Chapter Seven
SEVEN
We’re walking hand in hand, Bishop dodging trees on the narrow trail rather than letting go.
“You said you don’t know what my grandfather did,” he says.
“I do not.”
“You need to. So you understand and also…” He inhales. “You have lost so much because of Silas. Your mother. Your aunt. Your home and your life there. He ripped everything from you, and I am very aware of that, and of your grief, for all of it.”
“My mother died a long time ago, Bishop.”
“But you’ve discovered how she died. Not in an accident but on your father’s command. That rips open the wound. What I am saying is that while you’ve lost so much because of him, you’ve suffered losses because of my grandfather, too, even if you don’t realize it.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I only nod.
Bishop continues, “You know my grandfather was exiled from the Pack. His crime was an attempted coup.”
I try not to react to that. I hear the way his voice changed, the awareness that he did the same, staging a coup against my father.
Bishop continues, “In the history of Alphas, your grandfather—Arthur—was considered a good one. A good Alpha if not necessarily a good man. The Pack was large and prosperous and powerful. And my grandfather wanted it for his own.”
He nudges me through a narrow spot and then follows, still holding my hand.
“The Danverses had been the Alpha family in the past. In Arthur’s Pack my grandfather served as the enforcer.
Arthur channeled Montague’s brutality into a weapon.
Under some Alphas, an enforcer’s primary job is instilling fear in our enemies.
What do people fear more than an unhinged killer?
An unhinged killer werewolf, devoid of even the shreds of humanity other supernaturals grudgingly grant us. ”
“Which made Montague a clever choice, then. Until he wasn’t.”
“Yes. Eventually Montague mistook fear for power. If everyone feared him, then why was he bowing to Arthur? The Danverses should retake the Alphahood. When I organized my coup, I laid out a plan and promised reforms, which won over enough of the Pack. Montague didn’t bother with any of that.
He presumed if he seized power, the Pack would follow him. He started by killing your uncle.”
I look over sharply. “My…?” I inhale. “Marjorie mentioned that my grandfather had three sons.”
“With your grandmother, he had Godfrey, Silas, and Ann’s mother. Then after your grandmother’s death, he had Oliver. Godfrey was the oldest and the presumed heir, and so my grandfather killed him.” A pause. “He was twelve years old.”
“Oh!” The exclamation escapes before I can stop it.
“Godfrey was a child. Not a threat at all. Just a symbol. Montague isn’t particularly intelligent, but he is wily.
He didn’t openly murder Godfrey. The boy died during a hunt, with no witnesses.
Godfrey was too young to transform, but he’d go out on hunt nights and listen.
Montague took a secret path to slip away and kill him.
I believe he wanted your grandfather to know who killed his heir but not be able to prove it.
However, not being particularly intelligent, he forgot about your grandmother. ”
“My…?” I stop. “She was a necromancer.”
He nods. “The dead can’t tell us who killed them, but Godfrey was able to say enough for it to be clear that Montague was responsible. So he tried to silence your grandmother.”
I inhale, again unable to hide my reaction.
“He didn’t kill her,” Bishop says, “but he tried, and she never fully recovered from the attempt. Arthur couldn’t prove Montague killed Godfrey, which meant he couldn’t execute him.
But for attacking your grandmother, Montague was exiled, along with his two sons, and all Danverses were forbidden from ever joining the Albion Pack. ”
He glances over. “That is why Silas rebuffed me, again and again, until I proved myself. Even then, Julius and I would never have been allowed in if the Pack hadn’t been in such poor shape.
Silas was desperate, so he overrode his father’s decree, on the understanding that my grandfather was long gone. ”
“Dead?”
Bishop shrugs. “Or gone to America or Australia. Silas never asked for specifics. He also never made us swear Montague was gone. I believe, in his heart, he knew the old bastard lived, but again, Silas was desperate. Also, in essence, Montague had cleared the way for Silas himself to ascend to Alpha.” He looks at me.
“So that is the full of it. Your family has been wronged by my grandfather, and not only is Montague alive, but I am still in contact with him, however much I might wish otherwise.”
“Because it’s not that simple.”
“It really isn’t.”
I think of Montague, in his little cottage, telling me of secret paths and of my grandmother’s garden, how much she’d loved it and how pretty it had been.
