Chapter Forty-Two
Isobella’s breath condensed on the brisk morning air as they rode out of Langeais with Lothair and ten of his hand-picked guards.
Behind them, the keep loomed, stark against the deep reds of the rising sun.
Still visible in the lightening sky above hung the waning crescent moon.
It was the moon phase for weeding and pruning.
The time to cut out that which hindered growth, get rid of the dead wood.
In magic, it was the end of a cycle. A time for renewal and reflection, to relinquish and cleanse.
It couldn’t be more apt. Douglas was gone.
Cut from her life in the most final way possible.
The man she had cried endless tears over when she’d discovered him in their bed with Irena King, never knowing, until the early hours of this morning, that everything between her and Douglas had been a lie.
That it had all been a part of Cordelia’s plan to…
what? Get her vengeance on a guy, long dead, who had rejected her?
If that was all this was, then Cordelia needed to see a therapist.
Now, because of it all, Douglas was dead.
It wasn’t how Isobella would have wanted things to end.
She’d rather have had him sent back to their time and let the coven deal with him, but tenth-century justice was merciless.
Her wolf coiled in her mind, satisfied. She had wanted his blood as much as Aubert.
It was disturbing how little she mourned the man she’d once intended to spend the rest of her life with.
Being turned into a werewolf was changing her in ways beyond the physical.
Being in the tenth century was changing her.
Beside her, Edmond squinted at the sky as the reds of the sunrise slowly leeched into gray. “Looks like we might get rain. Perfect for a journey across the county.”
On the other side of her, Aubert grunted.
He’d not said two words to her since Aimon had returned his sword to him, reclaimed from the chevaliers of House Allard, and he’d hauled himself into the saddle.
Not unusual for Aubert. That he refused to look at her or acknowledge her had her as somber as the gathering clouds.
Last night, after they’d all trooped back up the stairs, D’Artagnon and Gaharet had returned to the hall where Remi awaited them, eager for information.
Of Aubert there had been no sign, so she’d returned to the bedchamber with Edmond.
Wrapped in his arms, she’d told him her story.
Why she’d agreed to come back in time, her desperate battle for survival.
Her hopes, her longing for what Annabelle and Gabriel had.
How she’d never believed she would be worthy of a Langeais mate, and hadn’t for one moment presumed she was theirs.
He’d held her close. Thanked her for trusting him with her truth.
That he’d believed her and still wanted to hold her had given her hope Aubert would come to accept her, too.
But this morning, and with each passing mile Aubert made no attempt to speak to her, to look at her, her hopes dwindled.
He still rode beside her instead of with D’Artagnon or Aimon.
Or behind with Remi and the guards, who were on horses untrained by the d’Louncrais.
That had to count for something. As they rode through the darkening forest, with the clouds above threatening to open up at any moment, it was what she held onto.
Gaharet held up his hand, and they all reined in behind him. Ahead, the trees thinned, opening onto a meadow that stretched for miles either way.
“Do you sense something?” Lothair nudged the horse Remi had relinquished beside Gaharet. “Is there something amiss?”
“I do not know.” Gaharet stared out into the open expanse of grass, sniffing the air. “There is something…”
“We could follow the tree line around to the village. Avoid the meadow altogether,” suggested Aimon.
“That will take us leagues out of our way and longer. Those clouds…” Lothair peered up at the sky. “I do not fancy being out in the rain, not wearing all this steel, for any longer than I have to, do you?”
D’Artagnon moved his horse beside Gaharet and scanned the meadow. “Better wet than dead.”
A drop of water splashed on Isobella’s nose.
Then another and another. Then the rain was falling, light at first, until the heavens opened up like it was the beginning of a biblical flood.
The trees gave them some shelter, but it wasn’t long before Isobella’s clothes had soaked through and she was shivering.
Edmond unbuckled his sword, balancing it on his horse’s withers, then removed his surcoat and draped it over her shoulders, surrounding her in his scent and the residual heat from his body.
She muttered her thanks and snuggled into it as he re-buckled his sword.
Aubert stared straight ahead, stone-faced.
It was worse than one of his signature scowls.
Lothair gathered his reins. “That settles it,” he shouted over the driving rain. “No one but a fool would be out in this weather. The sooner we cross, the sooner we will be by the fire in your keep.”
