Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

W hat the hell had he meant by that?

He was a very confusing man. One minute he made her feel all warm and gooey inside. The next she was all hot and bothered. And then he'd just piss her off.

That last statement should have left her firmly in the pissed-off category, but it didn't. She felt an unusual combination of all four. The man was exasperating and seductive as hell—all at the same time. It was confusing, and yet she'd never felt more at ease with anyone in her life.

Breagha and Mairead had once been witches and belonged to a powerful coven, but when the coven found out Breagha had been made wolf, they had cast her out. Mairead had opted to go with her out of solidarity, and on their own the two had advanced their skills, power, and knowledge to become sorceresses. When Renata was a child, the two women had taught her the ways of their magick and indoctrinated her into their belief system.

Her mother had always assured her that she was loved, and she would have endured what she'd had to all over again in order to have Renata. But as Renata grew, she came to suspect that she was the child of an unwanted liaison between her parents, and neither her mother nor her aunt would talk about her sire.

Renata had been taught that nothing good came from being with a man or a wolf, and Breagha warned her against giving in to the wolfen side of her physiology. Renata often wondered if they would have told her about being a wolf-shifter at all if it hadn't been for the nightmares that plagued her as she began her teenage years. As far as she knew, her mother had never shifted. When she was in college, Renata had met other wolf-shifters, but her mother encouraged her to keep her distance, lest she be forced into a bonding that was not of her choice.

After closing the bathroom door, Renata removed her clothes and her minimal make-up and stepped into the shower. The steam feature was fairly simple to operate and even though the heat was scorching outside, Branson had the central air on, so the house was very comfortable. He was right, the combination of water and steam did a lot to restore her. However, it destroyed her perfectly straight hair. The moist heat from the shower had undone all her work of straightening and flat-ironing and her locks now hung in loose ringlets down to the small of her back. She pulled it all back into a high ponytail, securing it with a scrunchie she'd put in her bag. She thought about getting redressed but decided if they were going in the hot tub, she might as well put on her bronze-colored maillot.

When she re-entered the sitting area, Bran was seated in a comfortable chair, with his legs on either side of an enormous floor pillow. He'd pulled the coffee table over so that it was next to the pillow and had set out a large tray that had several kinds of cheese, crackers, vegetables and hummus. Next to the tray were two frosted bottles of Otter Ale.

"You look gorgeous."

Renata could feel the heat in her cheeks rising. "Thank you. It looks like you went to a lot of trouble."

She wore a bronze colored one piece swimsuit with a deep V-neck that tied behind her neck. The torso of the suit had three cut-outs down the middle that were compressed through a bead so that the beads went straight down her centerline with the openings narrowed at the bead and then opening up as they flared out. Renata loved this suit, it made her feel sexy without feeling skanky and she felt as though she could actually swim in it without falling out.

"Not really. The appetizers were already made, and the floor pillow was over by the fireplace. I just thought it would be easier for me to work on that headache and dizziness if you were sitting in front of me."

She managed to lower herself onto the pillow with less of her natural clumsiness than usual. She nearly got tangled up in her own feet, but Bran's hand was on her immediately, steadying her so that she made it to the ground without injury or embarrassment.

"Thank you," she said, hoping he didn't think she was too uncoordinated. "I thought it would be easier to change into my swimsuit since we're going in the hot tub. And you were right about the steam shower. It felt so good, and… Sorry, I tend to start blithering when I'm nervous."

"I make you nervous?" he asked.

She arched her eyebrow at him. "I've no doubt you make a lot of women nervous."

"I don't try to," Bran said, looking sincere. "And after this morning I have no interest in other women."

Renata sighed, frustrated that he had started down this path again. "Don't."

"I'm not, I'm just telling you what I feel."

Before she could say anything else, he clapped his hands and rubbed them together several times. The sound startled her, and she was surprised again when he placed his warm hands on the tops of her shoulders near the base of her neck. The second his strong thumbs started to stroke her skin, all the surprise and tension faded away and she moaned in response.

"That feels incredible," she said in a dreamy voice.

"Good. I want you to just close your eyes and let go. I'll take care of you."

There was a deep, resonant rumbling that seemed to be coming from him. She felt it more than heard it. Why did she sense such a strong connection to this man? This wolf?

Renata closed her eyes and felt her body relaxing even more. "Can I say something?"

He chuckled, the sound sweeping over her body in a visceral way. She was glad that he couldn't see her nipples tightening in response.

"You can do anything you want, including doing nothing at all."

"So the others on this dig aren't like us?"

"You mean are they wolf-shifters? No. In fact, I haven't felt any kind of shifter energy since we got in the van."

He hit a particularly tense spot and she winced, breathing in sharply.

