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BRIAN
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I PLACED THE PHONE on the desk, shaking my head. God, she’d thrown me off balance twice, and I’d thought I was in control of the conversation.
I didn’t sleep at home last night ...
Her words, and even more her voice, sensual, soft, filled with promise, had triggered a funny, out-of-the-blue chain of reactions: a pang of jealousy in my stomach, a hard jerk of my cock beneath my jeans and a mad desire to feel Miss Chatwin’s body beneath mine, here and now.
As a result, I’d knocked over my cup and spilled tea all over the papers scattered on my desk.
And then, at the end of our long talk, she’d asked me why I didn’t have a British accent.
How come both my virtual biographer and I had overlooked such a big hole in my story?
I hoped I’d come up with an answer quickly enough for our young architect not to notice she had caught me off guard.
Elizabeth Chatwin was a smart girl, no doubt. I just wondered if we had underestimated her perceptiveness.
What if she was indeed a vardanni as Rowena’s friend Charlotte hinted to Rowena? Charlotte Fontaine was gwerin, a human privy to our existence—her adopted son was a half-blaidd—even though she didn’t live among us. Charlotte seemed to have some sixth sense when it came to our people. She’d easily figured out who Astrid and Ahmed were, and that Livia and Tristan Blake weren’t humans.
Later, she’d become a friend not only to them but to Rowena as well.
If she thought Elizabeth was a vardanni ... Well, it was an exciting prospect.
Vardanni meant a female “guardian of the realm.” The term had come from the wizard tongue, Mál, but we all adopted it since their existence regarded all of us: the wizards, the werewolves and the Tel-Urughs alike.
Vardans were immune to all our magic. To protect ourselves, we used various Talsyns and tallins. Talsyns (for reasons unknown always spelled with the capital “T”) were the practical application of the powerful magic we used for many purposes, among them, hiding in plain sight from humans. On the other hand, tallins (always with the lower case “t”) were quick magic tricks we resorted to when we needed to create a temporary illusion, to avert someone’s attention, or to escape.
Talsyns and tallins were not exclusively for the humans—they were versatile and multipurpose spells and charms, some complex, some simple—but the humans were, in fact, the most common recipients. They could not know about our existence, for their sake as well as for ours. Fortunately, Talsyns and tallins worked on them perfectly.
Except for the “guardians of the realm”, the rare humans whom we couldn’t deceive and whose memory, once they knew about us, we couldn’t erase or alter. Because of that, we considered them to be a link between the mortal and numerous human race on one side, and our long-lived, but small population of Langaer on the other. (Another mutual word, this time originated in human language. It was a common name for the other three races: wizards, Tel-Urughs and us. The word Langaer included gwerin as well, although they were humans. Langaer meant “The Tall People.” That’s how the humans had perceived us until they caught up in height.) Because they knew about us, the guardians could choose to become one of us.
I had never met a guardian; such humans were few and far between. Moreover, most of them stayed unaware of their ability, which doesn’t manifest itself before the late twenties or early thirties, and only if a vardanni or vardan came in contact with us.
But then, I reminded myself, Elizabeth Chatwin didn’t need to be a vardanni to find a Turkish Londoner with an American accent a bit strange.
I smiled remembering how effortlessly she’d recognized Victor Hugo’s saying and quickly responded by quoting Anatole France.
During our conversation, I’d been deliberately pushy, bossy, business-like, good-humored, open-minded as well as demanding and chauvinistic. I wasn’t proud of that, but it’d been a test. I wanted to see how she’d react to each challenge. I was impressed.
She’d responded rather than reacted: she snapped at me when I’d bullied her, but accepted my apology, appreciated my business-like manner and acknowledged my authority without servility. She had demonstrated loyalty to her current employer and a healthy measure of professional confidence.
And I liked her subtle teasing.
You can count on my undivided attention.
Or had it rather been subtle flirting?
And why had the last thought made me smile?
“I think I’ll take your offer, Miss Chatwin,” I murmured to myself as I went down to the dining room for dinner. “I’d like very much to have your undivided attention.”
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MIDNIGHT WAS APPROACHING. I was tired, in pain and I felt the urging signs of inevitable transformation. Alas. Lily wanted to see me. She had information on Urban Imprint’s financials, so I’d asked her and Azem to join me in the library.
“Urban Imprint is still doing okay,” she said, “but not enough for serious investments. My guess is that they want to buy the Baker Block because they can get it cheap, knock down the buildings and wait until property prices go up and then built something there.”
I skimmed over her report and nodded. “You’re right, Lily. They offered less than half of the value,” I said and passed it to Azem. “I doubt they could offer more.”
“It’s true that the market is slow, but this is robbery,” Azem said, as he read it.
“I agree.” I turned to Lily. “Thanks, honey. Great job. Now I want to ask you to do something else for me,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “I need a full background check on someone.”
