Astrid did not doubt him. She took a spyglass from her pack, still resting on the floor, and darted to the window. As Lesperance watched in puzzlement, she drew back the curtain, then pulled herself through the window.
“There’s a new invention called a door,” he said drily as she stood on the windowsill.
She ignored him, instead climbing up onto the roof. The pitch of the roof was not very steep, so she easily held her footing. Her hands, however, shook slightly as she trained her spyglass on the lone pass leading into the meadow. She would not be visible to whoever tried to breach the lea, and had a good enough vantage to see whoever dared disturb her isolation.
What she saw caused her heart to seize. Curses or swears refused to come to her lips. Instead, a cold sense of inevitability threaded through her. She could not see the faces of the men riding in the pass, but she was able to count their number, and knew them at once from their posture. A sense of entitlement radiated from them like noxious vapor. The world belonged to them, and whatever was not already in their possession soon would be.
She knew these men, knew them almost as well as she once knew herself. They were a blight upon the earth, an engine of destruction and enslavement that she had once foolishly thought she could stop. Until the day when Michael was taken from her. Then she no longer believed whatever she or any of her friends did made any difference. Their enemy was and would always be stronger, more ruthless. She had tried to leave them, and her friends, her work, behind. Yet even here, in this wild place, the enemy had found her and even now was less than a half an hour from her home.
The Heirs of Albion.
Balanced on the roof, balanced on the cusp of her own conscience. What to do? A few, far too few, options. She could get her rifle, wait for the Heirs to come within range, and then pick off as many of them as possible. But there were too many. At best, she could hit two or three before their own shooters took her down. No, she refused to throw her life away for a petty victory.
It isn’t me they want. The Heirs wanted Lesperance. He was their objective, not her. Years she had spent nursing her seclusion, far from everything and everyone who meant anything to her. The deprivations she had suffered just to carve out a corner of the world where she could be alone. Do nothing, let the Heirs take him. Reclaim your peace.
Impossible. She cursed at her integrity. No matter how much she wished, her honor rejected the idea of allowing the Heirs to capture Lesperance. Even if he possessed the ability to shift into wolf form, he could never face the Heirs by himself. They were far too powerful, too brutal. And his survival in the wilderness, alone, was next to impossible. He didn’t know the terrain. Without a guide, without protection, he would be vulnerable to the wild and, most of all, to the Heirs. She had to get him to safety.
She was down from the roof, inside her cabin, within seconds. She did not spare a glance toward Lesperance. “We have to leave immediately,” she said. She dashed around the single room, throwing gear together for a longer trek into the wild. Her mind and body switched far too easily into a mode of being once thought forgotten. Everything became clear and precise. Uncertainty led to hesitation, which led to death. So, no uncertainty.
A revolver’s hammer clicked behind her. She spun around.
Edwin stood near the open door, his gun pointed at her. To one side lay Lesperance, dazed, struggling to sit up amid the splintered remains of the chair. Astrid immediately deduced what had happened. The trapper was a big man, incredibly strong. It was a wonder Lesperance wasn’t completely unconscious.
“What are you doing?” Astrid asked, even though she knew perfectly well what Edwin was doing.
To his credit, the trapper looked contrite, though he didn’t lower his weapon. “I’m sorry, Astrid. They offered me too much money to say no.”
She didn’t have to ask who “they” were. The Heirs. Her mind raced. It wasn’t the first time she’d been on the dangerous end of a gun, especially that of one of the Heirs’ hired mercenaries. Her own revolver was still in her gun belt on the table, her rifle by the door. She could go for the knife in her boot.
Astrid was still calculating odds when a gray, snarling blur leapt onto Edwin. She barely saw the movement. One moment, the trapper had his gun aimed at her, and in the next, he rolled on the floor, screaming, as an animal attacked.
Not any animal. A wolf. Huge, much bigger than any wolf she had seen in these parts. And merciless as it tore into Edwin.
Astrid ducked as the trapper’s revolver fired, the shot going wild and slamming into the wall. When she looked up, it was all she could do not to turn away in horror. The wolf had Edwin by the throat. The trapper gave another scream, then the sound collapsed into a wet gurgle. Blood splashed across the wooden floor and stained the wolf’s maw, crimson on the silver fur. Edwin’s limbs twitched, and he went still.
Wolf and woman stared at each other.
The wolf snarled from his crouched position over the trapper’s body as Astrid took a careful step forward. Dear God, it was enormous. At least thirty inches at the shoulder. Silver and black fur bristled with aggression. A mouth full of white, tearing teeth. Eyes of glinting topaz.
It was those eyes into which she stared, searching for the man within. “I am your friend,” she said slowly, hands upraised. “I am no threat to you.”
The wolf relaxed slightly from its crouch, its snarl easing. It tilted its head a fraction, as if considering her.
“Please,” Astrid whispered, drawing nearer even as her mouth dried and her hands grew slick. What if he was too far gone to recognize her? She would die beside traitorous Edwin Mayne, her blood mingling with the trapper’s, as the Heirs neared. “You and I are in danger. We must leave at once. I am your friend,” she repeated, holding out one trembling hand. The wolf leaned closer, cautiously sniffing her palm.
She expected, at any moment, to have her hand torn from her body. Instead, the air shimmered. A vapor gathered around the wolf, silvery light gleaming through the mists, like clouds covering the moon. The vapor swirled, then dissolved, revealing Nathan Lesperance on hands and knees where the wolf had been. Blood smeared his mouth. He glanced down at the trapper’s corpse, then lurched upright and back until he connected with the wall.
Lesperance stared at her, utterly, profoundly shocked by what had just happened. He brought shaking fingertips to his mouth and started when they came away wet and red. He did not seem to care that he was completely nude. What was modesty compared to the incredible, awful truth?
Before he could speak, Astrid crossed the cabin to him. She stepped over the splayed, still form of Edwin, unconcerned that she tracked his blood over her formerly clean floor. From her back pocket, she produced a kerchief. Lesperance reared back when she reached for him, knocking his head into the wall behind him.
“Easy,” she murmured, bringing the square of fabric up to his mouth.
“Don’t want to hurt you,” he said hoarsely.
“You won’t.” She carefully wiped the blood from his lips until it was completely gone. The kerchief was ruined, though, and she tossed it to the ground.
“I’ve never…” He swallowed hard, then shut his eyes when he tasted blood. But he was strong, because he opened his eyes a second later. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”
Astrid turned away. “It doesn’t get easier.”
Considering that Astrid Bramfield had just watched him change into a wolf and rip a man’s throat out, she was damned calm. Nathan, buried in layers of shock, watched her bustle around the cabin with a levelheaded precision that would have shamed the most seasoned soldier.
“Help me strip the body,” she said, tugging on the dead trapper’s buckskin coat.
Nathan normally bridled at being told what to do, but in