by Lucy Monroe
“This?” she asked as she squeezed again, this time quite deliberately.
“Yes. I become aroused for none but my true mate. Six years…” he said again, his voice pained. Caelis’s eyes slid shut again, his head tipping back. “Only you, Shona.”
The urge to touch him in ways that would push that pleasure over the cliff grew with each second she held that velvet-soft hardness in her hand.
She should release him, push him away. Her brain insisted on it. But once again, instinct was taking over reason and her body refused to obey the dictates of her brain.
“I am your sacred mate?” she asked, trying to understand what that really meant.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He cupped each side of her neck, his thumbs rubbing the underside of her chin and leaned down so their foreheads touched. “Only Providence knows, but the sacred bond is a gift few among the Chrechte find.”
“Then how could you throw me away?”
“I was convinced of a lie.” She could not deny the pain in his voice.
But she could not let it dictate her responses either. “You let yourself believe a lie,” she corrected.
The sound he made was one of an animal in pain. “Aye.”
She nodded, their foreheads brushing. She’d needed to hear him admit it. Even if he did not take full responsibility for their separation, Caelis needed to acknowledge his role in it.
She would never forget.
“Believing your laird’s claim…” She would not call that man her laird. “That I was not the one, you were willing to push me away on the hope you had a sacred mate.”
“No. Maybe.” He lifted her head so their gazes met, so close she could see herself in his pupils. “I expected him to realize his error.”
“You believed I was your sacred mate?” she asked.
“No, but I didn’t think I would find mine. Uven made it clear that even if I could not, he expected me to catch another wolf with child. I hoped he would change his mind about that.”
“Or maybe you thought you could get another woman pregnant and leave her?” Shona asked, her own pain too close to the surface.
“No. If you believe nothing else about me, believe that I would not have let you go had I allowed myself to accept the possibility of a child. And there was no other woman I would have given my seed to. Chrechte or human.”
Could she accept his words as truth?
No deception shadowed his blue eyes made dark by the candlelight; but then, she’d seen no deception there six years before either.
“You want to believe.”
She could not deny it.
“Then believe,” he said, his tone cajoling and demanding at once.
Desire that had nothing to do with the words between them coursed through her, heating her blood as even he had never done before. ’Twas as if the six years apart had only increased her body’s need for him.
It should have been the opposite. After so long, even residual passion’s spark should have gone out.
But the flame burning inside her was hotter than the sun and demanded to be assuaged.
“You want me,” he said, his tone laced with wonder and undeniable joy.
“I—”
“Do not deny it.” He sniffed the air, another feral noise sounding from deep in his throat. “I can smell it. I can taste it on the air.”
“Your wolf senses…” Suddenly her son’s enhanced abilities made sense. “Eadan—”
“Is like me, though he will not shift for the first time until he is of age.”
“No. I would know if my son was more than human.” Though memory after memory flashed through her mind, reminding her of oddities she’d dismissed over and over again.
Simply because what they pointed to had made absolutely no sense.
Her son shared his nature with a wolf.
“How? When you knew nothing of our existence?”
“He is my son.”
“And mine.”
What would have happened if her son had shifted without Shona or him being aware of werewolves? “The dreams.”
They had prepared her son when no parent had been around to do so.
“Told him of his true nature, yes.”
“It’s incomprehensible.”
“Is it truly?”
After she’d witnessed Caelis’s transformation? No, but this was her son. “He’ll be stronger.”
“And faster.”
“Safer.”
“Aye.” Though he’d met his fair share of humans among both the Balmoral and Sinclair clans that were strong enough.
“This thing between us, it’s because of our son.” It had to be.
Otherwise, how could she want Caelis so much? They had not even kissed.
“Nay. Rather, he exists because of the bond between us.”
A bond that was like a living thing. It was as if Caelis’s naked body drew hers with inexorable power she could not deny.
Mesmerized by the sight of his sex hard for her and pulsing with power, once again her hand moved without thought. Her fingers slid against the hardened flesh they were curled around. The tender skin warmed her own, evoking memories much more pleasant than those found in her marriage bed.
“It hurt to have my husband touch me, every caress making my skin crawl and burn most unpleasantly. Was that because I am your mate?” She looked up, wanting to see the truth in his eyes.
Caelis met the look, his expression far too pleased for the words she’d spoken. “I do not know. We had no human-wolf pairings in the clan, and I know little of Abigail and Talorc’s mating.”
She yanked her hand from him, moving away and staring at Caelis in shock. “The Sinclair laird is a shape-changer like you?”
“He is.”
“And Abigail…” Caelis’s words played over again in her head. “She is human, like me?”
“Yes. Their children are the first evidence I have seen to prove that humans and wolves could be sacred mates.”
“Eadan is further proof?”
“He is all the proof between us.”
