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Averell sighed as she once more paced the length and breadth of her sumptuous room in the Annanvale castle.
After she and Quinn had laid in the grass during that peaceful interlude, the rumbling of her stomach had brought an end to it. He’d suggested they mount up and continue their travels. Two hours later, they’d arrived, rode over the drawbridge and were inside the walls that surrounded the town proper. Many greetings were called to her bearded companion, and genuine respect and fondness reflected on every face they encountered.
Not long after, he’d ushered her into his home and she hadn’t stopped gawking at the luxury ever since. Everywhere she turned there were gilt-framed paintings, plush carpets, draperies of rich fabrics and sparkling jewels upon figurines, chandeliers and even in the collars of dogs they’d passed in the halls.
She wasn’t presented to any of his family or other members of the court, much to her relief. Instead, Quinn led her into the kitchens, to the delight of the staff, where she was plied with all manner of food and drink until she cried mercy with a stuffed belly. He had laughed, and his smile sparkled in his gaze and crinkling the corners of his eyes. That was how she would always remember him, and her heart had constricted for the knowledge that their time together was limited. He’d led her away, up three flights of stairs and into a guest room that was nicer than any cottage she’d ever visited.
He’d kissed her forehead, rang for a bath to be brought in and then he left her alone, promising to check on her later, explaining he had much to see to in the way of security.
An hour later, she’d stepped out of a copper tub and cooling water and into a night dress of fine lawn trimmed with inches of ruffled lace. How the people in the castle knew her measurements was beyond her, but she didn’t begrudge anyone the garment, for it slid over her skin like a silken dream.
Yes, this was very different from anything she’d ever know, and for the moment, she would enjoy the respite, especially in light of what must happen tomorrow.
The rich food and copious amounts of it, combined with the warm, perfumed water and soft clothes had left her sleepy, and she’d laid down amidst the down-filled pillows, vowing to rest for an hour.
She hadn’t awakened until just before midnight.
Now, although she felt refreshed, her mind still spun with the agonizing decision she must make in under twenty-four hours. Quinn had told her there was always a choice. Hers lay outlined in sharp relief—kill or be killed.
Like poor Papa.
A tightness filled Averell’s chest. Of course, there was every possibility her power-crazed mother would kill her after she carried out the task. Plus, there was Quinn himself to consider. The man he was would wither and crumble beneath the pressure if he were to assume the throne. How could she force such a thing upon him and stifle the good works he already did? Plus, her mother would undoubtedly attempt to conquer Annanvale, which meant his life would be thrust into jeopardy.
Life, in the span of two days, had changed dramatically and left her with more questions than the answers she originally sought, but it had brought her Quinn, and for that she would always be grateful. For now, she had to think.
I need to be outside, surrounded by trees. I cannot think while pampered and coddled.
More than that, she missed Quinn, wished to talk with him, be with him, borrow from his wisdom and strength, spend her last night alive with him, for he made her happy even as fears threatened to swallow her. If he shifted into the beast at night, was he even now out there, prowling the woods?
I must go.
Yet, when she conducted a quick search of the room—done in pleasing shades of gold and mossy green—she couldn’t locate the clothes she’d worn into the castle nor could she find her bow and arrow. Drat the efficiency of the palace staff... and Quinn’s diligence regarding protecting his brother, but inexplicably, he’d left the golden dagger for her. Was that his choice or a leading of intuition? She didn’t know and turned her attention to the wardrobe. There were two serviceable day dresses in the clothes press—one in forest green and the other in rose, with tiny white flower buds embroidered upon the bodice. Both were of sprigged muslin and both delicate and pretty. Matching slippers rested at the bottom of the press and in one of the drawers, she discovered linen petticoats and silken stockings.
What the devil am I supposed to do with these? Averell rolled her eyes. Ten minutes hiking through the forest and they’ll be ruined.
Yet, having nothing else with which to cover herself, she dressed in the rose-colored dress and shoes. At least no one objected to the way she wore her hair, plaited and wrapped about the back of her head. Then she snuck out of her room, navigated the halls and somehow gained access to the back gardens without incident. From there, she ran and ran and ran, and she didn’t stop until the familiar presence of trees swallowed her.
After a while, she developed a stitch beneath her ribs and her heaving lungs called for a rest. By the light of the nearly full moon Averell found a fast-moving stream that no doubt emptied into the lake she’d seen upon first sight of the castle. She dropped to the soft, moss-covered ground and gratefully scooped handfuls of the cool, crisp water to her mouth.
The slight snap of a twig or crackle of a dead leaf alerted her to the presence of another being. She shot her head up and sent a glance about the immediate area. There was nothing there, but the hair on her bare arms and at the back of her neck prickled. Slowly, with her heartbeat racing, she stood, her body tensed to run.
Then a large ruddy gray wolf appeared from the undergrowth across the stream from her location. She held her breath as fear climbed her throat, yet her feet remained frozen to the ground as she watched in paralyzed fascination.
It raised its head upon seeing her and the amber eyes gleamed. Blood stained its snout and front paws, and for long moments their gazes remained locked. With every breath the beast drew, the hair on its back rippled.
