The Wolf's Call (Two-Natured London) (8 page)

She
snorted. “You’re what, all of thirty-five to my thirty-two?”

“Try
closer to a hundred and thirty-five.” Her stunned face made him laugh aloud in
delight. “Surprise.”

Charly
had known that the two-natureds were long-living, but it hadn’t even occurred
to her that Rafe might be so old. Meeting someone who had actually lived
through the previous century felt incredible. The history he had experienced,
the changes he had witnessed. The women he had been with….

A
surge of jealousy coursed through her and she decided it was best not to think
about his past at all. Then another thought hit her, self-evident now that she
had been made to expand her horizons. “I wonder if the owner of the land is
still alive.”

“What do you
mean?” Rafe studied his beautiful woman, mesmerised. Her dark eyes were shining
in excitement with the insight she had just had. He tried to summon back some
of the indignant anger he had felt the night before that had allowed him to
walk away from her, but it was all gone. She wasn’t in this only to use him;
she was genuinely interested in him. And what was more, she still seemed to be
interested in more than just sex.

Too
bad that was all he had to offer her.

Her
wonderful black hair was pulled back into a ponytail today, but a few wisps had
escaped, framing her face perfectly. He didn’t even try to resist the
temptation; he reached out and pushed a lock behind her ear.

A
faint blush crept onto her face, which he found adorable. He could smell her
arousal building and his body responded immediately. “Stop distracting me,” she
protested weakly when he took a step closer.

“You
find me distracting?” He leaned in so that his lips almost touched hers, and
when she didn’t pull back, he took it as an invitation to kiss her.

Without
the adrenaline rush he’d felt before their previous kisses, he could savour her
taste better and study the feel of her as he pulled her against him. Tall as
she was, their bodies touched all the way, and he didn’t have to lift her to
properly kiss her.

He did
it anyway. Placing his hands under her buttocks, he pulled her hips firmly
against his. The sweet pain of her body pressing against his erection made him
deepen the kiss until they were both out of breath. He needed to have her,
right now.

Rafe
was trying to decide where he would take her, in the car or outside in the cool
October air, when a shot rang out, the sound reverberating loudly in the
silence of the meadows. He jumped from an aroused stupor to action so fast that
Charly didn’t have time to react before he had pushed her under him, hiding
them both in the long grass. He released his aura and his wolf stretched out of
his back to scent the air above them. Another shot whirled past where they had
stood only a second before.

“What
are you doing,” Charly protested, trying to push him off her.

“Shh.
Someone is shooting at us.” She froze underneath him and he could smell her
fear, the arousal gone. He dug into his pocket for the car keys. “Take these
and crawl back to the car. And this time, stay there.” It was a command, but he
let her see the worry in his eyes and she nodded and took the keys.

He
waited only to see her halfway up the path, briefly distracted by the shape of
her butt as she advanced on her belly, then he shed his clothes as fast as he
could in the awkward crouched position. Naked, he turned to look at her once
again and saw that she had paused to watch him. He could have urged her on, but
he knew she wanted to see this and so he let her.

The
shift was fast, urgency and the nearness of the full moon speeding up the
process. His wolf aura grew to its full size, something she couldn’t see,
covering his body and then growing beyond its limits. Then the image simply
filled from the inside outwards, the wolf in him coming out. It hurt, but not
much, as his human half took the backseat at the same time, hiding within the
wolf.

In a
matter of moments, the wolf was standing on the footpath. They shook themselves
to adjust their fur and then they shot a glance at their female. They didn’t
like how she hadn’t moved so they snarled to make her know she should go. She
nodded, not looking as frightened as they had thought she would, which pleased
them. Then they turned around to head towards the direction they had smelled
the attack coming from, staying low in the long grass.

They
smelled dog and turned to look at the black canine following them, crawling
too. They growled and the dog paused, but when they moved on, it followed
again. Telepathy didn’t work between shifters and natural animals, but there
were other ways to communicate. It took some effort to make Bob understand
them, but finally it turned around and headed after Charly, eager to fulfil the
command it had been given: protect her.

It
took them a while to reach the place from where the shots had come from, but
the human was already gone. There were footprints and a good scent trail to
follow, but the wolf and the man agreed. They had to return to protect their
female. The shooter might be heading to her already.

Ten
minutes later, Rafe was back in human form and clothed. He made a quick call to
Jamie, who promised to send Kieran, their best tracker, to study the place.
Then he returned to the car, walking low just in case the shooter still had
them in his sights.

Charly
was crouching on the front seat with Bob, her arms wrapped around it to press
it low too, looking frightened. She smiled, relieved, when she saw him and
would have gotten out of the car if he hadn’t indicated that she should stay
put. He moved Bob to the back before getting in the car, where he was instantly
pulled into a tight embrace. He revelled in it for a moment. She definitely
cared for him. “I was worried,” Charly explained unnecessarily.

