Mathison studied her, his expression unreadable.
“You can come back inside now,” she said. “Might as well get this over with.” She retreated to the hearth and backed up to the fire. A bone-chilling dampness hung in the air. “What time of year is it here? It feels colder.”
“The month and the day are the same as in yer reality. ’Tis only a different century.” He went back to the tea service, felt the glossy black teapot, and scowled. “Barely warm. I shall send for fresh.”
“It’s fine. Don’t bother.”
He turned and pinned her with a sharp look that would have backed her up a step had she not stood in front of the fire. “’Tis not fine. As mistress of Wraith Tower, ye will enjoy every comfort within my power to provide for ye.”
“Wraith Tower.” She widened her stance and hugged her clothes closer. “That explains the hallway with curves instead of corners.” She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the tension knotting its way up her neck. When that made it to her skull, it would crank her headache into one of her more phenomenal migraines. “You may now explain why you thought I would willingly come here after we had sex.” Might as well pick up the conversation where it had left off. There was so much weirdness to cover, she hardly knew where to begin. All she knew for certain was that if she allowed her control to slip, she would never rise from the sobbing mess she would become.
“We are fated mates. The physical bond is always easier to achieve than the soul-binding. Especially for a bond such as ours.”
“A bond such as ours?”
“Different centuries. Different realities. Different…beings.”
That made sense, but she wasn’t about to let down her guard. “You said Mairwen brought us through the Highland Veil. You told me about that. Earlier.”
“Aye, but ye nay believed me.” Sorrow and regret rolled off him in waves; pain filled his eyes.
She sidled over to a chair beside the hearth and lowered herself into it, tucking her armload of clothing into the seat beside her. With a flip of her hand that encompassed the room, she snorted. “Yeah, well, this is pretty hard to argue with.” Rubbing her forehead, she tried to keep from shaking. Her throat ached with the need to cry, and her eyes pricked with hot tears begging to be shed. She forced herself to ask the question she feared the answer to most of all. “How do I get back?”
His expression hardened into a darker scowl. “I dinna ken if there is a way for ye to return. Only Mairwen knows the answer to that. We would have to seek her out at Seven Cairns or wait for her to appear to us here.”
“Seven Cairns?” That didn’t make sense. The Highland village was in her time. “If we can go to Seven Cairns, then we can go back.”
“Seven Cairns exists in every reality. ’Tis a gateway. A way station of sorts. Mairwen, in fact, most of the villagers are all Divine Weavers, those who the goddesses assigned to ensure the blessed weave of the Highland Veil remains strong and intact.”
Calia leaned forward with a groan, dropping her head into her hands. “Why me?” she whispered, then held up a hand. “Never mind. Fated mates. Right?”
“Aye.” He stepped closer, moving with the smooth stealth of a panther. “The connection. The pull between us. ’Tis our souls reaching out to one another to rejoin.”
She pulled her feet up into the chair and hugged her knees. “I can’t do this. Connection or not.”
He dragged a chair directly in front of her and sat, blocking any means of escape should she even think to try it. “But ye feel the connection, aye?”
“I cannot do this. I do not belong here.” She refused to admit the draw he had, the way he pulled at her as if he was a lodestone, and she a shard of metal. She’d never felt such a need to be with someone before—and not just physically. Even with all the inexplicable craziness of this situation, when he was near, her churning emotions evened out like sea waves calming after a storm. She was still upset as hell, but not unmanageably so. “I do not belong here,” she repeated. Maybe if she said it often enough, she’d magically return to her time. Kind of like Dorothy clicking the heels of her ruby slippers together and saying, “There’s no place like home.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to her knees. “If we’re fated mates, why couldn’t you stay in my time? Why did I have to come here?”
“Because I rule the shifter clans of the Realm. Or at least I did before the curse. The only way the goddesses allow me to be in yer time is if I remain on holy ground.”
The more he talked, the more confused she became. She lifted her head, squinting against the headache that had returned with a vengeance. “Okay…three questions spring to mind. Are you telling me you’re some sort of shifter? What curse? And holy ground? What the ever-loving fu—” She cut herself off. Breaking her streak of not using colorful language was not the answer. It had always bothered Gillian whenever she slipped, and she’d promised her sweet daughter that she’d do her best to change.
He folded his hands as if praying for guidance. “Aye, I am the chieftain of the wolf shifters as well as the grand chieftain of the Ninth Realm. The royal blood of the black wolves flows in my veins. Ye have already met my wolf. Ye took him in and fed him.”
“That ginormous black dog was you?”
“Wolf, lass, and aye, that was me…or my wolf, to put a finer point on it.”
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, willing herself to stay strong not only against the pain but her rising hysteria. “You realize I’m going to need to see this,” she said as she opened her eyes.
“Aye.” He rose from the chair, shed his jacket, and unbuckled his belt.
As he set aside the endless yardage of his black kilt, she realized he was stripping. “You get naked before you shift?”
His eyes gleamed with molten steeliness. “Wolves dinna wear clothes.” He kicked off his boots and stripped off his black tunic, revealing a muscular stretch of laddered abs along with the impressive package that hung a bit lower.
