Brandon chuckled. “Turns out there’s nothing on this island worth fighting over. Might as well get along, eh?”
“Except . . . now there’s you.” Cox grinned.
“I won’t let you fight over me. I will not be a prize.”
“She’s a regular Anne Bonny,” Brandon said to Cox. “A Boudica.”
“Fierce,” Cox agreed. “Can see why the Lord exiled her.”
“It’s Edgerton himself dumped me out of the boat. You know ’im?”
They both did. Their lips curled, their bodies braced. The fur of their other selves would have been standing on end.
Cox said, “Edgerton is a sniveling, toadying, cowardly piece of shit. I’m sorry he ever laid a hand on you.” He settled with a growl burring the back of his throat.
“Just so,” Brandon added softly.
She glared. “The Lord and Edgerton and the rest are all right bastards. Why’d they exile any of us? We’re none of us a threat. They could have just killed us, executed us for standing up to them. Heads lopped off, no coming back from that. But no, they dump us here. Why? Why go through the trouble? I still don’t understand.”
Cox stared into the murky water in his cup. “They keep us here in case they need us. An army of chaos. We are here to cultivate our wildness, so that they might come back, capture us, cage us, and let us loose upon the world when they have need of beasts. If Napoleon makes for England, they will send us into his camp at night. Can’t say I wouldn’t enjoy it myself. But. They could have just asked.” He spat the last word.
“So you see,” Brandon said. “We resist by being civilized. As much as we can, with no bloody tea to be found.” He shrugged and finished off the rest of his cup. Pursed his face and hissed at the taste of it. “Ah well.”
“Then can’t you be civilized and leave me alone?” she pleaded.
“Why would you even want to be alone? It isn’t natural,” Brandon said with an offended, gentlemanly sniff.
“There are twenty-three wolf men on this island,” Cox said. “Our command of the others is vague at best. Some of them won’t ask. In the end, we’re all beasts, and the full moon is coming. Let one of us look after you.”
They would save her from damage, and keep her for their own use.
“Let me look after you,” Brandon said pointedly.
“You’re a fop,” Cox spat. “You hardly know which way you’re pointed.”
The gentleman laughed. “We settled this once before, we can do it again. It won’t come to a draw next time, I’ll warrant—”
“That’s right, it won’t—”
“Stop it!” she shouted. “I’ll look after myself!”
The two wolves stepped a pace or two apart and had the grace to look abashed.
Brandon gave a quick nod. “My dear, at least tell us your name.”
Right now, her name felt like a weapon they would use against her. To civilize her. “No,” she said, and the growl came through. Her wolf had fought before, she would do again.
“We could just carry her off,” Cox said to Brandon.
“The entire point of the exercise was to have the lady’s cooperation.” The gentleman called back up the hill, “What if we shared you? A month with me, the next with Cox—”
Then she did scream, hands tangled in her hair, and the sound had the edges of a wolf’s howl to it. She doubled over as the beast cried out. Wolf would break free and tear them all to pieces, she could do it—
“Girl . . .” Cox said warningly.
“Let’s be off, shall we?” Brandon said, brushing grass off his neat trousers. “We’ll leave you to it.”
The pair of them walked away while she crouched, gasping, struggling to keep hold of herself. At last, after a minute or so of breathing as slow as she could, the beast stilled and she was able to look out with human eyes and take stock.