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

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ulrik stared after Aimon and Kathryn as they rode off into the forest. “There is a story there.”

“There is,” agreed Gaharet.

Erin and Rebekah disappeared into the cottage and the door closed behind them, leaving Ulrik alone with his alpha. “We need to talk.”

Gaharet perched himself on a downed tree and folded his arms across his chest. “We do. Tell me, Ulrik, how did you get out of Langeais Keep?”

Ulrik stiffened. Constance was wrong. Gaharet had not forgiven him and did not trust him still. When last they had spoken, Gaharet had thought it was he who had betrayed the pack. Given their history, he could well understand Gaharet’s suspicions. Despite Constance’s assurances, one act did not atone for the many years between their broken friendship.

“I followed my nose. I tracked your path, yours and Erin’s, to the storeroom and that passageway beneath the walls. Lothair had guards at the postern gate, but I knew the boys and I talked our way past them.” He let the truth in his words ring clear. Gaharet could not fail to sense it. “I am glad for it. Had you not known of its existence, had you not used it to escape with Erin, I would have had a devil of a time getting out.”

Gaharet’s dark gaze bored into him, but Ulrik would not cower. He had nothing to hide.

“Very well.” Gaharet unfolded his arms and leaned his elbows on his knees. “So, talk. I am listening.”

Ulrik squared his shoulders. The information he had was too important to let their past conflict hold his tongue. “Lothair knows.”

“That I am not dead?” Gaharet nodded. “I know.”

Ulrik frowned at Gaharet’s lack of concern. “I thought our plan was good. How did Lothair find out?”

Gaharet shrugged. “Our plan was good. I told him.”

“What?” Gaharet’s words hit him like a punch to his chest and he took a step back. “Why?” Had he spent all that time in that wretched hole, believing he was as good as dead, only to have Gaharet betray him ? He snarled, his hand itching to reach for his sword. “Why would you do that? When did you do that?”

Gaharet remained seated, barely raising an eyebrow at his agitation. “I revealed myself to Lothair after they dragged you from the clearing. You and I both know Lothair is no fool. He already suspected it was a ruse. It is best we work with him, not against him.”

“ Merde.” Ulrik spun away.

“ Do not let this dishearten you. Your time at Langeais Keep was not for naught. Lothair may know, but the others do not, save for Aimon.”

Ulrik shook his head, restlessly pacing. Allying with Lothair? No! Not after all that had come before.

“You do not have to like it, Ulrik. Nor like the man himself. I am not asking that of you, but we cannot hope to combat both Renaud and the traitor, as well as Lothair himself. We need to level the field.” Gaharet rose and placed a hand on his shoulder, halting him.

Ulrik’s emotions roiled inside him, the firm pressure of Gaharet’s hand the only thing keeping his wolf in check and curtailing his rage. He longed to shake it off, but his alpha held firm.

Mon Dieu , I need a drink . Or to fuck .

The murmur of Rebekah’s voice from inside the cottage called to him, tempted him. He could have neither. Not right now. He clenched and unclenched his fists, not willing to look at Gaharet. Not yet. Not until he had himself under control. To do so would invite a challenge, one his alpha could not let stand. One Ulrik did not want.

Gaharet squeezed his shoulder. “Think, Ulrik. Use your head and not your heart. We need Lothair.”

Ulrik raked a hand through his hair and stared into the forest, seeing only the vague memories of his family. His mother’s bright smile. The adoration on his father’s face when he had looked at his mate. The defiance in his sisters’ eyes. His memories of them had faded over time, but his anger and his thirst for revenge had burned brighter, stronger.

“You cannot win against Lothair, Ulrik.” Gaharet moved to stand in front of him. “We cannot win. Your parents knew that. It is why they made the choice they did, and they would not want you to try. Do not let their sacrifice be for nothing.”

A heavy weariness settled over him as all his rage drained away. Gaharet was right. He had known it when he faced Lothair in that godforsaken chamber. He knew it now. Ulrik let the tension slide from his shoulders. There was no point in fighting it.

“How can we survive this, Gaharet? Even allying with Lothair, the chances are slim. Renaud has an informant. One of our own. Lothair confirmed it when he came to taunt me.”

Tension rolled over his alpha, and the low thrum of anger tainted the air.

“Yes. He does.” There was an edge to Gaharet’s voice. “And this traitor has wreaked havoc far longer than we had thought.” Gaharet motioned in the direction Aimon and Kathryn had gone. “He attacked Kathryn the day he killed my mother.”

Ulrik stilled. One of their own had… No, surely not?

“I thought… Aimon did not turn her? And your mother? Was that not bandits?”

The enormity of Gaharet’s words sunk in. Kathryn had to have only been a child, and to kill Gaharet’s mother… Which one of them would have done something so monstrous?

“And this…” Gaharet’s lips curled in a snarl. “This traitor killed my father, too.”

Ulrik’s eyes widened. Gaharet’s father and his mother? It made what he had done pale in comparison.