I almost want to look back and see malicious glee in his eyes, talking to me about the path he probably used to murder my uncle, waxing poetic about the garden tended by the grandmother he tried to murder.
But there’d been none of that. His actions were divorced from the people themselves.
Nothing personal—he’d seemed to like my grandmother and probably bore no ill will toward my young uncle. They just got in his way.
Ahead we can see the road, with Julius waiting, and I slow my steps.
“Montague expects to return to the Pack,” I say. “To Trevelyan.”
“I’ve never said he will, much less promised it, but it’s his driving motivation. Before he dies, he wants to return to the Pack that cast him out. To march in as victor, the corpses of his enemies—real and imagined—littering the courtyard.”
“He’s going to find out you’re the Alpha,” I murmur.
“Not if I can help it.”
I turn to him. “Bishop, this isn’t a secret you can keep forever.”
He sets his jaw, eyes sparking, ready to stand his ground. Then he runs a hand over his face.
“I know,” he says.
“And what was your plan for when that happened? Even before all this?”
“My plan…” He closes his eyes and shakes his head sharply before opening them. “My plan is to do exactly what you said before dinner—whatever needs to be done.”
Augustus has taken the Pack to the spot Bishop indicated, which turns out to be a barn.
As Julius explained on the ride, he and Bishop have several places like it, from when they’d been building their own little Pack—Bishop’s boys—before they were allowed back into the Albion Pack.
That’s why Augustus knew where to find it.
Some of these places are cottages, like Montague’s, and others are barns, like this.
Bishop and Julius own them legally, making them both way stations and investments.
Tomorrow, Augustus will take the Pack to a larger one—an actual house—though Julius warns it’s rough lodgings.
Tonight we sleep in this barn, with clean hay and blankets pulled from storage crates.
When we arrive, the wolves are mostly sleeping. It’s only ten, but it’s been a very long two days. A few are up, playing cards taken from storage, and Bishop speaks to them before Julius joins the game while Bishop and I head upstairs to the loft, which the wolves have left for us.
Our bed is blankets that smell slightly of must but more strongly of grass and fresh air, and it’s obvious someone took the time to hang them out for us.
I also suspect we have more blankets than the others.
I’d never expect or ask for special treatment—nor would Bishop—but for tonight, my exhausted body appreciates the kindness.
When I start to unbutton my dress, Bishop comes up behind me and whispers, “May I?” When I hesitate, his lips lower to my ear. “I’m not trying to start anything. I know you’re tired and we don’t want to disturb anyone else’s rest.”
I smile back at him. “I wasn’t thinking that. I was thinking I don’t want you to feel obligated to do anything tonight. I’m not the only one who’s tired.”
He kisses my neck. “I am, but I don’t think I’ll ever be too weary to want to undress you, which is partly to help but also, admittedly, to enjoy the sight, even if we’re both in no shape to act on it. May I?”
“Please.”
He unbuttons the coarse and ill-fitting dress, and I exhale in relief as it drops to the floor. The petticoat comes next, tugged off and cast aside. He pauses at my drawers, head tilting.
“If you wish them off,” he says, “of course I’ll remove them, but apparently, I am not quite as exhausted as I thought.”
I press a hand to the growing bulge in his trousers and chuckle. “Apparently. Leave them on, then.”
I expect he’ll move to my corset next, which I am rather eager to remove, and I frown when he shucks his trousers instead.
I reach for my corset strings, but he stops me.
“Patience,” he says, and then doffs his shirt as quickly as his trousers.
Once he’s down to his drawers, he opens the bed of blankets and then scoops me up and manages to gracefully lie on his back, on the floor, while still holding me, which really is a feat requiring werewolf strength and his own added agility.
Without a word, he settles me on his hips, straddling him. A pause, and then he quickly moves me up to straddle his abdomen.
I flutter my lashes. “I was comfortable down there, my lord. Was it uncomfortable for you?”
“Too comfortable,” he says. “Which is why I moved you, as you know very well.”
“So I must move for you?” I start sliding back down toward his hips. “I think not. If we are both comfortable with me sitting on your—”
He grabs me under the arse, lifts me clear off him, and firmly deposits me on his chest. When I try wriggling lower, his hands grip my waist and tighten as he mock glares at me.