“Who?” Azem and Lily said in unison.
“Elizabeth Chatwin.”
Azem’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at me. I caught a hint of a smile on Lily’s lips, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“No problem,” she said, all business again. “Give me a couple of days.”
I had no idea why I felt I needed to explain my request. “I spoke to her tonight. She seems the perfect person for this project, but she’s also quite observant.” I gave Lily a meaningful look. “And I’m not even talking about her question as to why I don’t have a British accent.”
Lily slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my god! I didn’t think about it. I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t worry, I dealt with that. The thing is, Miss Chatwin might be unsusceptible to memory alteration.”
“A vardanni!” Lily said, excited. “This is fantastic!”
“You think she’s a vardanni?” Azem asked almost at the same time. “You sure?”
“I don’t know. This is just a hunch. She got that woman in Rosenthal, Charlotte Fontaine, suspicious.”
Practical as they come, Lily instantly had a solution. “We have to be sure. We should try to tamper with her memory. I can do it if you like.”
“No!” I said, far louder than necessary. “Vardanni or not, I’ve already offered her the job.”
Azem’s eyebrow rose. “You did?”
“Well, she insists it should go through her company, CBB Restauration. Elizabeth has two partners, but they agree that she should lead the project. Azem, tomorrow you and I will prepare a draft contract and send it to her and her partners. The sooner they sign it the sooner we can start working.”
“You’ll have her background check in a day or two, Mr. Canagan. Tomorrow we continue with our computer instruction, don’t forget. You’ll also need an iPod, iPad, a new iPhone and e-reader. Please ask Azem to buy them next time he goes to town.”
“I see Azem’s in the dog house,” I said, laughing.
“Don’t ask me why.” Azem shrugged and then turned to Lily. “You have to tell me what models you have in mind. Even better, come with me.”
“I’ll email you the list,” Lily said.
Azem stood up and headed to the door, Lily a step behind him. “Come on, Lily. We live in the same house, yet we’ve been communicating via email. What’s wrong with you? What did I do?”
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I DIDN’T WAIT TO HEAR Lily’s answer. The achy feeling in my every bone announced my transformation. I took off my shirt and jeans and draped them over my big comfortable bed that I never slept in. For the time being, I could only sleep in my wolf form, and only for a few hours. Most of the nights in the last few weeks, however, I’d spent either running or lying awake, thinking about the roller coaster my friend Rowena had put me on before she’d checked where the stop button was.
Tonight, I decided not to run, but to find a nice, soft patch under a tree and sleep.
I glanced at my bed again. I could change and then sleep in a bed, but I was kind of saving it for the time when I’d stretch out on it as a man, not a wolf.
Stretch beside—
Damn, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I get that girl out of my mind? I didn't even know how she looked.
Putting a hold on my bed-inspired thoughts, I quickly undressed. I did it whenever I could; turning into a wolf fully clothed was as easy as without clothes, but it felt funny.
Once in my stronger, pain-resistant self, I walked to the door and turned the knob—a difficult skill I’d mastered long ago—and closing the door behind me, left the house. I walked across the meadow and into the woods, where I found a thick trunk covered with soft, dry moss and, pressing my back against it, fell asleep.
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I WOKE UP JUST BEFORE dawn.
I’d dreamt of a woman. Well, not a woman. It was, I supposed, Elizabeth Chatwin.
We were in the forest and she was sitting naked on a pale blue piece of fabric, in the same position as the nude woman in Manet’s famous Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: one leg under her, the other one bent at the knee, right hand under her chin. Unlike the painting, however, her body was slender, her breasts clearly visible, big, firm, with small dark nipples. Between her legs, I could see a neatly trimmed triangle of dark pubic hair.
She was looking at me, smiling.
“I’m curious if you have a tattoo,” I said to her in my dream and, taking her hand, turned it upward and kissed her palm. “It would be a shame. Your skin is flawless.”
She smiled at me. “Only the curious have something to find.”
As my lips touched her silky, soft skin, I felt a tide of warmth spreading inside me, reaching every cell and every fiber of my being. I lowered her onto the grass, spread her legs and buried myself in her slippery softness.
When I woke up, Elizabeth was right where I’d left her—in my thoughts.
Did she think of me? Did she dream of me? Or was this madness exclusively mine?
I wished I could talk to someone about this strange pull toward a woman I’d never met.
It had to be sexual hunger. I hadn’t touched a woman for two and a half decades.
I shook my head as if that would help me to shake Elizabeth Chatwin out of my mind. There wasn’t a place for a new woman in my life; not before I divorced the one I was still married to.
It might happen sooner than I’d expected.
In two days, Hal and I were going to meet our children and let the rest of our world, my wife and her husband included, know we were back.