Following the Wolf (Trilogy Bundle) (Werewolf BBW Erotic Romance)

by Hart, Melissa F.

  “You and... and the bandit who kidnapped me both seem to think I'm of that blood.”

  Conleth grinned wryly. “You have the look of the witchfolk about you, you know. Strong and soft all at once, round-bellied, broad-shouldered. All of that dark hair, too. That's not all, though. Blood calls to blood, and... and for some things, it does not matter that my family lives in the capital and that my sisters and I attended school.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly nervous, and he bent a little closer. He smelled of leather and smoke and something metal as well. Underneath it was a scent that already seemed familiar to her, like she was coming home, and if she had ever doubted that witchfolk and the werewolves lived side by side, that doubt was quashed in an instant.

  “Can't you feel it?” he asked, his voice nearly a whisper. “Can't you feel it? All I know is that I and my men had no trouble following your trail when we found it, and not a single one of us would have stopped for the fires of hell.”

  “Careful,” she said warningly. “I've had quite enough of werewolves who think they know better than me telling me what I should feel and talking about me like I'm a fat little deer.”

  He shook his head. “There was a time when you and I would have grown up together,” he said quietly. “I would have hunted for you. You would have known to look through me to see the man inside the wolf and the wolf inside the man. On the solstices and the equinoxes, there would have been celebrations that brought our peoples together, and Riona, tell me you can feel it just as I can?”

  The picture he painted woke something in her. It was a simple thing, but she realized with a shock that it was a memory. It was very little, just the smell of venison on the spit and the feel of wolf fur under her fingers, but it was there, and the shock of it must have been evident on her face because Conleth nodded.

  “You know it as well as I do,” he said, and he leaned closer.

  “You've felt the loneliness too, haven't you?” he whispered in her ear. “You know what it means to feel yourself always separate from everyone around you. To know that you are different.”

  The nuns had done their best. She loved all of them, even disapproving Sister Vicene, who called her wild. Still, Conleth's words woke a fierce longing in her, and she knew he was right. She had always felt apart and lacking, and now she knew there was a name for it.

  “Come with me,” he said. “I'll take you to the capital, and you'll be protected and cared for.”

  He didn't trust the answer on her lips, because he leaned down. She had a shocked moment as she realized that he was going to kiss her, and she was getting ready to give him a good shove away when he was lifted bodily off of her.

  “Lay another finger on her, and I'll tear your head from your body,” snarled Rordan, and his rage made him look like a giant from where Riona sat on the ground.

  “Rordan!”

  Not content with hauling Conleth off of her, he swung the blond man around, trying to throw him aside, but Conleth was at least as big as he was and simply planted himself on the ground.

  “Bandit whore-son,” Conleth swore. “Had enough of skulking around in the shadows?”

  Riona scrambled to her feet, and now she could see that Rordan's war party had slipped right into the midst of the King's Dogs as silently as shadows. Conleth had four men to Rordan's three, but in such close quarters, it would be a terrifying fight. As it was, every eye was focused on Rordan and Conleth, who faced each other with fury on their faces.

  “You're far from home, dog,” Rordan growled, bare sword in his hand. “Best you get yourself back to your master's house.”

  “Not likely,” retorted Conleth. “You're an outlaw mongrel, and you stand against the crown and the full force of the king's might when you stand against me.”

  “Tell me how much that frightens me. Tell me how much I should be afraid of soft little lap dogs from the city who probably pissed themselves when they heard they had to come to the forests.”

  One of Conleth's men snarled at that, and Angus startled, reaching for his sword. Both Rordan and Conleth growled, making both of them subside.

  Despite the danger that practically vibrated in the air, Riona couldn't take her eyes away. She knew how strong both men were, and now she could see how completely they controlled their packs. They had been born for this, and whether they were men or wolves or both, this was what they were meant to do. They stood a bare three feet apart, tension written into every line of their bodies, and it would only take a small spark to set off something terrible.

