Beast Untamed: Beasts of Bodmin Moor, Book 3 Page 16

  “Not much chance of that, seeing as we’re not exactly on speaking terms,” Erin said, battening down her annoyance that Nathan had been able to talk to Naomi about such intimate matters yet hadn’t felt able to share them with her. It didn’t matter that the friendship went back years. Surely after what she and Nathan had shared he would have felt confident enough to confide in her?

  Apparently not. And that grated.

  But then she hadn’t exactly confided in him either. Not everything. Some things were too painful to voice.

  “You should see our new landing,” Naomi said, breaking into Erin’s musing. “Do you remember that boarded-up cupboard thing we couldn’t figure out and Nathan smashed it? Well, he came around while we were on honeymoon and finished demolishing the wall for us. He even plastered the new partition ready for decorating. See,” she tapped a newly manicured foot to Erin’s. “He might be a total washout in the relationship department, but he’s a really great friend. Maybe you two can find a way to be that.”

  “Friends?” She shook her head. Erin already knew they were way past that. She didn’t think she could ever see Nathan and not want him as more than just a friend. She was already finding it hard to come to terms with the end of their short affair.

  As her throat caught, Erin scrambled up. “Excuse me. I’ve got to visit your bathroom.”

  In the hallway, Erin almost stumbled against a side table and reached out to steady herself. She was about to move off, when Talia and Naomi’s lowered voices stopped her.

  “It’s just as well,” Naomi said in hushed tones. “She was getting in way over her head. So was he, according to Tynan.”

  “Yeah. Caleb said he hadn’t ever seen him so gone over a woman. Cal was already worried about the implications.”

  “Well, he’d know firsthand about those. But it was different for you guys.”

  “We still had to jump through hoops,” Talia said. “I wouldn’t want that for Erin.”

  “Me either. Anyway, looks like we don’t have to worry now.” Naomi sighed. “I’ll go and start that coffee.”

  Erin snapped out of her eavesdropping mode and hurried into the bathroom with Talia’s words reverberating around her head. Nathan was gone over her? Was that true? And if it was, what were the implications they’d mentioned, and what hoops needed jumping through?

  When Erin returned, the girls had cleared the pizza plates and glasses and were currently in Naomi’s small kitchen preparing coffee. Erin wondered whether or not to mention what she’d overheard but decided against it. It was all moot anyway, seeing as she and Nathan were no longer involved.

  At the thought, a sense of desolation swept over her, leaving her so bereft, it almost sent her to her knees. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself that she and Nathan had been a temporary thing, that it was never meant to go anywhere, or that he was meant to mean anything to her. It didn’t matter. At least not to her heart, which hurt so much, she could almost feel it splintering into tiny fragments.

  “I’ll be leaving Bodmin soon.”

  The words came out of her mouth so fast, Erin knew she was almost as stunned as Naomi and Talia looked. They stopped setting out coffee mugs to stare at her.

  “So soon?” Talia asked, reaching out a hand to cover Erin’s. “I knew you weren’t planning on staying forever, but I thought you’d at least see out the summer. You haven’t seen the moor at its best yet.”

  “I can’t stay,” Erin said with a shaky smile. “My cottage was only available until the summer letting season began. It makes sense to move on sooner rather than later.”

  “This is because of Nathan,” Naomi stated. “You’ve fallen for him.”

  Since the look on her friend’s face didn’t exactly radiate joy, Erin guessed that the knowledge didn’t sit well with her. She recalled what she’d overhead and decided to put both their minds at rest.

  “It’s not because of Nathan,” she lied, realizing that this time it was. Despite knowing she would have to leave sometime to lessen the risk of Justin finding her, her reasons now revolved around Nathan. “I always intended to live near a city with a good academic record,” she said. “So I can study botany. It’s something I’ve wanted to do, so why wait to settle somewhere I intend putting down roots? It makes sense.”

  Both women shared another pointed look. Erin had to bite her tongue not to ask what was with all these fulminating looks. Except she already knew it was because they didn’t think it was a good idea for her to be further involved with Nathan. She guessed they were only looking out for her.

  “We’ll be so sorry to see you go,” Talia said, and the look on her face said she meant it. She reached out and hugged Erin so sincerely that Erin’s already tightly strung emotions wobbled even further. “But don’t you dare disappear before we can throw you a send-off party.”

  Naomi stepped around the counter and pulled Erin into a hug too. “I really wish things could have worked out for you.”

  Again, Erin saw sincerity in Naomi’s eyes and felt her own moisten. “So do I.”

  She’d never wished for anything more.

  * * * * *

  “It could never go anywhere. You’re best just walking away.”

  Nathan glared across the table at Caleb, and while knowing his friend spoke only what he’d been telling himself since Erin had left early that morning, he couldn’t quite stop the venom from rising up from his chest.

  “Yeah? I just bet you told yourself that every time you watched your brother bang Talia. Didn’t stop you though, did it?”

  Caleb’s fingers tightened around the cards he was holding before he placed them facedown on the table. “You’re mixed up, so I’ll let you have that one. You won’t get the chance to take another shot.”

