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

Chapter Forty

Ulrik walked her limp and sated body to the bed and laid her down. She sank into the downy softness of the mattress with a groan. A bed. Such a simple pleasure, but one she’d sorely missed. She stretched, a languid arching of her body, her gaze catching on the rounded globes of Ulrik’s firm naked ass as he strode to a table. Her own ass cheeks still tingled from the spanking he’d given her, and the thought of it brought a fresh flood of heat to her body.

He threw a glance over his shoulder at her, a wicked smirk teasing at the corner of his mouth. She sucked in her breath. Was that…a hint of fang ? Her pussy clamped down on a throbbing emptiness and another flush of heat washed over her. More dampness pooled between her thighs. God, if he made her any hotter, she’d spontaneously combust.

His nostrils flared and heat simmered in his eyes, but he turned away, tipping a jug of water into a bowl, and soaking a cloth. He returned to the bed, and with more care than she’d thought a big warrior capable of, he tenderly washed her from head to toe. Like she was something precious, someone special. A princess or a duchess. Someone other than the parolee barmaid from Deptford.

Bek looked away, a lump forming in her throat. Such gentleness, such devotion to her needs, had her choking back emotion. A girl could get used to this. She wanted to get used to this. Any appeal, slight as it was, to return to her less-than-perfect life in the twenty-first century, died at the thought of living it without this. Without Ulrik. If that meant she had to give up coffee, go without a bra and never get another tattoo…well… Bek could live with that.

The bed dipped as he lay beside her, curling on his side to face her, darker shades dancing in the depths of his eyes. Her nipples pebbled and her heart thudded in her chest. He brushed his hand across her cheek so tenderly her eyes burned with the sting of tears. Without breaking their connection, she captured his hand, brought it to her lips and kissed his palm.

He shifted uneasily and broke her stare, dropping his hand to caress her shoulder. “I need to explain why I reacted the way I did at the pond.”

His voice was raspier than normal and thick with emotion.

“Okay.” Nothing he said would change the way she felt about him. Lord knew she’d done some monumentally stupid things in her life. She’d paid a price for them, too, though not one as hefty as Ulrik.

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Comte Lothair had been in power for but a few years. We had yet to see the ruler he would become, the one we would all come to fear. I was young and”—he sucked on his bottom lip—“idealistic, and truth be told, a little arrogant.” A half-smile, half-grimace settled on his lips. “I was a score and two years old. Impetuous, hotheaded and I believed in my own importance a little too much than was good for me. My father was a viscount, and one day I would take up that mantle.”

He was silent for a moment, staring at his hand as his fingers stroked over her shoulder and down her arm.

“Lothair was waging a war against another count, fighting for territory. He needed funds to support his army.” His lips thinned and his brow creased into a frown. “He declared an increase in taxes. Not uncommon, but this was a substantial increase. My family could well afford the extra tax, but there were many who could not. People who barely had enough food to feed their children. Winter was coming. Already, autumn had been harsh—raining for weeks on end, flooding the rivers and creeks. Livestock had drowned and crops had failed. Almost every day we were seeing more and more peasants at our gate begging for food.”

He flopped onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “These people, farmers, servants, some merchants, could ill afford this tax and they had neither the money nor the power to fight it.”

She rolled onto her side, facing him. This wasn’t what she’d been expecting, this tale of injustice. “But you did.”

He grimaced. “I thought I did. I believed my family’s wealth and power, our title, made me immune to any punishment.”

Bek reached for his hand, clasping it in hers.

His loaded sigh carried all his regret. “Other nobles, like Gaharet’s father and mine, tried to reason with Lothair to get him to reduce the size of the increase, but Lothair refused to be swayed. I believed we could do more. We should do more.”

His grip on her hand tightened.

“When the people revolted, I was amongst them, adding my voice to theirs. I thought it would help, and I thought…” He blinked his eyes shut and shook his head. “I do not know what I was thinking. A member of the noble class supporting the disenfranchised peasants…”

He opened his eyes, leveling a look at her so filled with pain it broke her heart. “I sorely underestimated the impact it would have.”

