"You're saying this was me?" asked Gemma incredulously, stroking her finger gently along the white crescent of a fresh scar on Mac's forearm. She shivered lightly in distaste, sitting on his lap. Her mate tightened his arm around her waist, pulling her closer against him and kissed her temple gently, lips smiling while he lazily steered the yacht one-handed.
"You're a feisty little madam when you want something: last night you wanted me." The deep voice resonated with smugness. Then he sighed mournfully before adding, "Whereas I just wanted a romantic, starlit cruise."
Gemma's heart lightened and she snorted indignantly. "Yes, well, you obviously need sparring practice - you must be getting slow if I can catch you." Then she soothed her fingertip a second time along the curve of the slightly raised white line, stroking gently, and guilt roiled again in her chest.
"You didn't want to fight me; you wanted to pin me down and ravish me," her mate corrected her. And then added in an undertone, "I don't think you were in a rage at all, you were just pretending."
Right. Her stomach was churning at the knowledge of the new blank gap in her life, but her lips were twitching.
"So the poor little Alpha got hurt trying to protect his virtue?" she drawled sarcastically.
"No, I got hurt because I let a delightfully enthusiastic werewolf have her wicked way with me," he grinned against her hair, before turning his head to nibble on her ear. "Couldn't resist."
Wait a sec. "I thought you, um, restrained me when we - when I'm in the rage and we're. Um. You and I," Gemma spluttered to a halt, a flush rising in her cheek. Blushing again, dammit.
She'd experienced the restraints a couple of times over the four days at Rainbow Falls - surfacing from the blankness to find herself bound and gagged, limbs immobilised. And usually being very thoroughly, lusciously adored with tongue, teeth, and hands. The whole of him. Damn the blank patches in her memory. She was missing so much.
Mac leaned closer and whispered the missing words in her ear, "When we're making love?" Her skin shivered to his breath. And his words. She'd noticed that the wolves tended to call a spade a spade, and a little glow lit inside now as he described how their sexual relationship was changing, too. Changing from less frantic to long, slow savouring of each other. Well, sometimes.
Her mate sat back again and shrugged. "You lost control last night because you hung down in the cabin too long, making us tea. Wolves get badly travel sick, partially from the confined feeling in most vehicles - I wasn't going to add to the torment. And no-one could hear you. Besides, you weren't really aggressive, just - uncontrolled." Mac's eyes were gleaming at the memory.
He had had to tie her up when she was insane over the last four days. The hotel had indicated that they were decidedly concerned about the loud shrieks and howls which sometimes emanated from their suite. And you couldn't effectually gag a wolf - or werewolf - without immobilising the claws also. Gemma had been the one who had insisted that they stay at Rainbow Falls as long as possible, not wanting the blissful escape to end. Not yet. Despite what Mac had said about it irritating the wolf in her, Gemma's secretly believed that her real annoyance with being tied up was that she couldn't remember.
He didn't agree. So could she persuade her mate to tie her up when she was compos mentis? No.
Damn stubborn wolf.
"You should restrain me: I bit you!" she murmured sadly, tracing the marks of her teeth.
She could feel his lips smiling as he kissed her again, right over his original bite on her neck, lips lingering.
"Yes, finally - thank-you." Her mate sighed happily. His voice deepened with feeling. "My picchu, you carry enough of my marks that no wolf could ever be in any doubt as to whom you belong. Now I finally carry yours. I thought you were never going to claim me."
Her blush deepened on the ripple of pride which welled up this time, and Gemma traced the mark again, this time with a hint of possessiveness, "So you let me bite you?"
"You should see the one on my left buttock," he whispered into her ear.
She'd claimed his butt? The blush fused up her neck, and she spluttered on her reply. Which failed to manifest as words. Or thoughts. Except one indignant wisp: He was making it up. Although actually, it sounded pretty likely. Very likely.
You can check if you like, he offered. Please do.
She ignored that.
Her brain was flickering through images of other places she'd like to bite him; claim him. He only had the two marks, on his arm and his buttock - plus the old tear on his chest where she'd bitten him the night after she was turned, but that wasn't as clear. Whereas she has dozens of his marks on her neck and shoulder - she obviously needed to catch up. Fair's fair. Her flush grew and insides squirmed. Why didn't she remember? she thought crossly.
You can do it again, any time you like, picchu. Please, oh please.
Gemma swallowed against the heat in his tone, and concentrated on her mind shield, pulling together some privacy to indulge in a bit of lustful fantasy. About maybe biting a delicate little trail down across his belly one day. Marking out her own personal track, the road to delight. Mmmm. She smiled to herself.
Mac shifted underneath her, unsettled, and his arousal growing. "Why're you hiding what you're thinking? I'm obviously participating in your head, why not share?" her mate growled grouchily.
Her smile grew, and Gemma pulled the shroud of her mind-shield closer. Her doft was thickening as she absorbed his amazing scent, and her nipples tingled into alertness, a ripple of awareness shivering over her skin.
Mac shuddered in echo, nipping her neck, his aroused musk thickening. "Dammit," he cursed into her skin in a muffled undertone, "Last time I teach you anything. You can hide your thoughts, Gem, but not your scent. Tell me what you're thinking."
Gemma chuckled internally at his insistence, and determinedly kept her thoughts shielded. She'd noticed that her wolf became a lot more excited when he had to guess what she was dreaming about, with her increasingly rich doft perfuming the air around them. A lot more excited.
A very, very good reason to learn to shield her thoughts properly.
Mac slid his right arm up her torso, his hand gliding up between her breasts, and Gemma twitched violently, feeling her control flicker. Cheat! She thought at him, and quickly lifted her head and looked out across the estuary, the shimmering water calming her, taking deep breaths.
Who invented any rules? he retorted, his fingertips tracing her delicate skin, making the nipples pucker and harden into bullets.
The suddenly blare of a warning siren sounded from close by across the water, and Mac suddenly lifted his head, focussed on a large metal marker poking out of the water, and cussed as he swiftly swung the boat around to pass to the right of it.
"Stop distracting me, picchu," he complained unfairly. "We're getting too close to shore - why don't you keep a lookout instead of playing silly games?"
"I win," Gemma whispered very quietly, hugging the arm that was back around her waist hard.
She heard his snort in her ear. "You mean you get a reprieve," Mac retorted, also sotto voce.
Gemma smiled again, while slowly her eyes and mind re-focussed on their surroundings.
The night had been clouded, and the dawn air was warm, the breeze a gentle brush on the skin while the yacht skimmed the last, long reach up the narrowing inlet toward the glittering lights of an awakening city sprawled across the river mouth they were approaching. Tiers upon tiers of houses rose, and the faint orange haloes of the streetlights outlining the surrounding hills were dimmed under the blinding blaze of the rising sun reflected on the multitude of windows.
Gemma sighed as the lips nibbling possessively over her neck lifted, and Mac adjusted their course again slightly to make way for a large containership heading out of the port. She blinked her dreamy eyes wider, taking in their destination, and snuggled her head back into the crook of his shoulder, tracing her fingers over the light hairs on his bare forearm.
"A city?" she asked softly, amazed. "You're planning on hiding a werewolf in a city?"
She wasn't sure what city this was, and didn't want to ask. She was even wary of focusing too keenly at the large, ostentatious buildings lining the majority of the central shoreline, in case she recognised a national monument.
She enjoyed the rumble of his chest behind and beneath her as he replied, "There was a house available here with a private laboratory."
Gemma sighed.
"Work. Working for wolves. When your stupid senshal have condemned me - and you by association," she growled. Why was she doing this again?
She felt her mate tense under her. He was possibly more angry about her sentence than she was.
She knew the answer to why work really. It was simple. For Mac. And for Ada, Anne, the other victims of Grey. Herself. But that didn't mean she wasn't irritated that the idiot senshal would gain too.
Mac forced his slightly trembling frame to relax. As far as possible. His lips brushed her skin again, and he murmured, "I'll make it up to you, picchu."
A sudden hope exploded, "You mean you'll finally tie me up when I'm compos mentis?" she pleaded.
He growled, half a groan. "Not when it'll drive you into rage, Gemma. Please don't ask me again."
