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

Chapter Eleven

Bek glared at Ulrik. As apologies went, it wasn’t much of one. Nor was it an admission of guilt, but he had stepped back, and he wasn’t forcing himself on her despite the lust swirling in his dark whiskey eyes. And he hadn’t reciprocated in kind when she’d slapped him. At least that was something in his favor. That and, damn it , the man could kiss. She could still taste him on her tongue, feel the pressure of those lips on hers. Bek bit back a groan. She’d always been a sucker for a good kisser. It figured a Frenchman would know his way around a French kiss.

But what had made him stop? Had he caught himself on her tongue ring? Whatever it was, Bek was grateful for it. She closed her eyes, blocking out the vision of his drool-worthy chest and the evidence of his arousal straining in his trousers. Who knows how far she’d have let him go had he not pulled away.

All the damn way. Yep. That’s what she was afraid of.

Ulrik’s hand on her elbow had her eyes popping open.

“Come. We will find you some clothing so you can blend in.” His gaze dipped to her feet. “And boots that are more functional.”

Her stomach rumbled and his lip quirked, revealing a flash of white teeth. God, the man was gorgeous when he smiled.

“And food. But we must be gone from here before someone reports your presence to the lord of this village.”

The lord of the village? Was that the man in the yellow coat? Would he be more helpful than the villagers themselves? They’d turned their backs on her when she’d approached them, refusing to acknowledge her. Not a single good Samaritan amongst them. One had threatened her with a pitchfork. She’d never had the chance to approach anyone inside the village, but would they have been any different?

She met his stare, his eyes swirling with shadows. “Why are you doing this? You’d travel much faster without me. You could have just let me run and continued on your merry way. Why didn’t you?”

It seemed an awful lot of trouble, and risk, for a man to go to just to get into her knickers.

He shook his head. “You are not safe here on your own.”

She wasn’t necessarily safe with him, either. “But I’m not really your problem, am I? Why don’t you just ditch me? Let the count or the lord of this village deal with me?”

He stared at her, those strange swirls in his irises intensifying. Then he looked away, inhaling a deep breath and releasing it on a long sigh before meeting her gaze once more.

“In truth, Rebekah, helping you reminds me of the man I used to be.”

Oh . His words were a sucker punch to her lungs. She knew that sentiment. Felt it in the very marrow of her bones. Wanting to be the person you’d been, all bright and shiny, full of the promise of youth, before your choices had dragged you down and turned you into someone you no longer recognized. And didn’t that burrow deep down into her chest and make her heart wrench for him.

Regret and pain shimmered in his eyes. Is that what people saw when they looked at her? Did her sense of shame hang over her like his? This man, this knight, was chasing his redemption as much as she was chasing hers.

She pressed her tongue ring against the roof of her mouth, mulling over his words. What were her choices here? She had no money, nowhere to go and she didn’t speak the language. Other than him, she knew no one, and next to nothing about life in historical bloody France. She’d be lucky to last a day on her own. If the farmers she’d approached were any indication, the chances of her getting help from anyone else were slim. The only reason she’d made it this far was because of him.

Ulrik promised food and boots. Two items she desperately needed. Back in the forest, he’d had a fire going and food roasting over it. Pretty impressive since all he had was a sword, a dagger and his bare hands. The man knew how to survive, not only in this world but also in the forest. Bek was capable of neither.

He’d not hurt her. She squeezed her thighs together. No, that kiss hadn’t hurt. Not at all. And that was the crux of things. For her survival, he was her best option. For her morally corrupt and irresponsible libido, he was like pouring gasoline on a fire, but survival came up trumps. It had to. She’d just have to lock her lust down, hold tight to her vow to fix her life and keep him at arm’s length. No more carrying her, no more clinches against walls and absolutely no more kisses.

“Righto.” She looked down at her pink bunny slippers. “Let’s go get me some boots.”

His eyebrow quirked, and a glimmer of confusion flashed in his beautiful eyes.

“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.” Bek pushed herself away from the wall. “Wait. You guys don’t actually eat horse, do you? That’s an urban myth, right?”

He looked offended by her question. “I would not eat my horse unless I were starving and had no other option.”

“Phew. Good. Because if I had to eat Black Beauty, I think I might have to become a vegetarian.”

