She couldn’t let their doubts affect her. She’d struck an agreement. She had to keep her word. She had to open up to her shifting powers fully before she’d have a hope of controlling her powers. Cordy had told Bron that changing would channel those powers into a positive outlet and help her stop them from building to dangerous levels. Her stomach curdled at the thought, her nerves as sparky as if she’d been hit by lightning. But given she didn’t really want to implode or explode from a build-up of unused powers, this was something she had to do.

  So, instead of speaking all her doubts, she tried a small smile. ‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’

  He grinned—her insides did a little leap and rolled over. ‘That’s the glowing endorsement I wanted to hear.’

  ‘Are you making fun of me?’

  The grin widened. ‘Only a little bit.’

  ‘That’s not nice.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. But this should make up for it.’ He leaned forward and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to kiss her, but all he did was reach for her wrist.

  ‘What are you doing?’ She tried not to tremble as his warm fingers slid over her wrist, turning it so he could fit a key to the lock on the magical cuff that bound her.

  ‘I have to remove this.’

  ‘With a key?’

  He glanced up, a smile in his eyes. ‘Oh, but it’s a magic key.’

  She smiled—she couldn’t help it. ‘A magic key, huh? And I suppose you know all about those?’

  He laughed. ‘Are you questioning my sexual prowess?’

  She blanched. That hadn’t been what she meant at all. When she didn’t answer, he looked up from what he was doing. His fingers stilled on her wrist. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I know you’re not used to being teased. Forgive me?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Good.’ He kissed her.

  It started as a brush, the kind of thing she’d seen other Were give fellow packmates when she’d been watching them the year before, but then it became something else as his lips lingered on hers, pressing more firmly, seeking, asking, wanting. The earth shifted. Not moved. Simply slipped sideways and left her freefalling in endless space, caught in a moment of time that never seemed to end. She made a strange noise in her throat.

  He broke the contact, halting centimetres from her mouth for long, endless seconds, eyes wide. ‘Well.’ His breath puffed over her face—minty and fresh and a little faster than normal. Was it possible he’d felt something too? She sucked in a breath. Her lungs filled with the scent of him. His gaze dipped down to her lips. She swayed forward. So did he. Her lips were almost against his again when he shifted away, bending his attention to the cuff.

  She blinked, stiffened at the rejection. Which was ridiculous. She shouldn’t feel rejected; she had no right to want a kiss, more, from anyone. But she did. She wanted his lips on hers again more than she wanted to breathe. ‘Iain?’ His name a breathless, needy sound. She had no idea she could sound like that.

  He stilled and then slowly, too slowly, met her gaze. His eyes burned with something that made her shiver. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Why?’ Now her voice sounded full of tears. She coughed them away.

  ‘I keep forgetting who you are. Where you’ve come from.’

  She stiffened. ‘No kissing the enemy, right?’

  The shock on his face was almost comical. ‘That’s not what I meant. You’re not the enemy. I thought you’d know by now I don’t see you that way. I never did.’

  Now she felt a different kind of shit. ‘I know.’ She looked down at her hands, picking at the cuticle on her thumb. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Shit.’ He reached out, took her hand. ‘Don’t apologise. You have nothing to apologise for. I’m the one who did something wrong. I keep forgetting that you’re not used to physical contact—not like we are.’

  She nodded, whispered, ‘It was nice for a first kiss, though.’

  ‘Your first kiss?’

  Oh Goddess. Why had she admitted that? Heat flooded her face. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shit.’ He raked his hand through his hair. Why did he look so appealing when he was dishevelled? ‘I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you. Not like that. You deserve better than that.’

  ‘I didn’t mind.’ And wasn’t that the understatement of the year? For a first kiss it had been pretty wonderful, although too brief. He’d left her with the scent of him in her nose, the taste of him on her lips. A wave of warmth had washed over her, caressing her skin and sending little shockwaves through her middle right to her core.

  The imprint of the touch still burned on her lips. Just as she’d burned when she’d seen him naked, the long, muscled length of him—an image that had featured in her dreams last night, leaving her hot and sweaty with a needy pull between her legs. The same burn that occurred every time he touched her—and he’d been touching her more and more since she’d woken up. In physical therapy to start off with, but then little gentling strokes on her hand, a squeeze on her shoulder, a hug. She’d tried not to think anything of those touches, because that’s just what the Were did. They touched. Just because she wasn’t used to it didn’t mean it was special. But this had felt different. ‘I didn’t mind,’ she repeated again.

  His lips flashed into a grin. ‘Neither did I. There’s a part of me that would like to do it again. Properly.’

  ‘You would?’ She had been so afraid she’d misread his reaction, that it had been a friendly caress of one packmate to another and not more. A little sun burst to life in her chest.

  ‘Except …’

  The sun dimmed. ‘Except?’

  He glanced down at the hand he still held in his, his fingers brushing over the magical cuff stopping her from shifting and, supposedly, keeping her magic in check. ‘We need to get this off you and start your training right now. We can get back to the kiss later.’ He looked up at her, his head angling on the side in that animalistic way the Were had. ‘Are you okay with that?’

