It was for naught if he could not rescue the girl.
His father should never have made such a bargain. Living beside the humans, bringing them into their very pack through pointless political maneuvering. When the humans were gone, the wolves would remain.
Now, though, he had to keep at least this human alive, and out of reach of the slavering pups who sought to tear the meat from her bones. In the murky water, he caught a flash of scarlet. The color of her dress stood out vividly, and he stretched a hand toward it, swiping through the water and missing, grabbing for it again, and his fingers fell on her. A handful of skirt was all he needed, and he pulled her to him, forcing her above water before surfacing, himself.
The first sound he heard was her grateful, gasping breath. The tight fist of dread in him eased, but only slightly. As long as she lived, he still had a chance to fail.
Half-swimming, half-walking against the current, he guided her to a bank and boosted her up. She fell back on the dead leaves, gasping, her kirtle plastered to her body. She’d lost her cape and shoes; her toes already carried an icy blue pallor. There would be time to worry about warming her after they had put more distance between them and his father’s mercenaries. Without wasting a moment, he joined her on the bank and scooped her up once more, casting about for a sign, a direction that would be safe. Not back the way they had come, though Margaret had already vanished from the cliffs. It would make sense for them to cross the river and put distance between themselves and the rest of the party. When Jeoffrey awoke, his anger would only be assuaged by blood, and Raf was not keen to supply it.
No, they would follow the river until the cliffs ended, then find the road again and cross it. Then, northwest until they reached Blackens Gate and the protection of his father. Lord Canis, black-hearted bastard though he was, would not allow such a slight against his favorite son.
“Please, we must stop,” Aurelia begged, her blue fingers digging into his sodden clothing. “I can’t go on.”
“I’ve got you,” he reassured her, though he wasn’t certain how long he could continue, either. The stump of his leg ached and he gritted his teeth with every jarring step.
Aurelia sobbed against his neck, her breath warm puffs against his frozen skin. He concentrated on that, letting her tears set his pace as he struggled with her down the difficult, sloping banks. For hours, he carried her that way, until her breath was no longer warm and she lay limp, shivering so violently his weary arms could no longer hold her. It was twilight, and he could go no farther.
He set her down on the mossy bank, as gently as he could with the last strength that remained in his quivering muscles. She swayed on her feet and fell.
“Won’t they find us here?” she cried pitiably.
He looked up at the cliff, almost certain he would see wolves prowling there. It was only his fear. He’d lived with those wolves long enough to know that they were lazy and greedy, no matter how determined their vengeance, and they would underestimate his speed. They would waste their time at the site where they’d fallen into the river, until darkness turned them away. “Not tonight. They did not find us quickly or easily at the start, so they will have traveled back to your father, to see if they can wring more gold or men out of him. We must still move cautiously, as they can cover ground faster than your father’s guard on horseback.”
He limped to a broken log beside the cliff face and fell upon it heavily, grateful that it had not rotted through. With as much delicacy as he could manage, he said, “Take your clothes off.”
From her expression, it was clear she would have blanched, if she had not already been devoid of color from the cold. Her wide eyes opened wider, and she took a step back, then another.
“To dry them,” he explained. “Keep your chemise, and you may use my cloak.”
“It’s wet, as well,” she pointed out suspiciously, but her hands fell to the ties of her sleeves.
Gritting his teeth against the pain of his stump, he pushed himself up and went to her, taking her slender wrist into his hands. His fingers were not too numb to help her, and he unlaced one sleeve, then the other, trying with great difficulty to ignore the way her breath caught, and the fact that he was undressing his brother’s betrothed. She let him assist her without complaint, and when both sleeves were finished, she lifted her sodden hair and turned, presenting her back to him. He fought an internal battle with himself with every pull of the ribbons, as more of her pale back and chemise, sheer from the water, was revealed. It was not, he reminded himself, that he desired her. He simply had not had the company of a woman for so long, he could not separate the image of all that flesh, the very act of undressing her, from his body’s demands. By the time he finished and she peeled the damp kirtle and sleeves from her shoulders, his own hands trembled nearly as much as hers had. He pulled off his cloak and settled it over her back, then put as much distance between them as he could bear.
Dropping onto the fallen log once more, he tugged off his boot, already stiffening as it dried. He stifled a curse. Would both legs have to ache tomorrow? It seemed so unfair when he had only one.
Keenly aware of how her gaze avoided him, he pulled off his doublet and tunic and laid them aside. It was a struggle to remove his hose without removing his braies, but he did so for the sake of the maiden’s modesty. He reached beneath the fabric to unfasten the straps holding his false leg in place and grimaced as he pulled the godforsaken thing off, both in relief and in pain. Water had seeped in between the stump and the padded leather cradle that fit to it, and the damp, irritated skin had been chafed raw and bleeding by the wool bandage he wore. How he would manage the rest of the journey in such a condition, through the rough forest, he could not fathom.
“Does it hurt terribly?”
He pulled the leg of his braies closed over the stump. He hated being seen this way, as one of the wretched, to be pitied by those who were still whole. “We’ll be safe here, until morning. But I wouldn’t light a fire.”
