An owl hoots from the dark canopy, unseen high in the trees.
I roll my eyes. “My gift only works on animals. You’re a person.”
His eyes devour me as he says in a dangerously low voice, like a warning, “No, little violet. I’m a Wolf.”
A shiver runs through me, spooking the mouse enough for it to scamper away. The darkness of the night feels palpable, heavy. The fire burns low, sending sparks skating toward the stars overhead. Suddenly I can’t look at Wolf without feeling like he can sense every fear in my body.
I roll away from him, curling up in the grass, using my bound hands as a pillow. My heartbeat wallops.
Does he sleep?
Does he stay awake all night, guarding me? Watching me? Jailing me?
The owl hoots again like it’s sending out a warning to all the forest. The clouds are loud overhead as the wind drags them across the stars.
When I dream, I dream of wolves.
In the morning, Wolf’s shadow blocks the dewy morning sun.
My heart kicks into a gallop, and I keep my eyes mostly closed, afraid to alert him to the fact that I’m awake.
He’s standing over me. Why is he standing over me?
A breeze ruffles my borrowed shirt hem, and it dawns on me that while tossing and turning in the night, his shirt has ridden up over my hips. My bare legs and the curve of my ass are on full display. With my wrists and ankles bound, I must look like a trussed pig for him, ready for the feast.
He hasn’t hurt me yet. Maybe he never will. Maybe his blind loyalty to my future husband will keep him from sampling the goods.
At least, that’s what I’ve told myself until now.
Steeling my nerves to mask my fear, I snap open my eyes and glower, “You promised you wouldn’t look.”
His eyebrows raise as his gaze drags from my legs to my face. A hint of amusement wrinkles the skin around his eyes. “I wasn’t looking at your ass, Lady Sabine. There’s a deathrattle snake curled up at your back.”
Oh.
My face flushes as I sit up. Twisting around, I spot the snake’s black-and-red pattern coiled against my flesh.
“Don’t move,” he orders, drawing his knife. “I’ll kill it.”
“Don’t you dare!” I gently nudge the snake awake with my bound hands. It raises its head, flicks its tongue at me in silent thanks for the good rest, and then slithers off toward the woods. “It was only seeking some warmth.”
As the venomous snake disappears into the underbrush, Wolf stares at me with that same gobsmacked look as when I fed the hungry mouse. Finally, he pinches the bridge of his nose, mutters something under his breath, and then starts kicking dirt onto the fire.
“Get up. It’s dawn. Time to move.”
I hold out my bound hands pointedly, and he uses his knife to slice through the ropes on my wrists and ankles.
Rubbing my wrists, I make my way to where Wolf tied Myst to a tree. She tosses her head insistently.
Worried for you, she says.
“I know, my brave girl,” I whisper, running a calming hand down her velvety muzzle. “We’ll both be okay.”
Leave now? Run?
I sigh, glancing over my shoulder at Wolf packing his rucksack. “It still isn’t time.” She knows about my plan to run away with Adan to the extent that a horse is able to comprehend complex ideas. She wasn’t fond of Adan any more than she is of Wolf, but that’s only because she’s overprotective of me and generally distrustful of men.
I wonder who she learned that from, I think wryly, remembering all the times I complained to her about my father.
“Soon,” I whisper.
Escaping will be trickier than I thought, now that Wolf has determined my aims. Of course, Lord Rian’s stipulation that I ride with no lead or bridle is actually a godsend; Myst and I can bolt whenever we like. But we have to be smart about it. I didn’t anticipate my future husband would send a godkissed huntsman to escort me.
Myst and I can run, but Wolf can track us anywhere. A few hours’ lead on him doesn’t mean much when we’ll have to stop eventually for rest and directions. I have to figure out a way to run so that he can’t follow us.
After combing my fingers through the knots in Myst’s mane and tail, I feel Wolf move up behind me.
He says almost apologetically, “My shirt, Lady Sabine.”
My hand falls on the rough linen collar that smells like him. Of course, word cannot get to Lord Rian that I broke a single one of his rules. No one can know that I was clothed for even a second of this ride.
Keeping my back to him, I start to tug his shirt over my head, but before it’s over my shoulders, he takes ahold of my braid like seizing a stallion’s reins. He coils it around his fist and then yanks my head back.
Gasping, I cry, “Don’t touch me!”
“Quiet,” he orders, low and hard. He moves his hand to feel along my back ribs, prodding and testing the skin gingerly, with a heightened sense of touch that seems to tell him cryptic details about my body.
He grunts low in his throat. “You have a cracked rib.”
I try to look at him over my shoulder, but he still has my braid in a fist. I hiss, “It’s fine.”
His grasp tightens on my braid. “It’s an old wound. Five weeks and a day. There’s still some bruising.”
He finally loosens his hold, and I twist away, tugging the borrowed shirt back down so I can face him clothed. Tipping my chin up, I snap, “I said it’s fine! It’s almost healed, anyway.”
His brows are set low, dangerous, like a predator. “Who did this to you?”
“Couldn’t it have been an accident?”
He doesn’t bother to respond to the suggestion. “Answer me, my lady.”
He isn’t going to let me get away with silence. My heart clenches like a fist, wanting to protect me from my memories. Lowering my eyes, I admit reluctantly, “I was a ward of the Convent of the Immortal Iyre. The Sisters struck me until a month ago, when my father informed them he’d sold me to a wealthy husband. Then they locked me in a room, tied to a bed, to fatten me up and let the wounds heal. I guess it wasn’t quite long enough. No one else has noticed the bruises, but no one else has your eyesight.”
Wolf’s gaze burns into me with the intensity of an August sun. “How long?”
He means the beatings.
“Years.”
He briefly closes his eyes. “How many years?”
“Twelve.”
His face reddens as he drags in a breath that trembles with rage. He holds it, then lets it ebb away slowly, and only then can he speak. “You’ll be safe at Sorsha Hall, my lady. I swear it.”
I snort a mirthless laugh as I tug the cord off the base of my braid, freeing the strands and combing them loose with my fingers.
He frowns. “You doubt my word?”
My eyes are sharp and rebuking as I work through my hair. “I think you’re so besotted with your master that you’re blind, despite your godkissed vision.”
His jaw tightens. I’ve angered him. I said the wrong thing. But I don’t get the impression he’s angry that I insulted him, but rather that I implied a flaw about his master.