  As they sized each other up, both taking the measure of a man who might be his equal in strength and cunning, Riona also realized something else.

  She had to stop them.

  The words that Rordan and Conleth had spoken to her were little more than stories to her until this instant. It seemed like such a strange thing, almost like the stuff of fairy tales, to think that she was witchfolk, that she was meant to walk the wild paths of Dunclough forest. She could have dismissed it all and gone back to the nunnery with only a few qualms had she not seen this. It was in her blood to live with the wolves of the forest, and it was also in her blood to heal them.

  Her birthright and her blood demanded she see the man inside the wolf, and now she did.

  “Stop,” she said, and with far less fear than she expected to feel, she put herself between them and their swords.

  The response of the two werewolves was immediate. Conleth nearly jumped out of his skin and stumbled backwards, while Rordan swore and took a step back, dropping his sword so that its point was at the ground. Riona knew that with his guard down he was vulnerable to attack, but she also knew that it was more important to him that no part of her was harmed.

  “Stop,” she repeated, holding her hands out. “This is sheer foolishness. There is no call to be fighting.”

  “Begging your pardon, Madame,” Conleth said, his teeth gritted, “but that is an outlaw you are protecting, and it is not foolishness to bring a beast like that to justice.”

  “It's not foolishness to send silky little puppies back to their masters with some bites out of them either,” agreed Rordan.

  “You're fighting over me, and I say that you have no right to,” Riona cried. “Before yesterday, I was a woman on my way to a life as a sworn sister of the nunnery. Today, you both tell me that I am of the witchfolk of the mountain, and because of that, you both think that you can tell me what to do.”

  “I would never,” Conleth started, but Rordan interrupted him.

  “So the little lapdog knows his history? Good. He told you what I should have told you myself. You are of the witchfolk, and you belong in the mountains. Your blood calls for it, and your blood calls to me.”

  If her face could have gotten any redder, it would have burst into flame. Instead of teasing or mocking her, however, the wolves who watched nodded sagely. She wondered if they could smell Rordan on her, and that thought, so strange and new, awoke a warm longing in her that she did not have time to think about.

  “I do not belong to you!” she shouted. “I am not property, I am not some cow that you can lead after you into the forest because you fancy my spots!”

  “Of course you aren't,” argued Rordan. “You are of the old blood, and you are precious. Don't you understand? Don't you listen? You are to be honored and loved and respected as is your due. Do you think they would do that for you while you scrubbed floors at the nunnery?”

  Riona could have screamed, but the rightness of his words momentarily stunned her.

  “Listen to your blood,” Rordan said, his voice quieter now. He took a step closer to her, his amber eyes bright as gold.

  “You know that what I am telling you is true. Whether you let this puppy turn you into a town woman in silk or you go back to the old women in the stone house, your heart will always be here.”

  She almost did it. She almost gave him her hand, but then her mind flashed back to the day of her abduction, when Abbess Beni
, who had been like a mother to her, had lain so terribly still where she had fallen, trying to defend Riona from this very man.

  “No,” she said, pulling away. So many emotions churned inside her that she felt as if they must boil over. She didn't know what to do, and in the moment when her concentration broke, the narrow man that she had disliked on sight stepped closer to Rordan, dagger ready to stab.

  The warning came not from her but from Conleth, and though Conleth's bellowed warning made the man stand down, it only made Rordan snarl as if he had run mad.

  “Treacherous dog,” he growled, and he cast his sword to the ground. Between one moment and another, he had transformed from a man to a howling black wolf, and he lunged at Conleth. His weight bore the blond man to the forest floor, and in a moment, there was no man there at all, only a red wolf equal to the black in size.

  Riona cried out in shock, but before she could move, Siobhan clasped a hard hand around Riona's upper arm, dragging her back.

  “You must let me stop them. I did it before.”

  “Before it was just a baring of teeth and a lifting of hackles,” Siobhan retorted. “Now, thanks to that little weasel who smells of rotting meat and metal, it's something much worse.”

