Chapter Nine
Wrapped in a blanket, Isobella sat on the cot and stared at the open door.
What the hell had happened?
One minute she’d been rejoicing in her successful return to human form, and the next…
The next Aubert was flinging himself off her as though she was some sort of leper.
But…there had been no mistaking the thick bar of his erection.
Her belly did a little flip, and a bone cracked in her hand.
For a minute there, lying on the cot, naked beneath a bare-chested Aubert, while Edmond held her hand, their faces inches apart, she’d dared to imagine…
She swallowed, and her heart kicked up its pace.
Another bone in her hand cracked, and one in her wrist, too.
Uh oh.
She eyed her hands, waiting, watching. No more movement.
Her hands remained human. Thank goodness.
Another shift, when neither twin was here to help her shift back, to stop her from running off into the forest, wasn’t ideal.
When they were already angry with her, or at least annoyed.
Why else would they have stormed out of the cottage?
But Edmond’s smile, his face so close to hers, as though he might kiss her, and Aubert’s…
Could there be another reason they might have turned her?
Could she be…? Both of them? It wasn’t unheard of.
Not in the Montagne family. Pierre and Louis, Gabriel’s younger brothers, also twins, shared a mate.
Heat bloomed across her lower abdomen. Two men as devoted to her as Gabriel was to Annabelle? It was more than appealing, but…
She shrank a little inside the cocoon of the blanket. She hadn’t been able to keep one man happy. What hope did she have of keeping two? Two top-of-the-food chain werewolves who could have any woman they wanted. Women like Annabelle or Stefanie. Like Irena King.
More comfortable around plants than large crowds of people, Isobella wasn’t the type to draw men to her like the pitcher plant draws bugs.
Isobella was a dandelion to Irena’s Bird of Paradise.
Thinking she might be a mate of not one Langeais wolf but two was setting herself up for failure.
The humiliation, the defeat of her breakup with Douglas still burned strong.
Fur sprouted along the backs of her hands, and her knuckles cracked.
Settle, Isobella.
She took a few deep, slow breaths, focusing on her breathing, and the fur receded. She checked her hands again. Human. Crisis averted.
Her torn dress on the floor caught her eye. Shifters were sexual beings, and she had been naked. That made more sense. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d read too much into a man’s behavior.
The open door creaked in the breeze. The twins were gone, but they would be back for sure.
And soon. They wouldn’t leave a newly turned, untrained werewolf alone for long.
It would be best if she weren’t sitting here naked but for a blanket when they returned.
That would be awkward. There had to be something she could wear here.
With the blanket wrapped around her, she searched the cottage.
There was an interesting collection of rocks and feathers, a bunch of pots with—Isobella lifted a few of the lids—willow bark, comfrey, deadly nightshade berries on the shelves.
Woven baskets filled with vegetables. A pot of bubbling stew hanging over the small fire.
She pushed aside a heavy cloth. Not a window, but a sleeping nook.
On the shelf above the cot was a neat pile of dresses.
Perfect. Though she mourned the loss of her underwear, Isobella wasn’t going to complain.
She was no longer at Faucher’s mercy. She was alive and cancer free, and she had clothes.
She’d also, unwittingly, found the Langeais wolves. Her mission was back on track.
Her stomach rumbled, and she eyed the pot of stew. Dress first, then eat. She closed the cottage door and dropped the blanket to the floor. She’d be more comfortable, less vulnerable, and ready to face their ire if she were fully clothed when they returned.
Dressed and her hunger satiated, Isobella was doing a thorough inventory of the pots of herbs when the door creaked open and not the twins but a boy, with a mop of unruly blond curls, entered.
“You are awake.”
Not a shifter. He lacked the otherness she associated with shifters—the canine grace no matter how big they were, their awareness of their surroundings, the raw power that dripped off them.
He had none of those. Maybe he was their page or squire or something, whatever tenth-century chevaliers had. Or maybe he lived here.
Isobella fumbled the lid back onto the pot in her hand and placed it back on the shelf. “Hi.” She gave the boy an awkward wave. “Um…sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop, but I was curious about the herbs. Do you…live here?”
The boy helped himself to a bowl of stew from the pot, hoisted himself onto the table and swung his legs back and forth. “No. This is Constance’s hut,” he said between mouthfuls of food, “but I do not think she will be living here anymore.”
Constance? D’Artagnon’s mate? That would explain all the herbs, the collection of rocks and the feathers that wouldn’t be out of place in her kitchen back in San Francisco.
The door opened again, and the twins ducked their heads as they entered the little cottage, towering over her and the boy and sucking all the oxygen from Isobella’s lungs.
They filled up a space that moments ago had been cozy but now seemed too small.
Two savagely handsome men. Edmond and Aubert Montagne.
Warriors. Werewolves. Were all tenth-century chevaliers this…
this overwhelming? Intimidating? Untamed?
They stood in the doorway staring at her.
Aubert, his eyebrows converging in a frown and his lips pursed, highlighting the white line of a scar slicing through his top lip, held a large haunch of some unfortunate animal.
Huh. That must’ve been one hell of an injury to leave its mark on a shifter.
Where she’d bitten his lip had already healed.
A smear of blood across his chin the only sign it had happened at all.
Her gaze slid down to his bare chest, past the gold medallion, to his abdomen. That had healed, too.
Edmond jerked his head at the door. “Remi, go keep watch.”
The boy, Remi, shoveled the last of his stew into his mouth, slipped off the table and tipped his hand to the twins. Did he have any idea what they were? That he was in the company of werewolves?
The door closed behind him, leaving her alone with the twins.
