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“Lass, all of that occurred before the whisky. What ye should be asking about is what happened after the whisky.”

The ale. The whisky. The glasses she remembered drinking. It all came rushing back to her in that moment, much to her dismay.

“I…”

Her cheeks burned as she realized what had happened.

That word, whisky, had just unlocked her memory. She knew exactly what happened that night.

She remembered.

5

Freya didn’t want to remember.

She didn’t want to remember something she had done under the influence of a few drinks. Well, a lot of drinks. Rather more of them whisky than ale. Not nearly enough of them water.

She didn’t want to remember doing something she had promised herself that she would never do.

She had always told herself that she would never marry. That she would never call a man husband.

She wasn’t interested in marriage. Her brother had accepted it, promising not to force a betrothal upon her. Kaden had always been more than accepting of what she wanted in life. One could not have asked for a better brother.

She could say the same of Skye, though her sister had tried once or twice to convince her to change her mind. After all, Skye had found happiness with Dougal. But Freya wasn’t about to take that risk. It could’ve all gone wrong for her younger sister, and she wasn’t about to risk things going all wrong for herself.

What was safer for her was to remain as she was, keeping love at a safe distance where it belonged.

Love was a fickle thing. She had thought she had it once with that young man she met, but he had shattered her hope. If someone could turn so quickly when there was no marriage between them, how would it have been if there was one?

She would have had little chance to escape.

And yet here she stood, married, to a man she’d known for the length of one whisky and a fiddle tune, whose face she’d only properly seen this morning, and who had already threatened to cut off two men’s hands. God knows what else he was capable for.

The irony didn’t escape her. If Skye had been in the room, she’d have been unbearable about it.

The ring sat warm in Freya’s palm, and she closed her fingers over it. Whatever this was, it was not love. It was a mistake made in a taproom, and mistakes could be undone.

She’d have to make him see that.

But she couldn’t escape the memory. It hit her rapidly.

She didn’t want to revisit such a moment when the Wolf was standing right there. He was going to enjoy watching her remember everything that had occurred last night.

She blushed.

The whisky had been his idea. The second glass had been hers. The third… Well, she wasn’t sure whose idea that had been. It was hard to say, but he certainly had egged her on, and she hadn’t exactly refused the extra glasses of whisky.

Freya always had a mind for drinking. She didn’t mind a glass of whisky now and then, but she certainly hadn’t drunk as much as she had that night. Had she been in her right mind, she would have stopped at three, which was the smart thing to do

“For the shaking,” she’d said, holding out her hand to show him.

It had been shaking, a fine tremor she couldn’t stop, though whether because of the two men or the ride or the six weeks of being the spare sister in someone else’s happy home, she couldn’t have said.

The Wolf had looked at her hand, then had poured.

It had gone down like a lit candle, sweet and peaty and warm all the way to her toes, and after that the room had become kinder. The fire was brighter. The stranger across the table was less like a wall of muscle and more like a man who was very careful not to look at her bodice.

“Ye daenae talk much,” she’d told him.