My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon (33 page)

"I told ye that's all it would take. The men of Fyfe were cursed long ago, ye ken. Cursed to be therianthropes—to change into animals—when they touch the laird's stone. Yon laddy… well, ye can see what happened. He's a very nice-lookin' lion, though, don't ye think, Grizel?"

"Very nice," she agreed quickly. "Just like a great big kitty. Does he purr if you stroke him?"

Raphael growled low in his throat. I patted him again. "Calm down, sweetie. We'll get this figured out." I took a deep breath and skewered Sir Alec with a look that would have scared the crap out of a mortal man. "Given the evidence before us, I'm willing to accept the story about the stone. You have yet, however, to tell me what it is we need to do to get Raphael back."

Sir Alec shrugged. "He must learn how to shift back to human form by himself."

"Well, surely you can give him some help!" I said, clutching my hands together to keep from shaking the annoying ghost. "You must have some experience with this!"

"Nay, none," he said, shaking his head.

"But… but… it's your stone!"

"Aye, and the men of Fyfe were well warned not to go near it. None of us did," he said with irritating righteousness.

I stared at him in outright surprise. "Do you mean to say that you have this horrible stone in the castle, one that can turn any male family member into an animal if he so much as touches the damned thing, and no one ever did so?"

"Aye, that's what I'm tellin' ye. We had the warning, ye see. We knew that to touch it would bring down the curse upon our heads."

I turned to consider the stone. "Then what are we going to do? If we put it back, will it change Raphael back?"

"I'm afraid not, lass. He's therian, ye see. All of us men of Fyfe are, but only those who touch the stone trigger the change."

I looked at my husband. His eyes peered back at me, filled with a heart-twisting mixture of hope, trust, and sadness. "Don't worry, I won't let you stay this way. We just need to think… There has to be an answer. If there's one thing I've learned the last few years, it's that nothing is absolute."

"We'd help ye if we could," Sir Alec said, pulling Grizel to his side. "But I'm afraid that there's no solution. It's as the curse says:
The Thane of Fyfe shadowed be, thrice around the stone bound; in its light, the devil can see, and the beast within be found
."

"Thrice around the stone bound," I murmured, eyeing the stone. "I wonder… Bob?"

Raphael looked thoughtful for a moment, clearly thinking the same thing I was. His head jerked up and down in an awkward acknowledgment.

"Are you sure?" I asked, my heart weeping at the sight of his eyes, so familiar, so human, bound in a body that was nothing more than a furry prison.

He nodded again.

"Right. Here goes nothing." I picked up the stone, grunting a little at its weight as I lifted it over my head.

"What are ye doin'?" Sir Alec yelled, leaping toward me.

I lowered the stone and took a couple of steps back, just in case he had any funny ideas about trying to snatch it from me. "The curse revolves around the stone. You guys have been protecting it all these centuries, believing it made you happy."

"Aye, it has! So long as the laird's stone is safe, all will be well."

"The laird's stone, the laird's stone," Lily muttered before jabbing a finger in Sir Alec's direction. "Ask him what he's done to the lady's stone!"

Sir Alec looked abashed for a moment.

"He destroyed it, that's what he did!" she crowed. "He couldn't stand to see me happy, and he destroyed it, damning all women in the family to eternal sorrow!"

"I didn't even know ye, ye daft woman!" Sir Alec answered. "I dropped it down the privy when I was a lad!"

I raised an eyebrow.

He cleared his throat, embarrassment plainly written on his face. " 'Twas an accident. I didn't know it was the lady's stone. I used to play in the passage leading to the Stone Room. I never touched the laird's stone—even then I knew what repercussions that would have—," he said, looking at Raphael. "But the lady's stone was different. It was smaller, and pretty. I used to carry it about with me, and it… er… well, it was dropped into the privy by mistake."

"A likely tale," Lily snorted.

"What happened after that?" I asked, glancing from the stone in my arms to Raphael.

His eyes pleaded with me to do something.

"What do ye mean?"

"Was there any repercussion for destroying the lady's stone? Did something happen to your mother?"

"Nothing happened to her, although she proper tanned my arse for playing in the privy," he said with a rueful grin as he rubbed his behind.

