Highland Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by Unknown

  “You’re a fighter. But you’ve learned to run. And you have defenses that you’ve put up.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “No. Right now, it’s what you needed to do. Neither good nor bad. At least I don’t think so.”

  She gave him a tentative smile. “But you still don’t want me to come with you, right?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t take ye some place where I know you’d be hurt. You’re too important…”

  He caught the look of surprise on her face. “Too important?”

  Now it was Callum’s turn to look away. This wasn’t the way he’d wanted this conversation to go. Where was turbulence when you needed a distraction?

  “I mean, I owe you a debt.” He looked back to her. The anger had left her face, replaced by bewilderment.

  “And…” He leaned close to her, catching her gaze, giving her his most charming smile. “I owe you dinner.”

  The moment stretched between them. The bewilderment in her face receded, replaced by an all too knowing look he’d seen before. She settled back, a smile on her face.

  “Okay. Play the charm card and don’t answer me. But don’t try to tell me I’m the only one with defenses.”

  She was right, but there was no way in hell he’d admit that.

  * * *

  “How long is this flight?”

  He turned toward Aspyn. He thought she’d had been asleep. She’d been quiet, face turned toward the window, for several hours. Over the last few minutes, they’d been flying through increasingly thicker clouds and the plane had started making those shakes and shudders that had his heart—and his stomach—in his throat. He found himself very relieved that she was awake.

  “We get to Birmingham in the morning. There’s a three hour layover and then the flight to Inverness. It should land there just after noon.”

  “Another layover?” Aspyn stretched. “You know what I’d like, other than another layover? I’d really like a change of clothes and a bath.”

  “Same here. I’d like my own clothes.” He glanced down at the t-shirt he was wearing. “But I am grateful to have these.”

  “You’d be running around in used surgical scrubs otherwise. I guess I can thank Charlie for something.” She yawned, stretching her arms. “I think it was my turn to ask a question.”

  “You just did.” He grinned at her, not missing the eye roll as she settled back in her seat.

  “I mean officially, as in the distraction game. I’m bored and fidgety.”

  Callum glanced out the window at the darkening clouds. They were headed for bad weather, he could tell, and he’d rather not think about. And if he couldn’t see it, he could ignore it, more or less.

  “Alright. I’m up for another round.” He reached past Aspyn for the window shade.

  She watched him as he pulled the shade down. “Yeah. I guess you would be.” She turned back to him, eyes intent. If she’d been asleep, she was wide awake now.

  “Why were you in Chicago?”

  “Business.” He leaned out into the aisle, wishing for a flight attendance to appear. A ginger ale might be a good thing right now. His stomach was doing somersaults.

  “Liar.”

  He turned back to her, trying to conceal his surprise. She wasn’t looking at him so much as looking into him. For the first time in his life he felt his face growing hot. As much as he wanted to avoid answering her question, he had no choice but to concede the point.

  “Am I that bad at lying?”

  “Let’s put it this way. You tried so hard to make me believe you, back in my apartment. What you said just now, the way you said it…” She shook her head. “I can read people well enough to see the difference. Besides being utterly charming, you do seem to be incapable of lying.”

  His stomach lurched again, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t due to turbulence. No one had ever confronted him before. But he’d also never been caught red handed in a lie.

  She grinned at him like she’d won something, and it was apparent she was enjoying his discomfort. “Okay. Let’s start over. Why were you in Chicago?”

  He owed her the truth. She’d told him the truth about her life. But the words stuck in his throat.

  It had never been necessary for anyone to understand him. In fact, he’d never cared what anyone thought. If he was misunderstood, too bad. But he’d never let anyone, any shifter and definitely never any mortal, get this close to him, or get under his skin the way Aspyn had. Ever. He was suddenly desperate for her to know him, to understand his life.

  “This is hard. I want to tell you, but it’s not something I’ve ever told anyone.”

  “Does it have to do with your father?”

  He nodded, dropping his head.

  “Aye, it is. I was sent away.”

  He flagged down the flight attendant and asked for that ginger ale. Aspyn waited, fingers tapping on the arm rest, as he was served and then as he took a sip. It really didn’t help his stomach at all.

  “Your father sent you away?”

  “You could say that.”

  “But you want to go back? Now that he’s…that you think Malcolm…” Her words trailed off.

  “Aye. Now that I think Malcolm murdered my father. It has to be Malcolm, I’m sure of it. It can be no one else. And yes, I want to go home. I want to claim what is rightfully mine. To lead my Clan.”

  “But aren’t you heir, or Alpha, or whatever, of the Clan, simply because you are your father’s son?”

  “I am…would be. If anyone knew I existed.”

  She blinked, and then blinked again. Confusion crossed her face. He couldn’t blame her. It seemed there was nothing simple about his life. And trying to explain it just made it seem more complicated.

  “Wait. No one knows you’re the son of the Alpha? But yet they sent someone to kill you? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not they…Malcolm. It can only be Malcolm who wants me dead. And only he could have killed my father, in order to take over as Alpha of the Clan.”

  “And what part does Malcolm play in the grand scheme of all of this? Why is he the only one who knows who you are?”