"Sorry," Bran said in response. "I'll try to be gentler."

"What if I don't want gentle?" He chuckled again. Good thing he found her amusing. "I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"You did, and for now I'm willing to play this any way you want. But that won't always be the case."

Renata's muscles and nerve endings seemed to react to his touch and the sound of his voice. There was something about Bran that called to something inside her. It frightened and intrigued her at the same time.

"What did you mean earlier, when you said something about a fated mate?"

"It's a term our kind has for the one we believe is our soul mate. The one being we find our way to again and again in each life because we belong together. I will answer any questions you have, but I need to know how much you know about our kind. I take it you aren't a member of the Inverness Pack."

Renata thought back to a time in college when she'd been curious and thought about finding out more about the Inverness Pack. There had been a time when she'd been lonely enough to consider it, but her mother's warnings always stopped her. "No," she said firmly. "Is that a problem?"

"No. In some ways it makes things easier. Our kind existed long before non-shifters but on a similar evolutionary path. The ability to shift gave us certain advantages. Not only are we able to shift, but we seem to have developed greater genetic immunity, the ability to heal faster, and live longer lives."

"But not all of us are born as shifters, right?"

"Correct. And not all shifters are the same. For instance, a human can be turned to become a true shifter— they can transition between the two different forms at will. And it works for either gender. Males and females can be turned as well as turn others. But male mountain lion shifters are the only ones who can initiate the transition for their kind. And while their mates' DNA is altered, the turned she-cat can never shift into a mountain lion."

"That hardly seems fair," said Renata.

"Agreed. But that is why when there seemed to be a shortage of natural-born she-wolves, a monster of a man set up a trafficking ring and kidnapped both she-wolves and human females to turn them himself. The resulting offspring were always shifters, and the she-wolf population began to increase."

"Is he still doing it?"

"This is where I get to brag. My mother was one of his victims. She and several of her friends turned the tables on him and closed the books on his whole operation."

He moved his hands, so his thumbs were now stroking the muscles between her shoulder blades. He used his strength to press firmly and rub along her upper back. Her head fell forward, and Renata felt the world collapse until all that existed was the feel of his hands, the way her body responded and the sound of the low, sensual rumble that seemed to fill the air around her.

"How's the dizziness?" he asked quietly.

"Much better. The nausea too. I think even the headache is going away."

"Why don't you take a sip of the ale and get some of that food into you? Let me see what I can't do about relieving that headache."

She placed some cheese on two seeded crackers and handed him one. She popped hers into her mouth, whole. "Oh, that's good," she said, still crunching on her food.

"It is," he agreed. "I thought the hummus and pita bread looked good but decided I ought to do vegetables."

"Not me," she countered. "If I have the choice between pita bread or veggies for my hummus, I'm picking the bread. Oh, who am I kidding? I'd pick just about anything over vegetables." She laughed at her own unplanned honesty.

"How do you feel about a nice field green salad with homemade bleu cheese dressing?"

"I assume you're going to add croutons," Renata stated.

Bran laughed. "Isn't it illegal not to have croutons on a salad?" he asked.

"I don't know that it's against the law, but I think it throws something off in the universe."

"Extra croutons it is!" he exclaimed. "I was going to prepare salad, steak, and baked potatoes."

"Yum. Almost makes up for the stale protein bars and bottles of water on the flight over."

"You should have said something. I can fix the steaks now, if you're that hungry. Or I can make you a quick pasta dish. There's pasta and all the stuff to make pesto."

"I'm afraid I'm terribly unfashionable. I'll take the carbs any time."

"Pasta with pesto it is."

"What kind of alien being are you?" she teased. "Gorgeous body, magic hands, and you can cook? You are not real." She watched as his face seemed to darken. "I'm sorry. Did I say something wrong?"

"No, it's just that every single witty comeback I can come up with is either incredibly inappropriate or you don't have the proper frame of reference since you weren't raised in a pack."

"There really are whole packs of wolf-shifters?" she asked looking back over her shoulder.

He nodded. "All over the world. My pack is the Ravenscar Pack and as the name would imply, we're located in Ravenscar. Can I ask how you and your mother ended up in Scotland? Your last name is clearly Spanish."

Renata looked down at her hands. "My mother would never talk about it and she and my aunt had different last names. From what they did tell me, I just assumed my father was Spanish."

"Didn't it make it difficult for you when you were growing up—people not knowing who you were father was or anything about him?"

"Not really. They just told everyone that her husband had been Spanish and that he'd left my mother. For all I know that's the truth."

"Did you ever want to find out? You must have been curious at some point."

