Red Snow Bride (Wolf Brides Book 2) (20 page)

Jeremiah

“Hup!” I called to the mule we’d borrowed from Elias to plant the crops. He was a stubborn beast, but strong as an ox and he liked to move. Even from the front acreage I could hear Lorelei and Kristina talking and laughing as they prepared the vegetable garden for planting, and from the smirk on Luke’s face, he likely could too. Kristina was giving Lorelei more pointers to keep me happy under the furs, and I couldn’t say I hated the ideas that were being thrown around. It seemed Delaney had been wrong when he’d claimed I’d never get my cock sucked by Lorelei.

The weather had warmed considerably in the first month of spring. The ground was soft enough to plow and between two werewolves with strong backs and work ethics, we’d get the wheat fields done by tomorrow. We’d put the seeds down in a few more days when Luke and his sense for weather decided the clouds weren’t going to open up on us and plop down a late season blizzard.

The big house now boasted actual furniture thanks to the money we’d made from the bounties. To my surprise, my proper lady had expressed her like for my hand carved furniture over most of the items she could order in a catalogue, so I’d keep obliging and surprising her with new pieces until our home was fully decorated. Our homestead now contained exactly two whitewashed homes with their own front porches for us to enjoy the cool evenings wrapped in a blanket. Luke and Kristina ate with us most evenings but we tended to switch back and forth between houses based on who had the foods they were craving at the time.

Lorelei had had some strange cravings as of late.

Luke heard it first and jerked his head toward the road that bordered the field we were working. Elias drove his buggy like he was racing some invisible team and a thin trail of dust followed him.

“Whoa,” I said with a frown. I waved as he slowed his horses. “You come to collect your mule back already?”

Barely checked excitement drenched his voice. “Trudy’s having the baby. She says she’s certain this time.”

Luke was already unhitching his horse from the plow. “Let us get the animals back to the barn. Go tell the girls it’s time. They’re up in the garden near the little house.”

Elias drove away without another word and as soon as I had the harness free, I hopped up on the balking mule’s back and kicked him in the direction of the barn.

Thanks to the still extreme prejudice that seemed to befall freedmen and women, not a single midwife around these parts was willing to deliver her baby. In light of that disturbing fact, Kristina and Lorelei had been pouring over a laboring book for the better part of a month. I swore they had it memorized between the two of them.

The house was a bustle of activity. When the mule was safe in the corral, I took the last bundle of clean clothes from Lorelei’s hand and helped her into the back of the buggy with Kristina. She kissed me lightly gave me an excited look before Elias pulled out.

“We’ll follow right behind with your horses,” I called as Lorelei waved.

With our horses saddled and dragging the painted and spotted Indian ponies behind, we caught up to the flying buggy as it neared town.

The quite of the front room of Elias’s house was a stark contrast to the chaos of the past two hours. Blood still pumped rapidly through my body and I fidgeted right along with him. Luke sat still and cool in the chair across the table with his hands clasped in front of his mouth.

“Does it make you nervous?” Luke asked me with a steady gaze.

“A little,” I admitted. Try as I might not to, I could hear every single thing in that room. Someday, it would be me waiting on my own children’s birth.

“Read it to me again,” Trudy said through clenched teeth. Her voice was muffled by the door in between us, but it was plenty clear enough.

“Again?” Lorelei asked.

“Do it!”

Paper crumpled and Lorelei gathered a breath before she read.

Dearest Lorelei,

We were so worried when we couldn’t find you anywhere in Boston. Your letter found us with great relief that you are alive and well. Your new husband sounds like a wonderful, honorable man and though your life sounds drastically different from the standards you were raised to appreciate here, you sound happy. We’d like to come visit someday and meet Jeremiah for ourselves and thank him for giving you such unexpected joy. Someday, I pray you learn for yourself that it’s the most important thing a parent could wish for their child.

I have news of Daniel Delaney I thought you’d appreciate. He’s married now and much returned to his old habits. He flaunts his mistresses in front of his young wife and her parents, very powerful people if you remember, are furious. The scandal he thought he would easily escape has indeed haunted him and affected his social invitations. He has taken to drinking and gambling and is quickly falling to ruin. Now, for the best part. Upon your letter, I went directly to the newspaper and had your wedding announcement printed that very week, and not two days after it ran did Daniel call on us. He asked how you were and if you were truly happy, all to which we said yes, and the poor dufus looked absolutely wretched about the whole thing.

