CHAPTER FIFTEEN DUNCAN’S HAND
S omeone had given Aldrich wolf blood.
The words did not make sense at first.
Marion heard them, certainly. Morna had spoken clearly enough, even through smoke, battle and the miserable ringing in Marion’s ears. Yet her mind refused to shape them into anything useful.
Wolf blood.
Clan memory.
Someone.
Euan stood beside her so still that for one wild second she wondered if the smoke had caught him again. Then she felt him through the bond and wished she had not. His anger was not hot. Hot would have been easier. This was cold and deep, moving under everything like winter water beneath ice.
“Who?” he said.
Morna’s eyes under everything moved once more toward Elder Niall.
It was not an accusation. Not yet.
But Euan saw it.
So did Marion.
Niall stood beyond a knot of warriors, half hidden by drifting silver fog.
His cloak was clean despite the fighting.
That was the first thing Marion noticed, absurdly.
Everyone else was smeared with snow, ash, blood or smoke.
Niall looked as if the battle had happened around him by politeness.
His hand rested on the carved head of his walking stick.
His face held sorrow well enough for those too busy bleeding to study it closely.
But Marion could smell him now.
Not as she had before, when the Grove had been crowded and her new senses too loud. She caught it beneath the wool and age and old leather.
Glass.
Bitter herbs.
Silver ash.
Her wolf did not like it.
Neither did she.
Euan took one step forward.
Marion caught his arm.
He turned on her, eyes blazing. “Do not ask me to wait.”
“I am asking you to think.”
“I can think after I rip the truth from him.”
“That is not usually how thinking works.”
His jaw flexed.
Morna, still holding the black glass shard wrapped in cloth, gave them both an impatient look. “This is a poor moment for marital debate.”
“We are not married,” Marion said automatically.
Euan looked at her.
There was blood at his temple, a burn across one shoulder, and a fresh mark glowing on his throat where she had claimed him. Somehow, in the middle of smoke and treason, he managed to give her a look that made heat climb into her cheeks.
“Not the point,” she muttered.
A shout rose from the eastern trees.
More soldiers pushed forward, using the smoke as cover. Wolves met them with blade and fang. Aodh swung the old axe and took a spear in two clean pieces, then cursed at the man holding the useless shaft as if the soldier had offended him personally.
Aldrich’s voice drifted again, maddeningly calm.
“Do not damage Mistress Bell. The chief may be impaired if necessary.”
Euan’s growl vibrated through the bond.
Marion’s stomach turned. “He is trying to separate us.”
“He can try.”
“He will do more than try.”
Morna shoved the shard into the pouch at her belt. “Then stop standing like lovers at a market fair and move.”
Before Marion could answer, a familiar voice cut through the smoke from the other side of the Grove.
“Marion.”
Her body reacted before she wanted it to.
She stiffened.
Euan felt it. His head turned sharply, and the look that crossed his face was the sort of look wise men ran from.
Sheriff Duncan Bell stepped between two Crown soldiers with his coat buttoned neatly to his throat and one gloved hand resting on the hilt of a short silver trimmed blade.
His face had not improved since the last time Marion saw him in the forest. There was a bruise fading along his jaw, likely from some encounter with wolves or his own poor judgment.
His hair was damp from snow. His eyes moved over her in a way that made her skin crawl.
Not desire.
Not exactly.
Possession trying to understand why the lock had broken.
“You should come away from him,” Duncan said.
Marion stared at him.
There were so many things wrong with the sentence that for a moment she simply could not choose which one to strike first.
Euan could.
He moved before she blinked.
She caught him by the wrist again, harder this time. His burned skin was hot under her fingers.
“No,” she said.
His eyes cut to hers. “Marion.”
“No.”
Duncan saw the exchange and, foolishly, seemed to take encouragement from it.
“That is right,” he said, softening his voice into the one he had used at her cottage door whenever villagers were close enough to overhear.
“You still know sense when you hear it. Come here. Whatever spell this beast has worked on you, whatever wickedness these wolves have done, the Crown can help.”
Marion blinked once.
Then she laughed.
It was not pleasant laughter. Even she heard that. Several wolves glanced her way, and Duncan’s expression tightened.
“You always did choose the wrong word,” she said.
His nostrils flared. “You are ill.”
“No.”
“Corrupted.”
“No.”
“Changed beyond yourself.”
That one struck too close to the private bruise.
Marion took a step toward him. Euan moved with her. Not ahead. Beside. She noticed and did not look at him because if she did, she might feel too much.
“I am changed,” she said. “That is the first true thing you have said.”
Duncan’s gaze dropped to her bare feet, the torn shift, the blood on her hands, the glow at her throat. Disgust tried to cover fear and did not quite manage it.
“You think this is freedom?” he said. “Standing half naked among animals while they make a spectacle of you?”
A growl moved through the wolves near her.
Marion lifted one hand without looking back, and the growls quieted.
That startled her.
It startled Duncan too.
Good.
“Careful,” she said, and there was wolf in her voice now. She heard it. So did he. “You are surrounded by those animals.”
“I am surrounded by rebels and witchcraft.”
“Oh Duncan, you came here with Aldrich. You do not get to pretend moral cleanliness while standing in silver smoke.”
His face darkened. “You have always had a sharp tongue. Your husband should have corrected it.”
The old words should not have hurt. They were familiar, after all. Men had been putting dead husbands in women’s mouths for centuries. Still, the mention of her husband, of that life Duncan had tried so hard to claim through law and blood, tightened something in her chest.
