WolfeBlade: de Wolfe Pack Generations by Kathryn Veque (reading an ebook txt) 📕

kill, but a small amount would do terrible but recoverable things to a human body. Whoever got the drink with the purge in it would know very quickly, because within a minute of drinking it, everything would come right back up again.

At first, it was just the four of them indulging in the game, but then others began to see what they were doing and they wanted to join in. Very quickly, there were ten to twelve men indulging in the vomiting game that was becoming the focus of the entire tavern.

Andreas was a man who would be considered the strong and silent type. He wasn’t one to say much, but when he did have something to say, it was worth listening to. He’d built a reputation for giving sage advice and a fighting skill that was one of the very best in England. His particular attributes made him quite dangerous because he was adept at hiding his emotions and his expression would maintain a neutrality even if, inside, he was plotting a man’s death. One could never tell what Andreas de Wolfe was thinking at any given time, and that included during the stupid drinking game.

He had gotten the purge once during the entire game. He had vomited so hard and so far that, now, they were taking bets on just how far men would and could vomit. They had cleared away several tables while they passed around the drink and waited to see who would erupt and just how far they could go with it.

It had been messy, but it had been quite funny. There was an added benefit to drinking the ale with the purge in it because it evacuated the alcohol out of the stomach, meaning the person drinking was delaying their path to drunkenness. But those who couldn’t hold their liquor very well were already quite drunk, regardless of having the misfortune of the purge in one of their cups of ale, and the bets were flying fast and furious as vomit covered the floor of the tavern.

Even now, as it grew late into the night and the River Thames outside of the tavern’s front door lapped softly upon the rocky shore, The Pox was filled to the rafters with questionable women and even more questionable men, at least half of them indulging in the messy and sometimes violent vomiting game.

Every time someone vomited, the roof was practically lifted off the tavern by people laughing and cheering. Andreas and his cousins had been having a marvelous time, but that quickly changed when one of the men betting suddenly decided that the game was somehow rigged. He couldn’t quite explain why he thought that or how he even knew that, but he was unhappy because he felt as if he’d lost too much money trying to predict just how far someone was going to puke. He began arguing, Will delivered a well-aimed insult as only he was capable, and the entire room deteriorated into an all-out brawl.

And that was where Andreas found himself now, throwing himself onto the floor so he wouldn’t be crowned by a chair. Once his attacker was sprawling several feet away, he leapt to his feet and turned to make sure his cousins were unharmed.

“It is my sense that we need to leave this place,” he said to them. “Poppy warned us against coming here, but we did not listen.”

“Poppy” was his grandfather, William de Wolfe, the mighty Wolfe of the Border. He was the greatest knight in northern England, and probably all of England, having served three kings. He had been to The Pox in his youth and had tried to dissuade his grandsons from venturing to it on their visit to London, but like moths to the flame, they were drawn to something legendary, dastardly, and exciting.

And now regretting it.

Mostly.

“Come on.” William “Will” de Wolfe, the oldest of the de Wolfe grandchildren and named for his famous grandfather, grabbed his younger brother and was moving for the door. “This place is full of clay-brained halfwits. Dray, grab Theodis! We leave!”

Andreas whirled around, looking for his best friend in the entire world, a massive and frightening beast of man who was part of a family whose entire foundation was built on brutal conquest and death. Theodis de Velt was a true-blood of those lines because he had three of their most defining characteristics – being enormously built, having long and dark hair, and two-colored eyes.

The most well-known de Velt with that trait was Ajax de Velt, a man who had conquered half the Welsh Marches and was starting in on the Scottish Marches when he met the woman who tamed him. He had brown eyes except the left one had a big splash of bright green in it. That trait, to varying degrees, was carried by the male line of his family and, in some cases, even the women had it. Theodis had it, but his was quite pronounced – his right eye was brown, while his left eye was brown except for the pupil being encircled with a ring of bright green. It was beautiful, bold and startling, something that only enhanced the interesting nature of a very handsome, and very volatile, man.

In fact, he was being volatile right at this very moment. Andreas spied him over near the kitchens as he threw punches with a very large man who seemed to have murder on his mind. As Andreas headed in that direction, Theodis caught sight of him and decided to end his brawl once and for all.

One big fist in the face and his opponent went out as quickly as blowing out a candle.

“Come on,” Andreas said, motioning the man to follow. “We’re leaving.”

Theodis grinned as he joined Andreas, a gesture that most men saw as rather frightening because his canines were prominent. It made him look like a fanged beast.

“Why?” he asked, keeping his fists balled in case someone decided to charge him. “Look around you, Dray – it’s a party.”

Andreas