Chapter SIX
Medieval Ireland
–Tréan–
I KNEW THE moment Kaia finally trusted me enough to take my hand, the pitch-blackness I’d used to travel back in time would fade, and she would see her surroundings as I pulled her after me.
If I could have tossed her over my shoulder again and moved even faster, I would have, but having so much of her touching me put off a unique scent that risked the wrong people catching wind that she was here.
“What’s going on?”
she gasped into my mind, fortunately enough, heeding my warning that silence was best for now.
“Where are we?”
I had allowed wolves and close friends to speak to me telepathically for years, but I wasn’t prepared for how impactful it felt to hear her voice in my mind as our mating intensified.
It was different.
More profound and arousing than I’d anticipated.
There weren’t enough words to describe it. Nothing to prepare me for how perfect she would sound.
“I will tell you where we are soon,”
I assured her, heading down a path I knew well but suddenly saw through fresh eyes via our growing connection and how she saw things.
The wonder of my homeland in late summer.
Even in the moon-dappled darkness, there was no mistaking its verdant lushness and the fresh, earthy scent of woodland untouched by pollution.
It spoke to our inner beasts in a way that wolves of the future wouldn’t be able to experience any time after what they called the Industrial Age.
Gone on a smoky, coal-ridden wind that gave way to far worse, tainting so much more than humans realized, but wolves did.
All land and sea creatures did.
“This way,”
I said into Kaia’s mind, ducking down another slightly steeper path.
I thought I might need to slow down, given I sensed she had far more experience navigating a busy city than a root-ridden hilly forest, but her inner wolf progressed quickly, making her human half equally sure-footed.
We headed north until I knew we were safely away from enemy territory, but not yet to the safety of my own.
Stopping, I pointed out a thick root beside what appeared to be a man-sized hole that vanished beneath a huge boulder.
“We’re safest down there for now.
I’ll go first, then you follow. Use the root to keep from sliding. I’ll take your hand once you’re far enough down and guide you the rest of the way.”
“I think this might be more trust than I’m ready for.”
Kaia frowned from the hole to me.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
I gestured at the forest.
“Either that or take your chances here alone, surrounded by more than even you are ready for.”
Because she was tough and courageous.
No doubt about that.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Which would be what exactly?”
While tempted to put off the inevitable for just a few more minutes of normalcy between us, such as it was, I knew better than to deceive her when I needed her trust.
“You have traveled back over a thousand years in time to my homeland during an era far different than your own.”
I looked from the hole and the woodland back to her.
“I’ll tell you more, everything, but we must seek shelter because wolves in this day and age are different than yours.”
I gave her a warning look.
We were bigger and fiercer here.
“Wolves that might already be tracking you but cannot track you where I’m taking you.”
I knew this was a lot to ask and could only hope she sensed the danger she was in when I allowed my wolven gaze to connect with hers.
Hoped her inner beast understood how genuine I was.
Kaia shook her head slowly, her gaze never leaving mine, as she tried to figure out what to do next.
Endless questions rolled through her mind, but she kept quiet, setting it all aside so she could assess her next move.
Follow me or stay here and face whatever might be tracking her.
No place a newly turned twenty-first-century female wolf wanted to be.
Finally, after a stretch of dead silence broken only by the wind in the trees and crickets, Kaia held out her hand, palm up.
“Give me back my blades, and I'll consider following you.”
“That will leave me unarmed.”
“Exactly.”
I was powerful enough to get by without weapons using magic but it wasn't recommended in these parts.
Even so, I needed her to continue trusting me, so I handed them over.
Kaia eyed me warily for another stretch as she sheathed her blades before she nodded once, pulled what appeared to be a worn scrap of bandana from her pocket, and tied back her thick, black hair in a sloppy but sexy ponytail.
“Let’s go.”
Sensing nothing close, I half shimmied, half skidded down the hole without using the root, then waited.
Not surprisingly, Kaia didn’t use the root either but skidded down the hole with admirable agility, given she carried five blades, two of which were mine.
One of which clearly wanted to be hers right now despite my Viking friends gifting it to me.
I grabbed a torch from a wall bracket, chanted it aflame, and tried to take Kaia’s hand again, but she shook her head.
