Chapter Fourteen
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In hardship we see true friendship.
“She cannot attend the wrestling match,” Wolfe growled.
“She must,” Ere growled back.
They were of a height, both men six and a half feet. Both dark-haired. But that was where their similarities ended.
If they were trees, Wolfe would be a stalwart oak, while Ere was a lithe willow. Wolfe was scarred and ugly, hairy and unkempt, while Ere was the epitome of masculine beauty.
In fact, he transcended it. With his long, glossy black hair secured in an elaborate braid over his shoulder, pale, flawless skin, red lips and startling turquoise eyes, he put even Guinevere’s beauty to shame. There was an innate magnetism to him, and whether or not Wolfe liked the fact, he felt it.
Ere was far more than met the eye.
Especially since, despite his slender build and non-warrior ways, he had the iron-clad bollocks to stand up to Wolfe.
All his life, Wolfe knew none who didn’t cower when he bore the full force of his displeasure upon them. Now, he knew three. Ere and his warrior companion, Sorin.
And Rui.
A tiny female with silver hair, who swam like a dolphin and beat men twice her size and strength in unfair fights.
With that thought, Wolfe jerked his chin toward his sleeping female. The one he must defeat. The one he must protect.
“Look at her. She has no strength. And too many wounds.”
Ere glanced down at Rui’s prone figure lying on one of the pallets in their shared tent.
Beneath the fur covering that Ere procured with a seemingly endless supply of coin, her various dagger wounds were bound by bandages. None of them were too deep, but she’d lost a lot of blood. Her skin was ghostly pale, and her lips were tinged bluish-gray from both the blood loss and the frigidity of the lake.
“We have a couple hours. She’ll be fine,” Ere said the words without inflection, but the expression on his face betrayed his worry.
“Why make her do this?” Wolfe gritted out, pushing physically into Ere’s space until they were chest to chest.
Ere’s man, Sorin, emitted a low, warning growl from where he stood with arms crossed, a few feet away from Ere. But he didn’t interfere. Showing that he trusted Ere to handle himself with Wolfe.
Even if the big, blond brute were to join in, Wolfe would take them both down. They were supposed to be Rui’s friends. Why weren’t they talking sense into her? His frustration and fear boiled into fury.
“Even if she wins this afternoon’s rounds,” he ground out through a clenched jaw, barely able to contain his violent emotions, “she will not win the final event. Do not make her risk her life in futility.”
Ere narrowed his eyes, standing his ground.
“How can you be so certain what the outcome will be?”
Wolfe locked his jaw and refused to answer. With his fulminating glare, he willed the other man to just accept the fact.
But he always knew that Ere was the contrary sort. He didn’t deviate from the norm now.
For he continued to argue, “Besides, no one can make Rui do anything she doesn’t want to do. Nor can anyone stop her from doing what she sets her mind to do. I thought you knew her well enough to understand that by now.”
Bollocks! The man actually made sense. Wolfe could not argue with this truth.
“Why is the prize so important to her?” he asked instead. “Why are you here in these lands? Who are you?”
“All good questions,” Ere said, and had the gall to put three fingers on Wolfe’s chest, exerting the smallest pressure to push him back a pace.