She nodded, accepting that at least as truth. “There is much I still do not understand.”
He put his big warm hands against her face, peering down at her with such hunger, there could be no question that whatever beset her body affected his as well. “Later, I will answer every question.”
“I—”
“Please, Shona, mo toilichte. Give me this gift and I will never allow you to regret it again.”
The words were so similar to the ones he’d spoken six years ago that she nearly let a bitter laugh tumble from her lips.
The hunger for his touch was stronger now though. She’d thought it near impossible to resist back then. And ultimately, she’d given in to it.
In this moment though? She had no hope to deny the potent need controlling her.
It should be easy now. She no longer loved him. He was not the center of her world, as he’d been to her younger self. To deny him should have been the simplest of things, but Shona did not find it so.
Everything inside her wanted to give herself to this man, though he’d proven himself unworthy of the gift. It had to be part of being mated to a Chrechte.
Would her own body betray her because of it?
The answer seemed to be yes as she swayed toward the giant warrior who shared his nature with a beast.
Caelis’s head dipped and his lips pressed reverently to hers. Despite the undeniable hunger raging between them, the caress of his mouth was gentle. Not tentative, but not demanding, either.
The sensation was both so familiar and so far removed from what Shona knew in her present life that she found herself incapable of responding to the kiss in any way. She did not open her lips to give him entrance to her mouth, nor did she repudiate him.
Paralyzed by conflicting emotions, she allowed him to kiss her, his own passions and desires fully in evidence. They called to her, insisting she
acknowledge them as well as her own physical need.
He pulled her close, wrapping her in his strong embrace and lifting so their mouths might align more easily.
She remembered how he used to do this, compensating for the great difference in their heights. The way he made her feel both safe and cosseted as he used his strength to protect her and increase her enjoyment of their moments together.
Her husband had never made any accommodations for Shona, though his sexual needs had not been overly onerous. Just very unpleasant.
Henry had not treated her with the tender care or even respect Caelis had. She’d learned to be grateful for the sporadic sexual appetites of an old man.
Caelis growled and broke the kiss. “You will think only of me.”
She did not question how he’d known she was thinking of Henry. It did not matter. She had no more desire to dwell on her life in England with the baron than to return to do Percival’s bidding.
“Make me.” If the order came out sounding more like a plea, neither she nor Caelis remarked on it.
With another primitive, animalistic sound, he kissed her again, this time unquestioningly demanding entrance to her mouth with his tongue. She gave it, letting him wash away unhappy memories and revive good ones.
He tasted like he’d had at least one draught of usquebagh before taking up his sentry duty outside her door. Mixed with his own natural flavor, ’twas a heady combination.
The kiss fulfilled one hunger while fueling another. The craving that had beset her so deeply to have his touch became less acute, though it did not disappear, while the need to have him inside her grew.
Caelis’s hand roamed over her body, pulling at her dress as if the English clothing annoyed him.
She helped him undress her, her instincts and desires in full control now.
At the first touch of his hand on her naked flesh, she cried out with the satisfaction of a long abandoned need. Her body had craved him the entire time they had been apart, though she only now realized it. She was certain she would have continued to do so until the end of her days, even if she had never seen him again.
No other man’s touch would have satisfied, or even come close to pleasing her.
At least now, she understood why. He’d done this to her with the wolf mating thing.
Hands that had once known her body better than any other, learned her anew, big fingers so gentle the caresses brought tears of emotion to her eyes.
And not sadness.
Only he could do this to her. And she let him. They tumbled to the bed, her body trembling with the need to be claimed by his, his strong warrior’s muscles tense with the need to claim.
They touched one another as lovers who had never parted, with sure hands and knowing caresses meant to evoke further passions. He teased her nipples, sending pleasure throughout her body, making her ache and writhe even while her own fingers caressed bulging muscles and traced battle scars.
Her heart cried out in possession, mine, with each pass of her hand over his body. She neither denied nor acknowledged that heart’s cry, but made no effort to hold back on her desire to touch either.
Neither did she try to stop him when his hand delved between her legs to touch her intimately, pushing the pleasure to a higher, almost unbearable level.
But when she spread her thighs for him, he did not enter her.
Instead, Caelis arranged their bodies so that when he pressed down with his pelvis, his shaft rubbed between her swollen folds, his manhood trapped between their bodies so penetration could not occur. This position also ensured that the hard flesh rubbed back and forth over the sweet spot so filled with pleasure for her.
She arched upward, uncontrollable sounds of pleasure spilling from her.
His kisses grew voracious, his movements hard and demanding. Ecstasy spiraled tighter and tighter until it exploded with starbursts inside her.
He climaxed, too, his shout muffled against her lips, his seed marking her stomach with his primordial scent.
She did not know how, but she sensed that his wolf was very happy with that achievement.
