The Wolf Duke

by K. J. Jackson

  Sloane’s bottom lip drew inward, her look drifting off to the tower that held Torrie’s chamber. “I had thought my leaving would be better for her. So she wouldn’t feel the need to repeat the minutia of the fire every day, every hour with me. How it could have been different. How we failed. What it cost her—cost us.”

  Domnall shrugged. “I think it was better for you. Torrie—I don’t ken. She keeps all that to herself now. Except for the outbursts.”

  “There are still outbursts?”

  Domnall nodded.

  Sloane drew in a deep breath. “Still, I need to see her.”

  He pointed to her shoulder. “Then pull your cloak up to cover your head and I’ll get you up to Torrie’s room through the north tower. And then I never saw ye. If Lachlan discovers I ken you stepped foot in the castle without seeing him, he’ll have my bloody bollocks cut off.”

  Sloane smiled. Domnall had never curbed his tongue about her, just the same as her brothers. She’d always appreciated that about him. She tugged the hood of her dark cloak over her head. “Thank you, Dom.”

  “Where are ye sleeping, lass?”

  They started up to the castle through the shadows, Sloane following the large Scotsman.

  “In Buchlyvie.”

  “Hell and damnation, Sloane—that’s a two—three hour ride in the dark.”

  “I made it here without trouble.”

  “No. I’ll not have ye in the woods by yourself. I’ll be waiting with your horse at the stable when ye are done to see ye back to Buchlyvie.”

  “It’s not necessary, Dom.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her, his booming voice rising above a whisper. “Bugger that. I may help sneak ye in and out of the castle, but I’ll not be taking chances with your well-being, lass.” He turned forward, keeping his pace. “And I’ll nae argue the matter with ye.”

  Sloane smiled at his back. She’d had two big brothers by birth. And one additional big brother by luck. “Aye, I will gladly take the company back to Buchlyvie, Dom. Thank you.”

  Five minutes later she was trudging up the northern tower’s steep circular staircase behind Domnall and his candle, questioning with every step her motives for coming to Vinehill to visit with Torrie.

  Questioning everything she’d done in the last five days.

  She hadn’t gone to Lord Falsted like she was supposed to with the book she’d stolen from Reiner’s room. Falsted was a bane upon the lands around Vinehill—setting far too many clearings into motion, destroying too many lives—but he’d been the one to show her the evidence. Evidence that meant Reiner had to pay. Evidence she couldn’t dispute.

  It would be so much easier if she didn’t believe Falsted. If he hadn’t encouraged her to go after Reiner and ruin him. For now she didn’t know if she could do that.

  So she had travelled north instead. Away from Reiner. Away from Lord Falsted.

  And it had taken days to admit to herself why.

  She didn’t want to see Reiner ruined and that’s what the book would do.

  Somewhere during her time at Wolfbridge, she’d become conflicted. Lost her thirst for vengeance.

  Reiner needed to pay for all that he had taken from her. For all that he had destroyed. For all of that he needed to fall.

  Yet she couldn’t destroy him. Couldn’t be the cause of it.

  She couldn’t watch the man she’d come to know be ruined. Especially by her hand.

  It was so much easier when he was a target. A cold, mythical demon she was determined to see pay for his sins.

  Except he wasn’t mythical. He wasn’t a demon.

  He was just a man. A flesh and blood man that looked at her with such heat in his eyes it seared her to her toes. A man that had held her, pulling her from the throes of terror-filled dreams. A man that had played silly tunes on the pianoforte for Vicky because she wanted to dance. A man that had held her far too close when he’d danced with her. A man that had kissed her and sent her body into undeniable pleasure.

  He wasn’t the monster she had wanted to destroy.

  He’d abused that sliver of time when she couldn’t remember what he was and he’d wormed his way into her every thought.

  Just as the devil himself would have.

  She needed Reiner to be the monster again. He had to be if she was to execute the vengeance he was due.

  And Torrie could do that for her. Torrie could make him into the monster again.