“I’m good, thanks.”
I knew she was confused and angry that she’d been brought here because her inner beast undoubtedly sensed I wasn’t lying.
We had traveled through time.
It was the human in her, however, that disallowed her from overreacting and giving into the fear anyone would feel in her position.
I had seen and sensed it already, but I couldn’t help but continue being impressed with her strength. How unbendable she was in her courageousness.
Though tempted to tell her to watch her step as we traveled through an earthen tunnel toward my territory, I knew better.
Whether frustrated with me or not, Kaia preferred to find her way and navigate things alone until she understood them and could, in turn, protect others just like me.
So, it would be no easy task for us to realize we were now one.
To truly understand we weren’t fighting our own battles anymore but fighting them together.
“We will rest here for the eve,”
I eventually said aloud, confident all but my blood brothers would hear, let alone sense us down here.
I put the torch in a wall bracket, chanted flames to life in a small fire pit, and urged her to sit in a wooden chair near the fire.
Kaia took in the small rustic cave-like earthen room with its scant furnishings, eyed the small fur-covered bed warily, and frowned.
“If you think we’re going to—”
“I don’t,”
I assured her, never so certain of anything.
“When we finally mate properly, it will not be here, mo maité, but in a place of your choosing as long as it’s on my territory.”
“Cocky, much?”
she exclaimed, shaking her head.
“Too cocky, I’d say.”
“Probably.”
But it would happen, and we both knew it.
Had known it from the moment we ran together, then again when she dragged in my scent off the fur I ensured she woke under.
Urging her to sit, I gestured at the wooden cups and plate of meat I’d manifested on the small table in front of the fire.
“You will find strong, black coffee in one cup and bourbon in the other. Drink what you like.”
“You might know what I like, but don’t think you have me figured out,”
Kaia said under her breath, clearly needing the whisky because she chose that cup over the other and took a solid swig.
She didn’t sit but stood with her back to the flames, a strategic move lest she need to utilize the fire to fight me off.
“I’m a vegetarian.”
She shot the succulent meat on the platter a dirty look.
“I don’t eat meat.”
“You do now because you’re a carnivore.”
I sat in the chair on the other side of the table and took a few swigs of ale from my cup, looking forward to naturally brewed ale from my village.
Noting Kaia’s continued dubious look despite the twitch of her nostrils as she caught the meat’s scent, I manifested a plate of her favorite vegetables.
“But in case you feel the need to prove otherwise.”
Rather than rise to the challenge, she threw caution to the wind and downed half her cup in one long swig rather than drink it slowly and keep her wits about her.
At least those were her thoughts.
I knew better.
She fought just as well when intoxicated as she did sober because she was a survivor to the core.
A survivor because she had to be.
I still couldn’t see why in her mind, but she would tell me in time, and she’d tell me all of it.
Every last bit.
And I would do the same.
“Talk,”
Kaia said bluntly, her steady gaze never leaving me. “Now.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Starting with how I’m supposed to know Storm and Naya are safe because none of this feels safe.
Not one damn bit of it.”
“They are safe because they’re under Uncle Adlin’s protection now,”
I began, getting to the point because that’s what I would want if I were in her position.
“His full name, no matter the incarnate you meet, has always been Laird Adlin MacLomain.
He was conceived by a Druid mother and Irish King and born into Scotland via the gods.
Since then, staying true to the God-fearing, powerful arch-wizard he is, he has overseen and protected countless people, no matter their faith.”
I shrugged.
“He truly excels in bringing true love together and seeing through Happily Ever Afters, as he puts it.”
“And he’s your uncle?”
Kaia said, dumbfounded, even though she knew I spoke the truth because of our growing bond.
“How’d that happen exactly?”
How to simplify everything until we were fully bonded and she knew the answer to every question before she asked it?
“In my last life, I was born into a curse designed by my mother to protect me from an evil druidess or witch, as you would call her,”
I replied.
“Ultimately, after all was said and done, my mother was reborn into the twenty-first century, and my father, Adlin’s brother, was a medieval Irish king like myself.
Adlin had no choice but to hide me in a different century upon birth, where I lived a full life as a wolf shifter before being reborn as my mother’s familiar, yet still a shifter.
