Chapter 3
T he smell of the woman’s blood mobilized Bronze’s ass faster than any throwing star aimed at his throat. He surged toward her and was ready to pitch himself into the water over how he’d missed the still form sprawled out before him. Her long white hair swirled on the water’s surface in lazy waves while her equally pale face was stretched toward the shy moon. Her closed eyelids sported dusty shadows similar to the ashen hue that painted her slightly parted lips. Since it was clear that even the moon had little interest in offering up its spotlight services to help him, he couldn’t see the rest of her.
What he did see, however, was a whole lot of stillness.
Not good.
His legs hit the water a breath later, and his arms were under her shoulders before he even had time to register the chilliness of the water. With one hand supporting her slight weight, he lightly but insistently tapped at her cheek with the other. Cold. Mages, she was so cold. How long had she been out there?
“Miss! Can you hear me? Miss!” When nothing but silence greeted his efforts, he surged to his feet and attempted to pull her up the riverbank and out of the water. A firm resistance stalled him out, and he slipped, landing ass-first on a protruding rock. “Fuck! Mages dammit.”
He’d managed to slide himself beneath her in the fall at least, ensuring she didn’t sink farther into the water. But why the hell was she stuck in the water? When he pulled her again, the fabric wrapped around her tightened against her throat, as if it was snagged somewhere and used its counterforce to choke the woman’s lovely neck in protest to being disturbed.
Cursing, Bronze released one of his chest daggers and sliced the ties from her neck. The dark fabric relinquished its captive and lurked back into a billowing pile below the water’s surface. But it wasn’t quite the win he’d hoped for. The woman’s feet were still hidden beneath the river muck, which had left her lower half solidly suspended underwater while the rest of her, thank the mages, had bobbed above the surface. The boulder jutting from the riverbank had been a stroke of luck for both of them, as it created a makeshift enclave that effectively prevented her from drifting farther upriver.
Securing her against him more tightly, Bronze got good and personal with a whole lot of cold and wet crud and reached down to shimmy her stuck feet until they were free. The water released her willingly this time, and Bronze hefted her out of the river. Curses flew freely as he laid her out on the forest floor and searched his brain for what to do next.
As if in answer to his prayers, a sliver of moonlight poked its way through the dark blue cirrus clouds gathering overhead, shining its guiding beam down on the very last thing commanding his attention . . . until now.
Breasts.
Free of the metric fuckton of fabric he’d cut off her and left as an offering to the river monsters, he noticed what had been concealed underneath. Below her abundance of soaking white hair, a dark green leather-lined half-cape thing with a slit down the middle had capped off her upper half. Lying on her back, however, caused the center flaps to fall open and reveal the sheerest frilly white blouse he’d ever seen.
A white blouse that was pasted with papier-maché precision to breasts that pooled in perfect mounds tucked above what his brain could only describe as a . . . was that a half corset? One of those waist-cincher things? Whatever it was, it offered up the poor woman’s flesh to the elements like cooling carrion.
And why the fuck was he thinking about her breasts? The woman was motionless. The only rush of color anywhere near her was the smear of blood at her temple staining her hairline, which had somehow escaped the river’s cleansing.
Shaking himself to get with the program, Bronze cradled her jaw while his fingers worked around the back of her neck, poking and prodding for signs of cervical fracture. Something hard and curved bumped his knuckles, tugging slightly at the thin leather cord that hugged the base of her throat. A necklace of some sort, with a pendant that must have gotten whipped around behind her.
To hell with the jewelry. What he was looking for was of the spine-deforming variety. Notches of vertebra out of place, pinched discs, spinal column bones feeling like anything other than neatly organized ridges . . .
He worked faster, terrified he’d find something. His maneuvers lifted her mouth higher toward his and brought the rest of her features into view beneath the scant moonlight. The white hair was not a wig, nor was it, he suspected after studying her scalp’s middle part, some dye job aimed at jumping the gun on the whole aging gracefully bit. Matching eyelashes fanned out in sweeping waves over lushly rounded cheeks that were far too pale and would have looked lovely cradling a smile. The rounded exuberance of her youthful beauty hinted at her being in her twenties, but the furrows between her brows, even relaxed as they were, mirrored the stony set to her chin and suggested a stoic regalness often afforded to women who’d seen too much and had been helpless for too long.
In other words, he had a gorgeous unconscious woman on his hands who could be anywhere north of twenty, south of forty, and heading further south real fast if he couldn’t jump-start her engine.
“Miss. C’mon, wake up. Wake up, dammit!” Bronze pulled one hand away from the back of her neck and pressed it against the center of her chest. “Breathe, baby. One breath. That’s all I’m asking.”
He had never been the praying type, especially since he had no idea whether the prime mages could even hear his prayers from the mortal realm, but he offered them regardless. Seemed like the least he could do, since his particular set of skills was far better at serving the mages in other more lethal capacities. He opened his mouth to offer more words?—
And the woman’s chest rose against his palm.
