Page 61 of Captured By the Werewolf Highwaymen

The sound seemed to rouse the remaining intruders from their battle frenzy. In a daze, they looked around at their companions’ bodies. Everywhere were fallen Guardians, the ground wet with their blood. The wolves snarled, their claws scarlet, ready to continue the fight.

A second later, one of the invaders hauled open the front door. He didn’t look back as he ran. The survivors followed, fleeing on foot for the safety of the forest. Bram and Liam sped after them. A moment later, three screams pierced the air.

Bram and Liam returned, their claws dripping red.

All that was left in the manor was the dead intruders, and five slightly battered but very much alive werewolves. The house, however, was in shambles. Broken furniture, doors hanging off of their hinges, gouges in the walls from bullets and claws, broken marble tiles. Bloodstains everywhere.

Clara stood on the landing, surveying everything, a smoking pistol still in her hand.

“Lads,” Des growled, looking up at her, “looks like we have a new pack leader.”

19

It took some while to set things to rights. There were the bodies, of course, which Bram and Liam cleared away to be disposed of…somewhere. Patches of the forest were seldom frequented by people, and Clara had an intimation that they would now serve as the resting places of the Guardians.

Well, she hoped those men had no rest, even in the hereafter.

From the landing, she now watched Hugh, Des, and Gideon—everyone now in human form, and fully dressed—clean away the cracked tiles, broken furniture, and shattered wood from the entryway. They’d gone through the rest of her house, which had been reduced to a shambles. Nearly every room in the manor had suffered some form of destruction. Deep gouges in the floorboards, fractured walls. Bloodstains—everywhere. It would require time to repair.

She went down the stairs and to the kitchen, where she grabbed a broom. She returned to the entryway and joined the men. They worked together quietly, in a kind of peculiar harmony. As harmonious as one could be, in the wake of such a tremendous battle.

“How did it work?” Hugh asked, breaking the silence. “I’d no ken that I could change to a wolf if the moon wasn’t full.”

“I cannot explain it.” Clara continued to sweep up fragments of wood that had broken off of a demilune table she had never liked. “Something in me knew I could do that for you.”

“I’ve heard of such things,” Gideon answered. “The wolves I went with as a lad, they’d explained it to me. Every once in a great while, there’s a person who can complete the moon for a wolf or a pack of wolves. There’s a…a bond.”

She paused in her work, leaning on her broom. “When I first met you, all of you, I felt it. A union between us. I thought, perhaps, I was imagining things. That I was so starved for company that I fabricated a connection.”

“No fabrication,” Des said. “I sensed it, too.”

“As did I,” Gideon added.

“And me.” Hugh grinned. “I counted myself the luckiest bastard in Britain to have such a bonny and wise doctor, so kind and so clever and brave. Even when I was bleeding onto your sheets, I wanted to drag you across my lap and kiss you senseless.”

It might have been after a tremendous battle, where she’d seen and done things she hadn’t believed possible, yet Clara blushed all the same.

“You’re all flatterers,” she chided.

“Highwaymen haven’t a need for flattery,” Hugh said. “We take what we want. In point of fact…”

He strode to her, hale on his mended leg, and cupped her head in his large hands. When he tilted her head up, angling her, he waited a moment, a question in his eyes. She gave a slight nod. His eyes glinted with humor and he grinned again, then put his lips to hers.

Hugh didn’t waste time on prefaces or preludes. He kissed her deeply, boldly. She welcomed his tongue in her mouth, tasting his fire and spirit as he claimed what he desired. Namely: her.

Clara’s heart had calmed somewhat after the fight with the Guardians. But it drummed fiercely in her chest now, and she let go of the broom so she could grab hold of Hugh’s wide shoulders, pushing her body tight to his. He thrummed with energy and force. Difficult to believe that only a day ago, he was weakened by his injury and fever. Now, he was all vitality. Her head spun with each of his devouring kisses.

Someone whistled, and she tore her lips away from Hugh’s. Gideon and Des watched them, but far from looking disturbed or angry by the fact that she was kissing another man, they each wore expressions of avid interest. Bram and Liam stood in the open doorway, and they also stared at her in Hugh’s arms. They, too, gazed at her eagerly.

A rush of arousal flooded her body. She hungered to have them look at her as she kissed Hugh.

“I want…” she said breathlessly.

“Yes?” Des pressed.

“You called me the new pack leader.”

“That, I did,” Des said.