His absence made an enormous hole in her life, disproportional to how long they had known each other. But the feeling was real, even though she knew her wolf was multiplying her misery. At least she understood now how shifters’ relationships were about more than love. They were about belonging together and completing each other in Might, as if the universe itself bound couples together. Love was just a sweetening – or a cause for suffering, as it was in this case.
She and her wolf agreed on one thing. They would not go to Rafe. It was their mate’s duty to come and claim them. So she hadn’t called him either, even though her wolf was driving her crazy and she could have used his help. As long as he had been near, her wolf had been fairly manageable, but without him she didn’t have the tools for handling its demands.
It didn’t like the humans around her, the scents or the sounds, even though they were exactly the same as before it had manifested. Everything irritated it, making her cross too, and she was exhausted for constantly struggling for control with it.
Had Rafe known it would be this difficult for her to get accustomed to her wolf? In that case, wouldn’t it have served his purpose better if he had stayed around and helped her process her new life instead of giving her space to work it out herself? He did want her to become a shifter, didn’t he?
She wasn’t sure what she wanted. She knew she was strong enough to handle the mental side of becoming a non-human and face the possible discrimination because of it. Her own father had treated her like a second-class citizen and she had survived that. But the actual shifting scared her. She feared pain, but more importantly she feared losing control of her human side. What if she couldn’t shift back? Rafe would be able to force her wolf to shift back to human, but she didn’t want to count on him. She should learn how to handle the wolf herself.
Only, no matter what she told herself, she did need Rafe. An incredible new world had opened for her. It tickled her to be part of this great secret and she would have wanted to share it with him. The tube was full of wonders in the mornings: a leopard-shifter in a pin-stripe suit heading to the City, sitting next to an unsuspecting human colleague, talking about closing figures in Asia; a gaggle of children in school uniforms, half of whom were fox cubs, bantering with a group from a different school, this one including non-predatory shifters like bunnies and deer; a nurse heading home from a nightshift who was most definitely a vampire, although Charly didn’t know how she could tell that.
She had seen people like them every morning and hadn’t paid much attention to them, but she was different now. She watched, fascinated, how the human hosts didn’t bat an eye while their auras greeted each other either with deference, caution, or barely restrained hostility, their lack of reaction a survival tactic. She longed to be part of that secret world, but until her wolf learned to behave better, she didn’t dare to approach anyone. Already she was having trouble keeping her face straight when her beast tried to make everyone’s acquaintance. She was seriously considering taking a cab to work and back until it calmed down.
At least she could relax at work. Even the aftershaves didn’t bother her as badly as before. Everyone in the office was human so her wolf calmed down pretty fast after its initial curiosity had passed, allowing her to concentrate on her work. But since her most important client was Rafe, her mind tended to wander.
At least the case was going well. On Tuesday, she was contacted by Lord Foley’s personal lawyer, Christian Eliot, a short but nicely-built and powerful man who looked about thirty. He had laughing eyes, a bed-head and a scruffy chin, and he wore a vintage Rolling Stones t-shirt with his suit instead of a shirt and a tie. Nothing in his demeanour indicated why a vampire as scary as Foley would have a lawyer so cool, but looks were definitely deceiving when it came to vampires.
“I handled the previous transaction for this piece of land as well,” he said with an infectious grin when they were behind closed doors in a negotiating room. “Though I can’t remember why we bought it. Something to do with fishing, I suppose.”
“The landlord at the pub in Betchworth said there’s no fish in that creek,” she noted, hiding her reaction to his announcement. It was really difficult for her to comprehend that some people were much older than they looked.
“No fish?” he exclaimed in mock horror. “Of course there’s fish.”
It figured the landlord had lied. “So the landlord is part of this,” she said, and his laughing demeanour turned lethal so fast it was like another person had taken his place. This one she could believe was a vampire warlord’s lawyer, or a Circle warrior himself.
“Yes.” He told her that Kieran had managed to track the shooter, who had subsequently confessed that the pub’s owner was leading an anti-shifter group in Betchworth and had hired him to shoot Rafe. Unfortunately, when the Greenwood clan had moved in on him, he had been nowhere to be found. That worried Charly. “Never fear,” Christian consoled her, noticing her anxiety. “We’ll get the bastard.” Though she didn’t doubt him for a second, she couldn’t help fearing for Rafe’s safety.
The fear for him was so all-encompassing that it made all other fears insignificant. Even the one about confronting her parents. She had thought to keep her newfound knowledge a secret from them, but that would have been cowardly, not to mention that it would be impossible to hide her new life if she agreed to release her wolf. So, that Thursday, she took a cab to her parents’ place by Regent’s Park. She didn’t bother calling them beforehand but timed her visit to dinner time, knowing they would be home.
