The Wolf Duke

by K. J. Jackson

  But everything Reiner had done for her—aside from those first days of holding her captive in a room—had proven him honorable. He’d treated her with respect, welcomed her in his home, at his table, with his niece. He wasn’t a monster. Wasn’t about to cause her harm. If anything, he was a harbor. A harbor against the turmoil of not remembering. Against the sobering reality of her mangled arm.

  She drew a breath deep into her lungs, her voice shaking as she exhaled. Her gaze dropped to his upturned palm. “I don’t want to want to stay.”

  “I know.”

  Her fingers lifted and she grabbed his hand, slowly sliding down from the saddle.

  Her boots thudded to the ground and she lifted her gaze to him, afraid that she’d just given up all that she was.

  His brown eyes swept across her face. Relief. Desire. But most clearly, resolve shined in his eyes. He was going to keep her safe. Of that she was certain.

  She hadn’t lost a thing of herself.

  “We will figure this out together.” His right hand reached up, sliding behind her neck and he leaned forward, his lips finding hers in a kiss that started gentle, but expanded, swallowing her, searing her to the bone. Emblazoning his mark on her soul.

  He broke the kiss, his fingers moving along the hair aside her temple as his forehead dipped to meet hers. “You didn’t answer me last night, but I need this from you, Sloane. I need you to swear to me that you’ll tell me if you remember. If your memories come back, you come to me first. Don’t leave. You need to tell me.” The fire in his look warmed the gold in his eyes. Warmed them to the space where all coldness had vanished, only concern left in the wake.

  Her eyes closed against him for a long breath. “I don’t ken if I can promise that.”

  “You can.”

  She nodded, her forehead moving against his.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  ~~~

  Just as Vicky turned about a rounded tower corner of the castle in front of her, a waft of smoke from a fire by the stables blew in front of Sloane and the thick air sent her eyelids closing against the sting.

  The acerbic air singed her nostrils, the unyielding destruction of smoke and embers filling her head. It instantly sent her mind into a whirlwind of blackness. Lost to another world.

  A world she couldn’t touch, but was drowning in just the same.

  Ash, smoke all around her. Suffocating. Screams. Pain. Pain that gripped onto her soul and dragged her into a hell of flames and suffering.

  “Sloane.”

  Her eyes popped open and it took her several blinks to focus on Vicky in front of her.

  “Are you coming, Sloane?”

  She nodded, the terror that had just snaked around her chest easing.

  The blasted dream.

  She’d had it twice now. The first time, she’d mostly forgotten it, though stray remnants of the terror had stuck in her chest for days. The second time she hadn’t forgotten so quickly. The horror of it, the snippets of a building crashing around her, smoke smothering her, screams, her hand stretching out, reaching for an arm in the blackness.

  Those moments of the dream had wedged into her mind, real and visceral, the raw terror not dissipating with her open eyes as it had the first time.

  She exhaled through her nose, trying to clear the smoke from clinging inside her nostrils. With a quick shake of her head, she started forth again, following Vicky. It was a beautiful day, the cool wetness from the past few days easing into sunny, dry skies.

  Sloane kicked a rock with her toe, sending it careening into the stone at the base of the castle. Vicky glanced over her shoulder at her and with a smile, picked up her steps around the outer southwestern wall of the castle.

  For the thousandth time that week, she was asking herself why she wasn’t already sixty miles from Wolfbridge. Reiner had given her permission six days ago. Saddled a horse for her.

  Say the word and she could leave.

  So why wasn’t she already gone?

  The wily scoundrel. He’d given her free rein to leave—but now she wanted to know what she was doing here just as much as he did. There were too many questions for her to just leave and never look back. Questions that needed answers she wasn’t sure she could find anywhere else.

  Not to mention the fact that in her heart, if she was honest with herself, she didn’t want to leave Vicky. Didn’t want to leave Reiner.