"No, I mean, once I'm better? You threatened to once. I'm still waiting," her voice was an almost breathless pant by the end of the sentence, and she was trembling, finding it hard not to squirm on his lap.
Mac stilled suddenly under her, and she smelt a sudden pulse of something in his scent, something pungent, calling, unrecognised. It tingled down her spine, seeming to melt her bones.
Mac was trembling.
She turned on his thighs, and looked up into his face. His eyes were closed, but reopened on a scorching, yearning look which made her heart burn with aching fire, melting into feeling that had her leaning forwards to brush his lips with hers, over and over again.
His voice was a whisper when she retreated. "You have never, ever mentioned, "when I'm better" before, picchu."
Holding his eyes, the tremble became contagious, and Gemma sank against him, wrapping her arms around his wide shoulders and holding on fiercely.
Just - Mac.
"So?" she whispered eventually, and felt his chuckle shake his frame.
"Yes, I promise. When you're better I'll tie you up and indulge myself," he replied softly, voice rich layers of meaning.
"Yippee!" Gemma rejoiced quietly, the sound muffled against his skin, enjoying his laughter in response.
When she eventually turned her head back to see where they were, her eyes meandered over the mishmash of criss-crossing streets rising up over the low hills on either side of the inlet, roads disappearing behind the hilltops, and appearing again further away. Spires dotted the horizon, and a castle was perched on a low, solitary hill to their left. Beautiful. Crowded. Human.
She sighed.
This was the end of their little honeymoon. But even returning to reality couldn't quell the deep, satisfying melt of happiness which seemed to have grown inside her over the four days spent indulging her wolf and herself. She felt as though she was floating through life in a warm, steady glow.
Another flicker of memory of the hours lost to blank insanity flashed in the corner of her contentment, but Gemma pushed it away before it really registered. They had begun to treat her "lapses" as a slightly unfortunate commonplace, a tiresome inevitability which came and went a bit like a rainstorm. She might regret the lost time, and be secretly irritated at her own lack of control, but it made it easier on both of them, treating the rage irreverently, as an inconvenient misfortune.
She knew it was much easier on Mac, that when she was with him, sane, she wasn't despairing, angry, or sad. And it wasn't even an act. She defied anyone to remain sad with such a gorgeous mate. She hugged his warm, muscular arm to herself, feeling the reluctant revving up of Mac's own internal network, his skin beginning to exude the tingle of controlled power and enhanced alertness of the Alpha returning to full throttle as they skimmed under the light breeze toward the multitude of tall masts marking the marina.
Besides, she felt it was only fair that she do her best to make it easier for him - her mate made accepting the rage so much easier for her. Because she did trust him to control her, keep her from becoming a danger to others. She lifted his hand to kiss the palm, holding it open to admire the strong fingers and work-roughened palm. Kissed it again. So she would look after him in return, by being as normal, loving and cheeky as possible, while she was sane.
Suddenly her nose wrinkled as a waft of the smell of the streets they were approaching hit her nose.
"Why in a city?" she asked.
"More minds muffle conveyance, Gem, even humans' thoughts. The brat would have to be well within the metropolis, and in the right suburb, for you to come within his range," Mac replied.
Her petty little malevolent mordeur. Gemma shivered lightly.
"Besides, it's highly doubtful that they would even try to look here, as this is the last type of place any wolf with any sense would take an insane werewolf," he added.
Gemma smiled, and turned on his lap to nibble kisses on the lips of the senseless wolf she was perching on.
That evening, Gemma was nervous. It was a silly reaction: half of Mac's pack, well, more like the vast majority of all wolves she had met, blatantly distrusted werewolves and were deeply suspicious of her, yet here she was worrying that his human friends wouldn't like her. They were walking into the old town from the old wooden house close to the centre which Mac had arranged for them, to share a meal with Jonathan and Lianna. Mac's old friends had come out on the train to retrieve their yacht, and were going to take a long weekend holiday sailing it back. Mac had offered them dinner in thanks for the loan.
Gemma fiddled slightly nervously with her necklace as she walked down the road toward the harbour hand in hand with her wolf, glancing down at the flare of her new rose-patterned sundress, the soft fabric clinging to her possibly a bit too closely, frowning as she worried about it, biting her lip.
Then she smiled at the pattern of the artwork on her toes, peeping out of the end of her delicate sandals. Mac had hated her painting her toenails, choking hoarse breaths, pretending to retch, then disappearing in a huff around the corner of the old white-painted wooden house when she had continued to ignore him, leaving her sitting on the back porch in the dappled shade of the apple tree, indulging herself. Yes, she'd had to turn her head away to take a breath too, but they had come out very prettily, and the smell didn't bother her now that they were dry.
Mac half-growled. "I still prefer them natural," he grumped.
"You have no taste," she returned, "They are much prettier like this." Gemma stood on one leg and held out her left foot, wiggling the toes in the warm evening light, balancing with a hand on Mac's arm to demonstrate. "See?"
"Very pretty," agreed a man who was emerging from the side street to their left, and he grinned down at Gemma as he halted beside them, ready to cross the busy road too.
"Thanks," she replied, smiling back happily. The human was much taller than her own height, although possibly not much older than her own age, despite the creased, weather-beaten, slightly peaked-looking face under his mop of dark hair and the tanned lines which made him seem older. Worldly. His scent had a peculiar, fresh-yet-musty edge to it - something that set him apart as different to the detergent-and-cosmetic steeped humans back at the hotel. He was smiling at her gently, and the smile deepened as he looked into the soft brown, bright smiling eyes turned up to his.
"Hi, I'm Gemma, this is Mac," she introduced herself sunnily, putting out a hand, "We've just moved here."
There was an infinitesimal pause before the man reached out his own tanned, cracked hand, and gently shook hers, a strange light at the back of his eyes, smile twisting slightly. He shot a look at Mac.
"Her fiancé," her wolf augmented her introduction succinctly, his left hand closing lightly yet firmly around the bare skin of Gemma's upper arm, the arm closest to her new acquaintance, steadying and also enclosing her, while he held out his own right palm to shake.
"Samuel," replied the man, releasing Gemma's hand, his eyes lifting to the hand encircling her arm, then passing on to stare expressionlessly into Mac's face. He made no move to shake the Alpha's hand.
Gemma felt a light tingle up her spine, a warning at the slight edge of insolence staining the air, but she ignored the undertones and shot a teasing glance up at her mate, "See? My toes are pretty." She turned her gaze back to the human and added, "You have good taste."
"I'm not the only one," he agreed pointedly, and shot a second slightly envious, slightly challenging glance as her mate, the double meaning obvious.
Gemma felt the ever-present tingle of power shimmering off Mac's skin increase almost imperceptibly, while he courteously, non-confrontationally nodded to the human, dropping his hand. Her mate commented dryly, "I don't think he was complimenting you on your toes, picchu."
Samuel's lips twisted slightly in acknowledgement, his eyes drooping cynically, and both males eyed each other for further silent seconds, the lips of the human straightening into a hard line. There was a feeling of measuring in the air before abruptly Samuel breathed out harshly and twitched his eyes back to Gemma. Then he smiled again, sparkling, his eyes crinkling at the edges in accustomed creases. His gaze lingered a little too long looking into her face, softly lit with her joy in life, then he took in a long breath and muttered, "Enjoy your evening," and brushed past them.
Gemma's mouth opened to call after Samuel, draw him to relax into a little more chat, but Mac's hand closed around her elbow and he began to tug her across the road while he replied shortly, "Thanks. You too." Then he sighed quietly and added under his breath, "What is it with you and strays, Gem?" slightly exasperated.
"Stray? How do you call a human a stray?" Gemma objected in a low tone, glancing back over her shoulder again after the tall, retreating figure as she was towed away. Although her mate was right, she did think the guy needed - cheering up. Friendship. Companionship. Whatever you wanted to call it. He needed reasons to smile. Like Mac had once.
"He was homeless, Gem. Couldn't you scent it?" Mac replied. "And he's been in a fight very recently, and is on something. He was only noticing a beautiful girl, meant no harm initially, but he's naturally aggressive and started burning for a reason to pick a fight with me and prove how strong he is to you, prove himself."
Gemma watched Samuel's erect back disappearing around the corner. Her stomach quivered doubtfully, but she wanted to chase after him even more now, look after him. Somehow. Without offending him. Or Mac. Why were males so proud?
