by Michele Hauf
“Your sister is not broken.” He grabbed her wrist and she squealed sweetly. Her theatrics turned him off and toyed with the anger that simmered just beneath the surface. “Don’t do that, someone will hear you.”
“You worried Sven will beat you up again?”
“What’s that about Sven beating on someone?” came a gruff voice from around the corner.
Tryst’s heart dropped to his gut. The man had mastered perfect timing, to Tryst’s detriment. He wasn’t able to extricate himself from Alana’s clinging, groping fingers before her fiancé saw them in what must look like an embrace.
“This is not what you think it is. She was touching me.” He pushed the tiny blonde away from him, a bit too roughly, and she landed in Sven’s arms with a distressed cry. Great little actress, she was.
“You are going to die, outsider!”
Yes, yes, he should have seen that one coming. Great. The day was going swimmingly, and all he’d done was shift to were form after a good long run and take a stroll through the castle.
“Now, Sven.” Alana turned in her man’s arms and gave him an Emmy-winning pout. “You were going to have breakfast with me and Daddy. Can you wait to kill him after that?”
The brutish wolf growled and his jaws ground together sharply. His biceps flexed madly. He was already strangling Tryst in his mind.
Tryst lifted his head, defying the wolf with a direct stare. He could do the biceps flex, but that would just be childish. He wanted to say, Bring it, but on the other hand, Liam’s words to avoid Sven rang loudly.
“Of course, sweetie. Two hours,” he said to Tryst. “In the keep.”
“The keep is filled with the wounded,” Tryst said.
“It’s filled with my family. I want them to see me tear you apart, outsider. If you are late, you will be branded a coward and tossed from the castle like yesterday’s trash.”
“Got it,” Tryst muttered as the twosome pushed past him, and headed toward the tower room. “Peachy.”
Well, he did like a good fight, and Sven was the strongest wolf in the castle. If he was going down, best he do so under the Nordic Warrior’s hand. On the other hand, he wasn’t about to do any such thing as go down. He had begun to feel accepted, a part of this pack, and he liked that feeling. And he wasn’t willing to give it up because of one idiot wolf.
Chapter 10
Lexi entered the keep, startled to discover a fight was going on in the corner opposite where the infirm were being cared for, though the few injured still occupying cots were sitting and had improved greatly. She marched over to the circle of wolves surrounding the fight and found Lana eagerly cheering on the two wolves who had stripped to jeans and boots and who were beating on each other with furious fists.
Tryst and Sven again?
“What’s going on?”
“They’re fighting over me,” Lana cooed with a flutter of her lashes at Lexi. “Isn’t it sweet? Sven caught Trystan with his hands all over me, and now he’s going to rip the outsider’s head off.”
Lexi gaped, but upon seeing her sister’s triumphant grin, she thought better than to assume that Tryst actually had been touching her. If her suspicions were correct, it had probably been Lana’s hands on Tryst, not the other way around.
But then again, she had recently revealed her shifted gold eyes to him. Had he been so disgusted he’d decided to make a play for the prettier sister?
No, Lexi, you’re smarter than that. And she knew Lana, Mistress of Inappropriate Flirtation, had mastered the art of doing anything for attention.
“Sven’s an idiot,” she said. Hands on hips, she stepped to the edge of the circle to observe the fight. “And Trystan can take him any day.”
Seemingly offended her sister hadn’t cried over the notion that Tryst might have been manhandling her, Lana tilted her a pouty lip and marched off.
“This is not going to go well should he want to join the pack,” Liam said to Lexi as he leaned in. “I told him to fight a few wolves, but that he should avoid your father’s choice for scion.”
“Tryst wants to join the pack?” He hadn’t mentioned that to her.
And where had he been all morning? She’d thought he might come in to say hello to her, but nothing. She really had scared him away. Hindsight shoved an awful knife into her side.
“I put the idea in his head,” Liam offered. “He’s a good man. Ouch.” He winced as Sven’s fist connected to Tryst’s side right over the kidney. “That one is going to hurt for days. But he’s holding his own.”
