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Tournai, Belgium

Gwyn knew her sister was more frustrated than angry. Truthfully, she couldn't blame her. Morgan didn't handle change well, and tonight had been rife with it. Nothing had gone according to plan.

"What happened last night, Gwyn?" Morgan glared at her from the doorway, her body stiff. "I waited all day for you to tell me, but all I got was the silent treatment. You should've warned me there was a wolf close by. He could've riled up the dogs and ruined everything!"

Gwyn gnawed at her bottom lip. She unwound her hair, letting it fall in a curly heap down her back. “I—” She shrugged, not knowing what to say, and shook her head, the motion pushing her loose curls across the top of her shoulders.

Morgan's gaze narrowed, pinching her full lips into a thin, straight line. "That was crazy! Nothing went as planned...not that I'm complaining, mind you." She grimaced. "Well, I am complaining, but you know what I mean. The wolf seemed to be trying to help. Never seen that before. If he hadn't jumped on that man..."

She dropped onto one of the wrought iron chairs by the table with a loud exhale. "We would have lost them, Gwynnie. The pups are in worse condition than Cynthia thought, and the vet confirmed that this morning." Morgan frowned when Gwyn burst into tears. "Gwyn?" She leaned over and rubbed Gwyn's arms to calm her down. "Breathe. I'm sorry. I'm not upset with you. I was just scared for the dogs."

Gwyn wiped her cheeks and hiccupped. "I know… I am sorry about last night. I forgot the cardinal rule. I didn't expect the unexpected. I was helping you with the dogs one minute, and the next... He came out of nowhere."

She took a deep breath and met her sister's worried gaze. "He wasn't a regular wolf, Morgan. I tried reading his mind, but his mental blocks were too strong." Gwyn leaned across the table and covered her sister's open mouth with her hand, effectively stopping whatever she was about to say.

"I still believe invading someone's mind is wrong, but after what happened...Well, you were right. To have such a great gift and not use it to help is just stupid. Reading someone's mind should only be done as a last resort—and last night was just that.” She leaned back and threaded her fingers together in her lap. "He was an enigma...our wolf helper,” she lied, knowing precisely who the wolf had been.

Morgan scowled at her sister. "You talked to him?" She rubbed her temples. "You're giving me a headache, you know that? You talked to him—not with me, but with him."

She dropped her hands onto the table and let out a frustrated growl. "How? Our magic doesn't work that way—we only communicate with each other." She glared at Gwyn a moment longer, then seemed to deflate as she dropped back against the chair. "Fine. Can you at least tell me what his thoughts were like?"

Gwyn didn't answer and stared out the large picture window, looking over their wonderful garden. She wished for the serenity she always found sitting among the beautiful flowers, but she knew it was a hopeless wish—at least right now. Not even a sedative would help her turbulent nerves.

Touching Torin's mind had been a mistake. Now, she craved the overwhelming sensation of comfort she had felt. It also verified that their bond seemed to be strengthening. She wondered after their one-night stand on New Year’s Eve, but her doubts were now gone.

Her mother told them long ago that if a man seemed too good to be true, to run as fast as they could in the other direction. Torin O'Roark fit in that category with a pretty bow tied around his neck.

"Gwyn?"

She turned, meeting Morgan's blue gaze.

"Come on, what did the mystery wolf tell you?" Morgan wiggled her eyebrows and smiled.

"Morgan! I didn't mean it like that ," she exclaimed, her cheeks warming. She pressed her lips together, knowing full well her sister was trying to lighten the doom-and-gloom mood that held her in its tight grasp for whatever reason. "That's just twisted. Gods, your mind is so not right."

Morgan chuckled, "Maybe not, but those thoughts are more fun. Besides, it made you smile."

"You're impossible." Gwyn laughed half-heartedly. "At first, all I sensed were feelings—worry, exhaustion—even confusion." Pushing away from the table, she grabbed two cans of pop from the refrigerator and closed the door.

A tingle of electricity skittered through her body, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She turned back to face the window, staring into the inky blackness. A hard shiver moved through her, feeling eyes on her every move.

Tomorrow, she would go into town and buy a curtain—anything to block out the unnerving darkness staring back at her.

"That's it? That's all you got?" Morgan sighed, pulling a can from Gwyn's tight grip and popping the top. She took a long sip. "What a letdown."