Her parents’ housekeeper opened the door for her and informed her that Mr and Mrs Thornton hadn’t sat down to dinner yet, which was propitious. Her father greatly disliked having his dinner interrupted. She went to the parlour where her parents were sitting opposite each other on antique sofas, sipping their drinks. Wilfred Thornton was a tall and imposing man in his late sixties, with steel-grey hair that had begun to thin after his stroke. Elisabeth Thornton was a couple of years younger than her husband and ten inches shorter, with a round figure she reined in with whalebones, and perfect blonde curls courtesy of an expensive hairdresser. Both were impeccably dressed even though they were dining alone at home.
Her mother’s perfume hit Charly the moment she stepped into the room, but thanks to her wolf, she was able to handle it. Handling her wolf proved to be more difficult. It didn’t like her parents and it kept straining in her chest, wanting to attack them. And what was worse, it made her want to attack them too. But she knew from lifelong experience that the only way to deal with her parents was to keep her head cool. At this, she had become an expert.
Behave.
Her parents looked mildly surprised to see her, but not displeased. Then again, they didn’t look delighted either. Her father got up to pour her a glass of sherry. Charly didn’t like the taste of it, but it was no use asking for anything else. Her father held that women shouldn’t drink anything but sherry before dinner.
“What brings you here?” he asked, handing her the drink. “Are you regretting your foolish decision to reject the place I got you?”
Charly had actually managed to forget that, but she hid the annoyance the reminder brought. “No, I’m very happy at Latimer and Holby, thank you.” It was true too. If her boss still held grudge over their battle of wills, he didn’t show it, and her cases were as interesting as before. She took the plunge, not wanting to give her father a chance to continue with the topic. “I came here to talk with you about how you had my wolf bound when I was a child.”
The faces of her parents turned to rigid masks. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” her mother said calmly.
But her father just harrumphed. “Found out about that, did you?”
Charly was a bit surprised he hadn’t tried to deny it too. Knowing it would be useless to ask for explanations, or to expect an apology, she just nodded.
“Yes. And I was told that the binding can be reversed. I’m considering doing that.”
&
nbsp; “I absolutely forbid you to even consider it,” Wilfred Thornton said with his most autocratic tone.
It had no effect on her. She had survived meeting a man as scary as Lord Foley, and the effect of Jamie’s mere gaze was stronger than her father’s anger.
“That is not for you to decide,” she said as evenly as she could, not wanting to get angry. It would be no use. “You’ve already crippled me once. I won’t allow you to stop me from healing.” That’s what it would be, she understood now, healing.
In a thunderous voice, her father bellowed, “Crippled you? We made it possible for you to have a normal life without being treated like a freak.”
She just shook her head. “Since you have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m letting that pass. I just came to tell you that I’ve learned the truth and that I’m most likely going to take the opportunity.”
“If you become a filthy shifter, you’ll have no place in this family.” There was no heat of anger in Wilfred’s voice anymore. The decree was absolute.
Charly’s heart began to ache. She wasn’t close to her parents, but it hurt nonetheless to be cast aside so easily. She hid the heartache behind a polite smile, and didn’t try to convince them to change their minds. Her face a pale mask holding back her emotions, she got up and turned to leave.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “You don’t know what you’ll miss.”
Not surprisingly, her wolf had other ideas. It tried to make her stay and lash out at her parents. It occurred to her that it had been her wolf all along that had made her so aggressive, but even now that it was free, her self-controlling techniques were still working. She curbed her wolf’s anger with a tight command and left, not looking back. Her parents might relent later, but in the meantime, she would have to face the fact that she would lose her parents if she released the wolf.
She didn’t realise how sad the night had made her until she found herself before Jack’s door some time later with no clear recollection of how she had gotten there. The moment he opened the door for her, she burst out crying, taking him by surprise. He looked around, as if searching for someone to handle the emotional female for him, but since he was alone, he bravely shouldered the responsibility and pulled her indoors, trying to soothe her, patting her on the back clumsily until she stopped crying.
She studied her brother with teary eyes. They looked so alike. He was a couple of inches taller, but their colours were similar, as were their lean builds; his just came with surprisingly masculine strength, considering that he probably couldn’t spare much time for working out. But lines of responsibility were already adding character to his face, and in a couple of years his expertly-cut black hair would start showing the first signs of grey.
A realisation hit Charly like a jackhammer, so overwhelming her crying started again. If she accepted her wolf, she would live for centuries while everyone she knew would grow old and eventually die. She wasn’t close with Jack, but suddenly the thought of watching him die seemed too much.
“What is it? Has something happened? Are you ill or something?” Jack sounded almost panicky. He walked her to the sofa and sat down next to her. Bob trotted over to them and pressed its heavy head on her lap. After its initial bafflement at her change, it had accepted her as she was. After the rejection by her parents, it felt wonderful. Jack took her hand, digging out a soft linen handkerchief from his pocket with the other.
She wiped her eyes. “No, I’m not ill.” If she had gained the shifters’ ability to heal with her wolf, the opposite would be true. “I recently found out something about myself that mother and father have kept from me.”
He looked bewildered. “Like what? If you’re trying to tell me you’re adopted, try the other leg. We look too much alike, and too much like father, to be anything but his get.”
