Ten
When Tate woke up in the watery morning light, she was gone.
His mate was gone.
This time, he only took the essentials – the empty sample bottles, a bottle of water, and a basic first aid kit, in case the otters struck again.
He left the filled bottles for Couch Creek, Holt Tarn and Bubble Brook in the kitchen, along with the bottles of damp gauze from the otter bites.
When he'd taken samples for Fairy Feeder and Circle Creek, he'd come back to do Wolf Tarn, take a break for lunch, then take all the samples back to up his pickup, drive down to Sanctuary Loch for the final samples, and take the lot into town for testing.
Or it would be easy, if his thoughts didn't keep straying toward his mate. He'd hoped to at least be able to share breakfast with her...but she'd crept out of the cottage while he was sleeping. Some enforcer he was. He hadn't even heard her leave.
If he got the samples off for testing early enough, he could come back this afternoon and track her scent...
Tate allowed hope to blossom for a moment, before he crushed it entirely.
He'd promised that she could walk away, if she wanted.
If he followed her, that would mean he'd lied to his mate.
He would not become his father. If his mate wanted nothing to do with him, then that was his fate.
At least he'd met her, and they'd spent one night together in the same bed.
Sure, all they'd done was sleep, but for that one night, she'd been his and no one else's.
Now, he had samples to take. Tate stepped out of the cottage and took a deep breath. Scottish winters were so cold, the air burned his lungs, and it wasn't even Hogmanay yet. Pity. He would have loved to dance a Hogmanay reel with his mate. But it was not to be.
Something splatted on the ground at his feet. A rabbit, though it looked more like a rag doll than a living, breathing creature. Like someone had broken its neck and shaken it.
Tate's breath caught in his throat. She had.
The gorgeous wolf with a black stripe from her ears all the way down her back to the tip of her tail.
The rest of her was white and speckled grey, like a snowy owl, and she had the same honey-gold eyes.
Eyes that regarded him hopefully as she pushed the rabbit closer to him with her snout.
He wasn't the only one who'd hoped to share breakfast this morning. "I already ate inside. It's all yours," he said.
She gave a sharp nod, snatched the rabbit up in her jaws and crunched it down. Then lapped at Wolf Creek until she'd drunk her fill, while he stood there tongue-tied, just watching her.
She hadn't left. She was still here. But she was also still a wolf.
"Want me to help you turn back to human?" he asked. It would only take a moment, and then he could head up to Circle Creek.
She shook her head, drooping. She'd already tried and failed, he guessed.
"Maybe later, then. I'm going on a hike to take some more water samples. Want to come with me?"
A sharp nod.
"Let's go, then."
He paused long enough to check there were no otters around before fishing his sampling pole out of Couch Creek.
Circle Creek lay deeper in the woods, on a plateau where the trees grew in a perfect circle around the fen that bore the misnomer of Circle Creek.
No one knew where the water came from, just that it flowed across the fen like an endless wave, collecting into what had likely been a small crevice in the rock that had widened over time into a creek that ran with crystal clear water until it met and joined the rainwater-fed burn called Fairy Feeder.
He stopped to take samples at Fairy Feeder, gesturing for her to go past him to Circle Creek.
"There's a fen up the top with shallow water.
There's usually some waterbirds up there, which are always fun to chase.
" Waterbirds that took off quickly and noisily the moment a wolf appeared, which meant they rarely got caught.
Not that she needed to – she'd had more than one rabbit this morning already.
She grinned and bounded up the trail, while Tate made quick work of Fairy Feeder.
The water looked cold and clear, and definitely safe to drink, but he didn't allow himself the indulgence of a sip until the samples came back clear.
So he wiped his hands, gulped down some of the bottled water he'd taken from the cottage's filtered rainwater taps, before climbing the rise to find his mate.
He found her, all right. She'd already chased off any waterbirds unwise enough to sleep in the fens this late in the morning, though some of them had only fled far enough to take up angry watch in the trees around the clearing, glaring at her until they could return to their watery doze among the reeds.
Except this time, the reeds he remembered were gone. They'd been squeezed out by a bountiful crop of what looked like rosy apples. Which made no sense at all. Who in their right mind would dump a bunch of apples deep in the woods like that?
Then she jumped into the middle of them, and instead of sending the apples rolling everywhere, they sent up a cloud of dust that sparkled in the sun. What in the world?
She bit one of the apples, then trotted over to Tate and dropped it at his feet.
He nudged it with his foot, and it rolled over, revealing layers of stringy frills that looked nothing like an apple.
From this angle, it looked almost like the underside of a mushroom.
Tate flipped it over again, slower this time.
From the top, it looked like a slice of apple, but from every other angle, it was definitely a mushroom.
One of those poisonous red ones that Viking berserkers used to eat before going crazy in battle, or so he'd heard.
Sienna had one on the side of her catering van, but hers had white spots.
Careful not to touch the mushroom with his bare hand, he used the cap to nudge it into a sample bottle, before screwing it shut.
Couldn't hurt to test that, too. Wish he'd gotten some of the golden dust, too, but that had mostly blown away in the breeze.
Except for the golden streaks on his mate's coat...
Tate grabbed another sample bottle and scraped it along her side, while she watched with her head tilted to the side. A small sprinkle of dust landed in the bottom of the bottle. He reached out to collect some more, but she shifted away and freaking licked it off her fur instead.
"Don't do that. It might be toxic," he said, but she only gave her side another lick before bounding off into the fen again, sending clouds of the stuff into the air. Then she rolled in the shallow water, stood up and shook. Water sprayed everywhere – some even got on him.
And she just grinned.
Tate sighed. He labelled the sample bottles and stuck them in his satchel. Fairy Feeder and Circle Creek were done. Now he just had Wolf Creek and the loch itself to test, and he was done.
"Ready to go back to the cottage for lunch? Your clothes are dry, so you can put them on when you shift back," he said. When, not if. She was his mate. Her first shift had been almost effortless – shifting back would be no problem. She just had to do it once, and she'd master it for sure.
She leaped out of the fen, scattering water everywhere as she lolloped past him, racing him home.
For a moment, Tate considered shifting into wolf form so he could beat her...but reluctantly chose responsibility instead. The samples were important. He could play chasey with his mate later. Or at least, he hoped so.