Glasgow can be a bit dicey after dark, but possible danger is hardly any excuse to miss out on the excellent night life. Tara had gone out to celebrate the installation of two tapestries in a Trongate shop and a brand new commission. A night out on the town was certainly justified.
It’s a university town, an artsy town, an international town. Tara Thomas loved the place to pieces. But she thought she’d love anywhere that wasn’t the isolated, cold, windswept, raining when it wasn’t snowing, postage-stamp rocky island where she’d grown up.
Oh, and sheep-infested. Had she mentioned that?
Not that she didn’t love wool, she was a weaver, after all. She was an artist with wool as well as every other natural fibre, but she was happy to be away from her family’s sheep farm on Wolf Crag.
Never mind the weather, living there was just too – complicated. Most of the younger generation left, even those from the most ancient families. Even though the Crag was as wired to the Internet, mobile phones and the rest of modern technology – weather permitting – as anywhere, the Old Ways lingered, traditions stifled change. You could believe things on Wolf Crag you wouldn’t anywhere else. Not that they weren’t true everywhere else, it was just that in the misty, rugged isolation of the island you were forced to believe harder, stronger, fiercer. The Crag demanded a lot of your soul.
In Glasgow, Tara could believe in herself, and in the rational, normal human world. She didn’t imagine fairies lurking around corners in the whirling hubbub of the city even when fog lent mystery to its streets. No one told her to be ’ware of water horses in puddles, and pixies in the tiny front gardens. None of the wild things of Glasgow required any imagination to believe in. Real thugs with real steel knives didn’t need the energy of belief. They needed to be avoided.
Which Tara feared she hadn’t done tonight.
A justified celebration or not, she wished she hadn’t stayed for one more drink, leaving the pub alone and tipsy at closing time. She wished the streetlights didn’t seem so far apart. She wished that the sound of her heels didn’t click so loudly in her ears. It was not that she expected trouble, but––
Mostly she wished she hadn’t let the woman at the bar read her palm. She didn’t mind hearing that the lines in her hand showed she was destined for fame. She did mind being told that she was in great danger – that the love of her life would save her from it.
But the thing she wished most, was that the knowledge deep in her gut that she was being followed wasn’t true.
Tara began to run through the shadows, towards lights and the sound of traffic. But the way was very dark, and the heavy footsteps behind came on faster.
“Fang, lad? Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, Gran.”
What was the old lady doing up so late? He wouldn’t be out right now if he didn’t have to walk back a half mile to the car park after a meeting that ran far too long.
“Well, Fang, what are you going to do about it?”
Alistair Douglas winced at the nickname. He knew the old woman had used it just for the purpose of annoying him, reminding him of his place. He almost wished he’d never given the old lady back on the island the mobile phone. He was hundreds of miles away, and yet, here she was howling and whining into his ear as he prowled the late night city streets.
“Listen, I’m sorry about the water rising over your back garden,” he told her. “But if you’re going to live so close to the sea––”
“Rising sea levels have nothing to do with it, as you know full well. The Crag’s disappearing, Fang! It’s the curse!”
“Which curse, Gran? The island’s under a dozen curses and plagued by even more prophecies. Some of them even cancel each other out.”
“It’s the Secret Curse, and you know it. You have to stop it!”
“You’re the laird, the alpha and the summer king rolled in to one, that’s why! What are you doing in Glasgow when your place is here?”
He didn’t think his being on the island would in any way solve the problem. One more Black Douglas wasn’t the sort of resident Wolf Crag needed. He was working on solving the Human Curse. “I think I may have the manor house rented to a Yank couple.”
“How can you give up your own house?”
“It’s not like I’m home that often, Gran. What I’m doing here in Glasgow is necessary. I’m working on attracting tourism to the island,” he told his grandmother. “I’m trying to get estate developers interested in building a resort, summer homes, maybe a golf course.”
“Your sacred ancestral land is fading into the mists and you’re talking about golf courses?! What will the Wild Hunt think about that?”
Gran didn’t think in twenty-first-century concepts – or twentieth. She’d barely come to terms with the nineteenth, for that matter. “I’m in talks with Oberon about keeping his folk away from the resort.”
“Oh, really? As if the fae will go along with anything for very long.”
