This was the ultimate adventure.
Truth be told, no way was she going to get an invitation inside the castle. Beyond that, no one would give her blanket permission to search for the hidden cache her family left there centuries earlier.
With her heart beating hard from the exercise and her rush to avoid being caught if someone was hiking through the forest, she traversed the area, back and forth, searching, looking for any sign of something out of place, an indication that a hidden entrance into the castle was here somewhere. If she could find the secret entrance, and it was still a viable way into the tunnels underneath the moat and castle walls, she’d have a better chance at exploring the place without detection. She thought.
Listening for sounds of humans in the vicinity, she still heard none.
She sighed. Time to shape-shift because she’d never get anywhere with her search as a human. She stripped off her clothes, buried them as best she could under leaves and pine needles, welcomed the heat that pervaded every tissue as the change took place, and in a couple of heartbeats, she shifted, the motion fluid, fast, and painless.
As a human, she felt comfortable in the woods; as a wolf, even more so. Except for the worry someone might try to shoot her. But she was lower to the ground and could run faster, and with ears that could twist this way and that, unlike human ears, she could detect where sounds were coming from better. Although in her human form, she still could hear sixteen times better than a human could.
The warm coat of the wolf covered her in fur that not only kept her body heat from escaping but also had long guard hairs that kept the moist air from penetrating. Her wolf’s coat was lighter because it was summer and she’d shed her winter coat already, but if she were to stay in these colder temperatures, her coat would grow thicker to accommodate the weather in Scotland.
Nose to the ground, she sniffed the area, wanting to search every square inch of land and find the secret trapdoor, if there was still one, that would lead through underground tunnels and hidden passageways into the keep. To her frustration, she’d searched for probably a good hour and a half and was almost ready to give up. Not wanting to worry Maria, Julia intended to head back to the cottage so she could accompany her and the rest of the staff to meet with the MacNeills.
But first, she wanted to do one last thing—get a look at where the postern gate was located around the rear of the castle. Was it still a viable entrance? Used still? Less fortified and not half as secure as the tower gate in front of the castle? Or was it blocked or, worse, walled up?
Running through the forest still on all four paws, she remained hidden in the shelter of the aspen and Scots pine. She had just made the turn at the southeastern tower when she saw movement on top of the curtain wall. A man had been looking out at the woods with no particular focus, as if admiring the beauty of the forest, but now he quickly shifted his gaze to her.
Ian MacNeill. He was dressed in brown trousers and an ivory polo shirt. He couldn’t see her, she didn’t think. Not from the height he was at. Not from the distance to the trees. Not with the forest providing a leafy canopy. Or the mist that continued to drape the area in ghostly overtones.
Yet his eyes focused directly on her, his gaze looking straight into hers as if he could see her. Not only her, though, but her eyes, as he locked onto her gaze. But he couldn’t see her. She swore he couldn’t. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. Caught in the act.
He stood so still, gazing so long at her—his lips parted as if he was surprised, every muscle in his body filling with tension, his hands clenched into fists on top of the curtain wall—that she worried he did see her. That he didn’t want to scare her away, but that if he could, he’d call up the cavalry and order them to hunt her down.
She didn’t dare move, just in case the movement might verify that she was here, although no matter how much she considered that he seemed to see her, she knew he couldn’t. It just wasn’t physically possible.
But then she reconsidered. He was a wolf. And if she could see him… damn.
“Ian, we got a call.” A man hollered to him from a long way off, his voice dark and gruff, but Ian didn’t break his eye contact with her. She thought it was Duncan’s voice. “The producer and some of his staff are on their way.”
Julia’s breathing suspended. She had to get back, rejoin Maria, and go with her as she and some of the film staff sought audience with the man she was now eyeing. Maria would worry about her—think she’d been caught—that she was in trouble. She had to get back.
But she stood mesmerized as she stared at Ian. His dark hair fluttered in the breeze, his face sculpted in chiseled granite, his jaw taut, and the faint outline of his muscles appearing beneath the shirt that was growing damp in the wet weather. He didn’t move from the spot where he was standing, eyeing her with—well, she couldn’t tell. Surprise, probably. Annoyance, maybe. A wolf in these woods. His woods. Did he realize it was her?
“Ian! Did you hear me?” the other man shouted again.
Ian’s lips turned up slightly. That faint curve of his lips did her in. He had to know it was her. “I’m here, Duncan.” Ian spoke just as darkly, but his words were softer, more dangerous, and quieter, as if he was afraid he’d scare her away. And he didn’t want to chase her away, she assumed. He wanted to hunt her down.
