Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)

She took a hit of brandy straight off the bottle and glanced out the window as, in the distance, Gawain walked a wheelbarrow full of firewood into the manor house. Then she swept up the stones and put them back in their velvet bag, folded the cloth, and went back to the bedroom.

Her nerves were shot, and a fine tremor ran through her hands. Unable to stay focused on anything complicated, she concentrated on the mechanics of the tasks in front of her.

Washing clothes. Packing. Stripping linens off the bed, she stuffed the bedding in the washer too. Checking up on her what the fuck list.

Just when she thought she was full up on crazy, something else happened. She was beginning to get a glimpse of something bigger than she had ever imagined. They were all caught up in a web of events, and none of them were in control.

What a terrible word, betrayal.

Robin was right. She couldn’t say that word to Nikolas, and he couldn’t hear it. He was too loyal. He had given everything he had to those men. It was admirable, really, and in this case tragic. How would she feel if she had found out Rodrigo had betrayed her and had tried to get her killed?

It was unthinkable. Her gut tightened, and tears filled her eyes as she remembered the urgent care Rodrigo had given her before the ambulance had arrived, his face raw with fear and concern.

Gah, she felt overwrought, wrung out. She was too tangled up in what was happening, too emotionally involved. How did she get here in just a couple of days? When did having (tremendous, mind-blowing, screaming, utterly fantastic, wildly pleasurable) sex with Nikolas somehow turn into making love in her head?

She knew better than to fall in love with him. She knew it before he had ever warned her, so why did she feel so twisted up inside? Was she really going to step into that manor house with a group of men, most of whom she didn’t know, and one of whom would try to kill her, because of how she felt about Nikolas?

The Mini had enough gas to get her to Shrewsbury. She could grab Robin—if he wanted to go—and they could just leave and take the first plane she could book back to the States. How would she get a puck on a plane? Would they let him sit on her lap for the flight, like a baby?

Then she thought of the taut, furious anguish on Nikolas’s face, and she knew she was squandering her imagination and energy in telling herself a story that simply wasn’t true. She wasn’t going anywhere, not as long as he needed her help. He might not like her for it—he might not thank her for it—and he might not trust her any longer, but she couldn’t leave him.

Not until he asked her to.

In an act so gloriously dysfunctional she couldn’t believe she was admitting it to herself, Stupid and Crazy? had struck again. She knew better than to fall in love with Nikolas, but she had gone and done it anyway.

“Why are you built like this, you stupid woman?” she muttered as she stomped into the bathroom to collect her toiletries and fold the clothes in the dryer. “There is something wrong with your head. How did you know to zero in on the absolute very last man on the planet you should get involved with? There are so many men in the world, Sophie Ross. So. Many. Rodrigo, for example. Why couldn’t you fall in love with your good, loyal, available buddy Rodrigo?”

While she was bitching to herself, she tried to make sense of the piece of black clothing she held in her hands. What was this? She didn’t own anything like this.

Not only was it too big, it was inside out. As she finally got the cloth turned the right way, she made sense of what she was holding. It was one of Nikolas’s black shirts. She had automatically put his clothes in the same load as her own.

For some reason that struck her terribly hard. It was funny, or awful, or something, she didn’t know what. Crumpling the shirt in her fists, she started beating the heels of her hands against her forehead in time with the words running through her mind.

Sophie. Sophie. Sophie. Sophie.

This. Is why. You don’t. Kiss assholes. He gives you an orgasm, and all of a sudden, you’re washing his clothes.

She hadn’t known him for very long. Maybe she was only a little bit in love with him, like catching a cold instead of the flu. That would mean she could get over him quickly, wouldn’t it?

Something, some change in the air or some subtle noise, caused her to lift her head. In the corner of the bathroom mirror, she could see Nikolas standing in the doorway. She froze, watching his reflection sidelong. The expression on his face was raw and heartbreaking.

“You didn’t see the man who was choking you,” he said.

Wordlessly, she shook her head.

“You never questioned if it might have been me.”

She blinked. “Of course not. I know it wasn’t. You—you wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Because you trust me.”

The emotion behind that was laced with complexity, unreadable. Was he thinking about how he had trusted his men for so long? In comparison, she had known him for such a short amount of time, but that didn’t change her conviction.

Dropping her attention to his shirt that she still held, she nodded. “Yes. Because I trust you.”

He walked forward, put his arms around her from behind, and buried his face in her hair. The blood was coursing through his body so fiercely she could feel his heart beating against her back. He was breathing hard, and he felt slightly damp with sweat as if he had been running.

“It isn’t Gawain,” he whispered. “It can’t be Gawain. I don’t believe it of him. He’s not capable of that kind of betrayal. He would rather cut off his hands than hurt you.”

Betrayal. Nikolas believed her. He trusted her, and he came to that word all on his own. Her chest squeezed tight with compassion.

Leaning against him, she reached to cup the back of his head. “I can’t believe it of him either,” she whispered back as gently as she knew how. “His heart is too good.”

He lifted up his head to pull the long, curling length of her hair aside, then he put his face into the warmth of her neck, skin to skin. “When we go into the house, you stick with either Gawain or with me, you hear? You don’t go anywhere by yourself, not even to the privy.”

This was no time to take a stand over free will and issuing unwanted orders. He needed reassurance, so she gave it to him. “I won’t go anywhere alone, I promise.”

He held her so tightly she felt the pressure of it in her bones, but she didn’t protest or try to pull away. After a moment, he muttered, “I think I know who it could be, and it isn’t just about what you saw they would do to you. It’s more than that. I think it’s about the Hounds’ attack two weeks ago. It might even involve the Hounds’ attack on the pub a few nights ago. The gods only know how far this goes.”

She hadn’t been expecting that, and surprise thudded through her. When she tried to twist around to face him, his hold loosened enough to allow her, then tightened again. “Oh no.”