Moon Awakening (18 page)

He would have run with Drustan if the other werewolf were not back in his quarters… with his mate. He had come out for the hunt only. He would take part of the kill back to Cait for her to cook and eat as well. She would not be able to shift until the babe was born, but Drustan had not seemed to mind returning to the castle early. He knew his mate would welcome him home. Bloody hell, why had Lachlan waited so long to mate?

If he were married he would not have this unholy struggle between what he desired and what he knew to be best for the pack.

An image of Emily's beautiful pink and white body rose in his mind to taunt him. She would be the perfect mate if she were a femwolf. She was courageous and compassionate and fiercely loyal. But she was also human and he would not risk a human-wolf mating. He owed more than that to his pack.

Of its own volition, his head raised toward the moon and he let out a mournful howl that did not dispel the sense of desolation he felt at knowing he had no choice but to let Emily go. Just once he would look on her in wolf form.

He could not mark her with his scent as he longed to do, but he could look.

He loped back toward the castle, changing into human form just before he reached the drawbridge. When he reached Emily's room, the door swung silently open under his careful push.

She was curled on her side facing him. Her long gold and brown curls shimmered around her and the Balmoral plaid covered her. It was right.

Without thought, he changed and looked at her through the eyes of his wolf. She looked the same, but different. His vision was better in wolf form and he could see each individual lash sweeping her cheeks below closed eyelids. Her scent was different, too, both more feminine and more real. He could smell lilacs and remembered she had visited the women hanging the washing. She had endeared herself to them by helping them to gather in the clothes that had dried on the bushes.

He could also smell the scent that was hers alone. It was not a femwolf scent. It was softer, less spicy, less pungent but no less alluring to his wolf's senses. No female, human or wolf, had ever smelled so right to him. He padded closer as another scent made itself known to his senses. She had gone to sleep still aroused.

He had given her a climax, but it had not been enough. She needed the completion of intercourse as badly as he did, but he doubted she understood that. She was too innocent. Even after tonight… she was barely touched. His beast growled for the need to mark her as his, to declare that innocence his and his alone.

He could not resist the urge to kiss her cheek with a delicate lick. She wrinkled her nose and he bared his teeth in a wolf's grin that faded as quickly as it had come. Soon, things would have to be settled with the Sinclair. Emily would go back to the other holding.

Lachlan did not want to let her leave, but every day she stayed with him put his duty at risk. He had offered sanctuary, but he was glad she had turned him down. If she stayed, he would keep her. It was inevitable. And that would not be fair to his pack or to his clan. The need to join their bodies in total oneness, to plant his seed in her body (even if it would not grow) increased every moment he was in her company.

Right now he wanted to tug the blanket away with his teeth and cover her body with his beast, warm her and scent her and when she woke, change right on top of her so that he could mate her. He would share all his secrets with her and teach her the ways of the Chrechte. The desire was so strong, his wolf's body shook with the effort it took not to follow through on his thoughts.

Steeling himself to go, he licked her hand and she moaned in her sleep, then whispered his name.

Her dreams were about him. Were they sensual, or did she dream of their time in the lake, or perhaps of things that could never be?

He must leave now, or he would be here when she woke in the morning. He turned and padded toward the door.

"Lachlan?" she said sleepily as he reached it.

He stopped and turned back to face her.

She did not look afraid to find a giant wolf in her room. Her eyes blinked sleepily, but there was no terror in their violet depths. Perhaps she thought she was dreaming.

She sat up, the blankets falling to her waist and revealing the dusky rose of her nipples and perfect curve of her breasts. Physical desire swamped him until he felt like he was drowning.

Her eyes lit with wonder and a joy he did not understand. "It is you, isn't it? I'm not dreaming. You are a wolf and you are here."

He did not move. He barely breathed.

"Can I touch you?"

The words registered in his brain, but he could not make sense of them at first. She wanted to touch him? In his wolf form? She was human, not femwolf. He remembered the way his mother hid from his father's beast nature. She would not touch or talk to him when he was a wolf, pretending that he was no more than a man.

She had been relieved when Ulf did not go through the change. She had died of a fever the following year, after expressing the hope that neither of her sons would have a wolf's nature. Lachlan's change had come early… the first full moon after her death. Nothing had been the same since.

