“Not if we tie up those pretty praying hands and keep you right here with us,” the second guard said.He didn’t lift his dagger, but Tate saw his grip shift.
She made herself shrug, like it made no difference to her.“Then I’ll scream and the Wolf will hear, and I’ll have my audience.”
They didn’t seem to like that option either—probably judging it better to wake the Wolf with a request rather than a scream splitting the night.They gave each other a look.
“Come on then,” the first one said gruffly, taking her by the arm through her mantle.“Let’s get you what you came for.Much though you may regret it.”
They walked to a tent in the middle of the camp.The flap was down, but a small brazier clearly burned inside, and Tate could hear theshing-shiiiingof metal against stone.Like a weapon being carefully, methodically sharpened.
The Wolf was awake.
The guard hadn’t even tugged the flap aside when an irritable voice from within said in Norman, “Can I not get a moment’s rest?”
Tate could not have said what voice she’d expected the Wolf to have, precisely, only that it was not this one.Rich and husky.Pitched lower than hers, but still not a voice that Tate would hear and ascribe to a legendary soldier.
Or even to a man at all.
“Apologies,” the guard said, sounding truly contrite.And a little afraid.“But there is someone here.She says she is the abbess of Far Hope.”
There was movement inside the tent, and then the flap twitched aside.The Wolf stepped out into the night, illuminated by a torch set outside the tent and the brazier from behind.And despite the whispers and tales, the Wolf was not a monster at all.
There was pale, freckled skin and hair partially braided back in small plaits that then came down to mingle in the Wolf’s loose strawberry tresses.There was a full pink mouth and gold eyes; there were cheekbones as high as the Devonshire sky and a jaw as finely wrought as the gold and enamel crosses inside the abbey.
The Wolf was beautiful, and Tate felt her heart tumble abruptly inside her chest.
“You’re the Wolf,” Tate said, mostly to herself, and the Wolf regarded her with a piercing, cool gaze.
“I am.”
“You’re—you’re not…”
“A man?”the Wolf asked in Norman-accented English.She turned to go back inside the tent, gesturing for the guards to bring Tate in after her.“Youarevery deep in the hinterlands, aren’t you?”she asked over her shoulder.“The east and south of your country know me well enough.Adelais of the Maine, at your pleasure.”
Tate shuffled unthinkingly into the tent behind the warrior, her mind recalibrating to this new information.
Adelais of the Maine.
In every story she’d heard, the Wolf had been a man, a vicious, murderinghe.But every story she’d heard had passed through many mouths before it had been spoken to her—and in any event, who would believe this without seeing it with their own eyes?That William’s most terrifying warrior was a woman so beautiful she put literal treasures to shame?
“Leave us,” Adelais said to her guards in Norman.“And do not disturb me for any reason.I want the abbess all to myself.”
Three
THE WOLF
ADELAISof the Maine had never enjoyed being the Wolf as much as she did in this moment.
The abbess stepped backward now, practically falling onto the low cot at the back of the tent, her green eyes wide as she stared at Adelais.As she caught her balance, Adelais smiled at her—a smile she knew had made grown men piss themselves—and then she sat on the stool a few paces away.
Either the abbess would have to stand while Adelais sat, or she’d have to sit on Adelais’s cot, which meant she’d have to look up at Adelais while they spoke.Either way put her at a disadvantage, and Adelais could see that the abbess understood this too.But to Adelais’s surprise—and pleasure—the abbess didn’t hesitate.She sat on the neatly made cot, her shoulders lifting ever so slightly under her mantle.
A deep breath.
She was nervous.Or scared.
Adelais’s smile grew even wider.
“How old are you?”she murmured in her own tongue, more to herself than to her unexpected guest.She spread her feet and reached for the axe she’d been sharpening before she’d been interrupted.It was plenty sharp already, but she liked the way the little nun’s eyes warily traced the edge.Adelais felt like a cat watching a very pretty mouse.
