IMMINENCE (The Shape Shifter series) Read online

  “Don’t you do that either,” Tiamhaidh told her hoarsely.

  A deep silence descended, as if their thoughts had frozen in confusion. Marie absently played with Tiamhaidh’s short dark hair, and he felt as if he had drowned somewhere in her deep green eyes.

  “Marie?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How can you see into my mind?”

  “I don’t know. It’s as if a door is open to your mind and I only need to peer in through the door to see everything. Your past and your future. Everything.” Marie swallowed and inched closer to Tiamhaidh.

  “That’s incredible. I feel exactly the same.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “You do know I can never let you go? Not now, when I’ve just found you, and not later either. Even if you don’t choose me, my fate will be to follow you forever.” Tiamhaidh placed his fingers on Marie's lips and smiled a lopsided smile. Marie felt her knees falter.

  “How can you even think like that? Just as you belong to me, I belong to you. Forever,” Marie said in her mind, and Tiamhaidh sensed how vulnerable she was. He felt Marie's fear mingle with a young girl's first love. He could break the girl's heart in the blink of an eye, but he needed Marie to understand he would never hurt her. Marie was enchanting! Disbelief overwhelmed him. This incredible, strong woman of a fey beauty wanted him - a wolf several years older than the girl. A child! His mind shouted loudly.

  “I’m a wolf,” he thought and sensed how silly that thought felt to Marie.

  “And I’m a troll!” Marie exclaimed aloud.

  “What does it matter what you are? I’ll be yours forever.”

  “You don’t understand. To me, forever is really forever. I can’t die.”

  “Then I won’t die either,” Marie regarded Tiamhaidh impishly.

  “Marie,” Tiamhaidh sighed. “Sweet Marie.”

  “Does it matter so much? We have this moment and my forever. That will have to be enough,” Marie looked at Tiamhaidh with adoration.

  “You gave me back my life. I was sure I’d have to live all my immortal life without my soul. Empty. Always looking for something to take this emptiness away,” Tiamhaidh sighed and pressed his head against Marie's forehead.

  “Are you really immortal? Isn’t there any way you can die?” Marie pushed Tiamhaidh further and looked at him with curiosity.

  “I am, my love. A shape shifter can’t die. It’s completely impossible. However, the oldest shape shifters have taken forms they have vanished into. If you spend too long as, say, the wind, you won’t be able to change back and you forget who you are, so technically they aren’t dead, but they’re gone. Irrevocably.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of anyone who returned?” Marie practically bounced with excitement. This was definitely the most exciting thing she had ever experienced.

  “Never,” Tiamhaidh let out another sigh. A much deeper one this time. What on earth would he do with this child who had completely twisted his heart around her slender fingers? If he was already this badly lost, what would the future bring him?

  The other males had relaxed by now and were holding an agitated conversation in the next room. Their yelps sounded at times like cries of elation and Marie couldn’t understand how she had previously been scared of them.

  “What has happened to them?” Marie asked.

  “They’re really excited about you. This sort of thing has never happened as far as we know.”

  “What do you mean? This mind-reading thing?” Marie asked incredulously.

  “No, Marie. Don’t you see? This is going to save your mother. They believe you, too, are a shape shifter and as you belong to me, our line will continue. They no longer need your mother. Even if the elders never release your mother from her bond with Gunward, the others won’t harass her,” Tiamhaidh gave Marie a long, intimate look and Marie had to avert her gaze from his eyes for a moment.

  “But I’m not a shape shifter! And I really don't want any children with you! At least not yet,” she exclaimed with anguish.

  “They don’t know that. And I wouldn’t be so sure of it either. I don’t know how the change happens with someone who is half human and half wolf. Now the other males can stop their silly games with human girls and really start looking for mates. If this works with us, it has to work with others as well.” The look in Tiamhaidh's eyes softened and he reminded himself that he would have to proceed with great caution.