  Domnall stopped in front of Torrie’s door and turned to Sloane. “I’ll have your horse waiting for ye at the stables, lass.” He set the candle on the half-round table just to the left of Torrie’s door. “I ken ye can make your way through the castle in the dark, but take the candle with ye. I don’t want ye to break your neck on the stairs on the way out.”

  “Thank you, Dom.” She went to her toes to kiss his cheek, then turned to the heavy oak door.

  She needed this. Needed Torrie to remind her of what she must do. To remove the conflict of every thought warring in her head. To reset the blaze for vengeance.

  Straightening her spine, Sloane set her chin down and went into Torrie’s room.

  “You are awake.”

  Sloane’s cousin lay on her bed, a sheet bunched and draped over her stomach, her legs sticking out, bare to the air. Her eyes open, she stared at the peach upholstery draped above her from the ends of the tester bed.

  Torrie didn’t react to the intrusion into her room. Only a blink.

  Sloane moved to her bedside, looking down at her cousin—her sister for all purposes, for they had been raised together here at Vinehill.

  Her gaze fixed on Torrie’s face, not venturing downward. Torrie’s pretty features looked far more aged than she remembered from when she left Vinehill months ago with their plot for vengeance firmly in her head.

  “You are awake,” Sloane repeated softly, not sure how to break Torrie from her reverie.

  “And you’ve returned.” Torrie’s head shifted slightly on the pillow and she looked at Sloane.

  “I have. At least for these few minutes.” Sloane reached out and stroked strands of Torrie’s dark hair along her temple that had escaped the simple braid that caught her locks. Her hair had always held such lustrous majesty. How long had it been since it had been free of the braid?

  Her hand falling to her side, Sloane sat down on the edge of the bed. “I needed to talk to you as you are the only person I can trust with this information.”

  “Wait, before…” Torrie’s eyes closed for the longest moment. With a heavy breath, her eyelids cracked open, her look grave. “I’m sorry I asked you.”

  Sloane’s breath caught in her throat. She shook her head. “You don’t need to apologize, Tor. I ken the pain you were in.”

  “It was unfair.” Torrie drew a ragged breath into her lungs. “I’m a coward and I couldn’t kill myself, but I never should have asked you to do it. It would have been too much to bear—for the rest of your life. I’m sorry I did that to you. You were right to leave.”

  “You forgive me?”

  “It never needed forgiving, Sloane. You were doing what was right.”

  Her heart shattering just as violently as it had months ago when Torrie had asked her to do it, Sloane had to lean forward, searching for breath. She had failed Torrie—she hadn’t been strong enough to do as her cousin had begged.

  But now, forgiveness. Who knew it would break her just as easily?

  Torrie’s right arm moved, her hand splaying onto her stomach. She inhaled a deep breath, her face cringing in a flash of pain. “So tell me, what has happened?”

  “I went after him—Lord Falsted. Except he doesn’t own the land. I saw the papers. The Duke of Wolfbridge is the man. So I went after him.”

  “You did?” Torrie’s beautiful big green eyes went wide. “What happened?” She shifted, trying to sit up.

  Sloane quickly grabbed several pillows, stacking them behind Torrie so she could rest against them.

  “I found h
im, Reiner—the duke. I went to his castle in Lincolnshire and I went there to destroy him. Lord Falsted helped arrange it. All I needed to do was steal a book from him. A book that would ruin him were it to ever get out.”

  “What was the book?”

  “It’s a ledger of some sort with names. I have looked at it, but I am not sure what it’s for. Lord Falsted said with the book, all of the duke’s sins would be revealed—properties would be revoked, his title removed, charges of treason against the crown. Ruined, fully and wholly.”

  “So it is done?” The smallest pained smile came to the corners of Torrie’s lips. “He is ruined?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What happened?” Her cousin’s forehead furrowed.

  “I still have the book as there was a hiccup before I stole it.”

  Torrie’s look narrowed at her. “What hiccup?”

  “I slipped and fell when I was trying to gain entrance to the duke’s castle. The fall knocked memories from my head, because I forgot everything of the last six months.”

