“No thanks needed.” She bustled about, ladling huge amounts of stew into a bowl. I felt the saliva building up under my tongue. “I ain’t got much room in the house I’m afraid but I’ve got a barn outside with a nice warm hayloft. I got some blankets you can take up there; that should keep you cosy for the night.”
Even though I didn’t fancy a night in a barn it was just so nice to be treated with some hospitality again… you know, rather than being kidnapped and thrown around. “That sounds perfect.” I smiled gratefully as she put a bowl of stew and a cup of ale before me. I shared a happy look with Wolfe and we broke bread, scooping the stew up as if we hadn’t had a decent meal in ages. And to be honest we hadn’t. The old widow was almost as good a cook as Cook.
“This is delicious,” I managed between mouthfuls and she smiled cheerily, watching us scoff it down, seeming happy to have someone to feed again.
After our bellies were full we sat with her for a while, engaging her in conversation that we somehow kept centred around her life. Finally, seeing her eyelids droop, I suggested we get some sleep. Handing over some blankets and an oil lamp, the widow sleepily wished us a good night and turned to ascend the stairs to her own bed.
The barn wasn’t huge and when we climbed up into the hayloft we glanced at one another. It was certainly cosy. I flushed at the thought of being in such close quarters with Wolfe. Not saying a word to one another, we spread the blankets out and then carefully sat down next to one another. I could feel the heat from his skin inches from mine, the scent of him tickling my senses. I shivered a little, my stomach doing that strange flipping thing again.
Finally I couldn’t take the silence. “So, you’re quite a powerful Glava?”
Wolfe tensed beside me and I bit my lip, wondering if he was going to go back on his word and not tell me all I wanted to know.
“Well?”
He exhaled so heavily I almost felt badly for pressing him about it.
Not badly enough to stop. “Wolfe?” I placed a tentative hand on his arm and he jolted in surprise, looking down at it there. Those eyes of his lifted up slowly until they were stuck on mine and I flushed, breaking the connection, pulling my hand away from his arm.
“I hid it,” he said quietly, snapping my attention back to his face. “I hid it.”
“But why?”
He shrugged, staring off into the dark rafters ahead of us, his jaw taut with suppressed emotion. “Because… because I was afraid the magic meant I was like my father.”
That vulnerable sentence reached out to me to take me by the shoulders and shake me awake. My heartbeat picked up its pace and I began to get this sick feeling in my stomach.
How could I have been so wrong?
“Kir… Kir said you were as much a victim as him and I. What did he mean?”
Wolfe’s eyes slanted towards me, a well of dark pain and anger fencing in his gaze. I knew he didn’t want to tell me, that I was using his sense of honour, in keeping his promise, against him. If I were any kind of good person I would have reached out and told him it was alright, he didn’t need to tell me anything. However, my own selfish need to discover the real Wolfe dominated. I stared back at him, waiting.
“My father…” his voice cracked but he refused to look away. “He didn’t treat me and my mother very well. As you know… he was a cruel man.”
Ice crawled across my skin. “What did he do to you?”
“Mostly manipulative mind games to make us feel inferior, subordinate. But when Haydyn’s father was dying - when he died - as you know things got worse. For us as well.”
Thick silence took over, robbing me of my voice. In truth, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what Syracen had done to Wolfe. It was one thing for a man to abuse strangers, but to hurt your own flesh and blood…?
“He uh… he horsewhipped my mother a few times.”
Bile rose in my throat as I remembered the agony Kir had gone through. To do that to your own wife... “And that scar… the horseshoe?” I didn’t really want to know, did I?
A bitter, twisted little chuckle escaped Wolfe and he shook his head. “I made the mistake of attacking my father when he took the whip to my mother. Kir helped me because my mother was kind to him. My father beat Kir… but me… he took a hot horseshoe to and branded me. He told me I was his son not hers; like horseflesh I belonged solely to him and as such he expected me to obey him as my master.”
I couldn’t comprehend what he was confiding. My chest flared with sharp, needling pain. Hot tears prickled in my eyes, and I couldn’t speak, my throat had closed up with hurt and anger for him. With guilt. All these years I had been horrible to him, painting him with the same brush, so sure he would want to hurt me for what I did to Syracen.
“I got my revenge though. I helped Kir escape.”
So that explained their camaraderie.
