Lord of the Wolves

by S. K. McClafferty

  “Kathryn... oh, Kathryn, the wolves....”

  Sauvage tried his best to soothe her, pressing the cool rag to her hot skin, he leaned close and whispered. “Hush, my love. The wolves will not harm you. There is no need to be afraid. I am here with you now. Rest and get well.”

  “No,” she said with a terrible shudder. “I must help—Kathryn. Coward—always a coward—I must try to be—brave.”

  “You are not a coward,” he said softly, fervently, hoping that on some deep level she would hear and understand his words. “You are the bravest woman I have ever known. You saved my life, and now you must gather your strength and come back to me.”

  “Cold,” she said. “So cold.”

  All of the furs at his disposal were piled onto her, and still she shivered. Finally, in desperation, he lifted the furs and, naked, climbed in beside her, gathering her against him, lending her his warmth, the only thing besides his heart he had to give.

  The forest through which Sarah wandered was treacherous, filled with pitfalls and spongy morass... if she strayed from the path she would lose her way, be swallowed up by the dark tangle of swamp. A cold and unreasoning panic crept along her veins. She was lost... doomed to wander forever in the malevolent wood.

  She was about to succumb to despair when she saw him, the shadowy figure of a man moving through the mist just a few yards ahead. Her heart in her throat, she called out to him, but he only turned and, with a wave of his hand, bade her to follow, not pausing until they came to a cabin deep in a sheltered wood. All of her worries, her panic, her deep despair dissolved in that moment. At last she found a place where she could lay aside her fears and rest. Pausing at the door, she turned back to thank her guide, and found that he had vanished. She searched the trees, but saw only the shadowy form of a great wolf moving slowly off into the mist. At the crest of a hill, the huge animal paused to look back, and Sarah saw that although its coat was milky white, its eyes were a fathomless black, their expression all-knowing, just as her rescuer’s had been.

  “Please... come back! Do not leave me.”

  Sauvage mopped her brow, then took up the noggin again, forcing tepid willow-bark tea through her lips. “Sarah, my love, you are not alone. I am here. Drink for me.”

  She swallowed, obedient as always, then weakly pushed the vessel away, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “No more. ‘Tis rank.”

  Cradling her head in one big hand, he pressed the liquid upon her with the other. “It’s medicine,” he countered in a voice that brooked no refusals, “and you must take it all. Now, drink it down. Unpleasant things are best done without delay.”

  “Unpleasant, yes. Thankful—Timothy’s male urges are infrequent. Such a peculiar business.”

  Sauvage smiled. “Drink.”

  She gulped the bitter dregs, gagging and grimacing, then, before he had even set the noggin aside, she sank once more into her restless dreams.

  Sauvage took up the cool wet rag again in a futile attempt to give her ease, but nothing seemed to help. She tossed upon the bed of furs, her flesh aflame, her body wracked with chills. And all the while he tore himself to shreds inside.

  He should have spared her this, somehow; taken her fears of the Indian bridge more to heart. Instead, he had allowed concern for the state of their supplies to take precedence over her safety, he had issued orders and expected her to follow. He had failed her, and look at what his arrogance had wrought.

  He sighed wearily, glancing at the crack beneath the door. No light shone there, and he wondered wearily if this would be the day that the sun chose not to rise? Sarah was his sun, and without her gentle light, his world would be cold and bleak.

  He felt the ache begin in his chest, and pushed the thought away. He mopped her brow, bathed her naked form, and worried. How small, how vulnerable she looked in the bed! Thinner than before, surely! Mon dieu, was she wasting away?

  He groaned and dropped the rag into the basin, clutching her small hand in both of his. “Sarah, please,” he whispered miserably. “You must stay with me. Please, do not leave.”

  Such black despair. His chest was leaden with it. So hard to breathe. He had not known such agony since returning home to find his cabin in ashes, his wife and child lying in a pool of blood. He bowed his head and closed his eyes against the sting of tears, still clutching Sarah’s hand tightly to his breast.

