Alice was still beautiful, but in a different way. The torture had marked her, made her stronger and yet haunting. This was a woman with a past that a man wanted to know. Her history made her appealing and roused his protective urges. The shadow in her eyes called to him. This woman had walked through a nightmare and emerged as something else.
“Tell me your nightmare, Ewan. What makes you wake in the middle of the night in a sweat?” she whispered against his skin.
Could he confess to her? Alice had laid herself bare to him and honour said he should reciprocate. But if he gave her a glimpse, it would be like putting a crack in his wall. One tiny split could undermine his entire defensive structure.
She is already within you. She is the water that breaches impenetrable walls, his mother whispered.
His fingers tangled in her short hair. “My nightmare is loving someone.”
She glanced up, a frown creasing between her brows. “How is love a nightmare?”
How to articulate that love was to him what the dark was to her? Something he should fear. His wolf would never have a mate. “We hurt that which we love. If I loved someone, I would destroy them.”
She laid a hand flat over his heart. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. It is a truth hidden in my bones. I will never love.” He had hoped the lycanthrope sickness would burn away the taint of his family. But the monster that always dwelled within him had not budged when he took the bite.
He had seen what his father did in the name of love, and he and his brother were cut from the same cloth. Ewan knew what his family were capable of, so he protected both himself and some unfortunate woman by ensuring his heart stayed dormant. Cold. Untouched.
He could share pleasure. But never love.
10
Ewan
* * *
The storm ran its course overnight. The next morning saw a spectacular sunrise, lit with riotous shades of pink and orange as the sun peered over the horizon and chased the clouds away. Ewan stirred from his comfortable position to find a sleeping woman curled up in his arms, a snoring terrier at his side, and a hitherto unknown sense of contentment in his soul. Even his wolf slept, a rarity since he’d been injured.
Ewan had not meant to stay the entire night. He intended to only linger long enough to see Alice fall back into a restful sleep. As he had waited for her eyelids to droop, he had told her tales that his mother used to tell him at bedtime, of daring adventures of mages from history and their magical battles.
Once she nodded off, he found he couldn’t bring himself to move. He told himself he didn’t want to disturb her. Then he whispered liar. He wanted her in his arms. He needed the sense of trust and understanding her slumbering form washed through him. Only holding her close soothed the agony that racked his wolf.
For a little while, he wanted to imagine what it would be like to love and be loved in return. What would it be like to find your wolf’s mate, that one person who perfectly complemented your Unnatural soul and who would ignite a passion that would burn until death?
The colours of dawn spilled over the floor in the bedroom as though the window was stained glass. A rug in hues of brown and green covered the bare floorboards and reminded him of the leafy tops of mounded leeks peeking out of the earth. Ewan glanced around, but there was little to learn about the woman from Alice’s room.
Sparse, he thought. He had seen more possessions in tents while on campaign. But then Alice had had nothing when they took her from Bedlam, and she seemed to spend her days running through fields and forest. It wasn’t as though the young woman spent her days shopping and acquiring fripperies.
It bothered him that she had nothing here that looked worn or familiar. No little trinkets or objects that caught her fancy and nothing used to decorate the room apart from the rug and a vase of grasses and pussy willow. Her lack of personal possessions suggested that she somehow wasn’t real and was only temporarily in this world. She was a forest sprite who ran through the woods but who left no footprint in the earth.
He slipped his arm out from under Alice and patted Eilidh, who had cracked one eye open and then closed it again. Then he padded across the worn rug and returned to his room. His mind remained fixated on Alice. Even away from her, he felt the press of her skin against him as he dressed. The faint rosemary and thyme scent of her hair drifted up to his nostrils. Every day he spent with her, she seeped deeper into his soul and mind.
An hour later down in the kitchen, Ewan opened the back door to let out the small, furry cannon ball that had barrelled down the stairs and shot across the floor. Then he sat at the pine table while Alice prepared the fragrant oil to massage his arm.
“Thank you, for last night,” she whispered as she took her seat beside him and began the work.
“Eilidh fetched me to wake you. You should thank her.” His shoulders dropped as she began with a general massage, working the oil into his muscle before she went deeper into the tendons.
“I do, every day. Just as I thank Quinn for giving her to me. But you gave me a different type of comfort when I most needed it.” She poured more warmed oil into her hands as she took longer strokes from wrist to elbow.
He couldn’t brush aside her thanks. He drew the woman from the grip of a nightmare, but in return she gave him something infinitely more valuable—a sense of peace and of being needed. “I would ride through Hell to free you if I could.”
She looked up, her eyes bottomless pools of deep green that reminded him of the waterfall in their glade, or the finest piece of jade that seduced your hand to caress it.
“We are both in Hell, looking for our way out.” She returned to stretching the tendons that held his hand captive.
He would make sure she broke free. It didn’t matter if he sacrificed himself, as long as Alice finally made her way to the surface and lived a long and happy life.