"Maybe I could offer him a snack in return for the compliment?"
"Maybe you could not insult him with handouts, and treat him as you would anyone else."
Gemma swallowed that, and allowed her mate to tug her down the cobbled old street toward the harbour.
Gemma was teasing Mac as they walked back up the same route much later, again hand in hand. Lianna and Jon had been delightful: relaxed, urbane, and obviously keenly interested and delighted in "Mac's girl." Jon had spent some time teasingly admonishing his old college friend for lapsing from his supposed vow of asceticism. When they had studied photography together up at Preston, Mac had apparently barely noticed the hordes of girls who had swooned around him all the time. The most he'd been seen doing was kissing one of them occasionally at parties, although he'd stopped even that when it made them so much more persistently determined. Jon had rolled his eyes at the memories, and told funny stories of having to step over girls waiting hopefully on their Mac's doorstep when he visited.
Gemma had found it fascinating to discover so much about her mate which she didn't know. She hadn't even known he had a arts masters, on top of the forestry degree he'd studied before becoming Alpha, and her brain was puzzling out how he'd managed to fit it in around running the pack and all else; well, she knew he had endless stamina, it shouldn't surprise her any longer.
The reminiscing had been so much fun, but not the best of the evening.
That had been the dogs.
They'd been at a small waterfront restaurant, relaxing together at little outdoor tables, enjoying the soft evening sun and scents, and the succulent, excellent seafood. It was as the light had begun to fade that Gemma had first noticed a pair of supplicating eyes gazing out of a mop of greying hair, the eyes of a small dog tucked quietly in a corner away from trampling feet, just staring.
Staring at Mac.
He or she had been quivering gently, longing etched along every line of the tiny, scruffy frame.
It was then that she'd begun to notice the others. Their table had been ringed by a motley collection of mongrels and pure-breds, all of them crouched quietly, half-hidden a circumspect distance from the Alpha. All worshiping with wary, silent respect, wistfully hoping for his acknowledgement. By the end of the meal, there had also been a little circle of offerings placed slightly closer to his feet: two balls, a bone, a sock, and even a small, very chewed-looking doll, each cautiously presented by an awestricken supplicant who had slunk out and then returned silently to their nooks.
Mac had been careful not to look at any of them, and had exasperatedly conveyed a rebuke to Gemma for doing so. The dogs weren't true pack animals, he'd told her, and weren't circumspect or reliably obedient. They would draw the attention of the humans just by gawping; generations of wolves had had to spend many a long night in Lemark training the local strays not to follow them everywhere so damn obviously there.
But they're cute, Gemma had replied, Go on, the little fluffy half-scotty is dying for you to look at her.
Mac had shot his mate a warning look, and Lianna had asked her about their new home, distracting her as she described the spacious three-bedroom house a little incredulously, and slightly. The large, old wooden structure was set on a corner of two streets very close to the old town, the garden backing onto an expanse of parkland. There were a multitude of rooms: two in the basement facing down the hill toward the sea, five at ground level and a further four bedrooms above. There was even an attic, an artist's studio awash with light.
Gemma couldn't help wondering what had Mac been doing in her cramped student flat if he could afford something like this.
But that wasn't what she wanted to talk to him about right now.
Gemma was dancing along beside her mate as they crossed the four-lane main road separating the old town from their residential area, looking up to tease him about his snooty distain of the sycophantic fan club.
His lips were twitching as he replied, "You just like them because you've finally come across some creatures even you could beat in a wolf fight."
"Hah!" retorted his mate cheerfully. "Really, I feel a certain bond with other creatures who are sneered at by the supercilious pure-bloods," she joked.
Without warning a shockingly sharp, tearing pain ripped through her mind on the echo of a piercing shriek.
Dazed, Gemma found that she was on the roadway, crushed down onto one knee by the pain, trembling in the aftermath. Then in a split second, the blankness that usually swamped her sanity smothered blanketing over the pain, dulling it, while her awareness of her surroundings yanked to full alert, sharply focussing on the headlights bearing down at speed, and her unconscious mate lying beside her in the road.
Mac had received the full force of that blast of pain; what she had caught had been an echo, through him, and that had been bad enough. There had also been a cry for help. Multiple, anguished voices.
Car.
In an instant she was on her feet, white face turned to the lights, waving her arms in panic to alert the driver. The horn blared and the vehicle swerved abruptly around them with a screech, violent swearing audible from the open window as it skidded past almost on two wheels, the air of its passing sucking at her skirt, diesel fumes choking sickness into her throat.
Horror-struck, Gemma focussed on the second set of lights not far behind, cresting the rise of the roadway, coming fast.
She dropped to squat beside her wolf, urgently forcing her arms under his shoulders, trying to clasp her small hands across his chest but unable to reach, instead clenching her fists in his shirt, heaving, hauling ineffectually. She was shouting desperately at the approaching vehicle with the tears rolling down her cheeks, panic fluttering in her veins.
She couldn't budge him. Not an inch.
On her feet again, her wet cheeks shining in the light as she windmilled her arms around her head, the car swerved with a screech around them, another set of gentler, gasped words rolling over her with the sound and the reek, but she was already back on her knees, desperately twisting Mac into a straight line, dimly remembering her first aid courses, hauling up his knee and heaving with all her might to roll him heavily onto his side.
Her skin was prickling with the thunder of an approaching truck, the peripheral awareness alerting her both to its size, and to the sleek car overtaking it - some insane driver, overtaking on the rise. Two sets of parallel lights approaching. Approaching fast as she heaved again, straining every muscle until she thought her veins would burst, and feeling her songmate roll over again onto his back, one measly foot closer to safety.
Then suddenly as the thunder of the engines grew louder, Mac moved. But not of his own volition. The face of the man dragging him was a rictus of furious, tortured strain, the thin, jean-clad legs almost folding under the weight of the wolf. A pulsing vein was etched sharply in the thin neck, a second thick line pulsing at his temple in the orange glow of the streetlights while the human strove with all his might to haul her mate backwards toward the side of the road, staggering slowly, yet inexorably, under the dead weight.
Gemma leapt back to her feet, heart bursting, waving frantically at the approaching blaze of lights as she kept pace protectively in front of the slow procession, gulping back the tears. The overtaking car's brakes shrieked, and the powerful vehicle slammed to a halt, bouncing back onto the rear tyres at the weight of the halted momentum. The powerful vehicle waited with the bumper two feet from her, hazard lights blinking, engine purring silently. The wide eyes of the driver watched the small cavalcade through the windscreen silently.
The human's breath was rasping hoarsely as he attempted to heave the dead weight of the wolf onto the kerb. Gemma dropped down to help, and together they hauled, tugged, and shoved relentlessly, breath panting in unison until the inanimate body was lying safely face-down on the walkway.
Breathing harshly, Gemma lifted her strained face to the rescuer, swiping away the tracks of tears, and her shocked eyes met his blazing blue ones. Samuel. Again.
"You," he choked, heaving for breath and for words to express the anger and incredulity on his face. "What were you thinking, staying out there with him?" he snarled at her furiously, a strange look of longing on his face. If his voice hadn't been so rough, the rebuke could have been Mac's. "What the f-. Insane! What, you think two dead is better than one?"
"Yes," the soft choked answer fell from her lips without thought, and stopped him dead. Samuel surged to his feet and stood glaring at her a sort of hurt, chest heaving.
The idea of leaving her mate had never entered her mind at all.
Samuel's eyes rested for a moment on the small hand cupped protectively over Mac's head, and he closed his eyes, and reopened them on a burning, bitter look.
"Be more careful in future!" he bit out, and swung to stalk off up the street, shoulders hunched angrily.
"Samuel!" Gemma called after him, plaintively. She owed him so much. But her voice broke, and the "Thank-you," was a choked whisper.
He didn't turn.
Mac was crying when he opened his eyes.
Haunted eyes.
He didn't say a word, just swung wearily to his feet and lifted her up into his arms, hugging her to him painfully, as though he needed to hold her, needed the comfort.
Gemma looked into those eyes and the questions died on her lips. She just slid her arms around him and held on, hugging him as hard as she could while he loped back up the hill toward their house, face buried in her hair, breathing raggedly.