Those eyes, so familiar, held a primal quality, and the ever-present pull, that invisible thread that connected them heightened. “Quinn?” Stupidly, or perhaps with natural curiosity in order to quell her fears, she extended a shaking hand, but the wolf held its position across the stream. Would his fur feel rough to the touch and would he let her pet him? She tamped down the urge to laugh hysterically. Did one even pet a wolf? Then in her mind’s eye, she saw herself, clad in hunting clothes with her arrows slung over her shoulder and a hand resting upon the wolf’s head as they prowled the forests together.
Her chest tightened. Did that mean there was a future for her after all? But how was that possible?
A faint white glow surrounded the animal. Slowly, with an expression of agony and pain in his eyes, the animal shifted into human form—Quinn’s naked human form. “Averell,” he said in a quiet voice without a trace of embarrassment or surprise, as if he expected to find her in the forest. “Why are you here?”
“I needed the trees around me. Life in the castle is a luxury and it’s wonderful, but I will always prefer the peace and grandeur of nature,” she said, her voice hushed as she greedily devoured him with her gaze.
His chuckle sent sharp awareness skittering over her skin. “I feel the same every damned day, and I escape when I can.”
He was no less impressive out of his clothing. As he entered the stream, crouching to wash the blood from his skin, muscles rippled. A sprinkling of coarse red hair covered the upper part of his broad chest. A slight trail of it tapered over his ridged abdomen, ending in a nest from which his length sprang. Dear Lord, he is stunning.
Warmth curled low through her belly. She couldn’t keep her gaze from him, drank his presence as if she wished to memorize every perfect shadowed contour of him. Obviously he’d just returned from a hunt, but did he kill for sport or for hunger this night? It didn’t matter, for this was truly who he was and... Averell forced a swallow into her suddenly dry throat. And he was becoming important to her.
Did she love him? He owned a part of her heart already and he certainly made everything better when he was around. When she thought of the future, she couldn’t see him not being there. Except, what future did she have? If she was given this one night, she wanted to spent it with him, knowing him as thoroughly as if they had all the time in the world together.
I wish for the chance to truly live.
“Do you, ah, plan to return to the castle once you finish bathing?” With his every movement, she admired the man he was while remaining mindful of the beast he could transform into with apparently little provocation. But with him, there was no fear of the wolf. How very... odd.
“That depends.” He scooped water over his head multiple times and then he gave his tresses and his beard a vigorous scrubbing. Water dribbled down the strong column of his neck. Droplets clung to his defined chest and a great urge to lick the moisture from his skin possessed her.
“On what?” She could hardly breathe he was so beautiful. Oh, to run her fingers over that torso, to feel his touch, to know of the glory of bodies coming together in traditions as old as time. Desire built inside, throbbed into her core with insistence.
I need this man.
“You.” Quinn stood to his full height. His brown eyes gleamed as amber as his wolf’s, and for the space of a heartbeat she was spellbound from the raw power and passion in that gaze. He stepped out of the stream onto her side of it, in all his naked splendor, and she quivered with an ancient desire. “I go where you go, Averell, do what you wish. Tell me what you want.”
In that instant, she knew beyond the doubts and fears that still crowded her mind. “You. I want you.” She closed the distance between them and threw herself into his arms. When she kissed him, he answered with the same intensity and they drank from each other, shared frantic, frenzied kisses that made her blood burn and had his hardened member pressing against her belly. When she wrenched away, she was breathless. “Regardless that I am destined to die tomorrow night, for this one I shall live.”
“You’re certain?” He ran his palms from her shoulders to her hands and he clasped her fingers as he peered into her eyes.
“Yes.” She smiled and gently pulled free from his hold. “Where you are concerned, there has never been hesitation.” Slowly, deliberately while he watched with heat in his eyes, she pulled the pretty dress up and off her body, letting it slip from her fingers into a rose-colored puddle at her feet. “Show me what love is so I may know at least that before the end.” Once she’d toed off her slippers, she stood as naked as he in the moonlight.
He held out a hand and when she put hers into his, he tugged into a loose embrace. “The intimate sharing of bodies is not love, sweeting. You must feel such an emotion deep down inside and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone else’s happiness is the only thing you want, that you can’t live if the other person is not beside you.”
“You make me happy, Quinn.”
“Ah, it’s a good start.” He nuzzled the place where her neck joined her shoulder. Tingles trailed in his wake. “Coming together physically is the evidence of desire. You see love in the actions and words of another. Trust in that, for your body can betray you.”
“Your actions have set you apart, and don’t think I cannot feel your evidence, my all-too-polite beast.” Averell wriggled her hips against his, and when she brushed the engorged part of him, his soft moan excited her. Delighted, she kissed him and reveled in the gentle rasp of his beard against her cheeks and lips, of the power that came with rendering a man speechless by taking off her clothes. Curls of need expanded in her lower belly. “In this moment, I desire you in the purest sense of the word.”
