Rouge woke slowly, her mind fighting it. She didn't want to wake up. She was warm and felt safe and cared for. As she woke she realised why. The side of her face was resting against Raphael's chest, her body was pressed into his side and one of his strong arms was wrapped protectively around her. The other was slung over his face as he slept deeply and peacefully. She closed her eyes and breathed in the musky masculine scent of his skin. Yesterday felt like a dream, he'd given her a pleasure she didn't know existed. After so many years of searching for him, it seemed to be good to be true that he could be holding her like this. It seemed crazy to think that just a few days ago she was in the Angelus family home convinced she would never be accepted by her fated one and was now curled up naked in his arms after they had made love and fallen asleep together. She stirred a little trying not to wake him but needing to stretch her muscles just a little then gasped as the hand over his face fell open.

He woke up and was clutching her to him looking for danger within a split second of her hushed gasp.

"What is it?" He growled out on full alert to protect his beautiful bride.

"Your hand." She squeaked out trying to squirm out of his vice-like protective grip. He released her and looked down at his hand, there in his palm was the same silvery bird and crescent moon silhouette she had behind her ear.

"You tattooed me?" She took his hand in hers and stared at his palm.

"It's not a tattoo." Pulling her long copper locks from her neck and showing him her matching mark. "All witches and wizards get a mark when we reach our immortality. We call it a re-birthmark, it marks us as a child of Hecate."

"My hand was burning last night when we..." He trailed off. She looked up at him

"I... I didn't mean to. I... I'm sorry." He frowned and studied the mark on his palm.

"Sorry? For what?" She looked ashamed.

"I marked you without consent. Without you stating if you want to be my fated partner. It's a huge taboo. I honestly didn't mean to. I didn't know I could." He brushed her hair back from her ear and compared the birds intersected with the crescent moon marks.

"I'm not sorry you did." She looked up at him.

"You're not?" He shook his head and caressed the side of her face.

"Not if you're not, my sweet red witch. Not at all. I've been an absolute fool."

"Why?"

"I ran away from the most beautiful woman in the known realms. My own personal Aphrodite has claimed me as her own. I can't think of anything more amazing than that." Rouge couldn't breathe, she'd never heard such heartfelt beautiful words.

"I... I brought silver dust with me." Raphael nearly choked on thin air and stared at her wide-eyed.

"You what?"

"Silver dust." She stammered out confused by his sudden change as he pulled his hand back from her like she was on fire. "Gabriel said it's how vampires mark their brides. Bite them and put the dust in the wound so it tattoos the skin. He said it's the only thing that will mark a vampire's skin as an ink tattoo would just heal away to nothing."

"I..." His mind was blank. His demon started to roar in the back of his mind 'MINE MINE MINE'. "No." He moved away from her and picked up his trousers. Suddenly remembering her own nakedness she grabbed his shirt off the floor and pulled it over her head.

"Raph, I didn't come into this blind. I came here wanting this, hoping to mark you and that you would want to mark me."

"Why would you want people to know?"

"Know what?"

"That you're a vampire's bride? My bride?"

"Why would I care what anyone else thinks?"

"Do you not want time to be sure? To know me better?"

"No. We have an eternity to get to know each other. I won't be sent another fated one. I wouldn't have brought the silver if I wasn't sure."

"Rouge, no. Please. Not yet. I'm... I want you to wait, for you to be sure." His demon was freaking out in his mind, desperate to sink his fangs into the witch's soft skin but he wasn't going to do it. He wouldn't harm her. She could see he was visibly shaken but wasn't sure why. Gabriel had made it sound like vampires dreamed of the day they found their bride and marked them. That the marking was both sacred and erotic to them. She couldn't understand why Raphael seemed so freaked out by the idea. What was wrong? Was it the she-wolf? Had he lied? Had he already marked her? She felt tears prick at her eyes as she looked up at him.

"Raph?" He looked at her shining eyes and cursed himself, he couldn't do anything right. Here he was marked and claimed by his fated one and he was making her cry. Just tell her you've never bitten a creature or a human, that you are scared you won't be able to stop if you do bite her, that her skin smells so good to the demon inside him. His demon whimpered in his mind with need and longing. Remembering something he crossed to the bookshelf and took an ornately carved box down and fished inside it among the candles and matches until he found the little green silk bag and pulled it out.

"I got this for you when I stopped in Paris. It was in a shop window and it made me think of you." Putting the box back on the shelf he held out the little bag to her.

"When were you in Paris?" She asked as she took the bag from him.

