Page 34 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

“Water,” I said. “Apparently, I have a reputation for being a poor drunk.”

He filled a glass and set it in front of one of the dining tables, forcing me to slide off the bed and come closer. At that, they all rose and sat down to eat.

“I’m sorry it went this way,” Gael said, ostensibly to the luscious slices of pinkish lamb laid out on a silver platter, before his eyes slid to me. “But I can tell you one thing. I’ve lived in the human world and I’ve lived in the wargen one and, as a woman, you’ll have much more freedom on our side of the border than here.”

“Even be free to drink as much wine as you like,” Axe said. “Perhaps hard spirits? Do you remember that winter solstice when our mother got drunk?”

“And then she accused all of the Wolf Maidens of secretly sleeping with Father?” Weyland said with a slow shake of his head.

“What’s a Wolf Maiden when it’s at home?” I asked.

“Most women can’t shift into wolf form,” Weyland replied in a carefully calm tone. “We had many more with the ability before the invasion but—”

“Those that can often join the royal guard,” Dane said. “They are fierce warriors who protect the king and queen.”

“But if your mother is your father’s mate, how could he be sleeping with the guards? I thought wargen were true to their mates.”

“We bond for life,” Axe said. “When you accept us as your mates, there will be no other for us.” His eyes slid to Gael whose expression had darkened again. “But our mother is not our father’s true mate.”

“My mother is,” Gael said, snatching up a bread roll and biting into it. Silence reigned as he chewed the soft bread with brutal efficiency. “I’m not pure wargen and I am the youngest of all the brothers.”

“Our father spent some time searching for his mate in Strelae and when he didn’t find her, he married our mother,” Dane continued. “She was of noble birth, daughter of the previous ruling pack. She was accepted by the people as suitable to rule over them. People assumed they were mated, and our parents didn’t bother to correct those assumptions. It all worked well until our father was forced to come over the border to meet with the human king.”

“My mother is human. She was a servant at some lord’s castle,” Gael said. “She saw our father and…” He let out a sigh. “He knew what she was. Couldn’t keep his hands off her as a result and then he left. She got a handful of gold and a belly full of a half-warg child for her troubles. She moved away from the castle, went back to my grandparents’ home and had me.”

“We… found Gael sometime later, when he was still a boy,” Axe said, slapping a hand down on his brother’s shoulder, yet the other man flinched. Gael’s jaw tightened as he focussed entirely on the food, piling it onto his plate and eating with a kind of mechanical efficiency. “He was brought to court and that revealed our parents’ lie. Nearly cost Father the throne.”

“It changed our Mother,” Weyland said, then he took a long mouthful of wine. “Perhaps she knew Father had his little peccadillos on the side, perhaps not. The problem was it was revealed to the world, and that’s made her… suspicious as a result. But enough of that. Women are not beholden to men like they are in Grania. No one’s going to beat you for the temerity of having an opinion.”

“And if my opinion is I don’t want to be your mate,” I said, real heat colouring my words. “If I want to pursue my own life, find my own way?”

“You can only do what’s in your heart, lass,” Weyland replied, fixing me with those steely blue eyes. “And we can only do what’s in ours.”

“Let’s eat and get some rest,” Dane said. “Whatever the future holds, we’ll need to delay leaving until well past midnight. Your father has sent down barrels of rum to the barracks to give the men the chance to drink their anger out and then hopefully pass out before we leave.”

On that at least we all agreed. The future would have to look out for itself for the moment, as we had to focus on the present.

We followedDane’s orders to the letter and perhaps that should’ve warned me of what was to come. We ate and then stumbled into bed all too easily. The lamps weren’t even turned down when sleep took us. Gael, Axe and Dane slept in the other beds and Weyland slumped into one of the armchairs, soon falling to snoring. And me? I curled up tight in a strange man’s bed, feeling like I surely would not be able to sleep a wink…

Until a hand shookmy shoulder roughly.

“Darcy!”

The harsh whisper had me groaning, then blinking, my mind feeling like it was filled with glue, so it took me some time to recognise the man hanging over me. Blonde hair, bruised face and intense brown eyes.

“Kris?”

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