Page 88 of Wolf's Redemption

He had to tell her the truth about his past. After all she had been through because of him, he owed it to her. But with what they had just shared, and Rebekah beginning to trust him, would the truth be the one thing sure to drive her away?

Chapter Forty

Ulrik walked her limp and sated body to the bed and laid her down. She sank into the downy softness of the mattress with a groan. A bed. Such a simple pleasure, but one she’d sorely missed. She stretched, a languid arching of her body, her gaze catching on the rounded globes of Ulrik’s firm naked ass as he strode to a table. Her own ass cheeks still tingled from the spanking he’d given her, and the thought of it brought a fresh flood of heat to her body.

He threw a glance over his shoulder at her, a wicked smirk teasing at the corner of his mouth. She sucked in her breath. Was that…a hint offang? Her pussy clamped down on a throbbing emptiness and another flush of heat washed over her. More dampness pooled between her thighs. God, if he made her any hotter, she’d spontaneously combust.

His nostrils flared and heat simmered in his eyes, but he turned away, tipping a jug of water into a bowl, and soaking a cloth. He returned to the bed, and with more care than she’d thought a big warrior capable of, he tenderly washed her from head to toe. Like she was something precious, someone special. A princess or a duchess. Someone other than the parolee barmaid from Deptford.

Bek looked away, a lump forming in her throat. Such gentleness, such devotion to her needs, had her choking back emotion. A girl could get used to this. She wanted to get used to this. Any appeal, slight as it was, to return to her less-than-perfect life in the twenty-first century, died at the thought ofliving it without this. Without Ulrik. If that meant she had to give up coffee, go without a bra and never get another tattoo…well… Bek could live with that.

The bed dipped as he lay beside her, curling on his side to face her, darker shades dancing in the depths of his eyes. Her nipples pebbled and her heart thudded in her chest. He brushed his hand across her cheek so tenderly her eyes burned with the sting of tears. Without breaking their connection, she captured his hand, brought it to her lips and kissed his palm.

He shifted uneasily and broke her stare, dropping his hand to caress her shoulder. “I need to explain why I reacted the way I did at the pond.”

His voice was raspier than normal and thick with emotion.

“Okay.” Nothing he said would change the way she felt about him. Lord knew she’d done some monumentally stupid things in her life. She’d paid a price for them, too, though not one as hefty as Ulrik.

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Comte Lothair had been in power for but a few years. We had yet to see the ruler he would become, the one we would all come to fear. I was young and”—he sucked on his bottom lip—“idealistic, and truth be told, a little arrogant.” A half-smile, half-grimace settled on his lips. “I was a score and two years old. Impetuous, hotheaded and I believed in my own importance a little too much than was good for me. My father was a viscount, and one day I would take up that mantle.”

He was silent for a moment, staring at his hand as his fingers stroked over her shoulder and down her arm.

“Lothair was waging a war against another count, fighting for territory. He needed funds to support his army.” His lips thinned and his brow creased into a frown. “He declared an increase in taxes. Not uncommon, but this was a substantial increase. My family could well afford the extra tax, but there were manywho could not. People who barely had enough food to feed their children. Winter was coming. Already, autumn had been harsh—raining for weeks on end, flooding the rivers and creeks. Livestock had drowned and crops had failed. Almost every day we were seeing more and more peasants at our gate begging for food.”

He flopped onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “These people, farmers, servants, some merchants, could ill afford this tax and they had neither the money nor the power to fight it.”

She rolled onto her side, facing him. This wasn’t what she’d been expecting, this tale of injustice. “But you did.”

He grimaced. “IthoughtI did. I believed my family’s wealth and power, our title, made me immune to any punishment.”

Bek reached for his hand, clasping it in hers.

His loaded sigh carried all his regret. “Other nobles, like Gaharet’s father and mine, tried to reason with Lothair to get him to reduce the size of the increase, but Lothair refused to be swayed. I believed we could do more. Weshoulddo more.”

His grip on her hand tightened.

“When the people revolted, I was amongst them, adding my voice to theirs. I thought it would help, and I thought…” He blinked his eyes shut and shook his head. “I do not know what I was thinking. A member of the noble class supporting the disenfranchised peasants…”

He opened his eyes, leveling a look at her so filled with pain it broke her heart. “Isorelyunderestimated the impact it would have.”

Yeah, Rebekah could imagine. It would have gone over about as well as Megxit had with royals. “What did Lothair do?”

Ulrik rested the back of his hand on his forehead. “Gaharet’s father got word that Lothair was sending the keep guard for me. So, my parents arranged for me to go to Bretaigne. There is a pack there, in Ludenwic. They thought if I were not here,Lothair’s wrath would cool and he would soon forget my role in the uprising.”

“But Lothair didn’t forget.” No, the man she’d met in that dungeon wasn’t the forgetting type. Especially not with a challenge like that to his authority. “He couldn’t get to you, so he took it out on your family.”

His bearded face crumpled. “My parents begged the pack to keep my family’s imprisonment a secret from me. They thought it best if I… If I did not know. They feared I would have returned.” His voice cracked. “I would have. I wouldneverhave left my parents, my sisters, to suffer the fate they did had I known.Never.”

He forced the words out through his clenched jaw, his grip crushing her hand. Bek kept silent, despite the pain in her fingers.

“Because I did not return, Lothair condemned them to death. I lost my whole family because of my ignorance, my hubris.”

Bek pulled her hand free and straddled Ulrik’s thighs, and he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close.

She leaned her forehead against his. “You would have come for them. Like you came for me. Iknowyou would have, and I’m sure they knew it, too. You are nothing,nothing,like the man who betrayed me. You stood up for those less fortunate than you and tried to right a wrong. It is not you who is to blame for your family’s deaths. That sin rests with Lothair.”

She took his face in her hands, her heart breaking for him. “You are a good man, Ulrik Voclain, and don’t youdarethink otherwise. Without you, I would never have survived in this world of yours.” She leaned down and pressed her lips to his.

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