The Wolf Duke

by K. J. Jackson

  Sloane gasped. “But I—I left her a note—”

  His lips covered hers, cutting her words.

  Angry. Raw. Hard.

  His mouth took hers in a kiss that demanded her silence. A kiss that she could feel him fight against, even as he took her very essence from her. A kiss that unleashed such harbored rage she was both lost and found as she drowned in it.

  A snarl bubbled in his throat and he ripped his mouth from hers, then slammed her arms into the door above her head again. “And you stole from me.”

  “What?” Her eyes dazed, her gaze lifted, trying to focus on the split second change from him kissing her to his full fury showering down upon her. The rage in his eyes hadn’t dissipated—if anything, it was more alive, more focused—pinpoints fixated on her.

  “What?” She blinked hard.

  “You stole from me, Sloane. No one steals from me.”

  “I stole from you?” Her own rage bubbled, exploding in hot droplets that seared up through her chest. “You dare to say that to me? When you stole from me, you bastard—you stole everything—everything—from me.”

  His head snapped back. “I what?”

  She twisted, trying to free her wrists of his grasp.

  He yanked her arms upward, lifting her off her toes.

  She stilled, glaring up at him.

  “What are you talking about, Sloane?” The slightest measure of restraint appeared in his voice as he leaned in, his breath mingling with hers.

  “You stole my brother from me, you bloody ogre—you killed my brother, you killed my cousin’s family.” The words spit from her mouth. “You’re the one that set us aflame—my arm, Torrie’s leg—you left our bodies in ravaged, scarred shells. You did this, not by your hand but by your order. You.”

  “I what?” He let her slide down the door until her feet touched the floor, but he kept her hands clamped above her head.

  Smart bastard, for she was already eyeing her dagger on the floor.

  “What in the hell are you saying, Sloane?”

  “It was your land, Reiner. Your blasted land.”

  His head instantly flickered back and forth. “Whatever you’re thinking, Sloane, you have it all wrong.”

  Her head shook between her upstretched arms. “I don’t have anything wrong—don’t try and deny you own that swathe of Swallowford land and that you ordered it cleared of tenants. I’ve seen the papers. You may not have been the one to light the torches, Reiner, but they were lit by your command. It was you. You killed them all—you killed an entire family. You killed my brother.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “I—what are you speaking of, Swallowford land?”

  A hissing screech left her lips. “You don’t even remember the terror you unleashed?”

  His head dropped forward for a long second. A breath passed and his look snapped up to her, recognition reaching his eyes. “Swallowford? The land in Stirlingshire?”

  “You bloody bastard—yes, that land.” Her voice shrilled to a rage. “My brother’s life and that’s all it means to you—a tepid guess of some blasted land you may or may not remember?”

  Reiner leaned in, his forehead almost touching hers as his voice dropped into a deep growl. “I never ordered anything—I just purchased it, Sloane. Or rather, my solicitor handled it so I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t lie to me—not now.” She twisted her arms in his grasp, fury sending so much blood through her limbs she was sure she could break free. She couldn’t. “It was the condition for your blasted purchase of the land—clear it of the tenants or you wouldn’t buy it. You wanted the blood but you didn’t want it on your hands, just another of the thousands of clearings haunting the land. Did you think no one would know? Clear it was the order—well, they bloody well cleared it, Reiner. Scorched it to the ground.”

  His forehead yanked away from hers and his chin dipped forward, his gaze on the space between them for several long breaths. Several long, heaving breaths.

  Without warning, his fingers snapped away from her wrists, releasing her, and he took a step backward. His head tilted to the side, his eyes narrowing. “What exactly happened there on the Swallowford lands, Sloane?” The rage palpitating in his voice had almost disappeared.

  She wouldn’t have it.

  “If you don’t ken already, then you don’t care. You never cared.” Her lip sneered. “And you’ll not get the story. Not from me.”

  For long seconds his gaze skewered her and she braced herself for another attack.

