Page 7 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“I know, but—”

“No, Dane, it cannot happen again. If we have to bring anyone who is good and right and put them behind this wall to keep them away from her, we will. I’ll fight her, I’ll kill her.” My voice distorted then, my wolf pushing at my skin, wanting to come through. “And I’ll free us of her malignant influence.”

Men were the saviours, that was what I had been taught, so when Dane’s eyes fell closed, I saw something I hadn’t expected to see. The cool mask cracked, just for a second and there was relief. The scars Aurora had left on Gael were easy to see, but right now, I wondered how many more subtle ones had been left on her eldest son.

“I’ll never try and stop you from doing what you must,” he replied finally, his vow delivered in almost a whisper, his mouth hovering over mine. “But if you care for me at all, tell me what you have planned. I won’t try and steer or correct you, but if I’m to survive this, if we are…”

“You need to plan for those eventualities,” I said, staring up at him. “You need to because you need control.”

I watched his eyes flare a bright and brighter blue as he studied me closely and that’s when I knew I was right.

“A very large part of me wants every single person I love jumping to my tune, so I can ensure they get everything they want and need. I know I can’t have that, not without crushing the very thing I love. But give me this, please, lass. Give me the information you have. If you don’t, I’ll just go looking for it, digging for your secrets until I’ve revealed every single one.”

Gods, part of me wanted to hold out on him just to see him try and he saw that as my spine straightened. His eyes sparked as I stared him down, no doubt a mulish expression on my face. What would it be like, to go toe to toe with such a man? To test myself against him and see who was found wanting? The challenge was there, so close I could almost taste it in my mouth.

But not yet, not today. We had fought a major battle and walked away, so now was the time for regrouping and recuperating.

“Well, if you were given control of us now, for just the remainder of this day, what would you want to do with us?” I asked.

He smiled then and like Gael, those hard worn grins were all the more precious when they came. I loved Weyland and Axe’s easier smiles, but there was something about this which had my fingers twitching, wanting to trace the curve of his mouth.

“Sweat,” he replied, forcing me to blink. “Willow bark for the pain—”

“Gods, that stuff tastes like shite,” Axe grumbled. “I’d rather a tankard of cold bloody ale.”

“And heat to force out whatever toxins we were fed,” Dane continued, oblivious. He moved then, pulling away only to grab my hand and lead me to an adjoining door, the others trailing along behind us.

“Gods, brother, I could kiss you right now,” Weyland groaned, moving over to one of the long stone benches in the room and I didn’t understand why.

It was a cool space, hewn from the rock itself, with only a slender slit of a window for ventilation and it had that cold, mineral smell of a cave to it. But Weyland grabbed a sack full of reddish hued stone and then poured them into a large metal frame set in the centre of the room. That’s when the magic happened. The stones sparked as they tumbled and then almost instantly began to glow cherry red. I took a few halting steps forward, holding my hands out, and sure enough, waves of heat hit me.

“Ember rock,” Gael said by way of explanation. “Don’t get too close. That stuff gets bloody hot and stays that way for some time.”

“Dragons made it, back when they roamed the earth.” I watched Axe undo the clasps of his jacket and then pull it off before doing the same to his shirt. “The stuff isn’t rare, but those people that have a supply hoard it like gold because it’s a heat source that never stops.” He swept his hair off and over his shoulders, then took a seat next to Weyland, closing his eyes.

Because the room was steadily filling with heat, chasing away the dank cold, something that was only exacerbated when Dane walked over and doused the stones with water. Steam, like the smoke from a dragon’s snout, filled the room, forcing a fine sweat to break out over my skin.

“This is a sauna, lass,” Gael said, placing a hand on my shoulder and I felt the weight of every finger. “It’s brilliant in the winter months for chasing the cold away.”

“And just as good in the summer for sweating the poisons out,” Dane said, stripping down to just his trews, like his brothers did.

I felt the shift of Gael’s thumb across my skin, the warmth of his presence, different to that of the steam and then there was them. Lazy eyed, the three remaining brothers settled back against the stone wall, their bodies a picture of power at rest. Part of my mind wanted me to see it again, the shift of those girls’ hands over my mates’ frames, to remind me of what had just happened.

And the other part?

The wolf inside me wanted to reclaim each one in the most primal of ways, by raking my fangs and claws across their skin.

“We don’t have to stay,” Gael said, one of Dane’s eyes cracking open at that. “We can find a room and bed down for a while, catch up on some sleep.”

He could feel the heavy drag of my body, now that all the adrenalin was leaching away, everything we’d been through in such a short period of time feeling like a palpable weight pushing me down.

“Is that what you want?” I asked him, looking back over my shoulder.

“Don’t ask me that, lass,” Gael said, his eyes burning bright. “I feel like I’m filled to the brim with every damn thing I want, and it’s all going to come spilling out…” His breath came out in a harsh hiss. “But that’s not what you need. You discovered my brothers… You had an attack.”

“What?”

All three men’s eyes had flicked open at that, but it was Weyland that snapped the question.

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