  He’d been nothing but a gentleman the past days, even managing to keep all their interactions within the respectability of being in front of Vicky or the staff. Even as he was still wary of her intentions at Wolfbridge, he was wooing her, in his own peculiar way.

  Not with kisses and promises of Eden, but with his wit and charm, and with his reluctant, but good-natured willingness to play the same songs again and again on the pianoforte as Vicky learned the dances.

  Sloane picked up her stride as she realized she wasn’t keeping up with Vicky’s spry steps, but still glanced over her shoulder to see if any more smoke was headed in her direction. From this angle of the castle, she could still see the far edge of the evergreen hedge lining the southern gardens. Her gaze swept the landscape, forest, landscape, garden, then back again. The smoke had moved off and Claude and Lawrence were nowhere in sight.

  They hadn’t been anywhere near her in days. Not since Reiner had kissed her in the stable.

  He hadn’t been lying. She was free to go. Free to point her toes to the left and walk directly into the woods and disappear. He wasn’t going to have her stopped. Wasn’t going to drag her back into the castle.

  Freedom that made her want to stay all the more.

  “Sloane, hurry—it’s just on the backside of the castle.” Vicky peeked her head back around the upcoming curve of stones. The girl had remembered a few minutes ago the thicket of raspberries growing along the edge of the forest at the rear of the castle and was now determined to get there with haste.

  Sloane smiled and hurried her legs.

  Raspberries did sound good. Maybe if she ate enough of them she would fall asleep in a berry-induced stupor that would tell her what to do next. Leave or stay?

  Sloane rounded the corner and watched with a grin as Vicky darted across the long expanse of lawn to the far woods, her pail swinging wildly on her arm. If it was possible, the girl had more energy than she did.

  Vicky had already picked half a pail full of the berries by the time Sloane made it to the thicket. She plucked one off the vine and popped it into her mouth. Perfectly ripe.

  Her smile spread wide. “Why haven’t we been out here before?”

  “They weren’t ripe three weeks ago, and I was checking them every day and was being disappointed every day, so I just gave up. Then you appeared here and I didn’t remember them until just now.” Red drops of the berries stained the outer edges of her mouth.

  Sloane nodded. “Thank goodness you did. It would have been horrible to miss these.” She looked into Vicky’s pail. “Have you eaten as many as you’ve plucked?”

  “Probably more.” Vicky laughed.

  Sloane’s fingers went busy, plucking the berries from their stems. Following Vicky’s lead, half went into her mouth, the other half into the pail.

  Her mouth full, she turned around and took in this area of the estate. Vicky had never brought her back here. The castle wasn’t as elaborate from this side, more form than function. If she transplanted in her mind what she knew of the interior of the castle, she had to be looking at the outside wall of the great hall. Three stories high, the hall was as grand as it had to have been when it was first constructed. There were several small, wide windows high in the stone wall that she recognized from inside the hall. To the right of them, a row of four tall vertical windows lined the rest of this span of the castle.

  Just below the tall windows, a wide expanse of heavy vines grew up along the outside wall, curving between the windows when they reached to that height.

  Vines that would be perfect fo
r climbing.

  Without a word to Vicky, she walked toward the vines, throbs of foreboding heartbeats thundering in her head.

  This was it. This was the very spot where she had been found.

  Why had she not made her way back here before?

  Her steps quickened.

  She slid to a stop in front of the base of the vines spurting upward from the ground—gnarled roots determined not to live underground, but to burst toward the sky.

  Her neck craning, she looked straight up. Vines that were made for climbing. Her gaze moved across the vines and leaves, finding the sturdy spots amongst the weak. The zigzagging line upward. Upward and leading directly to an open window.

  Her throat collapsing, she reached out with her gloved left hand and touched the thick vine in front of her, her fingers sliding along the bark. Her eyes closed.

  Instant.

  Devastating.

  It took less than a breath for all of it to come to her.

  The monstrosity of the last six months slammed into her chest. Taking her breath away. Crushing her soul.

