Leora #2
And that was when I remembered the part about Dorie running out of the house with a fire poker to confront the man with a gun.
“I’m really sorry about that,” I said to the giant. “We invaded your space and ah … tried to hurt you.”
“Could have been worse,” he grunted.
As polite as I always tried to be, I had to ask, “How?”
Instead of answering me, he told Dorie. “Get your ma some of that stew we’re making. It’s not time for supper yet, but I reckon she’ll mow through a few bowls after that big heal.”
Stew. So that was what smelled so good when I woke up. His shirt had made me forget the other great aroma. But now my empty stomach growled for a meal.
Stay, my wolf whined. But my human insisted. “No time to eat, we’ll be on our way.”
“Nae, you’ll eat and rest,” he commanded. “Until you're fit to travel.”
I was trying to be polite. I’d always been so polite.
But I was hungry and embarrassed and overwhelmed with the need to get my child to safety.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” I snapped at him.
“Then stop being daft,” he bit back at me.
“I’m not stupid! I’m desperate! Desperate to fix this!” Angry tears sprang to my eyes without warning. “I made so many mistakes getting us here, and I’ve put my daughter in a bad situation. I’ve got to fix this. I’ve got to get us out of here to Faoiltiarn, where it’s safe for her. I have to …”
My voice broke, and the memory of walking into the house when I realized Joshua was going to hurt Dorie crashed down on me.
I thought I’d find him incensed and yelling at our only child.
But instead, when I came running through the door, he was seated in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace. Which blazed with flames, even though the sun sat high in the sky.
“Joshua?” I slowed to a stop. Wondering if … hoping … I’d gotten it all wrong. Maybe Joshua hadn’t found out about the letter after all.
But then he said, “I’d thought I landed such a prize when that Abel Flosswulf told me your mother had gone into heat two times after getting wolf-mated.
But you and that village elder of yours lied to me about your potential.
Tricked me into taking you on as my helpmate.
It’s been twelve years, and you've brought me nothing but shame. "
Firelight and shadow danced across his face as he listed off my sins. “You never gave me a son. Your crazy sister humiliated my brother. Dorcas turned out to be toothless. And now I find out you’re trying to run away with her.
He stood up, "One last act of humiliation, eh? Because the rest weren’t enough for you. Is that right, you scheming harlot?”
I never lied to him about anything. Wolf-matings were compulsory in St. Ailbe. That was the only reason I’d gone along with mine when Abel Flosswulf sprang the PEI wolf on me without so much as a minute of warning.
It wasn’t like Abel had asked me before picking my mate. Not like I consented to become—not his wife—but his helpmate. No she-wolf in her right mind would have agreed to this servile purgatory if PEI males had told them about the honor laws before they arranged for “wives.”
But this wasn’t about me. It was about Dorie. The only good thing that had come out of my wolf-mating with Joshua.
I couldn’t let him hurt her.
“Maem, Maem, it’s okay,” Dorie said, pulling me out of that terrible memory. She rubbed my back as if I was the eleven-year-old and she was my mother.
“It’s not okay. It’s not. It’s all my fault.” I didn’t want to scare Dorie. But everything we’d gone through was hitting me all at once. “It’s my fault that we’re here, stuck in some stranger’s cabin. I just …”
I tried and failed to raise my voice above a broken whisper. “I just want to get us out of here. I need to get us out of here. Now, help me find my shoes so we can leave. That’s not a request, it’s an order.”
Dorie had been raised like me—to respect and obey her parents no matter what. But instead of obeying as she should, her expression hardened.
“Maem, you’re being ungrateful,” she said, her tone firm and reproving. “Alban looks mean, and he sounds mean, but he’s nice, I promise. He’s not like Joshua. You can trust him. He won’t hurt us.”
I froze, horror clogging my throat at her mention of Joshua. This was the opposite of how we’d both been raised.
She knew better than to share personal details of our lives with anyone outside our home—much less an actual outsider in a foreign country.
I glanced up at the stranger, wondering what he must think of us.
But his face held no expression.
“Here, eat this.” He shoved a bowl of stew I hadn’t noticed him getting into my hands.
“The only place you’ll be on your way to is a quick death if you try to travel by foot in the state you’re in, lass.
Plus, she’s toothless, as you lot call it.
You don’t want to put her through another ordeal. Eat, at least. Then see how ye feel.”
He held up a large spoon. As if it was an apple for his horse, a treat he was willing to give me. But only if I did what he said and behaved.
I didn’t know if I agreed with Dorie about the hulking werewolf whose cabin we had unintentionally invaded being nice.
But maybe, maybe he was right about me eating before I left with Dorie to Faoiltiarn. I needed to protect her. And in order to do that, I had to get strong again.
One bowl of stew.
I carefully took the spoon out of his meaty paw.
I’d have one bowl of stew. And then I’d find my shoes and leave with Dorie.