  Nathan laid down his own hand—a shit one, which just about summed up his day—and rubbed his hand along his neck. “Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Out of line.”

  Since Caleb’s primary duty as leader was protection of the pack, Nathan knew he had to step down a little from his high horse. Keeping their community safe had become a priority as far back as the seventeenth century, when their Irish community, which had likely grown complacent about such matters, was betrayed by a human who infiltrated the pack. Their members had been forced to leave Ireland and scatter throughout mainland Britain in the hope of living peaceably, and secretly, within local communities once more.

  For over three hundred years they had managed to do so. Nathan could hardly blame his friend for ensuring it stayed that way.

  He scrubbed his hand along his neck again. “This damned female has got me turning fucking cartwheels.”

  “Thought you said it was finished?” Tynan suggested unhelpfully, tapping a finger against one of his cards. “If that’s so, your cartwheel-turning days are over, my friend. You need to get yourself back in the field, pronto.”

  Nathan gritted his teeth. Why on God’s green earth did he ever spill his guts to these two? They were so freaking loved-up with their females, they thought everyone was floating around on little pink clouds of unadulterated bliss.

  “Since both of you are dishing out such brilliant and achingly obvious advice, why don’t you take it a step further and tell me I’d be best off sticking with shifter females in future?”

  “It would make things less complicated.” Caleb picked up his cards again. “That way if you get hung up on a female, you won’t have to get yourself all knotted up ending it because it can’t go anywhere.”

  “Why can’t it?”

  Nathan hadn’t planned to ask the question, although it had been echoing in his head for most of the day. He looked up at his friends and found his answer in their almost identical expressions.

  “Do you actually need a response to that?” Caleb said, his jaw hard and gaze narrowed. “Even an achingly obvious one?”

  Nathan sh
rugged, determined to make his friends spell it out. Shit. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing baiting them like this. All he knew was that he needed to hear the answer vocalized so it would solidify what he knew was right.

  “Seems I do.”

  Caleb put his cards down again and leaned back in the chair. “You can’t mate with a non-shifter,” he said. “You can’t put your mark on a human.”

  “You did.”

  If it were possible, Caleb’s jaw tightened even more. “You’re pushing it, friend.”

  Nathan leaned forward, matching Caleb’s glare. “I don’t like being told there’s one rule for the leader and another for the rest of us.”

  When Caleb moved forward, Tynan slammed his palm on the table. “Okay. Let’s break this up, shall we? Nathan, you came in here tonight spoiling for a fight. If you want to talk this out, fine. If you just want to bitch and start challenging—”

  “Shit.” Nathan pressed his fingers to his eyes. Then looked up at Caleb. “Out of line. Again.”

  Caleb nodded, obviously recognizing it was as near an apology as he’d get from Nathan, and went to Tynan’s refrigerator where he got out three more beers. He placed them on the table, one in front of each man. “Looks like we have a serious problem.” He unscrewed the top of his bottle, sat and eyeballed Nathan. “Why don’t you tell us what level of serious we’re actually dealing with?”

  Nathan squeezed his eyes shut and wondered when in hell he’d taken such a wrong turn and ended up with his guts in a screwball mess. “She gets to me.”

  “Yeah. We already figured that out.” Tynan unscrewed his own bottle top. “The question is how much.”

  Since both men stared at him with meaning clear in their expressions, Nathan didn’t even try and smokescreen them. “My eyes for one. It’s getting fucking impossible to stop the change.” He reached for his bottle and turned it around in his hands, letting the chilled moisture cool his suddenly clammy palms. “Last night… Shit. Last night, I nearly sank my teeth into her neck.”

  He heard Caleb inhale sharply as the man leaned back. “Feared as much.”

  “It was almost impossible to stop. Something fired inside me, from the belly.” From the heart, although no way was he admitting that to his friends. It had been hard enough admitting it to himself. “It felt like it had always been there, like some kind of sleeping fucking dragon. I got one sniff of her after we…well, it was as if something took me over.”

  Caleb and Tynan exchanged a glance.

  “I’m going freaking crazy, right?” Nathan said, hoping to hell his friends would confirm his assumption. But when they looked back at him, he knew even before they spoke that he was screwed.

  “She’s human,” Caleb said as if he needed reminding. “That means we’ve got to involve the Principals. I need to call a meeting of the Council.”

  “I’m not spilling details of my personal life to the Principals,” Nathan snapped. “There’s got to be some other way.”

  “There isn’t,” Tynan said. “Mating with a human is unprecedented. At least it is for those of us who aren’t leader. ”

  No sooner had Tynan said it than he and Nathan looked at Caleb.

  After long moments, when silence echoed off the kitchen walls, Caleb drew from his beer bottle. He swallowed, then put the bottle down but kept his fingers clasped around it. “My situation was different. And yeah, as leader, I could bend the rules.” He held up his free hand, cutting off Nathan who started to object. “I know it’s not right, but it’s how we work. But even my bending the rules required the agreement of the Council. And that means we need a meeting to discuss how we deal with this.”

  Mortified, Nathan leaned his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. “How the freaking hell did I manage to get myself into this shit?”