  She stumbled backward, falling onto her backside. But her feet kept moving, her hands clawing the dirt and pushing her away from the vines—away from the memories filling her head. One moment after another smashed into her skull, rattling about in ferocious mayhem.

  “Sloane.” A bucket clunked to the ground behind her. “Sloane. What happened? What happened?”

  Shaking. Her shoulder was shaking.

  She looked at it, her head moving slow, so slow it was as if the world had stopped.

  Vicky.

  Vicky terrified.

  Vicky on her knees and shaking her. Shaking her shoulder.

  “Sloane—what is it? What has happened? Tell me—tell me and I will go get Uncle Reiner. He will help—he will help with whatever just happened.”

  Sloane clamped a hand onto Vicky’s wrist, her words fighting through the boulders of memories lodging into her brain. “No—no. Not Reiner.”

  Her fingers tightened around Vicky’s wrist until the girl squealed and tried to yank her arm away.

  Sloane’s fingers flew wide. She didn’t mean to hurt Vicky. Didn’t mean to send such terror into her eyes.

  Her head fell forward as she drew her knees upward. For a long moment, she curled into herself, closing her eyes and drawing several deep breaths.

  “Sloane?”

  Her head snapped up and she found Vicky’s wide eyes. “I’m sorry, Vicky. I didn’t mean to scare you. It is nothing. I stumbled backward and landed on my tailbone and it took my breath away. I am fine now. My breathing has recovered.”

  The furrow across Vicky’s brow stayed in place. “You are positive you are well?”

  “I am. I am sorry I frightened you.” Sloane glanced over her shoulder. The metal bucket of raspberries lay on its side, squashed red juices of the berries spilling onto the grass. “Oh, no. Not the berries.”

  Vicky scooted across the ground to scoop up the salvageable berries into the bucket.

  Sloane pushed herself onto her quivering legs. “I do feel as though I should go inside and rest, though, probably lie down in my room.”

  Vicky nodded and grabbed her hand, squeezing it. Leave it to the sweet child to try and comfort her. “I can still fetch Uncle Reiner if it will make you feel better?”

  “No. A few minutes of rest and I will be well. I am sure of it.” Averting her gaze from the vines, Sloane started walking toward the far corner of the castle.

  Within minutes she was in her room, alone after sending Vicky to work on her lessons with Miss Gregory.

  She clicked the door closed, her legs stiff as she walked to the bed and sat down on the edge.

  Her right hand shaking, she reached to her left elbow and slipped her forefinger under the top edge of her glove.

  Peeling down the kidskin, she lifted her mangled bare skin to the daylight.

  For long seconds she stared at the twisted, ravaged skin that had once been smooth.

  Her eyes had to flip away. Even now she couldn’t bear to look at it.

  So she set her eyes on her dagger atop the chest across the room. Stared at it for minutes where she let all she’d just remembered sink fully into her consciousness.

  Bloody hell. Not Reiner.

  Her heart thudded in her ribcage, an invisible vise clamping down about her chest.

  Not Reiner. Not him.

  Not when she had begun to believe he wasn’t the devil himself—not when she had damn well started to like the man.

  Much more than like.

  Damn him. Damn him to hell.

  With a gasp, her head snapped up, her eyes on the back of the door.

  She had to leave Wolfbridge.