“They will when there’s more than fairy gold involved. The king of fairy has some concept of surviving in the modern world. Besides, I’ll do anything to get people to the island,” he answered.
He tilted his head, excellent hearing catching a faint noise in the distance. People running, maybe.
“The children of the old families need to return,” Gran insisted. “Why don’t you find them, persuade them? What about that nice girl you used to be with, Tara Thomas?” Since there was a great deal of complex history between the Douglas and Thomas families, Gran’s effort at sounding casual was an utter failure.
“I don’t want to talk about Tara any more than you want to talk about her grandfather.”
“Oh, I’m happy to talk about that lying, foresworn son of Adam.”
“Just not right now, all right, Gran?”
Not that Alistair’s plea did any good. He held the mobile away from his ear to let her curse out the old man without having to listen. Andrew Thomas had always been a crusty but kindly neighbour as far as Alistair was concerned, but he knew Gran had good reasons for her loathing of the old man. The loathing was returned by Thomas. The couple had brought grudges and bickering to such an art form over the last sixty years that their feud had become the main source of entertainment for the inhabitants of Wolf Crag.
But his granddaughter Tara wasn’t part of their battle. No one had tried to destroy his relationship with her but Alistair himself. Tara’s absence from his life still ripped at Alistair’s heart.
Tara was––
He heard the scream the same moment he caught the scent – the unmistakeable, undeniable fragrance that was her. The hair on the back of Alistair’s neck stood up. He ran. The transformation proceeded with every step. Even if darkness and shadow hadn’t shielded him, he wouldn’t have bothered checking for witnesses. Within moments he was running on four legs instead of two. His eyes glowed red in the night. His teeth were sharp, white razors. His claws were steel-hard daggers.
Someone was attacking Tara, and that someone was going to die.
There were two of them, Alistair discovered. He found them at the end of a nearby dark alley. A broken streetlight didn’t give them the protection of darkness from his red night vision. He saw them bending over a prone figure on the ground. They didn’t notice him, not until two hundred pounds of hard muscle and deadly natural weapons barrelled into them.
Their hot blood was delicious on Alistair’s tongue. Tearing flesh from bone was a delightful exercise. He didn’t toy or play with his prey – he was a werewolf, not a werecat, after all. But the pleasure of the kill was intoxicating after so much time spent living a human life.
Once the attackers were dead he rushed to Tara. She sat up at his approach. He was aware of the scent of her blood, and the shift in body heat that indicated bruising. She looked shaken. But she didn’t look surprised to see a large wolf with blood on his mouth leaning his muzzle close to breathe her in.
She put her hand on his head, fingers sinking deep into thick fur. “You are not the love of my life,” she said firmly.
Just before she fainted.
Tara woke knowing she was naked, which didn’t surprise her – because she recalled who’d come to her rescue in the filthy, stinking alley.
“You had better be laundering my clothes, Alistair Douglas,” she said, from beneath the cover of a duvet on a lovely, soft bed.
“You could use a shower,” his deep voice rumbled from nearby.
Tara’s toes curled in response to that voice. It always sent a thrill through her. She remembered when it had cracked when they were growing up, then changed, deepened. Suddenly, she’d felt closer to being a woman every time he spoke to her.
“I have been rolling around in muck.”
“Nonsense, you haven’t been to bed with me in years.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. But she bit her tongue on saying anything. The past was very far away when she found herself lying naked in a bed that held Alistair’s scent, faint and spicy, in the bedclothes.
She reminded herself that one of her first projects had been spinning his werewolf fur, then weaving it into a lovely, soft scarf. She’d worn it to a fibre arts show on a rainy day and ended up smelling like a wet dog among people she was trying to impress. Black Fang Douglas had always brought her trouble.
Of course, this time, he’d saved her life.
Shouldn’t have got herself in trouble to begin with.
She knew she was still a bit tipsy as she sat up, duvet pulled around her. Or maybe the rush of dizziness came from getting her first good look at him in several long years. Since he wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of tight black briefs, it was indeed a good look. Was it possible that he was even handsomer than she remembered? Maybe it was that maturity suited him. His was a hard-muscled man’s body now, with none of the lankiness of the boy she’d loved. He’d grown into his strong jaw and thrusting beak of a nose. He was as scruffy and fuzzy as ever, with an artfully stubbly jaw and dark hair a bit too long for fashion. Of course he still had a thickly furred chest that trailed into a line that arrowed sexily down his abdomen and disappeared into his underwear.