Relief walloped him so hard, he nearly stumbled backward and silently cursed himself for not checking her airway first. His experience with mortals injured in this fashion was limited, and breathing wasn’t necessarily a concern for him when he was in his metal skin.
“Yes! Yes, that’s it. Again, breathe for me. Can you do that?”
Those frosted lashes fluttered wildly against her cheeks before the timer ran out on the moon’s good graces and pulled the woman’s face back into shadow.
“No!”
Without the benefit of light, he focused on his hand again and the feel of her cold, wet body against his palm. Her chest rose but not enough. Not nearly deep enough. She was breathing but far too shallowly and certainly not with any sort of repetition that could be compatible with mortal life.
Shit!
Out of light, warmth, and options, he used the only tools at his disposal. With one hand still at the back of her throat, he positioned her neck so her airway was as wide open as it could possibly be, pinched her nose, and brought his mouth to hers.
The warmth on Clara’s lips was no more than a slight press of heat, a candle flickering in the aftermath of an avalanche. It had little impact on the foggy weight of her mind or the stillness the rest of her seemed to float aimlessly through.
By the moon, she was cold! And every limb throbbed with a soreness she imagined one might experience if their body had been tossed on the rocks upon which the angry sea crashed.
Was that what had happened to her? Had she finally been thrown aside, discarded like the refuse she had long been treated as?
But then where was that warmth coming from?
Clara leaned into the flush of heat that was gently parting her lips. Her wolf even whined with warmth against the onslaught of sweet breath that fluttered over her teeth, across her tongue, and cascaded down the back of her throat in a rush. And wasn’t that just wonderful? The heaviness that had pummeled her chest a moment ago suddenly lifted away, and that sweet intoxicating flood of air filled her most intimately . . .
It was a dream she never wished to surface from. Even after her lungs deflated on a sigh, the warm flow of air filled her chest again, invigorating parts of her that had borne a deathlike stillness. And the scent . . . it was almost heady in its heat. A campfire smokiness that unfurled nature’s secret spices and lured not only her wolf but every sleepy cell in her body.
Clara clung to the scent hard, chasing after it with a desperate curiosity when it would ebb away from her. Gosh, why was she doing that? Where had this need come from? As soon as the question hit her, it was accompanied by a nagging prick that tickled the corners of her mind. She was forgetting something, but what?
When she arched her back through the next onslaught of air, her shoulder blades pressed into something hard. Long, curved, pointed at the tip . . .
The moonstone relic!
Clara’s eyes winged open, and fear froze what little motion remained in her numb body. Someone was on top of her, pinning her into the damp earth. Darkness dressed the figure in shadows, blocking out any light that may have illuminated her circumstances. But that heat, the seductive heat that lingered in her lungs and under her skin, still swirled above her and everywhere their bodies touched.
Fingers cradling her jaw, lips warming her own, a slight rasp of a beard jerking her free of the fog.
And then the scent hit her. Smoky. Spicy.
Not lycan.
A human! A human was kissing her!
With floundering strength, her shaky hands heaved against his strong shoulders. To her great surprise, she needn’t have bothered. The human tore his mouth from hers and flung himself off with a speed to rival any hunting wolf. Though there was no shortage of nearby boulders along the riverbank, he’d chosen the farthest one, it seemed, to enmesh himself against. He held up his long arms, all fingers extended high toward the moon, and stayed in a crouched position, as if in defense of a circumstance both out of his control and in need of dire explanation.
“I wasn’t trying anything, I promise. I saw you floating in the river unconscious, and when I pulled you to shore, you weren’t breathing well enough on your own.”
Clara’s head slowly fell to the side as she studied him, and instantly her cheeks warmed with that seductive heat from earlier. Was this what all humans looked like? Even clouded in shadows as he was, she could still make out the rich auburn hair that hung in loose waves about his chin as he shook the emphasis of truth into his words. A beard of similar color framed his mouth in a neat gathering, though the hairs didn’t extend along the rest of his jawline like the beards of most lycan males.
Males . . . she was with a male.
Thoughts of her kind awakened her realization of the compromised state she found herself in, and she quickly tried not to let her gaze linger too long on that beard or, more particularly, his mouth. But damn her, she couldn’t resist the urge to see more of him.
A human. A real human! She’d done it!
But her soft elation was quickly quelled when she spied the chest holster fitted against his toned frame. Blade hilts sat in neat little rows snugly along his ribcage, hugging his chest like an unbreachable wall. Straps of what looked to be leather crisscrossed over his trapezius muscles as well, which drew her eyes to land on a handle poking out from above a tense shoulder. She didn’t need to see more to know what that handle was likely attached to and what a male with as much strength as the one before her could do with a simple reach behind himself.
It was that awareness that brought back every ounce of cold her body had, for some reason, forgotten to shiver through. Clara gripped her dripping mantle tight around her shoulders and risked a glance at the surrounding forest floor for her cloak.