Charly acknowledged this with a nod and just jumped to it. “No, I learned I wasn’t born human.”
To his credit, Jack didn’t laugh or get angry. He just swallowed a couple of times, an uncomprehending look on his face. “What are you then?”
“I was born a wolf-shifter.”
This truly stunned her brother. “A latent-one,” he said carefully, revealing that he actually had some knowledge about two-natured races.
She sighed, surprised at how upset it still made her that her true nature had been kept from her. “No, I’m a genuine shifter. And mother and father knew it too. They had my second nature blocked with some kind of magic so that I was unable to shift.”
Jack nodded as a memory dawned. “You were a horrible child, weren’t you? And then you suddenly just calmed. Mind you, you’ve never been easy to deal with,” he then added with a pointed look, but she let it slide. “So … how did you find out?”
Happy, if surprised, that he was taking the news so calmly, she explained. “I came across a vampire during a case and he told me. He said he had never encountered anything similar.”
Jack digested this for some while, but Charly didn’t know what was causing him the most trouble, that she was a shifter or that she had met a vampire. “Is the block removable?” he finally asked.
She nodded. “The vampire thinks so.”
He frowned, giving the matter serious thought in his thorough manner. It was a relief for Charly, who had feared he would treat her like their parents, and cast her out outright. “Are you going to remove it?”
That was the million-pound question. “I don’t know. The wolf wants free, but I’m not sure I’m strong enough to face such a tremendous change in my life.”
“You’re strong enough to face anything,” he assured her with a warm smile, and she found herself smiling in return, happy for his praise. Then he frowned. “What do you mean ‘the wolf wants’?”
She explained to him about the aura. He looked both curious and disbelieving. She doubted many humans knew about the auras. But all he asked was another insightful question: “I get a feeling there’s more to it than simply you choosing whether or not you want to embrace your second nature?”
She sighed; she couldn’t help it. “Yeah.” She told him about the dinner with their parents. He didn’t say a word, listening with an intent look on his face. She had thought to keep Rafe out of this, because he was Jack’s neighbour and she wasn’t sure if Jack knew the truth about him, but she related the basics about their affair as well, without naming names.
“So this chap claims you’re his destined wife simply because your wolves agree, and then he doesn’t even call?” The look on Jack’s face was full of big-brotherly outrage for such callous treatment, although Charly knew he wasn’t exactly a considerate boyfriend himself when he bothered to date.
“Yes, that’s basically it. But I can’t really blame him. I needed space.”
Jack nodded, getting off his high horse. He shot her a wry glance. “So you have an entity inside you that not only wants to be free but should be free and a soul-mate waiting for you, and still you waver?”
“I just feel like none of this is in my control,” she explained feebly.
Jack shook his head, exasperated. “I have a newsflash for you, little sister. Nothing in life is in our control. So just go with it.” But it really wasn’t in her nature to cede control. Jack knew it and so he changed the topic. “What are you going to do about mother and father?”
She sighed, the hurt returning. “I don’t know. It’s nothing I didn’t expect. I think I’ll let them be. It’s their loss, really.” Then she gave him a hesitant look. He was so like their father that she couldn’t be sure what he really thought of her revelation. “What do you think? Should I become a wolf-shifter?”
Jack leaned towards her. “That’s really not something I can decide for you, Charlotte,” he said gravely.
“I know, but it would make things easier if I knew you wouldn’t shun and despise me for it.” To her annoyance, she had tears in her eyes again.
Jack squeezed her hand he had been holding the whole time. “Don’t worry. I’m mo
re open-minded than that.” She must have looked disbelieving, because he sneered. “I may look like father, and I may act like him most of the time too, but I’m not him. I have two-natured business associates and if I can deal with them, I can deal with you too. It’s not like you can become more difficult than you already are, can you?”
Charly smiled through her tears of relief. She hadn’t known Jack meant so much to her until she faced losing him. “I don’t know about that. I can be pretty difficult when I choose to be.” And then, to proof how much she had changed already, she reached out to hug him where he sat. Utterly bewildered by the unaccustomed affection, he hugged her back clumsily, patting her a few times.
“There, now. No need to start acting crazy just because you’re no longer human,” he said, returning her to her seat. She didn’t mind. Now that she knew she wouldn’t lose Jack, she was able to make up her mind. She would let Foley break the block at the next full moon. Only three weeks to it, but the wait seemed interminably long. And she definitely couldn’t wait that long to see Rafe. She had waited too long as it was.
Chapter Twenty-four
Raphael’s week hadn’t been any better than Charlotte’s. He was miserable without her, her absence like a void next to him, the strain unbearable as Might worked to pull them together. What made him feel worse was the knowledge that their separation was his doing. Even as he had promised her space, he had known that he shouldn’t let her go, but acting on some strange chivalry he had done so anyway. He would only drive her away if he pushed her, so he would let her be until she was ready to come to him, no matter what her decision was, even if it killed him. Which it just might do, judging by the misery his heart was causing him.
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