“You’re looking at my crotch, woman.”
“Don’t sound so pleased about it. You could use a waxing,” she added sarcastically.
“And you a shower, as I’ve already pointed out. And you owe me a new suit. I didn’t bother stripping when I came at your call. It was my best suit, now it’s a rag.”
“I’ll get started on making you some tweed, right away.”
“Still weaving?” he asked.
“Still practising law?”
Every word out of both of them had grown tight and tense. Tara drew back from the hot anger that suddenly seethed through her. It was far too easy to argue with Alistair rather than talk to him. The anger was longstanding and had nothing to do with the here and now. Here and now, he’d saved her life. Damn! How she hated owing him!
She still made herself say, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He handed her a black terry robe that was soft as velvet. He turned his back as if he were a gentleman and pointed towards a hallway. “Off with you.”
Tara was more beautiful than Alistair remembered. He’d forced himself not to look at her as a woman as he undressed her and checked her for serious wounds. Once he’d stripped away the muddy, bloody clothing and determined she’d be fine he’d covered her and not taken a single peep while she’d been out. He put her clothes in the wash, cleaned himself up, and was drawn back to her side despite the effort to keep busy with other things. He had watched her, studying every line of her fine-featured face. Her features might be described as elfin by anyone not born on Wolf Crag. Tara’s features weren’t knife blade sharp enough to belong to an elf, nor were her teeth. Though she did well enough biting and nipping with what she had during love-play, as he remembered so well.
He’d stroked her silky dark hair and regretted that she’d cut it short. He’d breathed her in. She was more delicious than ever, the ripe, calling scent of a woman that curled deep into him. It overrode the old wanting and brought out a newer, deeper hunger.
And he didn’t have to fear that she’d react with horror when she woke up. She’d accept that her attackers had paid the price they deserved. She understood his nature, and she had always accepted that. He’d missed being around a woman so in tune with his world. It was her world, too, after all.
It was fate. Had to be. Why else would Gran have reminded him of Tara just as Tara cried out for help? It was meant to be. He may have left Wolf’s Crag, but he wasn’t fool enough to deny when the magic of the place was at work around him. He was trying to save the island. And the island was telling him it needed Tara to come back home.
With him.
Perhaps the island wasn’t going that far, but he chose to interpret it that way. Maybe Wolf Crag just wanted its people back, but Alistair Douglas had always known he and Tara were meant to be. Maybe he’d forgotten it, a little, but seeing her drove the knowledge hard back into his blood and brains and bone again. She was his fated mate, alpha to his alpha, no matter how hard he’d run from her once he discovered the world and the women outside the island.
By the time she came back from the bathroom, he had a plan.
Tara lingered in the bathroom as long as she could, taking full advantage of being alone, and the ultra-modern plumbing in Alastair’s flat. Hot water helped a lot. It helped the aches, the street stench, it helped to clear her head of the last of the alcohol. It didn’t help Tara’s physical, visceral reaction to Alistair, but cleaning up the physical mess helped strengthen her wits and willpower. All she had to do was get dressed and get out, get away from him. Of course, she’d have to get her clothes back from him first.
She steeled her nerves, wrapped herself up as tightly as she could in the oversized robe, and returned to the large room that contained a sleeping area, kitchen, office and lounge. The walls were old, exposed brick, the ceiling was high, the wooden floors polished to a glossy sheen.
“Quite the bachelor pad,” she said. “You are still a bachelor?” She didn’t mean to sound bitter, or hopeful, but heard both mixed in her tone.
He turned from the computer on his desk. “Yes.”
His grin made her blush, but she deserved to be embarrassed. At least he’d put on some clothing. Black, of course – tight jeans and T-shirt. Douglas men always wore black. It wasn’t an affectation, really, it was that they were colour-blind in human form and their women folk trained them away from fashion mistakes from a young age.
“Is there a man in your life?” he asked.
“I have a boyfriend.”
“Aye, but do you have a man?”
She snorted. “Go chase your tail.”