Tryst stumbled toward Lexi, blood dripping from his mouth. A goofy smile slashed through the blood, and he grimaced when he leaned forward, obviously taxing the bruised kidney.
“I didn’t touch her,” he managed to mumble before Sven tugged him back to the battle by the nape of his neck.
“I know that,” Lexi said, more to herself than anything.
Tryst would never betray her that way. He was too honorable. He wanted her, and she wanted him. Yet this fight was only going to wrench them further apart if her father got wind of it.
“You can’t tell my father,” she said to Liam. “He’ll make Tryst leave today.”
Liam gave her a look that seemed to cut through the dark glasses she wore and burrowed right to her heart. “I will do that for you, Princess Conner, but I can’t promise Sven won’t tell him. Or, for that matter, your sister.”
“I’ll take care of Lana.” She just needed to twist Princess Troublemaker’s arm a bit. “I can’t watch this anymore. Bring Tryst to my room after he’s beat what little sense Sven has out of him, will you? I’m sure he’ll be in need of medical attention. Again.”
Liam nodded, but she sensed the stalwart wolf was going against his better judgment. The wolf was the strongest, and wisest in the pack and she respected him and his means of honoring her father with hard work and utter devotion. She also suspected he had a secret crush on Lana. If only Lana would notice him, then perhaps the pack could be rid of the tic known as Sven once and for all.
Marching away from the fight wasn’t difficult. She didn’t need to see Tryst get pummeled. She just wanted to hold him and make the hurt stop, but not before she gave Lana a piece of her mind.
* * *
Lexi found Lana in her room, throwing pillows across the floor and stomping on them. Anger subsiding at the sight of her sister’s silly tantrum, Lexi propped a shoulder against the door frame and waited out the storm. Had she ever acted that way? Maybe once or twice when she’d been twelve. Why had Lana not grown up? Is that what being spoiled meant?
Lana’s moods had never bothered Lexi, yet she was seeing the same sister through a different light lately. Probably through Sven-tainted glasses, and that was the ugliest view she’d ever had of her sister. That man. Whatever he touched he destroyed.
They had needed a mother growing up. Lexi’s throat tightened to think it, but it was true. Being raised by Natalie hadn’t been the same. The witch had been more an astute governess than someone she and her sister could run to and put their arms around when they had needed a hug, or even a good cry.
Why her father had never remarried was beyond her. He certainly had taken lovers following their mother’s death. Lexi had actually liked a few and had hopes for them becoming their mother. Yet she figured Edmonton would never replace his one true love, and while that warmed her heart, she truly wanted her father to be happy.
Blond hair swinging, Lana flashed a gaping moue at her. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to wonder what’s up with you, sis?”
“What do you mean? Can’t a girl throw some pillows around to get rid of her frustrations?”
She blew the hair from her face and assumed a modicum of calm, plopping onto the end of her unmade bed. When a pouty lip formed and it started to quiver, Lexi rushed to sit by her sister’s side and hug her.
“Talk to me, Lana. It’s something with Sven, isn’t it?”
“He was just d
efending my honor against that stupid Trystan.”
Lexi could read between the lines of her sister’s frustration and jealousy. “He wasn’t manhandling you, was he?”
Teardrops splattered Lana’s pink silk lap, and she shook her head and sniffled what Lexi guessed were not fake tears. “No. He bumped into me as he turned the corner—which was very rude—but a complete accident. And then Sven saw, and well, I let him form his own conclusions. You know I like it when a man sticks up for me. Makes me feel special.”
“Lana, you are special. And you don’t need Sven to beat the crap out of a guy to prove it.”
“Still, it’s like he’s willing to give blood to show me how much he loves me.”
“And take blood by beating on an innocent man. What’s so noble about that? That’s not love, Lana. Are you and Sven all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“I worry about you sometimes, and I wonder. Like maybe you agreed to marry Sven only because you knew it would please our father. But maybe what you really want is something else. A something else you don’t even have a name for.”
Like the something else Lexi craved—shifting.
