Chapter 16 #2
Tell me you want me to come back, tell me you want to be the one to protect me if you’re worried for my safety. Tell me you care! At least a little.
Her voice wobbled. She’d been so full of hope this morning, so full of happiness only a moment ago. Wolf was sending her away, when she had finally discovered that she loved him, when they had agreed to make love that night, when she had been convinced they could start anew. It was unbearable.
“We have plans… Tonight, we agreed…”
He closed his eyes as if he could not bear to think about those plans.
Her stomach plummeted further. He didn’t want her as a lover, he had been disappointed by her reaction and lack of experience.
Her worst dread had been confirmed. Wolf didn’t want her.
In any way. Not as his wife, not as his lover, not even as his slave.
He just wanted her gone.
He bunched his fists. “I’m sorry. I can’t keep you here with me.”
“You can. You must! We are married!”
But he just shook his head.
“Merewen. I’m going now. I don’t want to be on the road after dark.” Alaric said, sounding eager to put an end to the awkward moment. He was standing by his restless horse, ready to mount. “Are you coming or not?”
Should she leave? Or should she stay and fight, at the risk losing everything? Because if she chose to try and convince Wolf to keep her with him, and he refused, then she would miss her uncle, the only person in this world who might want her, and find herself all alone.
“Go with him,” Wolf said, clenching his jaw. He looked like a man in pain and she briefly wondered if he wanted to let her go, despite what he was saying. “I can’t… Solveig…”
Was that what was eating at him? He thought he would fail her like he had his first wife? Well she did not agree, she knew he was a protector to the core. Wasn’t that why he had bought her? To protect her? And what danger did he think she was in anyway?
“I trust you,” she started. “I know you can—”
“Well, I don’t. I can’t protect you!” he snarled. Then something in his eyes changed, as if he’d taken a decision. “I don’t want to be the one looking after you anymore. So you’ll just have to go.”
With those words, he turned and walked away.
“No!” Merewen cried out. But the word got stuck in her throat. How could he just abandon her like this?
A moment later, Wolf was gone.
As soon as he disappeared from view, her insides collapsed and the world dimmed, as if all the light had been taken away along with her bones and blood.
Was that how life without him would be? Was this how she was going to feel day after day?
An empty husk of a woman with only memories of the few moments spent together and no hope of feeling joy ever again?
No. She would not let it happen. She had once needed to think about her marriage, she did not anymore.
She was sure she trusted Wolf, and wanted to spend the rest of her life by his side during the day and in his arms at night.
She loved him, and this was worth everything, certainly worth fighting for.
In that instant, Merewen knew she would risk missing her uncle, the only family she might find to try and salvage what she already had with Wolf.
He was her husband. He could give her a family, the family he craved himself.
She just had to convince him she preferred being with a man she loved with the risks it entailed than being safe without him.
This time she would make the decision. And it would be the right one.
Before she could take a step toward the hut, an arm closed around her waist. Alaric. Evidently he thought she was about to fall, which did not surprise her. She probably looked as pale as a corpse.
“Come. It’s time to go.”
She shook her head, trying to disentangle herself from his grasp. She was not about to falter, not now, not when she had something so important to do! “I’m sorry, I can’t go with you. I need to go and see my husband, tell him—”
“Your husband? You mean that man who abandoned you?” The hold around her tightened. “It seems to me he doesn’t care about you.”
“He does!” Merewen protested, willing it to be true.
Surely he did. He wouldn’t think of her safety if he did not in some way or other care for her…
He was only reacting that way because of Solveig, because he didn’t trust himself to keep her safe.
She could not have misinterpreted the gleam in his eye.
He didn’t truly want her gone, he only thought it safer because he didn’t want to fail her.
Surely that was all it was, and she could convince him he was wrong if she went now…
It was not too late.
“Please tell my uncle if he’s still there when you arrive home where to find me and that I’m waiting for him. But I can’t go with you.”
Alaric laughed and something about that laugh made the hairs at the back of Merewen’s neck stand on end. Then he spoke and his voice in her ear had all the warmth of a puddle of ice.
“Oh, Merewen, you little fool. There is no uncle, don’t you see? I only made him up to lure you in.”
“You—”
“Your dear husband was right all along, I am abducting you, but you obligingly convinced him he had nothing to fear from me. A good thing, too, because I do not rate my chances against him. The man’s a beast. And now that I’ve finally caught you, I’m not going to leave without you.
” The arm around her was like an iron band.
“You’re on your own. No one cares about you.
The only person who could have stopped me from taking you has washed his hands of you. ”
A scream built in her throat. But Alaric’s hand clamped over her mouth before the sound could escape. A moment she was on the horse, galloping away.