His answering laugh sent the familiar dark shiver deep inside her. As it always had and always would, she supposed. It was best that she leave now.
“I made tea.” He waved towards the lounge area as he stood. “Have a seat. Let’s get caught up.”
That was not what she should do, but Tara gave in to what she wanted to do. She settled into a comfortable chair, with her legs tucked under her.
“How’s your granda?” Alistair asked when he brought her a big mug of tea. “Must be lonely for him with you gone, him being old and frail for a mortal.”
Alistair’s comments stirred niggles of worry and guilt in her, but Tara said, “Theo Simmones moved in with him a while back.”
“What? That old goat? He can’t be much company for old Randall Thomas.”
“He was talking about making up a couple of the spare bedrooms and hanging out a B&B sign. Not that tourists make their way over to the Crag that often.”
Alistair leaned back in the chair opposite and looked at her over the steam rising from his tea. His blue eyes were suddenly bright with enthusiasm. “That’s going to change soon. I’m working on opening a resort on the south side of the Crag.”
“I’m appalled.”
“You look it. Even the folk on Wolf Crag change with the times – and we could certainly use the revenue summer people would bring.”
“Yes, but – what if some nosey mortal found out about––”
“I’ve already got faefolk lined up to run security for the resort. If anything got out of hand, a glamour would be thrown over the mortal’s memory.”
Tara sipped tea. And thought. And missed her grandfather and the ancient Thomas farmhouse, and summer on Wolf Crag. The place was always trying to pull you back if you let it. Maybe it was seeing Alistair again that was putting a travel plan into her head.
“I don’t see how you can attract tourists, Fang, when the ferry only makes the trip once a week, and only holds two cars,” she pointed out.
“We’re adding an airline service,” he answered proudly. “Three trips a week via Phoenix Air.”
“The Phoenix brothers have an airplane?” She was horrified. They weren’t exactly phoenixes, and their name was actually McCabe.
“And pilots’ licences. And thousands of hours of flying in the air force. They aren’t the reckless kids you remember. None of us are reckless kids anymore, Tara.”
She heard his sincerity, and the meaning behind what he said. Maybe it would be best if she went back to Wolf Crag for a while, now that she’d finally encountered her old nemesis here in Glasgow. He is not the love of my life, she thought resolutely, and stood up. She thrust the half-full mug into his hands when he rose from his seat.
“Lovely seeing you,” she said. “Thanks for saving my life. Where’re my clothes? Never mind.” She saw neatly folded clothing, along with her shoes and purse, resting on the kitchen counter. She snatched everything up.
“I put out a T-shirt for you,” he said. “There was no saving the blouse.”
At least he didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t offer to give her a lift home. She couldn’t help but be a bit miffed at his easy dismissal of her as hurried out to flag down a cab in the light of dawn.
The ferry ride was a long nine hours north from the Isle of Skye, and the sea wasn’t exactly calm and cooperative along the way. Tara didn’t mind the rough sea, and relished being the only passenger. It gave her time and privacy to adjust to the change from the normal world to the strange place where she was returning.
She didn’t mind that no one met her on the dock. She checked her watch and decided it was long enough before sunset to safely make the three-mile walk home. And after sunset? Well, she wore silver bracelets, there was a small amount of cold iron in her backpack, and her walking stick was made of hawthorne. That would be enough to keep the fae folk away, and she had pepper spray for anything else.
She heard some siren singing along the way, and a ghost or two lingered in shadows. They beckoned, but listlessly, not really trying to draw her into shadowland. She had to stop to chat with a lonely dryad that wanted to complain about land taxes and dogs pissing on her tree, but none of Tara’s magical protections proved necessary. The walk in the fresh air was invigorating, even if the rocky terrain was more rugged than she remembered. The path she took was officially a road, but it was a courtesy term rather than the truth. Legend said it was a fair folk road, and one was careful to never insult anything to do with them.
The path on to the Thomas property was marked by an ancient stone arch that was said to be Roman, though no Romans had ever made it to the Crag as far as history was aware. Family legend had it otherwise, though it was a sordid and tragic tale spoken of in whispers around the children. The actual story didn’t seem so sordid to modern sensibilities, so all the anticipation of finding out about the founding of the clan had been anticlimactic when Tara finally did.