  He’d thought that his heart had died upon that day, but he’d been wrong. It had only been lying dormant, waiting for someone or something to rouse it from its apathy—and someone had. A young English widow, soft spoken and pretty, in a subtle, unassuming kind of way.

  His Sarah.

  She’d come into his life and cast her gentle, wondrous light upon a heart which had been dark and filled with hatred, forcing him to care again—and now it seemed he would lose her, too.

  The pain that thought aroused was terrible, an agony so great that it could not be contained. It came welling up, and Sauvage was powerless to squash it. It streamed down his face in a scalding torrent, wetting the hand that he held, the furs on which Sarah lay. All of the pent-up pain and grief, the tears he had been unable to shed for Caroline, now flowed unchecked.

  He was not sure how long he sat on the floor beside her bedside, wracked by the spasms of uncontrollable grief—nor did he know when she had awakened, or just how he found his way into her arms. He only knew that the gentle light which he so loved, and which he’d feared would be snuffed out forever, was glowing soft and strong. Sighing deeply, she stroked his hair. “Kingston, you are much aggrieved. What is it? What is wrong?”

  He raised his head and lay his hand against her brow, her cheek. The blistering heat was gone. The fever, finally broken. “Nothing,” he said softly. “Nothing is wrong now. How do you feel?”

  “Tired.” She smiled a little as her glance slid around the room, touching the mantel, the rough wooden table and stools, the furs on which she lay. “Where is this place?”

  “You do not remember the storm?”

  Sarah shook her head, wincing at the sudden stab of pain the movement brought. “I remember the wolves, and the forest—so dark and threatening—or was it just my imagining?” She chuckled weakly, uneasily. “For the life of me, I cannot tell.”

  Kingston smoothed the hair back from her brow. Sarah reveled in his touch. “It was no dream,” he assured her. “There was a violent storm, and we were caught in its midst.”

  His words struck a chord in Sarah’s memory, and the images came flooding back. Torrential rain, water, swirling and brown, rising toward a log on which she stood frozen. She closed her eyes, battling down the images. “The Indian bridge,” she murmured. “The tree was falling, and I feared you would be killed.”

  “You saved my life, and in the process, nearly lost your own. Why, Sarah? Why would you do such a dangerous thing?”

  Sarah touched his dampened cheek with tender fingers. “Because I could not bear the thought of a world without you in it.”

  “But you have so much to live for, and I have so little.”

  Sarah’s fingers slid under his chin, forcing his burning gaze up to meet her own. “You could not be more wrong. You have a very great deal of good in your life. You just have not realized it yet.”

  “There is but one good thing in my life, and it is fleeting. When we reach the Shining city and you are united with your betrothed, the flame that has burned so briefly in my dark world will cease to be. It is the loss of that flame—that beautiful light—which I grieve.”

  “God is the truth and the light, not me,” Sarah insisted, but he only shook his dark head stubbornly.

  “You are my sun, my moon,” he said. “My only light.”

  “You must not say such things,” Sarah whispered. “We must seek to be strong, and ask God for guidance.”

  “All of my life I have sought to be strong,” he replied sadly. “It is the way of the Delaware warrior never to show weakness, to face one’s death with a fearless heart. Now, m
y heart is full of fear, stricken with terror at the thought of loving again, and its cowardice shames me.”

  Sarah felt her own heart leap in her breast. “I am not sure I understand what you are saying.”

  “De Angelheart was right—about Caroline, about everything. In the midst of the crisis, when I was blinded by the night, and could not find my way, Caroline appeared to guide me to this place, so you could be well again. She knew before I did that what I felt for you is far beyond physical.”

  She made to protest, but he quickly silenced her. “Sarah, you must let me say what is in my heart. You must listen. I need you in my life. You are my destiny.”

  Her hand slid into his hair, caressing his nape. She ached to feel his strong arms around her, his lips on hers. But he only gripped her hands in his and looked deeply into her eyes. “It was not until today that I realized how deeply I cared for you—not until your fever raged and I feared that I would lose you that I knew just how much I love you.”

