by Laura Taylor
“I’m fine,” she insisted, even as she wiped her eyes, reaching for him as he tried to pull away. “I’m fine. Really.”
The hell she was. “Why are you crying?” he asked, trying to wipe the tears away, only to have them reform a moment later.
“I’m just happy,” she said, through a shuddering breath. “I love you. And I love being here with you. I just think that maybe…” She stopped for a moment, struggling to regain control of herself. A fresh wave of tears spilled out of her eyes. “I just think that maybe I don’t deserve you.”
What the hell was he supposed to say to that? She laughed, reaching up to stroke his face, smiling through her tears. “Don’t look so worried,” she said, a ridiculous request that he couldn’t hope to fulfil. “I’m fine. Really. I was just thinking…” More tears, and all traces of the smile vanished. “If I die, then I’m really glad I got to know you first.”
Bloody hell. There was no possible reply he could make to that that wouldn’t sound either ridiculous or condescending, and then he felt a flush of embarrassment as tears pricked at the back of his own eyes. He pulled her into his arms to hide the fact that he was suddenly having to blink hard. Her naked body against his felt like the most natural thing in the world, and he sent a fervent prayer skyward that Sirius wouldn’t be so cruel as to take away this most precious of gifts, after he’d only just found her.
“I love you too,” he murmured into her ear, stroking her long hair with a gentle hand. “Always.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
John stormed out the front door of the manor, slamming it as hard as he could behind him. He stomped across the driveway, not caring if he disturbed anyone in the process, and got halfway across the lawn before he came to a halt, wondering where he should go. Back to Misty Hills was the first thought in his mind, until he realised that Baron was just going to come back there after the hearing was over. Russia then, he thought in a fit of pique. There were half a dozen packs there, and it was about as far from England as he could get, while remaining within Il Trosa territory.
The road to the front gate swept away to his left, and he remembered that on the way in he’d seen a number of hidden gullies and pockets of dense woodland that had promised privacy and solitude, so he shifted and took off in that direction. After a few moments, he stopped and snorted, then found a pungent bush and rubbed his face in it, the earthy scent filling his nostrils sufficiently to block out that other smell from his nose, if not from his mind. No, it would be much, much harder to wipe the scent from his memory.
After waking up this morning, he’d come out of his room and shifted into wolf form. Back at Misty Hills, he could have opened his bedroom door as a wolf, special levers and pedals installed at most doorways to accommodate their canine halves, but this place was new enough that it hadn’t been done yet.
He’d gone down the stairs to the first floor and happened to choose a path to the main staircase that took him past Baron’s bedroom door. For reasons that John refused to look at too closely, the scent of his alpha still worked wonders in helping him moderate his moods and persuading himself to relax…
But then he smelled Kajus’s scent, strong and potent on the doorstep. Putting his nose to the crack beneath the door, he smelled the bitter scent of sex.
He shifted completely unintentionally, gaping at the closed door in shock. He and Baron had broken up, a dim corner of his mind reminded him, but a much larger part of his brain was refusing to process that substantial detail.
He had no idea how long he stood there, but finally convinced himself to move when he heard someone coming from the other end of the hall. He took the stairs at a fast jog, then hightailed it out of the house as loudly and angrily as he could manage.
Baron had slept with someone else.
John felt utterly numb as he padded along the road. He should go and find someone to have sex with himself, he thought urgently, before instantly dismissing the idea. His jealousy was a living thing, a fire in his gut rising up to choke him, but the idea of letting someone else share his body, of letting some random man (or woman, he thought perniciously) know him so intimately was vile.
Would Baron be jealous if he slept with a woman?
Fucking hell, Baron had slept with someone else.
And with Kajus, of all people!
Well, no, he backtracked within his own thoughts. There was nothing wrong with Kajus. He was a strong wolf, 2IC in his own pack, he was confident and capable. He was a lot like Baron, actually. No, there was nothing wrong with Kajus.
The road crossed a small gully, and John leapt off the side, landing in the damp soil at the bottom. He followed the gully for half a minute until he was out of sight of both the road and the manor. Then he shifted, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.
Baron had slept with someone else. Maybe if he repeated it often enough, he’d learn to accept it, learn to let go of the rioting emotions that still haunted him every night and tormented his thoughts every day.
John dropped to the ground, his jeans soaking up moisture from the soil, gripping handfuls of dirt that he squeezed until thick mud oozed between his fingers. A savage cry of pain was torn from his throat, tears bursting forth to run in fat drops down his cheeks as his lungs fought to get enough air into his body.
Baron had slept with someone else.
Where was he supposed to go from here?
As she followed Tank towards the courtyard where the Panel was waiting for her, Luna reminded herself to breathe slowly and deeply, in what was ultimately a futile effort to calm her nerves. The majority of the pack had been interviewed by now, but aside from the chaotic day when the three males had been taken away from them, there had been little other drama resulting from the sessions. Each and every women who’d returned to the camp had reported that they’d told the Panel much the same thing: Sempre was the rightful alpha of the pack, she’d successfully led them through trying times with severe opposition both from the Noturatii and Il Trosa, and that while they sometimes suffered food shortages or bad weather, they were sure that no one else would have managed to do any better than Sempre had done. And they all, of course, had sworn black and blue that Sempre would never betray Il Trosa to the Noturatii.