The path up to the huge house was lined with low drystone walls, through fields dotted with sheep. Sheepdogs kept watch over them, and ignored her as she made her way to the house.
Tara found a large goat munching on a rose bush near the back door and they exchanged a nod as she opened the heavy old door. The goat followed her inside.
“Hello, Theo,” she said.
Air swirled and dimmed around the goat and it turned into a paunchy old satyr. Tara looked away to give him a moment of privacy to cover his huge genitalia with a tea towel.
“Where’s Granda?” she asked once Theo was presentable.
“Here,” Granda said, coming into the kitchen.
There were still a few ginger strands in his thick silver hair and beard. But perhaps there were a few more wrinkles, and a bit of a droop to his broad shoulders she hadn’t noticed during their latest webcam chat.
He held out his arms.
Tara dropped her stick and bag and rushed into his embrace. His hold was strong and tight and she leaned into it with gratitude. “I was worried about you,” she whispered as she hugged him back hard.
He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Can’t think why. I always worry about you,” he added. “That’s my job.”
Her parents had fled the Crag with her younger siblings for a quiet life in New Zealand when she was in her late teens. She’d had no intention of leaving home, her textile apprenticeship with her grandmother – or Alistair – back then. Granda had convinced her parents to let him finish raising her. Maybe if she’d gone with them Alistair wouldn’t have broken her heart, but other than that she was glad she’d stayed then, and glad for the life she had now. Except, now that she was back on Wolf Crag where the air was clear and the natives were strange, she was happier than she’d been in years.
“I don’t know why I didn’t come back to the Crag sooner,” she said.
“Good thing you came back while it’s still here,” Theo said darkly. “I’ve got rose bushes to trim before they’re swallowed by mist.”
She turned to the satyr, but he morphed back to his goat form and wandered out to the garden before she could ask what he meant. “Uh – Granda?”
The old man gave a satisfied, evil cackle – which told her that whatever followed involved bad news for dear old Gran Douglas. The two of them were never going to forgive each other for as long as they lived. Maybe Thomas and Douglas blood was never meant to mix, no matter what legends, prophecies and curses said about their undying true love through the generations. As far as Tara knew, no Douglas and Thomas had ever made a successful love match, no matter how often passion burned between them. Of course she’d thought she and Alistair would be different – before he decided to sleep with every woman he met when he left the island.
In Gran and Granda’s case, the Second World War had got in the way. He’d been reported dead when, in fact, he was a POW, and Gran had married one of her Douglas cousins for the sake of keeping the werewolf bloodline strong. When Granda came home to find his love married and a mother, he’d never forgiven her. She’d taken the attitude that he should never have left her or the Crag in the first place. Their war continued to this day.
“A landslide took away half of the old bitch’s property last week,” Granda said. “Serves her right for living so close to the sea now that the ice caps are melting.” He sounded as if Gran Douglas was personally responsible for global warming.
“The Crag’s a small island,” Tara said. “All of it’s close to the sea.”
“Small, and getting smaller all the time.” He picked up her backpack. “Your old room’s ready for you. And your packages arrived yesterday.”
Tara had brought her work with her. “I’m dying to set up Grandma’s workroom. Thanks for letting me use her looms.”
“They’re your looms, now. She left them to you when she died. She was so proud of your talent with weaving.” He sighed. “I was never as good to that woman as I should have been.”
He’d married late, and they’d only had one child, her father. As far as Tara could tell it had been a happy marriage but, of course, there’d always been the shadow of his youthful fling with Gran Douglas hanging over whatever relationship he’d had. She was determined that her ruined romance with Alistair wasn’t going to throw the same dark shadows over her love life – though so far she hadn’t formed any attachments serious enough to matter.
She was not going to consider that her feelings for Alistair might have anything to do with her current lack of intense interest in any other male. She did consider just how tired she was as she followed her grandfather up two flights of stairs to the loft under the roof.
She loved the view of Tor Rock and the wild coast beyond from the high loft windows. She hurried over to take a look before the last of the light of the long summer day faded. She was oddly disappointed. The Tor didn’t seem as high and grand as she remembered. And was the sea somehow encroaching?
She looked back at her grandfather. He was watching her pensively. “Is the ocean eating away the coastline?”
“Things are changing around here, lass.”