  Marie could not understand what kind of turmoil was going on in the minds of Tiamhaidh and the other shape shifters. This would change everything. Any one of them would be able to find a spouse among human females. Still, a doubt crept into his mind. What if Marie was the only one capable of this? What if it all depended on Sofia's unbelievably strong ability to shift shape? Tiamhaidh thrust his doubt aside and attempted a light laugh. The only sound he managed, though, was a muffled wheeze that sounded desperate at best.

  “I don’t really think I can change into anything at all, but if the others believe it, so be it. I only want my mother to be safe and that we can go on living as before,” Marie regarded him with such incredible trust in her eyes that Tiamhaidh's throat constricted.

  “I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” Tiam said, smiling his lopsided smile.

  “I’m not going to leave your side now that I’ve found you.”

  “My father is really going to kill you!” Marie laughed.

  Hand in hand, Tiamhaidh and Marie stepped into the room where the other males were. The others fell quiet.

  “I don’t think I’m a captive anymore,” Marie said shyly.

  All the males turned to look at them. Marie thought she saw incredible joy in their eyes. The males were so wolf-like that Marie couldn’t figure out how she hadn’t noticed the lupine features before. She could imagine a pack of young wolves looking exactly like these men. Ears slightly pulled back, heads drooping abashedly and tails hanging down as an indication of embarrassment, perhaps wagging cautiously as if begging for pardon. Marie felt like laughing. Tiamhaidh pulled her to him.

  “May I present my pack? Iain and Artair,” he pointed at two identical young men.

  “Raibeart,” Tiamhaidh indicated a tanned man, whose rather long hair was in disarray and couldn’t take his eyes off Marie.

  “Pádraig,” Tiamhaidh nodded at a dark-haired youngster with a serious expression.

  “And of course, Mathanan, whom you probably know all too well by now.”

  Mathanan gave an embarrassed laugh.

  “Welcome to the pack, a' phiuthar!”

  “Fa'ilte a' phiuthar!” The others joined in triumphantly.

  The pack had gotten a sister.

  Marie’s mind was filled with the warmth emanating from the men surrounding her. Even though she couldn’t hear their thoughts, she got a share of them through Tiamhaidh’s mind. The men were rejoicing over her. How strange, Marie thought. At first she had been a captive, roughed up and forced to lie in a small storage room, and now she was part of the pack. How easily things had changed. Marie looked at the joyful men and smiled radiantly.

  Tiamhaidh had never experienced anything this amazing. For once he, the shunned one, had found something valuable. He looked at Marie and saw the wonder in her eyes. How could he make this moment last forever? Marie was still so young and vulnerable. She couldn’t choose a wolf over human boys. How could he bear it if she didn’t want him? He would no longer want to live. He would go back to Senja and ask for permission to set his life aside. “Stop that!” Marie commanded as she invaded his mind. “Haven’t you wallowed in self-pity for long enough?”

  Tiamhaidh glared at Marie, but she only turned to press a gentle kiss onto his mouth. Tiamhaidh was completely flabbergasted and this goaded the other men into raucous laughter. Suddenly the door banged open and Simon and Ciall stood in the doorway looking befuddled. Simon held a brown paper bag in his hand and stared at the others open-mouthed.

  “May I present – Simon, the one s
taring at us with his mouth hanging open and that stripling of a boy next to him, Ciall,” Tiamhaidh presented in official tones.

  After the whole situation had been explained to Simon and Ciall, they came abashedly to Marie. Simon stared at his shoes and handed her the paper bag. Marie took it, thanking him. Ciall grinned a tad bashfully and then surprised them by flinging his arms around Marie’s neck.

  “Welcome à piuthar,” he whispered and quickly kissed Marie’s cheek.

  A deep growl rose from Tiamhaidh’s throat and he even revealed his teeth.

  “Calm down,” Marie warned him quietly. Then she grinned at Ciall and he swiftly backed off with a red face.