Lana huffed and shook her head. “There is nothing else, Lexi. We’re both stuck here at Wulfsiege, destined to raise a brood—well, maybe not you, because you can’t—but you know we’ll be saddled with this big stupid castle forever. And the idea of giving birth abhors me. I’ll lose my figure. And remember the time Frances gave birth in the keep and we watched? It looked so painful. I can’t do it, Lexi, I can’t.”
“They have drugs for labor, you know. And Frances has always been overly dramatic. Besides, saddled with this stupid castle and pack? It doesn’t have to be that way if you don’t want it to be.”
“Now you’re just trying to make me feel better. You know the truth, Lexi. We are literal prisoners of our family blood.”
Indeed. They were pack females. It wasn’t like they could gather their belongings and load up their Louis Vuittons—or in Lexi’s case, a large duffel—and move to a city. They couldn’t enjoy the single life, dating other wolves—or even other breeds—without risking their very lives should the pack come after them.
“At least you’ve been given a chance at something different,” Lana added. “He’s cute and hot and so nice. Too bad Daddy won’t approve of the match. But you’re smart. Fool around with him whenever you can, Lexi. You have to take advantage of the sex while he’s here. Because you know as soon as the castle gets dug out, he’s gone. If Sven doesn’t kill him first.”
“Sven has some serious anger issues.”
“Tell me about it. I think it’s because he never really had a father, with him dying when he was just a baby. He’s told me so much about his life before he came here. It wasn’t pleasant. But it made him strong. That’s how he was the only survivor of his pack when the vampires attacked.”
Now she was getting closer to what she really wanted to hear from Lana. The intimate details between her and Sven.
“Has he ever hit you, Lana?”
Her sister shook her head but didn’t answer. Lexi’s suspicions rose. He could have hit Lana, and probably in a place where no one would notice a bruise.
“I’m serious, Lana, if he’s hurt you—”
“No one would care,” she started quickly. “Because that’s the way they are, our alpha wolves. They’re big and brutal and they’re expected to be rough and tough. Not prissy like poor Rick. He’ll never win a female.”
“I suspect Rick is not interested in a female.”
“Really? Oh, gods, I’m surprised Sven hasn’t beaten the crap out of him yet. I know Sven looks at the bruises he puts on others as some kind of merit badge. Well, it’s how it was when he was growing up in his former pack.”
Not knowing what else to say, Lexi tucked her head aside her sister’s neck. The two sniffled. It had been a while since they’d sat together in silence. But the silence didn’t last long.
A huffing, bleeding wolf stomped into Lana’s bedroom and his growl prompted Lexi to her feet to stand protectively before her cringing sister.
“Get out of here, Alexis,” Sven hissed. “Your sister needs to wash this blood off my hands. I want that outsider gone from Wulfsiege!”
“He wasn’t touching Lana,” Lexi tried, and it took all her courage not to cringe as Sven leaned over her, growling and showing his bloodied teeth. He smelled rank. “Tryst had just bumped into her in the hallway as they turned the corner at the same time.”
“Sounds like touching to me. Did you hear me? I said to get out!”
Lexi glanced at Lana, whose eyes were wet with tears, but her sister nodded that she should leave. Walking away was one of the most difficult things she had ever done, but when she got to the threshold, Lexi put a palm to the door frame and, drawing up a breath of courage, said, “If you hurt my sister, if you so much as push her, I will come after you, Sven.”
Her body was slammed against the door frame, and an arm wrenched behind her back. Lexi winced as the brute weight of the wolf pressed her hard against the pink-painted wall. His breath reeked of blood.
“Tough words coming from a mistake.”
She closed her eyes, tasting her blood trickle over her tongue. Mistake is what Sven called her. A broken mistake of a wolf.
“I’m warning you,” he continued. “If you don’t get rid of Hawkes before the full moon tonight, I will rip his head off and put it on a spike outside your bedroom window.”
He shoved her out into the hallway and slammed the door behind her. Lexi stumbled forward, slowly coming straight and fighting the urge to cry or turn and beat against the door.