“It’s in the water,” the human male replied. “I had to cut it off to free you.”
That certainly got her attention. Free her? Free her from— Oh, God. The relic. It had been tied around her neck. Had her father’s guards found her? She opened her mouth to speak when a comfortable and familiar weight pressed against her upper back.
No, I didn’t lose it. It’s here.
As discreetly as possible, Clara gripped the leather strap cinching her throat and twisted the relic so it rested comfortably between her breasts, then stowed it safely beneath her blouse.
Her wolf’s low growl of warning rattled through her now-shivering muscles, a silent reminder that safety was not assured. Clara quickly rose to her feet, and the human’s hands flew up in front of him.
“Whoa! Slow it down, there. I just pulled you from that river not two minutes ago. There’s still water running off you, and you’re a far cry from being high and dry.” The male kept his hands raised but took two steps closer, his gaze assessing her hairline where her temple throbbed. “You’ve got quite the head wound, and I have no idea how long you’ve been soaking up more than your share of the Ellis, so we’ve got to take care of things before any blood still in you decides to evacuate.”
How strangely he spoke. Oh, she was able to gather his meaning about her injuries, but his vernacular was so odd. “The . . . Ellis? What is that?”
He gestured toward the river. “The waterway that runs through this part of the White Mountains. Feeds into all sorts of treatment plants in and around Aurora, including the town’s reservoir. The treated wastewater dumps out at this part of it, so the rapids can seem a little edgier at the base here.”
Clara followed the nod of his chin toward the bridge that loomed above the churning waters and had to stifle her gasp. The small archway was crafted from the smoothest stones she’d ever seen, which glowed nearly alabaster against the barest light of the moon. None of the architecture in her father’s stronghold could ever have been so fine. She was almost tempted, despite the unknown danger of the male before her and the risk to her relic, to shift into her wolf form just so the she-wolf’s enhanced eyesight could be her own. The masonry of the work alone was astonishing. She could barely make out any mortar that didn’t appear as smooth as her own skin. And the curve of the bridge itself! So flawless she couldn’t imagine mortal hands possibly crafting something that contained zero traces of embellishments or protrusions. Her gaze drifted lower, drawn toward the rush of water tunneling out of a circular enclosure that was still mostly shrouded in shadow.
Holy mother . . .
Churning water. A river reaching a stone circle. The bridge.
She was in the human lands. She’d made it.
She inhaled sharply and looked to the sky. The blanket of stars was no longer visible as they had been when she’d first fled, but even through the thin clouds, she was able to note their positions in relation to the waning moon.
She’d been gone an hour or two at most.
And then it all came back to her. The howls chasing her, the slide down the embankment, the horrid crash into the frigid water. The rock meeting her temple and the darkness that consumed her after.
Clara whipped toward the human male, who still hadn’t moved from his position near her, nor had he lowered his hands. He merely stared at her with a worried sort of wonder, as if she were a skittish creature who would either bite him or bay at the moon for help.
She did neither. Instead, she called on the inner strength of her wolf and used what little they both could muster to throw herself at the male. Once she had her nails firmly embedded into the meat of his biceps, she hung on, forcing all her desperation into her weight, and cast pleading eyes up at him.
“Compete for me.”
He tried to hold her upright, while still keeping her at arm’s length. The shock of both her strength and her words quickly twisted the male’s face with additional alarm. “I’m sorry, what?”
“My hand,” she hurried out. “Compete for me. It will be yours, for surely, you can win.” She squeezed the toned muscles of his upper arms tighter in a harried attempt to convey her point. Though most of him was cold and damp like her, his body did not shiver against the elements. There was a quiet fortification to his powerful frame. Slight, yet unsuspecting.
Yes, he could be her champion. The others would overlook him, dismiss him, but she alone would know?—
“Win what? Lady, your head . . . you’ve been through a heck of a?—”
“You have no idea what I have been through, human,” she gritted out, her voice elevating to levels she’d never dared to use against other males. “But it will be nothing should you refuse to compete for my hand in marriage.”
They both stilled as the word landed at their feet with the weight of a fallen oak.
“Marriage?” he asked in disbelief as he tried to steady her, seemingly no longer realizing that she had already stopped moving. Then a drawbridge of concern slammed over his stern brow. “Are you in trouble?”
There it was. The very question she had prepared herself to answer, the one whose response she’d rehearsed a thousand times on her journey from the stronghold. The calculated message, the specific words, the exchanges, the agreements.
But when the time finally came, to her great horror, what came out instead was the truth. Simple words to a simple question that revealed more shame than salvation, but she couldn’t bring herself to care anymore.
She was cold, and she was here. She’d found him, and that had to be enough for now.
“Yes,” she breathed with a relief so strong it lightened more than her lungs. “We all are.” And then she did the one thing she’d promised herself she’d never do again.
She begged.
“Please.”