  “Even though this has all been wonderful, I’m going to have to find a phone and call my father. He’ll be really worried.”

  Six men at once offered her their mobile phones, but an enraged look from Tiamhaidh made them suddenly put them back into their pockets. Marie took Tiamhaidh’s phone, but before she had typed in the number, a furious howl rose from the yard.

  CHAPTER 17

  “Gunward,” the men cried in unison.

  “Marie, stay behind me,” Tiamhaidh said sternly. Marie moved behind him but could not help peering at the door from behind his broad back.

  “Who is Gunward?”

  “I’ll explain later. Please let me handle this.” Marie pouted and made sure the image of her sulking was transmitted to Tiamhaidh’s mind.

  Two large, dark men filled the doorway. Marie gasped with fright. She had never seen anything as fearsome. The elder man’s golden brown eyes gleamed murderously and the younger man in his black leather clothes and longish, black hair seemed to have risen straight from the depths of the earth. The men glared sternly at the ones inside and Marie sensed the newcomers shouting at the other men in their minds. Everyone except Tiamhaidh had backed off and hung their heads as a sign of submission. Tiamhaidh, however, met the older man’s eyes without flinching.

  This man was clearly the leader of the pack. Everything about him indicated danger and power. No one with their full faculties would ever have thought of challenging this man. Tiamhaidh, held his gaze and Marie sensed the man’s awareness slowly sweep Tiamhaidh’s mind. Abruptly his surprised stare moved to Marie and he muttered something to himself, then resumed his probing of Tiam’s mind. At the same time the younger man sowed terror into the minds of the other men. He filled their minds with the imagery of what Gunward would do to them once he was done with Tiamhaidh. He gorged on gory details and even though Marie could see how terrified the men were, she felt no fear, only curiosity.

  “Get out of here!” Gunward yelled. “Everyone out except Tiam!”

  The men slipped out of the door, heads bowed in submission. Everyone knew what was coming. Gunward had always been a just leader, but now the pack had stuck a knife into his back by defying his direct order. Before he had left, he had explicitly told all the young men to leave Sofia’s family alone, and they had disobeyed. Gunward had every right to punish them. They all knew that obeying the alpha was essential to the entire pack’s survival and that disobedience would be rewarded with the hardest possible punishment. Marie slipped away to observe the situation through the window and Tiamhaidh moved behind her.

  “Why didn’t you end up there?” Marie asked him.

  “Because Gunward already went through my mind and knows I had nothing to do with your abduction.”

  “What’s he going to do?” Marie wondered.

  “I don’t know,” Tiam said quietly and Marie could sense the answer in his mind.

  “You have to do something! We have to help them!”

  “Are you already forgetting how they treated you? Don’t you want to take vengeance?” Tiamhaidh asked her quietly.

  “Tiamhaidh! They are your pack and therefore my pack. Shouldn’t a pack defend their own?”

  “A chroi, they are Gunward’s pack, not mine, and I can’t interfere.”

  Marie watched in silence as Gunward forced the youngsters to kneel on the ground. Then he went to each of them in turn and seized hold of their heads, staring directly into their souls with his baleful eyes. Adam stood farther off with two other men, conversing quietly. From time to time their gazes swept the window where Marie stood. She felt an odd sense of familiarity with these men, and recognized Tiam’s bafflement.

  “Who are they?” Marie asked, pointing at the men.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them before, but obviously they belong in Gunward’s pack. Maybe they, like me, have been called to strengthen the pack.”

  “There’s something familiar about them. Strange, isn’t it? I could swear I’ve never seen them before,” Marie wondered but try as she did to tear her eyes off the men, she found her gaze always returning to the direction where the men stood.