  Without a word, Sarah drew him onto the furs and into her arms. As he pillowed his head on her breasts, she held him close and stroked his silky hair. He had finally spoken the words she had dreamt of hearing, and she should have been deliriously happy. Instead, she felt forlorn, lost in a sea of hopelessness and pain. He loved her, yet nothing had changed. He was still Kingston Sauvage, the scourge of the Lakes tribes, bent upon destruction and revenge, and she was promised to a man she neither knew, nor loved. They came from different worlds, and no power on this earth, or beyond it, could alter that troubling fact.

  She drew a deep and shuddering breath, expelling it on a sigh, and closed her eyes to sleep, Kingston lying close beside her, his raven head pressed against her heart.

  Chapter 13

  Sarah woke late the following day to the smell of bacon frying, unsure just where she was or how long she’d slept. She knew only that she was stiff and sore in every muscle, and hungrier than she had ever been. Seeking a more comfortable position, she shifted on the soft bed of furs and felt the sensuous slide of the soft pelts against her bare skin.

  There was no need to peek beneath the covers. She knew she was naked, and there was only one way she could have gotten that way.

  Kingston. Her gaze darted to the hearthside, where he labored. “I see my mouse has awakened,” he said without looking up from his task. “How are you feeling?”

  He persisted in calling her his mouse, despite all that had happened between them, and Sarah thought with a sharp pang how very much she would miss the endearment once she had arrived at her destination and he had gone his way. “Hungry, I fear.”

  “Hunger is a good sign.” He flashed her a grin, piling the bacon and corn cakes onto a trencher and bringing it to the bedside. “And your head?”

  “It aches a little,” Sarah admitted. But it was nothing compared to the knowledge that she was unclothed beneath the covers. An image of the turgid brown creek flashed behind her eyes. He had undressed her, bathed her, and rinsed the filth from her hair, sat with her while she was burning with fever, tended and cared for her, all of the intimate little things that she had done for Timothy when he was dying, he had done for her while she lay insensible.

  She’d been staring at him while the thoughts and memories swirled madly in her brain. Embarrassed, she looked away. As always, she could not escape him. He read her thoughts, knew her mind, better than she herself. “It was not a dream, my love.”

  Sarah looked down at her hands. “What shall we do?”

  “Do?” He sat down on the edge of the furs, placing the trencher between them. “I am not sure how you mean.”

  “What shall we do?” she repeated. “About Brother John Liebermann, our feelings for one another, your quest to find your brother, Jean?”

  “When you reach the Shining City, you will marry your missionary, just as you planned to do all along.”

  “But it is all so tangled,” Sarah said. “Impossibly so.”

  He shrugged, seeking an ease, a nonchalance with which he might treat this situation, yet Sarah sensed it was all a lie, a false facade. He was just as troubled as she by their situation, just as dissatisfied. “Life is more complicated for some of us than for others. Some men live and prosper, surrounded by loved ones. The ones I love don’t linger long in my life. At least with Brother John Liebermann, you will be safe from harm.”

  Sarah sniffed back tears. “I wish it were not so.”

  “Had I been born an Englishman, and met the widow Sarah Marsters on a crowded London Street, things might have turned out differently. Sadly, Fate saw to it that I was born a bastard half-breed, who met the young widow under something less than desirable circumstances.” He smiled sadly and smoothed the knuckles of one hand down her cheek. “Thus, memories will have to suffice. So let us pretend for a little while that there is no murderous half brother, no betrothed waiting, no promises made. Only a man and a woman who have fallen deeply, inexplicably in love with one another.” He leaned across the trencher and kissed her lips, gently and with infinite tenderness. “You can do that, can you not? For all the nights that I am destined to spend alone dreaming of you?”

  She touched his cheek with fingers that trembled, closing her eyes against her tears. “Of course, I shall.”

  “Good,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose, then drawing back. “Let’s break bread together, and have one of those holidays of which you are so fond—how do you call it?”