She hadn't known that a call from his pack could be that debilitating. Each time, previously, he had taken a second or two to centre himself before answering, control paramount.
Mac hadn't known, either, he explained wearily once they were back at the flat. He sat frozen at the kitchen table, staring at the wood, while Gemma quickly made him a hot cup of coffee.
Nicolas Grey had just tested a new tactic, the Mackeld Alpha explained. Grey had coordinated simultaneous attacks of his remaining wolves on several of the younger Mackelds; those young wolves studying elsewhere, out of range of their families and the rest of the pack, when the link with their Alpha the only clear one sustaining the gensis, the pack-sense.
It was only during the past two generations that larger numbers of younger, less powerful wolves had travelled some distance to study, out of the communal range of the pack. And this of course made them vulnerable, although the vulnerability was not something Mac or anyone else had really thought of before. The Aster had been at peace among themselves for so long.
His voice was hoarse, and Mac struggled to continue, face twisting, eyes closed in grief. The young Mackeld wolves had been attacked and mutilated, severely and suddenly tortured, ripped through unbearable pain to the brink of the edge of life, where the only thing they could cling to was their Alpha. Four of them. Simultaneously. He shuddered.
Gemma was frozen by the sink, eyes wide, tears arrested by the horror as she stared across. How did he bear this? A hand reached her way, and she saw the raging pain in his eyes as she met them, heart creasing for his hurt, stepping closer automatically.
"Did they survive?" her whisper was quiet. Then she wished that she hadn't asked when she read the answer in his face.
"I have recalled all other remote members of the pack," was all Mac said, "And warned the Council." But there was something else in his face, another shadow.
"Gem," his voice was hoarse, and the hand reached again. She rested hers in it, twining her fingers around his, and he drew her back between his knees. She tried to enfold him in her arms but he held her away, and tilted his head up to hers, eyes sombre as a finger lightly caressed her cheek.
He tried to speak, but failed. Blinked, mouth twisted almost into a snarl. Gemma could feel her own heart shrinking within her. It was rarely her mate struggled to put something into words. Abruptly he lifted her right hand and kissed the palm, furious eyes glinting through tears of sadness as he looked into hers and said softly, straightly.
"Those were the wolves guarding Bethan and Kate."
Gemma stared.
Her friends. No.
She could feel the tremble of the rage rising like a tide within her as the meaning slowly sunk in, her fists clenching, lengthening claws digging into her palms.
Her fault.
"Are they -?" she manage to choke, her deadly teeth lifting in a silent snarl, her heart burning painfully in her breast, pounding, the guilt sickening. The stupid drug. Her fault.
"There is no trace of them - no bodies, no blood - I sent the other Mackelds to check on their way home. And there is no scent of any other wolf on the four dead," her mate said bleakly.
Captured? Hostages?
Mac's last words were filtered through the echoing, shattering anger as sickening images played through her mind of what Grey did to people in his power. Kill. Her own, piercing howl was inaudible to the werewolf, the taste of blood on her tongue blanked by the blackness in her head as she leapt to attack.
Gemma came round the following day, but the fire was flaming within her, burning fiercely, making her volatile and snappy, and this time she violently resented the time she'd wasted in the stupid rage. She spent all of the long, seething, guilt-ridden hours of the day working at setting up the lab in the basement. Rigid, furious determination drove her, and if her damn mate hadn't been larger, faster, more powerful and more stubborn and eloquent than she, she would not have left the flat at all until she had found a solution to that damn drug and tracked down and killed the fucking Grey wolf.
And, please God, freed her human friends.
Mac had had to literally drag her out of her lab and the house by one arm, ignoring her rising protests, insisting that he knew wolves, and that the wolf within her needed time outside. She had shut up as instructed on the street, glowering silently, and stumbled furiously along beside him, her arm held tight by his hand. A corner of her mind was wondering why the hell the towering anger she felt didn't consume her this time.
However, eating supper together at a little table down by the wall of the old fishing harbour, watching the waves rolling under the joyous sunset and scenting the breeze soothed something in her blood, mellowing out the fury into a deep, productive determination. Powerful, but no longer wasting energy in anger. Thank god for Mac. He thought of things. And he did know her, and understand the werewolf far better than she did. Now she could think clearly, not simply through rage, and do her best for her friends.
He was the most gorgeous, thoughtful mate in the world.
"Told you I'm always right," Mac murmured.
Alright, maybe he had a few irritating characteristics.
Then her heart melted again when she remembered what else he had done for her today, and she leaned across the table to kiss him.
While she had been out of it, her wolf had had an express package couriered from the Fealden range. A package of hair and blood samples donated by ex-Grey and Fealden wolves, so that she could test to see what was different about the polluted cells while waiting for Gus to arrive with the phial of the remaining drug that her Alpha had captured off Grey. She kissed Mac deeply, delighted that here was something that she could do now.
It would also stop him voicing his smugness.
They would have to wait a while longer for the drug itself to be delivered, Mac had explained earlier today. Fealden Wolflord had chartered a plane for Gus from Kilkenny, but his grandson had been ambushed by a pack of scentless wolves at the airfield. Gus had barely gotten away with the small flask intact; the enemy wolves had been intent on trying to smash or procure it, while trying to overpower or kill him. Gemma thought that it must have galled the massive wolf to run, but he knew what was important.
Gus would be a while, apparently. After a second ambush, pursuit, and a dangerous explosion on a flight he had intended to catch, Gus, Mac and Fealden had decided that it was safer that he run all the way from the Western mountains while evading pursuit. The sparse wolf airfields were too easy to monitor and flights too difficult to police against determined sabotage.
But now Gemma had plenty to do in the meantime, with all her samples. Moreover Mac had today introduced her, online, to an eminent retired physician in France, Valerie, who had offered to teach her wolf biochemistry through the secure web link his brother Karl had installed to the house. Valerie would guide her through how any drugs and minerals she isolated in her tests reacted in the wolf body.
Soon, soon.
A week later, Gemma's eyes gleamed as them met those of the physician on screen.
"So as you can see, there's definitely still traces of a barbiturate in the hair, and while all I really know about those compounds is that some humans use them when driving after drinking because the cops supposedly can't smell the alcohol - how do they work on wolves?" she asked.
"I -," the wolf woman hesitated, and the delicate, lined face was thoughtful as she looked up from reading the results on her own screen, glowing eyes slightly narrowed. "I am afraid I do not know. All I can recall is that we do not use them, because of the side effects. But at a sufficiently low dose, maybe -." She trailed off, and a finger came up to tap the side of her wrinkled cheek rapidly as she thought.
"If I draw together my old team, we will test this, find out -," Valerie added.
Gemma interrupted her, eyebrows twitching together. "I agreed with Fealden Wolflord before I started any of these tests that I would not share the results," she said softly, "You have been approved, so Mac tells me, but -."
Valerie's eyes flashed in return, the powerful glare suddenly scorching Gemma, and she blinked and shuddered in the burn. But then the lightening was gone and all the old physician said, softly, was, "If you can trust me, you can trust the people I trust. Mac will agree to this."
Then the slight Frenchwoman added, "There is silver in the hair also; and many other ingredients, you tell me. If you could find out which silver molecule it is, that would help; we react quite differently to different manifestations. I have just sent you a list of the general wolf autoimmune reactions to silver in its different forms."
The blue eyes were narrowed warningly: "This is also highly sensitive information. Do not share it."
Gemma nodded, her thudding heart still subsiding back to peace after that flash of burning power. Her eyes were slightly wary as she murmured stubbornly, "I will also ask Mac about your team."
Valerie's mouth thinned, and she looked straight into the wereem's eyes, her own flaring with churning, deep power again.
"You have no idea of protocol, have you? To say such a thing to a wolf is tantamount to asking for a fight," the physician stated coldly.
Gemma shuddered, still holding the searing blue eyes, although it was difficult; she was longing to blink and look away, "No, I have no idea of wolf protocol," she agreed. "Among humans, it is considered rude to share a secret without first checking with the one who entrusted you with it," she managed to answer against the feeling of challenge, as calmly as she could.
The aged face suddenly lit into a warm, true smile, the ominous feeling lifted, and Gemma breathed in shakily in the rebounding relaxation as the power in the eyes subsided.
