Page 82 of The Wolf in My Tavern

“I have just told him plainly,” Gray says. “It is not my fault if he cannot work it out.”

Drake scoffs. “You have been with a pack all your life. You are the pack leader’s son. What do you know of wolf struggles?”

Gray’s scowl is back, and he looks about to thump Drake. I brace myself in case they launch into a fight.

They do not. They merely glare at one another for a long, protracted period while my slow-moving mind tries to catch up with what was said.

Drake turns toward me. “You’re a shifter,” he says.

Chapter Thirty

Ada

It is morning, and the deckhands arrive to take Callum outside. He doesn’t fight them anymore, like he used to at first. Now, he merely glares at them as they take him in chains from the room.

Usually, this is the time when I clean up and Gray sits me on his lap at the table and feeds me from his hands. But that is not what happens today, for he leaves me to my morning ablutions and follows soon after Callum.

The distinct sound of a key turning in the lock brings a hiss to my lips, and I storm for the door and pound upon the wood.

No one answers.

What is this about?

There was nothing in Gray’s demeanor to suggest he was about to hurt Callum, but I am worried, nonetheless.

How well do I even know him? It’s not like we have talked. All he does is rut me until I am too weak for thought or questions.

The heavy lamp was never returned—Gray, rightly, does not trust me—and I am glancing around for something else to batter the door when my attention is snagged by a thick rope dangling outside the window.

It sways from side to side.

Did someone drop it by mistake?

I step closer, wondering why they are dangling a rope over the side of the ship.

As I stare at the swaying rope, a pair of booted feet comes into view. Small feet… in serviceable brown boots… tucked into leather pants belonging to legs wrapped around the rope. The hips that follow have a distinctly feminine curve… a trim waist, shoulders, arms clinging, long auburn hair, and a pretty face grinning at me.

It is the lass from the markets—the one that Gray snatched.

She grasps the rope with one hand, her legs wrapped carefully around it as it sways.

Gods, is she trying to get herself killed?

She taps on the window and gestures toward me.

I dash over to it and yank it open.

“What are you doing, lass? You will fall to your death!”

“Eh, I am fine,” she grumbles, humor in her voice as she swings her legs into the gap and drops into the room. Pulling the rope through the open window, she tucks it against the sill.

“I’m Lizbeth,” she says, still grinning from ear to ear like she is well pleased with herself.

I dare say if I had just climbed down the side of a moving ship and snuck into a room, I might likewise be pleased with myself. “Ada,” I reply.

Naked, I’m feeling a little self-conscious. Not that she appears to notice or pay my state of undress even a cursory level of interest.

Then she hugs me—near crushes me… she is a big lass compared to me.

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