Page 22 of Wolf's Redemption

As suddenly as the scent had caught his attention, the sense of the other presence dissipated and Ulrik was left standing alone in the forest. He let his wolf retreat, but he did not relax his vigilance. Should he try to track it? Perhaps this wolf was Renaud’s informant. Perhaps it was not one of their own who had betrayed them. Or mayhap it was tracking Rebekah. A cold fist of steel gripped his entrails.Rebekah.

Ulrik set off after her, his pace faster now. He reached the edge of the forest and paused. The small mud-brick huts of the village lay beyond. Curls of smoke rose from chimney holes and the heavy scent of meat and vegetables simmering in pots over fires filled the air. In the surrounding fields, villagers plowed the ground, tended their grazing animals and harvested their crops.

About to break the calm routine of their working day strode Rebekah. His dark umber surcoat flapping about her ankles and the stripes in her hair a vibrant green in the morning sun, she approached a man guiding a team of oxen pulling a large wooden plow. The farmer did not stop, nor did he acknowledge her, continuing with his task as though she were not there.

With a shrug of her shoulders, Rebekah crossed the field and waved a greeting to a woman harvesting vegetables. Without a word, the woman picked up her basket and walked away. Rebekah placed her hands on her hips and stared after her. Undeterred, she approached another woman. This time Rebekah retreated fast when a man, most likely the woman’s husband, stepped toward her, shouting at her and waving a pitchfork.

Ulrik had always found those who lived and worked in the shadow of the Vautour Keep to be unwelcoming. Not that theyhad ever viewed him with hostility when he had visited, but rather they had a deep sense of distrust of strangers. Rebekah would seem stranger than most.

With a frustrated set to her shoulders, and warily skirting the man with the pitchfork, Rebekah made her way toward the huts. She would find no more help there than in the fields.

Ulrik kept to the edge of the forest, avoiding the farmers and their fields, and slipped up behind her. Before she could approach anyone else, he grasped her elbow, clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged her behind the tanner’s hut. The smell of putrefying flesh and animal waste assaulted his nostrils. He would bear it, for it would hide their scents, and he planned to be gone before too long. A villager would, for certain, once finished with their chores, alert their lord to the strange woman in the village.

He stood her against the wall, blocking her escape, and removed his hand from her mouth. “Where do you think you were going, Rebekah?”

Her eyes were wide and her pulse raced at the base of her throat, but she met his stare, undaunted. “I see you found your clothes.”

He grunted. “Yes. Thank you for that. By the time I retrieved my boot from the fallen tree you so kindly stowed it in, a colony of ants had taken up residence.”

She laughed.

He scowled. “I am glad you find it amusing.”

She gulped and licked her lips, and his gaze lingered on the gleam of moisture that clung to them.

“I…”

He held out his hand. “My dagger, if you will.”

Without a word, she retrieved it from beneath his surcoat and handed it to him. She was lucky she had not cut herself with it. The blade was sharp.

“Now, we are going to walk out of this village together and return to the forest.”

She scowled at him and opened her mouth to speak.

He pressed a finger to her lips. “You will go quietly.”

She shoved his hand away.

His wolf surged forward, and a rumble rose in his throat. He placed a hand on the mud-brick hut on either side of her head and stepped closer, his lips a mere breath from hers. He stared into her eyes, so full of defiance. Any other time, he would take up her challenge. It tested his control not to, but he was no more an untried, inexperienced wolf than the one he had encountered in the forest. She would not best him that easily.

“Do not test me, Rebekah.”

“Or what? You’ll throw me over your shoulder? Mm, that’d make a scene. Believe me, I won’t be quiet if you do. Not this time. I’ll scream this whole damn village down.”

The mutinous expression on her face told him she would, too. Merde.Could the woman not understand he was trying to help her?

He inhaled a calming breath. This close to her, his nostrils caught her scent above the stench of the tannery—an intoxicating mix of all that was Rebekah overlaid by his own scent from his surcoat. It lodged in his throat and stirred his darker half. His wolf prowled in his mind, urging him to… He shook his head, reining the beast in.

“I will do what needs must, whatever it takes, to get us from this village unseen.”

Her scent deepened, tinged with her irritation and a little unease, but she did not flinch, and her expression revealed none of her apprehension. The woman had the heart of a lion. No. A she-wolf. Yet her scent did not lie. She was all human.

He pulled away from her and took her arm. “Come. None of these villagers will help you. No more so than they did in the fields.”

But perhaps he knew someone who could. Gaharet may well have found a way to send Erin home, back to the future, as she had wanted. If she had survived the turning. At the very least, Gaharet would protect Rebekah, and if Erin had remained in this century, Rebekah might find comfort in her company. Another woman from her time. If he had to frighten her a little to get her to do what he wanted, to keep her safe, he was comfortable with that.

Ulrik rounded the corner of the tanner’s hut, Rebekah in tow, and came to an abrupt halt.

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