As her adrenaline wore off, the cold set in. Her skirts were still sopping from the firefighting efforts, and the sweat she’d worked up in proximity to the flames now chilled her to the bone. Waves lapped at her feet, threatening to steal even more of her body heat, so she moved farther up the small beach, rubbing her arms to keep her blood moving.
TheWolfhunterwas gone. Most of her cockle-and-mussel money was gone. She didn’t even have enough left for firewood to get them through the winter, let alone to pay the apothecary or patch the roof. She had nothing left, not even hope.
She was still glad she hadn’t caved and married Kaspar, though. If he could take this much from her in one night, imagine what he could take over thirty years.
Evrard had come back, though. That was something.Came for you, he’d said.My Maggie.
But Kaspar might take him from her, too, if Evrard would be punished for whatever he was doing to him.
A moon-shadow slipped over her, silent as a tear, and she glanced up in time to see her gargoyle silhouetted against the stars. He landed noiselessly in the sand nearby, and she fell into his arms in relief. He was so warm. So solid. So safe.
He picked her up and carried her to the base of the cliff, where he sat with his back against the rocks and arranged her on his lap. She let him peel off her wet clothing and hang it on the rocks to dry. Then he sandwiched her between the heat of his chest and the heat of his arms, murmuring in his own language until she stopped shivering.
“Did you kill him?” she asked when she could speak again. “Did you kill Kaspar?”
His lip curled. “No. He offer…payment. Gold. Ships. Fish.”
She sat up, surprised at her own relief. She wasn’t relieved that Kaspar was spared, but that Evrard hadn’t done anything irrevocable on her behalf that might take him away from her again. “Did you accept it?”
“No,” Evrard grunted, sounding offended. He pulled her back into his body, threading his fingers into her hair to hold her head close to his chest so his words vibrated against her cheek. “Not for me. You want?”
Her first instinct was to say no. She didn’t want anything from Kaspar, not even his attention. But then she remembered all he’d stolen from her in his reckless, petty pursuit of vengeance. All he’d stolen from her family. Heowedher.
“I want his ships,” she said defiantly. “The ones that were my father’s.”
“You will have,” Evrard vowed, and she believed him.
“And the fish,” she added. “Not for me. For you.”
He chuckled indulgently, the rasp of his purr catching on the end of his laugh. He ran his fingers through her hair before bringing the ends to his face to smell them. His purr deepened. “My Maggie.”
“Yours,” she agreed, squinting at the sky to guess how much time they had left before dawn. Hours yet. She relaxed into him, kissing everywhere she could reach on the broad plane of his body.
What began as a gesture of simple affection and relief quickly heated into something else when she felt his cock nudge to life beneath her. Her body, remembering the feel of him, responded in kind, nipples tightening as moisture built between her legs.
Evrard’s fingers slid from her hair, playing over the sensitive skin above her collarbone, the muscle of her shoulder, and down her upper arm. Then he bent to graze his teeth over it, raising fresh goosebumps on that side of her body.
It made her want to crawl inside his skin. She wrapped her arms around his neck so he couldn’t move away. His deepening purr said he had no intention of leaving. She rubbed her cheek against his, knowing it meant something to him.
“Want to bite my Maggie,” he murmured against her ear, the deep vibration settling into her core. Every time he called her that, her insides melted like a tallow candle. “My mate.”
Now that was a surprise. “Your mate?!”
“Mate,” he agreed, his large hands bracketing her waist, thumbs drawing circles over her womb. “My knot, my seed, my mate.”
She couldn’t argue with that. There wasn’t even a speck of shrew in her that objected to his claim. She didn’t have to tell him so; he had to know she was his already. She simply tilted her head so he had better access.
Evrard’s breath rushed out as understanding rushed in, and then his teeth sank, stinging, into her shoulder. The pain was only momentary. He licked over the wound and a cool thread soothed her skin, then sank deeper. She felt it move into her blood, weave through her bones, and then something burst inside her brain. It was like opening the shutters and sunlight pouring in.
Evrard wasthere.She couldfeel his possessive purr in hermind. She could feel it in her body because they were still pressed together, but he was inside her head, too. Or maybe it was her heart, because it felt like it wanted to leap out of her chest.
She’d never wanted a husband, butthis? This, she wanted. This closeness. This understanding. This connection.
“Mine now,” he whispered hoarsely. His arms slid around her waist, binding her. “Mine forever.”
The joy from him in her mind was so intense, it made her dizzy. She kissed his jaw until he turned his head and gave her his mouth. He still tasted of her blood—a faint, metallic tang, like he wore a wedding ring on his tongue.
He would wear one on his finger, she decided, feeling as possessive as his hands. Maybe on his cock, too, while she was at it. She would have no other women looking at him as she did. She might not be able to bite through his thick hide, but she would mark him all the same.
