Page 14 of The Alpha's Mail Order Bride

“Wolves,” Darion agreed with a small nod. “The residents of Kurivon are a community of shifters. Three wolf packs share the island.”

What a strange thing to say, she thought faintly. And how abundantly clear it was from his tone that he was telling the truth. A lie would have sounded less ridiculous, she imagined. About a thousand questions rose in her mind, drowning each other out to leave a bizarre, ringing silence in her head. As if from a great distance away, she heard herself saying: “That wasn’t on the profile.”

Darion inclined his head. “No. I had hoped to avoid you finding out. It makes the situation more complex. We’ll need to ensure that you don’t share what you’ve seen here—”

But as pleasant as Claire found Darion’s low, accented voice, she was finding it difficult to listen to him right now. “Wolves,” she interrupted again, her own voice sounding strange in her ears. “Just—just making sure I’ve got this. You’re all wolves. As in, you, and Reeve, and everyone I met on the yacht, and—you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a werewolf. I’m on an island of werewolves, right now.” She put a hand to her lips, but it was too late. The laughter she’d been holding at bay was breaking through, her shoulders shaking in the grips of it. Darion was looking at her with the closest thing to fear she’d yet seen on his face, which only served to make her laugh harder. Gasping for breath, she leaned on the kitchen counter, her peals of giddy laughter echoing through the house. “Werewolves—” she kept saying, then dissolving into another fit of laughter before she could finish the sentence.

When the fits of laughter began to ease, she was doubled over, holding her aching stomach with one hand and steadying herself on the counter with the other. Darion had crept a little closer, visibly worried about her, and she felt a pang of guilt tempering a little of her hysteria. He helped her over to the couch and she sagged gratefully into its comfortable embrace, heedless of her sandy feet on the fabric. There were bigger things to worry about.

“Are you alright?” Darion asked, so gravely that she almost started laughing again.

“I’m fine.” She took a steadying breath. “Did I tell you what I do for a living, last night?” Darion shook his head, and Claire bit her lip, bracing herself against the laughter. “I’m a romance novelist. I write—oh, wow. This is.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I write books about werewolves.”

She was expecting Darion to laugh, or at least to smile. What she wasn’t expecting was for his face to close over as though she’d just insulted his family. “I see,” he said, his voice hard as ice. “Then you knew.”

At least the hysterical laughter was gone, Claire thought faintly, but she didn’t much like the grim terror that had replaced it. “Knew what?”

“You knew what this place was. How did you get around my brother’s background checks?” He was moving closer to her, suddenly even more imposing than before, and she realized with the first stirrings of panic that she was being interrogated.

“No,” she said, shaking her head furiously. “No, you’ve gotten it wrong. Listen. I write fiction. Everything I write about werewolves I make up.” Darion was still glaring suspiciously down at her, but at least he’d stopped advancing. She took a steadying breath, the laughter of a few moments ago feeling suddenly very far away. “It took me longer than I’m proud of to realize that what I saw last night wasn’t just some ridiculous dream. Hell, if you told me I’d imagined it right now I’d probably believe you.”

“You make up stories about us?” Darion said slowly, his expression still guarded.

“Yeah.” Her heart was thudding against her ribcage. “We’ve been doing it for centuries. Men who turn into wolves when the moon is full.”

Darion’s frown deepened. “What does the moon have to do with it?”

“I don’t know.” She uttered a breathless, hoarse little laugh that had very little to do with mirth. “Someone decided it did, ages ago, and…everyone just played along. The full moon, transferring the condition by biting, the thing about being weak to silver bullets or whatever—” Darion tensed suddenly, his eyes widening. “What?”

“How did you learn about silver?”

“I didn’t!” she protested. “Like I said, we make it up! Nobody actually believes it’sreal,” she said irritably, torn between fear and her rising frustration that this baffling man didn’t seem to understand what fiction was. “It’s just tropes. Like the soulmate thing.” She’d intended it as an example that would prove how absurd his suspicions were, but his eyes only narrowed. “What? Seriously? That part’s real?”

“This is exactly what I was afraid of,” Darion muttered, his eyes sliding from her face and onto some interminable point in the middle distance. “You know too much about us. I can’t in good conscience send you back to your world without some assurance of our safety here. Our work is too important to risk now.”

One day, Claire knew her curiosity would kill her. “Your work?” Darion’s hard silver eyes returned to her face and she shrank back into her chair. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m nosy by nature, I always have been. It’s why I’m a writer.”

He exhaled—but he turned and sat in the chair opposite her. His expression was still suspicious, but at least he wasn’t looming over her like he was trying to decide which of her limbs to tear off first. A long, strained silence fell between the two of them, Claire working carefully on the wording of her next question to ensure she wouldn’t accidentally incriminate herself again.

“So—you’re worried about letting me leave,” she said softly. “Because I know about…” She paused for a moment, worried the hysteria would rise up in her again, but the urge to laugh had abated. “I know that you’re werewolves, and you’re concerned I’m going to publish some kind of exposé about your community here.”

Darion paused for a moment before he responded. “Wolves,” he said, looking slightly aggrieved. “We’re just wolves.”

“I see. Not werewolves. The full moon has nothing to do with it.” A resentful silence answered her question, and she nodded. “Right. Okay. Um…if it helps…I could literally walk down the street back home shouting about what I’ve learned here, and nobody would believe me.” He looked at her sharply, and she lifted her hands. “Not that I would. But seriously, Darion. I write smutty love stories about werewolves for a living. If I came out claiming that werewolves were real because I’d visited some on a tropical island…well, I wouldn’t be a credible source, let’s put it that way. I’d have more luck convincing people I’d been abducted by aliens. You can read some of my books if you don’t believe me.”

Darion’s jaw tightened. “That won’t be necessary,” he said, a little too quickly. She had to be imagining the slight flush on his face. “And I apologize that you’ve been put in this situation, but I’m afraid you’ll have to remain here a little longer until we’ve had the chance to discuss the matter.”

“I could sign an NDA or something, if you like?” she suggested, feeling oddly disconnected from reality. Of all the things she’d imagined might happen when she agreed to embark on this ridiculous undertaking, she’d never in a million years imagined herself doing legal troubleshooting about the fact that she knew too much about a community of shapeshifters. With her fear of Darion beginning to ease, she could feel the laughter welling up again. Her lips must have curled into a faint smile, because she saw Darion’s expression soften in response.

“I don’t want to be your jailor,” he said softly. “I truly am sorry about this, Claire. You don’t deserve any of this.”

“I can think of worse places to be jailed,” she pointed out, gesturing to the view through the kitchen window of lush vegetation. “And…well, not to make things even more awkward, but I did kind of make this trip with the intention of staying for a while.” She cleared her throat, cheeks burning. “So I’m happy to stay, really, while you work things out with Reeve and the lawyers and everything.” A thought occurred to her, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Wait.”

“What?”

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