  Her look dropped to the floor. The blade was a foot away. By the time she bent to it, he’d have her in another iron hold.

  With an exhale that fumed into the room, Reiner turned his head, looking about the chamber. Spying a silver platter on the table with a decanter of brandy, he walked over to it, his boots clomping on the floor.

  “I’m not leaving this room until you tell me what happened, Sloane.” He poured himself a dram of the amber liquid, quickly lifting it to his lips and tossing it into his throat. He poured another and took a sip as he turned to her. “Don’t test me on this.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, her gaze skewering him with as much ferocity as his did to her. With a snarl of her lip, she opened her mouth. “Fine. The men you hired to clear the lands—”

  “I hired no men, Sloane. You—”

  She stormed across the room to him. “You’re the one that bloody well wanted this story, Reiner, and I’m only going to tell it once. If you interrupt, I’m done. You’ll get no more from me.”

  His jaw went slack for a long second, then he closed it and offered a single nod.

  She grabbed the glass from his hand and swallowed what was left. The brandy burned a ball down her chest, but it was just what she needed to temper the fury that had swelled into a rock and wedged in her throat. Clunking the glass onto the table next to his hand, she looked up at him.

  “I told you of my cousin, Torrie, how she is like a sister to me?”

  Reiner nodded.

  “She has lived with us at Vinehill since she was three. But her family lived on a small farm on Swallowford lands. They had been making the rent payments, but it wasn’t enough. The clearing men were coming for them—coming to kick them off their land. The land that had been in their family for three generations. But the clearing men wanted Torrie’s family gone—you wanted Torrie’s family gone—so the land could be converted into grazing space for some bloody sheep.”

  She paused, staring at him, daring him to interrupt her. To claim innocence. He didn’t.

  She turned from him, walking over to the window on the side of the building and looking down onto the empty lane that ran beside the coaching inn. “So of course her family resisted. They had nowhere to go. They only knew how to farm. Torrie knew they would fight it and she was determined to go and stop her father—to save him and her mother and her brother.” Sloane paused, swallowing hard. “And I was determined to go to save Torrie. And my brother, Jacob…he was determined to go to save me.”

  Her fingers lifted to the glass pane in front of her, tapping on it for several seconds. “When we got to the farm, the men were already there. Torrie’s father had locked him and his wife and his son into their cottage and was refusing to come out. The brutes had torches. Torches burning and crackling and ready to light everything up.”

  Her right fingers dropped from the glass, moving to the top hem of the glove above her left elbow. Slowly, she peeled it down, bringing the scars to the daylight. “Torrie begged the men to wait—that she could go into the cottage and convince them to come out. So she went in, but she couldn’t make them move. Not quickly enough, at least. So the brutes ran around, setting every single one of the five buildings aflame. Though one of them stopped to let the animals out of the barn.” A caustic chuckle left her lips. “Imagine that—they let the animals out—they were more important than the people.”

  She paused, her voice hiccupping, and she had to let a
deep breath sink into her lungs. “And when they went for the cottage, Jacob tried to stop them—he killed two of them, but he was too late. One of the torches was tossed onto the roof of the cottage with Torrie and her family still inside. It burst into flames—hot—almost instantly. Like magic. Like the breath of a dragon.”

  She dropped the glove on the floor.

  She shook her head and it fell forward, her gaze landing on the twisted flesh of her arm. “I managed to kick the door open while Jacob was fighting them. And I went in after Torrie. Jacob came in after me.” She drew a quivering breath. “Part of the roof fell in right away and it set Torrie’s skirts aflame. She was going to stay in there with them, with her family. But I caught her and started dragging her out and then Jacob lifted me, pulling the both of us out of the cottage.”

  Her right fingers lifted to her left arm and she traced the knotted flesh. “My arm was burnt when I was putting out the flames engulfing Torrie’s skirts. Jacob ran back into the cottage to save Torrie’s brother and parents. But the roof collapsed. Collapsed with all four of them inside.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at her blade lying on the floor by the door. “Then I tried to kill one of the brutes—the rage, the pain—it took me over and turned me into a demon. I attacked one of them with my blade, but I was nothing against him. If it hadn’t been for Lachlan arriving and stopping him—killing him, the blackguard would have killed me as well.”

