It was all Zander could do to turn away from her, shutting out the seductive sight as he closed the bedroom door and went to admit two Lupines grouchy from traveling. Air and morning light rushed in as he opened the front door, along with Broderick and Mason.
“Nice place,” Broderick said, looking around. “No way they let Shifters in here.”
Zander didn’t answer. He made an expansive gesture to the living room. “Make yourself at home.”
Mason plopped to the sofa and put his booted feet on the coffee table. “You don’t have a TV in here.”
“It’s supposed to be romantic,” Zander told him. “You don’t bring a lady out into the woods and then watch football. Or baseball. Whatever the humans are playing now. You fish all day, make love all night. No need for television.”
“Barbaric,” Mason said, shaking his head. “At least tell me there’s beer.”
Broderick took the chair next to the sofa and stretched out his long legs. “There’s wine.” Broderick waved at the two empty bottles that stood by the nearly gutted basket. “At least, there was. Romance, remember?” He turned aggrieved gray eyes on Zander. “You’d think the idiot didn’t have a mate.”
“How is Jazz?” Zander asked Mason. He remembered the cute woman who’d found him in his remote Alaskan cabin when he’d sworn he’d covered his trail. She’d looked at Mason as though her world changed when she cast her eyes upon him.
Mason lost his mock sullenness and flushed. “Jasmine’s good. Really good.”
“He’s being modest,” Broderick said. “What he’s not telling you is he got a cub on her. She’s due around the first of next year.”
“Awesome news,” Zander said in all sincerity. He came up behind Mason and clapped his hands on the younger Shifter’s shoulders. “Congratulations, kid.”
“The blessing of the Goddess upon you,” Rae’s voice came to them from the now-open bedroom door. Rae stood poised on the threshold, once more in her jeans and white tank top, the sheathed Sword of the Guardian in her hands. “Cubs are wonderful things.” She sounded wistful, as though she didn’t quite believe she’d have cubs of her own.
Both Broderick and Mason came to their feet, gazing at Rae in amazement. Rae gave them her gray-eyed stare in return, fearless as always. She wasn’t afraid of two blustering, overly arrogant Lupines.
To Zander’s surprise Broderick and Mason said nothing. Not So, is this her? Or Yeah, I can see why you didn’t answer the door. They only stared, stunned, and Rae didn’t move.
“This is Rae Lyall,” Zander said. “Guardian of the Montana Shiftertown. Rae—that’s Broderick McNaughton and his youngest brother, Mason. They’re luthiers and also do metalworking of amazing intricacy. They’re artists.”
“He means we make guitars and other stringed instruments,” Broderick rumbled. “And music boxes. Real ones, with clockwork gears.”
Mason shook himself out of his stupor and silently opened the backpack he’d slung to the couch. He drew out a box of meticulously inlaid and polished wood and held it out to Rae.
Rae’s face softened as she set the sword on the table and took the box in curiosity. It was very small, about three inches by two, the lid embedded with a mosaic of crushed semiprecious stones.
Rae opened the box and Zander came to look at it over her shoulder. The innards consisted of a gleaming brass cylinder covered with bumps and the tiniest cogs and wheels he’d ever seen. He knew that every piece had been fabricated by Mason’s and Broderick’s large, blunt hands in their hidden workshop in a warehouse district in Austin.
“You turn it on here.” Mason stepped forward and clicked a switch next to the cylinder.
Music filled the room. The box didn’t have the simple tinny tinkle of cheap music boxes sold at gift shops, but a full, rich resonance. Zander didn’t know what the piece of music was but it was complex and beautiful.
“Jasmine wrote the tune,” Mason said, sounding almost shy. “She thought you’d like it.”
“I do.” Rae closed the box and held it to her chest. “It’s beautiful. Tell her thank you.”
Mason kept staring at Rae and so did Broderick. Zander lifted the Sword of the Guardian from the table. “All right, stop ogling my mate. I asked you up here for your professional opinion.”
Broderick’s gaze moved to Zander, his eyes lighting. “Mate?”
Zander hadn’t realized the word had come out of his mouth. But why not? He’d been thinking of Rae and mate synonymously for a while now.
“You heard me.” Zander started to unsheathe the sword and then realized the other three hadn’t followed him.
He glanced back to see Mason and Broderick still staring at Rae, as though they’d never seen a female Lupine before. Of course she was sexy and beautiful and also the first female Guardian they’d ever seen, but even so . . .
“Leave her alone,” Zander said, his protectiveness surging.
“Sorry,” Mason said. “It’s just that you look a lot like—I mean a lot like . . .”
“Our mom,” Broderick finished.
Rae blinked. “Your mom?” Zander looked at them in surprise too.
“Our mom when she was younger,” Broderick amended. “She passed a few years back. But we have pictures of her. You’re her spitting image.”
Rae’s face lost color, her eyes becoming a lighter gray. “How can I be?”
Zander came to stand next to her and pinned Broderick with his stare. “What are you trying to say?”
Mason shrugged and answered for him. “I don’t think we’re saying anything. It’s just weird.”
Not to a woman who’d never known her family. Rae had no idea who she was or where she’d come from. Now two Lupines were telling her she resembled a matriarch of their pack, which might mean Rae was related to them, or at least was a member of their clan.
Zander tried to calm his speculations. It wasn’t all that mysterious for Shifters to resemble one another. Each Shifter species had been bred from similar genetic stock eons ago. Rae was a black wolf and these guys were gray—though their mother’s clan might have been black wolf. Zander didn’t want to give Rae false hope but he didn’t want to crush the hope either.