"Among wolves also. Ask by all means. I will not share this knowledge until you have confirmed with your Alpha," the old woman promised. Then she added, seemingly inconsequently, "You will make him an excellent mate."
Gemma's heart clenched in pain and longing. "I am a werewolf," she retorted gruffly, glancing down to open the new email which had appeared to hide her eyes. "Heaven only knows what I will end up." Then a thought occurred to her: "I wish - do you know if I can get hold of some of Dr Coulter's research papers so I can at least find out what might happen to me, what is likely?"
She wanted to shield Mac as best she could.
The disgusted snort which answered her was easily audible over the video link, and Gemma looked up from the notes on the wolf autoimmune response to silver, startled.
"You're the third werewolf she's ever met," Valerie answered the question in Gemma's eyes caustically. "So what makes her a 'Werewolf expert', hmm?"
The old lady shook her head, shrugging in a French fashion. "Today, perhaps, we know so little. But what you really need are copies of the old tracts from the physicians who used to actually deal with the werewolf armies, day in, day out, during the Steppe Wars and before. The ones Martha ignores because they do not agree with her. I believe that some remain in the Caucasian archives, and will see whether we can perhaps obtain copies."
Gemma smiled tentatively. She daren't hope.
Yet Valerie was proving to be such a gift. A sharply intelligent mentor, who seemed also genuinely interested in Gemma's responses to and frustrations with her changing self. She had charmingly asked only yesterday whether she could take notes on her young friend's progress; after all, though retired, she was a physician, and while she had known many werewolves when she was young, she had not paid much attention to them. It seemed to be the time now to redress that omission.
Gemma herself was a researcher, and here she found someone who wanted to help. Someone Gemma didn't have to hide the insane, feral side from. Someone it didn't hurt to see the steady erosion of her sanity or hear how it felt. Poor Mac.
Two days later, the young werewolf was again sitting cross-legged on the floor of her room in front of her computer screen, her brain firing with fierce volleys of careening thoughts as she read and sifted through the meanings in her latest email from the physician. Valerie's emails were never light, easy material. But they helped so much. She didn't register the soft sound of the heavy door opening behind her.
'I agree, the meticulous case notes in the last chapters of Meditations on Symptoms could be interpreted as meaning that some of the insane werewolves kept for observation periodically regained control of themselves, even once they appeared to have grown free of their Mordeur. However, the ancient language of the text makes the translation ambiguous, and there is no other surviving document such as this. Many believe that Amesteres was ridiculously biased towards werewolves. And nowadays, nobody cares.
The world has changed since the Steppe Wars, and the gap between humans and wolves has been growing for a long time. It is now extremely rare for a wolf to live among humans for a significant period, and it has been almost three millennia since last men were truly aware of our existence. As creating werewolves gradually became less needful, then less fashionable, then frowned upon, and of late downright illegal, we have also grown increasingly detached from humans.
I'm a little disturbed by the growing distrust and dislike of humans which is rising throughout our world, enhanced by the escalating industrialisation and urbanisation of human society. Tzo is not alone in advocating that we combat the pollution which so damages our ranges and restricts our freedom by direct attack on the source: the humans.'
"Picchuuuu?" Her mate's voice was soft, with an atrocious French accent. He had paused just inside the basement room, leaning back against the door which closed with a solid clunk. ""Not tonight, Picchu."," he misquoted.
"Mac!" Gemma cried joyously, bounding up from her position cross-legged on the empty floor, where she'd been sitting facing the large screen embedded into the cream concrete wall. She spun and ran happily across the echoing vault-like room to greet him, apologising, "You're back! I didn't hear you."
The relaxation of his taut frame was so slight that it was almost impossible to see, and besides she was mesmerised, as ever, by the beautiful grin that split his face while she sprang into his arms and hugged him as hard as she could.
"What, only a hug?" he complained, and she lifted her head, tilting it back while he bent his lips fiercely to hers. A long, slow tingle shimmered down her spine, and she felt the warm relaxation gradually melting through every pore while his arms tightened ardently.
She was panting hard when they finally broke apart, a happy little smile curving her lips, and she ran a gentle finger down his nose before she dove back in to hug him again.
"I didn't hear a peep from you, picchu, you are getting very good at shielding your thoughts automatically. What had you so absorbed?" her mate questioned, lifting her up indulgently so she could kiss his nose.
"Valerie's volunteers experienced a similar loss of scent when they tested a minuscule sample made of our latest findings," she explained happily. Mac rolled his eyes at the "our", but in truth he helped immensely - she had a fantastically energetic lab technician at the moment. He didn't know much about chemistry, but every single implement in the lab was meticulously washed, dried and returned to its place almost as soon as she placed it in the soaking solution, and any new chemical, implement or piece of equipment she asked for appeared overnight, if not within hours."
"The scentlessness only lasted for seconds, but -," Gemma grinned up at him, not finishing the sentence, and her mate lifted her up and swung her around in a circle, kissing her breathless.
"You genius," he said proudly as he put her back down again.
Gemma fluttered her lashes, wrinkling her nose cheekily up at him, muttering the words Alfamme matches Alpha under her breath while she regained her breath. Then she continued cheerfully, "There are other ingredients I haven't really worked out yet. The bit there must be to make it adhere to a wolf, because it lasts far longer in the ex-Greys, I'm still finding it hard to pin that down. And there is more to it, but we're getting there."
Mac dropped a brief further kiss on the tip of her nose, before releasing her, slanting smiling eyes back her way as he turned to wrap both hands around the smooth vertical bar of the handle embedded in the door.
We are a perfect match, he agreed, bracing his right foot on the wall beside the door, and gradually leaning back, hauling with all his weight and strength, pushing with his straightening leg.
Yup, we complement each other beautifully. I am the intelligent one. You are the delicious, brawny ornament, Gemma teased.
"It's a beautiful evening," she continued quickly before he could reply, resting her hand lightly on his straining back while she glanced up at the wide, short windows situated high up at the top of the blank concrete wall. She smiled at the shimmer of multi-coloured warm evening light bouncing through the panes down into the bare room. To think that she used to argue about him dragging her out to eat every night.
Slowly, as Mac hauled, breathing hard, the door cracked open.
"Shall we stroll down to the harbour?" she suggested.
They never spoke of the reason she was in this room; the deeply scored rips and bites on the door and doorframe, the scrabbling scratches up toward the high, soundproofed windows. She knew he detested leaving her in here, but as her rages frequently now lasted several hours, he had to leave her somewhere secure occasionally while he went out for food, or to replenish their chemical stock. Today he had been out to collect more samples for her from the parcel office. She had asked him to leave her behind, so that she could get on with deciphering the latest results. And the only safe place to leave her was in her basement strongroom, in case the rage hit.
She had been so touched, the first time she'd come around alone in here. Her computer was in the lab, but along with the other refinements he'd had added to the house before they moved in, his brother Karl had routed her office computer to an additional, huge touch-screen monitor embedded in the concrete wall of her 'panic room'. That was how she referred to this place. And the screen was not something with which she could hurt herself, or her mate, but a reminder as soon as she came to herself that her wolf loved her. Was thinking of her, and did his utmost to help. By giving her her work. And her contact with the outside world.
The door clicked into the locked-open position, and Mac sighed and let go of the handle, breathing deeply as he straightening up. He slid a hand down her arm to engulf hers and suggested, "The Waterfront Café?"
A normal couple, deciding where to go out for the evening. Gemma smiled to herself as she walked upstairs with her wolf.
"Only if you'll talk to the poor wee worshipping mongrels. I'm not being seen with a superior-than-thou almighty Alpha, it's embarrassing."
"Hah," responded Mac, "You wait until we're followed around like your Pied Piper, then you'll find out what embarrassing really is."
"They've promised not to," cajoled Gemma.
"They're dogs: most of them haven't any discipline," her mate objected.
"Nor have werewolves," she retorted.
Mac growled under his breath, snorting something that sounded like, "That old sympathy argument."
Gemma grinned and kissed his knuckles, "We wolf rejects must stick together."
Mac swooped around faster than she could blink, plastered her to the wall, and kissed her deeply, searingly. Reject?
