Wolf’s Redemption (The Wolves of Langeais #3)

Chapter Nine

Bek stumbled along, the flimsy soles of her fluffy, pink bunny slippers providing little protection from stones and exposed tree roots. Her feet felt like two enormous bruises, her legs lumps of wood, and her injured hand throbbed. She’d done a ten-hour shift at Charlie’s, and now they’d walked for… How far had they walked? Miles? Too damn far. Any effects of the wine had long since worn off. It felt like forever since she’d sat on her couch, drinking a few glasses of cheap red, looking forward to a meal of two-minute noodles. Her stomach rumbled.

Again, she attempted to wrest her arm free from Ulrik’s grip—not tight enough to give her bruises, but not an inch of give.

“How much further?” She cringed at the whine in her tone.

“They will be out hunting us. Once they discover we left via the postern gate…”

His pace didn’t slow at all as he answered her. The man was a veritable machine. Not a single stumble or misstep, his pace measured and even. Perhaps slower than he would normally walk because of her. Chained up for God knows how long and he could still walk the pants off an Olympic triathlete.

“Can we take a break? Just for a moment?”

“No.”

Bek groaned. She eyed the wineskin hanging over her shoulder, bumping against her hip as she walked. Getting drunk on ancient wine wouldn’t help them any, but it sure would make her feel better right now and blot out the misery of her aching muscles.

“We need to get as far ahead of them as we can. They will be on horseback. Need I point out the obvious?”

Bek grunted and forced herself to keep walking.

After what felt like another mile, the sound of running water reached her ears. Would they stop now? Even if he let go of her, she doubted she’d have the energy to run from him. At least, not fast enough or far enough that he wouldn’t be on her like white on rice. He wasn’t even puffed.

She stumbled, her tired legs buckling. He was there, strong arms catching her and holding her upright.

“We will stop here for a few moments, petite cracheuse de feu. ”

Pettie crashooze de fer? What the hell did that mean? Did she even want to know? She’d been called many things by the patrons at Charlie’s, by Charlie, by the prison wardens. Many of them unpleasant. None of them in French. Probably something like pain in my ass, or mouthy bitch.

Whatever it was, to her tired mind it sounded much nicer in French than English. And she wanted him to say it again. Whisper it against her hair as he held her in his arms, the warmth of his body soaking into her fatigued muscles. Bek let out a contented murmur and relaxed into his hold. Her eyelids fluttered closed, her reasons for escaping, for keeping him at arm’s length drifting away. If she could just stay here for a moment…

She snuggled into him, rubbing her cheek against his bare chest.

“Begging for my attention already?”

Bek’s eyes snapped open, and she wrenched herself from his arms. He chuckled, the smugness of the sound leeching through the darkness.

“Sit for a moment, Rebekah. I will tend to your hand, then I will remove my boots and roll up my breeches and we will wade upstream.”

Seriously? He was going to make them walk farther? In water ? She looked down at her slippers, trying to summon the energy to remove them and roll up her jeans.

He snagged her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You are exhausted. I will carry you.”

Bek stumbled back. Oh, hell no . “I can walk.”

“Rebekah, sit.”

She balked at the command, but when his hand pressed on her shoulder, she slumped to the ground. Just for a minute or two. Until she got her second wind. Then, once he was barefoot, she would take the opportunity and run. Good plan.

Ulrik ripped a strip from his torn shirt and dipped it into the stream. Then he knelt beside her and gently wrapped it around her bruised hand. The cool cloth was a balm for the throbbing of her knuckles. She leaned her back against a large tree, the leaf litter on the forest floor providing a surprisingly soft seat, and she stretched out her legs. The breeze whispered in the trees and the water in the stream bubbled over rocks. Moonlight filtered through the canopy—the reddish glow gone with the ending of the eclipse—and Bek closed her eyes.

* * * *

When she next opened them with a start, they were moving upstream, she nestled in his arms, her face flush with his bare chest, as he picked his way through the shallow water. In her lap lay the wineskin and his boots.

“Go back to sleep,” he said, his voice a mere rasp of sound. “We have a ways to go yet.”

She wanted to protest, demand he put her down so she could walk on her own, but her eyes closed of their own volition, and she slipped back into blessed darkness.

She awoke again as he lay her down on the ground.

“We are safe here for the moment, Rebekah. Rest up while you can.”

She blinked at him through sleep-laden eyes. Standing over her, he looked every bit a medieval warrior. She had a moment to appreciate what a truly magnificent looking man he was, to try to remember the reasons she must stay awake, before she succumbed to fatigue once again.

* * * *

Bek’s stomach grumbled. She groaned. Another few minutes of sleep. She rolled over. Birds tweeted, warmth bathed her face and a hint of cooking meat and smoke tantalized her nostrils. She sat bolt upright.

Shit.

How long had she slept? She brushed leaves from her hair and looked around, taking in the grassy clearing, the early morning sunlight filtering through the trees and the creek bubbling along, emptying into a pond. A small fire crackled, cooking some kind of dead animal, skinned, gutted and suspended over the flames. Bek’s mouth watered. It should repulse her, but she hadn’t eaten since a rushed, soggy tuna sandwich at lunch yesterday. And it sure beat two-minute noodles.

But where was Ulrik?