He stared at her for a moment, and she swore she could see the cogs turning in his brain. “Black Beauty is a horse, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“And by vegetarian, you mean you would abstain from eating the flesh of animals?”

“Yep.”

“Hmm. I think I am beginning to grasp your use of your language, strange as it is. No horse flesh, I promise. Even if they wanted to, these villagers could not afford to buy a horse. Come.”

His hand firmly on her elbow, Bek let him lead her from building to building. At each little hut, he paused and listened. Some he passed by, others he opened the single wooden shutter and peered in before moving on. Finally, he stopped at one of the little mud-brick huts, satisfied with what he had seen inside. He climbed in and offered her his arms to help her through. She brushed his hands away. Nope. No more touching . She climbed through the window under her own steam.

If the keep hadn’t convinced her she was no longer in the twenty-first century, this would have. Standing in a one-room hut with a thatched roof and straw strewn across the dirt floor, she was as far from her London flat as she could get. In one corner sat a rough-hewn worn table with bench seats. In another, a collection of mattresses that looked like they were stuffed with straw, and storage chests stacked side by side. Rough-looking shelves held an assortment of bowls and cooking pots, with baskets of vegetables stored neatly beneath them. Near the door, a pen made from tree branches sectioned off a space. For a dog? A pet? Or did they bring their livestock inside at night?

In the middle of the hut, drawing her in, was a pot hung over a lit fire, its contents bubbling away. The smell of stewing meat filled the room. God, she was so hungry. Whatever it was, it smelled divine. She grabbed the ladle and scooped up the thick stew. Steam rose from the full ladle and her stomach rumbled. She blew on it, then tasted it.

“Mmm. S’good.” She held the ladle out to Ulrik. “You want some?”

Ulrik shook his head. He moved about the hut with purpose, rifling through the chests and grabbing items. He thrust an item of clothing at her. “Take your clothes off and put this on.”

Bek dropped the ladle back into the stew with a plop. “Say what, now?”

“You need to blend in.” He gave a cute quirk of his eyebrow. “As best as you can. So strip.”

He tossed the clothing to her. It hit her in the chest, and she grabbed it before it slid to the floor. Damn that raspy voice of his. Combined with the words ‘take your clothes off’ and ‘strip’, she’d almost spontaneously combusted.

She glared at him and shifted away, holding up the clothing. It was an ankle-length dress of coarse wool in a dull gray with long sleeves. It looked to be all in one piece, with laces at the waist. Sure, she’d blend in, but if he thought she’d strip in front of him… Not. Going. To. Happen.

“No thanks. I think I’ll stay in my own clothes. Your coat mostly hides everything.”

He stopped rummaging and stared at her. “Women do not wear surcoats. Put the dress on, Rebekah.”

She put a hand on her hip. “Or what?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

She stared at him, measuring how serious he was. He raked his gaze over her and heat flared in his eyes. Yeah, he’d like an excuse to get his hands on her again.

She glared at him. “Fine. Turn around.”

“Oh, no, sweetheart.” He crossed his arms over his chest and planted his feet firmly forward. “I fell for that once. You will not catch me off guard again.”

Bek bared her teeth at him. She wrenched his surcoat off her shoulders and dumped it on the floor. He watched her with an intensity that unnerved her, dark swirls in his whiskey eyes. If he thought she would give him the satisfaction of seeing her strip down to her underwear… She raised her chin at him, daring him to stop her, and slipped the dress on over her clothes.

Her triumph was short-lived. The dress would’ve been a tight fit over her thirty-six double Ds. With the added material of her work shirt, it was an impossibility.

“Shit.”

She glanced up at him. Amusement warred with heat in his gaze.

Fuck.

She wrangled the dress back over her head, scowled in his direction, and turned her back to him. She undid the buttons on her shirt, her neck and back tingling with awareness of him watching her, his gaze burning hotter than Superman’s X-ray vision. Bek gritted her teeth. She just bet he was enjoying this. Best to get on with it and be done quick, rip off the proverbial sticking plaster.

Bek whipped off her shirt, goosebumps rising on her arms with the brush of cool air. He rumbled low in his chest, making her quiver and her nipples pebble. She snatched up the dress and drew it over her head, shoving her arms into the sleeves and quickly pulling it down to cover her naked flesh. Her jeans would stay right where they were, thank you very much. An extra layer against the cold of nighttime in the forest. An extra barrier against him .

