Red and Her Wolf (15 page)

Finally the dreams relented, and like a fog being lifted, she opened her eyes. Immediately she noticed a heavy sensation against her breast. Glancing down, she saw a purple pendant pulsing against her bare flesh, his hand pressed tight to it.

His mouth was covered in dried blood; looking like he’d feasted. She hissed, glancing at her wrist, suddenly recalling the demonic anger that’d taken her last night. The pure hatred that’d burned brighter than the sun at its zenith, her need to kill him, end her agony, only to discover there was no way around the enchantment he’d woven with his bite.

She swallowed and didn’t push away when he nuzzled her hair, inhaling her scent deep into his lungs, muttering nonsense she couldn’t understand.

“Let me go,” she finally croaked, voice raw and scratchy, as if she’d actually been screaming throughout the night.

He set her aside gently, and crawled back on his knees, moving like an animal would. But instead of disgust, she found beauty in the motion. A perfect symmetry and balance to it that left her awed.

She was still angry, but wasn’t sure anymore if she should be. Not at him. Violet covered her breasts, hugging her arms to her body.

“What happened?” She rubbed her smooth wrist, tracing the length of the faint pink line.

He scrubbed his face. “Our saliva can heal, I… goddess, lass. What? What can I do?! How can I prove to
ye
I’m nay the devil ye take me for?” He was yelling, chest heaving, his golden eyes wild. Looking like the wolf she’d seen in the dreams.

Violet tucked her knees to her chest. “What did you do to me?” She pointed to the necklace in his hand.

Throwing the necklace against the wall, the stone cracked. He was angry, his body vibrated with it. He wouldn’t even look at her as he began to pace, rubbing his jaw so hard she was afraid he’d scrub the skin off.

“It was the truth I’d tried to show
ye
last night. I didn’t ken if it would work in
yer
sleep.” He turned his back to her, staring at the wall. The muscles in his back rippled as a shudder took him. “Ye glowed, yellow. When I licked
ye
, I tasted the essence of sunshine and wild
fae
magic. Do ye ken who ye are, lass?”

He turned, and she sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes, so human before, were now pure wolf. Tawny, with a vertical black slit.
Breathtaking, but oh so dangerous.
Her body thrilled even as her heart raced with forbidden desire.

“No,” she shook her head. “No one tells me anything.” Looking at her feet, she nibbled on her lower lip. “Was that true? Was all that true?”

He knelt beside her, his finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. She flinched, but held his gaze, spellbound by him.

“Aye.
All of it.” His whisper was a caress against her lips.

Her lashes fluttered. “I’ve hated you for so long. I’m scared to stop.”

Alien eyes searched hers. “Why?”

“Because,” she swallowed hard, “then it means everything I knew was wrong. My grandmother hated me, my aunt lied to me.”

Blunt fingertips feathered across her cheekbones and the touch burned a path straight through her body, filled her legs with heat and longing.

“I haven’t, and I won’t.
Yer
my mate.”

She closed her eyes. “Please don’t say that.”

His hand left and his warmth went with it. She yearned for more, but didn’t know how to ask, how to plead for something that her brain said was so wrong. It was hard reconciling fact with fiction, knowing how wrong she’d been. It made her sick, fueled an anger that now had no release.

“Did you come to kill me too?” Her voice sounded childlike.

He was standing by the wall again, his eyes hooded.
“Aye.”

It was a knife to the heart.

“I would have ripped
yer
throat out and never looked back. I didn’t know ye, and I
dinna
care to know ye.”

She ground her molars, picking at her blood stained dress. “But you couldn’t because you found out I was your mate, is that it?” Panting, she let the anger take her, felling her limbs grow sure and strong, her blood pulse with adrenaline.

“Stop trying to find reasons to hate me, Red. I’m nay the one ye must fight.”

She snapped her head up, glaring at him.

He lifted a shaggy black brow. “Going to deny it?”

Nostrils flaring, it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to go to hell. But a small voice she rarely heard, and never heeded, called her bluff. She was still trying to find a reason to hate him.

“How do I let go of something that was my constant companion all these years?”

“One day at a time.” Grabbing the knotted section of fabric wrapped around his slim waist, he tugged, releasing the wrap and standing fully nude.

Goddess he was beautiful. Every part of him was sculpted perfection. Blushing, she glanced away.

“I hear footsteps headed our way, it’s time to go. I do not wish to say goodbye, or be caught.
Kermani
showed me the dream stone that would open the portal last night. Keep to the shadows.”

White light flared from every pore, burning so bright she had to cover her eyes. When the light died, a big black wolf stared back at her.

Chapter 9

 
Ewan studied the woods, while alternately glancing at Red’s shadowy form hidden behind a large barrel shaped tree. Since leaving the Eastern realm six hours ago, they’d made their way slowly through a forest unlike any he’d ever known.

