Page 32 of Wolf’s Return (The Wolves of Langeais #4)

Constance busied herself prepping the herbs for her ward, tearing at the leaves of the angelica plant.

It had been a shock to discover the name Cordoylla.

And to learn the woman responsible for the Langeais wolves had the same curse—two different colored eyes—as she and Cordelia, the witch the villagers had cast from the d’Louncrais village.

But the greater impact had come from D’Artagnon.

He thought Genevieve exceptional. She had been.

There was no denying it. She had braved death to be with the man she loved.

She focused on her hands, aware of D’Artagnon’s regard and conscious of the sting of tears that threatened.

Erin had forsaken her life in the future for Gaharet.

Chosen not to pursue finding a way back to her century.

As had Rebekah. Kathryn had lived a life in hiding for years.

Now she was learning how to wield a sword.

Each one of them was exceptional in their own way.

She was a peasant, an outcast, no one special, and here she was, over the last few days, imagining…

A chair scraped along the floor, then he was behind her, placing gentle hands on her shoulders. “Constance?”

The deep growl as he spoke her name, sent shivers down her spine. She wiped away a stray tear with the heel of her hand. “I am sorry, D’Artagnon, I… It was a foolish notion, something from my childhood.”

“What notion?”

Mother help her, the man had spoken more words tonight than in the past five days, nay the past nine years, and it would be her undoing.

“The other vision you spoke of?” His warm breath whispered across her temple.

She rolled her lips together and tracked the trail of smoke as it swirled out of the roof hole, caught between her sorrow and her shame.

Of course he remembered. Made the connection.

He may have been silent, but his eyes, his hearing, and his mind were sharp.

He had listened to every word, followed every gesture and had watched over her with a diligence bordering on obsession. He missed nothing.

D’Artagnon rubbed his hands down her arms and back up again. Perhaps he meant to comfort her, but goosebumps prickled across her skin and her stomach did a little flip, which served only to increase the depth of her misery.

“Tell me.”

Constance hung her head. “I…”

With gentle insistence, he turned her to face him. He hooked a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “Tell me.”

Soft words, a mere whisper of sound, but they tore at her resistance. “The day the villagers forced my mother and I to leave our village for the cottage in the forest, I had a vision about my future. At least, I believed I had.”

She turned her head away and his hand dropped from her chin to her shoulder. Constance sucked in a deep breath, aware of the closeness of their bodies and the subtle rise and fall of his chest.

“I was untrained in the ways of my second sight. My mother did not have it, so she could not teach me. But she knew enough to caution me about visions I had of myself. To be wary of influencing them with my own desires. That they may not reveal the future at all, but rather my hopes and fears.”

Silence stretched between them. She glanced up. With the patience of a wolf hunting prey, he waited for her to continue, to bare her soul to him.

Constance’s lip trembled. “What I saw that day… I… There was a cottage in a clearing, and a woman. A woman with blonde hair. She was there with a black wolf, her mate, and a little girl. I believed…” Her breath hitched.

“I knew the Black Wolf would come to me in the forest. And he did. Your brother did come. I believed, I hoped, the Black Wolf would come for me, but I was wrong. So wrong. The woman in my vision was Erin, and the little girl, the child now growing in her womb.”

His blue gaze bored into her, and it was all she could do to continue.

“I had resigned myself to that, to the truth of my mother’s words, but then your brother called me to the d’Louncrais keep, and there you were…”

Constance closed her eyes, unable to look at him, to stare into the depths of his eye at the derision and rejection she would find there.

“That night, when you shifted and…and I realized I had seen your face before…that you had shifted before, while I was sleeping, while you were sleeping…” She shook her head.

“It may have only been the potion I had prepared, but it gave me hope there was a man who would see past what I am, ignore my eyes, and see me as a woman. That mayhap what I’d seen as a child was a vision and not a little girl’s fantasy.

That it was me in that clearing, with the black wolf and the little girl. ”

His hands dropped from her shoulders, and she hung her head, waiting for him to back away.

She had bared her soul and her foolish hopes.

Constance braced herself, waiting for the inevitable—to be spurned as Tristan had spurned her all those years ago.

But while Tristan’s betrayal had burned, her feelings for D’Artagnon ran deeper.

It would not be so easy to put him behind her.

Not after their days here at the cottage, where she had glimpsed beyond the black wolf, beyond his pain and his scars, to the man beneath.

The man who comforted her in her distress.

Who patrolled the forest every day, protecting her.

Fetched water and collected wood for the fire.

Sat in silent company while they ate meals together.

She wanted, with all her heart, for one precious moment, to be seen as desirable by this man.

Large, warm hands cupped her face, and she gasped.

The soft brush of his lips on hers stole her breath away.

Then deeper, firmer, taking her mouth with his.

Hope, and a desire so fierce, ripped through her body.

He pulled her into his arms, engulfed her in his embrace and all the promise of her childhood vision came alive, more potent reality and less an impossible dream.

D’Artagnon reveled in the feel of his little healer in his arms. Too long had he resisted this.

Too long had he avoided the cottage as naked she had replenished her protection ward.

Shifted to wolf and slept at the foot of the cot, watching over her as she had slept, denying his body and his soul that which he needed.

Her. His brother had been right. Had seen the truth of it during those few days at the keep.

D’Artagnon needed Constance. Like his wolf needed the forest. Perhaps more.

