Dark Highland Fire

Unfazed, she simply crossed her arms over her chest and fixed her husband with a glare that Gideon had often sworn could burn holes in things if she looked at them long enough. "I'm waiting," she announced.

Gabriel continued to eat peacefully. Carly was a favorite of his, but he wasn't worried about upsetting her. After all, part of Gideon's job as her husband was to catch hell for anything and everything first. He figured he could be long gone before she ever got around to giving him his turn. Gideon must have been thinking the same, because he heaved an exasperated sigh as he shoved his hand through dark, tousled, chin-length hair.

"He's being an ass," he snapped, and Gabriel barely suppressed his smirk when the outraged finger was pointed at him. There were few people who could get the stoic Gideon MacInnes to revert to childish behavior. He was inordinately proud to be one of them.

"He does God-knows-what all night with some strange Drakkyn woman, then spends half the day passed out on my lawn, and then decides to eat leftover pasta instead of blabbing about it like he normally would! And I see you smiling over there, Gabe—don't think I don't. You're lucky I don't come over there and take it off your lace for you."

"But then how will I share my innermost thoughts with you?" Gabriel managed between bites of food. It was so delicious, he truly was torn between tormenting his brother and just shoveling in as much as he could before Gideon started chasing him around the kitchen. "What is this anyway?" he asked, turning his attention to Carly. "It's brilliant."

Despite herself, Carly grinned. "Penne a la Puttanesca. And I'm glad you like it, even though you're wearing like half of it on your oh-so-bare-and-manly chest. I didn't know you were suddenly into trailer-park chic, by the way."

Gabriel glanced down at his shirtless torso, which was, as Carly had said, decorated with a few splashes of sauce. His shrug was casual, though the memory of where his once-favorite and now-shredded Hawaiian shirt had lain crumpled the last time he'd seen it ignited a slow and seething burn inside him. Not to mention how it had been removed from him in the first place.

It was suddenly a struggle to focus on the conversation at hand.

"It is," Gabriel smirked, hoping it didn't look as forced as it felt. "Quite manly. Thanks for noticing, love."

"Knock it off, you," grumbled Gideon, "before I punch you in some other amazingly manly place. And she's not your love."

"Oh goody, just what I wanted in the house today. More useless testosterone." Carly rolled her eyes, then walked to her husband to wrap her arms around his neck and plant a noisy kiss on his cheek. "And of course I'm not his love," she continued, voice matter-of-fact. "Rowan is. Duh."

She continued to nuzzle Gideon's cheek, unconcerned, as Gabriel began to choke on his pasta.

"Now why didn't I think of that?" Gideon wondered dryly, though his hands slid around Carly's waist to draw her close to him. "Gabe and the Red Plague. It would almost be fitting, but even I'm not that cruel. I'm glad you are, though." He smiled lazily. "Evil's sexy on you."

"It's not nice to call her that," Carly admonished him, and then giggled when he tickled her sides, ruining her attempt at sternness. "And I'm not kidding. Your brother has one hell of a hickey on his neck, which I kind of doubt he got from the sheep." She then paused to look hack at Gabriel, who was now pounding away on his own chest. "Um, I sure hope he didn't anyway."

Gabriel tried to formulate an appropriately snide response to this, but he couldn't seem to clear his airway enough to do more than continue coughing. That was what he got for inhaling an entire mouthful of Penne a la Whatever, he guessed. And for failing to recognize from the start what his sister-in-law had apparently noticed in the five minutes she'd been in the room.

Rowan.

His love.

His bloody damn mate.

Oh, God in heaven, no.

Except that Carly's simple, matter-of-fact statement had slapped him in the face like nothing but the truth could. He'd had all the pieces of the puzzle. They'd finally just been arranged in a way that made sense. A sick sort of sense, granted, but sense nonetheless.

Gabriel could think of nothing more masochistic, more twisted, more mind-bogglingly self-destructive than falling for the mouthy Drakkyn who had spurned him last night. And yet the facts spoke for themselves. As much as he'd ever wanted any woman, he'd never slept in anyone's yard for want of one.

Gabriel wracked his brain for a better, more palatable explanation. Anything but the one thing he'd been running from for so long. But there was nothing for it.

Rowan an Morgaine was his one true mate, the only woman who could satisfy him, the woman he would long for as long as he continued to draw breath. For a werewolf, love came but once, and like a ton of bricks from above. It was also, like everything else concerning his kind, rife with complications.