Gemma struggled to think coherently as he lifted away, her mind shuddering from his passion, body aching in want and blood surging in her veins. The air brushing her skin was torture. Her body was so attuned to his.
Do you feel like a reject? he asked.
Gemma had to heave in a few more breaths, brain whirling in heat, before she managed to reply.
"Um -not sure," she whispered hoarsely. "Could we try that again?"
They were late for dinner.
Another week almost gone. This one frustrating in its lack of further progress. Gemma was sitting in her lab, labelling up a new set of plastic bags for the next series of experiments, and griping at Valerie over the web-link. Mac was upstairs in the kitchen, roasting something that smelled delicious.
"Yeah, I'll say the rage is getting stronger," complained Gemma. "I can't believe how contentious the wolf bit of me is," she growled to the old woman. Her mentor was sitting stiffly upright in her armchair, her strong, lined face clearly visible across the web-link in the pale evening light which was filtering in through the windows of her small home on the other side of the world.
"What happened?" responded Valerie. "What triggered the rage this time?"
Shifting her buttocks on her chair, slightly flushed, Gemma opened her mouth. "I -," her cheeks reddened, and her throat tightened around the next words.
She's a doctor, she reminded herself.
"I felt a sudden surge of - affection," she explained inadequately.
The old eyes crinkled in amusement.
"It was totally inappropriate," Gemma complained, suddenly eloquent. "We were in the middle of the grocery store, yet I was suddenly furious that he wouldn't let me -." She broke off, the red in her cheeks darkening.
However, Valerie was now serious, alert. "Are you sure? Were you aware yourself how inappropriate the time and place were?" she queried, eyes pondering something internal.
"Of course I was! We were in the middle of a crowd of happy shoppers, for Pete's sake!" squeaked Gemma.
"Then think," admonished the old physician. "The anger. And the lust - I refuse to call it affection - catalogue the sequence properly. I assume you were not at all angry about anything else initially?" she asked.
"No," returned Gemma, slightly puzzled. "I was happy - teasing him." She flushed darker again. She wasn't going to go into details about that.
"So hence your lust increased," concluded Valerie. "Because of where you were, did you supress it?"
"Of course I did! I'm not into exhibitionism."
Valerie smiled, "So, did you actually get angry with yourself for repressing your natural urges, or with your mate for rebuffing you?"
"With Mac!" retorted Gemma. "He -" She stopped abruptly, thinking back. She had been tense, feeling that shimmer of overpowering feeling - lust or rage, she wasn't sure which, growing within herself. So she had pulled down his head so that she could kiss him in blatant invitation.
She felt as though a heavy stone of guilt was sinking in her stomach.
She had already been seething when she kissed him, because she had been restraining herself.
And then she had raged at her mate, taken the fight to him when he had endorsed her own internal denial of the lust.
Dammit.
She felt a little sick. How was she supposed to deal with this? When she couldn't control the wolf inside her, she turned to Mac, expecting him to do so. Then attacking him when he did.
Head down, jaw jutting she glared at the foot of the wall, tears glistening in her eyes as she whispered as much to her mentor.
"Stupid wolf," she growled in conclusion. For once she didn't mean Mac.
Gemma heard a sigh from the speaker and looked up to see the old physician wrinkling her nose reflectively.
"Therein lies your problem, I think."
"You don't say - stupid, stupid, werewolf," Gemma cursed.
The liquid blue eyes lifted, and the alert gleam in them sent a jolt through the young werewolf sitting at her desk. "No, you misunderstood me," replied Valerie. "You treat the wolf part of you as though it were not part of you," added the Frenchwoman. "As an irritating disease, an enemy, and you never allow yourself to live in your wolf side."
"It keeps attacking people! Attacking Mac! All it ever .."
"I," interrupted Valerie firmly.
".. does is -. What?" exclaimed the werewolf.
"I keep attacking people," the little old lady corrected her phrasing. Gemma felt a surge of revulsion followed by a flash of rage, and glared at the screen. That is not me.
"And you are finding it harder to control because you never listen to what it is trying to tell you, convinced that the wolf side is merely insane and wrong. So you - the wolf, you - are getting angrier. The wolf within is not an enemy, Gemma. You have to learn to read that part of yourself, to pay attention to your instincts, because unless I miss my guess they are growing in strength as the change progresses. In a wolf-born the balance is pretty much half and half. And you will not be able to smother half of yourself, or even hold yourself in check much longer."
Gemma growled, furious. "IT is NOT ME!" she hissed. The wolf side was an irrational, feral bundle of nerves and powerful emotions that just messed everything up and wasted time, precious time, when she had a desperate feeling that she had so little left. That was what she resented most of all: the time lost in the mad rages, time which she could have, should have spent helping or loving her mate.
She was halted by a responding deeper, admonitory growl from the old woman rising to her feet on the screen. Valerie's eyes were growing dark, glowing as she walked forward toward the camera, glaring power. Even though the link, it echoed.
Something inside Gemma shrank. The internal, whirling bitterness subsided, to her astonishment, and she gaped, held by the glowing, fiery black-flecked blue eyes of her mentor. Wolf eyes.
"Don't growl at me, child," rebuked Valerie. Gemma's mouth was still open, or she'd have felt her jaw drop at the form of address.
"Shit happens. You are a wolf. Stop whining, accept it, and learn to live with it," said Valerie.
"I am a werewolf," spluttered Gemma.
"Shut up," responded the woman on the screen. "Which of us is the physician, here? Have you yet to find anything in our research to suggest that there is any tangible, physical difference between a wolf and a werewolf? I have not. And I know far better than you what to look for."
Gemma gaped for a moment longer, then felt a second rush of boiling anger at the hope briefly engendered by Frenchwoman's obtuseness and snarled, "The rut cycle. And no cubs."
"New wereem came into heat on average four times in the first year, which is principally why they were created," agreed Valerie. "Whereas a sjeste is fertile about once every three years. But a human female, once a month, is this not so?"
She continued, "The texts indicate that by the time a wereem had reached insanity, grown free, the rut frequency had also died down. They were then tiresome as pets, and dangerous to keep for sentimental reasons as they could be cunning in their rage, seeming sweet, yet treacherous, so were nearly always destroyed."
Gemma felt her lip lifting in a silent snarl, anger tightening along her skin. Yes, what she had read had communicated this knowledge also, but to hear it stated so matter-of-factly made her burn with resentment. It explained the attitude of the majority of wolves she'd met since she'd been turned. Wolves saw her as a mindless, dangerous plaything or accessory. She wouldn't explain things to a pet either. Or keep a dangerous one.
"There is no reason to believe that in time a wereem's reproductive system would not have reached the same two-year cycle as that of a sjeste," continued Valerie, breaking into Gemma's seething thoughts, the glowing blue eyes still holding her.
"Some were kept," growled Gemma. Kept as pets, curios, or ornaments.
"Only two records mention wereem who had not managed to kill and be killed by the end of their second year, and their cycles were never recorded. There was never the need. And yes, no wereem was ever noted to grow with a litter but during the change that is understandable, after all we cannot breed with humans, and after the change, a sample of two is too little to draw conclusions from."
Gemma half-whined, half-growled in response, her throat muffled with tears and the rage seething afresh through her. She felt as though part of her was melting in sadness. If only they could-.
"But that is for the future. First you have to remain sane," Valerie baldly stated, half answering the werewolf's unspoken wish. "And I believe that the reason you will go insane is not because it is predestined, or inevitable, but simply because you are too scared of the wolf now within you to try to learn to control it, and too bitter to recognise that what the wolf side suggests is not always irrational and idiotic. You have to learn to accept your wolf."
Gemma snarled full voice, fighting to bite the speaker from which the idiotic suggestion had emanated, but was held trapped by the deep, powerful eyes of the wolf on the screen. The Alfamme, she realised, startled, as she glared into those old, echoing, beckoning eyes. And a damn powerful one.
"Stop it!" the physician admonished on a sharp note. "I know you are angry - I would not wish to go through puberty again either, wracked by unfamiliar instincts, and especially not were half of me a fully rational adult, and the other a barely understood child-mind in an adult body. But that is how it is."
The accented voice softened, "Watching both you and the Mackeld together, I believe that you do have a true, deep bond. You both brighten and relax when he is with you. When you lose yourself to rage, he spends every atom of his strength protecting and trying to console his insane mate."