"I stopped in Paris when I was travelling from Venice to here. I took a rather scenic route." She opened the bag and tipped the contents into her palm. A tiny version of a hand mirror attached to a black velvet ribbon tumbled out into her hand. She picked up the pendant and gazed at its tiny glass and the filigree details of its shiny silver frame and tiny handle.

"Oh Raphael, it's beautiful." She looked up at him with a huge smile on her face. "Have you really had it all this time for me?" Seeing the genuine delight on her face made him smile.

"Yes, something about it just reminded me of you." She looked up at him with a huge smile on her face.

"It's really beautiful." Smiling back at her he took the pendant from her and moving to her back tied the ribbon around her neck. She held the tiny mirror as he did and rubbed its glass, feeling the power of the mirror realm she wondered if he realised that his gift meant she always had an escape and a tiny power boost if she ever needed it. Raphael was genuinely overjoyed she liked the pendant he'd kept hidden for so long and relieved she seemed to have forgotten him marking her. He couldn't, she didn't understand what it would mean or the loss of privacy it would cost her.

***

Leaving the treeline Rouge looked about bewildered. She still didn't know her way around. Wolves wondered about going about their daily lives in the distance. Raphael's cabin was quite a way out of town so she headed for the small collection of cabins and cottages to a huge fire pit where a woman tended a huge grate, sat on top of the grate were a dozen huge frying pans filled with bacon, sausages and eggs.

"Good morning my dear, I'm Agnes, pack Lunar. How are you feeling?" She smiled at the kindly looking woman and rubbed her still achy arm,

"I'm well thank you, Luna. Just a few aches"

"No need to be so formal, Agnes, Agy or even Ags is fine. We don't do formal here child." She motioned to the food.

"Are you hungry?"

"Always" laughed the witch.

"I'm not surprised, you're all skin and bones, I'll get you some breakfast."

Rouge watched as Agnes piled a plate high with the bacon, eggs and sausages as well as thick slices of buttered toast. No wonder all wolves seemed to be muscular and well built if this is how they ate. Thanking the kindly wolf she headed to the tables where other wolves ate and tried to watch her without being seen to stare. She was about to sit at an empty section of the table when a man who looked remarkably like Duncan motioned her to come to the top table.

"Sit yourself down here, lass. Don't be eating alone. Where's that vampire of yours?" Rouge took the offered seat and smiled at the man.

"He's off with Duncan. I decided to see if I could find the village." Robert chuckled and gestured to her huge breakfast.

"Looks like you found more than that lass."

"I don't know how I'll eat it all."

"Do nay worry. We won't force you." Said Agnes as she sat on the other side of him. "I see you've met my mate, Robert." Rouge looked back at him.

"I'm so sorry Alpha, I didn't realise."

"Tsk, I told you, child. We don't hold with formality here. The great lump's name is Robert or Rob." Rouge looked from one to the other, it was hard to miss the love they shared as they looked at each other. They were so easy with each other, so content. Rouge ate her food while she listened to the wolves talk about Raphael and their Island home.

"We'll miss our boy when he leaves." Rouge swallowed and looked at Agnes.

"Duncans leaving?"

"Aye, it's why he went to speak to Raphael. He and his cousin Bryn are going on a mate quest. Many of the young ones here do at some point in their lives. Being on a hidden island they don't have a lot of hope of finding their mates unless they are as lucky as us."

"I'm sorry he's going." She wondered if it was her fault they were going. She had seen herself how upset Bryn was and it was rather a coincidence.

"How did you and Robert meet?" Robert chuckled as Agnes set her mug down.

"Oh it's not as good a story as yours and Raphaels, no one was naked. "Rouge blushed profusely. "British wolf packs hold huge pack meets every twenty years to allow wolves a chance to meet their mates. It was my first and Roberts..." she trailed off looking thoughtful.

"Third." He supplied for her.

"Third." She continued, "I was in a tent learning first aid from a healer. I was far more interested in that than meeting my mate, I was only thirty-five and thought I had all the time in the world for that. Well, there we were learning about dressing wounds when we got some real-life practice walk-in." She smiled lovingly at her wolf. "He and a few others limped in with huge gashes and broken limbs. They'd been daring each other to run through the bore pens. Well, it went as well as you'd expect running through a pen of angry, frightened bores who'd been rounded up and forced to wait for slaughter. So I grab some bandages and turn to find this great lump laying on the table sniffing at me. That was it. We were mated before the end of the week and I came back here with him." Rouge smiled but inside wished it had been that easy for her and Raphael.

***

As Rouge put her plate with the rest by the cooking pit she saw a commotion on the beach by the tiny part of the Isle that was visible on the mainland. The children were all gathered giggling and throwing stones at something.

