Page 34 of The Wolf

Her sweet voice washed over him and some of the tension in his shoulders ebbed away. She didn’t seem angry or terrified.

He flinched and his lips parted when she inched closer to him and cupped his bristled cheek with her left hand. He sighed into the touch before he could stop it. So much for being a hardened warrior when a little slip of a woman could take him to his knees.

She smiled and he leaned toward her, wavering on his feet.

He frowned as the world blurred a little. Brine rocked back and lost his balance. A second later, he crashed to the ground, the taste of something bitter upon his tongue. He tried to speak but only garbled words came out.

What had she done to him?

The blond knelt by his side, rearranging his limbs into a more comfortable position before pushing a lock of hair from his eyes. He blinked as she gave him perhaps the saddest smile Brine had ever seen.

Who had put that look on her face?

“My name is Red,” she said as the world went black.

FIFTEEN

BRINE

“I knew I’d find you here.”

Brine turned from his position on the ramparts of Merjeri Manor and spied Pyre, Tempest, and Damien—who was clothed for once—walking toward him. The moon was almost full above his head; Brine had been staring at it for Dotae only knew how long, thinking about the slip of a woman who had knocked him unconscious. Her scent, as muted as it was, haunted his every waking moment, and his sleeping moments too.

Who was she? She said her name was Red. Brine still couldn’t believe she’d granted him one precious sliver of information before he closed his eyes and fell asleep for hours. When he’d come to, it had been dark, and Brine had shifted into his true form in order to follow Red’s scent through the trees that lined the estate and into the forest they grew into. He’d loped through the undergrowth late into the night, and long after the woman’s scent had disappeared from his nostrils. But he was desperate; how could he have found his mate and then so keenly lost her, mere moments later?

“Are you thinking of her?” Tempest asked knowingly, her tone teasing. When Brine had come to her to make a few inquiries about the woman, it had of course piqued the Hound’s interest. But though she and Pyre and Damien all together had reached out for any information about a blond woman named Red who lived in the region, they had come up blank. It was as if the woman was a ghost, a figment of Brine’s perverse, desperate imagination, a tantalizing apparition of something he longed for but could never have.

“There are more important things to think about than ghosts,” Brine replied, pushing the thought of Red aside to focus on what truly was most important: infiltrating Betraz.

Damien and Pyre stood on either side of Brine, leaning against the ramparts to stare at the moon with him. “You’re allowed to think about a woman and a job at the same time, you know,” Pyre said, glancing at Tempest as she pulled an arrow from her quiver and checked its point to ensure it was still sharp. “Focusing on both often has far more appealing results.” The grin he threw at Tempest was absolutely filthy. When an arrow whooshed through the air from her direction, the fox deftly caught it with a chuckle. “See what I mean? Completely worth it.”

“Watch your tongue or you’ll be sleeping alone tonight,” Tempest fired back, though she was struggling to hide the laughter in her voice.

Pyre nudged Brine’s shoulder. “I rest my case. You need someone challenging to be your mate. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Damien nodded his agreement. “The fox is right, Brine. And besides, the hunt is part of what makes finding a mate so interesting. So what if she’s a ghost? It will make it all the more satisfying when you finally find her.”

“I’d rather we focused on the job, all things considered,” Brine said, running his hands through his hair to push it out of his face. He felt incredibly uncomfortable having everyone’s undivided attention trained on him. “I’ve never been one for chasing women anyway.”

Pyre rolled his eyes. “Don’t we all know it. Every time you and Chesh come back from a mission, I hold out hope that he’d have just one salacious story centered around you, not him. But that hope is always in vain. It’s time you loosened up, friend.”

“The job,”Brine pressed, on the edge of losing his patience entirely.

“You know fine well why I’m stalling,” Pyre said, drawing his mood back to serious as fast as the snap of a bowstring. He landed his topaz eyes on Brine’s. “I don’t want you to go back in there. We have other men who can infiltrate Betraz.”

Tempest and Damien murmured their agreement, but Brine barked out a laugh at the thought. “You have other men, yes, but you’d be sending them to their deaths. You’ve sent too many already. If I weren’t your friend, Pyre, you would have no problem using me for this. So use me. And besides,” Brine muttered, staring up at the moon, “I don’t have a choice. It’s my kin who are causing problems. I can’t run from them forever, even as I’ve been trying damn hard to do exactly that until now.”

Damien rested his hand on Brine’s shoulder, heavily enough for Brine’s knees to buckle beneath him for the briefest of moments before the dragon shifter raised his hand again. “You have my respect,” Damien said, “though I have to admit to being curious about how you plan to go about this. You can’t just walk into Betraz and face your grandmother. She’ll know something is up.”

“I know. That’s why I plan to attack her ship in Callmai.”

“Interesting way to get in her good books,” Tempest said, a frown coloring her brow. She crossed her arms over her chest as she tried to work out the logic behind Brine’s plan. “Do you plan to—”

“Sweep in to save the day as if I wasn’t the one who attacked the ship?” Brine finished for her, anticipating Tempest’s keen strategic instincts. “Of course. Chesh has far superior connections among the sailors and pirates who go through that port. He has already agreed to help so I can mend fences with my grandmother.”

Pyre chuckled appraisingly. “Of course the cat knew about this already and never told me. I have to say, it’s as good a plan as any. But Old Mother’s ship is due to leave port in two days. You don’t have much time.”

Brine offered him a feral grin. “I know. That’s why I’m leaving now.” He waved a hand down at the leather bag at his feet, packed and ready to go.

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