Anice: The Cursed Clan Read online

  He turned onto the road that lead to Anice’s home. The closer he got the more he felt his wolf pacing, need rising. It wasn’t just sexual, although there was that aspect. This pacing had more to do with the need to be near her. If he ever consummated, he would find it almost impossible to leave her side until she accepted their mating.

  He rolled his shoulders again, trying to get his wolf to settle down.

  Bed our mate and I will settle.

  “Bloody hell. I’ll never be able to bed her if I don’t get there. Settle down so I can get through meeting the family.”

  His wolf gave him an unsatisfactory half growl/half sigh. He might not be happy about the situation, but he would apparently let Brody handle tonight.

  As he parked in front of their mansion, he closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. It’s dinner with a beautiful woman. She was his mate, yes, but more importantly, this was her family, and he had to impress them.

  With that in mind, he opened his eyes and grabbed his phone as it started vibrating.

  Esme: Don’t compromise yourself tonight, Brody.

  Damned witch.

  Brody: I’m decades past my deflowering, cousin.

  Esme: Stop that. I am serious. Anice is more important than you or I understand.

  Brody: Talking in riddles irritates me. You know that.

  Esme:…

  His wolf paced and started to growl.

  Between his family and his wolf, he would be the one they started to call barmy.

  Then his phone rang, Esme’s picture popping up on the screen.

  “What?”

  “Oh, look at you, being an ass.”

  “I’m at Anice’s family mansion. I’m here to meet her family.”

  “Just…we have to figure this out, Brody. She’s your mate and you cannot deceive her. It could ruin you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wolves who do that tend to go feral. Most of them have to be put down.”

  Bloody hell. Of course, part of him knew that. It was probably why he hadn’t taken her to bed...even though he really, really wanted to.

  “I’ve never heard that.”

  “Because it rarely happens. Just…tell her.”

  “That I’m a McWalton?”

  “You are not a McWalton. You are a bloody Stewart.”

  He smiled. “Yes. But related to them.”

  “Yes. Just think about telling her. She is going to be angry but do it and then we can go from there.”

  He sighed. “I’ll think about it. I have to go, Esme.”

  “Okay. Love you.”

  “Love you.”

  He clicked off his phone.

  “Remember, behave.”

  Bed our mate, and I’ll behave.

  “I’m working on it,” he muttered as he slipped out of the car.

  Chapter Three

  Anice was already waiting for Brody when he pulled into the driveway. She grabbed her coat and purse, hoping that she could hurry them both out of there before her cousins realized what was happening.

  “You’re not trying to keep us from talking to Brody, are you?” Angus asked from library as she passed by it.

  Bollocks.

  “No. And it’s not like you can’t talk to him at work.”

  But none of them had. They had kept out of it because they would not address personal things at work. If she’d had her choice, they would have never found out, but Brody had insisted on picking her up at the house tonight.

  The doorbell rang and Belvidore was already walking toward the door. Dammit. There was no way out of it now. She followed the butler to the door and smiled when he opened it.

  God, Brody was such a pretty man. From the moment she had met him, she had been intrigued. His work ethic was another part of his attraction. Still, if he had been lazy, Anice wasn’t sure she would be deterred. She hated anyone who didn’t do their job properly, but with Brody, she wasn’t sure it would matter to her. He was dressed in a suit for the night, complete with tie. The steel gray suit made his eyes even more prominent. She wasn’t a woman who usually liked beards, but Brody had grown one over the last month and she loved it. It made him look a little wild…and dangerous.

  “Anice,” he said as he stepped into the house. He looked at something over her shoulder and smiled. She assumed that it was for Angus, but when she glanced back, she inwardly groaned. Everyone had gathered in the massive hallway. Well, everyone but Phoebe. She was resting upstairs, exhausted from her translation work for the day.

  She was going to kill them all. Well, except Jack. She turned back to Brody, then turned to face her family, waiting for him to step up beside her. When he did, she linked her arm with his.

  She leaned closer and did her best not to sniff him. He always smelled of fresh sea air and heather. It was an odd combination, but it appealed to her just the same. “Sorry about this.”

  “Doona worry. I told you I’ve a very nosey family.”

  She nodded. She had yet to meet them, as he said most of them did not live in Scotland anymore, but it was one of the things they had bonded over.

  “Everyone, this is Brody. Brody, you know the idiots who work at the company.”

  “Hey,” Logan said with a laugh.

  “But you might not know their very better halves. Meghan is Logan’s long-suffering wife,” she said waving toward her cousin-in-law. “And this is Maggie and her son Jack.”

  “I’m also Angus’s,” Jack said with a smile.

  “Of course you are,” Angus said, settling his hand on Jack’s shoulder. She couldn’t help but smile. Jack was from Maggie’s first marriage and Angus had adopted him.

  There was a beat of silence and Anice looked at Maggie, who was staring at Brody as if he were a freak. Well, maybe not that badly, but she had yet to respond.

  “Maggie?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry. Woolgathering.”

