“Aren’t you going to tell me I'm crazy? That my first duty is to the crown? That I should put her back in a cell?” Aidan asked once Rhiannon fell asleep in his arms.

He had battled to get her into a car, he had battled to get her on the plane, and he had battled to keep her from trying to escape every two seconds. It seemed she knew nothing of the world and was afraid of everything, but finally exhaustion had taken its toll, and now he was carrying her asleep in his lap.

“You are crazy. Your first duty is to the crown, and you should return her to a cell immediately,” Brennan replied with a seriousness that not even the Goddess would believe. “Happy now?”

Aidan growled at him because he knew it was pure irony coming out of his mouth.

“Fine, now you can tell me what you really think.”

Brennan looked back, making sure the door separating his compartment from the rest of the Guard was securely closed.

“She's your mate, isn't she?

Aidan drew the stupidest grin he'd ever seen on his face. He was happy.

“Yes, she is.”

The Beta shrugged. “Then that's all there is to it. There is no stronger bond or greater loyalty than that of an Alpha to his Moon.”

“Not even to the crown?” spoke the rational part of the heir to the throne.

“You tell me.”

Aidan shook his head in frustration. No, not even that. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the world had ever made him feel as complete as Rhiannon had made him feel from one moment to the next.

“I need a place to take her,” Aidan said with a frown. “My father can't find out I have her, or that she's... my mate.”

“Do you think he doesn't know?” That question had been going around in the Alpha's head from the very moment he had discovered Rhiannon was his mate.

“My father is a strict man, but he's not cruel, Brennan. He would never keep something like that from me.” His Beta nodded silently. “Besides, he had no way of knowing.”

“I knew as soon as I saw her.”

“What? How?”

“I don't know,” Brennan replied, “but her whole body gives off the feeling that you... well, that you belong to her.”

The Alpha's eyes narrowed.

“Really?”

“She has something... I can't tell you what it is, but yes, it's all too obvious that you're hers.”

Brennan chuckled mischievously. Aidan Casthiel had never imagined he would belong to anyone, and that seemed to puzzle him greatly.

“You can use the penthouse at 180 East,” Brennan murmured. “After all, your father doesn't know you bought it and it's prepared to... well, it's prepared to contain you. I don't think she's much of a challenge.”

Oooh! But that wasn't true. No lycan who had survived forty years in a silver cell could be considered less than a challenge.

The Alpha nodded, watching through the window as the first lights of New York began to appear. An hour later, the private elevator would drop him off at the penthouse of the tallest building in New York's Upper East Side.

He placed Rhiannon gently on a sofa and moved her to wake her up.

“Hey!” he called, crouching down beside her.

The girl opened her eyes and immediately tried to get up, startled by the change in her surroundings.

“Calm down.” Aidan took both her hands and saw her relax at his touch instantly.

“Where are we?” she asked, looking around and getting to her feet.

“In New York,” Aidan answered as he watched her walk toward one of the glass windows overlooking the city. Her face was that of utter surprise. “The United States?” Rhiannon shook her head without looking at him. “America?”

Her face still reflected the same uncertainty, and Aidan backed away, confused.

“How long had you been locked in there?”

Rhiannon turned around in full to look at him. That question, heavy with a tone of accusation, was the worst this man could ask her, because it meant he had no idea who she was. Would her name still be a death sentence? Rhiannon had counted one hundred and seventy-two years since the last time King Caerbhall had laid a claw on her cell, but after that the world had only been a horrible succession of nights, days, and yelling from the guards.

“Too long,” she answered his question evasively, because after all she did not know him. “Do you think I could...? I need to take a bath,” she finally said with more confidence.

“Sure,” Aidan led her to one of the attic rooms, showing her where everything was before leaving her alone. And that was just what Rhiannon was waiting for, time alone, or rather, time with her she-wolf.

“Raksha!” she closed her eyes, calling out to her, and sighed with relief as soon as she heard her answer.

“Rhiannon!” The spirit of the she-wolf seemed to dance within her.

“I missed you so much!” the girl sobbed.

“But we're both together now. And you found our mate!” Raksha almost seemed to scoff at that, but Rhiannon's mental silence made her aware. “What's wrong?”

“I can't get a sense of his wolf,” the girl admitted. “Can you sense him?”

Raksha stopped moving and dancing in her consciousness and also fell into a deep silence. For some reason, perhaps because they had been separated for too many years, they had not yet synchronized as they should have.

“No. I don't feel him either,” the she-wolf said after a few minutes.

“I don't know if we should trust him yet.”

“You are right, it's healthy to be a little afraid,” Raksha agreed.

Unfortunately, her she-wolf hadn't seen the world change either, so she couldn't help her understand it much. Rhiannon took a long bath, one with which she intended to wash away six hundred and fifty years of sadness, even if it was impossible.

