Chapter 5 #3
This had to be a Scottish legend brought on by the storm and candlelight, but she would play along—especially since, for some inexplicable reason, it felt so right to be here in his arms. But the logical side of her couldn’t help but speak up.
“The world is already a pretty chaotic place. Have you not watched the news lately?”
“The current chaos is nothing compared to the soul-shattering darkness of Morrigan and her ilk.” He slid his fingers along her jawline and up into her hair, cupping her cheek in his hand. “Our souls recognize each other even though this is the first time we have met in this life.”
It would be so nice to believe in such a lovely story, and her heart ached at the thought of finding a true partner to stand at her side and help her battle this cold, cruel world.
His eyes held a sincerity that almost made her believe that such a thing might be possible.
But instead, she forced herself to push away, sitting upright, then standing. “I can’t do this. Not yet. I’m sorry.”
He nodded with a sadness that made her heart hurt. “I understand, lass. More than ye know.”
“I’ll get you a blanket and more pillows.” She had to get out of the room before she weakened and changed her mind. Hurrying to the cupboard, she grabbed what he needed, then piled them on the end of the couch. “I’ll see you in the morning. Sleep well, Mathison.”
“Aye, lass. Sleep well.”
* * *
As Calia disappeared into her bedroom and closed the door, Mathison wanted to throw back his head and roar. So close. So feckin’ close. He’d felt her soul reaching for his and knew she’d felt the same.
“She will never relent and accept us,” his wolf said. “Her pain is too much. We should leave and wait for the next incarnation.”
“Ye are a damn fool if ye think I mean to give up so easily. How could ye even suggest such a thing?” He jumped up from the couch and paced the length of the room, both unable and unwilling to sit and idly wonder what he should do next. And that was the crux of it. He had no feckin’ idea.
Drawing Calia into their connection was not as simple as wooing a hesitant lass to his bed. He needed her to come to him and wish to stay—not only to break the curse but to heal the brokenness he’d lived with for so very long.
“The old one helped us with the storm, and we wasted it.”
“We wasted nothing. Some headway was made. I thought ye wanted this match as much as I?” Dubh’s sudden inclination to toss everything aside hinted at something deeper. “Tell me. I would hear it.”
“There is more to her than we thought.”
“Aye, and what is this more that suddenly strikes fear into ye?”
“I sensed…”
“What?”
His wolf remained uncharacteristically silent.
“I will discover what ye sensed the next time we shift,” he told his inner beast. “Ye ken that, aye?”
“I canna be certain until we return to our proper place.”
“Tell me, or we shift.”
“Do ye recall the legend of the pale alpha?”
A hard shiver tingled up Mathison’s spine. “Aye. What does that have to do with Calia? She is mortal.”
“Mairwen is certain of that?”
A more intense shudder made Mathison roll his shoulders to shake away the eeriness of what Dubh suggested. He braced himself for an answer he might not wish to hear. “Did ye speak with Calia’s wolf? Actually connect with her?”
“No. The pale alpha’s bloodline is the purest of us all. The goddesses created her. We have no right to speak or connect with her unless she invites us to do so. It is her choice. Not ours.”
“Ye are certain of this suspicion of yers? How could Calia not know of her inner wolf?” Mathison turned and stared at the closed bedroom door.
“That I canna say. All I know is the same as ye know—the pale alpha abandoned the Ninth Realm centuries ago because of her disgust with the feuding clans. She might have come to the mortal’s timeline.”
“Calia is nine and thirty mortal years of age. How could Mairwen and the other Weavers have gotten that wrong?”
“I dinna ken. I only know what I know, and I know there is something within this woman of ours. A presence more powerful than anyone expected.”
“The fact remains—she is our mate.”
Again, his wolf went silent, and it was just as well.
What his inner being suggested simply wasn’t possible, and Mathison needed more proof than Dubh’s leeriness about a legend they’d both heard all their lives: a rare spirit wolf shifter that never assumed her human form and angered half the clans of the Ninth Realm by taking in their outcasts and mothering them into the fiercest band of rogue warriors the Realm had ever known.
Then, to add insult to injury, she and her warriors had taken it upon themselves to rebuke any clan that refused to lead its people with moral integrity, no matter what power that clan held.
If Calia was a shifter, if her inner being was the pale alpha, why hadn’t she sought him out to help her before going so far as to leave the Ninth Realm forever?
And how was it that she had no recollection of that existence?
Mathison shook his head. It simply couldn’t be.
Dubh must have sensed the power of the fated mate bond and gotten confused.
With nothing but the candles and the woodstove lending any light to the room, he paced in an uneasy circle as the winds raged ever stronger and lashed waves of rain against the windows and doors.
“Ye might as well give over,” he told Mairwen, knowing the ancient one would hear him. “Yer plan failed.”
As a booming clap of thunder gave the cottage another vicious shake, Calia burst from her room with Otto on her heels.
She still wore her dark blue trews and the tunic that clung to her curves, but her hair was now loose and tumbling around her shoulders.
“Do we need to take cover or something? It’s getting worse out there. ”
Forcing himself to concentrate on what she’d said rather than the wild ferocity of her beauty, he shook his head.
“Mairwen said this cottage has withstood many a year of Highland harshness. We are safest here.” Unable to resist the temptation, he took in her appearance with a vague sweep of his hand.
“Ye sleep in yer clothes rather than yer shift?”
“When it storms, you have to be ready.” She scrubbed her arms, went to the fire, and added more wood. “It’s getting colder.”
He’d noticed that and was none too fond of what that could possibly mean.
The cottage shuddered again as if the place had been ripped up by its roots and was about to be torn asunder. An ear-splitting pop exploded, followed by an ominous creaking that groaned like the timbers of a ship twisted by an angry sea.
Instinct bade him shove Calia back into her bedroom and shield her with his body just as a mighty oak crashed through the roof, destroying the living room and the kitchen.
Clawing her way out from under him and scrambling across the floor toward the destruction, she screamed, “Otto! Otto, where are you?”
“He is here, lass. Right here.” Mathison scooped up the cowering dog and placed him in her arms.
She buried her face in her ally’s fur, sagged to the floor, and rocked back against the bed. “Nothing else matters. As long as you’re safe, nothing else matters,” she told the whining beastie. Then she looked up at Mathison. “Thank you.”
“For what, lass?”
“That tree hit right where we were standing. If you hadn’t reacted the way you did…” She shook her head. “Thank you.”
“I will always protect ye, lass. Always.”