Tara’s heart jumped with worry. “Things never change on the Crag.”
Saying it could make it so, couldn’t it? Magic worked on Wolf Crag, after all.
He snorted. “They’re building a golf course.”
Which was all he’d say on the matter. He kissed her on the forehead and bid her good night.
She did not have a good night. She dreamed of curses and prophecies – and there was an incubus dream where her body twined and tangled with Alistair’s that woke her up panting and sweating and filled with carnal aching.
“Damn the man!” she muttered as she got out of bed. And she didn’t care that she was blaming Fang Douglas for something that wasn’t his fault.
She flung open the window and took deep, bracing breaths of the cool morning air. Unsurprisingly, it was rainy, with mist obscuring the distance between the house and the Tor. The smell of frying eggs drew her attention away from the landscape.
Once she’d dressed and headed down to the kitchen, she’d also got her mind and libido off of Alistair Douglas.
Who was standing by the stove.
“What the devil are you doing here, Fang Douglas?” she demanded as she marched up to him.
He turned to her with a grin. “Making breakfast.”
“I told you I was turning the place into a B&B,” Granda said from a seat at the kitchen table. “I rent Fang a bed, but he insists on providing the breakfast.”
“But––” She gestured, vaguely in the direction of the Douglas property. “What about the manor house?”
“I’m renovating and renting it out.” Alistair stepped closer to her, making her very aware of his masculine presence. “The place is too big to live in alone. Now, if I had a wife and some bairns to fill the house up––”
“Oh, leave off!” she complained.
Annoyance didn’t stop a hot thrill going through her. A domestic picture of them together, as man, wife and parents filled her head. Combining that with last night’s dream––
“Bother,” she grumbled. Tara put her hands on her hips, facing Alistair belligerently.
“How do you like your eggs?” he asked. The look in his eyes told her he knew exactly what she’d been thinking – wishing.
“You weren’t on the ferry. How did you get here? And you know very well how I like my eggs.”
“Over easy, it is. I flew in with Andy McCabe last night.”
“Oh. Right.”
He had told her about the new island air service. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d saved her life, and started her thinking about an overdue visit home. Alistair wasn’t being trouble – but her nerves screamed a danger warning that grew stronger with every moment near him. He wasn’t up to anything, had no reason to be, but …
“I’m going for a walk,” Tara said, and escaped out the back door before another word was spoken. She could feel Fang looking after her as she went.
Theo was in the garden, in satyr form and wearing boxer underwear. He was sitting on a low, moss-dotted wall, sipping a mug of tea. She joined him when he gestured her over. When she took a seat he looked around furtively.
This was her cue. “All right. What’s really going on?”
“We’re doomed,” he said. “The curse is coming to pass.”
Tara folded her hands in her lap, not in the least disconcerted. “Which one this time?”
“The one about Adam’s children leaving the border of faerie.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of that one.”
“We keep it quiet around humans. Knowledge of some things is forbidden to those it would give power to. But when the time comes––”
“Right. The curse has something to do with humans leaving Wolf Crag, is that it?”
The satyr nodded solemnly. “There’s a balance necessary between the mortal lands and the lands of the fae. You are of the rock, we are of the mist. For those of the mist to dwell in the land of rock, there must be a strong presence of the people of rock to believe in the place where we dwell. Once the balance shifts to more of us than Adam’s children in a place, the place begins to retreat into the world of fae.” He put his mug down on the wall and gave her a disgusted look. “Frankly, we like it right here in the mortal world.” Theo heaved a great sigh and walked away, shaking his shaggy grey, horned head.
Tara sat on the wall looking at the garden for a while. She was perfectly calm on the outside, seething on the inside. After a while she got up and began walking towards Tor Rock.
“We’ll see about this,” she murmured.
“Tara! Tara, where are you off to?”
She’d gone quite a distance across the sheep pastures when Alistair called to her, but his deep voiced was pitched to carry. She ignored him and kept going. She’d reached the base of the steep hill when the wolf loped up beside her.
“Put on some pants,” she told Alistair when the wolf transformed into a gloriously gorgeous naked man.
She walked on.
He must have had them tied around his neck, because when he caught up with her in a few seconds he was wearing black sweatpants.