Gwyn narrowed her eyes, staring into the black shadows hovering behind her favorite stone bench. Possibly a trick of the moon's light, but she could've sworn something in them moved. The sensation slowly disappeared, and with a roll of her shoulders, she glanced at her sister. "His name is Torin O'Roark. If we need his help again, we're supposed to go to the Belfry Tower."

Morgan's eyes widened, her jaw dropping. " The Torin? As in the walking mansicle you licked all night? That's who the wolf was?"

Gwyn gave her sister a disgusted look. “As I just said, your mind so isn’t right. And yes, I have no doubt Torin was the wolf.” She no longer wanted the pop or to deal with another of her sister's inquisitions, so she placed the can on the table and yawned. "Sorry, but I must be more tired than I thought—I'm off to bed." Scooting back from the table, she hurried upstairs to her bedroom.

Should we ask someone from the coven? They might know something. Morgan's voice prodded Gwyn's fuzzy brain as she pulled on her night clothes.

Gwyn dropped onto the edge of the bed and let out a very unladylike snort. We agreed to stay away from them. For all we know, they're just a bunch of women playing at being Wiccans. What are we supposed to do? Walk up to them and ask if anyone's seen a talking wolf running around town. They'd have us committed.

But—

No, Morgan. Not the coven. She hesitated, adding, At least not yet.

Fine. Then should we go to the Belfry instead? We could ask if he’s a good guy.

Gwyn sighed and fluffed her pillow before crawling to the center of the bed and lying on her back. Let’s stick to planning our next rescue. Let's hope and pray everything returns to normal. If you think about it, nothing really happened that we should be concerned about. Now stop pacing, which I know you're doing, and get some sleep yourself. She stared at the dark beams crisscrossing her high ceiling, hoping Morgan didn't ask any more questions.

Last night's experience changed everything, but she didn't want to tell her sister and cause her even more anxiety. The moment she heard the wolf's husky whisper in her mind, she recognized the man inside the wolf. She fidgeted, moving her legs back and forth under the quilt, and hoped she would wake up the following morning, refreshed and full of energy—something that hadn’t happened in a while. While she didn’t have as much bounce and stamina as Morgan, she didn’t like sitting around and doing nothing.

Grabbing the top pillow, she rolled onto her side, hugging it tight against her chest. She knew her twin sister as well as she knew herself. She could never keep a secret from her for very long. This time, though, was different. Torin made everything different. After lying in bed for almost an hour, she drifted into a deep sleep, dreaming of a large, chocolate-colored wolf with glittering gold eyes.

* * *

Torin stood outside Gwyn's kitchen window, staring into the darkened interior, more confused than when he arrived. As exhausted as he was, he couldn't sleep. Some unknown force had pulled him here, and he couldn’t believe what he had just seen.

Over the past months, he had dreamed of her and had asked Brother Jean-Paul to find out who she was. It had been difficult without a last name, but his friend finally learned who Torin’s mysterious woman was.

It did not explain why Torin was so drawn to her. An unsettling thought lodged in his mind, and he rubbed his knuckles over his breastbone. His mind linked to hers when he was around her, even in his wolf form. The bright light of her soul—her goodness—had been a beacon beckoning him, and he could not stay away.

Brother Jean-Paul had told him all he’d uncovered about Gwyn and her twin sister, Morgan. Orphaned ten years ago, the girls had thrown themselves into their rescue mission after the death of their parents. Everything he learned from Jean-Paul and after talking to their business associates and friends only reinforced what he already knew in his heart.

He also believed emotions to be fickle and could be used against someone. With the threat of Fer-Diorich's return, he couldn't take the chance of her being harmed. The Dark Fae was too evil.

Torin would never forget how the Fae had threatened vengeance against him and the Immortals before his imprisonment in the Unseelie Court. Fer-Diorich would never forgive them for ruining his malevolent plan.

From that first touch on New Year’s Eve, he had known something was different about Gwyn. She was complex and closed off. It could be because of the death of her parents, but he didn't think so. He felt something buzzing just underneath the surface, and each time they touched, it grew. It had become a riddle he had to solve, or it would drive him crazy. That alone bothered him. There were too many unanswered questions in his life, the last thing he needed was to add Gwyn to the mix.