As time went on, I returned to what had become of my pack and started anew.”
Naturally, Kaia’s expression had grown increasingly skeptical as I spoke.
It was a lot for someone to take in who hadn’t realized supernatural creatures existed up until a month ago.
Yet again, via our connection, there could be no doubt I told the truth.
“So your mother bit you?”
she assumed softly, her expression odd now.
Dumbfounded and confused, if I wasn’t mistaken.
Maybe even a little angry based on the brief flare of her vibrant blue wolf eyes, which would make sense because a bite had meant nothing but pain, fear, and change for her so far.
“No.”
I shook my head.
“She created me, and I became...”
How to phrase this correctly? “The first of my kind in these parts.
The first of the Wolves of Ossary.
We are considered in your era as no more than a mythological breed of half men, half wolves born of campfire tales.
Monsters, all. Creatures of the moon and night and horrible things.”
I took another swig of ale, hating the term.
“We have long been called werewolves.”
I knew what Kaia would ask before she uttered a word, so I told her things I hadn't even told my parents lest either of them feel guilty.
Because life hadn’t always been easy.
“In the beginning, things were different...confusing.
I barely understood what I was half the time because, more often than not, I was a wolf.
The lines blurred.
Humanity and beast were one.”
My gaze settled on the fire as I traveled back.
“I didn’t go after people.
It never even occurred to me until one night, defending my latest meager kill, I bit a poor farmer when he was trying to save his chickens from me.
Chickens,”
I whispered, still struggling with it to this day.
“And so a curse only ever designed to protect me spread and morphed over the centuries.”
However ashamed I remained, I did Kaia the courtesy of meeting her eyes.
“No matter how many generations and bloodlines split off from that farmer and spread across the world, you are one way or another, distantly born of my bite.
We are not bonded in bite like those of our kind are in your era, but I am, without a doubt, at fault for where you are today and the curse you suffer.”
Kaia stared at me for a long, drawn-out moment, and all fell silent except the crackle of the fire.
Eventually, she swallowed hard, downed the rest of her bourbon, sank into the chair across the table from me, set her cup down slowly, and slid it my way.
“I’ll take more.”
I filled it with a chant, slid it back, and waited.
Where I thought fresh fear might spike through her or her thoughts would be scattered as she grappled with my revelation, they weren’t.
All had gone strangely still inside her mind as she came to terms with what I had shared.
She didn’t look away from me in shame or disgust but kept her steady gaze on my face.
On my eyes.
Almost as if she were trying to see something in me I didn’t realize was there.
As though she sought out corners of my soul I didn’t know existed.
Saw a loneliness in me even my blood brothers couldn’t fulfill.
Rather than swig more bourbon, she twirled the cup slowly, methodically, not drinking it, before she finally spoke.
“Even though I’m tempted to say your mother, not you, cursed us because that’s what anyone in their right mind would think hearing what you just told me, I know you don’t feel that way any more than I do after being inside your mind and sensing how much she loves you.
Even Adlin could be blamed for his role in things, but after meeting him and, again, being inside your mind, I know he only ever tried to protect you.”
She paused, clearly considering what she said next before going on.
“And I don’t think you’re any more to blame than them.”
A frown settled on her beautiful face, and she shook her head.
“I’d say the bad guy in all this is the enemy they tried to save you from.”
Kaia rolled her shoulders as if shaking off a chill.
“Someone dark enough that they’d go to any length to keep you safe.”
She inhaled deeply as if pulling in my very essence before she exhaled.
“And I’d say you’ve been trying to make up for your first bite from the moment it happened, doing your best to protect anyone who needed protecting.”
She wasn’t the first to deduce that, but for some reason, likely because we were bonding, her way of looking at it meant so much more.
In fact, she touched me so deeply, it took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep my expression neutral and tip my cup at her in acknowledgment before hiding my gratitude that she understood me so well behind a long swig of ale.
I underestimated something in that swig, though.
Something she didn’t hesitate to share before I had a chance to set my mug down, and it caught me off guard.
So much so that I nearly made the mistake of telling her she might think I was her noble creator, yet I was no such thing.
If anything, she would soon learn I was anything but.