“How will we dry our clothes?” she asked, rising to approach him.
His throat tightened as he watched her, the shape of her lithe body clearly visible in outline against the chemise that glowed spectral white in the eerie twilight. It would be nothing to take her into his arms and kiss her, to drive the resistance from her with a hand beneath that muslin, cupping her round breast. She stooped to pick up his discarded clothing and spread it out over the log, her eyes cast up at the sky in uncertainty.
“It feels like rain,” she noted.
He slid to the ground, stretching his sore legs out before him on the cold ground. “If we light a fire, we will be easily found, not just by my father’s men, but yours, as well.”
She hesitated in disbelief. “My father’s men would not harm us.”
“They might not,” he agreed. “But what has Clement told your father? Jeoffrey? Margaret? They won’t tell the truth of it. They’ll say you ran away, or I stole you. The consequences would not be favorable to me. I would swing before my father had time to send anyone to plead on my behalf. And something tells me that a man who would give his daughter to wolves would not be sympathetic if he thought his daughter had ruined a pleasant agreement with a powerful ally.”
Aurelia’s lip quivered, either with cold or realization. To her credit, she calmed herself in moments. “What shall we do, then?”
He considered a moment. “Follow the river for another day, travel to the nearest village, and confuse them by leaving false tracks at the crossroad.”
Her mouth set in a grim line. “And then where?”
“To Blackens Gate, where I hope we will arrive before lies can reach my father there.” It was not a good position to be in, if the pack believed you were challenging a dominant member’s right to property.
She sat in silence for a moment, staring toward the river as though she could command it to flow backward, take them back to the moment he’d run with her. “Why are you doing this?”
“Becaus
e you belong to my brother. They had no claim on you.”
The soft sigh of a humorless laugh escaped her. “You could have let him do as he wished. It would be no different than when your brother weds me.”
As much as Raf wished that could be untrue, he would not lie to her. As the highest ranking heir in the pack, Roderick did not care if the women he bedded were willing or not. They submitted, because that was their place. To incur Roderick’s anger was to lose one’s place in the pack. He hoped Aurelia would learn that lesson quickly. Already, the castle roiled with hate-filled words about Roderick’s human bride. Given rein, those words would become savage action, as she’d already seen today.
“You don’t have to think of that now,” he said finally.
She nodded and lay down, pillowing her head on her arms. Only her hands and a sliver of her forehead showed above the dark fur of the cape.
While she slept, he sat, his back to the log, his aching legs stretched out before him, and thought. In his mind, he ran over and over the ways his plan could fail, the ways he could be torn to shreds by the pursuing wolves, the way Aurelia could die. If he hadn’t already been marked as a failure among the pack, he would fear losing his brother’s bride. There was no doubt that she would be better off dead than living amongst wolves as a human.
He studied her, lying in a pitiable heap. Her silver-blonde hair fanned over the dark fur of the cape, she looked like some lost child in a tale wolves told their children about the woods, and how easily humans fall to them. She embodied everything his kind found repulsive; weakness, frailty, vulnerability. By all rights, he would have hated her just a few years ago. Now, on the other side of the pack’s esteem, he pitied her. The wolves of Blackens Gate would tear her apart.
If she slept, she did not sleep well. Her shoulders shook with either sobs or shivers, and every now and again she tossed restlessly beneath the cloak.
“My lady,” he tried, and she did not respond, so after a moment he barked sharply, “Aurelia.”
She startled awake, fumbling with the cloak as though it were a living beast that covered her.
“I didn’t meant to frighten you,” he apologized quickly. “You looked cold. I thought perhaps you would like to come over here and lie.”
“Beside you?” she asked, in a voice full of suspicion. As he would have had, he supposed, were he a maiden alone in the woods with a man, especially a man who kept company with people like Sir Jeoffrey.
“I give you my word, I will not harm you.”
She climbed to her feet awkwardly, and came to stand beside him. After a moment, she knelt clumsily and laid with her head beside his thigh, facing the fallen tree. She pulled the cloak over her shoulders, and when he reached to help her, she startled. He did not try to help her again.
Night fell in the forest, and he struggled to keep awake. It did not rain, and no animals dared venture close to them. The wolves, the real wolves, would not be hungry now, with game still ample. It would be safe to sleep if he wished to, but he feared what might happen if they were set upon in the night.
So he waited, fighting slumber for as long as he could.
Chapter Three
Screams woke her.
By the time she fought her way free from sleep, the screams had stopped and Raf sat beside her, wiping a palm across his perspiring brow.
The man who had jumped from a cliff with her, rescued her from drowning, the man who’d risked his life to protect her from his own men now trembled, raking damp hair back from his face. His chest heaved and he made a ragged noise. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Forgive me, my lady. I did not mean to wake you.”
She considered before answering him. In her experience, watching mother and father, she knew that not all men appreciated the thoughts of women, especially when they were upset or embarrassed. To let the moment pass without comment seemed too callous, so she took a deep breath and asked, “Are you well?”
He lifted his head and gave her a weak smile, but a muscle jumped in the hard line of his jaw. No, he was not well, but he would not admit it, that much was plain in the pain on his face. “Some nights I have dreams…about when they took my leg.”