  “He is my mother’s brother. He is my uncle. My mother was a Cameron.”

  Aspyn stared at him. “You’re kidding.” Her brows drew together and she leaned forward. “Your uncle killed your father? That’s pretty intense.”

  He nodded. “It is.”

  “Where is your mother?”

  A single image rose up in Callum’s mind, an old photograph, one he hadn’t thought of in years. A woman with black hair, dark eyes—his eyes, he realized with a start—laughing at the camera. “She died when I was very young.”

  Aspyn made a little sound and sat back. “I’m sorry, Callum,” she said after a moment.

  He felt her hand in his again and he gently squeezed her fingers. “Thank ye. I have no memories of her, other than what she looked like, from a picture.”

  “Can I ask how she died?”

  “I don’t know. I just know she was never there.” He looked up at Aspyn.

  She held his gaze for a moment. “Who was there? Who took care of you growing up?”

  “I was raised here, in the States.” He closed his eyes for a moment. The smell of mothballs, school glue, and overcooked green beans came back to him. The feelings that rose up were that of a small boy, the fear he’d had of the stern women who raised him. Despite the fear he had to smile. It could have been worse, he supposed. Very much worse.

  “But to answer your question, I was raised by nuns at a private school.”

  “Oh…well…”Aspyn looked at him with a deeply bewildered expression on her face. He hurried on before she started thinking he was making all this up.

  “Someone…probably Malcolm, had me sent there. To be raised there and when I was old enough, to be schooled there. To be out of the way. And then forgotten.”

  “That must have been horrible.”

  “It wasn’t too bad, I s
uppose. I was scared of them when I was young. They reminded me of big black crows, robes always flapping behind them. And they could terrify a young boy just with a look. But then, I discovered what I was.”

  “And you terrified the nuns?” Aspyn made a face. “Please tell me you didn’t chase the nuns around the school as a wolf.”

  He leaned close, his voice almost a whisper. “Worse. I left wolf hair everywhere. Drove them crazy.”

  Aspyn burst into laughter. Callum sat back and after a moment joined her. It was a relief to laugh, and to hear her laugh. Some of the anxiousness at trying to tell her his story left him. Aspyn’s laughter gradually faded and after a few minutes she turned back to him. Her lips still held a trace of a smile, but her eyes were serious.

  “Did you always know you were a shifter?”

  “I knew I was different than the other kids, more than just the accent. But I never knew what it was. Not until the school bully tried to beat me up in the alley behind the school. I changed, right then and there. Scared that kid. And myself, for that matter.”

  “And you got kicked out of school? The other kid ratted you out, right?”

  “No. The nuns knew what I was. They took me aside, explained to me what had happened, and why. And made me swear to never do it again. The other kid…he was too scared to ever try to bully me again. And I made him swear on pain of death to keep my secret.”

  “But you didn’t listen to the nuns, did you? Somehow I don’t see you as a conformist.” She was still smiling and it distracted him in a very pleasant way.

  He shook his head, returning her smile. “Never. Like I said, I shifted all the time, left all kinds of wolf hair everywhere.”

  “Did you know who your family was, anything about them, or where they lived? That your father was the Alpha?”

  He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa, slow down, Aspyn. Ye know, you’re past your one question limit here.”

  “Screw that. This is way more interesting than twenty questions. Besides, you know everything about me. There’s nothing else to tell.”

  He drank the last of his ginger ale. It occurred to him that she was trying to understand him. She hadn’t told him he was delusional or crazy this time. Small progress but it was a step toward some kind of understanding.

  “Wait.” She sat forward suddenly. His first instinct was to pull away from her intensity. “Back at my apartment you said that Cameron guy was a power hungry bastard. How could you know that, if you’ve been here in the States all this time?”

  “I haven’t been in the States all my life. I’ve traveled a lot, just never back home. I’ve been somewhat of a gypsy. So I’ve heard things. There were other shifters I met…rumors get passed around.” He shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable under her scrutiny, by what he had to say next. Why should Aspyn care about a girl I knew years ago? And why do I care if she knows about Brigit?

  “There was a girl, a shifter, I met in Canada. She’d come from Scotland, knew of my family. She was the one who finally helped me put most of the pieces together. I’d met other shifters along the way, but they were all from the States. They knew about the McCourts, but only second hand. She had details, first hand knowledge.”

  Callum reached inside the neck of the t-shirt, pulling out the talisman. “It was this though that finally helped me figure out the whole story. I found an old medieval text on werewolves, with a picture of a talisman similar to this, with the same inscriptions.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Like a family tree for werewolves?”

  Grimacing, he shook his head. “More like a manual on how to kill them. It was pretty detailed. The etchings were quite…descriptive.” He remembered the horror he’d felt reading the text, looking at the pictures, knowing it was written about him and his kind.

  “As horrible as it was to read, it gave me my family, my history. And it told me my future.”

  “Your future?”

  “When I learned my father was the Alpha, it opened up my future for me. If he was the Alpha of the McCourt Clan, then someday I would be Alpha.”

  “Except no one knows you exist.”