But his memories told him that human women did not embrace the beast in their werewolf mates.

"Please," Emily said softly, her hand outstretched.

He craved the feel of her fingers in his fur and he could not stop himself from going back to her, his beast letting out a low whine of need that he doubted she would understand. Had his father felt like this? How hard had it been for him to keep his two natures so separate?

Emily reached out and touched Lachlan's head. "You are beautiful." She trailed her fingers through the fur of his neck and down his back. "And your fur, it is soft. Oh, Lachlan… this is such a wondrous thing that you are."

A rumbling sound came from his chest. It was not a sound he'd ever made before. But then he had never known this pleasure. It was beyond physical mating… it was a happiness deep inside that his mate accepted and approved of all that he was.
But she was not his mate
. He had to remember.

The rumbling stopped, but the sense of pleasure did not.

He licked her, right between her breasts. He wanted to lick her all over, to taste her with his heightened wolf's senses and imprint all that she was on his memory forever.

She gasped, her hands stilling.

He buried his head in her lap lest he do it again and disgust her. Her feminine scent reached him through the blankets and tormented him with the desire to change and claim her for his own.

"Is it supposed to feel like that?" she asked in a quiet, shaken voice.

He raised his head to look into her eyes, willing her to explain because he could not speak and he could not risk making the change to ask what she meant.

"It felt like magic… I don't know how to explain it. Like heat, but it wasn't hot… like something fizzled along my skin. You know how the bubbly water from some springs shimmers in your mouth like moving droplets from a waterfall? Oh, I'm making a hash of this. But when you licked me, I felt something more than your tongue on my skin."

He did not know what she was talking about, but he understood one thing. She was not repelled by his action.

He nuzzled her with his head in gratitude.

"Is it all right that I liked it?"

He lifted his head and nodded, then did it again, to make sure she understood his approval.

This time she moaned and it was even harder to force his head into her lap a second time, but he could not allow himself to do what he so desperately wanted to. Besides, she might tolerate one lick, but could she accept more? She was human and he could not forget that important fact.

She scratched behind his ears, her silent approval an incredible gift. What human woman would not scream in fright from a wolf so close? But not Emily. She liked Lachlan's wolf. Had Talorc told her the secrets of the Chrechte? More likely it had been Cait. He would ask Drustan, but Emily was far too accepting for a human who knew nothing of their people. She was too accepting for a human woman at all. It made no sense, especially to his wolf's brain.

"If I lie down…" She stopped, her hesitation palpable.

What was she going to say? Did she want him to leave?

"Will you lie beside me and share your magic for just this night? Please, Lachlan. Just this once?"

His head jerked up. He could not believe what she had asked. It was what his wolf craved, he realized, even more than mating… the closeness of sharing. If only for just one night.

Her smile was bittersweet. "You are amazing. I will never again experience anything like what I feel with you now. I know that my time with your clan is limited and I will probably never see you in this form again after tonight. Will you stay with me until I sleep, so that in the morning I will believe it was a dream and not yearn for what I can never have?"

Even if he had been in human form, he would not have been able to speak. She said he was amazing, but it was she who was incredible.

He nodded slowly.

She smiled, her eyes shimmering with emotion. "Thank you."

Lying down, she pulled the plaid up to once again cover her modestly. Then, she scooted back toward the wall, making as much room on the small bed for his big wolf's body as she could. He jumped onto the bed and then lay down beside her, his muzzle resting on his forepaws.

She curled an arm over his neck and nuzzled into it with her face. He had never known such contentment, even with the unsatisfied lust making his blood run hotter than lava.

"You do not smell like a dog. I would have thought a wolf would smell like a canine," she said drowsily some minutes later. "But you smell like yourself. It is a fragrance I will never forget."

She fell asleep moments later.

Making no effort to sleep, Lachlan lay listening to her breathe and inhaling her sweet fragrance. Her arm stayed wrapped around him as if she wanted to hold her to him, even in her sleep. The temptation to stay was so strong, he almost gave in to it, but as the sun rose, he crept from the bed. He was careful not to wake her, knowing that if she asked for anything in that sweetly husky voice, he was likely to give it to her.

A few minutes later he had changed to his human form on the landing and then run to his room at full speed so as not to be seen. The bed that had been his own for more than ten years felt lonely for the first time as he fell on top of the furs that covered it.

