Chapter 18 Luke
LUKE
The closer they got, the more out of place the house looked, to Luke’s eyes, on the rocky, wild hillside.
It looked as if it would belong in an English country setting, or perhaps a windswept Scottish moor.
Here on the Newfoundland coast, it simply looked odd, as if it had been transplanted from the Old World and plunked down among the weathered rocks and scrubby, wind-twisted conifers.
They reached a stone wall with a gate in it. Inga looked for a bell or buzzer, and finding none, tested the gate’s latch-style handle. It opened easily to admit them.
On the other side was a garden of startling size and beauty.
This early in the year, most of the plants were barely leafed out yet, aside from those with evergreen foliage.
But it was clear that a great deal of work had gone into planning and maintaining the place, with curving paths and statues and fountains.
Natural boulders had been made part of the landscaping.
“This is beautiful,” Inga breathed. She had stopped just inside the gate. “I really kinda feel like we’re trespassing.”
“You aren’t,” a woman’s voice spoke out of nowhere. “Come on in, but make sure you shut the gate.”
Inga jumped, and Rogue gave a deep bark. The woman was sitting at a patio table on a large stone-flagged terrace, holding a cup in her hands. She had been so still that she blended with the background somehow.
“Come join me,” she invited them when none of them moved or responded. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Inga said, as the first to recover. “Is it all right to bring our dog?”
“Yes, go right ahead. I like dogs.”
They trooped onto the patio. Rogue politely nosed at the woman’s hand without licking or jumping, and she ruffled his ears and then stood up.
She was surprisingly tall, nearly as tall as Luke himself, an angular woman with straight, shoulder-length brown hair tinted with a few strands of gray.
Luke supposed her coloring was part of why they hadn’t seen her; she wore a gray sweater and brown corduroy trousers, and her skin was deeply tanned with clusters of freckles.
Luke guessed she was in her early forties, but her face had a weathered, timeless quality.
“I’m Thea.” Small lines crinkled around her eyes when she smiled. She shook Inga’s hand. “You’re one of the Nilssons, right? I’ve met your brother Tor.”
“Really? Uh—I mean, yes, I’m Inga.”
“Luke.” He shook her hand in turn. She had long fingers and a strong grip.
“Please, sit.” Thea gestured to the other chairs.
An open notebook lay on the table, which she appeared to have been studying or writing in, and there was a silver carafe, a single cup, and a plate with the crumbs of a demolished pastry.
“You’re welcome to coffee, and—have you had anything to eat? I’ll need to get cups anyway.”
“Oh, you don’t need to wait on us!” Inga exclaimed.
“Nonsense. We hardly ever have visitors, at least from your direction,” Thea added cryptically.
“I’m not sure if you’re here to see anyone specific, but the only other person in residence right now is Mace.
The others, very sensibly, decided to spend the winter somewhere warm, visiting friends of ours in South America.
It’s their fall now, so everyone will be back soon when the weather gets cold down there. ”
“Oh, wow.” Inga’s eyes were round. “That’s so far. Uh, we came to talk to Mace, er, Mr. MacKay, actually, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I’ll see what he’s up to. Back in a flash.”
She went into the house before Luke had a chance to find a polite way to ask where, exactly, she fit into the household.
“Is she a family member?” he asked, taking one of the offered chairs. “A guest?”
“I have no idea,” Inga admitted. “I know Mace was recently married, and maybe that’s her? There’s someone else, a niece, who has a part-time bookshop down in town. She’s nice for a new person. But they really don’t mingle with the townspeople too much.”
“In what way, exactly?” Luke asked. “I mean, there’s nowhere else around here to mingle. Are they snobby rich people? Do they keep this place as a vacation home?”
“No, they live here. It’s sort of hard to describe if you’re not from here. They’re reclusive and weird, and we don’t really ask questions about them.” Inga blew out a breath. “It feels so strange just being here.”
Thea returned just then, and Luke leaped to his feet to meet her; Inga had never relaxed enough to sit down.
Thea was carrying a silver tray with cups and plates, croissants and pastries, and small dishes of cream and sugar.
There was a man with her, tall with broad shoulders beneath a dark red sweater, black hair swept back from a high forehead, and the most piercing green eyes that Luke had ever seen.
