Chapter Nineteen
Isobella stood in the corridor outside the bedchamber, her nose twitching.
Her new wolf senses were wonderful, but a little confusing.
She sniffed the air again, the heady musk of Edmond and Aubert filling her nostrils.
The beast inside her stirred—a worrying development.
Had they been outside her door? The scent was strong.
Did that mean it was recent? She eyed the doors further along the corridor.
Perhaps they had passed this way to and from their bedchambers.
Would their scent linger this long if they’d merely walked past her door?
“Smell them, can you?” Anne straightened the bedcovers while the old wolf watched on from his spot beside the brazier. “I am not surprised. They sat outside your door all night, the pair of them.”
Huh? She eyed the corridor. She was a newly turned wolf. A potential danger to every human, a risk of their existence getting out. It stood to reason she had a guard. Yet her heart gave a little flutter all the same.
“Run along now, child. They will be waiting for you downstairs.”
Everyone? Or Aubert and Edmond? Isobella descended the stairs, the flutter in her chest a little more insistent. She paused at the bottom, undecided.
From inside the main hall came the rumble of male voices, raising goosebumps across her skin. Aubert and Edmond. Her wolf pushed forward, her body attuned to them, drawn to them like a teenager to their high school crush. Equally as futile where Aubert was concerned. But Edmond…?
Down the corridor, feminine laughter spilled from a room.
Erin, Rebekah, Kathryn and Constance? She should join them.
Compare stories with Erin and Rebekah, or notes with Constance on how they might match Douglas and Cordelia.
She could take this opportunity to impress on Erin that Edmond and Aubert were not to blame for her turning. Then, Erin could talk to Gaharet.
As though she had no control over her own feet, Isobella turned her back on the women and stepped into the hall.
The rumble of voices stopped, and five men turned in her direction.
Big, muscular men. Chevaliers. Warriors.
More testosterone than in a man cave or the gym or a football club combined.
Two of them drew her gaze above all. And the attention of her wolf.
Bigger than the rest of them, a half grin on Edmond’s lips and a scowl on Aubert’s.
Flip sides of a coin, but the pull to both of them was undeniable.
Because they’d saved her, and turned her?
Because, deep down, she longed for what Annabelle and Gabriel had?
And Erin and Gaharet, Aimon and Kathryn and all the rest of them?
Because she knew Montagne twins like to share a mate?
A bone in her ankle cracked, and the dark presence inside her slipped closer to the surface. This had been a bad idea. She should’ve joined the women. All the male pheromones in here were too much.
“Good morrow, Isobella,” greeted Gaharet.
The threat of her wolf subsided beneath his commanding stare. Thank goodness. “Morning.” Did Gaharet know how close she’d come to shifting? Probably. He was the alpha. She jerked her thumb toward the corridor. “I’ll go join the—”
Aubert jumped to his feet and dragged Remi to his, despite the boy’s protests.
He crossed the room toward her, the swish of his armor, the purpose in his strides loud in the silent room.
She swallowed, tracking his advance. With his sword swinging at his hip, and a ferocious scowl on his face, he was lethality personified.
It should scare her, but the flutters in her stomach didn’t chill her heart. They warmed her core.
What the hell?
Aubert paused abreast of her, and his closeness, his body heat, and the swirl of his scent around her had her wolf pushing forward.
She shoved the writhing presence down. At the table, Edmond, watchful and wary, half rose.
Was he expecting trouble from Aubert? Gaharet had spoken to them both last night. About her turning?
Isobella raised her gaze to meet Aubert’s, willing to accept his anger. She deserved it. She’d asked them to break pack law for her, and they had. They didn’t deserve to be punished for it.
Brown eyes full of torment almost swallowed her whole.
Then Aubert snarled before brushing past her, dragging Remi with him, down the corridor to a large door.
He didn’t look back as he swung it open, and Isobella glimpsed the courtyard, and horses saddled for a journey.
He was leaving? She didn’t know which of the twins had turned her.
Had it been Aubert? No. She wouldn’t let this happen.
She would make this right. She turned to Gaharet.
“Are you sending him away because of me?”
Gaharet straightened in his seat, his eyes narrowing on her.
