Chapter 18

It took them a little while to escape London, and its traffic, and so by the time that they did, the late afternoon was already slipping into the early evening.

As James increased his speed and seemed to relax into his seat, Iris also sank back.

She ran her fingers through her soft curls, which hung loose and free around her shoulders, and gave a little sigh of contentment.

James cast her a quick glance, and smiled to himself. How he had not seen her for what she really was, at the very first glance, he just could not understand it; she radiated energy.

He should have spotted the shifter in her immediately, but he had been so caught up with his emotional and physical response to her, and she – and her sister did seem so very human...

"How is your sister doing?" Iris asked suddenly almost as though she had read the gist of his thoughts.

"Leila is doing fine – and so is little Toby," he added before she could ask.

His lips tightened into a sort of grimace. "She could not stop talking about how helpful you were, and how wonderful you were with him ... so much so that my stepmother, Cindy is not just curious to meet you, she is positively eager to meet you - and Leila was just as keen to see you again!"

"Oh," Iris felt the colour flood her cheeks and she looked across at him anxiously. "They do know that I am just your Personal Assistant ... don't they?"

"Hah, you are anything but 'just'!"

The colour deepened in her cheeks. "Yes, that maybe so, but does everyone else have to know about it?"

He cast a quick look at her, before fixing his attention back on the road. "You don't think your aunt knows?" he asked with a tone of such disbelief that Iris could not help but giggle.

"No," she sighed. "I know that my aunt knows, because she pretty much said so."

"Yes, she did to me as well."

"Oh, was that what I picked up on when I came in to offer drinks?"

"Yes."

"Did she say anything ... threatening?" Iris was openly worried now, and James laughed lightly as he tried to ease her concerns.

"She said that you were of an age and a sense to be able to handle your own affairs ... but should I hurt you ... well then she said she might be tempted to interfere ... primarily with me, and the way that my limbs were attached – or something to that effect."

"Oh, James!" she stuttered with open horror. "I am so sorry ... she assured me that her meeting with you was purely business..."

"Oh I think that was her intention ... but she is a smart sensitive woman, and she knew exactly what we had been doing on my desk less than an hour before she entered the room."

The colour in her cheeks which had been slowly receding returned in force, making her green eyes glitter, as she remembered what they had been doing – on his desk – shortly before her aunt came to see him.

She sank down lower in her seat, and for a while there was silence between them, as the car sped along the road and the scenery dashed by her window.

"We should be at my place within the hour," James murmured suddenly, and Iris shivered in response to his husky soft tone.

"Do you go there often," she asked curiously, they had been travelling for more than an hour, and another hour travelling meant that it wasn't exactly convenient for just popping home once in a while.

"Not as much as I would like," he pretty much confirmed her thoughts. "And the last time, when I had hoped to be home for the full moon, I was obliged to be elsewhere ... although that turned out to be a blessing."

Iris gave a little smile, as she realised that he was referring to meeting up with her father and her and Laurie in their other forms. She frowned suddenly.

"Why were you on my father's lands, that night?" she asked curiously.

"I had been staying with ... the father of an old school friend; I had a flat tyre on my journey to his estate, and so only just arrived when the moon came out. The change became an abrupt thing, and before I knew it I was chasing after a strange pack with no knowledge of the surroundings."

"Stressful," Iris murmured sympathetically. She remembered the men who had come to meet her and Laurie earlier that day.

"If you were staying with Bob Frawnings and his boys, then you would have had to show strength from the outset."

"Yes, it did not take me long to realise that as well."

"So what did you do?" she asked curiously.

James gave a light laugh. "I decided that I was damned if I was going to chase after a load of hyper active dogs, so I went in the opposite direction to them ... which of course sent me right on to your father's lands."

"You were there for a while, I think," Iris murmured softly. "You were watching us."

She looked across at him and saw the guilty colour as it winged its way across his cheekbones.

"I came across your scent, and instinct took over," he said slowly. "Although I didn't realise it at the time, there was something hauntingly familiar, and yet strange all at the same time. I tracked you, and managed to get ahead of you, when you were on the trail of the stag. The moon came out as Laurie touched your prey's flank, and it set your fur on fire ... I was mesmerised. Held fast and tight and trapped by your splendour."

It was Iris's turn to be embarrassed. She was not used to being complimented, and such fulsome compliments made her feel awkward.

"You think that I am exaggerating," James guessed without even looking at her. "I am not you know. My wolf was lost to you, so much so, that I have to fight not to let the man go down the same way."

"Oh," she blurted out, not really knowing what else to say to him.

"We are bonded and bred you and I, Iris," James said slowly, as he slowed down so that he could come off the motorway. "I have pledged myself to you in every way that I can, but I must keep control ... if I lose it to the wolf's instinct I am not sure I will ever get it back!"