  “Oh no.” Torrie’s eyes squinted in worry. “But you have remembered now?”

  Sloane nodded. “I have, but not before I spent time with the duke. With his family.” She drew a deep breath and exhaled it in a tortured sigh. “I like the man, Torrie. Had I known what had happened I could have easily hated him. But I didn’t know and then I—I grew to like him. He is a good man…I think.”

  “What do you mean you like him?” Torrie’s words hissed into the room.

  Sloane shrugged, avoiding Torrie’s glare by looking to the healthy fire adding heat to the already stifling hot room.

  “Let me see your arm, Sloane.”

  Wary, her look shifted to her cousin. “Why?”

  “Let me see it.” Torrie wiggled her fingers at Sloane.

  Her gaze fixed on Torrie’s face, Sloane stripped off the long glove that constantly concealed her left arm.

  Torrie grabbed her left wrist, her fingers wrapping along the twisted flesh. “Look at it, Sloane.”

  “Torrie—”

  Torrie lifted Sloane’s arm, shaking it in front of her eyes. “He did this to you, Sloane. That evil bastard did this. Did this to you.”

  Sloane closed her eyes against her own ragged flesh.

  “You can’t even look at your own damned mangled flesh, Sloane—much less mine.”

  “I—”

  “No—no excuses. You haven’t looked at my leg once since you stepped into this room. You’re hiding from the truth. From the pain. It’s easier for you not to look at it. Not to acknowledge it.” She tossed Sloane’s arm from her grip. “Look at your arm, Sloane. Look at it before you forget what it was like.”

  Sloane stared down at her wrecked arm. The twisted white threads of skin.

  She hadn’t stared at her own arm—hadn’t truly looked at it save for quick glances as she washed her hands and then when her memories first came back—not since that night when she first discovered what had become of her arm and Reiner had come into her room to calm her.

  She hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. To face what she was now.

  “Now look at my damn leg.”

  Her breath quivering in her chest, it took every nerve in Sloane’s body to lift her look to Torrie’s leg.

  Bile snaked up her throat.

  Torrie’s leg looked much like her own arm did months ago. Still healing. Still seeping pus. Red, angry flesh twisting together as it tried to close itself up from the air. Tried to heal itself in the most gruesome way possible.

  “He did this. That demon did this to me. Did this to you.” Torrie grabbed her left arm again, shaking it. “These are his sins and he needs to pay.”

  “It’s not that simple, Torrie. It—”

  “It is.” A bitter sneer curled Torrie’s lips. “You ken exactly what he took from us, Sloane. What he did to us. You need to make him suffer—suffer for all he’s done.”

  The hatred palpitating off her cousin sent an icy shiver down Sloane’s spine.

  “Torrie, when—how—there is so much malice in your voice. It is not you. This was my idea to go after the man responsible—my want for vengeance. You—you tried to talk me out of it—you—”

  “This pain has left only hatred in my heart, Sloane.” The hard glint in Torrie’s eyes didn’t wane. “It is awful yet true. But hatred is all I have left.”

  “Tor, no.” Sloane grabbed her hand, clutching it. Torrie was the kindest person she knew. She’d always held the softest heart out of all of them.

  “I have not found a way to be otherwise. I cannot even cry on it anymore, Sloane. My tears are gone. The pain took too many and now I am left with none. Maybe someday, but I fear I have little hope for it. Every thought I have now is red—only anger.”

  “Torrie, you cannot mean that.”

  Torrie’s eyes pierced her. “Even at you I am angry, Sloane.”

  Sloane’s head snapped back. “Me? Why?”

  “You pulled me out of there. You put the flames out. I should have died. I should have died with all of them.” Torrie’s hand swept down to her leg. “Instead I am here, a grotesque mess of a being.”

  “No, don’t say that—you’re not grotesque, Tor—never. You just need to give it time. You’re still healing.”

  “Am I?” A caustic chuckle left Torrie’s lips. “From where I lay, I’m not healing. I’m turning into something that I don’t recognize anymore.” Her mouth closed, pulling back into a severe line as her look skewered Sloane. “So finish it or don’t finish it with the duke, Sloane. I don’t care. It’s not going to help my anger. My anger isn’t going away. Ever.”

