“A man? Harry?”
“No, miss, it wasn’t your brother. I didn’t recognize this man.”
I took a look at the lettering on the top of the box. “Oh, it’s from the bakery I ordered my cake from.” I lifted the top to reveal a chocolate-covered pastry. “How kind of them.”
From across the room, Daniel tapped on the glass of the window. “Out.”
Annabelle looked out the window. “I suppose we can go outside for a little bit,” she said. “The sun is out, and they’ve shoveled off the balcony. Would you like to join us?”
“Sure,” I said, rising from my chair and taking the pastry out of the box. I followed them out to the balcony. The air was crisp, as it usually was this time of year, but the sun was out. Annabelle and I stood at the railing overlooking the gardens as Daniel ran around and got his energy out.
“Later today we’ll take a look at the ballroom and discuss how you want it set up for the reception,” Annabelle said.
“That would be lovely,” I told her. I lifted the pastry to my mouth to take a bite, but before I could, Daniel slammed into the back of my legs.
“Boom!” he cried out in delight.
“Oh no!” My pastry fell from my hand, tumbling into the dirt and snow below.
“Daniel, that wasn’t nice,” Annabelle scolded him.
“Sorry,” he said without a tone of apology as he ran off toward the house.
“I’m so sorry, Hazel,” Annabelle sighed.
“Oh, it’s all right,” I said, glancing forlornly at the pastry below. “I need to make sure I can still fit into my wedding gown anyway.”
Annabelle rolled her eyes.
“Should I go get it?” I asked her.
“Oh, no, an animal will eat it,” Annabelle said.
I returned inside to get breakfast from Daisy, and Annabelle and Daniel followed closely behind me after Daniel smacked his head against the glass of the door. When I had finished eating, we crossed the house to the ball room and began planning how we would set up for the reception.
The next morning our routine was much the same. I had slept a bit better, though I was still in pain and still worried about Adam. I met with Annabelle and Daniel for breakfast, and afterward Daniel wanted another chance to run around outside. Since we’d had two days in a row of sunshine, Annabelle agreed.
Daniel ran along the balcony as Annabelle and I watched him. We had leaned up against the railing, and curious, I looked down to where I’d dropped my pastry.
“Annabelle, look,” I said, frowning. Below us was a racoon, lying on its back, paws still clutched around the last bit of pastry. He wasn’t moving.
“I think it’s dead,” she said.
“Goodness. Must have overeaten on that pastry.”
“Yes,” she murmured. She put an arm around my shoulder. “Let’s head inside, shall we? The wind is picking up a bit.”
I enjoyed the few days I spent with Annabelle at Wolf’s Peak. I was beginning to get more comfortable in the massive house, and it was nice to be independent. Nevertheless, when I heard the carriages pull up outside, Annabelle and I rushed from our chairs in the parlor. Or rather, Annabelle rushed, and I limped behind.
Jasper and Christine stepped out of the first carriage. Christine had looked better; her hair was pulled back haphazardly, her skin was dirty, and her gown was torn. Still, she was grinning as we wrapped her in a hug.
“Christine, we were so worried,” I said, clutching her tightly. “We saw them take you, but there was nothing we could do!”
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re all right,” Annabelle said.
“Careful,” Christine said, with a tone of pain in her voice that I had become familiar with.
“Sorry!” she gasped. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
Jasper came up behind me. “Ladies, perhaps we should do this inside,” he suggested.
“Yes,” Annabelle agreed.
“Of course,” I said with a nod. I glanced back at the road for the second carriage, and Jasper smiled at me.
“They’ll be here soon,” he promised, “and Adam is just fine.”
My whole body relaxed in relief. Jasper scooped up Christine in his arms and we all moved back into the parlor.
“Jasper, put me down,” Christine said with fake annoyance. “I can still walk.”
“What happened?” I asked.
She pulled up her skirt to show me her wrapped ankle. “I sprained it, I think.”