  A sudden loud crash shook Marie out of her reflections. She pressed her face against the glass and felt Tiamhaidh tighten his hold around her waist. Matt was lying on the ground, holding his head. The other men had fled farther away, terrified. Gunward stood in front of Matt, seeming huge. Matt was not a small man, but Gunward was nearly two meters tall and his furious countenance was so threatening that Matt had shrunk to a small crouching heap that seemed to tremble. The wind shook Gunward’s dark hair and his narrowed eyes seemed to flame. He lifted his fist and struck Matt in the face. Matt made no move to defend himself; he only moaned quietly. Gunward lifted his fist again, preparing for another blow.

  “We have to do something,” Marie whispered. Tiamhaidh quietly shook his head.

  “There’s no way we can stop this. I’m sorry.”

  A scream of pain rent the air. Matt sounded like a dying animal. Marie could no longer watch. She tore herself from Tiamhaidh’s hold and ran outside. She placed herself between the crumbled form of Matt and the raging Gunward, and met Gunward’s eyes defiantly.

  “Stop it,” she told him implacably. “Stop it at once! Don’t you see how he’s suffering?”

  Tiamhaidh ran to Marie and looked apologetically at Gunward. Gunward nodded surreptitiously at Tiam and he took a step away from Marie. Gunward looked inquisitively at Marie.

  “By what right did you interrupt my disciplinary action, á phiuthar?” Gunward barked.

  Marie gulped and tried to speak, but not the smallest sound came out of her throat.

  “Answer me, or can I interpret your silence as a sign to carry on?”

  Marie stayed silent. The two strange men had surreptitiously moved closer to her, but she had not noticed. Gunward fixed his smoldering eyes back on Matt and he started moaning again.

  “It’s my right to decide his punishment,” Marie said quietly. “He abducted me, roughed me up and locked me into a dark closet, so I have the right to decide how he’s to be punished.”

  Gunward gave an irritated grunt.

  “Brathair, An làmh a bheir,´sia gheibh,” one of the strange men said.

  “Cuir an aithe a chéle sinn.”

  Gunward glared at the men and sighed in defeat.

  “Very well. Let’s try this. Marie, may I present your mother’s brothers, your uncles Gavin and Daniel.”

  Marie’s mouth dropped open. How was this possible? Her mother had no brothers. She did not have any uncles, at least not until today. Tiamhaidh leapt to her side and stared sternly at the newcomers. He opened his mind and touched the other men’s thoughts lightly. Marie shared what he sensed and her eyes widened with amazement.

  “Impossible,” she whispered.

  “We have waited for so long to see you,” Gavin said and held out his hand to the girl. Marie shook her head and stepped back.

  “Impossible,” she repeated.

  “If you’re also shape shifters, what is my mother?” she asked quietly.

  The men remained silent. Obviously Sofia had not told her family the truth. This was a new twist. None of the young males had known that Sofia had brothers who were strong shape shifters. They were clearly much older than the other males of the
pack. Tiamhaidh saw the distress in Marie’s eyes and decided to help the girl. Gently, he took Marie’s hand in his and kissed it. Marie turned her teary eyes to Tiamhaidh. Tiam opened his mind fully to her and taught her to explore all his hidden memories. All the information he had concerning Sofia. Marie shook her head in disbelief.

  “No!” she cried.

  “No! What am I, then? Now I understand why they all think I’m a shape shifter. But you’re wrong! My mom is human, do you hear? She’s human!” Marie shouted hysterically.

  Tiam pulled Marie gently into his arms and rocked the sobbing girl comfortingly. He fixed Gunward a look of reproach.

  “Couldn’t this have waited?”

  “She’s had to go through all too much. This has to stop now,” Tiamhaidh said. Gunward glanced at Matt, who was lying on the ground, and shook his head.

  “No, Tiamhaidh, This isn’t over yet.”

  “Mathanan, get up,” Gunward commanded. Matt clambered fearfully up off the ground. He knew nothing could save him.

  “I banish you from the pack. You are no longer welcome in shape shifter territory. Not in Senja, not in Sarek.” Gunward threw an indifferent but implacable glance at Mathanan, who was trembling with fear.