Valerie paused, and sighed. "If you lose the ability to regain your sanity, then he will spend the rest of the long life of a werewolf guarding you, and loathing himself for not protecting you from this. When you die, early or late, then so will he, in grief, and guilt."
The aged physician's voice was low, deep with feeling, and she paused again before adding, "Are you going to condemn your songmate to such an existence?"
Caught, Gemma stared at the screen, quivering. The urge to tear into the machine, rip herself, anything, was sinking beneath the weight of worry for her mate. And love of him. So, so much stronger. Tears welled up in her eyes as her emotions writhed under the soft words, and she shuddered. Yes. She knew Mac. Knew what she was doing to him. She couldn't do this to him. Yet she was.
Valerie smiled briefly, a flash of sun across the stern features, "Aha, as I thought. Both sides love him, and will pull together for this," she said with satisfaction.
Gemma breathed harshly into the long silence, and felt, in wonder, the rage ebbing away. This was the first time it had subsided fully in days. Tears welled up, and began to roll silently down her cheeks, head sinking as she pondered the impossible.
How to not get angry.
Gemma sank down onto her chair again, lifting her heels onto the seat and hugging her fur-covered lycan knees, stunned, her body shaking with fear of what she would do to Mac. Shuddering at the thought of what he went through, every time she lost control. How she would feel, if it was him slowly, slowly turning insane. And her fault, her bite. She couldn't bear it. But how could she control herself? The harder she tried, the harder it was to control. She lifted her wet eyes, begging to the Alfamme on the screen.
"How?" she whispered. No one else had managed it. No wereem. Ever.
"So," said Valerie, her voice soft again, caring, and she nodded in satisfaction. "You must learn to embrace the fierce, flamboyant, feral side. Not everything the wolf within guides you to do will be wrong, Gemma. It is like trying to suppress the urge to mate or eat or sleep - you may be able to smother or distract your wolf instincts for a while, in fact you must be able to, but you must also indulge them to survive. You must build in time to become a wolf mentally, as well as physically."
"How?" Gemma whispered again.
"We'll start simple," her old mentor reassured her, then smiled warmly. "Something you will enjoy. You and your mate."
Gemma growled in a sudden pulse of intense frustration, her clawed fist smashing down to squash the stupid, delicate myo-arm that she couldn't get to tease apart the fond filaments under the microscope.
Her fist was halted millimetres from impact by an immovable clasp about her wrist, and a second hand gripping her left hand tightly as she drew that back to use instead. Gemma snarled and wrenched against his hold, but Mac hauled her back, away from the bench lining the wall of the lab.
"I think you need a break, Gem," he said. The words were soft in her ear, smothered by the frustration dinning in her head as she fought viciously against the grip holding her fast, suspended above the floor as she squirmed.
Then she relaxed in his hold. Her jaw was still partially wolf, and she forced it back to human as she bit out, "I'll take a break when I've put this lot in the incubator." And waited for him to let go and get back to his own work setting up and calibrating the newly delivered photospectrometer on the other side of the laboratory.
"Well, I think you need a break now, Gemma. You've been getting more frustrated all morning," Mac said quietly.
Her insides twisted again with rage, and she wrenched against the unmoving grip, snarling, "I'll decide when I need a break!"
The Alpha's voice was even softer as he replied, "I'll give you a count of three to decide for yourself, Gem. Think about it. Are you thinking clearly right now? Just take a break until lunchtime."
He was going to order her out of the lab?
Her anger swelled, and she struggled harder, but his last word also caught at something inside her, and a different surge of feeling rose in contrast to the anger. She battled, head wanting to keep working, to not obey every little word he said. Yet her heart wanted to stop. And make lunch.
A pulse of happy anticipation surged through her, swamping the frustration, and the respite from the smothering anger allowed her to realise how unproductive her juvenile refusal to listen to his reasoning was. Simply because he always thought he was right. So Gemma stilled again suddenly, a little smile playing over her lips.
Lunch.
"OK," she breathed out, releasing the last of the anger, stomach trembling now for a different reason. Anticipation. "I'll stop working and make lunch if you promise not to come upstairs until it's ready."
Her blood began to purr.
His nostrils twitching to the abrupt change to his mate's scent, Mac set her gently back on the floor and turned her to face him, looking suspiciously down into her gleaming, hooded eyes.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
Gemma's smile was sweet, and smug. "Do you promise not to come upstairs until I call?" she repeated.
Mac's eyes narrowed a little, and he offered cautiously, "I promise not to come upstairs until you call me, unless you do something dangerous."
"Done," she agreed, shooting him a mischievous look.
Mac sighed, nipping her lower lip lightly in a soft kiss, and drawled, "What are you up to? I'm nervous."
Gemma pulled her face together and looked melancholy, sighing, "You don't trust me."
He snorted, "When you try and look innocent? No."
Gemma grinned back up at her mate, and set a finger to his lips.
"Shh," she whispered. "It's a surprise."
Mac made a noise that was half growl, half-whine under his breath, and nipped her finger.
Gemma laughed and turned towards the door. "I'll call you," she said.
"Be good," growled her wolf, turning back towards his task with a little smile on his face.
You bet.
Half an hour later, having prepared all the basic ingredients with care and set the dining room table, Gemma unearthed the simple jar of peanut butter from behind the washing powder, and stood weighing it in her hand, a little smile on her lips.
The jar was still sealed. She had sneakily bought it last time they'd been grocery shopping, while Mac had been at the deli counter ordering meat, and she had hidden it in her shoulder bag before rejoining him for the main shop.
She found it endearing that Mac had such a weakness for peanut butter. When he had first moved in with her in her flat, she had begun to notice that whenever she made herself a peanut butter sandwich or piece of toast, she'd find a new, unopened jar on the shelf the following day. Or later that evening. Eventually she'd investigated, and had found the old, empty pot hidden underneath the rest of the glass recycling, looking as though it had been licked clean.
Which it probably had, come to think of it.
She'd taxed her flatmate about it, and he'd looked very sheepish as he'd confessed. He could manage to leave a sealed jar alone, but as soon as it was open, he'd just have to have a little taste. Two. Or three. And end up buying her a replacement jar.
Gemma smiled to herself as she walked to the top of the stairs, holding the pot behind her back.
"You promise to stay downstairs until lunch is ready?" she called.
Mac appeared in the lab doorway, looking deeply suspicious as he took in her serious expression, belied by the sparkle in her eyes.
"I have promised, picchu," he agreed. "You are just making me more nervous now."
"Good wolf," she replied sunnily. Then Gemma pulled the jar out in front of her, unscrewed the cap, carefully broke the seal and took a tiny taste with the end of her index finger, smiling mmmm at him as the flavour exploded on her tongue.
The next second, the jar had disappeared from her grasp, and Mac was scooping out a fingerful, standing three steps below her, holding it out of her reach.
"Mac!" she called, shocked. He had promised.
"I'm still three stairs down," he grunted, the words muffled by the spread coating his tongue.
Gemma made an exasperated noise and dove for the jar, which was whisked out of her reach, although his other hand steadied her ungainly landing on the bare wooden steps.
Gemma stamped on his foot, grabbing again at the pot. His foot moved before hers landed, the stair echoed hollowly, and he smiled lazily at her around his third mouthful of peanut butter.
Tears sprang into Gemma's eyes, of irritation and disappointment, and she bit her bottom lip to stop it wobbling. "I'm making peanut butter chicken!" she protested, wiping off the blood from where her stupidly sharp teeth had sheared through her bottom lip, "Give me that! You're ruining my lunch plan."
Mac hesitated, finger poised, looking back deep into her eyes. Then his face contorted briefly in effort, and he handed her the jar. His hand was trembling faintly as he forced it to let go.
"Sorry - but don't challenge me unless you expect a reaction, picchu," he suggested quietly. Then Mac bent his head swiftly to run his tongue along her cut lip, sealing the bite. He followed up the healing with a soft brush of a peanut-scented kiss, before she moved back out of his reach.
Gemma stared up at him balefully. His eyebrows twitched together.
"What?" he drawled sarcastically. "Did you think I wouldn't react to you tormenting me with peanut butter?"
"I thought you would stay downstairs," she retorted.
