Page 1 of Wolf's Keep

Chapter One

Langeais, France

May 2016

Everything about Gaharet d’Louncrais spoke of arrogance, power and sex. The confident tilt of his bearded chin, the hint of a smirk on his lips and those dark, intense eyes making all sorts of heated promises. Not to mention the whole tall, dark and handsome thing he had going on. The man oozed masculinity from every pore.

Erin Richardson gave an exasperated sigh, raking her hair off her face. She’d become obsessed. This job had burrowed under her skin more than any other excavation, working its way deep into her psyche and manifesting in erotic dreams where she awakened in a tangle of sheets, achy and wanting.

Oh, for crying out loud.They were here searching for clues to the man’s demise. Hoping for the ultimate discovery of his bones. Fantasizing over the long dead, tenth-century French knight, a chevalier, was the epitome of foolishness.

Erin scowled at the sketch on her clipboard. No longer only in her dreams, she’d succumbed to the urge to draw him. Driven by the need to get him out of her head and onto paper. She’d taken all she’d gleaned about him from documented descriptions, added a touch of her own artistic flair, and rendered him in full Faber-Castell color. Now her creation stared back at her, sword in hand, muscular shoulders covered in chain mail under a blood red surcoat, and a howling black wolf—the d’Louncrais family’s crest—emblazoned over his heart. He was magnificent.

I’ve lost the plot.

Shaking her head, she tucked the clipboard under her arm and headed up the hill to the ruins of Langeais Keep. Below, beyond the rooftops of Langeais, the Loire River snaked through the valley. The smell of baked goods and ground coffee hung over the village as afternoon shadows darkened and the cooler evening air began to seep in. Behind her, the manicured gardens of the fifteenth-century Château de Langeais slowly emptied of tourists who’d streamed through during the day—exploring, taking photos, buying souvenirs. Up here, cordoned off from the public, members of the excavation field team worked undisturbed by lingering sightseers.

She nodded to the security guard and picked her way amongst the crumbling remnants of the tenth-century keep. One full wall of rough, pale stone remained, another partially intact, and a few foundations jutted up out of the ground. Stepping over string grid lines that marked the site, she approached the gaping hole in the ground, pausing on the edge. She shivered. No matter how many times she stood at the entrance, the sight never lost its impact. A narrow, almost vertical, stone stairwell disappeared into the earth, chiseled into rock, lit up by bright lights strung at intervals along the rough stone walls. They could have enough lights in there to outshine the sun, and the sight would still give her the chills.

“Takes your breath away each time, doesn’t it?”

Erin started, catching sight of their intern, hunched over, bagging and tagging a heavily corroded piece of iron.

“Yeah, it does. How’s it going with the grate?”

“Good, I’ve found a few pieces so far. Buried deep, but I’m surprised no one found it on the original dig.”

Erin shook her head. “Not much of a surprise, really. This is one of the earliest examples of stone keeps. Cells below ground weren’t common until the eleventh century, a few years too late for this place.” Or so they’d thought.

Taking a deep breath, she began her descent. Two steps down, her phone rang. She puffed out an impatient breath. Juggling her clipboard, her coffee and a bag of chocolate croissants, she pulled her phone from her pocket and glanced at the screen. Her heart sank. Her mother.Why the hell is she calling now?They hadn’t spoken for over a year. Their last conversation hadn’t gone so well.

She let the call go unanswered. Her phone dinged. A text came through and she rolled her eyes.

Call me. I’ve met someone.

“I bet you have,” Erin muttered. Drop-dead gorgeous with bucket loads of charisma and heaps of money, no doubt. Swept her off her feet just like every other man her mother had dated. She grunted. Her mother gravitated to a certain type. Good-looking, confident, suave and usually with either a high-profile job or a high-ranking position, like a media personality or a CEO. Men that had the world at their feet and they knew it. Men that had a never-ending supply of women to choose from, her mother just one of many in a long line of others. That her mother didn’t look her age never failed to draw them in.

Ding. Another text.

I think this time it’s going to last.

Erin shook her head. Her mother never learned. Erin shoved her phone back into her pocket and descended the steps. She was done being a commiserating shoulder for her mother to cry on. She had work to do.

Reaching the bottom, Erin stepped out into the room—a cramped and airless space, the walls rough, cold and damp. Fluorescent lights cast eerie, elongated shadows across the uneven floor. It couldn’t have fit too many prisoners in here. According to their research, it had only ever held one. His bones, partially excavated, lay in the middle of the room.

Greg, lead archaeologist and site supervisor, crouched beside the skeleton, packing away his brushes and tools. Connor worked against the back wall, gathering up labeled airtight bags to be delivered to the lab. They’d spent weeks removing a ton of dirt and rubble from the cell, an arduous task hampered by the narrow steps. They suspected they still had another foot or so to go to reach the original floor.

“Are you sure you want to stay here alone?” Greg stood stretching his spine and rolling his shoulders.

Erin smiled. “I’ll be fine. Security patrol the fences. Those kids won’t get through again. Besides, I don’t plan to stay too long. Just until I have the entire skeleton unearthed.” She shook the paper bag. “And I have my snacks.”

Greg’s eyes brightened at the sight. “Is that what I think it is?”

She grinned. “Chocolate croissants.” She turned to Connor. “Any luck finding the shackles to go with those chains you discovered this morning?”

“Yeah. Greg found them not long after you left to get coffee.” He, too, held up a bag. “Secure around the ulna and radius bones. And one around the neck vertebrae.”

“Around the wrists and neck. Interesting. And the chain had snapped? That would require an awful lot of strength.” Erin stepped closer, grasping the bag. “Are they silver?”

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