Dark Highland Fire

Rowan stood, tried to think of something to say that might explain it, and finally had to settle for a shrug. "Oh."



"It's okay," Carly said with a faint smile. "It's a problem I've had some experience with before. Though I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you acquired yours under more pleasant circumstances."



Rowan frowned. "You were bitten?" It surprised her to hear it. Diluted though the blood must be here, the bite of the arukhin of Coracin carried a powerful magic. For pure Drakkyn such as she, the magic in such a bite would only blend with their own, able to seal the mating bond and connect two beings on the deepest level under the right circumstances (which, she thought darkly, seemed to include fits of passion in mystical caverns). But that type of power could easily kill an unsuspecting Orinn. It could be no different for humans. Carly's reply confirmed this.



"It almost killed me, until I accepted the Change. It was the only way Gideon and I could be together." She grinned. "I keep telling him he's lucky I like him, because the fur would be kind of a big dating impediment."



Rowan raised her eyebrows as it dawned on her all at once. "You're a werewolf too?" It made sense, of course. With no power to blend with, the Wolf magic would simply change its host to accommodate it. She found herself impressed, a state she wasn't often in. This small Earth woman must have as much of the warrior in her as any of the Dyadd Morgaine. Still, Carly's revelation was going to severely limit most of the derogatory comments Rowan had wanted to make about Gabriel this morning. Calling him a stupid hair-ball probably wasn't going to fly.



"Yeah," Carly replied, acting as though her condition wasn't any kind of news. "So, um, are you going to be one too, now?" The hopeful look on her pretty face had a sweetness to it that had Rowan coming to sit beside her on the bed. The rush of comfort she felt at Carly's presence surprised her, but told her she'd found a kindred spirit. And oh, how it made her miss her own sisters.



"I'm not anything but sleepy and annoyed right this second," Rowan said, prompting a sympathetic chuckle from her companion. "Though I predict that the 'sleepy' will go eventually. It's different for my kind."



Carly wrinkled her nose in irritation, "Damn it," she grumbled. "I figured."



Rowan couldn't help but laugh. "Tired of being surrounded by MacInnes males? Shocking."



Carly gave her a baleful look as she tucked a stray curl behind her ear. "You don't even know. I grew up with two brothers, no sisters. Gideon and I spend a lot of time back home in New York, but when I'm here, with the exception of the female cousins at the annual gathering, it's testosterone city all over again. Insults, bathroom humor, random body slams ... I start to crawl the wall after about a week without female company. I can talk to Regan, my best friend back home, on the phone, but it's not the same. And she has limited tolerance for whining, sadly."



"What about Harriet?" Rowan asked, referring to the fifty-something MacInnes cousin who ran the kitchen.



Carly's wince said it all. "Uh, I love Harriet, but she's my mother's age, and also thinks that watching marathons of Upstairs, Downstairs on DVD qualifies as a wild and crazy night." She rolled her eyes. "If I'm going to watch a movie, I'd rather put up with one of Gideon and Gabe's everything-blows-up-athons."



"Sounds interesting." Just like the warm feeling she got when she thought of Gabriel in his normal state, relaxing and joking with his family. He seemed to be a naturally friendly creature, at least to everyone but her. It was just a shame that getting uptight and snappish did nothing to mar his incredible appeal. She thought fleetingly of his hands twined with hers as they'd made love, dusky gold against ivory, and was dismayed to find that she wanted to be near him again, even as abrupt and difficult as he'd made the morning. Her stomach knotted with both desire and dismay.



"Oh, it is," Carly chuckled, tilting her head as she studied what Rowan knew was a sudden bloom of color in her pale cheeks. "They victory dance, yell encouragement when the good guys get something flammable. Sometimes rope me into carnage-related drinking games. I have tossed a blanket over Gabe's sorry, passed-out carcass several times thanks to Terminator. So is being his mate going to be a problem for you?"



Rowan blinked, utterly taken aback by the question.



"Mate?" she asked, and even to her own ears her voice sounded stupid. It was one thing to think it. It was quite another to have someone else mention it.



Carly just groaned. "Oh, Rowan, not you too. You're supposed to be rational and make sense, not make a yucky face." She stood, then leaned down into Rowan's face. Her tone was only half joking. "You need to make sense. You're Gabriel's mate, and one of you needs to make sense!"



Rowan began to stammer, knowing she was doing just the opposite. "I ... I don't think ... you see, there are a lot of factors, and ..."



