Page 44 of Wolf’s Return (The Wolves of Langeais #4)

D’Artagnon rode up to the keep, the Langeais wolves and Lothair at his side and a full contingent of keep guards at his back.

The ride had been long and the horses were tired, but at the sight of the raised portcullis, he pushed his horse to canter up the hill.

He had known something was wrong when they had ridden through the village, the peasant women urging them to hurry on to the keep.

D’Artagnon reined his horse in and leaped down, racing through the open main door, Gaharet close on his heels. He caught a scent, familiar and yet out of place, but he brushed his concern aside, ran down the corridor and burst into the hall.

The room was in chaos. Villagers and guards from the ramparts milled around.

Torn clothing, women’s clothing, lay scattered about the floor.

Anne and Erin clutched each other, Erin, a cloak wrapped around her and Anne’s face red and puffy from crying.

Erin was safe. Gaharet’s relief filled his senses, matching his own.

“Where is Lance?” asked Gaharet.

Erin shook her head. “Gone. He zapped himself out of here the same way he zapped himself in.”

D’Artagnon looked around for Constance. Both Bek and Kathryn hovered beside Erin, also wrapped in cloaks.

The she-wolves had shifted. Then he spotted it.

The body, covered in a blanket, a pool of blood seeping from beneath it.

Two separate shapes beneath it. One large, one small. A torso and a head.

No. He stumbled forward and sank to his knees. With trembling fingers, he lifted the blanket. The rheumy eyes, glazed in death, of Old Tumas stared back at him.

“It is Tumas,” he croaked.

“Yes. He saved us,” said Erin, a heavy sadness in her voice.

“Where is Constance?”

“I…” Erin frowned, looking over her shoulder and around the room. “She was right here.”

D’Artagnon searched the crowd. “Constance!”

The room fell silent.

“Constance,” he roared, pushing through the crowd of people. Where was she? Was she hurt?

“She would not have left, do you think?”

D’Artagnon sought the tentative voice, his gaze landing on Aimon’s redheaded mate, Kathryn. “Why would she have left?”

Erin and Kathryn shared a glance.

“Because she thought you didn’t want her as a mate,” said Bek, stepping forward. “Ridiculous, I know, but that’s what she thought. That she wasn’t enough for you.”

Not enough? No . She was… She was everything.

The crowd parted, allowing Lothair, flanked by his guard, through. “We need to hunt Lance down. We cannot have him on the loose.”

“He’s injured,” said Erin. “Tumas skewered him in the side with a pitchfork. Won’t that slow him down?”

“It will,” agreed Gaharet. “That should give us an advantage.”

Lance. The traitor to the pack. His nemesis. He should want to go after him, be eager to exact his revenge, but he could not dredge up any enthusiasm for the task, or any of his old rage. Constance had gone. She was his everything. How had he not seen that?

Constance’s riddle, her vision. He clasped his head in his hands.

She had warned him. He had misunderstood.

Chosen wrong. It was not her that was never meant to be his, but revenge.

L’enfer. Constance was right. His brother was right.

Revenge belonged to all of them. The greater reward, if he had the courage in his heart…

The realization sliced through him, cutting away his years of exile, his anger and his sense of failure, leaving but one thought.

The only thing that truly mattered. Constance.

His mate. She was the greater reward. And with his driving need to take his vengeance gone, there was room in his heart for her.

For them. And a life they could forge together.

He spun away from the crowd. The noise, the people, the ache in his chest and the deep well of emotions that boiled up in him too much.

He had lost her. Constance was gone. D’Artagnon eyed the doorway leading to the back stairs of the kitchen, and he stumbled toward them.

He needed air. He needed the forest. The weight of his brother’s gaze tracked him across the hall.

D’Artagnon paused in the doorway and glanced over his shoulder, an apology on his lips.

He stilled. Wait. There was that scent again, familiar and yet wrong.

It was strong, pulling him into his memories.

Of a time before Lance had cut him down.

When he was but a young lad. It teased at him, brought to mind a stable hand with lank hair and a greasy smile.

Didier. Overlaying it all, the fragrance he would, could, never forget.

Constance. It carried the taint of her fear.

And the coppery scent of her blood. He spied a sword on the steps.

She did not leave. She was taken. By Didier. And she was injured.

D’Artagnon unbuckled his scabbard and dropped it to the floor. He wrenched at his vambraces.

Gaharet strode across the hall toward him, a curious Lothair right behind him. “D’Artagnon?”

“She did not leave, Gaharet. Didier took her.”

Lothair quirked a brow. “Didier?”

“A miscreant stable hand my father threw off our estate when I was a boy,” said Gaharet.

D’Artagnon firmed his resolve. “I am going after her.”

“What would this Didier want with this Constance? Is she your witch?” asked Lothair.

D’Artagnon paused. Her vision. Constance bound and pleading before a priest. Faucher. From what he remembered of Didier, he could believe him capable of selling Constance out for money. How had he known she was a witch? How had he known she was here? What was Didier doing here, back in the keep?

“I think he has taken her to the witch hunter.”

Gaharet blanched. “Go, D’Artagnon. Find Constance. Save your mate and bring her home.”

D’Artagnon stripped away his greaves, and removed his hauberk and gambeson.

“Everybody out! Now!” Gaharet roared, his voice layered with alpha command.

The villagers, the keep guard, the servants all turned and fled. Lothair flinched, but remained where he was. D’Artagnon ignored him, stripping off his boots, tunic and breeches.

“Aubert, Edmond, take fresh horses and go with him.” Gaharet scooped up D’Artagnon’s armor and clothing and shoved them into Aubert’s hands. “You don’t know what you’ll face, or where Faucher will be.”

Lothair’s curiosity blazed in his eyes. “Go to the chapel. There are storerooms beneath it, perfect for holding prisoners. That is where I would keep her if I were Faucher.”

D’Artagnon nodded, surprised the comte had offered the information.

“Try not to kill him, if you can. The last thing I need is for another high-ranking churchman to go missing in my county.”

D’Artagnon grunted. He would try, but nothing, not Didier, not Faucher, would stand in his way when it came to Constance. If they did, their life was forfeit.

Gaharet beckoned Remi over. “Take the boy with you. He could prove useful.”

D’Artagnon nodded. “Gaharet”—he faced his brother, shaking out his limbs in preparation for his shift—“when you find Lance, kill him slowly.”

Gaharet squeezed his good shoulder, a hard glint in his eyes. “You have my word.”

Lothair might be certain Faucher would confine Kathryn beneath the Langeais chapel, but D’Artagnon would trust his nose over the comte any day.

He called forth his wolf. Dark hair sprouted across his naked body, and with a crack and pop of bones sliding, readjusting and realigning, D’Artagnon dropped to all fours.

The awe, the longing in Lothair’s eyes, he ignored.

His brother could deal with the comte. D’Artagnon had his mate to find.

On swift paws, he flew down the back stairs, through the kitchen and into the bailey.

He skirted the keep guards, their shouts, their wary eyes following him, and raced down the hill and beneath the portcullis.

All the while, he kept his nose to the ground, following the trail left by the banished stable hand and Constance.

He had barely made it into the forest when the trail went cold, but the pile of fresh manure told him what had happened.

Didier had mounted a horse. It did not matter.

D’Artagnon could track the horse as easily as he could Didier.

He picked up its scent and set off after it.

As he bounded through the forest, Aubert and Edmond, mounted on horseback, flanked him.

The boy, Remi, bouncing along in his saddle behind them.

As D’Artagnon crossed out of d’Louncrais territory, a familiar presence tracked alongside them. Vladimir.

He settled into a loping gait. I am coming, Constance. He would not return without her.