She completely believed he would do as he said if Tryst did not leave Wulfsiege tonight.
* * *
Tryst came to with a groan that built in his aching ribs and shuddered out over his burning flesh. Every part of him hurt.
No, that wasn’t right. He couldn’t feel his lips, so technically they didn’t hurt.
“Stupid wolf,” he said about Sven, but also about himself. On the other hand, he hadn’t backed down from the challenge, and never would. It wasn’t a death wish, just the only way he’d ever learned to stick up for himself. Fists proved to others he was a man, and a wolf worthy of any command he could take.
“You’re still alive. That counts for something.”
Before he could respond to the sexy female voice above him, water spilled over his head and down his shoulders.
“What the hell?” He groped for hold and his hands slid down the side of—a bathtub?
Tryst sat upright in the freestanding old-fashioned bathtub. He still wore jeans, but someone had placed him here without his knowing or consent. Lexi poured another pitcher of warm water over him.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning you up. You’re bleeding like a skinned cat, and you need to soak those bruised muscles to promote faster healing. If you slip out of your jeans, I’ll run the tub.”
“Slip out of my— Why don’t you leave me to do that? Hell, woman, take charge much?”
“Fine.” She set the pitcher on a table and wandered out, calling back, “Take a bath. Soak a while. But don’t linger. The full moon is out tonight. You don’t want to hang around the castle, especially knowing Sven’s werewolf likes to stalk the halls.”
“Sven’s werewolf stalks the halls during the full moon?” Tryst slapped a palm over his wet chest. “That wolf is insane.”
And he had better keep a keen eye out in front of, as well as behind, him tonight. But to meet Sven when both were in werewolf form? The Nord had better keep a keen eye, as well.
* * *
Against Liam’s warning, Lexi had asked the wolf to bring Tryst to her room after finding him sprawled on the floor in the guest bedroom. He’d survived the pummeling, but no sense in allowing him to bleed all over the floor and creating a big, messy job for the maid.
Lexi left him alone in her bathroom for an hour.
Meanwhile, she paced her bedroom, counting off all the reasons she should tell Tryst to leave the castle tonight and never return. Sven would kill him—that’s all she could come up with on her list for his departure. Because the reasons-to-stay list kept intruding.
The outsider wolf provided much-needed help around the castle. He’d helped rescue many. He kept an eye out for stupidity, like Sven. He was friendly and most of the pack males liked him. He wasn’t horrible on the eye. He was a fantastic kisser. His body against hers would feel so good…
Lexi paused before the window. The sky was growing darker, the moon climbing in the sky. A few more hours and wolves across the world would shift to werewolf shape.
Except her.
And all she could think about was getting some skin-on-skin time with Trystan Hawkes.
She glanced at the bathroom door, wondered if he might have fallen asleep and decided she’d better check on him. He was wounded, and he could have taken a blow to the head. Didn’t concussions require constant supervision?
“Tryst?”
She snuck into the bathroom, which was lit by a chandelier hung over the tub.
He watched her enter. She was aware of his heavy-lidded regard, but didn’t comment as she walked around to the opposite side of the tub, in essence allowing him a longer look. Taking off her glasses, she set them on the vanity. No longer did she have anything to hide from him. Whether for good or for bad, she was what she was. If she offended him, he was good at hiding his alarm.
“How are you feeling?”
He groaned. “Like Sven ran over me with the snowplow. But I got a few good punches in and my head is still attached to my neck, so I guess I came out okay. Your father is going to kill me, though.”
“I’ve taken measures to insure he doesn’t learn about the fight.”
“Really?” He settled back in the tub, his wet hair trailing along the white porcelain rim and his feet poking out the water at the opposite end. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I want you to stay at Wulfsiege. Liam said he put the idea of joining the pack into your head?”
She leaned against the tiled wall, which was five feet from the tub, but didn’t dare move closer. If she did, she might want to peer more closely into the milky depths of the tub. He’d used the bath salts and his jeans lay crumpled on the floor, so he’d taken her suggestion of getting naked.