The contented growl that sounded in his chest as he reached down to lazily rub the creamy substance into her skin indicated that the beast was indeed pleased.
“I cannot believe I let you do that,” she said with more honesty than anger.
“It was inevitable.”
Perhaps, if all his claims were true, it had been. Shona didn’t feel particularly comforted by that fact, but neither did she feel as if she had betrayed herself completely.
It was a sign of her constant inner conflict with this man that it seemed as if for every thought or feeling she had, an opposite one rose up to meet it.
Chapter 7
The proof of a warrior’s strength is in the contentment of his mate and children.
—ÉAN ORAL TRADITIONS
Caelis gave her a look, his brown gaze filled to overflowing with satisfaction. “You smell like me.”
His gratification was more than a little annoying. He wasn’t beset by conflict like she was. It was apparent that to him, all was quite simple.
But it wasn’t just typical warrior arrogance.
“Your wolf likes that.” Again, she did not understand how she knew, but she had not doubts on the matter.
“Aye, but do not be mistaken…the man is just as content to have every wolf in this clan know you have been marked as mine.”
“They’ll be able to tell?” she asked, heat at the thought filling her cheeks and spreading over her chest. “They’ll smell you on me?”
It was a most disconcerting, not to mention embarrassing, thought. How many wolves were there? If the laird was a shape-changer like Caelis, how many others were as well?
“Aye.”
“Do not sound so pleased about it.”
“I cannot help it. You are mine, Shona, and should always have been with me. I have lived without you for too long. For a time, I even believed you were dead.”
“What? Why?” She could not imagine how much worse the last years would have been had she believed Caelis dead.
“Why do you think? Our laird told me you had been killed by a wild boar. I carried great guilt along with my grief until I began to realize perhaps that had been a lie along with so many other things Uven told me.”
“He is not my laird.”
“No, he is not.”
She was glad of the easy agreement, but it was not enough. “I am English now.”
“No, you are not.”
“I am.” No matter how he would stubbornly refuse to admit it.
“Are you not here seeking a life in Scotland for you and your children?”
“Yes.”
“Because at heart, you are a fine Scottish lass.” His smile was irresistible.
But still she said, so there could be no confusion, “I’ll not wear the MacLeod colors again.”
“Not now. But later.”
“Never.”
“Never is—”
“A long time. So you’ve said.”
“Best you remember that.” He was smiling again.
She responded with some bite, “Best you remember that I am not so easily gotten around.”
He looked between their naked bodies with significance.
“Your wolf can take credit for this, I think.”
“My wolf is me.”
“The one part of you I just might trust.”
He jerked a little and then stared down at her. “You trust my beast?”
“Yes. I don’t know why, but I do.”
“You do not trust me—the man—though?” he asked carefully.
“No.” She made no effort to soften the effect of her denial. He had betrayed her most thoroughly.
“Yet you allowed me to touch you.”
“I told you, blame your wolf. There is some kind of magic in this mating thing and my body is not my own.”
The glow of satisfaction around him dimmed. “You t
ruly believe this?”
“Absolutely.” And he’d best not try to deny it. “Give me another explanation for a craving I cannot stand against for the touch of the very man who has betrayed me so cruelly.”
Caelis looked down at her with shock, as if her words were beyond his ken. But surely he knew the truth of it more certainly than she. He had lived with knowledge of his wolf his whole life. She’d just found out about it.
Finally, his mouth opened and a very ugly word came, but nothing else.
She frowned up at him. “What is the matter?”
“You must ask when you have just told me you still hold my actions against me in such a grievous way? That you allowed me to touch you only because you could not help yourself?”
What did he expect? Protestations of love as she used to give him? “Did you think pleasure could erase the past?”
The expression on his warrior’s features said he’d believed exactly that. Men! They uprooted a woman’s life, made changes over which she had no control and then expected a thank-you at the end of it. Her father had been the same.
“Have you forgotten your anger at Uven for lying to you now that we have once again shared passion?” she asked, wondering if Caelis would let himself understand.
“Nay! I am more furious with that liar than I was before. What you and I have just shared only shows what he took from us both with his lies. He robbed me of my sacred mate, of my son.”
As Caelis had allowed the man to rob her. She did not say it, having earlier made her point on that issue.
Instead, she reiterated, “So, the pleasure did not negate the pain?”
Sighing, Caelis shook his head. “You are saying you do not forgive me, either.”
“No.” Though maybe she was beginning to.
He frowned, his overt satisfaction all but gone. “I see.”
Perhaps he did. Mayhap he even realized that only time would prove him more worthy of her trust than she now held him.
“You have grown into a hard woman, Shona.”
“Circumstances have forced me to draw on strengths I did not know I had.” Though the strength to resist him clearly was not among them.
He nodded. “When you realized you were indeed pregnant, why did you not send word?”