  Long seconds passed before she lifted her head, her gaze finding Reiner’s face. “You sit in your fancy fortress, life-times away, Reiner. Oblivious. But the things you do have consequences. Whether you see them or not.”

  Silence.

  He stared at her, his face set in stone. “You are done?”

  She turned fully around to him and nodded. “That is all of it.”

  He exhaled, his look piercing her. “Then you have it all wrong, Sloane. Every last bit of it.”

  { Chapter 11 }

  “You cannot take away the fire, Reiner—take away the deaths that are on your hands.”

  Reiner stared at her, stared at the rogue droplet of amber in her blue eyes that marked her unique above all others. For all of the anger rushing through him, halfway through her story all he wanted to do was drag her into his arms.

  Calm her.

  Erase the past.

  Those minutes in time that had damaged her so. Those minutes that upended her world and put such malice into her blue eyes.

  “I don’t mean the fire, Sloane. That happened and there isn’t a thing I can do about that. And it was horrendous and I am in a rage thinking on the pain you must have suffered. But you’re wrong about what happened before the fire.”

  “Before the fire?”

  “You say I was the one that demanded the lands be cleared. Who told you I ordered it?”

  Her brow crinkled. “Why does it matter? What matters is that I ken it was you.”

  He bit back a blasphemy. “Who told you it was me, Sloane?”

  She sighed. “It was Lord Falsted.”

  A caustic chuckle left his throat. “Falsted. Of course the lying bastard would have sent you.”

  “Sent me?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t order anything cleared, Sloane. There were no conditions to buying the land.”

  “But you said your solicitor handled the transaction, maybe he ordered it on your behalf.”

  “The man doesn’t do anything I’m not aware of.” His look bored into her. “Falsted used you, Sloane. He used you to come after me.”

  Her fingers clasped together in front of her. “That’s not true. I saw the papers—I saw the agreement—signed by your own hand.”

  “You know my signature?”

  Her head snapped back. “You expect me to just believe you? Believe you because you walk in here and tell me I was lied to?”

  He inclined his head toward her, his look skewering her. “Yes.”

  “Yes?” she scoffed. “It’s not enough, Reiner. What makes your word any more trustworthy than Lord Falsted’s?”

  The side of his mouth lifted in disgust. “If you even have to ask that question, Sloane, then we are done here.” Reiner spun from her and stalked toward the door.

