Page 7 of Enchanted
She spent most of her time reading or sketching, or taking long walks. And trying not to think that it was nearly time to make her promised weekly call home to her parents.
She often heard music, drifting through the woods or in through her windows. Pipes and flutes, bells and strings. Once there was harpsong so sweet and so pure that it made her throat ache with tears.
While she wallowed in the peace, the solitude, the lack of demand on her time and attention, there were also moments of loneliness so acute it hurt the heart. Even when the need for another voice, for human contact, pulled at her, she couldn’t quite gather the courage, or find a reasonable excuse, to seek out Liam.
To offer him a cup of coffee, she thought as twilight slipped through the trees and there was no sign of her wolf. Or maybe a hot meal. A little conversation, she mused, absently twisting the tip of her braid around her finger.
“Doesn’t he ever get lonely?” she wondered. “What does he do all day, all night?”
The wind rose, and in the distance thunder mumbled. A storm brewing, she thought, moving to the door to fling it open to the fast, cool air. Looking up, she watched dark clouds roll and bump, caught the faint blink of far-off lightning.
She thought it would be lovely to sleep with the sound of rain falling on the roof. Better, to curl up in bed with a book and read half the night while the wind howled and the rain lashed.
Smiling at the idea, she shifted her gaze. And looked directly into the glinting eyes of the wolf.
She stumbled back a step, pressing a hand to her throat, where her heart had leaped. He was halfway across the clearing, closer than he’d ever come. Wiping her nervous hands on her jeans, she cautiously stepped out onto the porch.
“Hello.” She laughed a little, but kept one hand firmly on the doorknob. Just in case. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured while he stood, still as a stone carving. “I look for you every day. You never eat the food I leave out. Nothing else does, either. I’m not a very good cook. I keep wishing you’d come closer”
As her pulse began to level, she lowered slowly into a crouch. “I won’t hurt you,” she murmured. “I’ve been reading about wolves. Isn’t it odd that I brought a book about you with me? I don’t even remember packing it, but I brought so many books. You shouldn’t be interested in me,” she said with a sigh. “You should be running with a pack, with your mate.”
The sadness hit so quickly, so sharply, that she closed her eyes against it. “Wolves mate for life,” she said quietly, then jolted when lightning slashed and the bellow of thunder answered by shaking the sky.
The clearing was empty. The black wolf was gone. Rowan walked to the porch rocker, sat and curled up her legs to watch the rain sweep in.
***
He was thinking about her far too much and far too often. It infuriated him. Liam was a man who prided himself on self-control. When one possessed power, control must walk with it. Power untempered could corrupt. It could destroy.
He’d been taught from birth his responsibilities as well as his advantages. His gifts as well as his curses. Solitude was his way of escaping all of it, at least for short spans of time.
He knew, too well, no one escaped destiny.
The son of princes was expected to accept destiny.
Alone in his cabin, he thought of her. The way she’d looked when he’d come into the clearing. The way fear had danced around her even as she’d stepped outside.
There was such sweetness in her, it pulled at him, even as he struggled to stay away. She thought she was putting him at ease, letting him grow accustomed to her by leaving him food. Speaking to him in that quiet voice that trembled with nerves.
He wondered how many other women, alone in what was essentially wilderness, would have the courage or the desire to talk to a wolf, much less reassure him.
She thought she was a coward—he’d touched her mind gently, but enough to scan her thoughts. She didn’t have any concept of what she had inside her, hadn’t explored it, or been allowed to.
Strong sense of family, great loyalty and pitifully low self-esteem.
He shook his head as he sipped coffee and watched the storm build. What in Finn’s name was he supposed to do about her?
If it had just been a matter of giving her subtle little pushes to discover herself and her own powers, thatwould have been … interesting, he supposed. He might have enjoyed the task. But he knew it was a great deal more.
He’d been shown just enough to worry him.
If she’d been sent to him and he accepted her, took her, the decision he’d left home and family to make would be made for him.
She was not one of his kind.
Yet already there were needs stirring. She was a lovely woman, after all, vulnerable, a little lost. Those needs would have been natural enough, particularly after his long, self-imposed solitude.
Male required female.