“Wait! Look!” Gaharet pointed.
A lone figure—a woman—stood in the middle of the meadow. Though the rain poured down, neither her hair nor her clothes were wet.
Cordelia. Like a stubborn weed, she kept cropping up when they least expected it.
Lothair shifted in his saddle. “Is that who I think it is?”
Gaharet turned to her for confirmation. Isobella pursed her lips and nodded.
“There is one way to solve this problem.” Lothair drew his sword.
Gaharet grabbed the comte’s arm. “She might be alone, but she is not vulnerable.”
“I don’t think she can attack you. Any of the Langeais wolves.” Rain trickled down her forehead and into her eyes, and she wiped her face with Edmond’s surcoat. “At least not directly.”
Gaharet spun to face her. “Are you certain?”
“Well, I think…” Was she certain? “Has she ever attacked a Langeais wolf? Herself?”
“No.” Gaharet frowned, water trickling down his beard. “Not that I am aware. You might be right.”
“You’re her creation,” she shouted back.
“Her curse. Curses, they’re unpredictable.
They can rebound. They always have consequences.
” In her fit of rage and jealousy, Cordelia hadn’t considered that.
Despite all her efforts over the centuries, the Langeais wolves had thrived.
That should’ve taught her not to be such a vindictive bitch.
Yet here she was. Still vengeful, still trying to destroy the Langeais wolves.
It bothered Isobella. No one held on to a rage like a woman scorned, but this was taking it to a whole other level.
There had to be another reason. Something they were all missing.
“What is she doing?” shouted Aimon.
Cordelia stood in the rain that did not touch her, her shoes kicked aside, her arms flung out and her head raised to the gray sky.
“She’s casting a spell.” Cordelia may not be able to attack the Langeais wolves directly, but she had a whole repertoire of dark spells to call on. Her grimoire was proof of that. “We have to stop her!”
“Stay here. Both of you.” Gaharet pointed to the twins. “Protect Isobella. She may be the only person that can save us from this witch. You too, Remi.”
Gaharet drew his sword and spurred his horse out onto the meadow.
Lothair, D’Artagnon, Aimon, and Lothair’s guards all followed, thundering down upon the lone woman standing unprotected in the grass.
She didn’t have Didier, Douglas or the chevaliers from House Allard to do her dirty work.
This might be their one chance to rid themselves of Cordelia.
They were wrong. She was wrong.
Cordelia wasn’t alone. She was never alone.
Not when she had her magic. From the mud, things rose.
Hideous, misshapen things oozing sticky, gloopy mud, defying the drenching rain that should have washed them back into the earth.
The warriors didn’t falter. They bore down on them, slicing and stabbing at them.
But the things weren’t human, animal or even living.
They were mud, and they didn’t die, or bleed or fall.
They reformed, reaching for the riders as Gaharet, Lothair and the men tried to clear a path to Cordelia.
A horse screamed as the mud creatures mired its legs in their slimy clutches.
It struggled to free itself, its stomping hooves splashing mud in all directions, but to no avail.
The creatures surged up its legs, reaching for its rider and pulled him from the saddle into their sludgy depths.
It swallowed him whole. The mud slid back into the ground, and the rider was gone, the horse galloping away across the meadow, stirrups flapping against its flanks.
The chevalier gone as if he had never existed.
Not the mud creature. It rose again, reaching for another rider.
Isobella clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling her horror. They were all going to die. She’d sent them out there to their deaths, believing Cordelia couldn’t touch them. She didn’t have to.
Edmond drew his sword. “I am not going to stand by and watch her destroy our pack.”
“Edmond, no!” Aubert’s words were a sharp crack of sound through the unrelenting rain. “Gaharet’s right. Isobella is the key. She can save us.”
Me? Isobella swiveled from Edmond to Aubert. I’m no match for Cordelia.
Aubert moved his horse closer to hers and took her hand. Rain sluiced over his face and dripped from his beard, but his focus never wavered. “You have used your magic before. In the forest. In Langeais village. Use it now.”
But this is Cordelia. What use was Isobella’s green magic against a dark and powerful blood witch? Isobella encouraged plants to grow and flowers to bloom. Banished weeds that refused to stay gone.
Isobella stilled. Banished weeds that refuse to stay gone.