Crushing the dream stone beneath his paw, he’d opened the portal, able to leave before any eyes spotted their departure.

The incident last night had left him shaken and disturbed. Who was this woman?
His mate?
She was violent, ancient, yet in so many ways still young and naïve, untried in the ways of the world.

Tasting the wind, he plucked through the miasma of scent laden breeze. There was gingerbread, peppermint, and even the faintest whiff of molten chocolate.

Violet had stared in wide eyed wonder when they’d arrived at their next destination. Quiet and much more subdued than the day prior, as if she was thinking, sorting through thoughts, more likely wondering about not only him, but herself. Who she was and where she fit in this strange new world.

Again he glanced at her wraith-like form; pride bloomed in his chest seeing her move between the trees. Stealthy and silent, it was obvious to him she’d done this before. Her movements barely disturbed the gum drop leaves scattered upon the cookie crumble forest floor.

The sky was edged in bright washes of lavender and tangerine, a moon--not two planets--rested pregnant in a sky ready to descend into darkness.

Every so often her scent would tickle his nose, there was light, but like Miriam had warned in her letter… there was darkness too. Something malignant and foul that lingered in her blood. Huffing, blowing the stench from his nostrils he padded silently forward.

These forests were a macabre and intentional design. Within these woods lived a witch who preyed on the young. Every tree, every rock was made of sweets. Luring the children in deeper, making them forget the safety they’d left behind.

It would be good to rid Kingdom of the crone, but her death wouldn’t come by him.

Licking his muzzle, he glanced at her yet again. They’d not spoken a word since leaving his room. Ewan knew this form bothered her, saw it in the way she glanced at him when she didn’t think he was looking.

She was afraid, and he wished he could tell her not to be. That in this form he could kill, smell and see
better
than in his weaker human one. That he could, and would protect her from any and all harm. But the tradeoff for strength was his inability to communicate with her.

The path led straight and unswervingly forward. Many times his stomach grumbled, demanding protein. But to touch anything here was to alert the crone to their presence.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about Red being the one to take her on. Miriam had called her a soul sucker, but hadn’t explained what that was.
How to use the ‘gift’.
The crone had killed
many,
Violet had killed one wolf, and had very nearly killed herself in the process.

He swallowed hard.

A thud sounded like a loud pop in his ears and he
spun,
the hairs on the back of his neck rose as he growled low in his throat. Nothing lived in these woods of horror. There were no land animals, no birds,
no
gentle hum of insects.

The crone had eaten them all.

He wasn’t sure what he’d find, a hidden trap, some beast let loose. Perhaps Red had begun nibbling on a tree branch. He should have warned her, he hadn’t thought she might not know the land as he did.

But it was none of those things. She was on her knees, head bowed,
the
red cowl covering her entire face. Calling the
unbecoming
, Ewan exhaled through the change, breathing through a transformation that pulled at bone and skin.

“Lass?”
He trotted up to her and knelt by her side, heart clenching violently when he noticed the fat drops spilling from her cheeks.

“Who am I?” She sobbed, finally looking at him, blue eyes streaked through with red veins, as if she’d been rubbing them for hours. “What am I?”

Lips twisting, he looked over his shoulders, studying the unnatural calm of the woods. The witch wouldn’t come tonight; he’d not smelled her rot and Violet needed him.

Sitting, he crossed his ankles, and studied her. She didn’t blink.

“Who am I?”

Needing to touch her, to comfort her anyway he could, he grabbed her hand. Expecting she’d yank it away and hiss at him, she flinched, but didn’t pull back.

“
Yer
the
Heartsong
.”

Gathering a corner of her hem, she dabbed at her eyes. “But what is that? Can you help me? Can you tell me the truth?”

For just a moment he understood why everyone had lied to her, because he was tempted to tell her nonsense himself.
Perhaps to spare her feelings, or just because he was a coward and didn’t want to face anymore of her hate.
He sighed, and tenderly rubbed her knuckles, amazed she let him.

“I don’t know all of it,” he began, and her eyes grew hopeful, “but
yer
the result of fairy magic.”

“Grandmother told me I was born of fairy magic, that it made me kind and gentle.... and…” she frowned when he shook his head.

“Jana was a liar, lass.”

She looked away. “I keep forgetting. That.”

She looked so fragile, weak. Her face eternally youthful, it would be so easy to see the package and forget that beneath the large blue eyes and innocent smile lurked madness and death. He’d witnessed it for himself last night.

“Do ye ken who the
Ten
are?”

“The high fairy council?” she asked, and he nodded.

“Aye.
They were too powerful, and Kingdom feared that unless they weakened themselves, one could become bloated with greed and a thirst for power.”