"Yeah, I know. It's complicated. You don't have to tell me." Carly finished for her with a sympathetic little half smile. She moved to the door, turning back just as she laid her hand on the knob. "I know that I don't know you. And I'm absolutely sure you've got enough on your plate without adding Gabe into the mix. But he's a good man. And I think he's been waiting for someone just like you."



Rowan slumped on the bed, tipping her chin down to regard Carly while raising her eyebrows in disbelief. "A blood-drinking ex-stripper with commitment issues?"



Carly laughed as she opened the door. "I was thinking more along the lines of 'force of nature with ample willingness to kick his ass,' but either way. Have a safe trip. And I hope you stick around, for what it's worth. God knows I could use the backup. And the sympathy."



"Thanks," Rowan managed as Carly disappeared back into the hallway with one last sunny grin. She still had no idea what this short, beautiful human was doing married to a big hulking werewolf, but her initial impression of Carly MacInnes had been correct: she liked her. So the brothers MacInnes must have some really impressive traits to recommend them as mates, she supposed.



Rowan sighed as she got to her feet and took one last look around the room. It was time to go. And she now had exponentially more to chew over on the drive to Gabriel's. Which, she was quite sure, was just what Carly had intended. Sneaky little human.



Rowan smiled. The two of them were going to get along just fine.



A little over an hour later, Rowan found herself buckled into Gabriel's rattletrap car, trundling off the ferry at the tiny, oddly named town of Fishnish and heading for Tobermory. How exactly she'd come to be heading away from the one thing that was going to help her get to her brother was a little beyond her at the moment.



Still, one thing was certain. Gabriel might have been more than willing to have mind-blowing, earth-shaking sex with her. But he didn't trust her around the Stone. That he was right not to currently wasn't making any difference. His lack of faith pissed her off. Among other things.



Thankfully, he was too broody to notice. Rowan sighed irritably and shifted in the uncomfortable seat. Or maybe it was just her rear end that was uncomfortable. Making love on hard rock was something she might want to reconsider in the future, she decided. It had undoubtedly been a lousy idea. Not only had she all but crawled inside the one man she knew damn well she ought to stay away from, she'd also tied herself to him in some fundamental way she was still trying to figure out. She knew, from the old stories, that a special bond had existed between the Dyadd and the arukhin. She hadn't known it was something you could actually invoke. So it went without saying that she had no clue how to un-invoke it, which was something she needed to do as soon as possible. Otherwise, she was going to want to jump on him again.



Oh, hell. She already did.



Damn it.



Rowan slid lower in her seat and tried to ignore the stinging, faintly throbbing reminder at the juncture of her neck and shoulder of exactly how too far she'd gone. In the chamber. On the lawn. In her bed.



So much for avoiding Gabriel MacInnes.



Carly had seen it before she herself had wanted to look that closely. In sharing that one mutual bite with him, Rowan had done what for her people was unthinkable. She had forged a bond with a male. There were many ways to bind yourself to another, Drakkyn and Orinn, none meaning more than any other. She didn't pretend to be familiar with even half of them, never having intended to wed. But the effect, in the end, was the same.



She felt Gabriel in every breath she took, in each beat of her heart. She had, without intending to, taken some essential part of who he was and fused it to her own inner self. Once bound, never unbound, such was the Drakkyn way. Only the sorcerers strayed, and even then they were compelled to return, ever and always, to their ill-used mates.



At least Gabriel was not a sorcerer. In fact, in light of the information she'd gleaned at their joining, Rowan knew him to be a fundamentally good man. She had scraps of memories now that she knew were his, quick flashes of a young boy bedeviling his serious brother to make him smile, of a young man trying to stand out from his Pack as more than his impressive heritage. But still, staying with him, loving him, was out of the question.



Losing her family and her home had almost destroyed her. If she let herself truly feel for Gabriel, it was one more tool for the Andrakkar to use against her. And for her to belong to Lucien, as far as the dragon was concerned, Gabriel would have to be killed. She had no illusions about that. She said a silent prayer for help to Morgaine, the heart of her people, to whom she had always been taught to go with her troubles.



Ama Dyana, how do I get myself out of this mess?



The answer, as it had always been, was silence.



Rowan slid her hands up to her temples and began to massage them, closing her eyes. She had the beginnings of a foul headache if she didn't clear her mind for just a little while.



Gabriel, sensing this was the time she least wanted his conversation, decided this was the appropriate time to start one.