Highlander Oath of the Beast (Highland Promise Trilogy 3)

Not one to measure her words or wait for the right time, she blurted out, “You never answered me last time when I told you what you must do to trust me.”

“I have no answer—yet,” he said.

“Aye, you do. By not answering you confirmed you don’t trust me.” She slipped her hand out of his and walked to the longhouse, leaving him standing there.

Wolf had the overpowering urge to hurry after her, scoop her up and over his shoulder, and rush off to their bedchamber and see this settled. But that would mean he surrendered and he never surrendered to anyone, and he wouldn’t start now.

He took steps to follow after her, but by no means rushed.

His wife stood by the fire pit, her hands stretched out to the heat.

Wolf walked up behind her, his arms encircling her as his hands captured her two in his to rub warm. Only when heat returned to her fingers did he release her hands and turn her to face him, wrapping his fur cloak snug around them both.

“You are forever chilled. What happened to leave the cold forever in your bones?” It wasn’t just curiosity that had him asking. He was concerned at what may have happened to her. Even more concerned that he’d been to blame.

Memories began to flood her, memories she kept tightly tucked away. Memories she didn’t want to relive.

Wolf felt her reluctance to speak, to share her past. Her body tensed against him and a familiar shiver ran through her. He walked her to the table nearest the fire pit and ordered hot brews to be brought to them. He kept his arm around her and his cloak as well.

Her silence said more than words. She obviously didn’t trust him enough to share but then he hadn’t given her any reason to.

She shivered beside him. “That first winter alone was harsh. It set a cold in me I don’t think will ever leave.”

He rubbed and squeezed her arm, forcing warmth into her, glad she was sharing with him.

“Threadbare garments. Shoes with holes so large nothing would fill them. Food once a day if I could find it. Though it was shelter I mostly sought, desperately needing out of the cold. Death stalked me. I could feel its presence. Sometimes I thought I saw it lurking near, dark and frigid ready to swallow me whole. I’d managed to get a fire going, only it didn’t last long. It tempted, its tendrils of heat reaching out to tease me before it flickered out and left me in the cold darkness once again. If it wasn’t for—”

He waited to hear his name fall from her lips, the man she loved, but it never came. She kept it tightly hidden away, not wanting or unable to share it.

“That winter infused my bones, not with heat, but with a frigid cold and it seared my soul in a loneliness I never knew existed until…”

Again she wouldn’t say his name, this man who saved her, this man whose child she might carry. She eased herself away from him. Did she think she betrayed his memory by being in his arms? The thought annoyed him. She was his wife whether she wanted to be or not.

“You’re mine now,” he said, to him a response that meant she’d never suffer any of that again.

She glared at him a bit stunned. “I don’t belong to you.”

The strength of his response confirmed otherwise. “You do belong to me and you have my word that I will never see you go hungry, suffer the cold, or be lonely again.” He waited, ready for her protest and was surprised when it didn’t come. It wasn’t like her to be silent and he wondered over it.

She cupped her hands around the warm tankard, enjoying the heat that trickled through her at first, then began to flow strong. The warmth of the tankard hadn’t done that. It had been his words. She could argue she didn’t need anything from him, but seeing Fyn with Greta had changed something in her. Maybe too, it was seeing her brothers and da happy with the women they loved. The Mighty Beast would never love her and she wouldn’t need him to, but he would look after her. And she would owe him the same. Was that enough to build a reasonable marriage on?

Adapt.

She had no choice and hadn’t the old man reminded her of that often enough?

A hardy laugh entered the room before Lars did, a broad grin on his face. “I’m starving and have you smelled how thick the air is with pending snow?”

Raven was glad for the interruption, since she had no words for her husband, but she did have much to think about.

“More snow by nightfall for sure,” Gorm agreed, having followed in behind him.