Kir knew Wolfe better than I had. Why did that hurt so much? I clutched my stomach tightly. Wolfe must loathe me for the way I had treated him. The pain sharpened in my chest and I was afraid I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly, I was truly afraid Wolfe hated me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, a stupid tear leaking out and rolling down my cheek. I brushed it away impatiently and was surprised when Wolfe caught my hand.
He stared, seeming amazed, watching as I lost my fight with another tear and it escaped. His thumb caught it, rubbing it softly into my cheek. I was so aware of him… so close to me, my whole body tense to the point of trembling, my heart racing madly. “Are you crying for me, Rogan?”
I nodded and then shook my head stupidly. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because he hurt you. Because I’ve treated you terribly because of him.” I shuddered trying to calm myself. “I thought you detested me, that you were planning to take some kind of vengeance for my part in getting Syracen killed.”
When his touch left me, I was confused. I wanted him to touch me again but I was also thankful he didn’t. I could breathe easier when he wasn’t so close.
Right now his brow was deeply furrowed with thought. “That’s why you’re snotty with me?”
Snotty? How dare he-
I shook it off, amazed by how easy it was to become irritated with him. I threw him a look for his word choice but sniffed in acknowledgement. The corner of his mouth quirked up and I could tell he was dying to laugh at me. He smothered it with his hand, rubbing it across his mouth in concentration. And then he nodded. “I think I understand. But you should know I felt nothing but relief when he was killed. My mother and I were free. Our lives completely changed that day, for the better.”
I wanted to reach out and offer some kind of comfort, some kind of apology that would make up for the last eight years of disdainful attacks against him. Haydyn would be pleased to know she had been right all along about him, I thought wryly.
When Wolfe tensed beside me I grew uneasy. I understood when he asked, “What exactly did my father do to your family, Rogan?”
The rage burst open across my chest like a tidal wave after a land-shake and I drew in deep shuddering breaths to calm my memories. Finally I asked softly, “Are you sure you want to hear about that?”
“Only if you’re up to telling it.”
So I told him. About a perfect summer’s day ending in tears and bloodshed and a never ending impotent agony. His golden skin grew paler and paler as the story went on. I even told him about Valena. When I grew quiet I hadn’t even realised I’d been crying until Wolfe, eyes bright with sorrow, handed me a handkerchief. I wiped at my tears as another smog-filled silence descended over us.
For a while all I could hear was our soft breathing and blood rushing in my ears.
“No wonder you hate me,” Wolfe choked, his shoulders slumping over. For the first time in a long time he looked like a little boy again and I didn’t want to be the one that had done that to him. Especially since I was coming to realise… I didn’t hate Wolfe at all.
“I don’t hate you,” I replied softly, sure my heart was going to burst it was racing so fast. It only got worse as our eyes collided, his seeming to search mine in desperation. The colour returned to his cheeks and he licked his lips nervously.
“You don’t?”
I shivered at the hoarseness in his voice and shook my head, my cheeks burning. “No. I realise now that this person you’ve been, Captain of the Guard, that’s really who you are. I’m sorry I didn’t treat you the way you deserved.”
He smirked. “I wasn’t exactly charming to you either.”
I laughed softly. “You were just reacting in kind.”
He snorted. “Yes, I suppose I was. It was galling you know. You’re so sweet to everyone else.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Sweet, I’m not sweet.”
“You can be.”
My cheeks burned hotter. I shook him off, embarrassed. Heaving a sigh I pushed him teasingly. “You’re a good man, Wolfe,” I admitted.
Those gorgeous aquamarine eyes of his widened at the praise and he smiled slowly, such a naturally wicked smile it flipped my stomach over again. “Really?”
I nodded.
But then abruptly, his smile dropped, his eyes dimming with sadness.
“What?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I’m still the man whose father killed yours.”
Not for the first time, I didn’t know how to respond. My soul was a mess inside, completely confused and bewitched. Because now I knew that this sick guilty feeling inside was my growing feelings for Wolfe, and the subsequent shame I felt for betraying my family. Caring for the son of the man who killed them… how was that not a betrayal of their memory?
Turning his body in towards me, Wolfe shifted a little closer and I trembled at the look in his eye. Unconsciously, despite what I had only been minutes ago screaming at myself, I tilted a little closer to him too, drawn to his heat like an addict to opium.