And Luna knew that every single one of them had been lying. The only question was where the lie had been; had they lied to the Panel about the state of their pack, or were they lying to Sempre about what they’d reported to the hearing?
Now, it was Luna’s turn, and she felt her gut roll as she stepped into the courtyard and sat down at the table that Tank led her to. For her own part, she was going to be one of the latter group; she was going to be brutally honest with the Panel, praying all the while that Sirius would look kindly on her attempt to sabotage her own alpha and that the Panel would believe her, given that some of her pack, particularly the more high ranking end of it, would have tried their hardest to convince the hearing that Sempre was an exemplary alpha and that Genna was a conniving witch who was out to betray not just Il Trosa, but the Watch as well.
Of course, the question of who had actually betrayed Il Trosa remained a mystery. There had been little opportunity to discuss the issue amongst themselves and even less motivation to do so. Aside from two or three wolves, Luna was unable to trust even the members of her own pack, lest they report a stray word back to Sempre and she discover that Luna was not the devoted follower that she tried hard to appear to be. So as a result, Luna had been left to try and tease out the truth by herself.
Sempre certainly had the capability to have arranged the meeting, but Luna found it difficult to believe that even she would have risked war right across Europe for her own gain. But then again, Genna had been young and naïve and would have provided the perfect scapegoat for Sempre, should she have decided to finally take that risk.
Genna, on the other hand, was still a mystery. Over the year that she’d been a part of the pack, Luna had repeatedly been impressed with her. She’d survived her first
night as a shifter, though she hadn’t even finished her training at the time, she’d lived the harsh and hungry life of the Watch without complaint, she’d stood up to Sempre over her abilities with the magic, and she’d turned into a strong and capable wolf. It made no sense at all for Genna to want to betray Il Trosa, particularly when she’d run away from the Watch to seek asylum with them. But then again, with Sempre breathing poison into her ear all the time about how evil Il Trosa was, maybe she’d taken the information the wrong way? But how on earth would a new recruit manage to contact the Noturatii, sneak away from camp, travel to another city, and then escape again after meeting with the man? It was far more likely that if Genna had set things up, she’d have been kidnapped on the spot and never heard from again.
Pulling her mind back to the task at hand, Luna looked out over the sea of faces in front of her. They were an eclectic mix, some stern and serious, some trying to appear kind and patient, others just looking bored. Some wore the traditional grey cloak of the Watch, while others were dressed in modern clothes, but one man caught her eye, wearing buckskin and with tattoos climbing up his forearms. Very lean and toned forearms, she couldn’t help but notice. Aside from that first day, with the formal introductions, followed by the awkward evening mingle, she’d had little to do with the Panel and had had to be reminded of all their names before coming to this session. This man was called Kajus, she remembered now. He was a man who looked undeniably rugged and lawless, with a short beard, wearing a variety of primitive weapons about his person. They were the tools he used on a daily basis to survive living in the wilderness, rather than weapons of war against the Noturatii, but he was not a man to be trifled with, that much was clear. Noticing his stern expression, she couldn’t help wondering what he thought of all this. As Eleanor announced Luna formally, his eyes met hers for a moment, and Luna felt an unfamiliar emotion spear through her as he seemed to look straight through into her very soul. He looked like a man without morals, without compassion… and with a strange, almost ethereal stillness about him that made Luna wonder who he really was and what secrets of the shifter magic he had discovered that she didn’t know.
“If we could start at the beginning,” Eleanor said, once she’d finished Luna’s introduction, “could you please tell us in your own words how long ago you joined Sempre’s pack and the circumstances surrounding your recruitment.”
Luna nodded, pulling her attention away from Kajus. “I first met Sempre just under eight years ago. I was twenty-seven at the time, working in a garden centre in Newcastle-upon-Tyne…”
Two hours later, as Luna left the courtyard, Kajus sat back in his chair, his mind a whirlwind of unexpected thoughts. Some of the other members of Sempre’s pack had been forthright about the difficulties the pack faced; they had detailed the lack of food, the demands that they stay in wolf form for extended periods, the harsh controls Sempre inflicted on them all. But none of them had come close to Luna’s brutal, no-holds-barred style of honesty.
Even as a wolf, Kajus had always been more adept at detecting lies than most people were, and it was little surprise to have discovered that the vast majority of people they had interviewed had lied to some degree. He knew perfectly well that Sempre had not been involved in the meeting with the Noturatii, that most of her pack hated her, and that while many of the pack were unhappy about the way the males were treated, most of them had still availed themselves of the opportunity for easy sex.