“Then you shall have me, for I’m not in the habit of disappointing a lady,” he murmured. Then he lifted her into his arms and carried her behind the bushes from whence he’d appeared in wolf form.
A giggle escaped her. “I am not a lady.” She frowned. Is that what he wanted in a romantic interest?
Quinn set her down on a carpet of springy soft moss. He kissed her lips. “You looked like one in the dress—without the proper undergarments I’ll add.”
“They were unnecessary for a run in the darkness.”
“Perhaps, but in all honesty, you will always appear in my mind like you did the first day I met you—in your hunting garb with an arrow trained on me.”
She knelt on the blanket of moss and he came down beside her. “Do you wish I was a titled lady instead of a huntsman’s daughter, raised far from society and its rules?”
“I wish for you just as you are.” He tugged at her hand until she lay on her back and he covered her body with his own like he’d done earlier in the day when they’d watched the sunrise. “Never think you are less, for you are exactly who you were meant to be, and that woman will change the world—or at least mine.”
Never had anyone said something as kind or... freeing... to her. “Thank you.” Anything else she would have said was interrupted by his mouth on hers. Averell twined her hands around his neck and returned his kisses, and soon the heat he’d started inside her burst into an inferno. Restless energy circled through her like a beast on the prowl, and when he slid a hand between their bodies and he found the center of her heat with his fingers, she shuddered as she fell into a world of pin-wheeling pleasure and radiant color that erupted behind her closed eyelids, ending with riding a crest of feeling so great she cried out from the sheer wonder of it.
All the while, Quinn crooned soft endearments into her ear. His lips and fingers were magic as he explored her body. With exquisite care and patience, he guided her hands, showed her where he liked being touched and how to do so with maximum effect. They exchanged moans and sighs that blended naturally into the night around them. When they both panted with need, he encouraged her legs apart and he settled between her thighs, the heavy, insistent weight of his member resting against her mound.
She blinked open her eyes and met his gaze. Questions lingered in those amber depths surrounded with the same emotions she felt. When she nodded and gave him a smile, he shifted slightly and then with a quick thrust of his hips, he entered her, breaking through the tight resistance of her maidenhead.
A sharp stab of pain assaulted her, but when he caught her gaze once more, she canted her hips and he moved within her. The discomfort became a memory in the face of the new and more interesting sensations he invoked. He filled her completely, and each time he stroked, Averell’s breath caught and shivering need raced into every nerve ending.
Faster and faster he thrust. After a few awkward attempts at matching his rhythm, she fell into the pattern as ancient as time itself. As one they took from each other, gave back mutual pleasure, and still the terrible, delicious pressure built inside. She wrapped her legs about his waist and clung to his shoulders, urging him onward, needing to break.
And then she did. As her body seized and was overtaken by throbbing, blissful waves, Quinn pushed into her twice more and he, too, joined in the cresting passion, his length pulsing.
“Ah, Averell,” he murmured against the column of her throat as her heart pounded and her chest heaved. “You are mine.” She squealed when he delivered a light bite to her shoulder.
She pulled him closer to her if that were possible. “And you are mine. Do not forget that.” Feeling daring but sated, she nipped his earlobe and grinned when he hissed in surprise.
“I won’t.” He held her in his embrace while their bodies remained joined. Silence reigned between them for a long while, and finally he broke it by saying, “I don’t want you out of my sight tomorrow night.”
Some of her joy faded in the face of intruding reality. “You are afraid I will kill your brother.” Again, the horrible choice loomed out of reach, overshadowing everything. What to do?
“There is that.” He pressed a warm kiss to her temple, and the rumble of his voice tickled her chest, renewed her desire for this man all over again. “Also because I wish to claim all of your dances and keep the other men away.”
Despite the circumstances, she laughed and combed the fingers of one hand through his hair. “I rather doubt I shall have any attention upon me.”
“You will surprise everyone, including yourself.” He brushed his lips over hers in a fleeting kiss. “In addition, I wish to protect you.”
“Why? Surely the court isn’t so bad they would do harm to a new arrival.” Of course, she didn’t know much about royal life, so perhaps it was as cutthroat as all of that.
“Ha!” Again, his chuckle set her belly tingling. “They might be, but my concern is with the queen—your mother. She will be there, no matter what she’s said. I’m sure of it. The woman will need to go through me to get to you, and I’m quite handy in a fight.”
“You are unlike anyone I’ve ever met.” She lost another piece of her heart to him in that moment. This man would defy all to protect her—the woman tasked with killing his brother. “However, I have nothing grand to wear to such an occasion as a ball. I am a huntsman’s daughter, not a princess.”
He pulled back enough to peer into her eyes. Amusement glittered in those brown depths, along with a stronger emotion she couldn’t identify. “And I am a wolf shifter who works for the good of my people, even if I am a prince. It’s fortunate I know a fairy who is fantastic with a sewing needle.” He winked and rolled them both over until she straddled his waist. His newly aroused length brushed her backside. “She excels at last minute projects and would love to dress a stubborn daughter of the forest.”
Averell smiled. She leaned forward and captured his lips with hers. Perhaps it was love after all.