But as tired as he was, he did not fall asleep immediately. The rocklike hardness of his erection would not allow it. Thinking of Emily's innocent face in repose did not help and when he finally did sleep, he dreamed of her… large with his child, smiling and laughing as she swam in the loch, no fear anywhere on her face.

He woke from the dream, an ache in the vicinity of his heart, a few hours later.

He dismissed that ache right along with the desire to see her. He had work to do, reports to hear, soldier training to oversee, and he needed to talk to Drustan. Prior to the evening meal the night before, one of the femwolves had reported that she had spotted a strange gray werewolf near the loch the day before. Lachlan was sure it was Talorc, or one of his well-trained elite guard.

Lachlan had smelled nothing when he had gone to the loch with Emily. Either the wolf had not been there, or he was very good at masking his scent. If it was Talorc, he was spying… but to what purpose? To check on the welfare of his sister, or to try to take her back? If he'd wanted to speak to Cait, he would have made himself known when she and Emily went to the loch. Unless he did not trust Emily with the knowledge of his presence.

Or had he? The night before, when Lachlan had asked Emily if she had seen a wild animal, she had said only if he counted a laird such a thing. Talorc was also a laird and Emily knew of their wolf nature. Had she been trying to avoid answering his question with a clever ploy, or had she not seen anything, as he had assumed?

Lachlan needed to speak to Drustan and then he would seek Emily out and discover the truth of the matter for himself.

Emily kneaded the big ball of dough while she listened to the kitchen helpers' gossip. She'd woken early, alone in her bed, but the scent of Lachlan had clung to the plaid. Even without that, she would not have been able to convince herself he had been a dream. As unreal as the events of the night should have been, her memory of it was as solid as those she had of her family.

And she had the inescapable feeling that he was now as much a part of her as they were.

She could leave the Balmoral clan, but she would never leave him behind completely. He would live in her heart through eternity. How much less complicated her life would have been if she had felt this way about Talorc on first sight, instead of the deep certainty that she did not belong with him.

What a muddle.

Why had Lachlan come to her, as a wolf no less? She'd been asking herself that question over and over again all morning and she still could not come up with a single reasonable answer. Except that maybe his wolf's instincts had led him there because of what had happened between them just before she went to bed. Even if that was the case, such an action exhibited a level of trust she knew the man could not have for her.

Yet, he
had
come to her as a wolf. He'd let her touch him, pet him, and he had kissed her like a wolf kisses. Then he had lain beside her until she slept. Probably longer.

She still did not understand what she had felt when his tongue caressed her skin, but it had been extraordinary. As singular an experience as the explosion of pleasure he had brought about in her body earlier, but quite different from it as well. It had not been sexual… or at least not entirely so. It had felt good, but it had also felt… bizarre.

As if part of his life force was mingling with her own.

And yet, just as he'd said he would not… he had not come to collect her for a swimming lesson. It was as if the night before had not mattered to him at all. Perhaps he had not felt the connection she had felt.

"I think that dough is done, lass," one of the older women said to Emily.

She started and looked down. The white mass did indeed look sufficiently kneaded. She patted it into shape and set it aside before taking another ball of dough and placing it on the work space in front of her. She punched it down from its first rising with more than necessary force.

She did not understand him, not one little bit. First he said she meant nothing to him and implied she was a nuisance, then he touched her like a lover. He'd been so careful with her when he carried her up the stairs after giving her the ultimate in pleasure. Like she mattered… only he said she didn't.

Then…
then
… he had come to her as a wolf. That was the most inexplicable thing of all. She hit the ball of dough again with her curled fist even though all it needed now was to be folded in on itself a few times.

"I told Marta not to assign you household chores."

Emily made a face at the ball of dough and muttered about high-handed lairds before looking up. Lachlan was watching her, his expression less than pleased, his big warrior's body making the kitchens feel like a small area in a way that several helpers and she did not.

"She didn't."

His dark brow rose hawklike in a silent demand for clarification.

"Cait has been put in charge of household matters in the keep. She instructed me to help with the bread-making."

"She instructed you?" he asked in a deadly soft voice she did not understand.

"It is only fair. I instructed her to take a nap after we finished assessing the contents of the food storeroom."