  ‘You’re asking for a raincheck on kissing me?’

  He laughed. ‘When you put it like that, it sounds awful, but yes, I suppose I am.’ He leaned closer, gaze burning into hers. ‘I want to kiss you again. Properly. And I don’t want to be somewhere we can be interrupted. I want to take my time. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ The sun was blazing again.

  ‘So, let’s get this cuff off.’ He bent to the task again, fiddling with the key that looked so ridiculously small in his big hands. ‘Ah-ha!’ he said as there was a light click. A buzz ran over her and then coolness on her wrist where he’d been holding her. She shivered.

  ‘Are you okay, Eloise?’

  ‘Yes. That was strange.’

  ‘It was your magic settling.’

  ‘Yes.’ She could feel it. But that wasn’t the reason she shivered. She wanted him to touch her again. Ached for it. She shivered again.

  ‘Bron said that might happen, remember?’

  She cleared her throat. ‘So, what do I do?’ He was trying to be professional. So would she.

  ‘Let’s go out into the garden for this. Were and shifters are happier outside in nature.’

  Her eyes widened. She’d always felt that way, but her life with Morrigan had meant spending more time hidden away than enjoying the wide-open spaces. She’d always thought there was something wrong with her that she’d felt stifled. She was learning so much from the Were about who she really was.

  ‘Come on.’

  She stumbled
along beside Iain as he walked outside.

  ‘I’ll lead you through a few focusing exercises we do with our young, and then we’ll see what you can do.’

  She nodded and followed him down the patio stairs into River’s magical garden. The breeze was full of the scent of sun-warmed grass and the mixed smells of flowers and herbs that seemed to pervade all the gardens he created. Iain led her over to a strange wooden chair that looked as if it had grown, rather than been made. She ran her hands over the silky wood as he gestured for her to take a seat. It was large enough that she could cross her legs or pull them up in front of her as she liked to do. ‘This is amazing. Who built this?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘You?’ She knew she was gaping. ‘I thought you were a sommelier or something.’ She’d heard him talking about it the year before with River.

  ‘I am. But I also love to work with my hands. I do some carpentry and I sculpt.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Why so surprised?’

  ‘You all have hobbies and full lives… I just never knew that was possible. I always assumed the pack structure would be like it was for us in the coven.’

  He frowned. ‘Surely you were allowed to have hobbies in your coven?’

  She shrugged. ‘Not really. Nothing that wasn’t seen as useful for the group as a whole. I did well with schoolwork and wanted to be an engineer, but Morrigan didn’t have a use for that. I was allowed to help my Pa with the cars sometimes, though.’ Her mouth twisted as she remembered working in comfortable silence with the man she had always believed wanted the best for her. Now she had to wonder if those feelings had ever been real. Not that she could ask. He and her ‘mother’ were long dead.

  ‘It made you happy?’

  ‘Yes.’ It had made her happy at the time.

  ‘That’s how I feel when I make something like this.’ He gestured at the chair. ‘Actually, I made it for you.’

  ‘For me?’ Her skin had to look like she had been horribly sunburned by now. She wasn’t quite sure where to look. The fact that he’d made something for her touched her even more deeply than the kiss had.

  ‘Yes, for you.’

  He made it sound so simple; as if men made chairs for her every day. She ran her hand over the satin smoothness of the grey wood, a strange lump rising up her throat. ‘Nobody’s ever done anything like that for me before.’ She blinked back the tears in her eyes. ‘Thank you.’

  The sound was a whisper on the breeze, but with that keen Were hearing, she knew he heard it. ‘It was my absolute pleasure.’

  She looked up at him. Could he truly mean that? He looked sincere. They stared at each other for long, slow seconds. She wished he’d kiss her again. But then he broke the tension building between them by sucking in a sharp breath and clapping his hands together. ‘I think we should get started.’

  ‘Yes,’ she croaked. He might want to kiss her again, he might have made this wonderful chair for her, but that didn’t mean he felt anything more for her than something fleeting. He was a Were and she was… Well, she didn’t know what she was.

  It was time she found out. ‘Let’s get started,’ she said, her voice firm this time.

  ‘Okay.’ Iain couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on his face as he gestured her to follow him over to a patch of nearby grass. He shouldn’t have kissed her like that, so casually, but he was glad he had. Something had shifted between them. Like a drug addict, he wanted more. Wanted to help her open herself up fully to what the world had to offer. However, the best way he could do that right now was to help her understand her shifter side, not kiss her again. He pushed down the urge and sat down. ‘We have to centre ourselves, enhance our link to nature.’ He crossed his legs. She followed his lead, the backs of her hands resting on her knees.

  ‘This is how we teach our young to control their change. For Were, our wolf is always inside. In the past, when we were bound to the moon, the wolf was rabid, scratching to get out, howling to be heard. Now, since the Were-Witch Pact gave our wolves freedom, we live in harmony with the other side of ourselves. Our wolves are our friends.’

  ‘Morrigan always talked about your wolves like they were evil animals. I couldn’t help but think that changing into my cat form meant I was a little like that too.’

  ‘We’re not evil, and neither are you.’ His wolf growled.