He had fought against it. What did he have to offer her?

With his enemy alive and yet to pay for his crimes, D’Artagnon’s craving for vengeance still flowed through his veins like molten steel.

He could not be the mate she desired. The mate she deserved .

He could not offer her much, but he could give her this.

Give himself this, and maybe, when the trials of his pack were over…

He coaxed her mouth open and slid his tongue in, tasting her.

Wanting to be a part of her in every way possible.

Craving her sweetness, her gentleness to smooth over the rough edges of the darkness inside him.

Perhaps this was Constance’s true power, not her second sight. Her empathy and her quiet persistence.

She was the most resilient woman he had ever met.

Against all the hardships she had faced in her life, she was still willing to give of herself to aid others.

And him. After all those villages she had fled, forced out by superstitious and ungrateful people, having lived half her life alone in that forlorn, rickety little hut, seeing his brother with his mate and believing she had misinterpreted her vision, she was still capable of hope.

The woman was… He sucked her scent deep into his lungs, into his soul… . Extraordinary.

Constance moaned into his mouth, her small, calloused hands clutching at his tunic.

Merde.

That little sound, that little puff of breath, shot straight to his cock. He needed her naked. Now . But he cautioned himself to be gentle, to not frighten her. To take his time and be as patient as she had been with him. To worship her and treat her like the goddess she was.

Her eyes flew open as he dropped his arms and stepped away from her, the resignation in them all but breaking his heart.

D’Artagnon ripped his tunic over his head and dropped it to the floor, satisfied when the flicker of surprise shifted to heat as her gaze fell on his naked chest. He kicked off his boots and peeled down his breeches.

Tossing them aside, he stood before her and let all his desire, his need for her, show.

She swallowed and reached for the stays of her dress. He closed the distance between them, his hand covering hers, stilling her fingers.

“I do not understand. I thought…”

D’Artagnon tilted her head, forcing her to look at him. Beautiful blue and green eyes searched his face. That she had seen the evidence of his arousal and had any doubt at all he wanted her saddened him.

He dropped a gentle kiss on her forehead and another on her nose.

She gasped when he sank to his knees before her and unlaced first one boot, then the other.

Taking her hand in his, he placed it on his shoulder and lifted her leg.

She leaned on him as he slipped her boot from her foot.

Unlike her calloused palms, the skin of her foot was smooth and pale, and he dipped his head, pressing his lips to her delicate arch. Her toes curled.

He met her gaze and dropped another kiss on the top of her foot, one at her ankle and, sliding the hem of her dress higher, one on her shin.

Her body trembled and her eyes glazed over.

D’Artagnon set her foot down and lifted the other, repeating his actions, never once releasing her heated gaze.

He would show her, prove to her that which she doubted—that he desired her. With everything he had.

D’Artagnon rose. With gentle hands, he wrapped her arms around his neck, and she curled her fingers in his hair as he worked at the laces of her dress.

First one side, then the other, his fingers as impatient as the rest of his body.

He ran his hands down over the gentle flare of her hips and, bunching the fabric of her dress in his fists, he slowly dragged it up over her head.

He cast it aside. She stared up at him with hooded eyes and parted lips.

L’enfer, she was everything he had dreamed of as a boy.

Everything he could have asked for. And she had been right there, in the forest outside Langeais all this time.

Had his father not been murdered, the connection between Constance’s coven and the Langeais wolves would have remained intact.

Had one of their own not attacked him, their bond would have been stronger.

The younger D’Artagnon, the one who had yet to know betrayal and exile, would have claimed her as his mate. Without hesitation.

He dropped his head to the crook of her neck and ran his nose along the column of her throat, breathing in her scent as though he could hold it in his lungs forever.

With an arch of her neck, she gave him greater access, and his canines punched through his gums. His wolf wanted her.

To bite, claim, and make her one of them.

Every instinct he had screamed at him to do it. To make her his.

D’Artagnon forced his canines to retract, his gums throbbing and his chest heaving with the effort. Regret lodged in his throat. As much as he wanted to, he could not offer her that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Instead, he dropped soft, open-mouthed kisses on the fast-beating thread of her pulse, his tongue flicking out to taste her. She shivered, and he delighted in her response. He would have her writhing beneath him soon. Devote this whole night to her as though they had no cares in this world.

He slipped her underdress over her head and let it fall to the floor. Only her chemise remained. So many nights he had tormented himself with the shadow of her form beneath the thin material. No more. He eased it off her, and it joined the rest of their garments.

With fingers that shook, he unpinned her braids and removed the ties.

The rise and fall of her chest, the heady fragrance of her filling his nostrils, tested his control, and his willingness to be patient.

He fought against the urge to swoop her up in his arms, to let loose the beast inside and plunder the delights of her body.

Instead, he ran his fingers through the lengths of spun gold, teasing them out so they hung over her shoulders and across her breasts.

Delicate pink nipples peeked out between the strands, taunting him.

He would have them in his hands, in his mouth, many times before the night was through.

A growl rumbled deep in his chest. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

If he had to suffer all his years in exile, the bite of the blade in his shoulder and the slash of steel across his face again in order to be here with her now, he would not hesitate. He would do it all again. For her.

The memories of his betrayal, the agony of his injuries, and his need for vengeance slipped away. Here in the cottage, in this moment, with the promise of tonight hanging thick in the air between them, nothing could touch them. Not their past, nor their future. There was only now.