I lifted up my skirt to show her my cast. “Look, we match.”
Christine opened her mouth to ask what had happened, but before her sentence was finished, I heard the second carriage pull up. I jumped to my feet as quickly as possible and made it to the doorway just as Adam entered. Without hesitation he wrapped me in an embrace, and I tilted my chin so we could kiss. It had only been days, but it felt like an eternity.
When we pulled away, I noticed some scratches and bruising on his arms. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve been worse,” he said. “Nothing that won’t heal away.”
“What happened?” I asked, glancing back at Christine. She had clearly been through hell.
“Seth was using her as bait to lure Jasper. She was okay when he reached the castle, but they hadn’t treated her very well. There was a little bit of a battle, but once the elders arrived, it was all over.”
“The elders came?”
“Jasper alerted them when we left. They locked up Seth and his minions.”
I could have cried, I was so relieved. “Seth has been captured?”
“The elders are taking him back to Sweden now.”
“And Christine is all right?” I glanced at her again. The poor girl was sipping at tea but looked as if she was going to fall asleep.
“Injured ankle, and shaken, obviously, but otherwise she’ll recover.”
“And the baby?”
“Hard to say for certain, but the heartbeat is still strong. All of us can still hear it.”
I wrapped my arms around him again and squeezed tightly. “I’m so glad you’re safe, and I’m so sorry for the things I said. Can we blame it on the pain? Say that I wasn’t in my right mind?”
“If you wish. I understand, Hazel. Tell me, did you turn?”
“I didn’t.”
He kissed my forehead. “I’m so glad.”
Jasper had summoned the men to join him in the library, so I returned to sit with Christine. As I watched the men file past us, I noticed something worrying.
“Where’s Conor?” I asked.
Christine took a deep breath. “He’s all right. There was a man there who was tending to me, a doctor named Christoph. He wasn’t a werewolf. Seth had threatened his family, said he would kill them if Christoph didn’t help him. In the fight, Christoph was seriously injured. To keep him alive, Conor had to turn him. Conor stayed behind to tend to him until he was doing better.”
“That’s nice of him,” I said. “How’s Bridget taking it?”
“I’m all right,” Bridget spoke up from the doorway. She shrugged. “I mean, he’s doing a good thing, so I can’t be too upset, right?”
“You’re stronger than I am,” I murmured. “I was in tatters while Adam was gone.”
“Well, it’s only the first day,” Bridget said with a grin, but her eyes were full of sorrow.
A few moments later, the men returned from the library. Adam came to join us and wrapped an arm around me. “Are you ready to leave?”
A massive weight had been lifted from me. Everyone was safe. “Yes, I’m ready.”
Adam helped me up to my room and I packed my things. I moved as quickly as I could with my foot in a cast, and Adam helped me pack everything away. When I was finished, he took my luggage and I bade Christine and Annabelle goodbye.
Adam helped me into the carriage and we left Wolf’s Peak. I curled up against him, resting my head against his shoulder. As we traveled, he turned to me.
“I had an idea,” he
said.
“Oh?”
“You didn’t tell your parents what time you’d be home, right?”
“No. We didn’t know.”
“Well then, what if you spent the night with me?”
I looked up at him. “Really?”
“Absolutely.”
I snuggled against him. “I would love that.”
“You’ve got plenty of clothes. We’ll bring you home in the morning.”
“That’s a wonderful idea. I love it.”
We pulled up outside Adam’s house, and he helped me down before grabbing my trunk. Together, we started toward his house.
My parents’ home was a traditional home with a wide front porch and turret on one side. Adam’s home couldn’t be more different. It was a square house built of a dark stone, much older than the house my parents lived in. Even the inside was covered in stone, with thick rugs covering the stone floors and tapestries hung along the stone walls. Upstairs were a dozen bedrooms, hardly any of them ever used.
“What would you think,” I asked as we entered, “if we made some changes to your house once we’re married?”
He paused. “What sort of changes? I’ve already added hot water.”