  There was no more posturing or threats now. Instead, the two wolves rolled over each other, each striving to get the upper hand, neither able to do so. For a moment, Conleth rose up over Rordan, only to be thrust off when Rordan's strong back legs kicked him hard in the stomach. A bare moment later, Rordan had Conleth on his back, but a vicious snap of Conleth's jaws drove him back. Both wolves were bleeding, both were snarling like devils, and Riona could not decide if she wanted to cover up her ears or if she wanted to wade into the middle of it and drag them apart.

  Siobhan must have seen that look on her face, because she took a tighter grip on Riona's arm. “You must not,” she repeated. “Your blood is far too valuable to be spilled here.”

  Riona could have screamed. “And theirs isn't?” she cried.

  “They're both wolf kings,” Siobhan said, her eyes on the combatants. “The strongest and the cleverest, and when they fight, it is something that needs to be done. They will not stop until one cannot rise.”

  Riona's hands flew to her face at the mention of this kind of savagery, and she could barely watch as Rordan and Conleth charged each other, lunged, and broke apart only to charge again.

  Just when she thought that they would both drop from exhaustion, Rordan's jaws finally closed around Conleth's throat and closed. Riona screamed as his teeth came away bloody and Conleth lay still on the ground.

  The wolves around her, though they were still in the forms of men, began to howl, and instead of a joyful thing, it sent shivers up her spine. Ignoring the danger, she ran to Conleth's side. He was alive, though his throat was torn badly, and when she approached, he snapped his fangs at her. As soon as he truly recognized her, however, he calmed.

  She tore a strip from her skirt to hold to the gaping wound at his throat. It was a terrible wound, but he still breathed, and she held the wad of cloth to it tightly.

  “What shall we do, lord?” It was the skinny man again, MacBrae, and she turned to shout at him for trying to make a wounded man lead. Then she realized that he was not speaking to Conleth, but to Rordan, and she scowled.

  Rordan stood again as a man, and he looked at the King's Dogs with contempt. “Run home to your masters, and be grateful I let you live,” he snapped. “I've no use for tame dogs.”

  He turned to Riona, and she saw then why people feared the werewolves so much. He towered above her, and his mouth was still wet with gore, which he swiped at with a careless arm.

  “This is enough. I am done arguing with you. Come away, or be dragged away, it makes no difference to me.”

  Riona saw the King's Dogs leave, and she could feel Conleth's life trying to pump away under her hands. It infuriated her that they would abandon their leader, and she turned beseeching eyes to Rordan.

  “Please, he'll die if you make me leave him now.”

  Rordan growled, and some part of her knew that there was more than just a fighter's animosity in his tone. He had seen how close Conleth had been to her earlier, and Riona could tell how little he liked it.

  “He fought with honor and with pride, but he's done,” Rordan said. “It's the fate of wolf kings who fall. Leave him. He will die a warrior, or he will stand.”

  “No!” Riona shouted. She was fed up with being told what to do, but no matter who was telling her, she would not leave a dying man.

  “Look,” she said, scrambling for any bargaining chip she had. “You know now that I'll run. You know how far I can get. What if... what if I promise that I'll go with you? No more trouble, no more shouting. Just let me tend him, and let me bring him with us. Help me heal him. His hurt is not so great, but it could kill him if we leave him now.”

  He paused, and then their eyes locked, amber to deep brown. She put as much of her heart and as much of her will into her gaze as she could, knowing that if she could only make him understand he would help her.

  “Please, Rordan,” she whispered, and she knew his sharp ears caught it.

  “Care for him as you wish. Ferric and Angus can help you. Siobhan, come with me and we'll rig him a litter.”

  Riona blinked at his easy agreement.

  He smiled sardonically at her surprise. “Two escapes in as many days, and within a few hours of finding your heritage, you're already commanding wolf kings. I trust your honor when you say that you will not flee, but more than that, I think I shall work to remain in your good graces.”

