Page 44 of Wolf's Return
Constance stacked the clean plates from supper on the shelf as D’Artagnon kneeled by the fire and stocked it with enough wood to burn through the night. Four more nights they had spent in the cottage. Four nights, and every eve after their meal, D’Artagnon would remove his clothes, giving her tantalizing glimpses of his body, and shift back into the black wolf. He would leap onto the cot and curl up on the end and Constance would climb beneath the covers, thoughts of the night he had shifted, of the feel of him pressed between her thighs swirling through her mind and stirring her hopes.
Each morning she would awake to find him outside sitting on a fallen log, once again human, watching over the cottage. She had not woken once in the night to a shifted and naked man, nor to his bare arm snaking over her to pull her into his embrace. Her potion had worn off. It no longer flowed through his veins, altering his behavior. Whatever had prompted him to shift before that had disappeared too, melting away faster than summer hail. The familiar heaviness in her chest was once again her constant companion. She should have listened to her mother.
Constance reached for two mugs. “Have you given any thought to returning to your brother’s keep?”
Over the past four days, they had developed a routine. Him patrolling the forest, collecting water and wood for the fire, her collecting herbs and replenishing her ward. She would talk—about her life, about the forest, stories about the villagers shehad treated, sometimes about her mother. He would read her grimoire. On occasion, he would slide it across the table toward her with a quirk of his eyebrow, and she would explain a process the grimoire detailed.
He never spoke, but he listened to every word she said.
“Your brother must be anxious for your return.” He had to feel the urgency. Time was marching away from them. This pleasant repose could not last forever. The wolf who had struck him down and had done so much to endanger his pack would not remain idle for long. “This betrayer of your pack must be caught and held to account for his crimes. With your brother’s mate with child—”
Hissed air exploded from between his clenched teeth. Monsieur D’Artagnon was healing. Her herbs and spells appeared to be working, but he had a long way to go.
She set the mugs on the table. “You do not want to tell him, do you?” She filled the mugs with mead. “Your brother. You do not want to tell him who the traitor is.”
Monsieur D’Artagnon refused to meet her eyes, his shoulders stiff and taut with tension as he poked at the fire.
“Monsieur D’Artagnon, keeping this inside you is not helping anyone. Least of all you.”
He snarled, a wicked canine punching through his gum.
Constance did not let that dissuade her. “Are you protecting him?”
He snatched up her grimoire, snapped it closed, and dropped it in front of her. Mead slopped onto the table.
Constance shifted the book away from the puddle of deep red. “No. There is no treatment, no spell, other than what I have already done that will aid you. I am sorry, Monsieur, but healing will only come if you face your fears and your pain. Talking about it may help you. If not to me, then let us return to the keep so you may talk with your brother.”
Often healing was unpleasant, sometimes painful. A wound not thoroughly cleansed could putrefy. A broken bone would not heal right if first not set straight. Revealing his deepest thoughts, dealing with the sorrow and grief and the fears he held deep inside would not come easy. Made all that much more difficult because of his unwillingness to talk, but she had never given up on a person in need. She would not give up on him.
D’Artagnon reached over and flipped her grimoire open, turning pages until the remedies in Latin changed to the secret language of the wolves. He rapped his fingers on the book.
“You think I might find the answer in here?”
He shook his head and pointed at the lines of script.
Puzzled, she drew the book closer to her. He tapped the page, then his temple, then pointed to her lips.
“You want to know what it says? You want me to read it to you?”
A sharp jerk of his chin. A firm yes.
She recognized it for what it was. A distraction to stop her from pushing too hard and delving too deep. The curling script flowed across the page, hiding the secrets of the Langeais wolves. Of their origins and of their connection to Constance’s coven, long forgotten. Things the packshouldknow, but did not. Perhaps, if she granted his wish and revealed the truth behind their existence, it might go some way to getting him to trust her withhistruth.
“Monsieur D’Artagnon—”
He growled and made a slashing motion with his hand.
She stepped back, confused. “I…”
His brows dipped into a frown, as much as his scar would allow. “Not Monsieur. Only D’Artagnon.” He pointed at her. “To you.” His voice was husky from lack of use as he forced out the words.
Constance blinked, her mouth dropping open. “Oh.” She ducked her head, hiding her surprise, her delight. The first words he had spoken in the Fates knew how many years and they were to tell her she need only use his name. As if he were not a nobleman, and she not a peasant. As though, over the last few days, she might have come to mean more to him than a healer. Perhaps a friend, or—
She cut the thought off. “Thank you, Mon—” She raised her chin. “Thank you, D’Artagnon. You honor me. Please.” She gestured to the seat as she turned the grimoire up the right way. “Would you like me to read to you the story of how the first Black Wolf, your ancestor, came to be?”
Another nod. D’Artagnon, his hair flopped over his face, sat and curled his hands around his mug of mead and waited.
Constance slid into a seat and turned the pages until she found what she was looking for. “I loved this story as a little girl. It is possible I could recite it by heart.”