“Just brighten it up maybe. I don’t even have a bedroom here.”
He frowned. “Well, my love, I think we need to fix that.”
Adam’s house was the home of a bachelor, having dark furniture and minimal lighting, with no feminine touches anywhere. I didn’t quite feel at home here yet. Perhaps it was because, though we’d been friends since childhood, I hadn’t spent much time here. My mother never thought it was proper for me to visit Adam’s home, and even as an adult I didn’t visit terribly often.
Adam helped me up the stairs. “You’ve been in my room,” he said, pushing open a door at the end of the hall. Like the rest of the house, Adam’s room was dark and filled with massive furniture, like a four-poster bed.
“I’d like my room to be near yours, if that’s all right.”
“Would you like to face the front yard or the back?”
I considered. “The back, I think.” The backyard of Adam’s house was spacious. A stone walkway led to a fountain, and a few steps below that was a sitting area. In the wintertime, when the trees were bare, the lake was visible on the horizon.
“How about this room?” Adam said, pushing open a door next to his. The room had several tall windows looking out over the backyard, but the wallpaper was burnt orange and the furniture dwarfed me.
“Um,” I said, exhaling. “I mean—”
“We’ll do new wallpaper.”
“Oh, thank God,” I sighed.
“So this will be your room? We’ll fix it up just how you like it.”
“I think that’s perfect.”
Adam leaned down and our lips met. Together we stumbled out the door and into his bedroom. It was cold; the fire hadn’t been burning while he was gone. It didn’t matter. His skin was hot against mine as we shed our clothes. His lips lingered on my neck as he slowly undid each button one at a time, sending goosebumps up my spine as his fingers lingered on my back. I ran my fingers over the scar on his abdomen as he shrugged off his shirt. He pulled me close to him, and I reached up, wrapping my hands around his neck and meeting his lips again.
Together we fell onto the bed, rolling around, skin against skin. Our hands fumbled in the dim twilight, removing the rest of our clothes. For a brief moment we paused, eyes locking, breathing heavy. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. Both of us were alive. We were here, together. He was in my arms and I was in his, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Adam kissed down my chest and took one of my nipples in his mouth. My back arched at the contact, and he took that opportunity to meet my other breast with his hand, gently rolling the nipple between his fingers. I ran my fingers through his blond hair, pulling at his tresses when he gently bit down. His hand moved from my breast and skimmed down my waist to rest on my hip.
“Adam,” I said, my voice hoarse. He looked up at me, and I carefully sat up. He watched curiously as I crawled across the bed to him and met his lips. I pushed him back until he rose to a sitting position by the foot of the bed. As he grasped one of the posts, I straddled his lap.
“Ready?” I asked him.
“God, yes,” he growled.
He lifted me by my waist, the muscles of his arm tensing as he lowered me onto his hardened member. I cried out as he filled me all the way, my weight pushing my body down onto him until he was completely inside me. I hooked my legs behind him.
He leaned in and kissed me deeply before thrusting out and back in again. Stars exploded across my vision as he hit me in the perfect spot. I wrapped my arms around his neck to keep him close, while Adam threaded a hand between our bodies to stroke my clit in time with his thrusts. Together we rocked as he moved in and out of me, falling into a rhythm as our pleasure built. Adam was still gripping one of the bedposts, and cracks began to form in the wood as he thrust harder, faster, deeper into me.
My breath came in short bursts as spots appeared across my vision. I felt it start in my toes, a warm tingling, and for once, my ankle didn’t hurt. It spread through my entire body, consuming me as my muscles tensed. Ecstasy overtook me, and I heard a loud crack as the bedpost broke as Adam’s climax overtook him as well.
“Oops,” he said when we had regained our breath. I giggled.
We spent the entire night together, talking and making love, until there was a frantic knock on Adam’s front door. I pulled my dressing gown over my shoulders as Adam pulled on a pair of trousers, and together we rushed down to the main level. Adam opened the door.
