Page 72 of Wolf's Redemption

He ran his hand through her hair before grasping her jaw and turning her head from left to right, his eyes narrowing at the blood on her ear. She searched his expression for a hint of compassion, regret, anything that might suggest her injury concerned him. Nothing. Not even a flicker.Soullessbastard.

Though her insides quivered, she raised her chin. A foolishly defiant act, perhaps, but she would not cower before him.

“Mon, mon, tu es courageuse.Ou stupide.”

Bek snarled. Had he called her stupid?

He smirked. “Fougueuse.”

When Ulrik spoke to her in French, even when he was angry with her, the words were like a caress across her skin, his accent sending shivers down her spine. Not so with the count. It made her skin crawl. “I don’t speak a lot of French.”

His eyebrows shot up. “From Bretaigne?”

Bretaigne? Britain? “So what if I am? Are you going to help me get back home?”

Was she stupid, as he’d suggested, poking the beast? Probably, but she’d never been good at playing the damsel in distress.

He chuckled, and genuine amusement shone in his eyes. “Non.” His eyes glittered with a shrewdness that had the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. “Butyouwill helpmeget back something I have lost.”

“Something you’ve lost? I don’t…”

How could she helphim? And get back what?

“Ulrik Voclain.”

Bek sucked in a breath.Of course.Like with the detectives assigned to her case, she was but a pawn for a much bigger prize. Though things were different this time around. She wouldn’t cover for Ulrik like she had for Spider, hoping he would come for her. Believing she’d get a warning, a slap on the wrist. Not this time. She had to be smart. The stakes were too high. Ulrik had proved he could take care of himself. He was a shifter. She, a mere human. One with few choices left available to her.

“How?”

“You are already playing your part. By being here.”

She forced out a laugh, a little high-pitched. If she couldn’t convince the count Ulrik wasn’t coming, she would die in this cell.

“He’ll not come for me, but… Perhaps I could lead you to him.”

She’d no more be able to find Ulrik again, especially if he did not want to be found, than she could will herself back to the twenty-first century.

His smile chilled her more than the damp stone at her back. “Oh, he will come for you. Of that I have no doubt.”

She huffed out a breath. “I wish. But you’re wrong. He won’t. We parted on…unfriendly terms. I said some things…” Shelooked away. “He stormed off and left me. That’s how your men found me.”

The count shrugged, and the embroidered dragon rippled across his shoulder as though taking flight. “Do you know what he is? What he can turn into?”

She nodded, still not meeting his eyes. “Yeah.”

Keeping Ulrik’s secret wouldn’t help her now.

He stepped closer. “Do you know what their weaknesses are?”

Bek pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, the unfamiliar absence of her tongue ring swamping her with memories. Her face flushed and her body heated. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Yeah. Silver and wolfsbane.”

“And their women.”

What?Her head snapped up. The count’s mocking smile taunted her.

“Yes. Their women.” His lip curled. “For all their strengths, their savagery and their cunning, all it takes to bring one of them to heel is to threaten their women. Gaharet risked my displeasure by taking Erin as his betrothed. Aimon was willing to defy me for Kathryn. Oh, Ulrikwillcome for you. Of that I am certain.”

With a final sardonic twist of his lips, he left her, taking the limited light of the candle with him. Bek slid down the wall to the floor, the clang of the grate as it slammed shut above echoing in the darkened room. She hugged her arms about her and closed her eyes. There was only one problem with the count’s theory. As much as she wanted to be, she was not, and probably never would be, Ulrik’s woman.

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