He grabbed her arm, and pulled her to face him. “What’s wrong, love?”
“Love? Don’t you use that word to me, Fang Douglas!”
Her shout was so angry and adamant that he took a shocked step back. But in an instant his own temper flared to match hers. A faint red glow lit deep in his blue eyes. “How many times do I have to apologise to you?”
“Since you haven’t apologised even once yet, I don’t know!”
Shock returned. “What are you talking about? Of course I’ve—’’ His gaze went unfocused, his expression thoughtful. “Maybe I never said anything, but you have to know––”
Tara’s heart was breaking all over again, and she wasn’t going to stand here and let it happen in front of Alistair Douglas. She wasn’t going to let him know how bad it still was – she hadn’t known herself until just now. Now – her heart was being flayed to pieces by shards of broken glass.
She began climbing the crooked path up from the base of Tor Rock. If he followed she couldn’t hear over the rumble of landslides and roar of the wind. Besides, werewolves moved quietly, even in human form. Also, Tara was cursing loudly inside her own head.
When she stopped abruptly to avoid a boulder rolling across the path, Alistair bumped hard into her back. She was knocked forwards, but his hands came around her waist to keep her from falling. He didn’t let go, but turned her to face him.
“We need to talk, Tara.”
There was nothing but sadness and sincerity in his deep voice and blue eyes. She didn’t believe a bit of it, though her heart wanted to.
“Plus, we should get away from Tor Rock,” he added. “It’s not safe here.”
Safer than having his arms around her. “Please let go of me,” she said.
He didn’t. Instead, he pulled her back down the path and into a stand of trees surrounding a bubbling spring at the base of the hill. A stream threaded away from the spring across Thomas land. Locally, it was known as the Roman Spring, and there were complaints about filmmakers stealing the name for movie titles from older generations of the family.
He swung her up on the huge worn boulder which had always been used as a bench and moved in very close. He stood between her legs, with his hands on her shoulders. The warmth of his skin permeated her. His closeness tried to overwhelm her.
“We are now going to have the talk we should have had a decade ago,” he told her.
“A talk you seem to think we’d already had,” she snapped back. “It’s too late now.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been sorry I hurt you every day for the last dozen years. I ran away from you, I did you wrong––”
“You slept with every woman you met off the island.”
He nodded. “Aye. I did. For a while. I didn’t try to hide it from you. I didn’t sneak around and pretend I wasn’t a complete bastard. I am so sorry about the time you walked in on my flat in Glasgow.”
“Two women!” she shouted. “You were in bed with two women! And you laughed when you saw me standing there. You didn’t try to explain. You didn’t come after me when I ran out.”
“I was in no condition to run after you!” he shouted back. “There was no reason to try to make excuses for what was obvious! I’m sorry if I laughed – I don’t remember laughing.”
“I’ve heard that laugh in my nightmares for years!”
He winced. “Damn it, Tara, I’m sorry!” He stroked her cheek. “I’ve missed you. Missed you and wanted you … but I did what I did and all I can do is ask you for a chance to start over. We’re fated to be together, love, don’t you remember that?”
She caught herself leaning into his cupped hand and jerked away. “Fated? Then why did you––?”
“Because we were fated to be together! I fought fate,” he told her. “When I left the island all I wanted to do for a while was run away from everything – and everyone – Wolf Crag represented. I wanted my freedom. I wanted to find out who I was. I wanted to make my own choices and decisions and to hell with magic and fate and all the nonsense that I’d had fed to me from birth.”
“Our love was nonsense?”
He gave a tight nod. “Yes, it was. For a while. I went looking for something better – because I was a young idiot. I never found anyone I cared for more than you. I stopped looking soon enough. By the time I knew you were the only love of my life the damage had been done. I accepted that the curse of a Douglas and Thomas had taken over my life.”
“Oh, I see. You didn’t believe in fate, but you believe in the curse?”
He stroked his hands down her arms. “What I believe now is that we can start again. When we met again in Glasgow, I knew that if we both went home, I’d have a chance to make everything up to you – here, where we belong.”
She wanted to believe it – especially when he was so close to her, especially with his hands touching her so sensually, so gently. Need raced through her, but Tara wasn’t going to fall for it just because she’d never stopped wanting him.