"What are those children up to?" Muttered Agnes as she hurried past the witch. As Rouge approached she saw Azura hopping about on the land shrieking and seeming both confused and put out by the stones that were appearing from nowhere.

"What's all this?" The children shrieked and raced off as Agnes bellowed at them and watched the confused creature for a moment.

"Azura!" Rouge ran to the barrier but Agnes caught her before she stepped through. On the coast was a huge troll and several dark fae. Turning even paler than usual the witch held her hand through the shimmering barrier for the ruffled bird. Azura eyed her hand for a second before jumping onto her wrist. The witch pulled her companion through into the hidden Isle and petted her as the bird cawed.

"Are you ok?" The bird cawed again and fluttered its wings.

"I saw them." Agnes gave her an odd look.

"Azura is my familiar." The bird cawed and the witch kissed the top of her head. The she-wolf nodded but still looked perplexed. The magpie sidled up Rouge's arm to perch on her shoulder and begin to groom herself.

"Sorry about the pups."

"They are children and she's not hurt, just annoyed and concerned about the creatures on the mainland." She kissed the bird's chest as she cawed angrily.

***

Back at the cabin, Raphael eyed the bird that had taken up residence on the back of his dining chair.

"I thought familiars were cats and had to follow their master." The bird cawed indignantly.

"No, some witches have cats, my father has one wondering about somewhere. But any animal can be a familiar. August has a weasle. I'm not master of Azura, she stays with me because she chooses or takes flight if she chooses. I left Azura at your family's home. She'd made a nest..." Rouge blushed profusely "in your mother's tree. She's been raising her babies."

"She nested in my mother?" Raphael was stunned

"Your mother is in such a sheltered and well-protected spot. Cassiel found it amusing and said your mother would have loved to see her grand birdies raised in her branches."

"Grand Birdies?"

"Cassiels word not mine." Raphael laughed.

"I bet Winston nearly had a coronary. He's very protective of our mother."

"Actually he took food out to Azura every day. He agreed your mother would have enjoyed the company."

"She probably would have. I remember when a Robin made a nest in her branches. She went out and sang with the mother bird every morning. She was a little sad when the last baby flew the nest." Rouge gave him a tense smile, he frowned a little.

"What?"

"There was a dark fae and a troll on the mainland."

"WHAT?" His demon snarled in his head and he thought to get it back down.

"They can't get to me here. I think they were looking for the ones you killed." He took a breath trying to calm his demon.

"They won't find them. Duncan tossed them into the sea. What do they want with you?"

"They want my blood, Mab thinks she needs it to get to my father in his home."

"How often do they come after you?"

"It varies. Sometimes it feels nonstop, sometimes a year or two passes before they come after me again." She hugged herself and rubbed the arrow wound on her arm." He moved forward and took her in his arms.

"No one will hurt you while I draw breath." He kissed the top of her head and felt a huge pang of guilt, she had lived in so much danger while he'd lived happily and quietly in his little cabin. He truly was the luckiest creature alive that she had come after him after he'd abandoned her to the mercy of his brothers.

***

"I've been meaning to have a word with you. I was going to tell you earlier but we discussed other things" Raphael looked up as his friend appeared from the tree line.

"What's up?" The wolf stopped and stroked Areion.

"I made a promise to Bryn. She's pretty torn up at Rouge coming." The vampire looked guilty down at the ground. "She secretly or not so secretly hopped if enough time passed you'd forget the witch and want her."

"Duncan, if I hadn't have been fated to Rouge I'd have been proud to take your cousin as my bride. I never meant...."

"I know you did nay mean to hurt the lass. You never led her on, she did that to herself. But I've told her we will go on a mate quest together and see if we can find our fated mates."

"I didn't think you wanted to go on it?"

"I didn't. But seeing how happy you and Rouge are now. I be wanting that for myself."

Raphael rubbed the back of his neck and glanced across to his cabin.

"Do nay fret. I spoke to me Ma and Pa before coming to you. Ma said you are part of our pack now and welcome to stay here as long as you wish. If you choose to leave your cabin will always be waiting here for your return." Raphael looked up at his friend who gave him a huge hug and slapped his back.

"I feel like I've run you and your cousin off from your home." The wolf laughed.

"Do nay be daft. I'll be coming back before you know it with a she-wolf as pretty as your witch to make a pack of puppies with." Both men laughed.

Later that day Raphael stood inside the barrier watching as Duncan and Bryn rowed the short distance to the mainland and set off on their quest. As Duncan's and Bryn's mothers cried, he couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt. If it wasn't for him both would have continued to live happily on the isle.