She thought he might briefly turn to acknowledge Duncan, but Ian wouldn’t release her gaze, and she couldn’t wait, in the event he did tell his younger brother to send hunters to locate her. Plus, she was supposed to be with the film crew who were to meet him soon. Had she taken longer in her search than she had anticipated? Maybe it had been two hours already. She bolted for where she’d left her clothes, intending to shape-shift and then head to the cottage where she hoped Maria still waited for her.
The wind in her fur, and the smell of the cold, misty air and of deer and a fox, made her take in another deep breath. Something intrinsically heavenly about the Highland woodlands appealed to the wolf side of her and to her Scottish roots. The moors, the lakes, the rivers, the waterfalls, the fields of purple heather, and the mountains. The castle, too. It was the place of romance and Highland hunks, just like Ian, who had captured her with his gaze as if he could hold her hostage there forever.
Too bad he could only be a fantasy character in her werewolf romance tales.
Before she reached her clothes, she heard something snap in the woods and stopped dead, her heart thundering as she swung her head around, listening and looking for anyone or anything that might be out here.
Movement in the trees—two men. The two men who had been at the airport. The fairer one who had taken their first rental car. The other, the dark-haired man who had been watching her with too much interest. Too much of a coincidence that they’d be here now. Too much of a coincidence that they were here together.
Were they Ian’s men? Or someone else’s men? Maybe whoever was responsible for Maria’s car accident?
She dashed away, hoping she’d lose them before it was too late.
If Ian MacNeill hadn’t seen the red wolf with his own eyes, despite the mist surrounding her and making her appear almost ghostly, he would have thought she was a figment of his own very vivid imagination. Even so, he couldn’t help watching her, waiting for her to move, to prove to him she was real and not some ethereal wolf from the past. He’d seen them before. Wolves, no longer really here. Ghosts of the past. Wolves with a history. Not lupus garous, but real wolves.
But red wolves had never lived in the area. Grays, yes, the last killed off in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, depending on the source. Red wolves, no. He’d never even seen one before. And red lupus garous? Possible, although he had never met one. Was it Julia? Or someone else from the film crew?
Despite telling himself Julia was a lupus garou and that wasn’t any big deal, he recognized that she wasn’t like any female wolf he’d ever known. She fascinated him, by both her actions and her reactions to him. He’d never been so caught up in wanting to know more about a woman. A woman with secrets. With a name that wasn’t her own. And with a job that wasn’t truly hers?
If the wolf was the woman, her ankle was faring better. But what was she doing roaming around his lands? Out sightseeing? When he’d said in no uncertain terms that no one was allowed to. Newly turned and had to shape-shift quickly? That was a dangerous proposition, and she shouldn’t be here in unfamiliar woods, risking detection. Or here on this job, period.
He had half a notion to locate her clothes and force her to come to him so he could advise her about his rules once more. That brought another rash of unbidden thoughts to mind. His prisoner. His.
Baird Cottage was not all that far from the castle. It would be easy for her to run as a wolf and show up on his doorstep. But she hadn’t come to the front gate. She was sneaking around the eastern wall. What was she attempting to do?
“I’ll be up to speak with you in a wee bit,” Ian’s youngest brother shouted. “They’re halfway to the moat.” If Duncan hadn’t called out to Ian earlier about the film crew, the wolf might have hung around longer.
Not planning to personally deal with the film production staff because he had no need, Ian studied the fog sifting through the stands of aspen, silver birch, and Scots pine surrounding Argent Castle, moving like a silent predator, slipping around them in a white wispy blanket. If his clan had been at battle, the mist couldn’t have been more welcome. Every muscle in his body tensed. It felt like battle, just the same.
But what he wanted more than anything was to hunt down the wolf. Her reddish coat was cinnamon in color and the underside of her muzzle a soft white. Her large, red ears had been listening in his direction, twitching as his brother had spoken, and her tail tipped in black ink had been held straight out, not moving a centimeter. The wolf was definitely a female, smaller and more slender in build than a male.
If the film crew’s staff hadn’t come at such a bad time, he would have signaled to Duncan to gather men to go after her while he held her gaze. But he was fairly certain she would have run if she’d heard them coming toward her in the woods. This probably wouldn’t be the last time she traveled his woods in her wolf form, either. The notion of catching her at it more than appealed.