Page 53 of Wolf's Redemption

Erin jiggled her eyebrows up and down. “Oh yeah. I thought he was a ghost. Or a hallucination. Then I thought he was practicing pagan rituals. Of course,nowI know he’d been running through the forest in wolf form and had shifted back.” Erin slapped her hand on the table. “Enough about me. Where did you find the amulet? I found mine on a dig site at Langeais Keep.”

Bek rolled her lips together. “Um… I… A client left it behind at my work.” No need to tell Erin everything. The woman was legit an archeologist. University educated, and now a Lady. Classy. Everything Bek wasn’t, nor would she ever be. “One minute I was standing there translating the spell, then the next thing I’m in a dungeon with a man chained to the wall. Not naked.”

“Oh.” Erin poked out her bottom lip. “How disappointing for you. The not naked bit, I mean.”

“I could see enough to rev my motors, don’t you worry.”

Erin grinned. “They’re all pretty hot, aren’t they? I mean, Gaharet, Ulrik, Aimon… Look at them. It’s like a medieval Sexiest Man Alive spread.”

She got that right. Ulrik, well… Chris Hemsworth eat your heart out. Gaharet was a walking, talking tall, dark and handsome, and Aimon had the body of a warrior and the face of an angel. All he needed was a set of wings.

“Okay. You’re in Lothair’s creepy underground cell. Ulrik’s chained up. What happened next? How did you guys get out of there?” Erin straightened in her seat. “Wait a minute. Did Ulrik break the chains?”

“No. Um.” Were they bonding? Over shared experiences?

Erin’s eagerness shone bright and pure. All right. Bek might be a bit rusty at the whole making friends thing, but she could do this.

“I didn’t believe I’d fallen through time. He insisted I had. Our arguing attracted the attention of the guards.” Bek took in a breath and expelled it in a loud huff. “Yeah, that wasn’t so good. Ulrik ended up saving me from the guards. That’s how he got the key to his shackles.”

“Mm. Sounds like Ulrik. He saved Gaharet and me, too.”

“Yeah? Well, then he threw me over his shoulder, effectively kidnapping me. At one point, he tied me to a tree.” The surprise on Erin’s face was gratifying. Maybe the woman didn’t know Ulrik as well as she thought she did. “But hedidrescue me. That I’ll grant him, though it didn’t feel like it at the time.”

Erin’s eyes narrowed, then her face broke out into a beaming smile. “You really like him, don’t you?”

Bek rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. I’ve known him all of a week and a half.”

Erin smiled, but said nothing.

“And I’ve just found out he’s a werewolf. That werewolves exist.”

Did her protests sound forced? She avoided Erin’s gaze.

“You’re taking that rather well,” said Erin. “The whole werewolf thing. I needed proof. I thought Gaharet had lost his marbles.”

“It’s kind of weirding me out a little.” What about the last week or so hadn’t? She was in tenth-century France, for fuck’s sake. Bek took a long drink from her mug before setting it aside. She put her elbows on the table and leaned in. “You promised to fill me in.”

“That I did.”

Bek kept her expression neutral, sipping on her wine as she listened while Erin clued her in on all that had gone before. The count, Lothair, wanted Gaharet to turn chevaliers into werewolves to create a supernatural army. Yeah, turning humans into werewolves was a thing. Not one sanctioned everyday, or something Gaharet would do for the count.Not one mentioned in my shifter romance.

Apparently, this Lothair was a piece of work. Gaharet’s refusal to turn any of Lothair’s chevaliers had pissed off the count, so Gaharet and Erin had fled Langeais. Ulrik, the guy so determined to get into her knickers, was the only reason both Gaharet and Erin were still alive. He’d sacrificed his freedom, and potentially his life, to save them.

Erin ran her hand over her rib cage and her expression turned somber. “We owe him everything.”

Bek set down her mug and rubbed her face with her hands. Ulrik as a hero? The notion hit her libido like a punch of adrenaline, boosting it into overdrive. Heat burned in her chest, a shot of antifreeze to her determination to see him as nothing more than a night of hot, hot sex she could walk away from. It made her heart long for things it shouldn’t. Likemorethan sex. Could Erin be right?Didshe really like him?

We’re going home soon, remember?Although…

She dropped her hands and stared at Erin. Going home wasn’t the only option.

Bek took another sip of wine, forcefully tamping down on her thoughts of Ulrik. “Let me get this straight. Gaharet, Ulrik, Aimon and Kathryn are all werewolves.”

Erin leaned her elbow on the table, her chin on her hand and nodded. “Mm-hm. And me. And all Gaharet’s men.”

AllGaharet’s men? “How many of them are there?”Wait.Had Erin said—

“When I arrived here, there were only seven left.” Erin ticked them off on her fingers. “Gaharet, Ulrik, Aimon, who you’ve met. Twins Edmond and Aubert. Godfrey and, the oldest, Lance.”

---