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Her natural scent
was all over it, and I inhaled it thirstily. She smelled fresh, of
rain and wind, of a clear spring morning, of the sea breeze. Deep,
deep under all these elemental essences, there was a subtle touch
of musk, earthy and tangy.
    All insanely arousing.
    I’d talked to James and my mother, without
revealing too many details of my first encounter with my
step-cousin, and spent several hours on my laptop trying to catch
up with my work.
    It was around eleven when I became restless,
so going to see Tristan suddenly seemed like a good idea.
     
    THE HOSPITAL administration, including
Tristan’s office, was on the fourth floor. I asked to see him and
he instructed the receptionist to send me up.
    A brass plate on the door read Dr. Tristan
Blake , and under that CEO, Hospital Services , without
the usual string of titles that people from the medical profession
were sometimes so fond of. Tristan was a genius in his
field—genetics, not hospital management—and one of the least vain
personalities I’ve ever known.
    “The first thing Astrid asked me this morning
was if you were her blood relative, then if you were married,”
Tristan said, as I stepped in and pointed to an empty chair across
his desk.
    A sudden surge of primal male pride took me
by surprise. “Did she now?”
    “She’ll kill me if she knows I told you so
don’t mention it to her. And no reason for that cocky grin; she
asked that for practical reasons. You are about to camp at her
place for several weeks, so she would prefer you were unmarried,
cousin or not. Espresso?”
    “Sure. She made something undrinkable this
morning. So, was she relieved or disappointed? Did you tell her I
wouldn’t jeopardize her chastity, cousin or not,” I said as I sat
down.
    “I told her that no danger would come to her
from you. And that you are not married and, to the best of my
knowledge, not her blood relative.”
    “She’s my other half, Tristan,” I said
quietly. I saw that for an instant Tristan didn’t get it.
    “You’re kidding!” he said when the meaning
reached his mind. “Wow. What now? How did Astrid take it?”
    “She doesn’t know. I didn’t have the heart to
tell her.”
    “She’ll freak out.”
    “At this point she doesn’t need to know.
After she spends some time in Red Cliffs, she’ll start to
understand us better. And I’m not going to twist her arm to make
her cooperate.”
    “What about you? Do you want her to
cooperate? How do you feel about it? You at least know what it
means.”
    “I’ve already freaked out. It was a total
shock.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Proceed with the plan. Take her home. I
don’t know more than that.”
    “Do you like her?”
    “Tristan, I met her yesterday. People think
that bonding is romantic. It’s damn scary. Your finger accidentally
touches a stranger and the next thing you know you’re tied to her
for the rest of your life, which is a pretty long time.”
    “All species have bonding.”
    “Yeah, but ours is a more complex process. We
bond on two different levels: our human and wolf spirits. Everybody
has to be in sync with everybody else. It usually happens easily
and instantly, but it can also be a quite lengthy process.
Sometimes we bond easier with other species than with another
werewolf, or half-werewolf.”
    “But less commonly. It’s not always simple
for us, either. You know that outside our own kind, we most often
bond with humans. No matter how civilized we are, deep inside we
still consider them as a source of food. That could be a bit of a
challenge, you have to admit. Bonding doesn’t always go smoothly,
not even within one kind, but I truly believe it doesn’t happen
haphazardly.” Tristan smiled and slapped Jack’s shoulder. “Cheer
up, man. It will be easy to love Astrid. You’ll see that when you
know her better.”
    “We’ll see. Never mind that now. There’s
nothing I can do about it now. Astrid still needs my help, bonded
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