Page 52 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“Helping,” Gael ground out. “On the one hand, I feel a lot stronger.”

“And on the other?”

“I feel a need to use whatever strength I’ve got to please our mate.” Gael’s fingers plucked at my shirt hem, edging it up, slow enough that I could stop him, but I didn’t.

“Gael, surely you should be getting some rest.” I was trying to be the voice of reason here.

“I will. Right after I—”

“There you are!” The two men let out long groans as Dane burst into the stables then looked around with a frown. “What the hell are you two playing at?”

“A little game of hide and seek. You go and find something else to entertain yourself,” Weyland replied, “and I’ll hide my—”

I pushed myself away from the two of them, jerking my shirt down, particularly when Axe came around the corner and surveyed the scene with a wide grin.

“You need us?” I asked, almost scared of what terror we might have to face now.

“Pepin’s arrived,” he replied, eyeing his brothers before looking back at me. “She says she’s here to start Darcy’s training.”

“They were training all morning,” Weyland grumbled before sliding in against me. “Surely, too much training is not good for our mate.”

“Darcy challenged Mother. She needs to train. And we’re due at a meeting with Father and the other lords about the Reaver situation,” Dane replied crisply. “I see congratulations are in order, brother.”

I looked up then, just knowing Weyland would be preening, and he was. He nuzzled his head into my neck, brushing his lips across the new mating mark.

“But if we’re to keep anything we hold dear, we need to deal with all of this,” Dane insisted.

“I think I’m going to whisk Darcy away from the city when she takes my mark,” Axe said, fixing me with his gaze. “No Dane, nobody to interrupt us as I claim our mate.”

I shivered at his words, knowing, feeling exactly how that would go.

“Wise words,” Weyland said in a dark tone. “If you’d spoken them to me last night, that would’ve been much more helpful. There’s this little place about half an hour outside the city walls. Lovely soft beds…”

“Are you going to be alright?” I asked Gael, then filled Dane in on what had happened this morning.

“I will be,” he replied, “but you best keep a hold of me, just in case.”

I watched Gael’s lips twist up into a cheeky smile that had me staring and staring, all the way until we found Pepin in the dining room.

26

“You’ve been testing your powers,” Pepin said when we reached Dane’s office. “That’s good.”

“Before we get into what we have or haven’t done, don’t you think an explanation is in order?” Weyland said, helping set Gael down in a chair.

“I’m the Maiden,” she said with a smirk. “One third of the goddess you celebrate on festival days. I’m the young part, the rash part, the bit that hunts.” And when she smiled, we saw her fangs there. “I’ve been forced to be much more responsible though, since the old queen went across the border, because she took with her a power.”

Pepin’s eyes slid to me and they seemed to delve deeper and deeper into my soul.

“I’ll explain, but it’ll be easier if I can show you first.”

“Show us what?” Dane said with a frown.

“Got the castellan’s keys on you?” she asked and he nodded. “Then I’ll show you why Snowmere was built here in the first place.”

“Before there was a city,” she said as she led us down some steps into the basement of the citadel. “Before there was a castle, this place was a shrine. Our shrine.” We walked down some dark corridors, taking a lamp from the wall to illuminate our way. But after we’d travelled down a tunnel that looked like it’d been hewn out of raw rock rather than built with blocks, we came to a massive door. It was bound over and over with thick bands of iron that gleamed darkly in the low light. Locks covered the door in three places.

“The keys, if you will?” Pepin asked, holding out a hand.

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