  “A love feast,” Sarah answered quietly. They passed the day companionably, with no more talk of Jean, or Brother John Liebermann, the future waiting outside the cabin door, and whatever unpleasantness it was bound to bring.

  Deep in the night when the fire burned low, casting shadows over the room, Sarah lay awake, wondering at the strange restlessness that had settled in upon her soul with Kingston’s words earlier in the day. Memories. He wished for memories to carry with him, and she burned to provide them, no matter how sinful and wicked and worldly. She loved him, and that love was all-consuming.

  Strange and powerful, it urged her to throw back the furs and rise from the pallet. On bare feet, she padded across the puncheon floor where she stopped, her bare toes buried deep in the soft ebony fur of the rug on which he lay.

  His lids were lowered, but he was not asleep, and his voice when he spoke was throaty. “Is this what you want, Madame?”

  Sarah thought of the man-wolf in her dreams, of her sadness when he left her. “Memories,” she said. “I want memories of you.”

  It was all Sauvage needed to hear. Rising, he gathered up the bed of furs and flung them on the floor next to the fire, then, bending slightly, he lifted Sarah, kissing her deeply as he lay her down.

  How sweet her kiss, like honey. How wondrous her response as he grazed her full lower lip with the tip of his tongue. Instantly, eagerly, she opened for him, wrapping her arms around his neck, as if she could not get close enough. Her breasts were high and full, her body lush and womanly, and when he left her lips at last, he was determined to worship, to memorize every creamy inch, now gilded by the firelight.

  He trailed lingering kisses from her fingertips, along one soft white arm to the curve of her shoulder, pausing briefly at her breast. He rolled the nipple between his teeth and, listening as she cried aloud, and left her gasping. He heard her disappointment and was satisfied. He wanted to torture her. He wanted to see her writhing with desire before he claimed her woman’s flesh.

  Memories. She wanted memories, and he was determined to provide them, determined that when she remembered this night, remembered him, she would remember flames. He moved on, tracing his tongue down her midriff to her navel, into which he plunged so briefly. She tried to tangle her fingers in his hair. To force him back to her lips, but he only caught her wrists and pinned them down.

  Down her inner thigh he nibbled, to her knee and her calf, and her shapely ankle. Oh, if Madame only knew the wicked thoughts he was thinking, she would blush to the roots of her hair. Not that it matt
ered. Before he was through, those shapely legs would be draped prettily over his shoulders, and Sarah would be his in truth, at least for a little while.

  His thoughts moving on to other things, he kissed her instep, then gently suckled her toes, laughing low and delightedly when she shrieked his name. Then, the leisurely return trek to her mouth began again. When at last, he rose above her, her breathing was quick and shallow and she looked at him with eyes of glittering blue. “Kingston, please, I cannot bear it. Put an end to this madness.”

  “You can bear it. You will. Because I wish it. Nothing done this night will be done in haste.” He touched her flushed cheek, ran his thumb across her lips, laughing when she sank her teeth into his flesh. “Sarah, love, have patience.”

  But Sarah had no patience left. It had gone winging away, along with her conscience the moment he’d borne her down upon the thick bed of furs. She wanted him, and she did not wish to wait another second. She was laboring beneath the weight of a hunger more intense than any she had ever known. It was more than just physical, flesh wanting flesh; it went clear through her, searing every fiber of her being, scorching her soul.

  Wanting to feel him inside her, she freed his maleness from his breechclout, straining upward to meet him as he covered her and pressed for entry. Soft femininity yielded before hard male. Sarah heard his soft intake of breath as the barrier was breached and he slowly filled her and began to move, each thrust deeper than the last, each withdrawal an endless aching eternity for Sarah.

  She did not wish to let him go, not even for an instant. She wanted to hold him deep inside, to treasure this time and this moment, to revel in the feel of his satiny skin abrading hers. She wanted the taste and the feel of his kiss, the sensuous slide of his hair at her cheek, the mingling of their breaths... she wanted this instant in time to last forever, though deep down, she knew that it could not.