“… Christ, what are you talking about, woman?” Completely flustered as Carly’s words finally registered, he heaved a gusty sigh, seemed to brace himself, and then, one hand on each of Carly’s shoulders, stooped down to look her directly in the face. “I haven’t killed your bloody dog. I have never laid a finger on your dog, which, I must tell you, is … tell me something,” he demanded suddenly. “Why for the love of God would you ever decide that creature was a dog? Did it not seem to warrant some other kind of classification than, say, some sort of bloody retriever?”

Carly opened her mouth once, then shut it, then opened it again, surprised into answering. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought she’d just insulted him somehow. “I, um, well, I know he was kind of big.”

“You’re damn right he’s big!”

She eyed him cautiously before continuing. “And, it did cross my mind that he might actually have a lot of wolf in him, although he certainly acted pretty tame.”

“Oh, for the love of—I was dying! What did you expect me to do, ask for help and then maul you to death? What do you take me for?” Carly’s eyes widened. He was practically snarling, and did he even realize what he’d just said? Whatever he’d been smoking, she decided, it must have been really something.

“When was this that you were dying?” she asked, hoping that if she stayed calm, he’d lose that wild look in his eye. “Are you hurt somehow? Do you need help?

Because if you’ll just let me go, I promise, I’ll do whatever I can to get it for you.”

He seemed to catch himself then, shaking that gloriously shaggy mane of hair and looking disgusted—with himself, mainly, which struck her as kind of odd— before interrupting her in a quiet, determined voice. “Look at me,” he breathed. “Does nothing about me look familiar to you? Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t remember. Look at me. And see.”

Carly’s breath caught in the back of her throat as she struggled to resist the power of that deep, seductive brogue. His voice was chocolate for the ears, was the thought that flitted through her floundering mind. And that sexy burr … mmm, definitely Scottish. The improbability of her home being invaded by a Scottish sex god wandered briefly through her sluggish mind, then ceased to matter entirely as her eyes locked on his and her breathing slowed, then steadied. Soon, there was nowhere she could look but into those two pools of liquid amber, not even if she’d tried.

Not even if she’d wanted to.

Carly felt her breathing become deep and rhythmic, and begin to match her captor’s as she looked, searching, not sure of what she was looking for or what he wanted her to find. But then there was something, a feeling that began as an odd sense of dιjΰ vu, telling her that she’d looked into eyes like these, so singular, so beautiful, just once before. And along with that, she began to realize, there was more. It was as though her whole body was awakening to his, Carly thought dazedly, the wonder of the sensation rushing up from her toes like a molten river to make her aware of each and every place his body touched hers. Her legs trapped between his. Her breasts pressed against his broad expanse of chest, rising and falling in time with hers. The long, graceful fingers, strong but hardly using that strength, wrapped around her wrists.

The mouth just inches away from her own.

Her eyes dropped. She couldn’t help it. All she could think of was the sensuous curve of his lips, the way they were parted, ever so slightly, almost like an invitation. She could imagine how they would feel against her own, like warm silk, firm but not entirely unyielding. A lover’s mouth.

Oh, Jesus.

Carly dragged her eyes back up, some faintly functioning part of her brain sounding the This Is Not A Good Idea alarm loudly enough that it registered. Sort of. How long had she been staring at his mouth? God. Maybe he hadn’t noticed.

No, he’d noticed. Had she thought his eyes looked like they were on fire before? Carly wondered dazedly. Because looking into them now was to look into glowing, liquid gold. She bit her lip in anticipation as he kept his gaze fixed on hers, as something about it changed, became wild. Became inhuman. He dipped his head toward her, those amazing eyes becoming heavy-lidded, but no less fierce, in anticipation. There was something about them, still pulling at her. Something.

Beastly, her mind whispered, casting her earlier thoughts about him in an entirely different, and infinitely more disturbing, light. And then suddenly, she knew.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. Hearing her, he stopped a breath away from the kiss, his hesitation an unspoken question. “You’re … you’re a …” She couldn’t quite get it out yet, couldn’t believe the word was even going to fall, in all seriousness, from her lips. But the man who had just turned her notions of reality completely upside down, seeing her distress, exhaled softly, released her wrists, and took a step back from her. Carly had to bite back a soft, pleading moan as that lovely, lingering heat they’d seemed to generate together flooded out of her like so much water. When he spoke, although she couldn’t imagine why, Carly thought she heard something like regret.

“My name is Gideon MacInnes. I’m a werewolf from the Highlands of Scotland. And I need your help.”