“Fine,” I say with a sigh. “But only because I want this cursed corset off.”
He unfastens the strings at an annoyingly languid pace. Finally, it is unfastened, and I wait for him to tug it off, but the blasted man just sits there, admiring my poor breasts, half free and straining for release. I wiggle up, and they pop over the top and I sigh with pleasure.
“That feels good, I take it?” he says. “After a day of being crushed like melons in a vise.”
“I’m not sure I’d say melons…”
“Oh, I would.” He slides one hand under each breast and cups them. “It is a crime to crush them that way.”
“I have always thought so. Tomorrow, I shall wear the dress without a corset, and they will be free to frolic as they please.” I illustrate by rocking back and forth, which seems to entrance him, and I take advantage of his distraction to shimmy down to his hips, where that bulge in his drawers slides perfectly between the split legs of my own drawers.
“Cordelia…”
“Could you do me a tremendous favor?” I ask.
“Only if you move off that particular spot.”
“No. Now, as you mentioned yourself, there was a great deal of crushing today, to fit into that dress. I would very much appreciate some massaging.”
“Of your breasts.”
“Is that a problem?” Before he can answer, I sigh dramatically. “Fine. I will demonstrate.”
I wedge my hands between his and my breasts and cup them, the way he did.
He doesn’t protest. In fact, he stops protesting altogether, not mentioning where I’m sitting as I cradle my breasts and wriggle.
When his breath catches sharply, I realize this may end sooner than expected if I do not take charge of the situation.
I ease my hips up, and he gives a low growl of frustration as I lift off him. When he reaches for my waist, I knock a hand with my hip.
“Patience,” I say, echoing him.
I lower myself until I can just barely feel the bulge of his cock against my core.
He’s still positioned perfectly, in the opening of my drawers, so there is only the layer of his own drawers between us, a very fine and very thin pair of silk ones that feel like nothing at all, the heat and pulse of him delicious against me.
I turn my attention to my breasts, which his attention has not left.
I will admit, I’ve never touched them in this way, and I emulate what he does, cupping the fullness of them from beneath and then sliding my hands up, fingertips grazing the areolas.
It feels better when he does it, but this is quite lovely, made all the better by the way he’s staring, transfixed.
His hips arch up, and I rise more, keeping him barely touching me, which earns me another low growl.
“Do you really want this over so quickly?” I whisper.
He scowls, but lowers his hips, and I continue, my fingers on my nipples now, massaging and exploring as I glide, ever so gently, along the length of him. I adjust a little to find that spot where the rub of him is nearly unbearable.
When I gasp, he says, his voice a low rumble, “You like that?”
“I do. Do you?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
I smile. “Is that an order?”
His eyes meet mine, blazing hot. “Yes, it’s an order. Forget me. Tease yourself.” He moves my fingertips to pinch one nipple and then arches up, ever so slightly, before easing back down. “I’m just going to lie here while you tease yourself until you’re ready to come.”
I bite my lip, breath quickening. “And then?”
“And then come. I want to watch.”
I do exactly that. I feel a little shy at first. Toying with my breasts felt lovely, but I’d been thinking about him, about teasing him.
Doing it for myself is different, and it takes me a moment, but when I see the lust in his face, watching me, that’s really all the incentive I need, the modesty falling away as I caress my breasts and toy with my nipples and rub myself against the hot hardness of him.
When I’m ready to climax, he grips my hips firmly and says, “Tease.”
Slow down, he means. Draw it out. And I do, thinking of how he does the same for me, making me mad with longing.
I do that for myself, and when I finally come, the first waves barely hit before his hands are on my hips, thrusting against me, that thin layer of silk the only thing separating us and it feels like nothing at all, as if his cock is pressed along the length of me, hot and throbbing and then his own stifled cries joining my own.
When we’re both finished, he draws me down on top of him and hugs me tight.
“Thank you,” he says. “That was … spectacular.”
I lift my head and arch one brow. “I thought it was for me.”
He grins the most wicked grin. “Absolutely. It was all for you, and I am not the selfish bastard who just wanted to watch. You will need to do it again. And again. And possibly again. For yourself, of course.”
I snuggle down into him. “Of course.”