  Without a glance back to her, he let himself into the hallway.

  ~~~

  Sloane stared at the closed door to her room, waiting for it to open.

  Willing it to open.

  It didn’t.

  Reiner was gone.

  Done with her.

  Good riddance. She didn’t believe a word he said. Didn’t believe he had nothing to do with the fire. She had seen the documents—seen the caveat to the purchase that the lands had to be free and clear of all tenants.

  Except…

  Except he had looked truly dumbfounded when she had mentioned the Swallowford lands. Like they meant no more to him than a blade of grass at Wolfbridge. Strike that—a blade of grass at Wolfbridge probably did mean more to him than the name Swallowford.

  The air prickled the skin on her left arm so she picked up her glove from the floor and tugged it onto her left hand and along her arm. Air usually did that to her skin after a few minutes. Dried it. Stretched it. Made her want to itch the scars so viciously she would draw blood. She’d done it before, too many times.

  It wasn’t until she’d had the long kidskin glove securely in place, the hem snug on her upper arm, that the thought hit her just as hard as her fall from the vines at Wolfbridge.

  Reiner hadn’t even mentioned the book.

  He’d said she’d stolen from him, yes. But beyond that, he hadn’t mentioned the book. Hadn’t demanded it back.

  She ran to her valise, ripping garments from the bag until she found the false bottom tucked into the dark shadows of fabric. Her fingernails went into the side of the flap, wedging it upward.

  The book—the red leather-bound ledger—still sat in the bottom, securely hidden away.

  She folded the false bottom down on top of it, tossing her half-folded clothes back into the bag with no care other than to hide the bottom.

  Reiner hadn’t demanded she return it.

  So it was either not as valuable—as damaging to Reiner—as Lord Falsted had told her.

  Or it was that Reiner trusted her with it.

  Trusted her not to ruin him.

  Blast it.

  All she had done was spew hate onto him. Hate, just like Torrie’s. Hate that demanded vengeance.

  Vengeance she no longer wanted.

  She realized that after walking out of Torrie’s room. She didn’t want vengeance if it meant Reiner was hurt by it. She didn’t want it if it meant that he walked away from her and never looked back.

  Damn the man.

  Damn her own idiocy.

  Several minutes had passed since he left the room, and she ran to the window facing the main road through the village and searched the thoroughfare in front of the coaching inn.

  No Reiner.

  She spun, racing to the door and out into the hallway. Down two and a half flights of stairs, her speed out of control, she ran into the broad back of Reiner.

  He stumbled, slipping down two steps before using the wall to catch both himself and her from breaking their necks.

  His arm tight around her waist, he held her upright. She wiggled to wedge her face from his chest and looked up at him.

  “Reiner…”

  Her voice trailed off, her tongue useless as she stared at him. For all she wanted to stop him from leaving, she had no words. No words when she could very well be locked in the arms of the man that killed her brother.

  But it didn’t matter. She wanted him.

  Awkward silence hung heavy in the breath of air between them.

  She cleared her throat, walking her fingers up along the lapels of his coat as she attempted to untangle her limbs from his body. “I thought you would be farther away.”

  He looked down at her, his golden brown eyes searching her face, searching f
or the reason she had just tackled him. Then a slow smile, almost carnal, curved the side of his mouth. “I walked slow.”

  One breath. Two. Three.

  He descended, capturing her in a fire-fueled kiss. Consuming her, head to toe.

  His mouth hard against hers, desperate as though he was drowning and she was the air he needed to breathe. Shifting, his arm around her back tightened, dragging the full length of her against his body.

  The pool of need in her core swelled almost instantly—the last time he had touched her quick to her mind. He turned, lifting her slightly, and he walked up the stairs. Two more levels and his lips never broke with hers.

  He set her down in the hallway outside her room and he lifted his head from hers. “Tell me this isn’t my imagination, Sloane.”

  “It isn’t.” The words croaked out, forced through her breathless throat.

  With a growl he leaned forward, catching her lips under his, his tongue breaching her mouth, hungry for the taste of her.

  Her hands went up, wrapping around his neck, her fingers diving into his hair.

  He broke the kiss, his lips trailing down along her neck as he started walking forward. She shuffled backward until they reached her door and they stumbled into the room.

  The door slammed shut behind them and Reiner spun her, setting her back against the wall next to the doorway.

  His fingers slid up along her sides, moving inward along her ribcage to cup the bottom swell of her breasts. She gasped at the touch, her back arching toward him, offering herself as her fingers clenched his hair. Just as before, her body reacted to his touch, out of control, thoughts of sanity and decorum instantly disappearing from her mind.

  A knock rapped through the door next to her ear.

  Reiner froze, his lips on the smooth line of her clavicle.

  “My lady?” Though muffled, Milly’s high-pitched voice rang into the room. “The carriage will be ready in two hours. Do ye need help packing?”

  Sloane coughed, clearing her throat as she clasped her right hand over Reiner’s mouth. “N-no, Milly.”

  With imp in his eyes, Reiner nipped at her pinky finger.

  She gave him a death glare as she shook her head. Her eyes averting to the crown moldings that lined the ceiling of the room, she tightened her hold over Reiner’s mouth and cleared her throat again. “Can you please go below and order us an early dinner to be served in a few hours? I prefer to be alone for another hour, maybe two.”