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I see the softening in his face, and my heart plays a sickly giddyup.
“It would have been better had we more time. A month. A couple of fucking months, so there could be no doubt in anybody’s mind that enough time had passed for you to be good and bred. I know it to be true, and Lor, well, he’s a shifter, and they can tell sooner still, but others, particularly bastard lordlings, can be prone to seeing things their own way, especially when there is room for doubts.”
“He might not come.” I feel sick. “It might snow again.”
“I do not like being bested. No man does. I cannot even say I would fucking blame him, when we took you as we did.” His nostrils flare. “You are mine now, and I will kill any man who dares touch you. Why would I expect the man who was set to marry you to do any less?”
I swallow. I hear his words and understand the sentiments beneath them, but Marshal will not pursue me for the same reasons. Aston is correct in some ways. Marshal would not like to be bested. We have been here a few days, not even a whole week. I’m an omega and supremely valuable, and when Marshal finds out, that will only cause him to double down. If there is a chance for him to tear us apart, he will take it. “We need to hide.”
“We are hidden,” he says. “They will not come here. They have no reason to. More likely, they will go to the clan, where our king is already forewarned of our intentions and will send them packing.”
ChapterThirteen
One month earlier…
Lor
The tavern is heaving as I push through the crowd of raucous merry-makers to where the big alpha sits, supping his ale in the corner. A drunk patron bumps into me. The curse he issues dies on his lips as he looks up and up until his eyes clash with mine.
He swallows, mumbles an apology, and steps back.
I’m a big man and an alpha, and human betas tend to sense something is off about me even if they don’t recognize the darkness of my inner wolf.
Aston grins as he spots me, the crowd now parting to give me room.
I sit down opposite to him, a serving wench already weaving through the throngs with a tray full of fresh ales.
She places one on the table before me with a saucy grin. I take a coin from my pocket and slide it across the table to her.
“Anything else?”
Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Aston lean back with a grin, waiting to see how this plays out.
“No, lass. Just the ale with my thanks.”
I’d have taken her up on her offer not so long ago. Maybe with Aston… Maybe on my own. Back then, I didn’t think I had a fucking chance with Freya. Now I have my memories are filled with her pink-cheeked shock when I mentioned her needing her bottom spanked, her warm, pretty eyes gazing up at me with interest, and those many telling moments when her aroused scent bloomed when I took liberties in some small way as I helped her with her cloak.
In all ways, save the formal one, Freya is already mine. No other lass will ever again touch what belongs to my future mate.
As the serving wench sashays off to take the ales around, my eyes return to Aston. It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. Circumstances have dictated that we must go our separate ways, at least for the time being. It is the longest we have been apart since our fateful first meeting in the woods and when my wolf first caught Freya’s scent and decided she was ours.
“I have news,” he says, face sobering and setting off the pricklings of unease.
“What did you find out?”
His eyes turn sightless as he stares at his beer before they lift to meet mine. “It was no accident that we were not with him.”
The hairs rise at the back of my neck. We were Edward’s lieutenants. One or both of us accompanied him on every patrol. That was how it was done. But the day he died, we had both been called elsewhere. Thinking Edward was attending meetings, we were not concerned. Only later, when we received news he had died patrolling with other men who had failed him when he came under attack, did we question how this came about.
We were suspicious, but those suspicions were hard to justify. Edward was respected by those above him and below him. He had no enemies that we were aware of.
“I have more work to do, but it all leads back to one place. I don’t have the evidence yet.”
My nostrils flare. “There will be retribution.”
He nods. “I’m treading carefully so as not to alert those involved. Keep a close watch on Freya. Their situation is sliding. Debts are being called in. They will soon make a move.”
* * *