Since there were so few of them, and since so few humans were strong enough to survive the bite that his kind were compelled to give their mates, it was fairly common for a MacInnes Wolf to remain single. Even if they experienced that singular bond, with humans it was often safer to just let them be and go on alone. It was, Gabriel reflected, even what his brother had decided to do with Carly. Of course, he hadn't counted on Carly being bitten by the Drakkyn scum that was his would-be assassin.

Nor had Gideon realized that the near-Herculean strength of Carly's love for him would see her through her first Change and allow the two of them to be together. Some things, Gabriel supposed, were just meant to be.

And some things were obvious karmic payback for a past littered with carelessly broken hearts. Gabriel shoved the mostly eaten bowl of pasta aside and put his head down, resting his forehead on his arms. His appetite, much like his higher-order thinking, had evaporated into thin air.

"Bloody hell," he groaned.

"Don't pretend she's right, Gabe," Gideon warned him, a note that sounded a lot like panic in his tone. "That's not even funny. And I ..." There was a sharp intake of breath as Gideon got a look at the purplish bruise Carly had mentioned, complete with two unmistakable tooth marks in the center.

Gabriel raised his head to look blearily at his brother. Gideon stared at him as though he wasn't sure who he was looking at any longer.

"Please tell me you just let her have a bit of a drink. Out of the kindness of your heart, right, Gabe? And nothing else happened. You didn't feel a damned thing. You just walked away and ... and ..."

"And passed out in your yard from the exertion of being so disgustingly kind," Gabriel inserted flatly. "Yeah. You must be psychic. You know what a giver I am, after all."

Gideon looked horrified. "Tell me you're joking."

Gabriel thought a moment, and then shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

Carly glared between the two of them, looking thoroughly disgusted. "What is wrong with you two?" she cried. "It's a mate, not terminal cancer! Rowan is obviously a very strong woman, not to mention completely gorgeous! What about that is so bad?"

"She's a Drakkyn, remember?" Gideon replied, earning a look from Carly that indicated he was seconds from having his beloved pasta dumped over his head.

"And?" she snapped. "She's not an Andrakkar, and I'd bet she'll do a lot better with a werewolf bite than any human could."

"That's true," Gabriel muttered. "She'll kill me instead."

"Oh for the love of ..." Carly threw up her hands in complete exasperation and stalked from the room, heading up the back stairs. "I give up. I would rather yell at the boxers Gideon is always tossing on the floor right beside the hamper. Those have a better chance of listening."

"I don't know what you want me to do about it," Gabriel snapped as Carly stomped off, feeling both angry and slightly desperate. It wasn't just that Rowan was a dangerous bloodsucking sorceress of some kind, either (though that was definitely part of the whole nasty equation). After hiding from it for years, he'd finally found his mate. He'd always assumed that if and when it happened, the lucky woman would be both thrilled and grateful to have the prize that was Gabriel MacInnes.

It was a nasty jolt to realize that he had precious little to recommend himself as quite that caliber of a catch. And it was probably too much to wish for that Rowan had come from people who thought of clutter and aimlessness as virtues. His only hope was that she'd grown up in some sort of primordial mud hole with scrawny, weakling men.

Gabriel closed his eyes in defeat. He was doomed.

"She doesn't even like me, Carly!"

Carly didn't pause as her shapely legs disappeared from view. "I don't blame her. Now quit being such a wussie and do something about it before she's no longer stuck with you."

Gabriel watched his sister-in-law go, and then he slouched over to the breakfast bar to settle himself beside his brother. Gideon, it gave him some small amount of pleasure to note, looked nearly as unhappy as he himself felt. It was true, after all—misery loved company.

"Your wife is a hard woman."

Gideon snorted. "You have no idea. I'm going to catch hell for the bit about the hamper after you leave. Again." He sighed, looking up at the ceiling as though contemplating his fate. Then he turned his attention back to his brother, the worry clear in his golden gaze.

"I suppose I don't have to ask if you're sure. God knows you've been through enough women to know."

Gabriel shook his head, a part of him still playing last night's encounter over and over in his mind. She'd taken his blood, but it felt as though Rowan had left a bit of herself behind to rush through his veins. If only he had any idea what he was supposed to do next.

"Don't look at me," Gideon sighed as though he knew what Gabriel was thinking. "I fell for a human, remember? And I was the one being hunted. Never thought I'd say this, but I think Carly and I had it easier."