She cleared her throat and dragged her gaze back up to their faces. “Thank you. For what you did for me. You know, turning me.”
Edmond cocked his head. A muscle ticked in Aubert’s jaw, his frown fierce enough to make a pissed-off grizzly bear proud. If she didn’t know differently, that’s exactly what she would have picked him as—a bear shifter. Both of them.
“I…um…I’m so, so grateful.” What could one say that would convey the deep well of gratitude she had for them for saving her life?
“I…um…I hope you won’t get into trouble.
I can speak to Gaharet d’Louncrais, your alpha, on your behalf.
If there are to be any consequences. I’ll take full responsibility.
” It was the least she could do. “And I’m sorry about earlier.
You know shifting and”—she waved a hand at Aubert and his bare chest—“and injuring you.”
Aubert snorted. Was that a ‘it was no big deal I’m already healed’ snort? An ‘I’m still angry with you, apology not accepted’? Or was it a ‘damn right you’ll be talking to our alpha’ kind of snort’?
Edmond finally moved, stepping up to the table. “There is no need to speak to Gaharet.” He gestured to a seat, then set out three mugs, filling them with wine.
Isobella sat, and he placed one in front of her.
He studied her as he sank into a seat opposite, his large hands engulfing his mug until it all but disappeared.
Aubert dropped the haunch onto the table with a thump.
Isobella flinched. He slipped a tunic over his head, covering up his bare chest, produced a wicked-looking knife and proceeded to skin the haunch with the skill of a true hunter.
The silence returned, heavy, suffocating.
Say something. Anything. “You are the Montagne twins, aren’t you? Edmond and Aubert.”
The twins shared a look, but neither answered her.
Isobella squirmed. She took a swig of wine, as much to wet her lips as to give herself a moment to gather her courage.
Could she have got it wrong? He’d called his brother Aubert, hadn’t he?
Were there other wolf shifters in the tenth century?
No. Shifters, ordinary shifters, could not turn a human.
Only the Langeais wolves had that ability.
And as far as Isobella knew, out of the few surviving Langeais wolves in the tenth century, there was only one set of twins.
“Aubert,” the one with the scar, with the wicked-looking knife, confirmed.
A hint of a smile teased the corners of Edmond’s lips. “And I am Edmond. We are the Montagne twins.”
A half-smile. More a quirk of his lips on one side, but some of the tension eased from her shoulders. Stef had said the twins were good men, good wolves, if somewhat intimidating. Try a lot. She had to trust her friend. Stef wouldn’t have led her astray.
The mouse in the roof scratched a path through the straw. A log popped in the fire. The slice of Aubert’s blade as he worked the knife, skinning the hide, set her teeth on edge.
Aubert’s attention did not swerve from his blade. “Who are you?”
No smile from Aubert. She took another sip of wine to ease the dryness in her throat. “My name is Isobella, Isobella Rodriguez.”
Isobella turned her mug around and around. The intensity in Edmond’s eyes all but sent her body up in flames. She glanced at Aubert, and her warm buzz cooled. He didn’t like her. That much was obvious. Why? Had he not wanted to turn her?
She straightened, cleared her throat and pushed her disappointment aside.
She was here to do a job, not to be universally liked, and though it stung he’d passed judgment without knowing anything about her, she would deal with it.
All those women persecuted down through the centuries were counting on her.
“I’m…a witch, and my coven sent me here to help the Langeais wolves. ”
Aubert cut the last of the hide from the meat and set it aside. He pointed the tip of the dagger at her. “What know you of the Langeais wolves?”
Edmond rolled his eyes at his brother. “Put the dagger down, Aubert. You look as if you are ready to kill someone.”
Edmond shot her a rueful grin. Isobella risked a smile back. Aubert grunted, then tossed the dagger onto the table. It was sharp. Perfect for slitting someone’s throat.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. Swallowed again as it tried to lodge in her esophagus.
She needed to prove herself. To Edmond as much as Aubert.
“I know your pack is on the verge of extinction. That Lance Vautour betrayed you, and D’Artagnon has returned from his exile in Rus.
Comte Lothair wants to create an army of werewolves and probably wants to be one himself.
Ulrik has spent some time in Comte Lothair’s dungeon, and you once suspected him of being a traitor.
” She pointed to the chain around Aubert’s neck.
“I know about your amulets. How Erin and Rebekah each found one in my time and ended up here in the tenth century.”
The smile on Edmond’s face slipped, and there was a wariness in his eyes. And Aubert… That thundercloud frown of his was fast on its way to becoming pyroclastic.
By sheer force of will, Isobella kept her gaze from straying to the door.
Running from a shifter was never a good idea.
Even if she was one now. “I know all this because your pack survived. It still survives in the twenty-first century, which is over a thousand years into your future. I know this because your descendants are the ones who told me all about you. They, along with my coven, were the ones who sent me here.”
More silence, and this one held weight. Conscious she was fidgeting, she laid her hands flat on the tabletop, then dropped them into her lap. All the while, two sets of brown eyes followed her every move.
Edmond cleared his throat. “You are saying Erin and Rebekah are from”—his Adam’s apple bobbed—“a thousand years from now?”
She glanced from one to the other. They didn’t know?
Gaharet would’ve told them, surely. Erin’s Australian accent would’ve been hard to hide, and Ulrik’s mate, Rebekah, had green streaks in her hair, and tattoos and piercings…
everywhere. “Yes. They’re from the twenty-first century.
Like I am. Except I used a spell to come here, not an a—”
The door flew open, and Remi burst into the cottage. “They are coming.”
Who’s coming?
“Faucher has found us again.”
Again?