Luke found himself having an immediate, instinctive reaction in a way he’d only ever experienced with bullies and other dangerous people in power over him.
It was a feeling he had never felt before with someone who looked perfectly friendly.
It felt like something inside him was snarling, wanting to push back.
When the other man—Mace, no doubt—reached out to shake his hand, it was all Luke could do not to smack it away. What the hell?
“Mr. MacKay, sir,” Inga said. She shook his hand first. “It’s an honor, it really is.”
“Please. Anyone from the village is welcome here at all times.” Mace turned to Luke, and a slight frown creased his forehead. “Please settle your animal, if you don’t mind.”
“I ... what?” Luke felt sweat breaking out on his face from his silent struggle.
He glanced down at Rogue, worried the dog was doing something to offend their hosts, but Rogue had laid down on the flagstones with his head on his paws.
Maybe Mace was afraid of dogs, even if Thea wasn’t.
“I, uh—Rogue, stay.” Rogue twitched his ears and did nothing else.
“Not that animal,” Inga whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “Luke, it’s okay. Calm down.”
Mace grasped Luke’s hand, which he had halfheartedly presented, and stared into his eyes for a moment.
Luke had never felt anything like this instinctive—resentment?
Urge to fight? He hadn’t even been a bar-fight kind of guy in basic training.
He was simultaneously humiliated and furious, a volatile combination.
“You know,” Mace said. His deep voice was calm. “I believe I’m going to chat with your friend for a few minutes before we all settle down for brunch.”
Inga tensed. “Luke—”
“It’s all right,” Thea said. Having set the tray on the table, she placed a light hand on Inga’s elbow. “Come, you’ll get first pick of these. They’re fresh from France.”
Mace released Luke’s hand, but steered him into the house without giving him any apparent choice. Luke resisted for a few seconds before realizing that his only choices were to come or fight, and he was rapidly sliding to the point where fighting felt good. He was terrified.
“You had them flown in from France?” Inga was saying. “You mean frozen, right?”
“Oh no, they’re quite fresh.”
As they entered the house, Luke looked back to see Rogue starting to follow them. “No, boy.” His voice cracked, and he managed to steady it. “Stay with Inga.”
Inga, holding a croissant, shot him a worried stare. He tried to signal “It’s okay,” with his face. Whatever she saw didn’t make her look any more relaxed.
Mace glanced back and, to Luke’s surprise, said, “Perhaps Ms. Nilsson should come too. It’s all right.” Inga paused, then started to follow. “Sorry, my love,” he added to Thea. “I must leave you bereft of company for now. We’ll be back soon and can resume our interrupted brunch.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Thea said airily. She reached for her pen. “I can work on my lecture notes.”
Mace quietly closed the glass patio door between them.
They were in a hallway with a stone floor and a high ceiling. The air was dry and cool, and the place felt old in a way Luke had previous only associated with European buildings. He glanced at Inga and saw her looking around curiously.
“This way,” Mace said, gesturing. “I want to talk to you—and also, to get you away from the others in case you started to have control issues. Thea is human, you know. What do you shift into?”
He said it all in the same matter-of-fact tones.
Luke swallowed. “A bear,” he said, following Mace down the hall.
If Mace had any concerns about turning his back to Luke, it didn’t show.
“Polar.” Inga had seemed to imply that shifters didn’t ask each other questions like that, but apparently Mace operated according to his own set of rules.
“Have you had it long?”
“I—had what?”
“The shift animal.”
“No,” Luke said. He was starting to calm down, feeling less out of control. “Inga was very surprised when she found out I’d just, uh, just gotten it. You don’t seem to be.”
“I have learned in my life that there are many extraordinary things most shifters aren’t aware of.
I personally know a shifter who acquired his shifting late in life, and another whose shift animal changed its type entirely.
So your sort of situation is not unknown to me. Stop for a moment, please.”
The wall in this part of the hall was evidently made of carved stone, or plaster molded to look like stone.
Mace placed a hand on the wall, not visibly different from any other part of it, and something—changed.
The carving receded beneath his hand, and abruptly the outlines of a door sprang into visibility.
Mace swung it open and went in, with an indication to the other two that they were to follow.
Luke went through first, placing himself subtly between Mace and Inga.