His fingers showed the results of her work; each day they curled or straightened a little further. The deep ache in the ulna and radius bones lessened and relieved some of the pressure in his mind. At times, the combined assault on his senses from both the injuries and the silver poison in his blood nearly breached his self-control. He would have to stand still and draw a deep breath while he locked the pain away behind his barricade. Not for the first time, he pondered his decision to put off going to see the mages. He couldn’t continue like this. Even if Alice’s work helped, it was no permanent solution.
Alice’s hands on his flesh created intimacy with her head bowed over his arm and her breath whispering over his skin. What would it be like to have her on her knees, tackling the deep ache in his thigh where the bullet leached its magical venom? Something he thought long dead stirred in his chest. He rubbed the spot in the centre of his sternum with his good hand, trying to disperse the sensation.
Their deal was that he would teach her to protect herself, and she would work on his physical injury to buy him a little more time. He didn’t want anyone touching the wounds he carried deep inside. It was better that they were left to fester in the dark. Being incapable of love was safer; it meant no woman would ever suffer his family curse at his hands.
But this woman was rain on parched earth, and she seeped into the cracks to reach far below. Like the seedlings she tended with such care in the garden, she had planted a seed within him that unfurled and reached for her warmth.
He rubbed at his chest again as he remembered her asleep in his arms. Why couldn’t he leave last night when he should have? Curious, but he would remain resolute to avoid any emotional entanglement. He simply felt a kinship with Alice after all she had been through, and it was nothing more.
In the very back of his mind, his wolf sniggered as though it knew something he did not.
Later that day, Ewan rummaged in the tack room attached to the barn. Quinn had told him that what he sought would be found out there. Eventually, he spotted what he needed slung over a saddle on a high rack: old saddlebags. He used a broom to knock them d
own, and then headed back inside to find Alice.
He dropped the bags on the table. They were battered and worn, perfect for their needs. “We must think about our journey and what to pack. The nights are getting warmer and we should leave soon. We can only take what you can fit into the saddlebags.”
Alice rubbed her hands down her apron. “I have very little, and the one thing I cannot leave behind would never fit in there.”
He frowned. What could she want to bring that wouldn’t fit in a saddlebag? He could only think of the large botany book, and that would be safer in Ianthe’s parlour and would still be here when she returned. She wasn’t a woman for jewellery or fine dresses, so he doubted it was an item of clothing. Although since they were heading to a larger town, perhaps he could take her shopping one day to buy something frivolous.
Then a flash of silver under the table caught his eye and he grinned. “Ah, of course. Eilidh.”
He was a little relieved, too; the dog was a fierce protector of her mistress. The terrier would guard Alice when Ewan wasn’t around. Alice’s skill with a knife grew daily, and he suspected she used a touch of her mage-blood gift to help the blade find its target. Ewan had no doubt any man who tried to harm her would find himself breathing through a new hole in his chest.
She bent down and fussed with the terrier. “Eilidh won’t be any trouble, I promise. I will share my meals with her, so she won’t take any extra food.”
The lump in Ewan’s chest moved and ached. The wolf pricked its ears, for it claimed the little dog as part of its pack and no member ever went hungry.
There were brief moments when he thought Alice had found her way out from the dark, and then she let something slip that tumbled everything around her. Did she really think he would begrudge her the dog’s company or the small amount she would eat?
“Alice.” He murmured her name. What could he say to quiet the demons that attacked her mind? “I would not dream of depriving you of Eilidh’s company. Of course she must come with us.”
Her head shook and one hand wiped at her face before she stood. “Thank you.”
“Here.” He held his arms open and she stepped to him. Her body gave a shudder and then she sighed. Not for the first time, he wondered for whose benefit he sought to hold her—hers or his?
After a moment, she pulled away, the faint trace of a smile on her lips. “I’ll go pack now. It won’t take me long.”
Ewan stood immobile even after the kitchen door closed on her retreating form. Partial ideas struggled to coalesce in his mind. He had come to Northamptonshire to lick his wounds while he figured out his future. Now he added a new item to his list of objectives—a future for Alice.
He had joined the army at sixteen and knew no other life. The work as an agent of the Crown had suited his temperament, and then he found a new sort of brotherhood in the Highland Wolves. While his injuries removed him from active deployment, he hoped to show the War Office that a crippled spy could still be an effective one. Finding Forge was an opportunity to prove he could still undertake covert assignments outside of his regiment, even if the mages failed to cure him.
That left the issue of finding a path for Alice. Ewan knew wealthy matrons who might offer her a post as companion. But his mind baulked at the thought. Carrying another woman’s parcels and reticule for the rest of her life would condemn Alice to a submissive role. Perhaps with her interest in plants and botany, she could find work with an apothecary?
Being mage blooded meant she could always find work using her gift, but that often meant a life on the fringes of society. While mages were ranked equivalent to a duke, it was an honour conferred to only the mage and did not flow to their descendants. The mage blooded were only accorded the position they were born with, meaning the village girl would always be seen as a poor, working class woman.
Any possible avenues of employment he came up with seemed too constrained to suit the new, emerging Alice. There was a wildness about her, and she needed to be free whatever she did. Perhaps a course of action would present itself while they were in Kent.