His knuckles popped as his grip tightened on the back slab of the stone bench in the garden. He stared into the dark kitchen, his wolf's night vision able to see the girls' supper dishes by the sink, and a growing feeling of unease simmered in his gut.

Forcing himself to leave, he jogged toward the low fence surrounding the well-manicured yard. With an easy hop, he made his way along the narrow lanes, skirting the outer edges of Tournai. He needed answers about the appearance of the Ironclaws but, more importantly, why he seemed to be drawn to Gwyn DuBois—and had no idea where to begin looking.

* * *

The shadow faced him across the field, drifting just above the tall grass. Whatever it was morphed shapes, undulating as it drew closer. Torin took one step, then two, drawn like a moth to a flame.

He glanced down at his human body and shook his head. What a stupid thing to do. He hadn't put himself at risk like this since the first few months after learning what he'd become. He tried remembering when he first arrived in the field but couldn't remember shifting.

He watched the dark form approach, unable to look away. He reached out to touch the entity and felt something solid within the darkness. A sweet, sultry voice swarmed his mind like bees in their honeycomb. The whispering sound kissed his brain, and his body responded.

His eyes never left the shadow, almost complete now, but the outline remained misty and indistinct. Torin couldn't catch his breath. The feelings rocketing through him were overwhelming. Fire coursed through his veins, yet his nerves tingled as if thawing.

The voice in his head pierced his mind and drew his gaze upward. He focused on where the face should have been and was startled as he looked into the softest green eyes he'd ever seen, reminding him of Irish heather. His gut clenched painfully as the eyes pulled him in, tugging at his soul.

Torin thrashed about in his bed and jerked awake. Lying on his back in the middle of the bed, he stared at the dark wood-beamed ceiling above him. It had only been a dream. He sat up, scrubbing the last trace of sleep from his mind, and replayed the dream, beginning when he returned from Gwyn’s house in the early hours before dawn.

He knew those eyes—they had haunted his thoughts for months. He needed to talk to Fáelán and determine whether these were simple dreams or visions.

A loud grumbling interrupted his thoughts. His stomach was now on intimate terms with his backbone. He ate a few sandwiches as he headed through the thick cluster of trees that would take him to the caverns' front door. Once inside, he no longer noticed the intricate details of the front room or the long hallway where they each kept their private quarters.

It had taken years to carve out the home in the mountain's interior, but the result was magnificent. His usual appreciation, however, was now clouded by recent events. He headed toward the library, the farthest room, just before the hall opened into the massive cavern complex that tunneled through the mountains like an ant hill.

Without a doubt, he knew Fáelán would be buried in his ancient tomes and manuscripts. Torin didn't like how his friend buried himself in books, rarely leaving. Working through the night was nothing new for their clan's self-appointed druid. But night after night morphed into centuries as Fáelán continued to search for any reference to the curse plaguing them. It was frustrating for everyone, but the lack of an answer affected Fáelán the most.

Over the years, they had found a few people who kept their secret and gave them aid, sometimes uncovering small pieces to their problem, but the clues never amounted to anything concrete. Torin was half afraid they might never figure out what had gone wrong in the Dark Fae's experiments and why they couldn’t shift back into men. What had the demented Fae done differently with him? Why could he change forms and no one else could?

Torin's gaze moved over the tall bookshelves lining three of the cave's fifteen-foot-high walls, and even more columns of books were lined up in front of those. They needed to carve out a more extensive annex if their collection continued to grow, which it would. Torin understood Fáelán’s love of this room. Besides Makari, they all gravitated here when stressed or angry. Over the centuries, Torin found solace in many of these books. But not today.

Glancing across the room, he noticed Kilian sitting comfortably on the sofa surrounded by books. His muzzle parted in what looked like a grin as he read one of the larger tomes, which almost covered his entire lap. The only difference between the two brothers was their coloring. Kilian's undercoat and accent fur were cream, whereas Fáelán’s were light gray.

Torin was surprised to see Kilian since he mostly stayed with the wolf pack he rescued years before, finding more peace with them in the forest than he could within these walls.

"What are you reading that has you smiling, little brother?" Fáelán asked, noticing Torin in the doorway, and gave him a conspiratorial wink.

