Page 26 of Wolf's Redemption

Whatever darkness had risen in him had vanished as quickly as it had surfaced. The dampness in her knickers remained.

Damn it. Why couldn’t the one man who wanted to help her be kind, sweet, and bland? She’d have friend-zoned him in a heartbeat. This guy, with his sword, his warrior’s body and the threat of danger he wore like a comfortable, familiar coat, pushed all her buttons. She was all but panting for him like a bitch in heat.

Ugh. Get yourself together, Bek.

“A family crest, huh?” Nothing special. Something chosen by his family many years ago, perhaps centuries ago. “Passed down through the generations?”

He handed her a pair of boots, his long fingers curled around them sparking the memory of him in the pond, his hand wrapped around his girth as he’d stroked himself. Her cheeks heated, and she snatched the boots and slumped onto the bench seat.

“Usually.”

She pulled on the fur-lined boots and laced them up. “Usually?”

“My family’s crest was a rook. When they…” The corner of his mouth dipped and a look of intense sorrow, and something else gone too fast for her to identify, flashed in his eyes. “It no longer seemed adequate. The phoenix is more fitting for my circumstances now, more so than the rook.”

She’dchosen the phoenix tattoo on her back because of what it represented. Her rising from the ashes of her mistakes and the mess she’d made of her life. Had he done the same?

His expression turned hard. “Enough talk. We have lingered too long.”

He picked up the sack, adding what looked like a loaf of thick bread and a coil of rough-looking rope. He snatched a wineskin off a hook by the door and slung it over his shoulder.

Bek moved toward the basket of vegetables by the table. “Should I grab some more food?”

“No. These peasants have little enough to eat. I will not take more than is necessary. I can hunt for us once we’re in the forest.” He moved to the window. “Those coins you picked up at the keep… Leave them on the table.”

Bek pulled the coins out of her jeans pocket. “Shouldn’t we hang on to them in case we need them?”

His eyes narrowed. “You would take food, wine and clothing and not pay for them?”

Bek flushed. “When you put it that way…”

She dropped the coins on the table. An outlaw with a conscience. Wasn’t he a regular Robin Hood?

Satisfied, he peered out of the window before climbing through. Bek followed, his hands firm on her waist not helping her libido any.

As they slipped away from the village, she studied the big knight. Sword strapped to his waist, his hair and beard wild and untrimmed, he moved with a fluid grace uncommon for a man of his size. Right out of the history books, he was as foreign to her as they came. Yet, after what he’d revealed about himself, she wondered if they weren’t so different after all.

Chapter Twelve

Lance poured wine into two goblets, handed one to Godfrey, then settled back in his chair. Rarely did any of the pack visit him at his keep, and it should have delighted him. He had worked hard to gain his fortune and took pride in how far he had come from his humble beginnings. In the embroidered hangings adorning the walls, the ornate pewter goblets filled with expensive wine and the large table that rivaled the one in the d’Louncrais Keep. All the luxuries he had yearned for as a youth. Not today. Circumstances being what they were, he had little time for reveling in the comforts of his keep.

He raised the goblet to his lips and took a sip, studying the man across the table. When the pack had last met, Godfrey had behaved oddly—unusually argumentative and aggressive for the quietly spoken scholar. He had gone so far as to challenge Aimon for the newly discovered she-wolf, Kathryn Beauchene. Kathryn had chosen Aimon, as Lance had suspected she would the moment she had entered the clearing. No one could dispute a she-wolf’s right to choose. Not Aimon, not Godfrey, not he. Pack law was inviolate. As the oldest wolf, and once Gaharet’s closest counselor, it was up to him to ensure they all obeyed pack law in the alpha’s absence.

“You had something you wished to speak to me about?” asked Godfrey. “Something you could not discuss in front of the others?”

There was an unfamiliar wariness about Godfrey. Because of the news about a traitor amongst them? Or something else?

Lance put aside his goblet and leaned his elbows on the table. “I have known you for a long time, Godfrey. Since we were children. Is there something bothering you? I have never seen you as agitated as you were the last time we met.”

Godfrey’s eyes narrowed. “We have lost our alpha, Ulrik is in Lothair’s clutches and our pack is bordering on extinction. Does that notbotheryou?”

A non-answer. It reeked of things not said, though Lance scented nothing but truth in it. “Are you angry Kathryn chose Aimon?”

Godfrey took a sip from his goblet before carefully setting it down. “You are concerned I would disregard pack law.”

“Should I be?”

Godfrey cocked an eyebrow. “I am not the only one who petitioned Lothair for Kathryn’s hand in marriage, and by extension the d’Louncrais estate. Perhaps I should ask you the same question.”

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