Page 50 of Wolf's Redemption

The enormity of Gaharet’s words sunk in. Kathryn had to have only been a child, and to kill Gaharet’s mother… Which one of them would have done something so monstrous?

“And this…” Gaharet’s lips curled in a snarl. “Thistraitorkilled my father, too.”

Ulrik’s eyes widened. Gaharet’s fatherandhis mother? It made whathehad done pale in comparison.

“Are you certain?”

The tightness around Gaharet’s eyes, the thin line of his lips…How did I forget I was not the only one grieving?Gaharet had lost his family, too, and he, too consumed by his own grief and his thirst for vengeance, had failed to notice his friend’s pain.

Gaharet nodded. “I found my father’s journal. The way my mother died had never sat right with my father. I thought him lost in his grief, but…”

“His journal says otherwise?”

“It does. I can only surmise that he came too close to uncovering the truth, and that cost him his life. In the journal, he mentions confiding his suspicions to D’Artagnon.”

“And now they are both dead.” Ulrik’s mind raced. Or were they? “But we never found D’Artagnon.”

“No, we did not.” Gaharet fixed him with an intense stare. “Do you have reason to believe D’Artagnon survived?”

Ulrik took a seat on the log, tugging at his bottom lip. That wolf in the forest near the Vautour estate… Could it be? Ulrik did not want to give Gaharet false hope. He could not be certain the wolf he had scented was Gaharet’s brother, but the familiarity of the scent nagged at him. He had been many years in Bretaigne, and D’Artagnon was barely a man when he had left, but the scent had not belonged to any of the remaining wolves. Nor did it belong to any of Victor’s pack from Bretaigne. A wolf fromthe pack in Rus, a rogue maybe, could have ventured this far, but there had been no contact with them for centuries. He had known this wolf’s scent from somewhere.

“It may be nothing, but I caught a scent of a wolf near Lance’s estate. I could not place it, though it was familiar. I have crossed paths with this wolf before. Could it have been D’Artagnon?”

Ulrik waited for Gaharet to ridicule his suggestion, but the dismissal never came.

Gaharet cast his gaze out into the forest as though searching for answers, or a glimpse of his long-lost brother. “I thought I caught his scent outside the walls of my keep less than a sennight ago. I believed it naught more than a memory.”

“Perhaps not so much a memory at all.” If D’Artagnon were alive… “If he came to your keep, why did he not reveal himself to you?”

“There was a gathering of the pack that night, not far from the keep. Perhaps he is after the one who tried to kill him. The one who killed our parents. There is an advantage in him being dead.” Gaharet tugged at his beard. “You say he was near the Vautour estate? Could he be tracking Lance?”

“Or Godfrey. I saw him riding through the village on his way to the Vautour Keep.”

“Godfrey and Lance. It keeps coming back to those two. Kathryn’s memory of her attack rules out the twins. Too big, and Kathryn remembers a jewel on the pommel of the attacker’s sword. Aubert and Edmond’s swords are unadorned. As are yours and Aimon’s. The timing rules out both you and Aimon as well. Aimon was not yet one of us when my mother died. You were in Bretaigne.”

Ulrik huffed. “That is a relief.”

Gaharet sat beside him. “I have not believed it could be you since that night in the clearing. I am sorry, Ulrik, that you suffered. Without your sacrifice, I would not have my freedom,perhaps my life. Nor would I have Erin.” The horror at the thought of losing his mate shimmered in the depths of his eyes. “I cannot think of a worse fate than to lose her. I owe you everything. We both do. We are forever in your debt.”

Tightness banded about Ulrik’s chest. To be accepted, to be truly part of the pack once more and not viewed with distrust, with disgust, or as though he were a troublesome nick in a favorite blade to be honed out, was something he had longed for, but had never thought possible.

“It was nothing more than I owed you. For what I did.” Ulrik reached beneath his tunic and drew out the binding amulet. He fingered the blood-red stone in its center. “I never wanted to be alpha. Not really. All I wanted was for Lothair to pay for what he had done and to avenge my family.”

“I know.”

Understanding glimmered in Gaharet’s eyes. Had it always been there? Had he been so lost in his grief and anger he had not seen it?

“I am sorry, Gaharet. I was not thinking clearly.”

“You were grieving, Ulrik. You had lost your entire family.”

Guilt twinged in his chest. “So were you, and I gave it not a thought, too caught up in what was happening to me. What was happening because of me.” He sighed and hung his head. “If not for my own stupidity, my arrogance…”

Gaharet hummed his agreement. “You always were impulsive and quick to temper.”

Ulrik barked out a bitter laugh. He could not refute that. All his decisions, all his mistakes, had sprung from it.

He slipped the amulet over his head and held it out to Gaharet. “This belongs to you. You could have killed me that day. It was what I deserved for challenging you. But you did not. You make a far wiser alpha than I ever would have.”

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