"I am downstairs. You should be more specific in your demands," he replied, not in the least abashed.
Huh.
Then he smiled beautifully, a hopeful look appearing in his eyes. "Are you really making us chicken with peanut butter?" he asked.
"I was," Gemma answered sarcastically. "I will, if there's enough of one of the main ingredients left."
Mac leaned back in again and kissed her fleetingly, hard.
"You are gorgeous, you know that?" he said, eyes beaming.
Gemma tried to remain indignant, but melted in the face of his delight, and turned away with a little smile.
"Stay at the foot of the stairs, in the basement," she instructed over her shoulder as she walked back to the kitchen.
"Yes, oh my little jug of sweet sweetness," Mac replied, enthusiastically bounding back down the steps.
Gemma checked that the table looked perfect, untying the apron which he was wearing over her favourite sundress. She was still smiling, and her blood was soft in her veins. Valerie had been right. The wolf within her loved indulging her mate, settling into peace for the first time in days. And she was enjoying herself. While the food had been cooking she'd decorated the table, showered, rubbed lavender oil into every inch of her skin to make it extra supple and smooth, then dressed in the flared, simple green dress which he loved, carefully brushing out her long, wavy locks.
She hummed as she carefully polished a little water mark off his knife, and straightened it on the table. She couldn't do this all the time. But she could build in time to do it. She loved doing this. Loving him.
Gemma walked back to the top of the stairs, standing barefoot on the end of the carpet, and called softly, "Lunchtime."
Her ears twitched to a metallic clang, a crash and swoosh of a deluge of liquid from downstairs, and then soft lips brushed over hers, her fingers closed gently over the delicate object which stroked over them and Gemma stood gaping up the stairs to where her wolf had just disappeared from sight, shivering from the freezing drops of water which had hit her as he passed.
He'd jumped into the emergency shower?
Her eyes fell to the object in her hand. A peony: one of those which were still lingering in the flowerbeds outside the side door of the lab. Her lips twitched, as she realised that Mac wouldn't have even had to step outside to pick this for her, hence sticking to the letter of their agreement.
"The food will get --," she called indignantly after him, but stopped, breathless, when her wolf appeared beside her again before she finished the sentence, dressed in the immaculate white shirt which he hadn't worn since their first night out with Jonathan and Lianna, and taut black trousers moulded to his thighs. He usually wore loose, casual clothing, it made it easier to shift between wolf and human, but --oh, did she love him in tailored trousers and shirt.
His hair had been roughly towelled dry and raked back with his fingers, and his only ornament was the chain around his neck, from which, nestling against his chest in the v of his open shirt, hung her engagement ring for safe-keeping. She couldn't wear it in the rage.
Gemma gulped at the sudden, overwhelming sense of him, dazed eyes watching him wrestle with his cufflinks, gaze caught by the fine golden hairs decorating his strong wrists. Then she murmured shakily, "Let me," and stepped in to help. The heat of his body this close set her trembling, his musk melting into her. His breathing grew slightly heavier as she stood within the ring of his arms, shakily feeding the links through the buttonholes. She was aware of an answering tremor lighting along his limbs, his scent growing stronger.
"Let me wear my ring?" she requested, breathlessly.
Mac lifted her chin with a gentle finger, and looked deep into her eyes. Then he smiled softly, lifted the chain over his neck, freed the ring and kissed her palm before separating her slender fingers, hold her hand steady to thread his ring back onto the middle finger.
HELP!
Gemma's mind and heart were suddenly seared by a haunting cry. She was jolted, jerked into bewilderment and anguish by the feelings accompanying the single word: terror, misery, and a faint, final, begging hope; the little cub calling her was desperate, pleading.
Please help!
The scared, confused conveyance tugged at Gemma's heart strings, and she was already leaping toward the front door when she was halted by the palm clamped implacably around her wrist.
Please?
The fact that the conveyance was now being phrased as a request, rather than order, helped her mind to clear, and Gemma looked back over her shoulder to stare at her mate, startled, questioning.
Mac was perfectly still, standing in a very alert, wary stance. Battle ready. He had obviously caught an echo of the shout in her head, but he shook his own. "It's a trap," he muttered.
Gemma twisted her wrist frantically in his grip, stomach writhing in urgency. "She's in a forest - carried by her father; he's helping her convey, boosting her range, but he can't stop running," Gemma explained urgently, the tears starting in her eyes at the terror of the cub. "He's been recalled by Grey, somehow. And ordered to bring his daughter." The explanation was totally inadequate, she couldn't convey the weight of the desperation in her mind. Both the cub's, and the distant echo of the father's.
"I can sense the cub through you, picchu, but not the wolf," replied Mac. "Yes, your little mordeuse believes that they have been recalled, and maybe her father cannot fight it - although he can boost her call." But that does not mean that it is true, or that it is not a trap, he finished on a gentle conveyance. His words clouded the desperate cling of the cub, and she pushed them aside, impatient.
"Even if it is a trap, that cub needs help!" she protested.
If what she says is true, and Grey can somehow recall his wolves, then they all need help, Gemma. They need us to stop him; to find him. And to track him, we need you here, unravelling the drug. Mac was adamant.
Frustrated, frantic at the sinking hope in the scared mind still just clinging to hers, Gemma hauled at the unmoving hand about her wrist, snarling, "I have to go!"
Her Alpha's eyes were growing dark, glowing, "You have to think. Reason, Gemma. One cub, one adult - very sad, yes, but there are many, many more who need your help. Without you, none of them have any hope."
"Let me GO!" howled Gemma, yanking furiously at his implacable grip. She couldn't believe he'd said that, and glared at him furiously. "I am not sacrificing a little cub on the chance that we can save more. You can't be serious, Mac!" she protested.
Mac's eyes were opaque, black depths, the power echoing in them and he sighed softly, "I cannot allow you to go."
HAH.
"I am not your chattel," she gritted furiously between her teeth, anger melting through her.
She was wrestling bruisingly against his grip now, her second clawed fist also held fast so that she couldn't rake him with it, then suddenly she felt a pang of intense loss shoot through her as she lost her connection with the cub. The little tot had lost her last hope.
Gemma froze, washed by a new sense of guilt, and suddenly her head drooped to hide the tears running down her cheeks. Mac wouldn't let her go. Maybe he was right, but- she couldn't bear it. How could she? How could she go on? Go down to the lab and get on with the next test? Anne killed. Bethan and Kate had been taken. The young Mackeld wolves guarding them had also been killed. Now she was abandoning a tiny cub to Grey. God only knew what he would do to her.
Her mate stepped closer, sliding his palms softly up her arms, but she stood frozen, her mind racing, driven by knotted, bone-deep pain. No. She couldn't accept this.
"Will you go?" she asked her mate softly, voice choked.
"I have to guard you, Gemma," Mac answered.
And guard others from her.
"I will stay in the room," she promised, the desperation rising within her. Don't give up, little cub. "I have a lot of results that need interpretation; I can work in there, work with Valerie; you said it yourself, no-one will find me here, in the city." Please don't give up.
Mac growled, "I don't think anyone will find you in the city, Gemma. But I can't risk it, and leave you unguarded."
Her head snapped up, and she stared intently up into those glowing eyes, her own fiery, "The risk is minuscule, compared with the risk to that cub and her father. I heard them, Mac, you didn't, not properly. She can't - we can't just leave her. Them. And you know why Grey wants to get hold of my other mordeur, don't you? She is being taken back because of me."
She stared up at him, eyes fierce, yet begging.
Her Alpha stared down at her silently, challengingly.
Her lip was lifting as she continued, but her face was also creasing in sorrow, emotion writhing through her, "I can't leave her to whatever Grey has in store for her, Mac. I can't. You can't."
There was a silent battle going on between them, she felt as though she was battering against that wall of iron control, soundlessly hammering her fists against the unyielding surface. Mac knew what was logical, what was right. He wasn't budging. He wouldn't repeat it, but she could feel the no in his mind.
Her face puckered. "I can't," she rasped harshly, angry at her own tears, closing her eyes to squeeze them back, "Please, Mac."
He flinched.
Her eyes flashed open again, and she stared hopefully up into his angry, frustrated expression. Mac didn't believe this was a good thing to do at all.