Yeah, Rebekah could imagine. It would have gone over about as well as Megxit had with royals. “What did Lothair do?”

Ulrik rested the back of his hand on his forehead. “Gaharet’s father got word that Lothair was sending the keep guard for me. So, my parents arranged for me to go to Bretaigne. There is a pack there, in Ludenwic. They thought if I were not here, Lothair’s wrath would cool and he would soon forget my role in the uprising.”

“But Lothair didn’t forget.” No, the man she’d met in that dungeon wasn’t the forgetting type. Especially not with a challenge like that to his authority. “He couldn’t get to you, so he took it out on your family.”

His bearded face crumpled. “My parents begged the pack to keep my family’s imprisonment a secret from me. They thought it best if I… If I did not know. They feared I would have returned.” His voice cracked. “I would have. I would never have left my parents, my sisters, to suffer the fate they did had I known. Never. ”

He forced the words out through his clenched jaw, his grip crushing her hand. Bek kept silent, despite the pain in her fingers.

“Because I did not return, Lothair condemned them to death. I lost my whole family because of my ignorance, my hubris.”

Bek pulled her hand free and straddled Ulrik’s thighs, and he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close.

She leaned her forehead against his. “You would have come for them. Like you came for me. I know you would have, and I’m sure they knew it, too. You are nothing, nothing, like the man who betrayed me. You stood up for those less fortunate than you and tried to right a wrong. It is not you who is to blame for your family’s deaths. That sin rests with Lothair.”

She took his face in her hands, her heart breaking for him. “You are a good man, Ulrik Voclain, and don’t you dare think otherwise. Without you, I would never have survived in this world of yours.” She leaned down and pressed her lips to his.

He pulled away. “I wish… That is not all. I… I learned nothing from my mistake. When I returned and heard of my family’s fate, I wanted vengeance. Nothing short of Lothair’s death would satisfy me. I wanted the pack to turn on Lothair. To take him down and destroy him as he had destroyed my family.”

Bek touched a hand to his scars, tracing the raised edges of skin. “Gaharet wouldn’t do it, would he? He was the friend you challenged and lost.”

“Yes. One of many decisions I have lived to regret. Rebekah, I know I have done little to deserve you…”

Bek sat up. “Ulrik, no one is perfect. Least of all me. My family are a bunch of crooks. I was an outlaw gang member’s girlfriend. No one could accuse me of being sweet and innocent.” She poked him in the chest. “You saved me from that awful guard that was going to rape me.” She poked him again. “You rescued me from Langeais Keep.” Another poke. “Twice.” And another poke and this time she kept her finger there. “You do deserve me, and maybe… Maybe we deserve each other.”

“You do not wish to return—”

“I’m staying.” She frowned, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. “If you’ll have me.”

“If I will have—” He pulled her to him and rolled them over, caging her with his arms and settling his thighs between hers. “Baby, if you stay, then I am never letting you go.”

She couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face.

“But…um…” His forehead crinkled in a frown. “There is something I must tell you first.”

“Oh?” She had a sinking feeling in her chest and a lump formed in her throat. “You’re not…already married, are you?”

“What? No!” He huffed out a breath. “I do not wish to frighten you, after…”

Whatever it was, was it that bad? “Tell me.”

“To stay with me, you will need to become like me. A werewolf.”

An unexpected thrill skipped up her spine. Why did the prospect of becoming a werewolf not frighten her? It should, but she couldn’t dredge up an ounce of fear.

“I have to become a werewolf? Like…you’ll have to bite me?”

He eyed her warily. “Mmhmm.”

“Okay, I’ll…bite.” Pun intended . “Why?” Can I not summon an emotion other than curiosity?

“For one, we are far longer lived than humans, and…” He stroked a hand down her face and her pulse did a little hop, skip and a jump. “Werewolves can only procreate with other werewolves, remember.”