She put on something that resembled underwear, and something she could definitely identify as a man's shirt that, while a little different from how she remembered them, was at least big enough to cover her halfway down her thighs.

When she returned to the living room, Aidan was drying his hair with a towel, and Rhiannon paused to look at him for a few minutes. He must have been over six feet tall, with very dark golden hair and tanned skin. He was wearing a pair of soft-looking pants and a shirt that looked as if the sleeves had been ripped off. He was barefoot and was staring at the lights through that transparent wall.

For a second, Rhiannon's legs wanted to give way under her body, and her stomach knotted. She didn't know exactly what to call that feeling that gripped her abdomen, dried her mouth, and blurred her vision; it just felt as if her whole body was being pulled forward, towards him.

At that instant, Aidan turned around and Rhiannon understood that he was feeling the same thing. The perfect line of his jaw was tense as he approached her with calculated steps.

“You can't keep your hair wet,” he warned, lifting her hair to towel it dry, but as soon as his fingers brushed the nape of Rhiannon's neck, a moan of pleasure escaped her.

 They both froze, and she opened her eyes wide, failing to understand what had just happened.

“I'm... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... I didn't want to...”

Aidan's eyes became two glittering shards of ice as his fingers closed over Rhiannon's hair and pulled her to him. She knew she hadn't meant to, it hadn't been on purpose, but she couldn’t help it, just as he couldn’t help it either, because that was what being a couple was all about: they belonged together, they wanted each other, and there was absolutely nothing in the world that could keep them apart any longer.

Meeting her mouth was like a single, unstoppable, magnificent explosion, every fiber of his body shivered, as Rhiannon's molded to him, holding onto his arms. He crossed his arms behind her back, lifting her, and lost himself in her lips with urgency. His tongue traced the girl’s mouth millimeter by millimeter, exploring, feeling, discovering every little electric current that coursed through him.

He pushed her against one of the walls, and for the first time, he was not the master of himself, as if his wolf was capable of breaking his dominance, as if he were acting on his own. Rhiannon's fingers tangled in his hair and Aidan felt desire coursing through his veins like lava. He couldn't understand that urge to possess her, to feel her... as if to breathe or to live.

His tongue tangled with Rhiannon's and he bit her lips. His hands went to close over the beginning of her thighs, causing her to wrap her legs around his waist, while his mouth moved down, leaving a trail of desire along her jaw, her neck, that perfect curve that preceded her shoulder.

Rhiannon closed her eyes and threw back her head, lost in the moment... until she felt the brush of a fang against her skin. Then her whole body reacted, waking up, recoiling, fleeing.

She pushed Aidan away from her, with such force that it made him stagger as she fell to the ground and retreated against the wall.

“No!” she exclaimed sharply, watching as the Alpha's eyes took on an even lighter, platinum blue color. He was achieving a partial transformation, and she wasn't quite sure he was aware of that.

“Why not?!” Aidan roared, clenching his claws into fists, feeling that he was barely in control of the transformation. “I'm your mate!”

“Mate?” Rhiannon had never heard such a word before.

“Your mate, I am your destined mate!”

“Yes, you are, but I don't want you to mark me yet...” She couldn't allow that, not without feeling Aidan's wolf first.

Rhiannon had been suspended in a time when a lycan could be named only when the wolf loved and respected his human. And one could speak of destined mates only among lycans.

“Why not! I've been waiting for you for centuries!” Aidan protested, unable to understand her rejection.

“I don't doubt it, but I still don't know your wolf, and without him I don't know if I—”

“My wolf?” the Alpha grimaced with disgust and incomprehension. “Can't you see me?”

Rhiannon's expression petrified, as she called out to Raksha with every fiber of her soul to get ready to fight.

“I'm seeing a human using the abilities of his wolf spirit,” she said, “but I don't see your wolf... I can't feel it.”

Inside her, Raksha howled in frustration as well, as she put her spirit at the service of her lycan.

“I don't care what you feel or not! You are my mate, I have the right to mark you as mine, I have the right to claim you!”

Rhiannon felt Raksha's claws tear through her fingers, her fangs break through her gums and her eyes enhance her vision. Her she-wolf had been raging for over six centuries and it was not good to provoke her.

Aidan knew he could achieve a terrible transformation, but there were few things capable of chilling the blood like seeing the she-wolf's translucent, glowing spirit materialize on the woman's skin. Her irises turned icy white and the fabric of the shirt on her shoulders flew through the air as the woman's long hair joined her back and reached the ground, brushing it with irritation.

And the voice that came at last from her throat made him recoil with healthy caution, for it was not only Rhiannon's voice that spoke.

“You... shall not lay... a single claw... upon us!”