But Luna… by Sirius himself, she had left nothing out. She’d told the truth, the whole truth, and then some more truth that he’d have liked just as well not to have known. At every step of the way, her tone of voice and her body language had perfectly matched her words, her fear obvious, but her determination stronger. She was not going to go down without a fight, he knew… but god help him if he could figure out exactly what battle it was she thought she was going to be fighting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
While the hearing over the Treaty was going on, many of the shifters in the Scottish estate were finding themselves at a loose end. Back at Misty Hills, there would have been regular maintenance to do, Alistair would have been keeping tabs on the local news and heading off any unwanted publicity, Skip would have been at her bank of computers, digging up vital information for Il Trosa, Mark would have been in his workshop building whatever latest design of furniture he’d come up with, and Dee would have spent an hour or two every day in an office with Heron, keeping tabs on the Den’s finances and administrative tasks.
Here, with none of the equipment to do any of those jobs and far too much tension in the air to really concentrate on them anyway, it wasn’t uncommon for people to be seen simply wandering the property, exploring the hidden gullies, chasing rabbits or, as Dee had caught Kwan and Aaron doing yesterday, trying to catch the fish in the lake. It had been rather amusing to see the pair of them leaping headfirst into the water, emerging with empty mouths and fur dripping water everywhere, only to shake themselves off and do it all again.
The fourth day of the hearing was dragging on, with no word yet of any anticipated decision, or even any news as to how long the whole thing was likely to take. Tired of feeling like she was constantly wasting her time, Dee had tracked down Skip and asked her to locate a couple of forms that she wanted to fill in. While she didn’t have anything like her full array of equipment, Skip had still brought a couple of laptops with her, along with a combined printer and scanner, and a large box of wires and gadgets that Dee was reluctant to ask too many questions about. Before she’d asked for the forms, of course, she’d sworn Skip to secrecy, and the instant she’d told her what she wanted, Skip’s eyes had opened wide, her compact body bouncing up and down with glee. She’d let out a squeal, quickly squashed, before declaring “I’m on it! Let’s rock your world, baby.” Less than five minutes later, Dee had walked away with a sheaf of papers in her hand and a determined jig to her stride.
Tracking down Mark was easy. He was lounging in the upstairs sitting room – a wide and airy room that Dee could see herself spending a lot of time in, if and when they moved to this estate – sketching pieces of furniture in a notebook.
“Hey,” she said casually, as she came into the room and sat down beside him.
“Hey,” he replied, his attention focused on his notebook.
Dee scooted a fraction closer, so that her leg was bumping against his hip. “Are you busy?” she asked, the question significant only because it was obvious that he was.
He paused and looked up at her. “Kind of, yeah,” he replied. And then he must have seen the twinkle in her eye. “What are you up to?” he asked, knowing her well enough to know that she only got that look when she was conspiring with someone about something.
“This might be a little pre-emptive,” she began, then shook her head. “No, scratch that. This is definitely very pre-emptive. But I had nothing to do, and I’ve been thinking about this estate, and what if we move here, and it’s actually a really cool place. Big. Spacious. Roomy.”
“What’s your point?” Mark asked, sitting up with a wry grin. He knew full well that Dee knew she was rambling, and moreover, that she was doing it deliberately.
Shyly, she handed him a bundle of papers. “This is a little early, cos we’re not even living together yet, and you’re still on your year’s probation, and I haven’t finished my training. But I was thinking…”
Mark took the papers from her and looked them over briefly… and then became very still. “Application for adoption of children,” he read slowly, while Dee held her breath, wondering how he was going to react. He broke into a wide grin, but the expression quickly faded. “It’s too early. They’re never going to say yes to this.”
‘They’, of course, were the Council, who were required to approve any application for adoption before it could go ahead. And added to the already significant hurdles that Dee and Mark would have to cross to be granted permission to adopt was the fact that they weren’t just going to be appl
ying for regular, human children. Faeydir had been very specific when Dee had talked to her about the subject, and she’d made it clear that she wanted puppies. Converting children into shape shifters while they were that young was severely restricted, and Dee could only hope that the Council might see fit to make an exception for them, or to somehow find a work-around. There was no way she was going to go ahead with this if she got her own chance at motherhood, but Faeydir was denied hers.
“Not true,” Dee corrected Mark. “They’re not going to say yes any time within the next year. But we’ve got plenty of work to do before then anyway. We’ll have to get approval from Baron and Caroline first. And I’m not quite sure what the procedure is, but maybe the whole Den would have to agree to it before we could actually go ahead. Having shifter children running around would be a huge security risk. And then the Council would have to find a child for us to adopt. I have no idea how they go about doing that, but we can start getting people used to the idea. And after you’ve finished your probation, we’ll need to think about moving in together. And we’d need to ask for an adjoining room for the children…” They could also think about getting married, Dee thought, with a mix of giddy excitement and nervous apprehension – not at the idea of getting married, but for fear that Mark would say no – but she wasn’t quite brave enough to bring up the idea just at the moment. “Sorry, I’m rambling,” she cut herself off. “My point is, there’s plenty of work to do before we actually end up with a child in our arms. So I’m not saying we should start decorating a nursery tomorrow. I’m just suggesting we start testing the waters to see where this might go.”
Mark seemed to relax at that, which made Dee wonder whether he was relieved that the problems might be solvable, or relieved that he didn’t have to step into the role of father just yet. “There’s just one problem,” he said, eyes sparkling as he looked at her. “I’m not quite able to fill in this form yet.”