She laced up the sides, drawing in the waist, and turned around. There it was again. That rumble. Primal. More animal than human. Her nerve endings danced along her skin and the hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end.

With a strangled growl, he tore his gaze off her, grabbed a sack and thrust it at her. “Put your tunic, your fluffy boots and my surcoat in this.”

Eager to break the spell, Bek snatched the sack from him and stuffed her bunny slippers and her shirt inside. She picked up his surcoat, hesitating as she caught sight of the emblem on the front. In their trek through the darkened forest, and her hasty flight from him as he bathed, she hadn’t noticed it before. In orange, stark against the dark brown of the leather, was a stylized bird emblazoned on the front left panel.

She ran her fingers over the design. “Is it a—”

“Phoenix? Yes.”

The symbol of resurrection. A bird rising from the ashes. She turned to look at him. His fiery gaze focused on her, like a predator eyeing up his prey. He fisted his hands at his sides and a muscle ticked in his jaw. Something dark danced in the depths of his eyes and the air grew thicker and harder to breathe. A musky scent, stronger than the smoke from the fire and the stew cooking over it, swirled around them. Bek wasn’t sure if she wanted to run from him or to him.

“I have a—”

His lips pursed in a thin line, he nodded. “I saw. On your shoulder. You have marked yourself with a phoenix.”

An emotion flickered across his face. What exactly, she couldn’t say.

A shiver raced up Bek’s spine. Was it a sign? She didn’t believe in signs, but… What were the chances? She stuffed his coat into the sack. “The phoenix on your coat? It’s your family crest?”

He took a few deep breaths, then shook himself like a dog might shake off water. His hands unfurled, his shoulders relaxed and the air cleared, save for the smoke and the smell of cooking food. The dark shadows in his eyes were also gone. Had they even been there at all?

“Yes,” he said, his voice softer, the guttural harshness gone.

Whatever darkness had risen in him had vanished as quickly as it had surfaced. The dampness in her knickers remained.

Damn it. Why couldn’t the one man who wanted to help her be kind, sweet, and bland? She’d have friend-zoned him in a heartbeat. This guy, with his sword, his warrior’s body and the threat of danger he wore like a comfortable, familiar coat, pushed all her buttons. She was all but panting for him like a bitch in heat.

Ugh. Get yourself together, Bek.

“A family crest, huh?” Nothing special. Something chosen by his family many years ago, perhaps centuries ago. “Passed down through the generations?”

He handed her a pair of boots, his long fingers curled around them sparking the memory of him in the pond, his hand wrapped around his girth as he’d stroked himself. Her cheeks heated, and she snatched the boots and slumped onto the bench seat.

“Usually.”

She pulled on the fur-lined boots and laced them up. “Usually?”

“My family’s crest was a rook. When they…” The corner of his mouth dipped and a look of intense sorrow, and something else gone too fast for her to identify, flashed in his eyes. “It no longer seemed adequate. The phoenix is more fitting for my circumstances now, more so than the rook.”

She’d chosen the phoenix tattoo on her back because of what it represented. Her rising from the ashes of her mistakes and the mess she’d made of her life. Had he done the same?

His expression turned hard. “Enough talk. We have lingered too long.”

He picked up the sack, adding what looked like a loaf of thick bread and a coil of rough-looking rope. He snatched a wineskin off a hook by the door and slung it over his shoulder.

Bek moved toward the basket of vegetables by the table. “Should I grab some more food?”

“No. These peasants have little enough to eat. I will not take more than is necessary. I can hunt for us once we’re in the forest.” He moved to the window. “Those coins you picked up at the keep… Leave them on the table.”

Bek pulled the coins out of her jeans pocket. “Shouldn’t we hang on to them in case we need them?”

His eyes narrowed. “You would take food, wine and clothing and not pay for them?”

Bek flushed. “When you put it that way…”

She dropped the coins on the table. An outlaw with a conscience. Wasn’t he a regular Robin Hood?

Satisfied, he peered out of the window before climbing through. Bek followed, his hands firm on her waist not helping her libido any.

As they slipped away from the village, she studied the big knight. Sword strapped to his waist, his hair and beard wild and untrimmed, he moved with a fluid grace uncommon for a man of his size. Right out of the history books, he was as foreign to her as they came. Yet, after what he’d revealed about himself, she wondered if they weren’t so different after all.