He
gave her a quick kiss, not wanting to risk anything more thorough before he got
her to safety. Starting the car, he told her what he had found. “It was a
human, so there’s a good chance it was the man we’re looking for.” It wasn’t
anyone from the pub, which was what he had suspected, but someone there had
probably directed the shooter after them. Had they guessed who he was, or were
they that hostile towards everyone asking about the creek?

She
looked shaken still, so he searched his mind for something with which to
distract her that didn’t involve kissing her. If the previous rushes of lust
were anything to go by, they would end up naked even before he had the car
pulled over.

“So
what revelation did you have before I became all distracting?”

It
took her a moment to remember what they had been talking about, but then she
smiled the same satisfied smile. “The person behind this was able to fake his
ownership of the land because there are no recorded owners for it after 1783,
when it was sold. There was no mention of it being sold or inherited since
then, no matter how close I looked. But it occurred to me that there wouldn’t
be if the same person owned the land still. So methinks it is a shifter.”

Rafe
smiled too, more because she was looking so happy. “Of course. Although, it
can’t be a shifter, because we would know about it. But it does confirm that
humans are behind this. They would have tried to find the owner and made the
same conclusion than you did when they couldn’t find any mention of them after
the last sale. It would never occur to humans that the same person would still
own it. So who was it that bought the land back then?”

“Someone
called Alexander Hamilton.”

Rafe
burst out laughing. “Foley. Bloody vampires. I should have known.”

Charly’s learning curve about
the two-natured people clearly hadn’t peaked yet. “Vampires?”

Rafe
grinned at her, still full of mirth. “What, you hang out with a shifter, but
you don’t believe vampires exist?”

She
had seldom resented her upbringing this much. “Of course I know they exist. It’s
just that by insisting that I only hang out with humans, my parents didn’t
prepare me for the reality of our society at all.”

“Well,
if it’s any consolation, vampires hold themselves to be above society too.” He
got amused again. “Or, at least, this particular vampire does.”

“So
who is he then?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“Alexander
Hamilton, Lord Foley, is the most important, powerful, and dangerous vampire in
the country, if not the whole world. He’s the leader of the Crimson Circle.”

It
sounded like a secret society, so she wasn’t embarrassed that she hadn’t heard
about it before. “And that would be?”

“It’s
a group of elite vampire warriors. It was founded in France during the first
Crusade to protect all two-natureds against humans, but these days they
concentrate solely on defending vampires against their own enemies. However,
luckily for us, its current base of operations is in Epsom too.”

She
hadn’t been far off with the secret society notion then. “I take it that people
like him don’t exactly grant audiences.”

He
nodded. “Not just to anyone. But since our clan has lived close to the Circle
Manor for centuries, we’ve established a working relationship.”

“Saves
time in diplomacy,” she remarked dryly.

He
laughed. “Exactly. But we still can’t simply march in there. Jamie has to
handle this.” When she lifted her brows questioningly, he continued. “He’s my
brother and the leader of our clan.”

So she
would get to meet the family. A nervous flutter went through her.

They
didn’t drive to Epsom proper but to the countryside surrounding it, along ever
narrowing lanes, until they came to a long, old stone wall that clearly marked
the boundaries of a larger estate. There was a modern electric gate in the
wall, and a guard checked their identities before allowing them to drive
through onto a private lane that continued for two more miles before they
reached the Greenwood clan manor.

Charly
stared at the beautiful building in awe. It was a three stories high, c-shaped
Queen Anne style redbrick manor with white trimmings in its corners and around
its many windows. A wide sweep of steps led to the front door from a formal
courtyard.

To her
disappointment, Rafe didn’t drive to the front door but continued to a low
building a little away from the house that must have been a stable at one time,
but which was now a garage. They got out and he put Bob on a leash before
leading them to a side entrance. “Dogs don’t react well to having this many
shifters around,” he explained.

“Is
this your ancestral home?” Her family was third generation wealthy, which
impressed her mother greatly, but they couldn’t lay claim to a property like
this.

He
smiled at her. “After a fashion. My father had it built for the clan in the
early eighteenth century, but my family had been running the clan even before
that, and we’ve always lived here.”

Of
course, other members of the family would be long-living too. “Is he still
around?”

His
face got serious. “No, he died in the Second World War.”

“I’m
sorry.”

“Thank
you.” He sounded grateful for her condolences, even though the loss had
happened seventy years ago. He hadn’t lied when he’d said that when you lived
long you had time to mourn longer too. Perhaps she should reconsider her need
to try to force him into that position.

The
side door opened to a huge kitchen that had been remodelled recently, now
filled with modern appliances that fit surprisingly well with the old
surroundings. It was full of hustle and bustle, and judging by the amount of
food, the staff was preparing for a party of some kind. “The full moon feast,”
Rafe explained her, snatching a couple of pastries from a cooling rack as he
passed it, evading the swat the cook served him with a laugh. “It’s my lunch,”
he said to the round woman, who immediately promised to make them something proper
to eat.

