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

Chapter Thirty-Three

The early rays of dawn streaked across the sky as Bek and her captors cantered into a village. Little mud huts gave way to more substantial buildings the closer they came to a tower atop a hill. The Keep. Home to the notorious Count Lothair. Bek had only seen it once. Beneath a red moon. Tainted by her shock at its existence and colored by her experience within its walls, it had appeared monstrous and forbidding. Here, now, it loomed over the village, a menacing presence no less sinister in the cold half-light of the early morning.

Bek shivered, her weary body bruised and her earlobe throbbing dully. She’d forced herself to stay awake, seeking opportunities to escape. Nothing had presented itself. She was right back where she’d started this… Adventure? Nightmare? This time, she had no Ulrik to help her escape.

How she’d feared him in those initial moments. When he’d stalked her in the pitch-black dungeon. How she’d railed at him when he’d thrown her over his shoulder, unwilling to go wherever he’d planned to take her. Now, she’d give her right arm to see his face, to have him come riding up behind them, rescuing her like some fairytale knight in his shining armor.

She choked on a laugh. Ulrik was more rogue than gallant knight. His armor more scarred with use than polished. She liked him like that. Better a battle-experienced warrior than some fancy show-pony. Fairytale knight be damned. Bek wanted Ulrik. But he wasn’t here, and chances were, he wasn’t coming.

You can do this, Bek. You survived Bronzefield Prison. You can survive this.

But Bronzefield had had rules, regular mealtimes and standards that the staff were legally bound to. Sure, it had been no picnic, and things had gone on that weren’t supposed to, but it was a far cry from that hole in the ground. That dark dungeon she was most likely destined for. The keep had no oversight committee, no OHS, no medical and no parole board. Just a count and his whims.

The gate swung open as they approached, and guards rushed over and pulled her from the horse with their rough hands. Despite the early hour, the keep was bustling with activity. Stable hands scurried by and guards strode about with purpose. Some stopped to look at her, their curious stares unnerving. Others ignored her, hurrying about their business.

They dragged her up the hill to the stone fortress, her legs heavy and refusing to cooperate. Her ears rang, her vision blurred and memories assaulted her. The hard stares of the prison officers, the sense of dread as she faced the unknown, the open curiosity, and in some cases, malice that emanated from the other detainees. It all came flooding back. The numbness that had settled over her as they’d fingerprinted her and taken her mugshot threatened to descend. She shook her head and fought it. The guards had not brought her here to serve out a predetermined amount of time. She had to keep her wits about her. She had to get herself out of this. Somehow.

They halted in front of another guard. Words were exchanged, few of which she understood. The new guard ran his fingers through her hair, tilted her chin and turned her face from side to side, as her captors had done. He pushed up her sleeve to reveal her tattoos. He exchanged more words with her guards, then her captors led her into the tower.

She barely had time to take in the stone walls of the dimly lit corridors as they whisked her past servants, along corridors and down several sets of stairs to the bowels of the keep. They stopped in a room she had been in before. A room with a table, a few chairs and the familiar grate covering the hole in the floor.

God, I hate it when I’m right.

More guards joined them and as they settled about the table, someone produced a pair of dice, another a wineskin, and yet another threw a few coins onto the table. One of her captors dipped beneath his armor and held up an item. The amulet glinted gold in the candlelight. He said something, his grin wide and boastful, and tossed it on the table amongst the silver coins. Bek lunged for it, only to be dragged back against her captor and hauled over to the grate.

With a screech of hinges, a guard flung the grate open and shoved her into the hole. It clanged shut, and a key turned in a lock. What little light penetrated from the room above revealed the narrow stairs chiseled out of the rock, disappearing into the dark. This time, she did not have her phone to light up the room. This time, there was no Ulrik to save her.

Bek slumped against the wall. The guard’s laughter filtered down to her, and she eyed the steps as she inched away from the grate. She paused. Had they moved the dead guard? Or had they left him there to rot? She gagged. Nope. Not going down there if I don’t have to.

She settled herself on the steps at the very edge of the darkness and leaned her head against the rough stone wall. Once again, she was on her own. Dependent on no one and free to make her own decisions. Something she’d been so determined about and fiercely protective of from the moment she’d stepped out of Bronzefield. Except now, instead of feeling empowered, a hollow emptiness settled behind her sternum and gripped her tight.

She stared down the darkened stairs. Her future had never seemed so bleak.

* * * *

Bek started from her restless doze at the sudden lack of raucous laughter and the scraping of chairs. She eased herself closer to the grate, peering between its bars at the dusty boots surrounding the table. The game of dice had stopped. Why? A voice, deep and authoritative, cut through the silence and a pair of boots scurried toward her. Bek retreated down the steps and into the pitch-black room, her hands following the rough stone to the farthermost wall. All she could smell was damp and mold. Fingers crossed, that meant she wasn’t sharing this space with a corpse. Her pulse racing, she pressed herself into the corner.

