“We can shift up at the castle. There are enough enclosed rooms to shield us from prying eyes. A cellar where bread was once baked and walls to the baron’s and baroness’s rooms still stand. No roof, though. A chapel and a tower. A couple of other rooms, stone stables for the horses…” He paused. “Yeah, even a couple of locking restrooms. That should work.”
“Okay. We can do it.”
As angry as he felt about his car, he couldn’t help but be pleased that Elaine wanted to help him with this. And run as wolves? Even better.
He considered the left side of her face again.
She took a deep breath and pulled her hood forward more. “The bruising will be gone before long, and you don’t need to be angry about this anymore.”
But he was.
“Let’s do this,” he said, right before they left the car. He noticed her gaze had shifted again, and she was giving his torso another appreciative look.
He smiled. Briskly in the cold wind, they walked the half-mile winding path to the castle. The walkway was mossy green and shiny wet. The rain had thankfully let up to a light drizzle. The whole area was shrouded in a blanket of thick mist, making it look surreal, otherworldly, ghostly.
The wind was still blowing fiercely across the cliffs and tugging at Elaine’s hood to such an extent that she had to hold it in place around her face. The air was cold and wet as it pounded his bare chest, but he barely noticed, as hot as she made him feel from the way she seemed to enjoy his appearance. More than that, he knew that his shirt would have been soaking wet, plastered to his skin, and just about as cold.
He shifted his gaze from Elaine to the cliffs overlooking the loch that surrounded the ancient ruins on three sides and had made the place nearly impenetrable from encroaching enemies.
When they reached the mossy stairs to climb down one of the cliffs, he took hold of her hand because the steps were slippery. At least initially that was the reason, but he felt as though he was on a date with the she-wolf. Wolves didn’t date. They had casual sex with humans, or they found a wolf that would be the perfect mate. Dating was a human condition.
Yet, for the first time ever, he felt like a man on a date. A very agreeable date. One that he didn’t want to end.
Chapter 6
Cearnach observed Elaine as she watched the water dashing against the rocks below, white froth splashing over stones bathed in green moss. She was taking deep breaths, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.
“It’s breathtaking,” she said, her voice filled with awe.
Just as breathtaking as she was. “Aye. Just imagine when the castle was wholly intact.”
“It would have been intimidating then.” She looked up at the castle that rose high above the cliff opposite the one they’d climbed down. The stairs carved into that cliff were just as steep and deadly.
He smiled darkly, thinking of how dangerous laying siege to the castle had been. “Aye, and with men at the ramparts, armed and watching every move, if we had approached it back then.”
They reached the bottom of the steps, traversed a long slippery walkway, and then headed back up another hundred and fifty or so stairs until they arrived at a stone tunnel, its mouth gaping open, that led into the inner bailey of the castle.
“This is so cool,” she said, staring at the moss-covered rock walls, the rainwater running off the gray stones. “To think that the people who lived here in ancient times passed this way regularly.”
“Yes, but if you were a foe, you’d be dead.” He pointed at the mossy stone walls that rose high above and the arrow slits from which archers could riddle an intruder with arrows before he could defend himself or escape.
She shivered, and he rubbed her arm and smiled. “You’re a distant cousin of the Kilpatricks so no worries.”
“Yes, but I’m with one of their staunchest enemies, a MacNeill wearing his clan plaid, although you left your sword behind. Besides, they’d probably figure I was besotted with the enemy and a traitor to the Kilpatricks’ cause.”
Cearnach laughed. “So you do like the kilt.” He said it as a statement of fact. If she said she didn’t, he wouldn’t believe her.
She gave him a smile that said she liked a little more than that. The way she still held his hand—not immediately releasing it when the way was no longer slippery—made him think she enjoyed his company too.
They headed through the tunnel, their footfalls echoing off the rock walls and floor before they reached the opening into the inner bailey. Despite it being October, the courtyard was covered in soft, bright green grass that was short, as if someone came in and mowed it on a regular basis.
“Where can we hide our clothes? If we shift in the restrooms or anywhere else, our clothes could be found,” she said, finally releasing his hand. “If anyone came along who was crazy enough to be out in this cold, rainy weather.”
He pointed to an eighteenth-century cannon protecting the keep. “See the cannon that was used to defend the castle in later years? I’ll tuck our things in there. No one would ever think to look for them there.”
“You’d have to undress the rest of the way and shift by the cannon.” Her eyes honed in on his chest, the chilly rain dribbling down it.