  And she had to take what she came here for.

  ~~~

  Sloane waited until the stable boy slipped out the back of the center stable and found himself a sturdy tree to lean against for a midafternoon snooze.

  She’d seen him do it twice before on the days she and Vicky were outside in the afternoon sun. His habit was her opportunity.

  Reiner had said she could leave Wolfbridge at any time, but she wasn’t about to test his words. Not now when she remembered exactly what she was doing at the castle.

  She slipped into the stable, looking along the stalls for Biscuit. Four stalls from the back entrance, she heard a whinny she recognized. Biscuit smelled her before she found her mare. Sloane glanced around. Her sidesaddle was hanging across from the stall.

  She shoved the satchel she’d found and strapped across her body to her backside, and a sharp corner of the book inside jabbed into her spine. As fast as her hands would allow, she saddled Biscuit and led her horse out of the rear of the stable.

  A quick glance to the trees at her left verified the stable boy was still snoozing. She tugged on Biscuit’s reins, leading her onto the trail that veered into the woods at the north side of the stable. With any luck, it would meet up with the trail she’d originally taken into Wolfbridge.

  Five minutes and she found the main trail and mounted her horse. She waited not a breath to send Biscuit thundering down the path.

  Setting her gaze forward, she didn’t dare to give the castle a backward glance. She couldn’t afford to. Not if she was to escape now.

  Two hours later she was dragging her maid out of the coaching inn in Caistor. Milly had waited in place as instructed, especially after she had learned from a passing Wolfbridge servant that a woman of Sloane’s description was now in residence at the castle.

  Sloane hated to set Milly on a horse with her fear of riding, but her maid would have to suffer it until they reached Doncaster where she could arrange travel north.

  With the bundles of the few items that had come to Caistor with them now secured on the back of the horses, Sloane looked at the sky just outside the village. There had to be enough daylight to reach Doncaster. She would have to push the horses, but they could make it. Make it and then she could book passage on the first coach she could find. Post chaise. Mail coach. Stagecoach. She didn’t care. Just as long as they disappeared amongst the travelers moving north.

  They had to get lost.

  For if they didn’t and Reiner found her…

  She cringed.

  No. She couldn’t think on that possibility. Couldn’t think on what would be his rage.

  She set Biscuit into a manageable trot, refusing to glance over her shoulder for fear he was already on her tail with vengeance in his eyes and descending on her like a demon from hell.

  If he found her…if he caught her. She didn’t want to see it coming. She wanted it quick. Painless.

  She managed to keep her gaze forward.

  A mistake.

  For if she had, she would have noticed two rough brutes quickly saddling their horses at the livery stable on the edge of the village, their hooded eyes watching her and Milly ride from town.

  { Chapter 9 }

  “Dom, I need to get in and out without
my grandfather or Lachlan knowing.”

  “Curse me bally, lass. I should have known not to trust that stable boy dragging me out here.” Two full heads taller than her, Domnall, the brawniest Scotsman Sloane knew, glanced over her head, searching in the dark shadows of the main stable. “Where’s Milly?” The low rumble of his voice seeped into the cool night air, echoing in the furthest crevices of the stalls.

  “At a coaching inn. I didn’t want to bring her and get her involved if my brother finds me here.” The Deerhound next to Domnall’s leg approached her, nose twitching, and she held her palm under its snout. One sniff and it nudged her, looking for a scratch. Sloane obliged, sinking her fingers into the fur behind its ears. “This is a new one?”

  “Just started training her a month ago. By far the smartest one I’ve ever worked with.”

  Sloane’s fingers sank into the wiry hair along the dog’s neck. “She’s also a pretty one. Proud.”

  “Full of herself, that is her one downfall. But also strong-willed and a protector to the last. She’s been dubbed Theodora.”

  Sloane chuckled. “Fitting.”

  He cleared his throat. “Lach’s not going to like this, you sneaking into the castle.” His thumbs tucked into the top of his trousers as he eyed her. “What are ye doing here, lass? They think you’re still in London.”

  She looked to Vinehill castle looming behind Domnall, the strong, tall walls outlined in the moonlight. “Which is exactly why I need you to get me in and out of the castle without Lach or any of the staff aware. I don’t want my brother to have the slightest inkling that I was here.”

  “Which means you’ll be leaving again after ye get into the castle? What’s this about? You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  “No, Dom, I’m fine—I just need to see Torrie without Lachlan or my grandfather trapping me into staying.”

  “Ye need to see Torrie?”

  She nodded.

  His eyes went hooded. “These have been dark days for her.”

  “She hasn’t been healing?”

  “Her body, aye, as painful as it’s been. Her mind is a different matter.”