Hinges screeched, then soft footfalls descended the stairs, the flickering light of a candle preceding whomever had come to see her. The captain of the guard? The count? As the cheers, the belching, the clatter of dice and the clink of coins had not resumed, she doubted it was someone as mundane as a servant bringing her food and water.

She had a moment to appreciate the confirmation there was no decaying body in the dungeon with her, before polished black boots appeared, followed by muscular calves in fitted black trousers. Her gaze traveled up a knee-length black tunic shot through with gold thread to a jeweled belt cinched across lean hips holding in place a sword. Further still to the embroidered gold dragon spewing fire that flowed across broad shoulders and up around the collar. Bek tensed. The count it is.

Would he be as bad as Erin had made him out to be? Could she eke out some measure of empathy for a woman stranded out of her time? Her hopes died with one look at his face. If this man had ever had a benevolent bone in his body, it was long gone. Handsome in a sharp-edged kind of way, there was a hardness to his face, to the thin line of his lips, the set of his jaw, and the dark gaze that raked over her, stripping her bare and flaying her soul.

She swallowed—her mouth drier than the Sahara Desert in the middle of a drought. He prowled toward her with the grace and menace of a predator. If Erin hadn’t told her otherwise, Bek would have taken him for a shifter, a werewolf. An alpha at that. Power, confidence and menace rolled off him in waves. He was the type of man she wouldn’t have wanted to meet in a twenty-first century dark alley, let alone in a dark dungeon. His dark dungeon. He made Spider look like a toothless tiger. Even Mrs. Wu would cower before this man.

He stopped in front of her, holding the candle aloft, his eyes taking in every inch of her. There was no sexual heat to his gaze, no leer advertising lecherous intent, but Bek shivered all the same. He reached out. Bek flinched, then locked her knees to prevent herself from shrinking away. She’d not let him see her fear.

He ran his hand through her hair before grasping her jaw and turning her head from left to right, his eyes narrowing at the blood on her ear. She searched his expression for a hint of compassion, regret, anything that might suggest her injury concerned him. Nothing. Not even a flicker. Soulless bastard.

Though her insides quivered, she raised her chin. A foolishly defiant act, perhaps, but she would not cower before him.

“ Mon, mon, tu es courageuse . Ou stupide .”

Bek snarled. Had he called her stupid?

He smirked. “ Fougueuse.”

When Ulrik spoke to her in French, even when he was angry with her, the words were like a caress across her skin, his accent sending shivers down her spine. Not so with the count. It made her skin crawl. “I don’t speak a lot of French.”

His eyebrows shot up. “From Bretaigne?”

Bretaigne? Britain ? “So what if I am? Are you going to help me get back home?”

Was she stupid, as he’d suggested, poking the beast? Probably, but she’d never been good at playing the damsel in distress.

He chuckled, and genuine amusement shone in his eyes. “ Non .” His eyes glittered with a shrewdness that had the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. “But you will help me get back something I have lost.”

“Something you’ve lost? I don’t…”

How could she help him ? And get back what?

“Ulrik Voclain.”

Bek sucked in a breath. Of course. Like with the detectives assigned to her case, she was but a pawn for a much bigger prize. Though things were different this time around. She wouldn’t cover for Ulrik like she had for Spider, hoping he would come for her. Believing she’d get a warning, a slap on the wrist. Not this time. She had to be smart. The stakes were too high. Ulrik had proved he could take care of himself. He was a shifter. She, a mere human. One with few choices left available to her.

“How?”

“You are already playing your part. By being here.”

She forced out a laugh, a little high-pitched. If she couldn’t convince the count Ulrik wasn’t coming, she would die in this cell.

“He’ll not come for me, but… Perhaps I could lead you to him.”

She’d no more be able to find Ulrik again, especially if he did not want to be found, than she could will herself back to the twenty-first century.

His smile chilled her more than the damp stone at her back. “Oh, he will come for you. Of that I have no doubt.”

She huffed out a breath. “I wish. But you’re wrong. He won’t. We parted on…unfriendly terms. I said some things…” She looked away. “He stormed off and left me. That’s how your men found me.”

The count shrugged, and the embroidered dragon rippled across his shoulder as though taking flight. “Do you know what he is? What he can turn into?”

She nodded, still not meeting his eyes. “Yeah.”

Keeping Ulrik’s secret wouldn’t help her now.

He stepped closer. “Do you know what their weaknesses are?”

Bek pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, the unfamiliar absence of her tongue ring swamping her with memories. Her face flushed and her body heated. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Yeah. Silver and wolfsbane.”

“And their women.”

What? Her head snapped up. The count’s mocking smile taunted her.