He was used to the conditions. The strong, cold wind still whipped about but it wasn’t as frigid in the bailey, most likely because of the high, four-foot-thick walls that surrounded it. But even so, a naked body would find the air cold and the light rain chilly. Still, the cold didn’t bother him much.
“I’ve swum in the icy loch, lass. Keeps a body strong. And virile.”
Her eyes sparkled with humor, her mouth curving up just a hint.
He continued, “A little autumn rain won’t hurt.”
She laughed. “I’m from Florida, and when the winter hits, even if it’s not all that cold, I wear a coat and avoid the ocean.”
He shook his head. Yet he was thinking how he’d like to keep her here in Scotland so she’d grow accustomed to their weather. Better than that, he knew just how to warm the lass, even if she didn’t become acclimated to their weather quickly. “You’d never last in our climate when winter arrives, but I could help a lot there.”
“I’ll be long gone before then,” she promised, giving him a small smile. Before he could respond—to tell her he hoped to change her mind, even that he planned to change it—she slipped into the bathroom and closed the door.
He waited outside the ladies’ room while she undressed and shifted. He couldn’t help thinking about her taking off the clingy, wet red dress and him seeing her naked.
When she scratched and whimpered at the door, he broke loose of his vision of her as a naked woman, forgetting she’d be a wolf now, and pulled the door open. A beautiful, mink-brown wolf with dark brown eyes emerged. She wagged her tail and stood by the ladies’ room, waiting for him to get her personal effects.
He scooped up her boots and the bundle of clothes that she’d wrapped inside her raincoat, then tucked them under his arm and strode across the inner courtyard to the outer one. Leaning down, he stuffed her things deep inside the cannon. Then he started to strip, putting each article of clothing inside the weapon as soon as he’d pulled it off.
While he did so, he watched her as she raced all over the castle ruins. She seemed to be chasing smells and unsure which way to go first because everything seemed just as intriguing as everything else. She sniffed around the stone stables, busily exploring them. Then she dashed across the bailey, glanced in his direction, looked at his kilt still riding low on his hips, then bolted up narrow, winding stairs into one of the castle towers. He’d just finished removing his kilt when she peered down at him through a broken part of the wall.
He smiled to see her head poking out of the broken structure as if the hole in the wall was a new window, her gaze perusing his naked form, her eyes catching his as he observed her reaction. If she was in her human form, would she be blushing again?
He willed his wolf half to take over. His muscles stretched, the tendons and ligaments warming as he called upon the change. Shifting felt like getting a gentle workout, but before the shifter had a chance to really experience the warming sensation, he or she was standing as a wolf, a genetic necessity to prevent humans from seeing them during the shift. If anyone observed the change, hopefully they would see a blurring of forms as if their eyes were playing tricks on them.
Now he was fully clothed in wolf fur, kneading the ground with his paws and stretching his legs before he raced to join her. Watching her explore the castle ruins and seeing her enthusiasm about running as a wolf made him feel a surge of lightheartedness, something he hadn’t felt since Calla decided to mate with Baird McKinley a month earlier.
Sure, he had to see if his car was anywhere about. But with helping to run Argent Castle and the pack, he hadn’t taken much time for himself of late. If his clan could only see him now. Though he was always kidded for being the most easygoing of the brothers, this was something entirely new for him—putting aside a crisis to enjoy the company of a she-wolf, forgetting duty or the pack for the moment.
He quickly joined her on the tower stairs. When she unexpectedly licked his face in greeting, he cast her a wolfish grin.
She had to know her actions were considered part of the courtship phase between wolves. Werewolves might not date, but they definitely courted in their own way. He was all too ready to go along with it.
She ran up the rest of the stairs, wagging her tail and stopping to sniff at a corner of the tower and then on the step before her while he nearly rammed his nose up her butt because of her sudden stops and starts.
He could have laughed at the way she was so delighted to cast off her human form and play in her wolf one.
Probably some of her enthusiasm was due to the long flight, confinement on the airplane, the drive here from Edinburgh, and now her first chance to really stretch her legs, like a wild wolf released from a cage.
After circling around the tower room, she wrinkled her nose at a hole in the floor where men would have urinated when they were on guard duty. Then she stood on her hind legs to look out a perfectly round window at the water, where whitecaps frothed over the tops of moss-covered boulders. She smelled the wind for the longest time, breathing in the scents, filling her lungs, letting out the air, and doing it again. While he was smelling her. The way she was so ecstatic, excited, loving it.