  Jack stepped forward and held out his hand. She almost told Brody not to touch him. Jack’s empathetic abilities were strong. He would see beneath Brody’s surface to the man beneath. Why was she worried about that? Brody was a good man who had been so damned proper she was ready to scream.

  Brody took Jack’s hand and shook it. “It’s very nice to meet you, Jack.”

  Jack’s eyes widened, but he said nothing, only nodded. Curiouser and curiouser. She knew that Jack didn’t always take well to strangers, but he rarely kept his mouth shut when he met them.

  “Phoebe wanted to meet you, but she’s a little tired today, so she’s in bed,” Callum said. “Let’s go into the library.”

  “Do we have to?” Anice asked.

  Brody patted her arm. “Doona worry, love. I’m the same way about my cousin Esme.”

  She wanted to argue, but when she turned toward him, he was smiling down at her. Dammit. Unlike any man in her long life, his smile left her dizzy. It always made her want to curl closer into his embrace and take comfort there.

  Someone rudely cleared his throat. She looked back over to her family. She was betting it was Angus, the wanker.

  “Okay, but you only get ten minutes.”

  The look Callum sent her way told Anice he wasn’t happy with her comment, and he would definitely ignore her ultimatum. As everyone filed into the library, Anice held back with Brody…and apparently Jack.

  “Doona worry, love. Your family isn’t going to scare me off.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but Jack interrupted her.

  “There are two of you.”

  Anice blinked and looked down at Maggie and Angus’s boy. “What?”

  “There are two of you,” he said again, but he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was focused on Brody.

  “Yes, there are. It’s Anice and me.”

  The little boy shook his head. “No. I mean, that there are two of you.” He frowned. “I don’t understand it.”

  Something quivered in her belly. “What are you talking about?”

  Jack
looked at her, then back to Brody. “Never mind.”

  Then he hurried off to the library.

  “What the bloody hell was that about?” she said to no one in particular.

  Brody apparently thought she was talking to him. “I’ve no idea but I’m sure he’ll tell us in time.”

  She cut him a glance. He was smiling at her, again. Dammit, every time he did that, she couldn’t think straight. She pushed those thoughts aside and led him into the library. It was better to get this over with sooner rather than later. Besides, she had plans for the night and nothing was going to get in her way.

  * * *

  The moment they stepped into the library, Brody wanted to curse. Jack was sitting on one of the sofas. At the moment, it was the only place left for him to sit with Anice.

  Bugger all these creatures.

  Shut up.

  He walked over and waited for Anice to sit down next to Jack and then he sat on the other side of her. Jack leaned forward and looked him. Brody didn’t know what that was all about, but the boy smiled at him. He smiled back. Something shifted in Jack’s demeanor and he relaxed. Whatever he was worried about, the boy apparently worked it out. Good, because if any of the Lennons knew what he was, or what he was up to, they would definitely kill him.

  “Good, now that we’re all here, I would like to know what the hell we are doing here? I mean, I can’t remember there ever being a time when we dragged one of your women in here and asked them questions.”

  Okay, so Anice was going to take the militant view right now.

  “Anice,” Callum said, his voice filled with humor and irritation.

  “I have to agree with Anice here,” the witch called Meghan said. Granted, most people didn’t know she was a witch, but he did. They could always sense their own kind. The fact that she hadn’t said anything told him he had cloaked his abilities well. Maggie was another matter.

  She kept staring at him as if trying to figure out a puzzle. He glanced down at her son. He was gazing at him with the same look. This was getting a little too weird.

  “What I want to know is why we are having a meeting about my date?” Anice demanded. Her anger vibrated through her entire body and reached out to him. He had never had such a strong connection to someone he wasn’t blood related to.

  Smack them down for questioning our mate.

  Settle down.

  He barely held back the growl that rumbled in his chest.

  Anice glanced over at him as if she heard it, but he was sure he had suppressed. If he was in tune with her, there was a good chance that she did. Mates could read each other’s thoughts. The closer the relationship, the more the mate felt and heard.

  “We just wanted to get to know Brody better. I know we work with him, but it’s different now that he’s dating you. You understand,” Callum said calmly. That said he was accustomed to Anice questioning him, which wasn’t a bad thing. It meant that he respected his cousin.

  Anice wasn’t as accepting. Her frown turned darker, her indignation growing by the minute. Brody took her hand, stroking the top of it with his thumb. Callum followed the movement. Brody didn’t care. His mate needed comfort, and he couldn’t resist the primal urge to soothe her.

  “It’s all right, love. I can handle a little questioning. If I had a sister, I would be the same way.”

  Truth was, he did have a sister, but she was barely talking to him at the moment. She wasn’t thrilled with this plan of his and refused to return from the Americas to help him. How she found Texas a good place to live was beyond him.

  “We need to get going or we’ll miss our reservation,” she said.