"Why were you doing her chores with her?"

"
She
enjoys my company. She does not think I am a nuisance."

"Until you told her to take a nap," he said, his face solemn.

"She didn't consider me a nuisance then, just annoying, and she did not tell me to help with the bread-making in retaliation. She knows I like to keep busy."

"As does she, I'm sure."

"She needed the nap."

His brows rose at her snapping tone. "Did I imply she did not?"

"No," she said grudgingly. "A pregnant woman needs more rest anyway, but she was yawning every other breath. I don't think she got much sleep last night."

In fact, she was sure of it.

Emily had flooded Cait with questions until she understood the full moon hunting ritual and all that it entailed.

She'd learned that although Cait had not hunted with the other wolves, she had stayed up late to share a meal with Drustan. She'd blushed in the telling and Emily assumed that a meal wasn't all she had shared with her husband.

Emily hadn't told Cait about Lachlan coming to her chamber. It had seemed too private a thing to share, even with a friend as close as a sister.

"She is lucky you care for her like you do."

"I am blessed by her friendship as well."

From the sidelong glances she and Lachlan kept getting from the other women in the kitchen area, she guessed her conversation with their laird was highly intriguing to them.

Lachlan looked at the other women and then back to Emily. "I want to speak with you."

She folded the dough over itself and then pressed it firmly together. "I'm almost finished kneading this."

"It can wait."

"No, it can't."

Two of the women at the table gasped and one stared at Emily bug-eyed, no longer making any pretense of not listening. Emily pretended not to notice and continued with what she was doing.

"Dare you refuse me?" he asked, sounding mean.

She grimaced. "You said you liked my plain-speaking."

"I did not say I liked disobedience."

She was not a child to obey without question, though she knew many men saw women that way. As arrogant as he was, she did not believe Lachlan was so shortsighted, but she would take that up with him later. "I did not disobey. I merely told you the truth. If I don't finish kneading the dough now, it will not rise properly. The other women are all busy with their own chores. Would you have me leave mine undone because you have not the patience to wait a minute longer?"

"You have the makings of a termagant, do you know that, English? You remind me of my grandmother."

"Your father or your mother's mother?" she asked as she continued to knead.

"My father's."

She reminded him of a femwolf then. That was interesting, wasn't it? "Did you call her a termagant?"

"Think you I am a fool?"

She shook her head. "Far from a fool."

"Good. Our discussion will be easier if you do not make the mistake of believing me stupid."

"That sounds ominous."

"I wonder why, unless you have secrets you seek to hide?"

Did he know about Talorc? Had Cait told Drustan after all? She had said nothing, but Emily had hardly given her the chance, she'd been so busy asking questions about the Chrechte. Then they had been around others and forced to discuss less sensitive topics.

"Everyone has secrets, laird."

"Mayhap. I will know yours, English."

"And will you tell me yours?" she asked, meeting his gaze directly for the first time since he arrived in the kitchens.

"I already have," he said softly.

A strange sensation settled low in her belly at his look and she swallowed. He was not going to pretend that the night before had been a dream. He would not deny coming to her. Perhaps he would even explain why he had. The day was suddenly much brighter.

She patted the dough into a ball and covered it with a light cloth. "There, that is done. The wait was not so bad, was it, laird?"

"Nay."

Encouraged by his less surly manner, she hurriedly washed and dried her hands before turning to face him once again. "Shall we go?"

He did not respond, but merely turned to leave. She followed. He led her back to the keep and into the great hall, but he did not stop there as she expected. He continued up a set of wooden stairs to a landing much like the one in her father's keep. Beyond it was the solar, but he did not stop there either. He led her into a bedchamber dominated by a giant bed covered with furs and a plaid.

"Why are we here?" she asked in a squeak.

He closed the door with a resounding thud that seemed to echo through the chamber even though her ears told her it really had not. "Privacy."

"Werewolves can hear what humans cannot."

"Yes, but I'm wondering how you know this."

She stared at him, mute. She could not betray Cait's confidence.

"Actually, I'm not. You could know only one of two ways. Either Talorc told you, or Cait. I'm guessing it wasn't the laird. It had to be his sister. She put a great deal of trust in you."

"We are like sisters," Emily whispered, praying he would not punish Cait for telling her. "Talorc should have told me."