“ Yes. Their women.” His lip curled. “For all their strengths, their savagery and their cunning, all it takes to bring one of them to heel is to threaten their women. Gaharet risked my displeasure by taking Erin as his betrothed. Aimon was willing to defy me for Kathryn. Oh, Ulrik will come for you. Of that I am certain.”

With a final sardonic twist of his lips, he left her, taking the limited light of the candle with him. Bek slid down the wall to the floor, the clang of the grate as it slammed shut above echoing in the darkened room. She hugged her arms about her and closed her eyes. There was only one problem with the count’s theory. As much as she wanted to be, she was not, and probably never would be, Ulrik’s woman.

* * * *

It could’ve been hours, maybe an entire day—Bek did not know how long she’d sat in darkness before the grate hinges screeched again. After the count’s visit, neither sitting so close to the grate and the guards, nor sitting alone in the dark, had appealed. She’d found a happy medium near the bottom of the steps, the light spilling through the grate still giving her some comfort.

She got to her feet, her body stiff from the cold, and slunk back into the soul-sucking darkness of the dungeon. Who would it be this time? The count again? Someone bringing her food? Her stomach rumbled, and despite the dampness of the dungeon, her throat was parched.

Bek eyed the descending light warily. A man in a black cassock, a cross around his neck and a magenta skull cap stepped into the small space, his candle held aloft. A priest. Not a bog-standard one either. One with rank, if the silver thread woven through his robe was anything to go by. The archbishop Erin had spoken of?

The flickering candlelight cast eerie shadows over the priest’s face, making his cheeks seem sunken and his eyes deeper set, as though his skin stretched tight over his features to reveal the skull beneath. A chill ran up her spine. She’d tolerated the well-meaning priests who’d come to Bronzefield. If she’d had any connection with religion, she might have found comfort in their visits, in their quiet words from the bible, or their prayers for her forgiveness. But if this guy had come to offer her solace, then she was the Queen of England.

She bore the coldness of his calculating scrutiny in silence. Who posed the greater threat? The count or the priest?

He held something out in his palm, something gold. Could it be? She leaned forward. It glittered in the candlelight. Yes. The amulet. She reached for it. The archbishop curled his fingers around it and snatched it back.

He let out a dry and dusty cackle that would have made the Wicked Witch of the West proud. “You know what this is?”

Her eyebrows shot up, and she took a step back. He’d spoken in English. Was he tag-teaming with the count? Bad cop, worse cop?

“I found your piece of parchment.” He held up the amulet again. “Four lines of script. Four lines of Latin, and four lines of a rather strange version of the language of Bretaigne. Is that where you have come from? Bretaigne?”

Would Bek have a better chance of manipulating him into getting her out of here? Better success than she’d had with the count?

He stepped closer, the amulet clasped firmly in his bony hand. “I want to know where it takes you. If you say the words. If you recite the spell.”

He didn’t know how it worked. He didn’t know about the binding stone. Hope, tentative and fragile, fluttered in her chest. She did. Ulrik had the binding stone. He was most likely with Gaharet. Neither would want to be found by the archbishop, but they were both more than capable of taking care of one man. She’d missed her opportunity in the forest. She wasn’t going to waste this one.

The priest’s eyes glowed with an almost demonic fervor. “Tell me what I want to know, and I will see you released.”

Bek’s eyes narrowed. He might be a priest, but Rebekah didn’t trust a word that came out of his mouth. He shouldn’t trust her , either.

“I…”

He sidled closer. “You want to be free of this horrible place, do you not?” he asked, his voice deceptively gentle.

Bek nodded. That was the truth.

“Then, my dear, tell me how this amulet works.”

She nodded again and gave him what she hoped was a tremulous smile. “Okay. Um… I…don’t know where it takes you.” A complete lie. “Um… I’ve never used it.”

The archbishop scowled.

“But I do know how to make it work.”

Truth. A truth she would use to her benefit.

His cold eyes blazed, and his thin, bloodless lips turned up in a semblance of a smile. “Go on.”

“You have to hold the amulet and recite the words.” She captured her bottom lip between her teeth and fluttered her eyelashes. Too much? She was so bad at this shit. Hapless female was not her scene, but he was gobbling up the morsels she threw him quicker than a stray dog in a sausage factory. “You have to say the words out loud.”

There was that awful cackle again.

Bek repressed a shudder and leaned in. “And you need blood to make it work. On the amulet. Your blood.”

His beaming smile, all teeth and jutting cheekbones, made for a caricature of a corpse. This dude was scary. Creepy in a way the count was not.

“Thank you.” He turned away and made for the stairs.

“What about me?” she called after him. “Are you going to get me out of here?”.

He huffed and cast a look at her over his shoulder that oozed derision, any hint of his smile gone. “So gullible. Your trust is sadly misplaced. You, my dear, are going nowhere.”

Bek hid her smile as the archbishop retreated up the stairs. She might not be going anywhere, but he certainly was. Chances were, he wouldn’t like his destination.