  Tynan chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. “You fell in love, my friend. It happens to us all.”

  Love? That hit Nathan harder than the whole mating-and-needing-to-mark-Erin deal. Although it was inevitable. When a male wanted to mate and mark a female, it meant that female was his for life. Surely it shouldn’t come as such a surprise that he loved Erin.

  The intense pain he’d felt since their argument last night and when he’d watched her leave his home early this morning was damn near incapacitating. If it wasn’t down to the fact he was in love with her, he bloody sure didn’t want to experience anything that went deeper.

  He raised his head and met his friends’ knowing smiles, but in their eyes, he saw concern for his situation. “I’m not sure she’ll want anything to do with me after last night.”

  “That’s your department,” Caleb said. “Just let me know if and when you want me to call that meeting.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Late next morning, Erin called in at the supermarket to pick up some provisions. She’d intended to speak with Sandie and give notice that she’d be leaving at the end of the week, but her boss had been off sick with a heavy cold. Erin had decided to write her a note to explain that she was leaving and thank Sandie for the opportunity she’d given her. When she got home, she would call Kay and update her friend with her new plans.

  Packing the two grocery bags in her car, Erin felt a pang of loss so deep, she almost doubled over. She really didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to leave her new friends. She didn’t want to leave Bodmin.

  Mostly, she didn’t want to leave Nathan. The thought of never seeing him again cut like nothing had ever done before. She wasn’t at all certain she could bear it. But she would, of course. There was no other option.

  Unable to stop herself, Erin drove out of town and toward the part of the moor where Nathan lived. She had an overwhelming urge to be near him, to be near the place he called home. The house he had built on the beautiful Cornish moor.

  Remembering he had a state-of-the-art security system, Erin parked up a distance away from his entrance so as not to be seen from the house. She knew he would probably be hard at work in his home office, but she wasn’t about to take the chance he could spot her sitting out there like some lovesick idiot.

  She glanced up toward his bedroom. She could almost feel him lying beside her in the huge bed. Feel his arms around her, holding her tight while his warmth seeped into her soul.

  In that moment, with memories flooding her lonely heart, she could no longer stop the tears she’d been trying to hold back. With her hands on the steering wheel, she lowered her head and wept.

  * * * * *

  When Erin arrived home later that afternoon, Willa wasn’t at the door to greet her. Erin’s initial thought was that her girl must still be making up for that loss of sleep after her nighttime adventure at Nathan’s.

  The first real indication that something was wrong came when Erin stepped into the kitchen and saw Willa’s empty bed.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and a shiver ran down her spine. She hurried through to the lounge.

  And froze.

  On the sofa, facing the door, sat Justin.

  “Hello, Vanessa. Or perhaps I should refer to you as Erin now.”

  Through the shock and the fear came an overwhelming dread. “Where’s Willa?”

  He crossed one leg over the other, taking an easy posture as he settled back against the sofa. The look in his eyes was anything but relaxed. They gleamed dark and ominous. He took them off her just long enough to glance around the room. “I have to say you’ve come down in the world. Setting yourself up in a hovel like this?”

  Erin forced herself to breathe, to keep her emotions from controlling what she said, what she did. She tamped down her fear and looked Justin straight in the eye.

  “There’s no reason for you to be here, Justin. There is nothing left between us, there hasn’t been for a long time.”

  “You ran out on me,” he said, his tone matching the darknes
s in his eyes. “Nobody does that.”

  “I’m sorry.” Placate him, she thought. Feed into his vanity. That was the only way she had ever gotten through to him, even marginally. But that was when she’d been in no position to do anything else. When she was under his direct control. Now, things were different. And damned if she’d kowtow to him anymore. She’d come too far to back down now.

  “Actually, I’m not sorry. Not for a moment. Yes, I ran out on you, and I’d do it again. In a heartbeat. What you did was unforgivable.”

  He huffed out a laugh. “Always so fucking dramatic. By the way, I’m not sure I like the hair.”

  Erin resisted the urge to lift her hand to her head. “Well, I do.”

  Justin flicked at his trouser leg. “Not that it was a particularly useful disguise, if that was your intention.”

  Erin swallowed.

  “Do you remember Leo Ackerman? You met him briefly eight months ago. No? Well, he remembered you. Took quite a shine to you, in fact. Luckily, you made such an impression that he looked past the short hair and shabby waitress outfit, but then a body like yours takes some forgetting.”

  Someone had recognized her? Here? In Bodmin?

  “Well, Leo?” Justin went on. “We go back a ways. He was on holiday with his wife. She’d wanted to visit the area to see some local inn that a famous writer had used in a novel. Leo called to tell me he’d seen you here. What were the chances? At my request, he stayed with you awhile. Tracked you.” Justin’s gaze narrowed dangerously. “Told me you were fucking some big guy with an attitude.”

  Her blood, already chilled, ran cold in her veins.

  “But I’m willing to overlook your indiscretion,” he said, checking out his fingernails. “And everything else you’ve done.”

  “I’ll never go back with you, Justin.”

  He met her gaze. “That would be your choice, Vanessa.”