Ripples in the pond drew her gaze. On the bank sat his sword and scabbard, his clothes and boots. His head appeared, and he tossed it back, his long hair flinging water about. He stood, and her gaze followed the rivulets of water running down his back, past narrow hips and across tight buns. Bek strangled a gasp and flopped back down, watching him through slitted lids, and pretending to sleep as he turned his head in her direction. She dare not move. She just lay there staring and imagined running her hands over that very fine ass.

He spun around.

Bek’s breath stalled in her throat, and her eyelids twitched with the strain of keeping them slitted. It would take a better person than her to turn away, to not look, to not take the opportunity to see what he was packing in those tight trousers of his. And it was a lot. Thick and long, and not at all affected by the cold of the water, and his ball sac hanging heavy between his muscular thighs. Bek’s fingers curled. He had a nice cock. She salivated. A very nice-looking cock. It was all she could do to not move or make a sound. To not rise from her position and join him in the pond.

What the hell am I thinking? Haven’t I learned not to play with fire?

Escape. That’s what she needed to do. Run as far away from this damn man as she possibly could. Before she did something really stupid. Like jump his bones .

She could find a village. Peasants would help her, wouldn’t they? Or a farmer? Farmers were supposed to be good people.

Then he took himself in hand, and his long, slender fingers stroked his length.

Oh, dear God. This guy was trouble with a capital T. In bold. In italics. Highlighted and underlined.

He continued to work himself, water lapping at his upper thighs.

I’d like to lap at his upper thighs.

Bek squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the debauched vision before her, and took deep breaths. When she opened them again, he’d turned away from her and was sliding back under the water.

Forget what he’s doing with his hand. Get up. Go. Now.

Bek leaped to her feet. If their trek through the forest last night had proved anything, she had no hope of outrunning him. She had to outsmart him. An idea formed in her mind, and she grinned. That’d slow him down.

She crept toward his pile of belongings and scooped up his boots, pants, dagger and sword and backed away into the tree line. Once she was out of sight, she turned and ran.

She didn’t have a lot of time. More if he finished what he’d started, believing her asleep. She stumbled, her mind catching on the erotic image. She squeezed her thighs together, gritted her teeth and pushed on.

Yes. Get away from him as fast as you can.

She glanced over her shoulder. He was still underwater. Good. She paused, and grabbed one of his boots, drew her arm back, and threw it as far as she could. She started off again before it had hit the ground, running as fast as her useless bunny slippers would allow.

Why couldn’t I still be wearing my work boots?

She halted again by a dense, prickly bush and tossed his pants into the thick of it. If she was lucky, it would have some sort of toxic leaf. A rash on his balls would certainly cool his ardor for her and was no less than he deserved.

Bek raced on, stopping only to hide his torn shirt behind a rock by the stream, and his sword in a crevasse under an overhang. Breathless, her sides heaving, she stopped one last time, and shoved his other boot into the hollow of a fallen tree. No matter how strong he was, he wouldn’t get far without his boots or pants. The chances of him risking a confrontation with villagers while starkers was low. His dagger she held onto. It might come in handy.

She set off again, slowing her pace as she followed the stream. Logic told her water was as relevant now as it was in her century. Only here, they wouldn’t have it plumbed into houses, so it stood to reason any village would be near a convenient water source. Like the stream.

Bek didn’t have to go far to be proved right. She skidded to a halt as the forest gave way to an open meadow and farmers’ fields. Beyond them stood a ramshackle collection of small huts. Villagers—farmers by their clothes—men and women, dotted the fields.

She tucked the dagger beneath the surcoat, securing it handle down, in the waistband of her jeans. It settled in the small of her back, along her spine. If she was careful, it would be fine. The last thing she needed was to injure herself. She had enough things to worry about. Like how she was going to communicate when her school-girl French was rusty at best. And how would she make them understand she needed to get back to the twenty-first century? Without sounding like a lunatic?

If she’d thought her life was a mess before, her current situation took things to a whole new level of disaster. Dealing with Charlie and his unwanted attentions, checking in with her dick of a parole officer and facing the wrath of Mrs. Wu when she didn’t pay her rent on time wasn’t so bad. Better than being stuck in a barbaric medieval world, hunted by keep guards and escaping the dubious safety of the sexy-as-sin warrior who was on the run from what passed as the law in this place. A man who put her darkest fantasies to shame and had her ovaries, her own damn cheer-leading squad, urging her to play big, play hard and score.

She was so screwed.

Bek took a deep breath, planted a smile on her face, and stepped out from the shadows of the forest. Time to go chat up the natives.

* * * *

The wolf crouched, concealed, his one good eye fixed on the woman as she made her way down to the village. About her clung a scent. Male. Wolf. Tantalizingly familiar. Something from his past, perhaps, yet he could not place it. Nor did he care to. He had no business with her, nor the male. The one he sought was close by. The one who had tried to kill him.

The scars across his back itched, the cut of betrayal as fresh as the day one of his own pack had cut him down. He had come too close to the truth of his mother’s death. As had his father. He had known it then, seen it in the traitor’s eyes. Luck, and a dogged determination to survive, was all that had kept him from being another casualty of his attacker’s scheming.

But survive he had, and the time would soon come when he would have his vengeance. When this man, this wolf, would pay for his sins. Unlike his betrayer, who had made the mistake of leaving him to die, he would make certain his prey did not survive.