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* * *
She tasted the ale, tasted Rowan, the fabled Black Wolf of Norland. The area between her thighs grew hot and wet as she remembered the pleasure he’d brought her and the taste of him in her mouth.
How would it feel to give herself to him completely?
She felt as his firm hands rode up the sides of her body and brushed the edges of her breasts. She shivered in his arms and heard a breath of wind sighing through the castle’s crevices. His hands entwined in her curls and tugged gently. She moaned as her head bowed back. His mouth moved away from her lips and down her throat. He kissed her sensitive skin, his tongue drawing invisible circles, his hot, sweet breath moving against her like a summer breeze.
She jerked back, breaking away from his mouth and touch. He breathed hard, and his hazel eyes seemed to hold a fire all their own.
“What if something happens to you? Or Mary?” she whispered. She could barely hear herself over the wind and the castle’s drafts. “I couldn’t bear it, Rowan… I couldn’t.”
Rowan gazed at her, his eyes softening. “That shall never happen. I am yours, and you are mine.”
Aye, but for how much longer?
* * *
The next day
Her home was alive, and a battle fever pumped through its veins.
Every corner stirred with the sounds of men readying themselves for battle. She couldn’t recall when the halls and wards had looked so alive. She raced across the bridge connecting one tower to another, the din of the castle flooding the bailey like a restless ocean. Hollers and barking hounds and the sound of clanging steel were everywhere.
She stopped in the middle of the bridge as she caught sight of Rowan in the training yard. He stood as still as a statue, a mailed fist planted on either hip, his eyes fixed on the line of soldiers nocking and loosing their arrows at the target butts.
The calm in the eye of a storm.
The arrow shafts cut through the sky with soft hisses. The bridge rocked beneath her, jolting her from an inward trance as three soldiers bounded across. They discussed where they thought the army would first attack—at which gate, with how many men, and what sort of weapons.
But it sounded all wrong.
She turned toward them in a flurry of skirts and her red cloak. “They won’t attack the West Gate,” she said, causing the men to stop in mid-stride. “It’s much too strong, and right below is a row of murder holes. They’ll attack the East Postern Gate if they know anything about the castle. It’s the weakest by far and away from the core defenses.”
The men shared glances, then ducked into shallow bows. “Aye, Your Grace, we’ll inform Sir Dietrich.”
“See that you do.” She moved past them in a swish of red fabric, her heart thrumming. A nervous excitement—an exhilaration—inflated her. This was her chance to defend her home and people, to protect all she cared about and put her life on the line for them if needed.
Her father had called it battle fever.
Blanchette called it keeping a promise. She reached inside her cloak and gripped Governess Agnes’s cross, which hung over her heart.
“I shall inform him myself,” she finished in a clipped tone, though they were out of earshot now. Mother and Grandmother would be proud. That brought a sad smile to her face. She felt it pull at her scar, and her exhilaration turned into steely determination.
This was her moment.
* * *
Blanchette looked out her window, watching the trees in the silent dusk. Movement stirred them… or was it just her imagination? She held her breath as a dark figure slipped into the clearing. She stepped closer to the window until her nose brushed against the glass.
A wolf…
Smoke returning from his hunt.
Suddenly, she stood in Rowan’s shadow. His large hands came to rest upon her shoulders. She exhaled a small breath and watched as it steamed the glass. The world outside the castle was clouded and hidden for a moment, and only Blanchette and Rowan Dietrich existed.
He gently rotated her body so she spun in his arms and her chest aligned with his. She tilted her head back and met his beautiful eyes.
“Blanchette…” His head dipped forward until his chin pressed against his muscular chest. He enveloped her in the circle of his arms.