I’m so proud of the way you handled that awful scandal. I knew we raised a proper and intelligent daughter and you’ve exceeded our expectations. You were right in choosing your own path and leaving Boston, and though your father and I miss you terribly, your life would have been limited here. I think you saw that and I commend your bravery for making a new name for yourself where you can lead a full and happy life with the love you deserve.

I don’t even know him and already I’m proud to call Jeremiah my son-in-law.

We love you, we love you, our baby, our little wren.

-Mother and Father

The labor was long and Trudy was exhausted after hours of pushing but finally, finally, in the wee early hours of the morning, a tiny baby’s cry rang out through the small house.

Elias jumped up and waited impatiently by the door. “Boy or girl?” he asked.

Kristina opened the door and held the crying bundle to Elias. “Healthy baby girl.”

He inhaled deeply and stared in wide-eyed wonderment at his child. “Daddy’s little girl,” he whispered.

The child was beautiful. She had the rich caramel skin of her mother and steely blue eyes. Her hair had Trudy’s texture but was lighter in color. Above the smells of blood and medicine and exhaustion, the child told of new life. Her mixed blood would limit her opportunities if she let it, just like my children didn’t have much chance in the world if they didn’t create it. They’d be all right because of the love of family though. I knew that with certainty. I’d seen it with my own parent’s strength of will to give us a good life despite the challenges Luke and I were born with.

“Jeremiah!” Kristina yelled right before a loud thump sounded.

I bolted through the door to Trudy’s bedroom. Lorelei lay beside the bed and Kristina was shaking her shoulders. In a rush of frantic movement, I was beside her. “What happened?” I asked, cradling Lorelei’s head in my hands.

“I think it was all the blood that made her woozy,” Kristina said with a significant look. “She fainted on us. Take her into the den and lay her on the sofa while I finish up with Trudy.”

It took her a while, but eventually Lorelei came to. Her amber eyes fluttered and she winced as she lifted a hand to her forehead. “Bollocks, what did I do?”

Luke stood to my right and Kristina tapped her toe in a very
if-you-don’t-tell-her-I-will
kind of fashion.

“You’re going to have a baby,” I said softly.

She gave a short laugh and waited, as if she thought I was teasing her. “I’m fairly sure I’ll know I’m with child before you do.”

I rubbed my hand over my face. “You’ve smelled different for weeks. Have you had your courses since you moved out here?”

Her eyes went wide. “I haven’t bled but that’s nothing new. I’ve always been irregular and I just always assumed it would be hard to get pregnant because Mother struggled with it for years and years. And her doctors always looked at me with pitied pouts and said I was built just like her.” She sucked in a breath and said, “I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

“It’s okay.” It was hard to control my smile at finally being able to say it out loud. “We’re going to have a baby.” I was already so protective over that little life growing inside of her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted you to figure it out and tell me however you liked.”

“So you’d what…pretend to be surprised when I announced it?”

I frowned and grasped her cold hands in mine to warm them. “When you put it like that, it seems I may have played my hand all wrong.”

She searched each of our faces. “Does everyone know but me?”

Kristina sat on the sofa next to her. “Luke picked up your scent when Jeremiah did and he tells me everything, so I’ve known too.”

A slow smile stretched between them, and Lorelei’s gaze collided with mine. “Are you sure?”

“I can hear the heartbeat.” I strained my ears. “Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum,” I said in a quick rhythm. It was much faster than the sound of hers.

Kristina kissed her on the cheek with a tearful smile, then swished back into the other room to tend to Trudy. Luke gripped my shoulder and shook it slowly before letting himself out the front door.

“Oh, Jeremiah.” Every emotion surged into the depths of Lorelei’s eyes. “What if it’s a girl?”

I ran the pad of my thumb over her silken cheek. “Then we’ll deal with that together.” I leaned down and kissed her until I could taste the sweetness of her lips.

“Jeremiah,” Luke said quietly from the doorway. He twitched his head and left the door ajar.

I squeezed Lorelei’s hand. I didn’t want to leave her right now, but something in Luke’s tone said it was important. “I’ll be right back.”

We stood side by side on the porch, my brother and me, as the first purple streaks of the coming day brushed the horizon of our sleepy little town.

“Do you smell it?” he asked.

I took a long draw of air and filtered through a hundred scents until only one that meant anything remained. I’d known that scent since the day I was born and for as long as I lived, I’d never forget it. Luke’s slow smile was contagious.

Gable was back—and he wasn’t alone.