Thoughts were still circling in his mind as he went upstairs and packed his saddlebags. He took little, for what would an impoverished soldier have? Their wealth would rest in the two horses Quinn would procure on their trip to view the broodmares. The fewer physical possessions they had, the easier it would be to pass themselves off as persons in need of employment, either legitimate or not.
Ianthe and Quinn returned late that afternoon. Ianthe drove the gig with three horses tied behind. Quinn rode a plain-looking bay and led another near identical horse from it.
Ianthe beamed as she pulled her procession to a halt by the farmhouse. “I managed to procure two of the most amazing broodmares and one horrid thing that Quinn insisted on having.”
Ewan held out his good hand to help Ianthe down while Quinn dismounted.
Quinn scowled at his mate, and then pointed to a gangly-looking chestnut that would have resembled a giraffe if you painted patches on it. “Look at her legs and deep chest. She’ll breed winning racehorses, that one. You wait and see.”
“The day you can win a race without killing yourself on one of these mad horses you seem Hell-bent on breeding, that will be the day I agree to marry you,” Ianthe said.
Quinn grabbed her hand and kissed her palm. “There is a bet I most readily accept.”
“And horses for us, I see.” Ewan nodded to the two solid bays and curtailed the display of affection before the lovers got carried away.
“Plain and cheap, as you asked. And with an absolutely horrid, jarring trot, so it’s just as well you don’t have any plans for a family.” Quinn winced as he walked. “There’s also the clothing you requested.”
“Let’s get this lot settled and then we can all go inside for a drink. Quinn can regale you with how he’s going to eat his hat when his horrid mare whelps a pup instead of a foal.” Ianthe winked at her partner and untied her two broodmares.
11
Alice
* * *
The day finally dawned when they would depart. Alice sat on the bed in her room and stared at her blank walls. A vase on the window ledge held bracts of pussy willow left over from winter. Their fat, furry heads made her smile. Would she return to this room to pick more pussy willow next winter?
Of course she would, even though they ventured to capture a dangerous creature. Both Ewan and Eilidh would guard her. Her fingers curled in the quilt—what was she doing about to embark on a dangerous mission with a man she had known only a few short months?
She rose and paced back and forth, debating with herself. She had spoken with such conviction about being included and going as support to Ewan. Now the day had arrived, and cold dread swirled in her stomach.
You need to do this to be free, a voice deep in her mind counselled. You need to face what frightens you most in order to defeat it.
“Yes,” she whispered, and stopped before the window. The face reflected in the thick glass was no longer the face of a terrified girl. This was the face of a confident woman. Leaving the protective shelter of Ianthe was the first tear in her casing, and soon the new version of her would emerge.
Alice’s hand went to her neck and the silver wolf, its head warmed by the contact with her skin. Each day she had tried using her mage blood to summon an object. So far she had managed to make an acorn on the table tremble but not move. It was a start, but would she ever be strong enough to draw a bullet through flesh and bone?
When you are free, you will be able to free Ewan, the voice said.
Strange, she would’ve thought at a time like this it would be her dead mother who offered her counsel, but this was the voice of another.
Turning the words over in her mind, Alice picked up her saddlebags and left her room. Her resolve waned as she descended the stairs and then helped saddle the horses. Doubts ate at her conviction and tore holes in her determination. Perhaps it was too soon. How easy it would be to run and to hid
e in the glade for another year or two. The idea of returning to village life with its crowd of people made her chest constrict, as though someone squeezed her lungs.
“The others don’t think I can do this,” Alice said to Ewan as he double-checked the contents of his saddlebags.
Ewan glanced at Ianthe and Quinn and then back to Alice. “I think a bird doesn’t know if it can fly until it leaps from the nest. You just need a little faith as you jump.”
How did this man understand her so completely? His words rippled through her body, and a small piece of Alice’s soul fell back into place. It didn’t quite fit back into the shape where she had torn it from because the edges were worn and the patch was visible, but bit-by-bit she rebuilt herself.
No, transformed herself.
Ianthe broke away from the others. Tears shimmered in her eyes as she embraced Alice. “Do be careful. I will never forgive myself, or Ewan, if anything happens to you.”
“The sight still has not given you any sign of our success?” Alice asked.
Ianthe shook her head. “I am blind and it terrifies me. I wish I had not ignored my gift all these years. Then I might have been able to command it to show me your safe return.”
“We will prevail.” Alice kissed her friend’s cheek. She borrowed strength from Ewan and the unknown voice that whispered from the depths of her mind; they both believed she could undertake this journey, and that assuaged her doubts. “Thank you, Ianthe, for rescuing me and giving me a chance. Now I need to spread my wings and see if I can fly.”
Ianthe held her at arm’s length and screwed up her face. “Why couldn’t you test your wings here?”
How could she explain it to her friend? She needed to embrace danger, to dare life to strike her down and to see what happened. If she faltered and fell, then she would pick herself up and try again. No one would beat her down this time. “Because it is too safe here. We will keep in touch; I am not going forever, after all. Only for a little while. And Seabrook is not so far away.”
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