“It’s the duchess,” Mr. Potter breathed. “She’s gone into labor.”
Chapter Sixteen
“I’ll wait for you,” Mr. Potter continued, “but please, gather your things.”
Adam and I turned back into the dark house and rushed up the steps.
“I suppose it’s a good thing I didn’t bring you straight home,” Adam said.
“Who would have thought?” I said. “But isn’t it early?”
“Only a little. I imagine it’s not so early as to cause problems.”
We quickly changed into appropriate clothes. I didn’t bother to spend much time on my hair, and simply twisted it back.
“Do we need to pack anything?” I asked.
He hesitated. “I don’t think so. How long can labor take, anyway?”
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“If we need to, I’ll come back,” he said.
“I’m ready, are you?”
“As ready as I will be, I suppose,” he answered, finishing up the last buttons on his collar. Adam helped me climb down the stairs and we passed down the snowy sidewalk to the waiting carriage. Adam boosted me up, hands resting on my waist, and we huddled together against the cold. The carriage took off down the road, and a few moments later we were stopping at Annabelle and Stephen’s. Mr. Potter spoke at the door for a few moments, then came back into the carriage and we raced off again.
“What happened to Stephen and Annabelle?” I asked him once we arrived at Wolf’s Peak.
“They’ll be here soon. They needed to drop Daniel off at Annabelle’s mother’s.”
I nodded. We followed him into the house, where he took our coats and we dusted the snow off our shoes. Upon our arrival, Jasper came hurrying down the stairs.
“So glad you could come so quickly,” he said. His face had turned pale, and he was twisting his hands. The poor man was nervous, scared even. He had lost his first wife in childbirth, and I’m sure he was aware of the potential to lose his current one.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Doing well so far,” Jasper said. “You can go up and talk with her, if you’d like.”
“Do you mind?” I asked Adam.
“Not at all. Let me help you.”
“Lovely,” said Jasper. “I’ll wait down here for Annabelle and Steph
en.”
Adam helped me up the steps, and I rushed as quickly as I could on my injured ankle to Christine’s room. I gave a tentative knock, opening the door when she finally called, “Come in.”
She certainly didn’t look like a woman who had just begun labor. She was sitting up in bed, dark curls pulled away from her face, a well-worn book in her hands. She smiled broadly at me as I came in.
“Hello, Hazel. Feels like I just saw you.”
“You sort of did,” I said, smiling back. “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged. “Not bad at all.”
Bridget was sitting by the window with a bowl of water and a cloth. She looked ready to fall asleep. I gathered Christine hadn’t been utilizing her much.
“How do you know he’s coming, then?”
She scrunched up her face. “My water broke just about an hour ago. Dr. Brighton is here...somewhere. He said it’s normal for the water to break before the contractions begin. So far I haven’t felt any pain, but I’m sure it’s coming.”
“Are you nervous?” I knew I would be.
She gave a short laugh. “I’m terrified. But I’m excited, too.”
“Are you all right with us being here? I’d hate to intrude.”
“Oh, absolutely! I mean, it’s more for Jasper’s benefit. Last time he was in here I thought he was going to pass out. But I don’t mind at all. Oh!” She winced and shifted in bed, her hand pressing below her belly. Bridget sat straight up.
“Do I need to get the doctor?” she asked.
“Oh, no, but thank you, Bridget.”
“Did Annabelle come?” Christine asked.
“She should be arriving soon. Mr. Potter said they were going to drop Daniel off at her mother’s,” I told her.
Christine nodded. “That makes sense. Well, I know it’s late, so if you’d like to get some rest, please feel free to use the room you’ve been staying in.”
“I don’t know that I could sleep, knowing you’re having a baby just down the hall!”
“Please don’t stay awake on my account. Dr. Brighton said I still have a ways to go before the baby comes. If you’d like, I can have Bridget wake you when things really get rolling.”
The Wolf's Betrothed (The Wolf's Peak Saga Book 5) Page 12
