Page 47 of Wolf's Return
Constance pasted a smile on her face that belied the despondency in her eyes. “Alexandre bit Genevieve and she became a werewolf like her beloved.” She shrugged. “And that is the story of the Black Wolf and how Alexandre became the firstLous Garous, the first werewolf.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Constance busied herself prepping the herbs for her ward, tearing at the leaves of the angelica plant. It had been a shock to discover the name Cordoylla. And to learn the woman responsible for the Langeais wolves had the same curse—two different colored eyes—as sheandCordelia, the witch the villagers had cast from the d’Louncrais village. But the greater impact had come from D’Artagnon. He thought Genevieve exceptional. She had been. There was no denying it. She had braved death to be with the man she loved.
She focused on her hands, aware of D’Artagnon’s regard and conscious of the sting of tears that threatened. Erin had forsaken her life in the future for Gaharet. Chosen not to pursue finding a way back to her century. As had Rebekah. Kathryn had lived a life in hiding for years. Now she was learning how to wield a sword. Each one of them was exceptional in their own way. She was a peasant, an outcast, no one special, and here she was, over the last few days, imagining…
A chair scraped along the floor, then he was behind her, placing gentle hands on her shoulders. “Constance?”
The deep growl as he spoke her name, sent shivers down her spine. She wiped away a stray tear with the heel of her hand. “I am sorry, D’Artagnon, I… It was a foolish notion, something from my childhood.”
“What notion?”
Mother help her, the man had spoken more words tonight than in the past five days, nay the past nine years, and it would be her undoing.
“The other vision you spoke of?” His warm breath whispered across her temple.
She rolled her lips together and tracked the trail of smoke as it swirled out of the roof hole, caught between her sorrow and her shame. Of course he remembered. Made the connection. He may have been silent, but his eyes, his hearing, and his mind were sharp. He had listened to every word, followed every gesture and had watched over her with a diligence bordering on obsession. He missed nothing.
D’Artagnon rubbed his hands down her arms and back up again. Perhaps he meant to comfort her, but goosebumps prickled across her skin and her stomach did a little flip, which served only to increase the depth of her misery.
“Tell me.”
Constance hung her head. “I…”
With gentle insistence, he turned her to face him. He hooked a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “Tell me.”
Soft words, a mere whisper of sound, but they tore at her resistance. “The day the villagers forced my mother and I to leave our village for the cottage in the forest, I had a vision about my future. At least, I believed I had.”
She turned her head away and his hand dropped from her chin to her shoulder. Constance sucked in a deep breath, aware of the closeness of their bodies and the subtle rise and fall of his chest.
“I was untrained in the ways of my second sight. My mother did not have it, so she could not teach me. But she knew enough to caution me about visions I had of myself. To be wary of influencing them with my own desires. That they may not reveal the future at all, but rather my hopes and fears.”
Silence stretched between them. She glanced up. With the patience of a wolf hunting prey, he waited for her to continue, to bare her soul to him.
Constance’s lip trembled. “What I saw that day… I… There was a cottage in a clearing, and a woman. A woman with blonde hair. She was there with a black wolf, her mate, and a little girl. I believed…” Her breath hitched. “I knew the Black Wolf would come to me in the forest. And he did. Your brotherdidcome. I believed, I hoped, the Black Wolf would come forme,but I was wrong. So wrong. The woman in my vision was Erin, and the little girl, the child now growing in her womb.”
His blue gaze bored into her, and it was all she could do to continue.
“I had resigned myself to that, to the truth of my mother’s words, but then your brother called me to the d’Louncrais keep, and thereyouwere…”
Constance closed her eyes, unable to look at him, to stare into the depths of his eye at the derision and rejection she would find there. “That night, when you shifted and…and I realized I had seen your face before…that youhadshifted before, while I was sleeping, whileyouwere sleeping…” She shook her head. “It may have only been the potion I had prepared, but it gave me hope there was a man who would see past what I am, ignore my eyes, and see me as a woman. That mayhap what I’d seen as a childwasa vision and not a little girl’s fantasy. That itwasme in that clearing, with the black wolf and the little girl.”
His hands dropped from her shoulders, and she hung her head, waiting for him to back away. She had bared her soul and her foolish hopes. Constance braced herself, waiting for the inevitable—to be spurned as Tristan had spurned her all those years ago. But while Tristan’s betrayal had burned, her feelings for D’Artagnon ran deeper.
It would not be so easy to put him behind her. Not after their days here at the cottage, where she had glimpsed beyond the black wolf, beyond his pain and his scars, to the man beneath. The man who comforted her in her distress. Who patrolled the forest every day, protecting her. Fetched water and collected wood for the fire. Sat in silent company while they ate meals together. She wanted, with all her heart, for one precious moment, to be seen as desirable bythisman.
Large, warm hands cupped her face, and she gasped. The soft brush of his lips on hers stole her breath away. Then deeper, firmer, taking her mouth with his. Hope, and a desire so fierce, ripped through her body. He pulled her into his arms, engulfed her in his embrace and all the promise of her childhood vision came alive, more potent reality and less an impossible dream.
D’Artagnon reveled in the feel of his little healer in his arms. Too long had he resisted this. Too long had he avoided the cottage as naked she had replenished her protection ward. Shifted to wolf and slept at the foot of the cot, watching over her as she had slept, denying his body and his soul that which he needed.Her.His brother had been right. Had seen the truth of it during those few days at the keep. D’ArtagnonneededConstance. Like his wolf needed the forest. Perhaps more.
He had fought against it. What did he have to offer her? With his enemy alive and yet to pay for his crimes, D’Artagnon’s craving for vengeance still flowed through his veins like molten steel. He could not be the mate she desired. The mate shedeserved. He could not offer her much, but he could give her this. Give himself this, and maybe, when the trials of his pack were over…
He coaxed her mouth open and slid his tongue in, tasting her. Wanting to be a part of her in every way possible. Craving her sweetness, her gentleness to smooth over the rough edges of thedarkness inside him. Perhapsthiswas Constance’s true power, not her second sight. Her empathy and her quiet persistence.
She was the most resilient woman he had ever met. Against all the hardships she had faced in her life, she was still willing to give of herself to aid others. And him. After all those villages she had fled, forced out by superstitious and ungrateful people, having lived half her life alone in that forlorn, rickety little hut, seeing his brother with his mate and believing she had misinterpreted her vision, she was still capable of hope. The woman was… He sucked her scent deep into his lungs, into his soul…. Extraordinary.
Constance moaned into his mouth, her small, calloused hands clutching at his tunic.
