Chapter Seven #2
“Then I’m done,” I said simply. The room dropped cold and silent.
“I can’t stomach what he does to our people any longer.
This is the closest we’ve been, ever, our best chance for saving Dornwulf.
If it fails, I’d rather go down with it than endure more years like this.
And you know it’ll only get worse when my brother takes the throne. ”
Adelmar reached for my hand and squeezed it gently. “I will stand by your side, then, my precious pup,” he said, a sad smile in his eyes. “Don’t try to change my mind. I’m an old wolf. I’ve seen enough.”
“You’re putting us to shame,” Matthis grumbled. “We should be with you.”
I shook my head. “You have practical reasons to stay hidden. We need you inside. But me? I must be there. For legitimacy, yes, but there’s another reason. Our people are suffering. They are ready. When they see me, the first daughter, stand against my father–”
“They will see things have a chance to change,” Adelmar finished. “Yes. Standing with him will show continuity and also a cut with the past.”
Gerhard sighed. “It’s politically sound. I just want to make sure you know what it will mean for you.”
“I do. And I accept it.”
He nodded. “I’ll go, then. Come to me, both of you, tomorrow at noon.” He rose, and Matthis and Adelmar rose with him.
And as one, they pressed their fists to their hearts, firelight glinting off their knuckles, in the old soldiers’ salute. “Flame and fury,” they said. To me. To Dierk.
I placed my hand over my heart and for the first time, Dornwulf’s motto didn’t feel ominous, but something I could rightfully own. “Flame and fury.”
They left, and the cabin hushed. I was alone with him.
I rested my back against the chair and sighed.
I could have left with the other males. I could leave right now. But tomorrow was too important, and things needed to be said, clarified. We needed to discuss how we were going to deal with what we were about to start. “You were quiet during dinner.”
He got up, picked up the plates and cups still on the table, and set them in the pail. “I always am.”
“True. But I could tell there was something on your mind.”
He moved by the heart, giving me his back. “Why are you standing with me tomorrow?”
“I told you. You need legitimacy.”
He turned around, crossed his arms. “No.”
“Yes, Dierk, you do–”
“That’s not why you decided to be by my side.”
My heart skipped a beat, and something pressed against my chest, insistent and heavy. “Yes. It is.”
“No.” He was quiet for a heartbeat. “Why didn’t you leave with them?”
“Because we need to talk about tomorrow and how we’re going to handle the challenge.”
“Horseshit.”
Sparks of fire danced at my fingertips as my temper flared and tangled with the unmistakable feeling of being cornered by a giant, hungry, beautiful wolf. “You’re being, once again, a stubborn fool.”
The corner of his mouth lifted for an instant. He pushed away from the hearth and, to my horror, walked over, turned the chair I was sitting on away from the table, and knelt in front of me. “Why are you scared?”
I ground my teeth, yanking my wolf into silence. “I’m not.”
“I know your heart. I know your scent better than my own by now. Why are you scared?”
I couldn’t get a word out. His scent called to me.
He’d rested his arm across my knees, and I could only feel the spots where his warmth seeped into me.
Kneeling there, we were almost eye to eye, and I was drowning in the feral gold of his gaze.
I forced my attention away from them only to land on the scar crossing his cheek.
Lower, to his sinfully beautiful lips. Hard.
Unyielding. Just like the rest of him. But I knew how they felt on me, how they’d lit something I’d thought I’d smothered these past weeks but I’d only banked, ready to blaze back into fury.
“You’re scared of what’s here,” he said, brushing his knuckles over my wild heart. “Of what’s simmering between us. Because you know what it could be.”
“It could be nothing.” It was the last, pathetic attempt to escape by someone with nowhere else to go but the truth.
“Liar.” He tilted his head. “I know I’m no one.”
“If that’s what you think stops me–” I closed my mouth abruptly as his brow lifted with a knowing smirk. I’d walked right into his trap.
“What does stop you, Elske?”
He’d never called me by my name. Not once. Hearing it now from his lips, wrapped in that barely contained growl, shattered the fragile control I still had over myself and this conversation. “I can’t,” I whispered, lost.
“Why?”
“Because what if–” I swallowed, closed my eyes for a moment, trying to break free of the hold he had on me, even for a breath, even for answering just that one question with something logical.
But the rest of the words tangled on my tongue, stripped by fear and longing.
I opened my eyes and found his searching mine with that relentless fire.
