He let out a small, pained sound. “You shouldn’t.”
“Why not? I’m not your mate, not your perfect partner, but we’ve known each other for ten years. I know what a good man you are. Ever since we first met, my feelings for you have only grown. You’ve always been there for me, and I—”
She stopped. Ash’s shoulders were shaking, very slightly.
But not with anger, or tears.
“Why on earth are you laughing?” she asked, bewildered and more than a bit hurt.
The near-silent, bitter sound cut off. Ash half-turned. The light caught the mirthless curve of his mouth, and the dark flames in his eyes.
“Because not a single word of that was true,” he said.
Chapter 2
Past
20 years ago…
The horizon was on fire.
Even with the windows wound up tight, the smoke still crept into Rose’s small rental car. She could taste it, acrid and bitter, on the back of her tongue. For the past fifty miles, every single vehicle she’d passed had been barreling full-tilt in the opposite direction. All the local radio stations were broadcasting the same information over and over.
“Full evacuation orders are in effect countywide,” repeated the flat voice of the emergency bulletin. “Do not attempt to stay in your homes. Do not try to rescue pets or livestock. Leave personal belongings behind. If you do not have transport, call 911 now. This is a mandatory evacuation order. All residents and visitors must leave the county immediately.”
Rose switched off the radio, since it wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. She took a firmer grip on the steering wheel, deliberately fixing her eyes on the road rather than on the ribbons of fire crowning the mountains ahead.
Faster, her swan urged her. Its wings flexed in agitation, longing to take flight. He is calling us. Our mate needs us, now, now!
Rose could feel that pull herself, deep in her soul. What had started as a faint, gossamer-slender tug was now like a fist around her heart, hauling her irresistibly onward.
Her aunts and cousins had warned her that the compulsion would become stronger the closer that she got to her mate. When she’d felt those first tiny stirrings, calling to her across the world, they’d urged her to wait, to ignore it for as long as she could. Twenty-three was young for a swan shifter to feel the mate-call, after all. There was plenty of time to mature, learn who she was as her own person, before she rushed into a permanent partnership.
But Rose couldn’t wait. Even back home in England, the mate-call had felt like a fishhook set in her soul. She could no more have ignored it than ignore the need to breathe. Whoever her mate was, wherever he was, she knew at a bone-deep level that he was in mortal peril. She had to go to him.
Even if it meant driving into the heart of the worst wildfire in Northern California for a decade.
Flashing lights cut through the smog up ahead. A police car barricaded the road. Rose put her foot on the brake, slowing to a halt, even though her swan hissed in protest at the delay.
She tried on her most winning smile as she rolled down her window. “I’m so sorry, officer. I just need to pop back for—”
“Ma’am, I don’t care what you’ve left behind, whether it’s Fido or your family photos,” the police officer interrupted her, in the weary tones of someone who’d already had this conversation too many times today. “I just heard on the radio, even the firefighters are pulling back. You gotta turn around and get out of here right now.”
“But, but—my granddad!” Rose widened her eyes, the smoke helping her to fake tears. “I have to go and get him from, um…”
She wished she’d paid more attention to the map. She had only the haziest idea of where she actually was, other than that it had been a long, long drive north from San Francisco.
“His cabin,” she finished, somewhat unconvincingly. “Up that mountain there.”
The policeman gave her a suspicious look, but pulled his radio out of his belt. “Tell me where it is. I’ll get one of the crews to swing by and pick him up.”
“Oh, no, it’s really hard to find,” Rose said hastily. “He’s a real backwoods hermit. Paranoid. He’ll shoot anyone he doesn’t recognize. But if you just let me through, I promise I can get there and back quick as a lick.”
From the exasperated glare the police officer was giving her, he wasn’t buying her story. “Girlie, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but I’m not letting you pass. Now scram, unless you’d rather I hauled you out of here in handcuffs.”
Rose attempted to looks suitably chastised. “That won’t be necessary, officer,” she said meekly. “I’ll just be on my way.”
The officer’s hand drifted down to rest on his holstered gun as she reversed. Very carefully, Rose turned her car around. The policeman stared after her, narrow-eyed, as she drove off.