  “Tor—”

  Torrie’s look swung to the fire, her arms clasping over her ribcage. “Just get out, Sloane. Get out, and don’t come back.”

  “Torrie…” The name fell to silence on Sloane’s tongue.

  Domnall was right. Torrie had descended into a dark, dark place. And she wasn’t sure if her cousin had hope of ever being whole again.

  She scooted backward off the bed, her look staying on Torrie. Her cousin didn’t so much as blink, much less look away from the fire as Sloane backed to the door.

  Escaping out into the coolness of the corridor, Sloane paused to lean against the doorframe and drag a deep breath into her lungs.

  What had become of her cousin? She had seen the signs before she had left months ago—but this was beyond anything Sloane could have imagined.

  Torrie was drowning in so much hate that she couldn’t move forward with life.

  With her chest aching for the pain her cousin was in, one thing became clear.

  She didn’t want to become like Torrie.

  Eaten to the bone with hatred.

  Sloane had thought she needed justice. That she needed it to move forward.

  But maybe it wasn’t the key to moving forward.

  Maybe she just needed to move forward.

  { Chapter 10 }

  “Milly, did you discover if they will have a coach for us by early afternoon?”

  The door clicked closed. Sloane didn’t bother turning around to her maid as she finished folding her spare chemise and set it onto the bed next to her valise. She needed to finish packing if they were to leave the coaching inn today.

  “Where in the bloody devil do you think you’re going to next?”

  Double—no triple hell.

  He found her.

  Sloane froze, her stare on the wall in front of her. Every nerve on her body spiked, prickling her skin from her scalp to her toes.

  The air crackled around her, crackled like it did every time Reiner was within five feet of her.

  But this was more. This was dangerous. The air not only crackled, it sparked—near to singeing her with the rage that accompanied the man behind her.

  Hiding her motion, she picked up her chemise and slid it slowly into the valise in front of her on the bed. Her fingers dipped downward in the bag, searching. She found it. Bl
ade. Handle.

  Gripping her dagger tight in her hand, she whipped around, the blade pointed at Reiner before he could move across the room to her.

  His chest lifted in a seething heave and he stepped toward her, directly at the blade aimed at his heart. “You remembered. Everything. And then you betrayed me.” His words thundered into the room.

  “What?” She jumped a step sideways.

  He advanced, his words a growl. “You remembered what you were doing at Wolfbridge and you didn’t come to me. Didn’t tell me. You swore you would.”

  “I swore nothing.” Her breath sped and she turned slightly to back up. Her shoulder blades hit the wall. She moved to her left, circling him with the blade still high.

  He kept stalking her, his fury palpitating. Kept rounding about her, advancing on her until the tip of the blade was poking into his gut just below his ribcage.

  His feet stopped, the deep lines on his face hardening into cold countenance until he was almost unrecognizable. He looked down at the blade, then dragged his vicious gaze up to her face. “You don’t want to do that, Sloane.” The words seethed through clenched teeth.

  She twisted the dagger against his gut, the sharp tip tearing a hole in his waistcoat. “No? Do I have a choice?”

  A blur in front of her eyes, he swung his arm through the air, his fingers gripping onto her wrist and twisting her blade-holding right hand away from his belly. Before she could blink, he snatched her other wrist and wrenched both of her arms above her head and shoved her backward.

  The length of her backside slammed into the doorway. His clamps on her wrists tightened and he knocked her right hand against the door. The knife dropped from her fingers, clattering to the floor by her feet.

  He leaned down over her, his fuming breath in her face. “You left me.”

  “I did.” Her arms twisted under his fingers. Iron grips she wasn’t about to escape. “You said I could leave at any time.”

  “And I never said I wouldn’t follow.” A savage growl vibrated his chest and he knocked her uplifted arms into the door again. His knuckles took the bruise of the blow more than her arms did. “You made Vicky cry—hysterically. And the look she gave me—she hates me—hates that I drove you away.”