Chapter Nine
Brutus gulped, dripping blood into the undergrowth, but still refusing to give up entirely. “I’m the one—”
Aidan’s eyes flared gold. “I’ve already claimed her.”
Brutus glowered. Lorcan whistled through his teeth. The blonde woman took a step closer, but only one. “Brutus, you know the laws.”
Aidan did not look at Sorcha, did not take his piercing gaze from Brutus, even as he put out his hand to help her up.
He gripped her chin in a way that looked hard, demanding, only his fingertips were soft on her skin, barely there.
He tilted her head, exposing the place he had bitten her. “My mark.”
The blonde woman’s nostrils flared and she nodded once, sharply. “Are you challenging?” she asked Brutus.
He was wider than Aidan, and Sorcha would have said the proper, bespectacled museum curator she thought she knew might not be a match for such violence.
But this Aidan? The one with the gold eyes and the spiral tattoos swirling up the entirety of his left arm? She did not know this man. But she had seen him take on an ogre. Brutus was not much of a challenge after that.
Brutus, apparently, agreed. He was muttering, but he stepped back, dropping his gaze. Sorcha took that to mean that he was not going to challenge Aidan’s claim on her. She did not know how she felt about that.
Sorcha might not be alone anymore, but she was still bound and barefoot in a camp of wolves. With the Earl of Coventry.
It was rather a lot to process all at once. The claiming and the deep, feral way he spoke it. The way it made her feel, even as she tried not to feel any which way about it.
The fact that Aidan Carnahan wore the wolf.
Not just any wolf, but the gray wolf who had saved her from the ogre.
Aidan had been at the Cauldron. Why? How? She refused to believe he had been there for the entertainment. And she had no way of knowing if he’d realized it was her he had saved. The spells on her red cloak were very, very effective.
And if he did know it was her…that would change nothing, would it? How exactly did one bring that up in conversation? Good afternoon, mind the blood, thanks very much for saving me from becoming an ogre’s supper.
And besides all of that, there was the undeniable fact that Aidan was still naked.
It was very distracting. All those muscles. The soft pelt of hair on his chest. The bare backside tanned from the sun. The warmth and strength of him.
And had she mentioned the absolute, stark nakedness of him?
It was difficult not to be distracted, even considering the very imminent possibility of being torn limb from limb.
Get yourself sorted, Sorcha Beauregard. This was hardly the first backside she had ever seen. She’d also seen danger. Violence. Peril.
Muscular buttocks.
And then Aidan turned to face her. Still naked. His eyes still held that particular gold shimmer of his wolf.
“Um,” Sorcha said. Very eloquent. Her old governess would be deeply disappointed.
Not to mention her grandmother. Sorcha knew how to embroider and which fork to use at supper and how to steer awkward situations into soothingly dull conversations about the weather, the theatre, someone’s new rose garden.
But as far as awkward situations went, this was a new one.
And she had once spelled the shoes of a viscount who did not take no for an answer to propel him into the nearest fountain. With a punch bowl on his head.
Twice.
Mayfair and Haven had a lot in common. The proximity of the Serpentine and the sea, for one.
And entitled, drunken young lords for another.
But she was getting distracted. That had been several years ago.
And this particular earl was not particularly young, nor was he entitled.
Or drunk. He would not be distracted by a punch bowl tipped over his head.
And nor would she.
A dozen questions pressed against her teeth, but before she could blurt them out, he touched her cheek, so briefly she might have imagined it. “Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She was a bit bruised and knocked about, and her wrists were red, but she’d had worse when Nimue was in a mood.
He tugged the rope free from her wrists. Her breath caught in her throat. He was so close that his mouth brushed her ear, and she had to force her eyelids not to flutter closed.
And then he stepped back and there was sunlight and air and…disappointment.
“We need to talk,” he said grimly.
“I expect so.” She stared up at him. Goodness. There was a lot of him. “You’re very naked.”
He blinked, glanced down at himself, and cursed. Someone chuckled and tossed him a plaid. He caught it easily and wrapped it around himself like a hasty kilt.
She had nearly forgotten they weren’t alone.
She swallowed. “Now what?”
He closed his hand around her arm. “Now you come with me.”
They had taken no more than three steps when Aidan halted. “Where are your shoes?”
Sorcha glanced at her bare toes in the soft loam. Her hem was torn. “Somewhere in a gorse bush?”
A rumble went through him. “Brutus?”