I smiled at him. "I'm sure you deserved it."

"Aye, but that didn't make it any easier to—nooo!"

I lifted the stone as high over my head as I could, and slammed it back down toward the solid marble floor. A shock wave knocked me back off my feet, against Raphael. We fell to the ground in a tangle of human and lion limbs, the explosion as the stone shattered into a thousand pieces echoing painfully along the hall. Beneath us, the ground trembled for a moment, easing as the horrible sound faded into nothing.

A dense cloud of dust choked the air, making me cough as I pushed my hair out of my face and sat up.

"Bob!" I yelled in delight as I flung myself on a familiar man-shaped form.

"Blessed Virgin, what have ye done?" Sir Alec asked, his figure barely visible in the dense, dusty air. He helped Grizel to her feet, ignoring the nasty look Lily shot him as she rose from where she'd been knocked back.

Sir Alec stood looking at the pile of rubble that was formerly the laird's stone.

"I broke the damned curse," I said, hugging Raphael.

"But… but ye have destroyed the stone! Ye've destroyed the happiness of the lairds!"

"You don't deserve happiness, you murdering, adulterous blackguard!" Lily growled as she dusted herself off. She turned to face us, giving a regal nod of her head. "You've done as I asked; you've destroyed the stone. I will be at peace now."

"I hate to say this, but that wasn't why I destroyed it," I said as Raphael helped me up. "You okay, sweetie?"

"Yes, thanks to you." He kissed me, his eyes hot with love and desire.

"Ye broke my stone!" Sir Alec wailed, dropping to his knees before the pile of rubble. "Ye've ruined my chance of happiness!"

"Pfft," I said. "I don't know why someone didn't think of destroying the stone earlier to break the were-kitty curse, but I assume it's because you've had it drummed into your heads that no one must go near it or touch it in order to be happy. Well, I've always been a firm believer in people making their own destinies, and their own happiness. You and Grizel seem to be pretty happy as you are, and nothing can change that."

"She's right, love," Grizel said, putting a hand on her husband's shoulder. "We're still here, and we still have each other. What more could make us happy?"

"Oh, for mercy's sake," Lily said, rolling her eyes as she picked her way across the dirt- and rock-strewn floor. "Now that I have been avenged, I can move on and find Roddy. I have a few questions to put to him about what happened to my jewels…"

Lily's form shimmered as it disappeared into the wall.

"Alec?" Grizel asked, prodding him.

"Eh? Oh, aye, I suppose ye're right," he said, sighing as he brushed dust from his hands and stood up. "But I still think it's a tragedy the stone is gone."

"Cheer up," I said, wrapping my arms around Raphael's waist and biting his chin. "You still have the castle stone, right? One out of three isn't too bad."

"Aye, I suppose. Unless ye'll be wantin' to see that too," he said with a barbed look.

"I swear I'll keep Joy away from any other stones," Raphael promised.

Alec grunted acknowledgment.

Grizel smiled winsomely at her husband. "Come, love. We'll go back to the stable yard, and ye can be the stable lad, and I'll be the goose girl. Ye know how ye love to play stable lad."

A lascivious light dawned in Sir Alec's eyes as he turned away from the stone. "Would ye be the dairy maid instead of the goose girl?"

"Perhaps," Grizel said with a coy arch to her brows, and an encouraging twitch of her skirt.

"Ah, lass, ye do know how to stoke my fire," Sir Alec said, lunging for her. She squealed and took off down the hallway.

Sir Alec started after her, pausing to look back at us. "What are ye waitin' for, lad? It's yer weddin' night, and ye're back to yer manly form. Go pleasure yer wife!"

"That's the smartest thing you've said all night," Raphael said, scooping me up in his arms and carrying me up the stone staircase.

"I agree completely," I said, kissing his jawline. "And since I'm so accommodating, would you like to get the 'I told you so' out of the way now, or later?"

"I'd like to forget the whole blasted evening," he growled, pushing open the door to our suite.

"I'm sure you would, but I have to say—you made a very sexy lion."

"That's all over with now. It won't happen again," he said, setting me on my feet as he locked the door.