He cleared his throat. “I wanted to kill him, you know.”
I frowned. “Who?”
“Kir.” Wolfe snorted, shaking his head ruefully. “I wanted to kill him... and all he did was kiss you.”
My breath caught as our eyes locked. Suddenly I knew what that indecipherable look was he sometimes gave me. Wolfe… wanted me? Wolfe? Wolfe who gave every woman at the palace a fit of the vapours when he spoke to them? Wolfe who had a reputation for being incredibly discriminating with women? For goodness sake, according to palace gossip, he had had a love affair with Vojvodkyna Winter Rada, the woman whose court we were heading to; an incredibly beautiful, sophisticated, young widow. And he wanted me? Me?
“I-”
Whatever banal thing I would have said was cut off as Wolfe reached a hand out to slide behind my neck. I gulped, feeling so hot I thought I was going to combust. The way he looked at me… I shivered… no one had ever looked at me like that before. Like I was the most-
“You’re so beautiful,” Wolfe told me hoarsely, and maybe I was naive, but as he looked at me I believed he really thought so.
And then I wasn’t really thinking much because his mouth was on mine. He brushed his lips across mine in soft feathery butterfly kisses, beautiful and frustrating all at the same time.
“Wolfe,” I muttered in complaint and his lips smiled against mine. “Cruel,” I whispered.
He took it as a challenge. I was gripped closer, his arms wrapped around me, binding me to him so I was flush against him, my arms trapped. And his mouth…
His kiss was hard and persistent now and I pushed into it, intoxicated by the feel and scent of him all around me. A little strangled sound erupted from the back of my throat at the feel of his tongue against my lips and he took the opportunity to sweep into my mouth, drugging me with the unfamiliar dark pull of the kind of kiss Haydyn had told me about but I’d never experienced. I must have stilled, unsure of what to do, letting him kiss me and enjoying it, but afraid to participate in case I did it wrong. Wolfe suddenly stopped, breaking the kiss. He pulled back to frown at me.
I blushed, feeling like an idiot. Wolfe was used to experienced women, not nineteen year old girls who were as sensual as the straw we sat on.
“You’ve never been kissed properly before?” He asked softly, stroking my flushed cheek. I was still wrapped tightly against him and despite my embarrassment I didn’t want to pull away from him. I was addicted. Wonderful.
“No.” I shook my head, feeling like a schoolgirl.
“But I thought you and Jarek-”
“Me and Jarek, what?!” I snapped back, my eyes flashing angrily. What in haven was he insinuating exactly? Or had Jarek said something? Had Jarek spread lies about me? No, he wouldn’t… would he?
Wolfe arched his eyebrow arrogantly. “What was I supposed to think? You’re always flirting with him.”
Arrgh! I hit my hands against his chest trying to pull away from him but he only held me tighter, grinning now, which made me madder. “You are the most-”
“I’m glad I was wrong.” He cut me off, his eyes narrowing with lustful intent. “Now kiss me back.”
I shuddered, my earlier annoyance disappearing in a puff of smoke. With my usual aversion to being vulnerable I jutted my chin out defiantly. “I don’t know how, so maybe we should stop.”
Wolfe smirked. “Not a chance. Just follow my lead, mimic what I do.” His breathing grew laboured as he leaned in towards me. I trembled terribly as his lips reached for mine again and I felt his arms flex around me. This time his kiss began a little gentler as I opened my mouth tentatively. When his tongue touched mine I followed it with my own. Wolfe groaned against me and I felt it reverberate through me in delicious waves. I gasped at the feeling taking over me. This must be what Haydyn was always talking about. The kiss grew more frantic and I freed my arms so I could wrap them around him, my br**sts flat to his chest, every inch of my body as close as I could get to the heat of his. We collapsed back against the blankets, Wolfe’s body covering mine, his thigh pushing my legs apart. I shuddered at the feel of him against me, my brain no longer able to work against the sparks and explosions that were shooting off around my body as his drugging kisses went on and on, his strong hands sliding up and down my waist seeming desperate to touch me but afraid to move higher or lower. When I arched into him Wolfe shook against me. I felt him reluctantly pull away, both of us gasping for air as he rolled off of me. I didn’t know what to do with my body - my nerves were twanging, my hands shaking. I noticed Wolfe’s were too as he exhaled heavily, running a hand through his hair I had mussed up.