“Yes. Even I’m not in the habit of wandering around without shoes. We have too many kittens for that. They are like little dragons with teeth.”
“I might kill him yet,” Aidan said softly.
Sorcha could only stare at him for a moment, fascinated.
Who was he, really? Polite, quiet curator?
Or this half-naked man who could turn into a wolf and take on an ogre?
Both? Without his spectacles, his eyes glittered.
They were too primal, too wild, for the mild-mannered earl. And was he taller suddenly?
She was all at sea.
“You’re a wolf,” she blurted out.
His mouth quirked with amusement. “Aye.”
“But…” She paused. Shut her mouth, opened it again. She was not accustomed to being at a loss for words. “You…”
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
He frowned at her feet. “I could carry you.”
“Why? They’re not broken, just bare.”
She could see the way he forced his jaw not to unclench. “Only because we keep the paths clear for the pups. Not a lot of shoes during festivals for the wee ones. It’s rare they can run free in whatever form they choose.”
She nodded. “I can see how that would be true. Are wolves born with the ability to control their shifting?”
“No,” he said, very calmly. Too calmly.
She didn’t press, but only because she was distracted by the glimpses of wolves passing through the main encampment.
Banners painted with Lycan folklore fluttered.
There were so many tents, the canvas also painted with stories and crests and moonlit forests and ghostly moors.
A sparrow chirped at her with concern from the top of a pine. Sorcha whistled back.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, pausing once again when a pup raced past her, all big eyes and big paws.
She saw Sorcha at the last moment and rolled sideways, startled.
She bit back a laugh. Petting a werewolf was probably bad etiquette, but it was a real struggle not to reach down.
Instead, she pulled a slightly mangled heel of bread from her pocket.
It had gotten somewhat squashed when she was thrown over the horse, but it smelled like sugar and comfort. The pup’s ears perked up.
There was a reason she was a baker, and it was not only because her grandmother had insisted.
Everyone loved breads and brioches, from scullery maid to dowager duchess, alley cat to gryphon.
Even Redcaps liked bread, and they liked no one and nothing, aside from washing their famous caps in blood.
Sorcha had found pastries a far more effective bribe than anything else, money included.
“Nuala,” Aidan said. The pup’s ears flicked again, but she didn’t look away from Sorcha’s treat.
“Is this allowed?” Sorcha asked.
“Aye, but be warned. This one’s more snapping turtle than wolf.”
Nuala gave a fierce growl and nearly knocked herself over. Sorcha stayed still, making sure to smile without showing her teeth. She looked slightly to the left of the pup, also careful not to make direct eye contact. Nuala hesitated, then snatched the bread and darted away.
“You’ve done this before,” Aidan remarked.
Sorcha thought of Simon and the hunting hounds and the wolves from the Cauldron. Of the Black Shuck. Of her unicorn who tried to gore anyone who stared at her too long. “Yes.” Of the Red Cloak. Did Aidan realize it was her he had saved at the Cauldron? “In a way.”
“Here,” he said moments later, showing her to a large tent.
It was set quite a ways from the main area, with soft grass and a willow tree tinkling with wind chimes.
A circle of soot-covered stones waited for a fire to be lit within, a bench on one side.
Aidan lifted the door flap and motioned her into the tent.
“Is this yours?” she asked curiously, noting the feather mattress on a carved wooden frame, the white bed curtains, the stacks of books and journals in every available corner. The narrow desk with yet more books, an inkwell, a box of iron nails, a jar of salt.
“Yes.”
“You’re not staying in Hallow? At one of the inns?” Where they had hot water and fricasseed beef and were accustomed to catering to earls and museum curators from London.
He shook his head. “I am afraid I owe you an apology, Lady Sorcha,” Aidan said, sounding very formal for someone not quite dressed. There was a scar by his shoulder.
Sorcha tilted her head at him. “Really?”
“Yes. Yesterday in the alley—”
“No, I meant, really, you’re going to be so formal with me while wearing nothing but a blanket, barefoot in the woods?”
He looked briefly confused. “Of course. I would not insult you by—” He paused, seeming to realize that he was a very large, half-naked man in a private tent with a lady. “Though, of course, if you are offended by—”
She rolled her eyes.
His mouth twitched. “Until now, I was not aware that a person could roll their eyes so loudly.”
“I’m not offended by feet.” Or chests. Or buttocks. Best not say that out loud.