“Oh.” Right. He’d told her that at the pond.

She stared at his bearded chin as she processed what he was saying. Was this the werewolf equivalent of the ‘do you want kids’ conversation? Was he…proposing? Kind of? Bek rubbed her hands across his chest, enjoying the tactile feel of his hair against her palms, her mind racing. There was a lot more involved than ‘putting a ring on it’. A lot, lot more. It should have her running for the hills.

“I’ll be able to turn into a wolf, like you? Like Aimon and Kathryn? And Erin?”

He nodded.

“And I’ll get an extra strong sense of smell, enhanced hearing, perfect eyesight and increased strength?”

He considered her list, then nodded. “Yes. And more. There are many benefits to becoming a werewolf. A longer lifespan, protection from disease and our ability to heal most wounds, even those that would kill a human. And there is nothing like the feel of running free in the forest as a wolf.”

And she would be with Ulrik. Bek wasn’t seeing a downside here. “What’s the catch? I mean, I get it. You’ll have to bite me, but it not like my tatts didn’t come without pain.”

“I…”

“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “That priest. In the dungeon. That’s what was wrong with him, wasn’t it? You’d bitten him.”

“Yes, but it need not be that way,” he rushed out. “Renaud was a despicable, scheming excuse for a priest who deserved every bit of the agony of a turning. We could have eased his transition, but we chose not to. I would never put you through the pain Renaud suffered.”

She tracked his line of sight toward the table. Beside the bowl and pitcher sat a goblet. “What’s in that?”

“A herbal mixture.”

Bek eyed the goblet. “Mm, okay, and it does…what, exactly?”

“It will take away your pain, and you will sleep through the worst of the turning.”

“Huh.” Who’d have thought. A medieval anesthetic. “It probably tastes like crap, right?”

“Uh.” He tilted his head to the side. “I guess. I do not actually know as I have never… I was born…” He regarded her, confusion simmering his eyes. “You…are not afraid?”

Bek shrugged, and Ulrik’s gaze dipped to her breasts at the movement.

He’s such a boob man.

“I thought Erin was brave, but you… I have yet to meet a more courageous woman than you. You are…an amazing woman, Rebekah Clarke. The most amazing woman, even if you do have the foulest, most defiant mouth of any woman I have ever met.”

Ulrik chuckled, dropping a kiss on her nose, then her lips. He licked the seam of her mouth and she opened for him. He dipped his tongue in briefly, withdrawing far too soon for Bek’s liking.

Bek grinned. “I like you, too. In fact…” She ducked her chin. “I think I more than like you. Maybe, I think, I might have…fallen in love with you.”

Ulrik stilled above her, and Bek waited, anxious she’d said too much, too soon. She’d been with Spider for a year, and she’d never dared mention the ‘L’ word. She’d known Ulrik for…how long? Two weeks?

He stared at her for long moments. Had she ever felt this self-conscious before? Then he swooped in and took her mouth in his and for a moment Bek lost her train of thought, her concerns.

He pulled back with a final suck of her bottom lip. “I love you, too, Rebekah . And that mouth of yours very, very much.”

He loved her? The truth burned bright in his eyes. He loved her.

“So, um…” She trailed a finger down his chest. “Does that mean I’m your mate, given that you’re a wolf shifter? Is that how it works?”

Her shifter romance read hadn’t gotten everything wrong.

“Oh, yes. Rebekah Clarke, you are unequivocally, undeniably and forever my mate.”

He took her mouth in his, his arms bracketing her, surrounding her with his body, his scent. His cock announced its presence, hot and hard against her pussy. It was all she could do to think straight, but she still had questions. She wrested her mouth from his, her breath coming out in little pants.

“What do I have to do? Do I just…drink the stuff, lie down, and you bite me?”

“That is one way.” He ground himself against her and his heated gaze dipped to her breasts. “There is another. Do you trust me, Rebekah?”