"I wonder…" I nibbled my lip as I went into the bedroom.

"You wonder what? How long it will take me to have you screaming with ecstasy?"

"No, I know that's a given," I said as he followed me into the room. Before I could say anything else, his clothes were off and he was stalking toward me, a hungry, predatory look in his eyes that left me shivering with delight. "I was going to say I wonder if you coming to Fyfe brought forth previously hidden therianthrope tendencies, but I think I have my answer."

"I am
not
an animal," he growled, the sound starting deep in his chest, rolling outward with a rumble that sounded remarkably like a lion's.

"Oh, I don't know," I said, giggling when he pounced on me, sending us both falling back onto the bed. "I think I might like having the beast within you released."

He growled again, nibbling my neck as he peeled off my shirt.

"What a honeymoon this is going to be," I sighed happily. "I can't wait to see what happens at the end of the week."

"End of the week?" Raphael asked, removing my bra. His eyes lit as he swooped down to nibble various and sundry exposed parts. "What happens at the end of the week?"

"Full moon, sweetie. Full moon!"

Two years after she started writing, Katie MacAlister sold the first of more than thirty books. Her novels have been translated into numerous languages, been recorded as audiobooks, received several awards, and placed on the
New York Times, USA Today,
and
Publishers Weekly
bestseller lists. Katie lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and dogs, and can often be found lurking around online. You can visit her at www.katiemacalister.com
.

THE WORST MOMENT OF MY LIFE WAS SEEING Kat go over backward, vanishing under the first bloodsucker's bulk. I actually half shifted—claws springing free and fur rippling down my limbs with a familiar itch—and flung myself at the sucker, ignoring the second one I'd been feinting with. Pain bloomed as it clipped me on the side, my ribs scraped and a hot spatter of blood splashed moonlit gravel. I crashed into the thing with a sound like locomotives colliding.

I went down hard, little pieces of rock burning up my back where Kat's fingers had recently brushed.
Kat, dear Sun, Kat
—

The bloodsucker exhaled foulness, its twisted-root face compressing as it champed, yellow foam splattering. Its eyes burned violet. It had probably been female while human, because it went for my chest instead of my throat. The mistake cost it its life.

If those sucking machines can be said to have a life, instead of a twilight hell.

Instinct took over and I tore the thing open, amber claws puncturing unhallowed skin. We've been hunting the bloodsuckers for a long time, and the Sun has blessed us with pieces of Herself in our claws and teeth.

We used to die like flies up against them.

Nowadays, they're still hard to kill. But we've got advantages, and we're trained. Even a pup knows how to take them out—though getting into a pitched battle on the shoulder of a country road in Virginia is
not
my preferred method. I'm more of an urban hunter.

The bloodsucker stiffened, screaming without sound because my claws were buried in its chest. A gout of foul-smelling blackness poured from its open mouth instead, slicking my face and getting in my nose. It stank to high heaven.

The point of a birch stake protruded from its chest, dripping. Stinking ash spread as the blessed wood of a Sun-loving tree poisoned the sucker's metabolism. They run fast and hot, and once they're poisoned, it takes very little for it to spread. Core damage to their circulatory systems causes critical hemorrhage.

The bloodsucker slumped, ash threading through its flesh. The blood turned to grit, I sneezed twice, and Kat's face, stained and grimy, rose like the Sun itself over the sucker's shoulder. She blinked furiously, her blue eyes red-rimmed, and my heart exploded in my chest.

I tried to speak, but the only thing that came out was a sharp yipping sound. When we change even halfway, our mouths aren't meant for speaking.

Kat stared at me, jaw set and eyes flashing through tears of irritation from the dust. It gets on you and just keeps itching as it crumbles finer and finer, cells imploding and tearing themselves apart. Her hair was full of dirt, twigs, and gravel, and she held the stake loosely, professionally, but her other hand was a white-knuckled fist.

The road unreeled behind her, a single lane of pavement under silver wash from the almost-full May moon. Tree branches whispered and chuckled as the breeze rolled up from the creek. The bed-and-breakfast was a quarter of a mile away down a long gravel driveway, the creek running behind it in a ribbon of coolness. Water sounded really good right about now.