"Shut it. Stop calling me little. I've been bigger than you for years." With a claw holding his place, he closed the book and held it up for them to see. "The bedtime stories Maman read to us when we were little." He smiled. "I'd forgotten about some of these."

"Bigger doesn't change birth order."

Kilian's smile disappeared. "Shut it."

Torin heard the tiny stutter of a pebble scooting over rock, then picked up the familiar scent of pine trees and smoky fur from the tunnel behind him.

"I see you haven't made any more progress than the last time I asked, Fáelán," Rafael said, giving Torin a light clap on the shoulder as he moved past him into the room. "May I ask if you, at least, have any ideas because I would like to hear them?"

Rafael dipped his head toward Kilian before striding toward the edge of the massive wooden table in the center of the room. He laid one white paw on top of a thick-leathered tome, and Torin wondered at his relaxed demeanor. After Makari, the Spaniard usually had the shortest fuse, so this calm, casualness worried him.

The light from the room's small fire caught the highlights in the Spaniard's white fur, giving it an almost silver tint, the color eerily similar to his eyes, which they all wondered about at one time or another. None of them had the nerve to ask him, though, so they continued to ponder among themselves.

Torin would be the first to admit that something was a bit off about the Spaniard, especially when he was angry. In Torin's recollections, he had seen Rafael angry only once. The wolf's silver eyes bled black from the pupil out, looking like an intricate network of miniature lightning bolts. He'd never witnessed anything like it since.

Rafael looked down at the studious wolf, his eyes narrowing. "Fáelán, you look like you haven't slept in a week."

"He hasn't. Why do you think I'm here? Someone needs to catch him when he falls," Kilian muttered.

"I have to keep searching for the counter curse to whatever Fer-Diorich did to us, now more than ever since the Ironclaws have returned." Fáelán glanced around the room. "I'm the only one with training in the magical arts and Tuatha dé Danann history."

"Killing yourself will help no one," Rafael answered, his Spanish accent heavier than usual and laced with emotion. "We'd just have to start at the beginning again since you won't tell us what you're searching for. Besides, the answer might not be what you expect or even want. I think you look through frustrated eyes. You find nothing this way, mi amigo ," Rafael said.

"Go. Clear your mind in the deep caverns. Let the beauty of the crystals and the heat from the springs heal your spirit." The white wolf opened up a nearby book but hesitated. "Do you still talk to the local coven?"

"Not as often as I'd like. Rhona is a character, but I've never met anyone more knowledgeable about magic or the way of the world," Fáelán answered.

"Hmm. Has she mentioned any strange happenings?"

"Have you learned something?" Fáelán's gaze narrowed as he watched Rafael casually flip through the pages.

"Nothing tangible. Possible rumors. I think talking to Rhona should be our next move.” Rafael marked the place in the book with a piece of leather and closed it.

"The only thing I have is the torn page Torin gave me from Taliesan's book, but it could be merely a coincidence," Fáelán said. "I admit, the destruction surrounding Tournai is familiar. Different, but familiar. The more I think about it, the more I realize that these events have happened quickly. It is unlike the Dark Fae. He plans and infiltrates, growing stronger in secret before showing himself. This has a touch of impatience. Fer-Diorich is not impatient."

"If history is repeating itself,” Torin added, “who's to say he hasn't taken his time? He could have been planning this for centuries. We would not know since we can't see inside the Unseelie Court. I, for one, have no doubts Fer-Diorich is behind these occurrences."

Fáelán stood with a grimace and stretched. He headed toward the doorway but stopped glancing at Torin. "That may be. I need all of you to keep looking for any reference to the spells he used during our conversions. I didn't think he would try to return quite this soon." He hesitated, his voice quiet as he looked over at the dancing flames in the fireplace. "I fear you may also be right, Rafael. I am so preoccupied with this; I could very well be missing something important."

The white wolf started to follow Fáelán but stopped. With a quick shake of his head, he stepped back to the table and re-opened the large, musty book. The fire sparked, the bright yellow glow filling the room, and flashed across the silver hoops dangling from his ears.

"It's good you've returned, Rafael," Kilian said. "You are the only one he seems to listen to anymore. Not even Torin can get him to see reason. My brother is consumed with the quest of fixing what can't be fixed."

Rafael turned the page. "He listens because I don't constantly yap at him like you and the others."

Kilian scowled. "Oh, shut it.”