  He nodded. “True.” He turned back to Callum. “I’m not sure what you planned on getting out of this, but I am more than happy to oblige, but I doona want to miss our reservation. It took a bit of luck to get a table at the Tower on a Friday night. I would be more than happy to return at another time to be interrogated.”

  “No, I will not have it,” Anice said standing. “I didna question any of you with your relationships, and my new sister and cousins were not as well known to me as Brody is to you.”

  That’s our mate.

  Even though he agreed with his wolf, he definitely understood where the Lennon’s were coming from.

  “It’s different because I’m dating you,” Brody said, standing next to her.

  “I have an idea. Come for dinner tomorrow night,” Callum said. “Phoebe really wanted to meet you, but she was too exhausted tonight.”

  “Of course,” he said, trying to keep his mind on the topic at hand. It was, however, a little difficult to do thanks to the woman beside him. Her own natural pheromones wafted over the air to him, and it was all he could do not to lean closer to take a sniff. That would definitely raise some concern with her family.

  She opened her mouth to argue with him, but he stopped her with a smile. “Doona worry, love. Unless you’re worried about having me here for a dinner.”

  He could tell everyone was watching, felt their gazes boring into them. He ignored everyone else because of the woman before him. She was his entire world at the moment.

  “No, of course not,” she said, her face flushing. “We should get going.”

  “Indeed,” he said. “I look forward to meeting Phoebe tomorrow.”

  With that, they walked out of the library together.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” Anice said, embarrassment coloring her voice.

  “No worries, love. I said it wasn’t a problem,” he said as he took her coat from butler. Belvidore gave Brody a strange look but he said nothing else. He helped Anice on with her coat, then she turned to face him.

  “Let’s not worry about your family, my family, or anything else. We have a table at the Tower, and I’m looking forward to spending a night with the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

  She studied his gaze for a moment longer, then her lips curved up into a smile. “Let’s.”

  As he took her hand and walked out to his car, he hoped that he hadn’t just made a big mistake. He hadn’t been able to discover just what his cousin was up to, or why it was so important that he go after Anice. The truth was, from the moment he’d met her, he had been sure there was a connection between them.

  * * *

  Callum tried to tiptoe into his bedroom, but he should have known he couldn’t get away with it.

  “What happened?” Phoebe asked.

  Their bedroom was dark, but with enough light from the moon outside for him to see her in the bed. As she turned to face him, his heart warmed. It was hard to believe he had lived over two hundred years before he found her. Now that he had her, he couldn't imagine living without Phoebe by his side.

  “Everything is fine, love. You should be sleeping.”

  She reached over and turned on the light, then pulled herself up. The sheets fell away, resting on top of her massive belly. He was going to be a father in a matter of weeks. It boggled the mind. He had never thought to be one, not after a couple of centuries. Now he had the love of his life and a bairn on the way.

  “Callum, please quit looking at my stomach like it’s from the movie Aliens.”

  “I’m sorry, love, I was just thinking I never thought I would make it to this point. I never thought I would have a woman made just for me. Now, with this little one coming...”

  She smiled. “I understand completely.”

  She shifted over and patted the mattress next to her. He did her bidding and sat down next to her.

  “I was asleep, but my dreams are a little weird lately, and then the passage I worked on before I went to sleep has me worried.”

  He glanced at her table and saw the diary with a piece of paper sticking out. “Do you mind?”

  “Go on.”

  He picked it up.

  The one with two selves is the protector, the one who will always ensure the safety of the pack. He will do what is right for all those involved, even if he seems duplicitous. But fear no
t, for his love is true and his protection is strong.

  “What the bloody hell does that mean?”

  “I don’t know and that’s what has me worried. There are a lot of passages dealing with duplicity. Do you think that could have anything to do with the McWaltons?”

  “They are indeed duplicitous, but I can’t see that Gavin would change now. He’s been easy going. I’ve yet to hear a peep from him or his nutty family since he took over.”

  She nodded. “The one thing that worries me is that this has something to do with Anice, I’m sure of it. What did you think of this Brody man?”

  “He’s a good worker, and he said he would come for dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Oh, good, then I can meet him.”

  “And Rena can meet him. She’s better at reading thoughts.”

  She nodded. “Good. Anice likes him a lot.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And that worries you.”

  “There’s only been one other time she seemed this infatuated.”

  “That was bad, and you think this would be bad.”

  “No.” He sighed. “I guess so.”

  “Let me remind you that I had a horrible marriage.”

  “I know.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I would pick badly my second time around, and indeed I did not. I believe you can agree with me, yes?”

  He smiled. “Indeed.”

  “I know that all of you were hurt by her pain, by what she went through, but it seems that Anice has learned from it and moved on.”

  He sighed. “You weren’t there, love.”

  “No, but I see a strong woman who has spent a century alone since the incident. She has recovered.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You are more delicate than Anice.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “She has moved passed the incident, but none of the men in the family have. You are definitely the weaker sex. And because of that, you need to learn to deal with it. Anice has a right to happiness, but I think that you and your cousins have kept her from achieving that.”