"He refused to marry you. There was no need."

"But Cait was within her rights to tell me."

"Because you are like sisters?"

"Yes."

"She put her life, the lives of her pack in your hands."

"I won't betray her, or you."

"I know, but it amazes me she does. I would not tell another warrior, even one I called friend."

"But you would tell your brother."

"Yes."

"There, you see."

"I see that you and Cait are very lucky in your friendship."

"I agree." But she liked hearing he thought so much of her heart-sister. She licked her lips. "I thought you would try to pretend you had not come to me last night."

"I thought
you
planned to tell yourself it was a dream."

"It didn't work. You left your scent behind and… you don't leave me in my dreams." She hadn't meant to admit that, but she did not regret doing so. Her feelings were paltry things if she was ashamed to admit to their existence.

He sighed, his eyes filled with emotions she could not decipher. "I cannot keep you, Emily."

"Because I am human."

"I have a duty to my clan and to my pack."

"Your father married a human."

"And had a human child."

"Ulf."

"Yes."

"We know our own kind."

She wrinkled her nose in consternation. "I can't tell the difference."

"Because you are not one of us."

The words had a chilling impact on her senses. "No, I am not one of you."

"Bloody hell, Emily. I do not want to hurt you, but it is the way it is." He looked angry, but she could not understand why.

She had asked for nothing.

"I know. Truly, I do, Lachlan." Refusing to give into cowardice, she said, "I still want you."

An expression that was almost frightening in its intensity came over his face. "I want you, too, but I cannot take you."

"Why? Cait said you don't practice the same mating laws her clan does."

"Her clan is now the Balmoral."

"You know what I mean. If you take me, we are not wed like the Sinclairs."

"Nor would the Sinclair laird ever wed you then."

"Do you want him to?" she asked, not sure what she would do if he replied in the affirmative.

"No!" He growled and it was no human sound his throat made.

She shivered, but did not mind his ferocious reaction. That was something at least. "I already told you I cannot give myself to him. And he doesn't want me anyway."

Besides, the other laird probably already thought she'd given herself completely to Lachlan. She'd been naked with him and she was now convinced Talorc was aware of it.

"You are a virgin, Emily."

"And you aren't." Was he thinking she did not have the experience to give him pleasure like he'd given it to her?

She could not argue that point, but she was certainly willing to try. Eager even. But she was not so desperate she would say so. She had to maintain some semblance of pride here.

He laughed. "No. I am no virgin. It takes the physical act of mating to give a member of our pack control over the change. As you said, our ways are not the ways of the Sinclairs. We allow noncommitted mating to further the interests of the pack."

"Then why won't you make love to me?"

"You are not a femwolf."

"Are you saying Balmoral werewolves never have sex with human women without the benefit of marriage?"

"No, but there is the risk we will true-bond."

"And you don't want to be bonded with me."

He sighed, but then his expression turned hopelessly grim. "No."

She turned away, the pain of that single word as bad as when her father had shoved her away and called her a useless female child who had caused the death of her mother. Father had wanted a son and she had been a disappointment to him by right of her birth. She was not good enough for Lachlan either.

She had not been born a femwolf and therefore she had no lasting value to him.

"All of our children could be human, not just one. Don't you understand? Every time a Chrechte and a human mate, they risk not passing the wolf nature on."

"And that is so important?" she asked, but she knew it was.

Just as she'd known that being herself had never been enough for her father, Sybil or even her other siblings. Abigail was the only one who had loved Emily for who she was.

"How can you doubt it?" Lachlan demanded in a fierce tone. "We are a special race and to lose that race because we do not care enough to pass our full natures on would be wrong."

She wanted to cry, but she wouldn't. Tears did nothing but relieve some of the ache, and right now, she knew they would not even do that. He was not telling her anything surprising, only hurtful, and that pain would not leave her for a long time, if ever. Wasn't there still a corner of her heart that craved her father's love?

She could never have it either, but that did not mean she had to give up on everything. Was not a small taste of joy better than nothing at all? "You said there was pleasure you could show me without breaching my maidenhead."

"Yes." His voice sounded strangled.

She turned to face him, but did not meet his eyes. "I want that. And I want you to show me how to give you the same kind of pleasure you gave me last night."