Page 61 of The Wolf in My Tavern

“Have a seat, lass,” I say, liberating her of the pint and indicating the chair opposite mine. “You are not so busy, and happen an old man has made a hash of matters.”

“You are not so old,” she says. Her pert chin lifts, and her eyes lose some of their sorrow, flashing with a little of that fire I love so well.

I set the pint of Pilkington out of the way and take her small hands in mine. It’s fair to say my life has taken plenty of unexpected turns. And I’m hopeful that if the lass before me is congenial, those plans I just made are about to change once again.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Gray

No sooner do we board the ship than supplies for the journey start arriving.

Ada, my whelp of a younger brother, and Lizbeth—the brat I was due to mate—are bundled below deck out of my sight lest I do something regrettable.

The delay while necessary supplies are stowed makes me twitchy. I want to be away before some fool ashore decides to challenge us. Betsy will have gone straight to her father, her father will have gone to that city guardsman, Anders… maybe even to Callum and his blacksmith father, who is no simple fucking blacksmith, for all he lives as such.

Drake and I muck in to help with loading the ship.

It still takes fucking ages.

Drake is unusually quiet, perhaps rightly worried that we might have trouble on our hands. Not about Arlo and Lizbeth, for they are both shifters, and no one will care that we are taking our own. But Ada has acquired a cast of loyal friends in her short time working in the tavern, and every one of the bastards would rally for her.

Drake doesn’t call out my foolishness for taking her. Had I not handled it as I did, my wolf would have waded in and been far less circumspect about it. As a shifter himself, Drake understands that instincts are forcing me to act in ways that cannot be denied.

As the anchor finally lifts, to say my mood is disagreeable is an understatement beyond all reckoning. As the clanks and rattles come to a stop, the crew hastens to release the sails.

The sky is stormy, heavy looking, and darkening—this is not a good time of year for sailing.

I heave a breath as the sails billow in the brisk wind, taking us out to sea.

We are on our way.

In contrast to my sour mood, my wolf is fucking perky, prancing around under the surface of my skin with his tail high and proud.

I swallow down my impatience as the captain calls me over for a word. It takes far longer than I am happy with and before long my wolf is back to prowling and urging us that it is overdue we checked on our mate.

Mate.

Not Lizbeth, my former intended, but another lass: Ada, with her dark hair, pretty hazel eyes, and tasty cunt.

When I turn from the captain, premature darkness has fallen due to the heavy cloud cover. A few lanterns have been lit, casting pockets of weak golden light over the glistening deck. It is quieter now that dusk is falling and jobs are mostly done. The ship powers through the waters. Drake is leaning against the rail, in quiet conversation with a deckhand while keeping his eye on me.

I nod. He pushes away from the rail and, accompanied by the deckhand, goes to collect our ‘guests’ from the hold. As he disappears from my sight, I attempt to bring my inner beast to heel. He is having none of it and is yipping with excitement—I am cursed to have a wolf whose disposition is more often that of an oversized pup, although his mood can swing from playfully exuberant to territorial fast enough to make my head spin.

Arlo and Lizbeth emerge first and come to stand to my left. Ada stands to my right, the gag still firmly in place and her eyes spitting fire at me. Their hands had remained bound lest they caused mischief while we were busy.

I sigh heavily, then nod at the deckhand—he removes Ada’s gag and cuts the binding on her wrists before moving to do the same for Arlo and Lizbeth.

I spare the two wayward shifters only a glance before my eyes return to Ada. That she thought so little of me as to believe I would snatch a lass makes me seethe. This is a calamity of the highest order.

“You didn’t need to come in like a fucking savage,” my whelp of a brother bemoans, breaking the silence and redirecting my attention to him. Arlo has a bloody nose where Drake has cuffed him—he is lucky I was not the one administering a thump, for I would likely have broken the whelp’s jaw. “We were looking for a ship. We would have been home before spring!”

I growl. The whelp averts his face in the first genuine show of submission.

My anger softens, for I am proud of him for getting them both free of the orc bastards who took them. That my involvement in their rescue is negligible is of less importance than what it cost me with Ada.

Ada, who now thinks I am a monster who snatches innocent lasses.

Ada, who has remade me into that very monster for snatching her from her betrothed.

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