Page 27 of A Wolf's Treasure
He frowned. “So, ye came here tae risk yer life again?”
The bartender set her drink and his beer on the counter. Ryanne picked it up and took a sip. “I came here to find a wolf,” she told him honestly.
And it suddenly struck her that she’d found who it was she was looking for.
Chapter 9
Duncan searched her wee face, as he had the feeling she wasn’t taking this as seriously as she should be, and found her brown eyes dancing with humor. Or was it something else?
Och, it didn’t matter. Did the lass not realize the danger she was in?
“Ye should no’ have come,” he told her again. “They could come back here searching for ye.”
She arched one brow. “So, I should leave?”
“Och, no,” he said in a rush. Snapping his jaws shut, he tried his best to recover. “Yer here now. Ye may as well stay for a bit.”
“So glad I have your approval,” she told him.
He glanced at her to see if she was teasing again. She was not. Why the fook couldn’t he say anything right around her? He spoke with females on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, they’d always given him the impression of being rather fond of conversing with him. He could even make them giggle, which he rather liked the sound of, and it sure didn’t hurt anything to make a female feel good about herself. The world would go to shit without them. Every decent male knew and accepted that fact.
Duncan glanced around them, checking that none of Thomas’s wolves had snuck in when he wasn’t looking. He didn’t trust himself to catch them by scent or instinct alone, not when he was so flustered by the creature perched on the stool in front of him. Not because she bedazzled him, although every word he’d told her earlier was true. But because he needed answers. And it was hard to concentrate on getting those answers when she was tripping him up every time he tried by looking at him with those bonnie eyes and smiling at him with those bonnie lips.
Not to mention how her sweet primrose scent filled his nose until all he could think about was having that smell all over him.
And because he needed to tell her that he had utterly failed at keeping her secret. That although he’d had every intention to, he’d had no choice in the matter. Och, he was not looking forward to that. No’ at all. Ryanne had trusted him to keep her secret. And he’d broken that trust before twenty-four hours had gone by. What kind of a friend—what kind of a male—did that make him?
“So.” She set her half-empty glass down on the bar. “How many people exactly did you tell? About my being here?” she clarified.
His eyes widened. “Wha’ makes ye think I told anyone?”
“You’re staring at me with such a guilty look on your face, I assume you either told someone or you just accidentally ran over my cat. And as far as I know, I don’t have a cat. And if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be letting it run around loose where it could get run over.”
Duncan released a long breath and hung his head in shame. “I dinna mean tae do it. I swear tae ye, I didn’t. It was torn from me against my will.” He sighed, rubbing at a worn spot on the bar with his fingertips as he tried to think of how to explain it to her. “Ye have tae ken how it is with wolves. Within the pack, I mean.” He gave her an imploring look and pressed on. “I’m no’ th’ alpha. and I did no’ have a choice.”
“You’re dominant enough to be an alpha,” she commented offhandedly.
Pride filled his chest and pushed his shoulders back. “Aye. I am.” Then he shook his head. “But tha’s no’ th’ point. I’m no’ th’ alpha, Cedric is. And when he wants tae ken something, there’s no hiding it from him.”
“And that’s how you found out I’m the prince’s daughter,” she said.
“Aye.” Sort of.
“But how does your alpha—Cedric, is it?—know who I am?”
She watched him carefully for his answer, and Duncan got the impression he’d better tread with the utmost caution if he wanted any chance at all of regaining her trust. And it was important for him to do so, though he wasn’t quite sure of the why of it. He just knew it was.
“I did no’ mention yer name to Cedric. I swear it tae ye. I never said it aloud.”
“Then how did he hear it?”
“Someone else was there, and he…” What? Guessed? Read his mind? “He knew,” he finished lamely. “He just knew. Because ye were in my head.”
Instead of the angry sparks he’d expected, her eyes softened, turning from icy tundra to the color of warm autumn.
It made him nervous. And suspicious. “Wha’?” he asked. Smooth. Very smooth. At least he hadn’t stuttered.
“So, you were thinking of me.”