“How
many people are coming to your feast?” Charly asked as they exited the kitchen,
still marvelling at all the food.

“The
entire clan, some sixty people, including children yet unable to shift.” Charly
nodded, glad that she knew at least something about shifters: the first shift
happened around the time they hit puberty. “Tonight we’re also celebrating; a
cub made her first shift a couple of days ago.”

That
didn’t sound like a teenager. “She’s a cub?” she asked, amused, thinking about
the human teenagers who all wanted to be treated like adults.

Rafe
smiled too. “When you live as long as we do, childhood stretches longer too.
And although the human half is growing up already, the wolf is truly only a
cub. A shifter has to learn everything anew in their second form, so it’s
convenient that the beast emerges as a cub at first. They cause less damage to
themselves and the environment that way.”

“So
when do they stop being cubs?” The topic fascinated her. Shifter life was so
alien to her.

“They
stay cubs for quite a long time, actually. The human half is over twenty before
the wolf is mature, and closer to thirty before they start thinking about
mating.”

Rafe
led her and Bob through a maze of corridors towards the other end of the house,
and Charly studied everything with great interest. The interior matched the
outside. The walls had dark hardwood panelling and the wooden floors were
covered with well-worn runners. The corridors, and the few rooms she got a
glimpse into, were decorated with antique furniture that were a mismatch of
styles from centuries past, but everything had a lived-in feeling to it. This
was a home, not a museum.

Then
they passed through a section of the house that had a more polished feel to it
and she guessed it was the official side, where the clan business was
conducted. “How many people live here?”

“All
the unmarried males live in the manor, ten at the moment besides me and my
brother. And Harry, of course. For the married, we have family cottages around
the estate. Unmarried girls live with their families unless they move out on
their own. They can do that these days,” he added with mock horror.

Charly
smiled. She wondered briefly who Harry was to merit a special mention, but
before she had a chance to ask they arrived at their destination, a pair of
narrow doors. Rafe gave the wooden pane a quick knock. If there was an answer,
Charly didn’t hear it. Rafe opened the doors and they entered into a very
traditional, masculine study with heavy furniture of gleaming hardwood and antique
leather. There was a fire crackling in an open fireplace on the right to banish
the dampness, ceiling-high bookshelves with glass doors full of books to the
left, and at the other end, by the French windows that opened to a huge park,
sat a big desk.

Seated
behind the desk was a man who was a carbon copy of Rafe, only his colouring was
fairer and he was a bit more heavily built, with steely muscles. He got up when
they entered, rounded the desk to Rafe, and pulled him into a hug as if they
hadn’t seen each other in ages. Charly found that closeness almost as alien as
everything else about shifters that she’d learned so far. There had been no
hugs in her family. Rafe answered the embrace with ease, so it was probably
normal behaviour here. To her surprise, she found herself feeling envious of
it.

Close
up, Charly could detect a couple more differences in the other man. His eyes
were amber instead of blue, and there were a few more lines around his eyes
when he smiled at Rafe. Then he turned his eyes at her and she had to struggle
to meet them. The power in his gaze seemed almost physical. He cocked a
wheat-blond brow and suddenly she couldn’t take it anymore. She simply had to
avert her eyes.

Rafe
laughed. “I told you she’s strong. Jamie, meet Charlotte Thornton. Charly, this
is my brother, James Green, the leader of Greenwood clan and the toughest alpha
in the country. Don’t feel bad that you couldn’t meet his gaze. Humans don’t
normally do half as well as you did.”

Jamie
smiled too, and when Charly looked at him again she was able to meet his eyes.
She felt like she had been tested. She didn’t know if she had passed the test,
but she refused to be cowed. She straightened her spine and Jamie nodded, as if
approving. Then he greeted Bob with a rub behind its ears, the dog definitely
subdued by his presence, before turning to Rafe.

“Are
you all right? Kieran called and said he got the scent. He’ll call when he’s
tracked his prey.”

“We’re
fine, but we need your help with another matter,” Rafe told his brother. “Charly
tracked the owner of the land, and you’ll never guess who it is.” Jamie cocked
his brow again, in question this time, and Rafe smiled. “Foley.”

Jamie
blinked once. Then, like Rafe earlier, he burst out laughing. “Those poor sods
in the village won’t know what hit them when he learns about this. Mind you,”
he continued more sober once he had laughed enough, “it rubs me the wrong way
to let the bloodsuckers do our dirty work.”

Rafe
nodded. “Let’s worry about that when we find out who’s behind this. Right now,
we need to set a meeting with him.”

Jamie
smiled, the expression as wolfish as Rafe’s. “Leave it to me.”