"Yes. In my rotten, rebellious teen years, I demanded that my mother tell me. The look on both her and my aunt's faces when I confronted them! They looked like I had punched them both in the stomach. I apologized and swore I'd never ask again."

"I take it they're both gone now?"

"Yes, my mother died five years ago and my aunt the year before that. I was attending the university and living in Edinburgh at the time, trying to decide what I wanted to do. I'd just received a job offer as an assistant curator in London."

"London is a lot closer to Oxford than Edinburgh," said Bran, as if trying to convince her of something, but she didn't know what.

Renata chose to ignore whatever point he'd tried to make. "So you've known you were a wolf-shifter all your life?"

"Yes, I was raised amongst a whole pack of them. It was a great way to grow up. My parents were—still are—crazy about each other. My father is alpha to the pack and my mother in addition to being his female counterpart has dedicated her life to helping she-wolves that have been displaced or hurt by those who should have been protecting them."

"Like who?" she asked.

"Unscrupulous alphas who think we still exist in feudal times and that she-wolves can be moved around like chess pieces. My mother works to find them a safe place. One of the worst was the alpha I told you about who made a business out of trafficking she-wolves—my mother was one of them. She's been fighting for justice for herself and all the others he hurt ever since."

"Isn't that dangerous? Why didn't your father try to stop her?"

Bram laughed ruefully. "When you meet my mother you'll see. I once asked my father about trying to stop her and keep her safe at all times. He said he'd have more luck standing on top of the cliffs that surround the bay where our home is located and shouting at the rain for it to stop."

"Did she find all the women who that monster hurt?" she asked, turning to face him.

"All but one. When the wolf-shifters attacked his last stronghold there was a rumor that one of the women was being kept separate from the rest. When they tried to find her, she was gone. Every once in a while, my mother comes across a clue, but has never been able to locate her. It hasn't stopped her from looking though or helping others she finds in similar situations."

"She sounds inspiring."

"She is," said Bran, nodding. "They, meaning our kind, call her the Madonna of the North, because her sister Catherine is known as the Madonna of the DeMedici Pack in Tuscany."

"They were both turned?"

"Yes. My Aunt Catherine fell in love with the Alpha of the DeMedici Pack and asked him to turn her. My mother was snatched off the streets of Florence and turned without her consent. She went through hell. My father likes to say he rescued her." Bran grinned. "My mother maintains they rescued each other. I tend to agree with her. Because it wasn't her choice, my father has tried to ensure that she never regrets agreeing to become his mate and all that it entails. He does everything he can to make her life sweet and good."

"I don't know if this is appropriate to ask, but have you ever turned yourself into a wolf?"

"All the time. I love to run free as a wolf. There's a deeper connection to everything when I've shifted. Don't you do it?"

"I haven't shifted very many times in my life. The first time I was depressed and confused. I went for a brief run, and it scared me to death. After I'd shifted, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to shift back. The last time was the night my mother died. There didn't seem any way to fully express my grief…"

"So you shifted and howled at the moon," he said gently touching her shoulder.

She arched her eyebrow. "How did you know?"

"You're wolf. To howl is the way we express some of our deepest emotions, especially those that are hard to grapple with as a human. If you'd like, we can shift and go for some runs while we're here."

"Are there wolves around here?"

"A small population of purebreds—those who can't shift into humans. But it doesn't matter. There are none in Great Britain, but we shifters are thriving. You just need to be careful where and when you shift if there are no native purebreds in the area."

"But you said there are purebreds here."

"Yes, but only a handful. Arabian wolves are a much smaller subspecies than our gray wolves and are generally colored differently so they blend better into the landscape."

"It sounds like we'd stick out like a sore thumb," she said, her brow wrinkling as if she was confused.

"We would if standing side-by-side in broad daylight. But if we're careful, run at night or at least when it isn't full light and we make sure to avoid close sightings by humans, we should be fine."

Bran stroked her hair reassuringly. "There's a gate that leads out of the back garden and up into the foothills," he said, as if trying to convince her to try it with him. "I was going to scope it out as a human before taking a run."

"I don't know that I want to do that."

"No pressure. I'll let you know when I'm going, and you can decide then. Now, why don't you turn back around and let me see if I can't help with your headache?"

She stayed where she was, facing him. "Why did you say you couldn't eradicate it completely unless you claimed me?"

"Because what you're feeling is the effect of being called to your fated mate."

"You did this to me?" she said in an accusatory tone.

"Not really." He shrugged. "It's fate—thus the term fated mate . It is what it is. If it helps at all, I feel it too. The difference is because I grew up in a pack, I knew what it was the minute I felt it, and I find it exciting to know that you're near."

She shook her head. "And we are now officially out of my comfort zone."

He grinned at her. "I'll see what I can do about that too."