Page 11 of Wolf's Redemption

He huffed out an impatient breath. “As I told you before, you are in Frankia. In the keep of Lothair, Count of Anjou.”

There was little point in saying more. She would have no choice but to believe him soon enough. She went strangely quiet. Had the reality of his words, and her surroundings, finally sunk in?

He exited the room and made his way down the corridor. Getting out of the keep would not be easy. He did not know if his imprisonment was common knowledge, but he must assume it was. If he tried to leave by the gate, he risked being recognized. He also suspected the spirited woman over his shoulder, though quiet for the moment, would not be so for long.

She had proved herself defiant and smart, using him to dispatch the lecherous guard. She had made use of her failed magic light to her advantage, too, throwing it away from her as a distraction, and trying to escape him in the darkness. Had he been an ordinary man, it might well have worked. It now sat tucked snuggly in the band of his breeches, a hard shape against his skin. Was she quiet because she was biding her time, looking for a way to escape him? He would not put it past her.

He paused at the end of the corridor. Left or right?

A familiar scent caught his nose—older and overlaid by the more recent passing of servants and chevaliers. Gaharet’s. He sniffed again. And Erin’s. Gaharet had fled the keep with Erin not so long ago. Had he known of another exit? A secret one? Ulrik would trust his nose. And his alpha. Turning left, he followed the scent.

The hour was late, and they passed no one in the corridors. Gaharet’s trail led him to a storage room and ended at a stack of chests. He frowned, taking in the room. No second doorway.

He sniffed again. Gaharet and Erinhadcome this way. He eyed the chests. Did they hide a passageway under the walls?

Ulrik tucked his shoulder against the side of the stack and pushed. The chests shifted as one and a cool draft of air hit his face. He pushed a little harder, revealing a narrow tunnel. If hissense of direction did not lead him astray—and it never did—it should bring them out underneath the keep wall close to the postern gate. Ulrik grinned.

He set her down and his surcoat slid to the floor. The moment her feet touched the floor, she lunged away from him.

“Not so fast, sweetness.”

With an arm around her waist, he slammed her back into his chest. She shrieked and kicked out at him, but her small feet and soft shoes were ineffective weapons, barely enough to raise a bruise on his shins. He kept a grip on her wrist and turned her around to face him.

He picked up his surcoat and draped it around her shoulders. “Put this on. It will warm you and go some way to conceal you.”

She gaped at him as if he were the village idiot. “You’re insane if you think I’ll just go along quietly.”

He chuckled, backing her up against the wall and crowding her with his body. “I do not expect you to go quietly at all,petite cracheuse de feu.”

She stared at him, eyes wide but flashing defiance.

“Scream all you like. Down here, the chance that anyone will hear you is negligible. And if they did, they would be unlikely to come to your aid. But screaming or no, come with me, you will.”

“You’re just saying that to keep me quiet.” The look she gave him was all scorn. “As if I would believe you?”

That she did not take his word as truth rankled, but he would add it to the long list of slights slung his way over the years. He had a tarnished reputation, and he was well aware he could lay much of that at his own feet.

“I am many things, but I assure you, a liar is not one of them. Test my word if it pleases you.”

She scowled and clamped her mouth shut, but she did not make it easy for him. He guided her struggling arms into his surcoat, buttoning it up at the front, covering up her delectablebosom. Warmth was not the only benefit to be gained by her wearing it. Ulrik needed all his wits about him, and those bountiful attributes he longed to have bare and cupped with his hands were quite the distraction.

“Why don’t you just leave me here?” Dark eyes challenged him. “I can make my own way out, and then you won’t have to worry about me giving you away or attracting attention.”

Leave her here? At Lothair’s mercy? Lord, no.

He tilted his head to the side, regarding her. “What do you think the lord of this keep will do when he finds one guard dead, another unconscious and his prisoner missing?”

She stopped struggling and her gaze grew wary.

“And that unconscious guard will not be so for long. Once he wakes, he will tell Count Lothair of the woman he saw. The woman who appeared to be working with the prisoner and helped him kill that guard.”

Her breathing stuttered and her face paled.

He shook his head. “No. I cannot, in good conscience, leave you behind.”

Taking her from the keep against her will was for her own good. She would not fare so well in the hands of Lothair. No matter what she believed about him, he was doing it for her. And also for himself. He wanted this woman in his bed.

Ulrik crowded her in, the wall at her back and her way forward barred by his body, giving her nowhere to go. She let him, going limp, her worry reflected in her expressive brown eyes. He released her hand to buckle his scabbard and sword around his hips and she made no attempt to move. He did not like the acrid scent of her fear, but he would use it if it meant he had her obedience, even if it was only temporary.

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