A chill climbed her spine, slowly. Aurelia had seen men with amputations before. Fingers made of silver, whole hands fashioned like armor to disguise the wearer’s malady. She had never let herself think of how they had gotten that way.
Though she wanted to ask him how it had happened, she knew it was not the time. Men had their pride, and she’d already seen him vulnerable. She said nothing more, but rolled to her feet, leaving him his cloak as she went to inspect the clothes she’d laid out the night before. They were dry, cold but dry. Shaking the dirt from her hose, she lifted one foot against the log and slid the light fabric over her toes, smoothing it up to her knee, rolling and folding the tops to keep them up. The thick wool wraps her nurse had made her wear to keep warm were ruined, turned to felt from her unintended swim and far too small now. She tossed them aside and switched feet, and for just a moment, from the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Raf looking as she pulled her torn stocking over her calf.
It would have been a shocking thing, she considered, if she had not survived death because of him. If it pleased him to look, it pleased her to let him. Still, her face flushed as she dropped her chemise and reached for her kirtle. When she looked up, his attention was on his iron leg. She glanced away. Such an action was far more intimate than merely pulling on stockings.
She put on the kirtle, tutting at the tear in the skirt. She supposed it could be repaired easily enough, but she would come to her new husband in torn garments.
“Do you need help?” Raf asked, and she turned to see that he stood, still clad only in his braies. She turned back quickly, and forgot to answer him until he asked, “With your laces. Would you like me to help you?”
“Oh. Yes, please.” Aurelia held her breath as he approached her, his every step sending a dart of anticipation into her stomach. “Can you tell me about your brother, my husband?”
The moment the words had left her mouth, Aurelia wondered at why she had said them. It was not Raf’s duty to set her mind at ease, and now she sounded like a silly girl who had no inkling of the danger she was in, only dreams of a future she thought far more romantic than it would be.
It took a moment for Raf to answer, and Aurelia closed her eyes as shame flared in her cheeks. But when he spoke, he did not chastise her for her foolishly misplaced anxieties. “He is handsome, if the women of the castle are to be believed. He won a tournament in London two years ago, and was quite celebrated during his time there. He and the King are good friends. If you are not with child next summer, I expect you will accompany him to court.”
The mention of court set a spark of excitement inside her. Since hearing her uncle’s tales of London, she’d wanted nothing more than to see the finery of King Edward’s castle and the pageantry and ritual of the court. The city sounded so different from life in the north. If she had to endure marriage to a pig, she would have, just to see London.
His answer did not satisfy a darker, more desperate curiosity, one that she dare not voice lest Raf deem her sentimental and mock her, or worse, tell her husband that she was. Her father had warned her that the wolf-men did not tolerate high emotions, and that she should always keep herself reined tightly. In light of that warning, her behavior of the day previous embarrassed her.
“He is not an easy man to live with. He has a terrible temper. It would be wise for you to step very carefully about him.”
She turned, shaken to the core by Raf’s words, and the way they’d tumbled so easily from his lips, as though she’d spoken her greatest fear aloud. He looked at her helplessly, then reached down and took her hand in his. Her breath shuddered in her lungs as he raised her hand in both of his and, with gentle slowness, turned her palm upward.
To tie the laces of her sleeve.
She laughed. She could not help herself. Every facet of t
he situation seemed sublimely ridiculous, and she could not contain her dismay, or her defeated acceptance of it.
The corner of Raf’s mouth lifted in a smile, one that he suppressed into a dignified grimace of contemplation at the ribbons in his hands. “Something amuses you?”
“No.” She pressed the fingers of her free hand to her lips to try and still her laugher. “Sir Raf, you would make a fine lady’s maid.”
There was no humor in his face now. He finished gruffly with her sleeve, then took her other arm and laced it quickly, dropping her hand and stalking away.
Of course, he would be offended at such a joke. A whole man would not wish to be chided in such a way, and for Raf it must be far worse. Tears of anger sprang to her eyes, anger at herself, for being so careless. If only she would stop to consider her words before she spoke them, as mother always reminded her.
Aurelia saw no other way to atone for her misstep. She hurried to his side and dropped to her knees, head bowed in contrition. “Forgive me. I meant no offense, but I see now how hurtful my words were.”
She did not look up, but she saw from his boot that he turned. In a gruff voice, he said, “Get up.”
She shook her head. “Not until you forgive me. I have been thoughtless and rude, and you have shown me nothing but kindness. I beg of you—”
“Don’t beg, just stand up.” He made an exasperated noise that sounded suspiciously like restrained laughter.
Now, she felt more the fool. She stood, but could not bring herself to look him in the face.
“They’re going to eat you alive, you know?” he continued. Fabric muffled his words. “You cannot go before my father, or your husband, and beg forgiveness.”
With his doublet and tunic on, he looked more the cripple than he had when he’d been without them. Perhaps it was the finery, making a mock of his crude false leg, showing clear as water how unlikely it was for such a man to survive in the wilderness.
Brlde of the Wolf Page 2
