Page 56 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

“Bah.”

He stopped. “You found him, didn’t you? The Order went searching, but they had no luck.”

“She plays fetch with it too,” Aesop said in his sweet, rumbly voice as he stepped out of the shadows. There was an edge to him she did not often witness, a simmering threat. The fur on his legs was singed.

“His name is Shadow and he gets lonely,” Sorcha said. “Aesop, this is Lord Coventry. Lord Coventry, Aesop.” There had been no time for introductions earlier.

Aidan inclined his head. “How do you do?”

“There’s blood on the path.” There was a huff to Aesop’s reply, like he were a bull ready to charge. He might be gentle by nature, but he was also a Minotaur. Few dared to cross them.

“Not my blood,” Sorcha assured him. She had managed to get in a good blow when Brutus grabbed her, after all. “I had an…adventure.”

“She was abducted,” Aidan said flatly.

She stepped on his foot. “But I’m fine now and Lord Coventry arrived in the nick of time.”

“I’m sorry, Sorcha,” Aesop said. “I should have been here. You need a guard.”

“I do not. I’m finally free of chaperones. You’re not putting some domineering, dictatorial man at my heels.”

“A woman, then?”

“Maybe.” She only said it to placate him, and they both knew it. She had no intention of dragging anyone else into danger. She made her choices with clear and open eyes.

“I heard a hedgehog crying down in the valley behind the thorn trees.” Aesop held out his hand. A hedgehog lay curled in his massive palm. “No one saw anything untoward this morning. We don’t know how that fire started.”

She instantly made a cooing sound. “That’s the hedgehog from the stables at the fighting pits.”

“About that…” Aidan said.

Aesop grunted, his curved horns gleaming. “I keep telling her not to go alone.”

“I’ll be on hand from now on,” Aidan said quietly. They watched each other for a long moment, seeming to come to an understanding.

It made Sorcha peevish.

“She nearly got herself killed,” Aidan added.

Aesop looked stricken. He was moments away from tears. Sorcha stepped on Aidan’s foot again, much harder this time. “The earl is exaggerating,” she said in her most comforting tone. “He’s very sensitive.”

Aidan raised an eyebrow.

“See?” Sorcha said. “Very fussy. Now, never mind him, Aesop.”

Aesop grunted again. “He’s a wolf.”

“I am,” Aidan admitted.

“Don’t scare the kittens.”

“I won’t.”

“The kittens aren’t scared of anything,” Sorcha pointed out. “If a Minotaur doesn’t worry them, I doubt an earl will get much of a reaction, wolf or not.”

It dawned on her again that she was standing with her betrothed. And a Minotaur. And that it had been too long since breakfast.

“Let’s have some tea,” she said. “Because all of that was rather…a lot.” Tea would make this all proper and normal.