Page 127 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Tonight we’ll watch an earl murder his betrothed,” Amelia said, as if announcing the next play at the theatre. “No one will forget what the Lycan truly are. Beasts. And their blood will seal the wards on this place so we might continue unbothered.” She raised her eyebrows. “I am not bluffing, earl. Into the ring with her, now.”

She smiled again. Sorcha was beginning to truly hate that smile.

Sorcha saw true fear in Aidan’s gilded eyes. His worst nightmare, to be caught with her under the moon. But he had fought this nightmare before and he could fight it again. Sorcha believed it with every ounce of her being.

Even if the little hairs on her arms prickled.

She rushed forward, but he held up his hands. “Don’t come any closer.”

And then the moon touched him.

Sorcha smelled roses.

Even Aidan was not strong enough to hold back the wolf. Not when the full moon shone down on him, not with Sorcha in danger, not when he had been fighting it all the way over the hills to track her.

His teeth sharpened and he clenched his fists, wrestling back the magic. The tendons of his neck were thick as ropes. His muscles bulged as he fought the pull of the moon and the spell. His expression was stark. “I’m sorry, Sorcha.”

She lifted her chin even as her heart raced. “I am not afraid of your wolf, Aidan.”

“I’m so sorry,” he rasped again before the wolf took him.

The power of it rippled through him, contracting his muscles, re-forming his bones, recreating him from blood and flesh and sinew. It only took a moment. He jerked backward when his spine changed and then fell forward onto his paws.

The gray wolf growled as the audience’s gasps turned into cheers.

“Now you’ll all see him kill his own fiancée. As his nature demands.”

His nature demanded no such thing. It was Amelia’s spell.

But she had no idea how strong Aidan was. Aidan didn’t even know it himself. But Sorcha knew. She felt it.

She swallowed, staying very still, giving him a moment to realize where he was, who he was. For his wolf to sort through the shouting and the scents of blood and beer and simmering violence. The howls and whines from the other side of the stone walls, getting closer now.

Amelia’s guards were dragging them toward the pit, toward the moonlight, to tear each other’s throats out.

Aidan’s wolf wanted blood.

He felt his muscles bunching in preparation for attack. Felt the moonlight like silver needles. Wolves got their power from the moon, but it was tainted now. The smell of roses burned his nose.

The wolf who had turned him prowling through the village. A fisherman with his throat torn out. The gnawed bones of the midwife.

The taste of Sorcha’s blood in his mouth.

Sorcha took a step to the side, an idea forming. A plan. A plot.

A desperate shot in the dark, really, but this was not the time to quibble.

Aidan growled, lips lifting off his curved, wickedly pointed teeth. She halted. His hackles rose, fur bristling like knives. She swallowed. “We can do this, Aidan,” she whispered, but she knew he could not hear her over the pounding of boots on the ground, the wagers being yelled back and forth, the shouts. Could not even smell her over the perfume, the roasted meat pasties, the burn of fennel and salt. Magic.

The moon.

Aidan snarled as the light silvered him, as if it were causing him great pain.

She kept circling, and his gold eyes never left her. She tilted her head to show him her throat, where he had marked her.

“I am not afraid of your wolf,” Sorcha said again. “But she should be.”