“It’s not his fault. Nor Edmond’s either. It’s mine. I asked them to turn me. I was dying. If you have a problem with that, you take it out on me, not them.”
Gaharet’s eyebrows shot up.
Edmond held up his hand to quiet her. “Isobella—”
“No, Edmond. I knew asking you to turn me would violate your pack laws, but I asked it of you, anyway. If Gaharet should punish anyone for it, it should be me.” She swallowed. “Just let me do what I’ve been sent here to do, and then…”
Isobella trailed off. At best, she could expect exile.
In which case, she could use the spell from Cordelia’s grimoire and return home.
How the twenty-first century Langeais wolves would view things…
Well, she could deal with that then. The worst…
The worst would be a death sentence. She straightened her shoulders.
If that was what it was, she would face it.
She would savor the extra time her turning had given her.
Use it wisely and do what her coven had sent her to do.
If she could change the fate of thousands of witches, it would be worth it.
Edmond rose and joined her in the doorway, taking her clenched hands in his. “Isobella. Aubert is escorting Remi to Langeais so he may gather information for us. He will return by nightfall.” Edmond’s lips quirked. “Scowls and all.”
She glanced at Gaharet. “You’re not…exiling him?”
Gaharet leaned back in his seat, his head cocked to the side, regarding her. “No.”
“Oh.” Heat flushed her cheeks, and she stared down at her hands swamped in Edmond’s grasp. She raised her gaze and stared straight at the alpha. Her alpha. “I meant what I said. If there are to be any reprisals for my turning, neither Aubert nor Edmond should bear them.”
Something shifted in Gaharet’s eyes. “There will be no reprisals, Isobella, but you will need training to learn to control your wolf. Beginning this morn.”
“Ah…um, thank you.” Isobella nodded, her earlier bravado disappearing beneath Gaharet’s direct stare.
Edmond released her hands. “Come, Isobella, let me show you to the training room.”
Isobella dragged in a breath. With one last uncertain look at Gaharet, she followed Edmond from the hall and up the stairs.
She’d be the most dedicated newly turned wolf they’d ever seen.
She’d make sure Gaharet didn’t regret her turning.
Or Edmond and Aubert. Though, if Aubert was not being punished, why on earth was he so angry with her?
Edmond led Isobella up the stairs, reveling in her warm skin beneath his hand splayed across her lower back.
She’d spoken for him and Aubert. Been prepared to take full responsibility for her turning.
It had melted something in his chest. Had Aubert stayed long enough to witness it, it could not have failed to affect him too.
But Aubert had left the hall as though he could not be gone fast enough.
Edmond stopped in front of the training room door. “We have a special room for training newly turned wolves,” he said.
No need for a light. With the benefit of her wolf’s eyesight, Isobella could make out every single detail of it. The sturdy planks, the large iron bolt and the peephole.
“This will be hard for you. Hard for your wolf being locked away, but also because of what happened to you beneath the chapel.” Edmond pushed the door open. “I am sorry, but it is safer for the wolf and safer for every human within ten leagues of us. Safer for the pack.”
Coals in the brazier bathed the stark room in a soft glow, but nothing could take away from the harsh reality of it—the lack of a window, the forlorn cot, the single table and chair.
It was better than the room beneath the chapel, but it was a room designed to keep someone locked in. Today it would be her. And him.
Training was imperative. Isobella had to learn to control her wolf. She was a liability until she did.
Isobella took a deep breath, threw her shoulders back and nodded. “Let’s do this.”
She walked without hesitation into the training room. A room so steeped in emotions, good and bad, it must be overwhelming her wolf senses. Their brave mate. Determined, too. His heart fit to burst, he followed her in. She would make one of them a good mate.
If only Aubert had been here to see it. He raked a hand through his hair.
It bothered him he was not at his brother’s side, watching his back.
Aubert was more than capable of his task.
As an experienced chevalier and a werewolf, few could match him, but it had been so long since either of them had undertaken a task alone it left him…
empty. As though a part of him, an integral piece, was missing.
Was this how it would be when Isobella chose one of them as her mate? Edmond did not like it one bit.
Isobella wandered about the room, running her hand over the table, then across the back of the chair. She lifted one of the leather restraints on the cot. “You use this room for turnings, too, I take it?”
“Yes. Before we knew of a way to temper its effects.”