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BRIAN
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“LET’S GO TO THE LIBRARY, Harriet. I’m feeling better, really.”
“Massage always helps. Let me do it.”
I shook my head. “I’ll manage until the change. I need a drink.”
“What the hell happened?” Harriet asked. “I thought you were almost recovered.”
With a sigh of relief, I lowered myself onto the sofa. Harriet brought a footstool for my leg and then poured me a glass of scotch.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” I asked.
“I’m fine, thanks,” she said as she sat in the armchair, tucking her legs underneath. “God, I haven’t seen you in such pain for months. Was it because of the car, or did something else happen?”
I closed my eyes and inhaled the sharp, pleasant smell of the scotch before I took a hefty gulp, feeling its fiery tendrils spreading down my throat and chest. Alcohol didn’t affect our brains, but we still could enjoy the taste and bouquet of wine, beer and liquors. “We stayed too long. And yes, the car is too small for me,” I said, exhaling.
Harriet didn’t buy it. Not that I thought she would, anyway. “It’s fear of intimacy,” she said in her flat-out manner.
She was right on target, and it made me feel unnerved. “As much as I appreciate your frankness, Harriet, I don’t feel like discussing my intimate life. You know me better than that.”
She wasn’t discouraged at all. “Okay, if you don’t want to talk, you listen. Here is how I see it. You’re afraid of your feelings. You’re attracted to Elizabeth, but,” here she started counting on her fingers, “one, you have an untamed beast inside to deal with; two, you have a wife who doesn’t want to give you a divorce; and three, you haven’t been with a woman for a very long time even for an immortal.”
“For heaven’s sake, Harriet!” I exclaimed realizing, to my horror, that I’d blushed, “I absolutely refuse to talk about my sex life!”
“You don’t have a sex life, Brian.”
“Harriet. Stop.”
“You’ve been alone for too long,” she continued, unconcerned.
“You’ve said that already.”
“Now you have a chance for a normal relationship, and you’re freaking out.”
I let out a long, helpless sigh. She wouldn’t let it go until I admitted she was right. “It seems I was tricked into employing a bunch of psychologists disguised as lawyers, computer experts and caregivers,” I said. “Must be part of Rowena’s grand plan, huh? But if you want my opinion regarding my intimate life, then yes, you’re right. I do have some concerns, like popping into a wolf at some inopportune intimate moment, if you know what I mean. My blaidd gets crazy when she’s around. Pain always comes to the rescue.”
“Aha! Glad you see it. So, you’re causing it. Your pain is your shelter. Nothing is wrong with your leg anymore.” She tapped her head with her finger. “Everything’s there, in your mind. Ahmed’s right.”
“My doctor shouldn’t be discussing my condition with anyone.”
“I’m your caretaker, remember, a sort of medical helper,” she said and leaned toward me. “Once you and Elizabeth move your relationship from the speculative to the practical, you’ll realize your fears are not grounded.”
I groaned, feeling cornered.
“Do you need to change?” Harriet asked, her voice filled with concern.
I shook my head. The pain that had overwhelmed me tonight with its severity was now almost gone. I knew Harriet was right. I wanted Elizabeth with a twenty-six-year-long desire to love a woman, to feel her body and her soul as part of mine.
It would’ve been much easier if I had fallen for a blaidd benywaidd. How to tell Elizabeth that I was a man by day and a wolf by night? Did I have any right to make love to her before I told her I was still married, no matter how formally, and before she saw me transformed?
How could I tell her how old I was? About Jack? My granddaughter? About the world of Langaer and the creatures that populated it—wizards, werewolves, Tel-Urughs and “our humans”? About her role as a guardian of our realm? Choices she might soon be forced to make?
All she wanted was a man to love her and give her a child. Everything else she already had: brilliant intellect, excellent education, a job she loved, friends, enough money for a decent life, her art collections, her travels, her lovely dresses and shoes, thousands of little things that made her happy. She didn’t need werewolves in her neat, organized life; she might not want to become one even with our longevity as part of the package.
And all I wanted was her. Not a wife, not a mother of my child. Her. Maybe later, in the future I was still unable to comprehend. Now I only wanted Elizabeth, my lover, who would stay here with me, in my world, since I wasn’t able to live in hers.
Would we be able to meet halfway, between her expectations and mine?
I’d dragged her here, knowing very well she’d sooner or later realize where she had ended up. What right did I have to do it? I had done it for my own reasons: with her, I was feeling alive again. Now we couldn’t let her leave our territory, not until we were sure she’d be all right once she knew about us, and that we wouldn’t be endangered by her knowledge.
I’d made her a prisoner, a hostage of my own exiled life.
I’d refused to consider her needs, to give her more choices, regardless of how they would affect me. I was a selfish bastard, yes.
Yet I couldn’t make myself regret bringing her here. God knew I needed her. To heal me, to make me whole again. She had to be mine. I didn’t know it was possible to long for a woman this much. Day and night, I dreamed of holding her in my arms, kissing those perfect lips, stroking her breasts, parting those lovely legs and taking her again and again.
I wanted to claim every inch of her body and every part of her soul and give her all I could give, even if it wasn’t much. I wanted to take her where she had never been before with another man, push her boundaries and let her release an abandon of sensuality she didn’t know she possessed. I wanted to listen to her moans and cries, to feel her move under me, beside me, in front of me, I wanted to spill my seed in her womb and wipe away all my pain, sadness, anger and desperation. I wanted to feel whole.
