Page 70 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

“So, she tore him open. In a court that prizes strength, speed, perfection in all things, she tried to make him too broken for the court to recognise as heir.” My fingers stopped plaiting, abandoning their work to slide over Gael’s shoulder, to reach for his hand, but his muscles bunched in anger.

“That was my story, Dane,” Gael forced out. “Mine! I can’t have a woman come to me in fucking pity. That’s not how a relationship works.”

He went to get up then, pull away, but my reflexes kicked in without a thought, shoving him back down again.

“What if it isn’t pity?” I asked, my voice shaking. “What if it's pride?”

Gael looked back at me slowly with the shattered eye, making clear it was still functional. His face was bare now, his hair scraped back and plaited hard against his skull, allowing him nothing to hide behind. And right now, he didn’t need it. His gaze was intrusive and questing, testing the validity of what I’d said, as if with that strange eye he could see all the way down to my soul and beyond.

“What if I see someone like myself?” I asked, tugging open my jerkin and peeling back my shirt to reveal my scarred shoulder. “Someone else who got marked by an idiot with the power to do so, but not the wits to know they shouldn’t. Because by the logic you’re applying, you shouldn’t be able to feel a thing but pity for me. Poor Darcy, whose father chose to flog her over and over again. Who hadn’t the sense that the gods gave a cat—”

My simpering recitation of Linnea’s words were abruptly cut off as Gael twisted around, pulling me off my log and into his arms, holding me cradled against his chest.

“You’re fucking perfect to me, and you know it,” he growled.

“Well, I do now,” I said, feeling curiously breathless. “You were always scowling and avoiding me with every breath, so you’ll excuse me if I thought that meant you didn’t like me much.”

“I had to,” he said, looming over me then moving his face closer to mine. His eyes studied the shape of my mouth like it was a map showing us where to go. “It was all I had that could stop me from doing this.”

When he brushed his lips against mine, all the breath left in me rushed out. I was empty of everything but him. He was so gentle, using just a little glancing touch, but it led to another and another, until finally our mouths parted to each allow the other in. He was hard and hungry and eminently masculine, wanting more and more until I was forced to jerk back, my fingers going to my lip at a sudden sting.

“Gods, Darcy…” he said, peeling my hand away. “I fucking bit you—”

Any self-recrimination was soon cut off as I launched myself at him, sucking his full bottom lip between mine and raking my now sharper fangs across it. A small burst of his hot coppery blood had both of us groaning as I sucked it down.

“Sharing blood is one of the first steps in mating…” he hissed out, finding the place he bit me and sucking at it, laving his tongue over the sore spot until it healed over, just as he had done to my arms after Father had gripped me too hard and hurt me. “We haven’t talked enough about the process.”

And we wouldn’t now. The priests always like to say that men shouldn’t touch a woman until marriage because it would inspire an unholy hunger in her, one she would try and satisfy with any and all men, once roused. While I had no desire to touch anyone else in the camp, I began to see some of what they had spoken of.

I hadn’t been kissed by very many people or very often, but those who had seemed to create a need in me that couldn’t be satisfied. Just as when I’d taken Weyland’s blood, a fire raged inside me and I kept on fanning its flames. I sucked at his bottom lip, pushed mine between his, felt the clamp of his teeth, the grip of his hands, the flick of his tongue, until it was either take things to the next level or stop.

“Dane…” Gael panted, pulling away from me.

But when we both turned around, the log was bare. At some point his brother had left us to it, and right then I marvelled at Dane’s control.

And feared it.

He was leading us into a spider’s web, it felt, and while he might know how to nimbly traverse all those different filaments of sticky silk, we didn’t. Which had me turning to Gael.

“How are we going to get through this?” I asked him.

“The same way I have in the past,” he said, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’ve always been able to trust my brothers and that hasn’t changed. Stick with them and everything should pan out fine.”

I wanted to question that, pull it apart and ask for examples to illustrate his point, but the cloud of his musky scent pulled me down as he dragged me back onto his lap to sip from my lips again, his hands sliding down to settle on my hips.

“We need to grab something to eat,” he panted between kisses. “Or we’ll miss out altogether.”

“Soon,” I promised, finally pulling away. “I just need to finish off your hair.”

That night I slept poorly,despite being curled up against Weyland and Axe. They had argued that each one of the brothers was terrible at keeping their hands to themselves, so it didn’t matter where I lay. They probably regretted it as I rolled restlessly on my bedroll, dreaming of wolves, skull-headed ravens and then two shadowy figures. Rising higher and higher, they looked over me with claws like scythes and teeth like knife blades. But it was the slice of those claws across my face, ripping skin, muscle and sinew with little effort that had me jerking awake in the early hours of the morning.

Gael found me by Arden’s side not long afterwards, creeping up behind me, quiet as a ghost, but when I felt the warmth of another’s body, I knew it was him. He kissed me against the flank of my horse, just once, and all the more sweet for it, before the others started to rise.

I rode with Pepin and Nordred, resisting vocalising all the questions that roiled around in my gut like eels, making me feel sick. I didn’t want their thoughts, their understandings and, as a result, we travelled almost the whole day in silence.

When we got to Snowmere, the sky was blood-red due to the sun setting behind the city, the steep road up to its gate yet another obstacle to overcome. But when we strode through the gates, our horses' hooves clattering on the cobblestones, I looked around the city with my eyes wide.

I took in the state of the roads, the type of architecture and wondered whether or not it changed based on location. What were the big manors of the lords like compared to the homes of the commoners? The presence of commercial districts along with soldiers on the street to keep the peace, even their waste disposal system, all those things would tell me something about the culture. Oddly, I was disappointed. Snowmere seemed a model city, particularly for one so large. It was clean, orderly, and well designed. Then we came to the palace.

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