  He bowed sarcastically at her and went off with Siobhan, while Ferric and Angus came to her side.

  “What do you need?” Ferric asked. “I mean, the King's Dog looks like he needs a new throat, but I've not got any with me at the moment.”

  “Make a fire, and heat me plenty of water from the river,” she said, “and if one of you has needle and thread, I am rather afraid that Conleth is going to need it...”

  ***

  Several harrowing hours passed before Conleth rested easy, and by the end Riona was ready to collapse. Angus advised her to allow him to remain in his wolf form, where he would heal faster, and so she had merely cleaned the wound with as much hot water as the wolf could stand. The tear was bad enough that it had needed to be sewn, and though Conleth had been still, once or twice he had thrashed hard enough that Angus and Ferric had had to hold him down.

  In the meantime, Siobhan and Rordan had put together a serviceable litter that could be dragged or carried. In the morning, Conleth would be secured to it, and they would begin their travels. As she washed her hands in the remnants of the hot water, Riona shivered a little. She didn't regret the promise she had made. It had surely saved Conleth's life, but it might have sealed her own fate.

  Even as she had worked, she had caught all of the wolves stealing glances at her, as if they were assessing her. She knew now what someone like her was meant to be to them, and the pressure of it weighed on her and made her nervous. A few days ago, she had been a simple novice. Now she knew more about her own history than she had ever thought to know, and she was in the forest that had called to her all her life.

  “Regretting your hasty promise?” Rordan asked, coming to kneel down beside her. He had thankfully bathed in the river after his fight with Conleth, and his scent warmed her and comforted her. She could still smell the pine needles on him, and that made her blush. Hurriedly, she went back to scrubbing her hands, but she thought that he could read the memories on her face as easily as he could the track of a deer in the forest.

  “No,” she said honestly. “He is not a bad man, you know. He didn't deserve to be abandoned like that.”

  Rordan shrugged, obviously uninterested in talking about the King's Dog. “He's a slave to people who hate him. He's a wolf king, and he hunted at someone else's whistle. It's humiliating.”

  “But you're helping him,” she pointed out
.

  Rordan grimaced. “Because you said so.” It made him sound enough like a sulky boy that Riona grinned.

  “Thank you anyway,” she said sincerely. “I would have liked you less if you had left him.”

  The smile he gave her was sudden and brilliant. It was the first time she had seen him smile, and it lit a warmth in her she had never known was missing. Impulsively, she wrapped her arms around him, holding him close and just breathing in his good scent.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, but she no longer thought that it was just for Conleth's life.

  Rordan's breath caught when she embraced him, and after a moment, he wrapped his arms around her as well. “You see?” he murmured. “You see how closely we fit, how you were made for this?”

  Her destiny again, and some of the warm feelings she had for him dulled when she heard it. She pulled away, frowning.

  “I agreed to come with you to your home,” she said warningly. “I did not agree to anything else.”

  He nodded peaceably, rising to his feet. “It is enough for now. Every moment you spend with us, you are coming into your own. You are living your own destiny, I'm just helping it along.”

  She frowned at that, but then he offered her a hand.

  “Siobhan is hunting, and Ferric and Angus are keeping our wounded wolf king company. Will you come walk? There is a place nearby that I thought might interest you.”

  ***

  She heard the waterfall before she saw it, a low thunder that filled the air. Water cut through rock, tumbling through space for twenty feet or more before it spilled out to a small pool below.

  “It's beautiful,” Riona said, staring up at the waterfall. “I've never seen anything like it.”

  “There's more,” Rordan promised. “Come with me.”

  Hesitantly, she followed him to the rock wall. Holding his hand, she made her way across the slippery rock ledge above the water. The path took them to a space in the rock behind the water, and she gasped to see the colors of the dying day through the sheets of rushing water. The cavern behind the waterfall was deep, and when they moved back, it was nearly dry.