“What if everything burns, and we’re left with nothing but ashes?
” The air between us shivered with all the things I wouldn’t say out loud, the truths I couldn’t help but feel.
I wanted to turn away, to shield us both from the pain, but his unwavering gaze rooted me there.
He was daring me, us, to leap, consequences be damned. “What if we–”
“What if we die?”
Gods. “Yes.”
“Then we die.”
I let out a strangled chuckle. Leave it to him... “How’s that any kind of smart?”
“Dying is never smart.”
I pushed against his chest, but there was no heat behind it, and he didn’t even flinch.
He frowned, though, eyes dropping to my hands.
He took one in his own, turning it over as if studying something alien and beautiful.
“This past month... I never thought someone like me could have that. Not just revenge but....”
“Friends?”
He nodded.
I laced my fingers with his, watched as he took in the foreign and rare gentleness of it. “But underneath all of it, there was you,” he said, dragging his gaze back to mine, and his hold on my hand turned crushing. “You.”
I drew a breath, ran a hand through his dark mane, and cupped his face, hesitations vanishing like cinders in the autumn wind.
Where else was there to go for me but him? In what reality could I fight what called us? I didn’t want to give in, I didn’t want to have my heart shattered. But the choice I had, to turn my face from it, from him, seemed even more painful. “I don’t know how to stop wanting you.”
“Don’t.” He turned his face into my palm, drawing a long breath. “And if it all goes to hell, then we’ll go down burning together.”
My wolf whined, begging me to surrender to what felt so right.
I had no fight left, against her or against what I’d wanted for so long.
I couldn’t keep him away anymore. It was as if my entire being had been orienting itself to him since the day I saw him, wild and chained, and every step after only drew me closer to the north of it. Of us.
Relief, excitement, and acceptance warred in my blood as I slid down from the chair and into him. His hands, large and battered, found my waist and pulled me closer onto his lap, our hearts thrumming into one while our wolves howled quietly within us.
Fire sparkled under my skin, ready to devour or surrender, maybe both.
Maybe we’ll die. Maybe this will turn out to be nothing at all.
But the more fears and doubts kept coming at me, the more he became the only certainty.
“This is stupid,” I whispered, one last denial, even as I huddled into his chest.
“It’s not.”
“Reckless.”
“Right.” His fingers brushed my cheek in a rough caress, dipped down to follow the line of my lips. “This is right. My Princess,” he growled, his wolf just beneath the surface, ready for mine.
“My stray,” I answered with a whisper.
He was burning. Under my hands, the heat of him seeped through the tunic and into my skin.
His eyes glowed, feral. For me, I realized with a shiver of fear, a shiver of excitement.
He inched closer, closer, until his lips were only a breath away.
But instead of lowering his head and closing that infinite distance, he snarled, vicious and low.
“Damned wolf,” he burred. “Wants me to pounce on you.” He brushed his nose on my cheek, down on my neck, his lips never touching me.
The vise in my chest wouldn’t let up. Waiting for that first touch was pain and pleasure, something dirty and sacred, a moment I wished over and endless.
“I’ve never... lingered,” he whispered close to my ear.
“Just fucked and left the fire to die.” He pressed his lips in the hollow just behind my ear, making me moan. “Not now. Not with you.”
He eased me off and rose, leaving me in the absence of his gravity. I thought he’d turn toward the bed, but instead, he scooped me up as if he didn’t trust the ground to hold me safe enough.
He kicked off his boots, laid me in the center of the bed slowly, gently, and started to work on mine. His hands traced a path on me, ankles, thighs, waist, breasts, as he moved up on me. I ran my palms on his chest and up until I linked my fingers behind his neck. “Will you kiss me, Dierk?”
“I’ll come apart if I do.”
“Then come apart. I’ll hold what’s left.”
Slowly, almost tentatively, he laid his lips on mine. Gone was the hunger, the rage. There was hesitant tenderness as if he was learning it as he went. Wonder that he was capable of something this gentle. The stillness of what had finally found its home.
I let go in it, in its sweetness, in his taste, wild even now. I opened my mouth to let him in, my heart skipping a beat when he growled as my tongue stroked his.
And it was I, in the end, that lost control. Because it was too much—too much male, his wild, strong body forged harder by the relentless training. Too much heat coming from him, his fire running hot in his veins, his wolf ready. His scent permeated the room and took away my reason.