  “Except for that. The talisman is the only proof that I have of who I am. If I’m wearing this, the Clan will know I’m the true heir to the McCourt Alpha. Malcolm doesn’t have a talisman. Or if he does, he has my father’s. And it would be different than mine. I’m sure of it.”

  The talisman was warm between his fingers, the raised markings familiar to his touch. He held it a moment longer and then dropped it back inside the neck of the t-shirt.

  “So going back isn’t just about getting revenge for your father’s death or being Alpha. It’s making everyone know you still exist.”

  “It is that, too.”

  Aspyn say back in her seat and blew out a breath. “And I thought my life was a mess.”

  * * *

  Their flight finally touched down in England. Aspyn looked out of the terminal windows at the gray sky, wondering if there was any place in the world where it wasn’t raining. She followed Callum into the lounge. Another airport, another layover.

  “How long?”

  “Just a couple hours. You want something to eat?”

  “I don’t think I can tolerate another vending machine sandwich.”

  The meal they’d had on the plane had been a long time ago, and the snacks she’d eaten later hadn’t stuck with her.

  “There’s a restaurant over there. And a cash machine. I’ll be right back.”

  She watched Collin walk across the terminal. He seemed more relaxed now that he was on his side of the Atlantic. She couldn’t blame him. No one who seemed suspicious had been on either flight and Callum had watched everyone in the terminals. She was pretty sure he thought no one was following them.

  She sat down in the hard plastic seat, almost identical to the one she’d sat in at O’Hare. Her back was stiff and her legs felt like lead. Closing her eyes she let her head fall forward, rolling it from side to side, trying to work the kinks out of her neck.

  Beyond that she felt grimy with the dirt of different airports and just as many planes. It was the same feeling she’d get after working a twelve hour shift at the hospital. I really need a shower. I’m disgusting.

  “Here.”

  She looked up to see Callum standing in front of her, balancing several plastic containers in his hands. “Hamburger and fries, and chocolate shakes.”

  He sat down and she took the shake off the top of the stack. They sorted out the various containers and she opened hers. It smelled wonderful. Taking a bite of the burger, she closed her eyes.

  “Oh, my God.” She chewed for a moment. “This is amazing.” It might be airport fast-food but it was perfect.

  “I thought you’d like it.” He smiled at her. “You look like a girl who’d like enjoy a burger.”

  “You guessed right.” She took another bite. They ate in silence, watching the other passengers moving through the terminal. Aspyn had picked up Callum’s habit of eyeing everyone with suspicion. I wonder how long before I can stop thinking everyone is a killer.

  “When you’re done, we can walk around for a little bit. Stretch our legs.” Callum glanced over at her. “There’s also a couple shops here. I’ve got enough cash, if you like, you can buy some new clothes.”

  “You’re kidding? That would make me a very happy woman.”

  “I know how to make you even happier.”

  She glanced up at him. “Happier than a burger and new clothes?”

  “Even that. I know where you can get a shower.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  He was laughing at her. “You really don’t believe anything I say to you, do you? There’s a lounge with showers. For a price, one of them is yours.”

  “I’d love that. Both that’s…the clothes and the shower.” Aspyn finished the last of her burger, then finished off the remaining French fries. “Hurry up.” She gathered the Styrofoam containers and hea
ded for the nearest trash container.

  “You’re not a patient woman, are you?”

  She took his hands, tugging him to his feet. “Not with the prospect of a shower and clean clothes.”

  He stood, still laughing, and she took the remnants of his food, tossing it in the garbage. “Hey. I’m not done with that…”

  “I’ll buy you dinner, or something, later.” She took his hands again. “I’m enjoying the prospect of being a happy woman.”

  She followed him through the terminal to a row of shops, and into one that carried clothes.

  “All I need is a t-shirt and jeans, and some underwear. Just the basics.” She looked around. It was a high-end shop, and she hoped somewhere in here she could find something simple, and inexpensive. After all, it wasn’t her money.

  “I’ll meet you at the register in twenty minutes. Is that enough time to find what you need? Or are you like most women who need an afternoon to find one thing?”

  She caught the wolfish grin. With any other man, she’d have taken offense, but with Callum it was more like a good-natured challenge.

  “Fifteen.” She tossed him a grin over her shoulder as she headed toward the women’s section of the store.

  And true to her word, fifteen minutes later, she was waiting at the register with two t-shirts and a pair of jeans. And a couple pairs of panties and a new bra, in flaming scarlet silk. For some unfathomable reason she was mildly embarrassed by them, so she’d tucked them inside the t-shirts. The only lingerie they’d had were all lace and silk things, a far cry from her usual utilitarian cotton briefs and white bra.

  It was silly, really. But she found she was looking forward to putting them on. After a shower, to be clean and wearing something so unlike her normal clothes. She felt decadent and reckless. Even more so because they were being bought for her by a man she barely knew, in an airport halfway around the world.

  “You’re a woman of your word. I’m impressed.” Callum grinned at her and dropped a small pile of clothes on the counter. “Did you get everything you needed?”

  She nodded. “I did. Thanks for this, I really appreciate it.”