Euan’s fury hit the bond.
She felt the lethal intent in it.
This time she did not even need to grab him. She sent one thought, sharp as a slap.
Mine.
Euan stopped.
Duncan’s claim is mine to break.
For a heartbeat Euan did not move. Then, slowly, he inclined his head.
Duncan did not understand what had passed between them, but he seemed to sense he had lost some invisible advantage. His eyes narrowed.
“Where is the child?”
Marion went cold.
The shift in her must have shown because Duncan smiled.
There he was.
Not the sheriff. Not the grieving brother in law. Not the respectable man quoting law for village ears.
Only Duncan.
A man who found the softest place and pressed his thumb into it.
Euan’s voice dropped to a deadly quiet. “Say another word of the child.”
Duncan swallowed, but his smile held. “Georgie is my blood.”
“No,” Marion said.
“She is a Bell.”
“She is mine.”
“She is a fatherless girl whose mother has become...” His gaze slid over her again. “This.”
Marion felt her nails lengthen.
The wolf wanted forward. Badly.
It wanted Duncan’s throat under its teeth, his fear filling the cold air, his hands never reaching for Georgie again. The desire was so strong that for one second Marion let herself taste it.
Then she thought of Georgie seeing her in the courtyard and whispering Mama.
Not beast.
Mama.
Marion breathed in slowly.
“You have mistaken yourself,” she said.
Duncan frowned.
“You were never her protector. Never mine. You were a man standing close enough to family to make your greed look like duty.”
His face flushed. “You ungrateful little witch.”
“There. Better. I was growing tired of your concern.”
A soldier near Duncan smirked.
Duncan saw it and flushed darker. The loss of control was quick, but Marion caught it. He hated being laughed at more than he hated almost anything.
Aldrich’s soft voice slid in from behind him. “Sheriff, your domestic grievances are charming, but I require her intact.”
Duncan’s jaw tightened. “She is not a thing to be handed to you.”
Marion almost smiled.
Almost.
Even now, he thought objection made him noble. He did not want Aldrich to own her because he still believed ownership should have been his.
Aldrich stepped closer through the smoke, cane tapping. “On the contrary, Sheriff. She is precisely a thing to be studied, if your language must remain crude.”
Duncan turned on him. “You said the Crown would restore order.”
“It will.”
“You said her daughter would be placed under proper guardianship.”
“If convenient.”
Marion heard the first crack in Duncan’s certainty.
If convenient.
It was almost worth the fear.
Duncan’s eyes flicked back to Marion. For a moment she thought he might finally see the shape of the bargain he had made. Aldrich did not care for law. Not human law, not wolf law, not guardianship, not property, not the tidy little structures Duncan used to make himself feel powerful.
Aldrich cared for use.
Nothing else.
But men like Duncan did not learn truth cleanly. They resented it instead.
His mouth hardened.
“This is your fault,” he said to Marion.
She almost sighed. “Of course it is.”
“If you had married me when I offered protection, none of this would have happened.”
Euan’s laugh was sudden and frightening.
Duncan took a step back before he could stop himself.
“Protection,” Euan said, and the word sounded like a blade being drawn. “Is that what you call it when a weak man builds a cage and calls it shelter?”
Duncan’s hand went to his silver trimmed blade.
Marion stepped forward before Euan could.
“Draw that,” she said, “and I will let him educate you.”
Duncan’s eyes snapped to hers.
Perhaps it was her tone. Perhaps it was the light flickering at her fingertips. Perhaps it was the fact that Euan McFarland stood beside her, very much alive and looking eager for Duncan to make a poor choice.
Whatever it was, Duncan’s hand dropped from the blade.
“Good,” Marion said. “You have found one sensible instinct.”
A shout came from the northern side of the Grove.
Marion turned.
A group had broken through the trees near the old path. Not soldiers. Clan riders. Two wolves in human form, one limping badly. A young woman Marion vaguely recognized from the castle was with them, hair flying loose from its braid.
Lorna.
And behind her, wrapped in a child’s cloak far too thin for the cold, was Georgie.
Marion’s heart stopped.
No.
No, no, no.
Georgie stood at the edge of the Grove, clutching Lorna’s hand, eyes huge as she stared at the smoke, the fire, the blood, the wolves.
Morna hissed something vicious. “That child.”
Tavish, who had been across the clearing helping drag a wounded man away, turned and went pale. “I told her to stay.”
Marion could not breathe.
Euan’s hand closed around hers, hard. “She is alive.”
“She is here.”
“Aye.”
“She is here,” Marion repeated, because apparently saying it twice might make it less terrible.
Georgie saw her then.
“Mama!”
Marion took one step toward her.
Duncan moved first.
He did not run. He was too clever for that. He shifted through smoke and soldiers with the grim focus of a man who had just spotted the only coin left on the table. His eyes were on Georgie.
Marion saw it.
So did Euan.
But a silver fire globe shattered between them and the northern path, white flame leaping high enough to force everyone back.
Marion cried out. “Georgie!”
The child tried to come forward.
Lorna grabbed her and pulled her back, but soldiers were already moving, not toward Marion now.
Toward the child.
Duncan turned his head just enough for Marion to see his expression through the smoke.
Not triumph.
Calculation.
Her blood went cold.
He knew he could not reach Marion anymore.
So he would reach for the one part of her that had always been human enough to bleed.
Duncan smiled.
Then he disappeared into the silver fog, moving toward Georgie.