“Liar!” she said at last. “The Crag’s dying without people. You tricked me into coming back!”
“The devil with Wolf Crag! I need you!”
“Don’t talk of the devil, you fool!”
“I need you,” he repeated. “I love you. I want you. I tricked you, all right. I admit I exaggerated about your granda. I teased you to come and see the changes in the place. I reminded you of home. But I wanted you here to be with me.”
His sincerity touched her deep in her soul. His hands stirred her other senses. She couldn’t stop her fingers from touching his stubbled cheek, tracing his lips. She wanted to believe him. She fought not to believe him.
Then it didn’t matter, because the earth started shaking so hard it knocked her off the boulder, and Alistair came down with her. They tangled together as the world bucked and rolled beneath them. Daylight turned to twilight, and a thick blue mist began to boil through the trees. The spring began to hiss and steam.
The world was coming to an end. Tara didn’t doubt that for a moment.
Funny thing though – she wasn’t scared.
She pulled Alistair’s mouth to hers and kissed him. Desire roared through them. Her hands tugged at the waist of his sweatpants. Then cupped his bare ass. He growled in response. She arched against him as his hands found her breasts.
There was no way the world was ending before she’d had her way with her werewolf love one last time. One new time – as a woman, not a girl. She needed him now in ways her mind fogged with teenage lust could never have imagined. But, this being the end of the world, she’d settle for a quick, hard shag.
Alistair came up from a deep, hard kiss. “No! Wait!”
“What?” she shouted back.
The earth was still bouncing them around with bruising force. A freight train roar filled the air. The mist drew closer, grew darker. This was no time to talk!
He held her face in his hands, made her look him in the eye. “Say it!” he demanded. “Tell me!”
“Of course I love you!” she told him. She’d never spoken words more intensely in her life. Or more truthful. “I’ve always loved you. Always will. You’re my fate. Now kiss me.”
He did.
Tara forgot the chaos around them completely. She lost herself in every kiss, caress and thrust. He moved inside her and she moved to meet him. They reached the shattering point together and she didn’t care one bit if the world ended then and there.
Once she came down from the soaring pleasure she became aware that they were surrounded by stillness. By silence except for their ragged breaths. All she could feel was Alistair’s racing heartbeat against her chest.
All she heard was his rough whisper in her ear, “Did the world just stop moving for you, too?”
Tara couldn’t stop the laugh, and he laughed with her. They held each other, hugged and kissed for a while. It was wonderful – to be alive, to be together, to be naked and entwined and holding on to each other. The past didn’t fade away, but the pain of it was overridden by hope for the future.
“The world didn’t end,” she said eventually. “At least, the Crag’s still here.” She looked over Alistair’s naked shoulder. “Does Tor Rock look normal to you?”
He rolled off her and helped her to stand before glancing up at the sheer cliff behind them. “It looks as obviously phallic as ever,” he judged.
“The mist is gone,” Tara said.
Alistair rubbed his jaw. “I’m thinking the curse has been lifted.” He hugged her tightly, then lifted her in the air and swung her around. “Tara, we did it!”
“So we did,” she said with a sex-drunk grin when he put her down. “Let’s do it again.” She tried to drag him back to the ground.
But Alistair wouldn’t budge, and he was serious. Damn.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“We broke the curse! You and I making love, broke the curse.”
He’d tried not to believe in fate, now he was believing in curses. “Which curse? The one about the island disappearing?”
“Of course.”
“But, I thought that had to do with humans leaving the Crag. What’s that got to do with a Douglas and a Thomas having sex?”
“Being in love,” he corrected.
“That too.”
He ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Don’t you recall the prophecy, the one about the Weaver and the Wolf? We learned it in school.”
The curriculum on Wolf Crag was a bit different than what students learned on the mainland. “Weaver and Wolf does sound familiar. How did it go? When the Weaver and the Wolf hearts be at peace and as one something something vanishing something banished something the Crag as solid as love will be. You think that prophecy is about us?”
“You’re a weaver. I’m a werewolf. The world didn’t end. Let’s not try to analyze it any more than that, shall we?”
She took his point.
He took her hands in his. “My world’s solid as long as you love me.”
She pulled his head down for a kiss. “Then I believe Wolf Crag is going to be here for a good long time.”