“Are you certain?”

The tightness around Gaharet’s eyes, the thin line of his lips… How did I forget I was not the only one grieving? Gaharet had lost his family, too, and he, too consumed by his own grief and his thirst for vengeance, had failed to notice his friend’s pain.

Gaharet nodded. “I found my father’s journal. The way my mother died had never sat right with my father. I thought him lost in his grief, but…”

“His journal says otherwise?”

“It does. I can only surmise that he came too close to uncovering the truth, and that cost him his life. In the journal, he mentions confiding his suspicions to D’Artagnon.”

“And now they are both dead.” Ulrik’s mind raced. Or were they? “But we never found D’Artagnon.”

“No, we did not.” Gaharet fixed him with an intense stare. “Do you have reason to believe D’Artagnon survived?”

Ulrik took a seat on the log, tugging at his bottom lip. That wolf in the forest near the Vautour estate… Could it be? Ulrik did not want to give Gaharet false hope. He could not be certain the wolf he had scented was Gaharet’s brother, but the familiarity of the scent nagged at him. He had been many years in Bretaigne, and D’Artagnon was barely a man when he had left, but the scent had not belonged to any of the remaining wolves. Nor did it belong to any of Victor’s pack from Bretaigne. A wolf from the pack in Rus, a rogue maybe, could have ventured this far, but there had been no contact with them for centuries. He had known this wolf’s scent from somewhere.

“It may be nothing, but I caught a scent of a wolf near Lance’s estate. I could not place it, though it was familiar. I have crossed paths with this wolf before. Could it have been D’Artagnon?”

Ulrik waited for Gaharet to ridicule his suggestion, but the dismissal never came.

Gaharet cast his gaze out into the forest as though searching for answers, or a glimpse of his long-lost brother. “I thought I caught his scent outside the walls of my keep less than a sennight ago. I believed it naught more than a memory.”

“Perhaps not so much a memory at all.” If D’Artagnon were alive… “If he came to your keep, why did he not reveal himself to you?”

“There was a gathering of the pack that night, not far from the keep. Perhaps he is after the one who tried to kill him. The one who killed our parents. There is an advantage in him being dead.” Gaharet tugged at his beard. “You say he was near the Vautour estate? Could he be tracking Lance?”

“Or Godfrey. I saw him riding through the village on his way to the Vautour Keep.”

“Godfrey and Lance. It keeps coming back to those two. Kathryn’s memory of her attack rules out the twins. Too big, and Kathryn remembers a jewel on the pommel of the attacker’s sword. Aubert and Edmond’s swords are unadorned. As are yours and Aimon’s. The timing rules out both you and Aimon as well. Aimon was not yet one of us when my mother died. You were in Bretaigne.”

Ulrik huffed. “That is a relief.”

Gaharet sat beside him. “I have not believed it could be you since that night in the clearing. I am sorry, Ulrik, that you suffered. Without your sacrifice, I would not have my freedom, perhaps my life. Nor would I have Erin.” The horror at the thought of losing his mate shimmered in the depths of his eyes. “I cannot think of a worse fate than to lose her. I owe you everything. We both do. We are forever in your debt.”

Tightness banded about Ulrik’s chest. To be accepted, to be truly part of the pack once more and not viewed with distrust, with disgust, or as though he were a troublesome nick in a favorite blade to be honed out, was something he had longed for, but had never thought possible.

“It was nothing more than I owed you. For what I did.” Ulrik reached beneath his tunic and drew out the binding amulet. He fingered the blood-red stone in its center. “I never wanted to be alpha. Not really. All I wanted was for Lothair to pay for what he had done and to avenge my family.”

“I know.”

Understanding glimmered in Gaharet’s eyes. Had it always been there? Had he been so lost in his grief and anger he had not seen it?

“I am sorry, Gaharet. I was not thinking clearly.”

“You were grieving, Ulrik. You had lost your entire family.”

Guilt twinged in his chest. “So were you, and I gave it not a thought, too caught up in what was happening to me. What was happening because of me.” He sighed and hung his head. “If not for my own stupidity, my arrogance…”

Gaharet hummed his agreement. “You always were impulsive and quick to temper.”

Ulrik barked out a bitter laugh. He could not refute that. All his decisions, all his mistakes, had sprung from it.

He slipped the amulet over his head and held it out to Gaharet. “This belongs to you. You could have killed me that day. It was what I deserved for challenging you. But you did not. You make a far wiser alpha than I ever would have.”

Gaharet’s hand curled around the amulet. “Having this back will please Erin.”

Ulrik quirked an eyebrow. “Your mate hungers for power?”

Gaharet removed the plain amulet from around his neck and handed it to him. “My mate is an archeologist. A studier of history and historical artifacts.”

Ulrik slipped the familiar piece over his head and the comforting weight settled against his chest. The binding amulet had weighed far too heavily on him. It was a relief to have his own back where it belonged.