Chapter Four

THE PHONE HIT THE WALL JUST AS HIS MOTHER WALKED IN.

That, by itself, wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary. It was the ten-thousand-dollar vase that hit the wall after it that indicated Malachi MacInnes might just be in a fouler mood than usual, if such a thing were possible.

As far as Malachi was concerned, until today, it hadn’t been.

Moriah, sensing trouble, paused in the middle of the room and got right to the point. “Is it done, then?”

Malachi was uninterested in playing the polite son. Not bothering to dignify her question with an answer, he only spared his mother a quick glance and a disgusted snort before getting up to fix himself a glass of single malt whiskey, the finest Scotland had to offer.

“I’ll assume that’s a ‘no,’” Moriah said after a moment of watching her son’s broad back tense and bunch over the wet bar. She marched purposefully over to the two Louis XIV chairs positioned in front of the miles of cherry wood Malachi called a desk, a small, whipcord-thin woman dressed in a stylish D&G suit and sharp, needle-thin Jimmy Choo heels. Moriah was fifty but looked ten years younger, although her sharp, foxlike face and oddly colored eyes would never have been called beautiful. Interesting, yes, and striking, but never beautiful. With time and a bit of wisdom, she’d finally found that she preferred it that way.

And Malachi heard her every move; he knew her so well that he could sense what she would do almost before she did it. He felt her regard him, his obvious tension, and then heard her tap tap tap over to the chairs on those damned ridiculous shoes she’d insisted he buy for her. Then came the rustle of fabric as she sat, primly, of course, and smoothed her skirt once before waiting patiently for her only child’s attention.

And get it she would, Malachi thought ruefully as he knocked back the whiskey in one gulp and poured himself another. No one denied Moriah MacInnes— wealthy Scottish socialite, mother of one of the top antique dealers in the entire UK, and, lest anyone forget it, sister to the great Duncan MacInnes, Pack Alpha and Guardian of the Stone—anything. Least of all her baby boy. She was fresh from shopping on Princes Street, no doubt. Again. Not that he’d say a word, despite the money that flowed in a steady stream from his accounts each month. After all, there were certain things, important things, that she expected of him. Always had been, always would be. And now, as in all things, even as some small part of him still railed against it, Malachi would find a way to give her what she wanted.

Malachi straightened, strode back behind his desk, and flung himself into his chair. He looked (he knew, as it was an effect he had cultivated over the years) for all the world like some petulant tyrant king, brown-black locks falling forward over his angular, almost gaunt face while his glittering slate eyes gave away no emotion at all. This, he knew, was how she liked him best: calculating, capable, and so, so cold.

But then, Moriah had taught her boy well. She wasn’t the only one who knew how to get what she wanted. And what Malachi needed right now, more than anything else, was just a bit more time. He hated her, oh, with an intensity he had learned to keep hidden over the years even as his enmity grew. He had even thought about killing her, with increasing regularity of late. But as her luck would have it, however much he despised the woman who had given birth to him, Malachi hated Gideon MacInnes more.

And so he would give Moriah what she wanted this one last time.

Moriah faced him, as usual, he noted, the picture of perfection. Idly, he wondered how much he’d paid for that suit, the nails, the perfectly coiffed red hair expertly rid of any trace of gray, before he turned his attention fully to the matter at hand. She stared at him intently, her expression never changing except for the slight arching of one eyebrow. All right, then, he thought to himself, let’s get this over and done with.

“Obviously,” he snapped, “it isn’t done. They took him in the woods, as we planned, but Gideon was more willing to turn on a fellow Wolf than we’d thought.” Not to mention better matched against a Drakkyn than he was entirely comfortable with, despite the Andrakkar’s assurances. But such matters were not, would never be, for his wretched, unworthy mother. “Jonas and Morgan need at least a day to heal. Jamie, stupid bastard, managed to get his throat ripped out.”

He watched Moriah closely, seeing the rage that was always so close to the surface in her begin to bubble up as she leaned forward to grip the edge of the desk, her long, red nails lengthening ever so slightly as they dug into the wood. “Careful,” Malachi chided softly, his eyes never leaving hers. “I won’t be giving you money to replace that.”

“I should have sent Marcus,” she hissed, her lip curling up over gleaming white teeth that always looked ready to bite. “We obviously needed the strength of one I made for this task. Weakness,” she growled, staring fixedly, viciously at her son as her large golden eyes went even more yellow, “is carried through the bite, you know.”