  She jerked back, eyes wide. ‘What was that?’

  Iain stilled even though inside his heart beat wildly against his ribs. ‘You heard that?’ She nodded. ‘That’s… strange.’

  ‘Strange? What was it? It sounded like you growled.’

  ‘I didn’t growl. My wolf did.’ Usually only other Were or a mate could hear the wolf when it was locked inside.

  She is your mate. The memory of the dream he’d had where he wasn’t himself—a memory he’d been doing his best to forget, even though it was a dream that was taking over from the horrible nightmares of torture and death he’d had since Yule—pushed to the fore. But no. It couldn’t be true. It was impossible.

  Her eyes widened, her hands twisting white in her lap. ‘How could I hear your wolf?’

  He wasn’t sure. ‘Maybe because I saved you when your powers almost took you.’

  ‘A link formed?’

  ‘Perhaps. I don’t know. Maybe it’s simply because my wolf is very close to the surface—that’s part of what makes me a Lone Wolf.’

  ‘Is that… hard?’

  He smiled. ‘Yes. It takes work to keep the wolf from taking over. But I wouldn’t change it for anything.’ He paused, swallowed hard. ‘When Skye was taken by her maternal grandmother without our knowledge, Morghanna’s ancient curse began to enact on us. Twenty years of slowly losing contact and control over our wolves. A creeping inexorable slide into hell.’

  ‘Why did it take so long?’

  ‘Skye wasn’t dead, and despite what her grandmother did when she supressed Skye’s powers, they were still strong enough to seep out a little and feed the link between her and us. It was a tenuous link, but enough to keep all of us going for that long.’

  ‘It must have been horrible.’

  ‘It was. The worst of it was losing that close link with my wolf. He’d always been a friend, an ally. But over those twenty years, I heard him less and when I did, he was frustrated and angry.’

  ‘Did that seep into you?’

  ‘Absolutely. What he feels, I feel. The worst thing was feeling his pain at not being able to come out and run free and being helpless to do anything about it.’

  ‘How awful.’

  Her hand covered his, her empathy a warm wash that helped to lessen the agony of remembering that time. ‘It was worse than awful. I could feel the anger of its incarceration building inside me until it was all I could think about.’ He unclenched his jaw, tried to soften his tone. ‘It’s what drove my ancestors to madness centuries ago, turning them into vicious killers on the nights of the moon. The wolf was always there but could never get out except for three nights a month. Years of that drove the wolf insane until all it wanted was revenge—and it didn’t matter who was in the way of its need. They came to think that was the way it had always been, but we’ve recently found ancient parchments that suggest that wasn’t true. Something separated us from our wolves.’

  ‘The Darkness Bron talks about that was in River?’

  ‘I don’t know. Shelley says the parchments don’t say. There’s just a reference to the time of freedom before the period they called the “locked moon”. It’s doubtful we’ll ever know the truth of what happened then. Although, it would be good to know so we could make certain it never happens again.’ His eyes met hers. ‘We never want to become the murdering monsters we once were.’

  ‘You aren’t murderers or monsters.’ Her hand clutched over his. ‘Your wolf is beautiful. You are beautiful.’ She sucked in a breath, her cheeks vibrantly pink, and pulled her hand away. ‘I didn’t mean… I don’t think—’

  He chuckled. ‘My wolf and I
thank you. He thinks he’s beautiful too. In fact, he’s pushing to get out and show you his handsome self again.’

  ‘Maybe later?’

  ‘Definitely later.’ His smile widened. ‘Maybe you have a beautiful wolf inside you too, howling to get out.’

  ‘There’s only ever been the cat—and she doesn’t howl. Nor does she push to get out.’

  He tipped his head to the side. ‘I’m not sure that’s completely true.’ He held his hand up as she went to protest. ‘I’m not calling you a liar, but I think you’ve been conditioned not to acknowledge what’s happening inside you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I know it’s a little different for the shifters I’ve met from what we Were experience, but not completely different. There’s a need inside them to transform, to bond with nature on a different level, discover the world from a different perspective.’

  Goddess! He was telling her things she’d felt only in her deepest soul—things she’d never been able to voice before because if she had, it would have only pointed out how she didn’t belong with the others in her coven.

  ‘They often have a form that’s a favourite,’ Iain continued, ‘but they can transform into any animal as long as they have seen it in the flesh. Didn’t you feel a certain amount of peace and freedom when you transformed into Bluebelle?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was astonishing how he understood and accepted things as normal that she had long thought signs of an evil canker at the core of her soul. ‘I used to sometimes transform into Bluebelle and escape outside when I couldn’t stand being with my fam… being inside anymore.’

  ‘You didn’t want to be with your family even then?’ Anger filled his eyes. ‘I knew they used you, but I didn’t realise they were abusive.’

  ‘No. They weren’t abusive.’ She swallowed. ‘My mum and dad were firm but kind. They just didn’t love me.’ She knew now it was one of the reasons she’d been so quick to believe Morrigan when she gave her attention and asked her to do things she knew were wrong. ‘And as for the coven. Some were always nice to me, but I knew I wasn’t truly one of them.’