Gaharet slipped the binding amulet around his neck and tucked it beneath his tunic. “Erin found her amulet digging through the remains of Langeais Keep. In the underground chamber. With a headless skeleton and a wolf’s skull.”

“ Merde. ” The implications of that…

“Precisely. From the moment she realized I had swapped my amulet for yours, Erin has been beside herself with worry that the bones she found might belong to me.”

“Especially now she is with young.”

Pride and a fierce possessiveness glittered in Gaharet’s eyes. “Yes. More so, now she carries my pup.”

Ulrik shared a glance with Gaharet. “The bones belong to someone.”

“That they do.”

Ulrik leaned his elbows on his knees. “Some poor unfortunate sap Lothair sacrifices to get what he wanted?”

Gaharet cocked an eyebrow. “With an amulet?”

Ulrik grunted. “Could Renaud or Lothair have gotten their hands on one?”

Gaharet considered the idea. “The traitor could have handed over his.”

“Possible. If so, we can always hope the bones belong to Lothair. Renaud wanted me to bite him. Offered me my freedom in return for the favor.”

Gaharet’s dark gaze fixed on him. “That must have been tempting.”

Ulrik grimaced. “Oh, yes.”

Satisfaction glinted in Gaharet’s eyes and a knowing smile curved at the edges of his mouth. “But you did not.”

“Give Renaud what he wanted?” Ulrik scowled. “I will not be a pawn for that wretched excuse for a priest. Nor would I trust he would hold up his part of any deal.”

“I do not think it is Lothair who ends up in that chamber. Erin would have mentioned it as a possibility if there were a chance the bones belonged to him.”

They sat in silence, staring into the forest, the chatter of the women a steady but muted hum. Rebekah’s laughter rang out. Another burst of laughter, this time from Erin, dragged both his and Gaharet’s attention to the little hut.

Gaharet’s lips twitched. “I would wager Aimon is not the only one with a story to tell.”

Ulrik shrugged. “Not much of one. Like Erin, Rebekah found an amulet. Circumstances coincided—she was bleeding, she translated the spell, then recited it.”

Gaharet grunted. “On something called Google , I imagine.”

“Google?” More laughter from the hut. “Their words are so strange.”

“Truly. Erin tried to explain this Google to me. It is something called a…search engine. Not like something called an engine that powers a cart. Nor one that makes a carriage soar through the air like a bird. This engine can be anywhere and everywhere all at once.” Gaharet puffed out a breath. “I cannot fathom it.”

“A powered cart? A carriage that soars through the air?” Ulrik stared at the little cottage. “They are from our future. I suppose it stands to reason they would have things we could never imagine. Rebekah has a device that can create light and communicate across long distances.”

“Interesting.”

“It no longer works and the front of it has cracks in it. She says she needs a power source to make it work.”

“If Rebekah is anything like Erin, and I imagine she is, I would guess throwing it at you is what broke it.”

Ulrik grinned. It surprised him she had not, especially after he had tied her to a tree. “No. She used it as a decoy and threw it away from her in an attempt to elude me in the dark.”

“Hmm. Clever. If you were human, it may well have worked.”

“She is uncommonly canny,” agreed Ulrik.

The rift between him and Gaharet was deep, a chasm he had never thought to bridge ever again. Could they find common ground because of two women from the future?

“You took a risk going to the Vautour Village,” said Gaharet.

“It is not something I had planned. Rebekah…” He puffed out a breath, a little embarrassed to acknowledge the truth.

Gaharet chuckled. “She outsmarted you, did she not?”

“Yes.” He scowled at the memory. “She ran off while I bathed in the creek. Took my clothes, my boots and my weapons. By the time I found all the separate places she had hidden them, she had made it to the village.”

“She hid your clothes?” Gaharet threw back his head and laughed.

“She hid one of my boots in a log with an ant’s nest. I got so many bites that my foot itched for hours.”

Gaharet slapped his knee and laughed harder. Ulrik rejoiced at the sound. It had been a long time since he had conversed with Gaharet like this, laughed with him. Since before his parents had sent him away. He had missed it.

“She is smart,” said Ulrik, defending himself. “ L’enfer , how many people have been in our presence, how many centuries have gone by, and no one ever suspected what we are until one of our own betrayed us. She has been with me less than a sennight, and already she knows.”

“Have you bedded her yet?”

His smile died on his lips and he glared at Gaharet. “No.”

“But you want to?”

“Of course.” He shrugged. “She is a beautiful woman.”

“Mmm.” Gaharet’s amusement hummed between them. “How many days has she been in your care?”

He snorted. “With the keep guard hunting me, and shaking Lance and Godfrey off my trail, there was not the time.”

Ulrik’s protests sounded empty even to his own ears, his excuses thin.

Gaharet was openly grinning now. “She has refused you.”

Ulrik huffed.

Gaharet slapped him on the back. “I think I will like this Rebekah of yours.” He got to his feet. “Come. Let us join the women before they hatch a scheme between them both of us will live to regret.”