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Wolf Brides Series

Wolf Bride (
Book 1
)

Available Now

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Dawson Bride (Book 3)

Coming November 2014

DAWSON BRIDE

(Wolf Brides, Book 3)

Read on for a sneak peek of the riveting final installment in the Wolf Brides trilogy.

Chapter One

Gable

Of all the smells on earth, blood was the most interesting, complicated, delicious scent in existence. It was trapped inside of every living mammal by paper thin skin. While it was probably the most prominent of all smells, such richness and bulk certainly didn’t belong in the English countryside. It wasn’t the genocide of bunnies or deer, or the slaughter of livestock. Each animal had a different signature in the sensitive lining of my nose. No, this type of richness only belonged to humans.

A lot of humans.

A fog had fallen over the woods, and while it wasn’t uncommon where I roamed, it was uncomfortable. Mist dulled the senses. It shortened sight and dampened smells. Even forest sounds were muffled under the blanketing cloud cover. For all of its dimming qualities, still, it did nothing to mask all that blood.

The dark had come, and with it brought no stars or moon to illuminate the wooded land. Animals skittered to their burrows and nests, afraid of the preternatural silence that cloaked the trees. Even the wind had died down to nothing, stirring not a leaf and rattling not a branch. The air filled with tiny, frightened heart beats and they weren’t from fear of myself. I was a part of these woods now.

A whine escaped my throat as I slunk toward the intoxicating smell. I wasn’t a curious creature by nature but something was off, and some deep instinct pushed me further and further out of my territory.

My ears twitched and filled with the screams of women and the gunfire of men. Whatever was happening here in my woods was of hell’s making. I couldn’t untuck my tail from between my legs if I tried. The stench of gunpowder, fear, and violence hung in the air, and I paced frantically back and forth as a looming shape appeared through the mist.

Still, I was drawn closer.

I’d been a wolf for a long time but the man in me was still inside there somewhere. The shape was a castle, or as close to one as I’d ever come. Complete with sprawling trout pond in the middle of the entrance and acres of gardens, statues, and elaborate fountains. The road was cobbled for fine carriages, and the mansion boasted stonework from the finest architects. I sniffed again. I’d been mistaken. It wasn’t a castle—it was a tomb.

I growled and shifted my weight from side to side. It was time to leave. I’d seen it. I knew what was happening inside. This wasn’t my fight. I turned and froze at the soft whimper of a child. If I’d had a chance of escape at all, it had been stolen from me with the fear-filled sigh of that little boy.

Moments came and went in a life where decisions affected the path of destiny. No matter what happened next, my fate had been cemented with that cry here in the woods—the cry I couldn’t turn away from and live with myself. I guess I’d die with myself instead.

Shrubs, roots, and night air rushed past as I raced for the side of the gargantuan manor.

My change from wolf to man wasn’t agonizing like it was for my brothers. I’d mastered it long ago when I became more animal than human. In a burst of light and pain and cracking bones, my blood was encased in fragile human skin again. I didn’t cry out or hunch over in pain. None of those things eased the burst of agony that rippled through my insides. Avoidance was a pointless waste of time and if the boy was going to live, time was a commodity I didn’t have.

Front doors were for receiving guests and making a first impression. Back doors led to gardens and quiet getaways where barons and counts snuck kisses to their wives and mistresses. Side doors were for servants.

The knuckles and muscles of my fingers were frozen with disuse and the effort to grip the edge of the cracked door was staggering. I’d been an animal too long. If I was to be of any help to the boy, I’d have to loosen up and quick.

Inside, I was met by the servant’s quarters and body after lifeless body decorated the floor. Women. The monsters shot unarmed women. A series of crashes upstairs let me know the hunters hadn’t found their prey yet. I slid into a pair of servant’s pants I found folded neatly on one of the small, lumpy beds. A large knife shone in the dancing candlelight of the kitchen and I gripped the handle. It wouldn’t be much match for the loaded pistols of the men upstairs, but I had other advantages over them.

They were human, and I was not.

Plates of food and half-made pastries dotted the kitchen counters. Shards of fine porcelain lay shattered against the wooden floor boards. Through the door, a dining room lay in disrepair. I listened carefully for any signs of life from the bodies, but there were none. Their hunters had been thorough.

At the sound of a man’s voice, muffled through the ceiling between us, I froze. “I think I’ve found our little chicken, boys,” he said.

My heart sank and I bolted for the stairs. I’d made it up the first landing when the pepper of gunfire blasted through the house.

I was too late but it didn’t matter. I’d already made up my mind. I’d kill them for what they’d done here tonight.

I’d kill them all.

DAWSON BRIDE

Coming November 2014