“Khalid, you okay?” Harriet said, startling me. Immersed in my thoughts, for a second, I’d forgotten I wasn’t alone.
“Yeah. I guess. Where is everybody? The house is quiet.”
“Lily and Azem haven’t returned yet. Jason’s in the hangar, checking the Cessna. You gave my husband yet another toy to play with.” She placed her feet on the floor and straightened in her seat. “Brian, Jason and I have decided to move to Copper Ridge. Once you don’t need us here, we’ll buy a house for ourselves. Jason would like to teach science at Copper Ridge High School, and I can work from home.”
“This is great news, Harriet,” I said. “Don’t rush with a house. You can stay here as long as it takes. There’s plenty of space—”
She stopped me with her hand, laughing. “Thank you. It’s wonderful to feel so welcome, but you’ll seek more privacy soon, trust me.”
“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
“Elizabeth belongs here,” Harriet said. “She might need a bit of time to accept our way of life, but she’ll be fine. She feels deeply for you. Once she knows all about you, she’ll be okay. I think she’s more upset because we’re not telling her what she thinks she needs to know.”
“Some of the facts might be difficult to swallow,” I said, flexing my shoulders. Beneath my skin, beneath my muscles and my veins, somewhere deep in my blood I felt the prickling of my imminent change.
“She’s vardanni, Brian. She’s programmed, so to say, to understand our world.”
I rubbed my chin. “How long do you think before Elizabeth puts all the pieces together?”
Harriet shrugged. “Hard to say, but I guess she’s close.”
“How will she react, what do you think?” I asked, much in need of Harriet’s rational thinking.
“It will be a shock, for sure. But, she’s strong. Talk to Ellida Astrid, just in case. When it happens, she can explain to Elizabeth some of the basic facts of our world.”
“Yeah, sure. She can tell her not to make a mountain out of a molehill. We’re just a friendly bunch of rare creatures: werewolves, wizards, peculiar humans and hot-blooded vampires. And she, Elizabeth, she is a vardanni, the rarest kind of all.”
“Nobody’s going to turn her into a monster.”
“It’d be wise to avoid that particular topic at the beginning of her education, don’t you think?”
“When you went to Red Cliffs, she saw the new road, didn’t she?”
News traveled fast in this part of the world. “Of course she did; she’s a vardanni.” I smiled. “She was surprised to see so many people on Red Cliffs’ streets. She didn’t realize they had come out to see her. She’s gonna be very popular here.”
Harriet grinned. “Well, Copper Ridge has already claimed her. They say, ‘Red Cliffs has their ellida, but we have our vardanni.’”
“That’s very nice of them, but a vardanni does not belong to any particular tribe.”
“Yeah, tell that to Copper Ridge. Elizabeth chose to come to Copper Ridge, therefore, she is Copper Ridge’s vardanni. They also really like that she’s a countess.”
I laughed. My fellow citizens were sometimes like overgrown children. “Only she isn’t.”
Harriet waved dismissively. “Ah, the fact that she doesn’t hold the formal title isn’t of any significance for them. Her mother was a countess; therefore, Elizabeth is too.”
“I guess this is what Copper Ridge needs. For once they have something Red Cliffs doesn’t,” I said, pleased with this public display of affection. “There’s always been a bit of competition between the two towns. Red Cliffs was bigger, older and wealthier. Copper Ridge looks and feels like its poor cousin.”
“They appreciate that you decided to settle here, you know. They have tremendous respect for you.”
“It’s mutual. I have tremendous respect for everything they endured under Seth’s rule and that they stayed normal.” I emptied my glass and held it out to Harriet. “Pour me one more, please.”
Harriet took it from my hand and went to the minibar.
“Once Elizabeth recovers from the shock, do you think she’s going to try to leave?” I asked, desperate for more reassurance.
I wasn’t about to get it, at least not completely. Harriet handed me the glass, her eyes on mine. “Probably not. I think she’ll choose to stay. Even if she doesn’t, can we let her go? It’s too risky.”
“There are humans outside our territory who know about us. Lottie Fontaine, for one.”
“That’s different. She’s considered our human. We have to find a way to convince Elizabeth to stay.”
“We can’t, and we won’t keep her here against her will.”
“We can’t just let her go either,” she repeated.
“She’ll be free to go,” I said stubbornly. “We owe her that much.”
“You should talk to Rowena.”
I emptied my glass in one gulp. “And I will. Rowena and I are responsible for bringing Elizabeth to Copper Ridge. God help me, nobody will keep her prisoner here.”
Harriet diplomatically changed the subject. “I’m glad Zana’s coming for spring break. Hopefully, Elizabeth will put two and two together while Zana’s here. A happy, chatty child in the house can only help her to realize we’re just ordinary people and that there isn’t any danger for her.”
Ordinary, yeah. But I could see Harriet’s point. “Elizabeth loves children. She and Zana will get along well.” I stood up. “I have to change, Harriet. I’ll hunt tonight. Tell Jason to join me if he wants. We got in a report from the Wildlife and Forest Department. The number of elk and deer is much above the optimal quota. We should hunt them down to a normal level as soon as possible. And good news: we managed to convince the human authorities it would be good to have more grey wolves in this area.”
“It’s about time,” Harriet said. “Good hunting, then. I’ll see you in the morning.”