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

were all barreling out now and he couldn’t stop them. He had Gavriella aloft, in his arms, kissing her so deeply that he drove his teeth into her lower lip.

Tasting the blood, he licked it hungrily.

It was sheer bliss.

“Now,” he whispered huskily. “I want you to remember this moment. When I showed you how a kiss can be between a man and a woman. Are you still afraid?”

Dazed, Gavriella swallowed hard. “Nay.”

With a smile on his lips, he swooped in for another kiss, this one more deeply than the first one. He rather liked the taste of her, the feel of her in his arms. Certainly he’d kissed women before, but there had been something lacking in each kiss he couldn’t put his finger on.

There was nothing lacking in this one.

He was looking forward to many more just like it.

Over near the kitchen door, servants suddenly appeared, talking about providing stew to men who hadn’t received any yet. They were bickering, back and forth, and Andreas stopped kissing Gavriella and set her to her feet, remaining in the shadows as the servants dished more stew out of the pot in the center of the kitchen yard before disappearing back inside. When they were gone, he turned to her.

“Let tonight be a foretaste, my lady,” he said, a glimmer in his eyes. “I will speak to your father first thing in the morning, providing he does not remember what happened tonight.”

Gavriella still had a grip on him, holding tightly to his warm, powerful form. “He usually does not,” she said. “In fact, he usually…”

She suddenly trailed off and he looked at her, noting that she was looking at something over in the stable yard. Andreas turned to see what had her attention. He could see a small figure moving through the snow towards the stables before disappearing inside.

“What is it?” he asked her. “Who was that?”

Gavriella cocked her head curiously. “I’ve seen that cloak,” she said. “I think that is Giddy.”

“Who is that?”

“The woman who will not leave my father’s side.”

The light of recognition went on in Andreas’ mind. “The woman with the red hair.”

“Aye,” Gavriella said. “It is strange that she would be out here on this night.”

Andreas cocked a disapproving eyebrow. “It seems to me that everything about her is strange,” he said. “After you fled the hall, she disappeared. Your father was on the ground and she was nowhere to be found.”

Gavriella looked at him. “Why was he on the ground?”

Andreas looked at her, trying not to appear contrite. “Because I struck him,” he said. “He was speaking of… madness and would not shut his mouth. I struck him to shut him up.”

She regarded him for a moment. “He was speaking about me, wasn’t he?”

“Aye.”

He averted his gaze and Gavriella smiled faintly. “You have made yourself my champion, have you?” she said. “Even against my father?”

“Especially against your father.”

She started to chuckle, touched by his actions and words, but was cut short when a horse and rider suddenly thundered from the stable, heading for the gatehouse. It was dark, and a light snow was falling, but still, the rider was heading out of Falstone on a night when travel would have been inadvisable.

Andreas released Gavriella and tried to peer through the dimly lit bailey as the rider reached the gatehouse.

“That’s Giddy?” he asked.

Gavriella could see the distant figure as the gate sentries opened up a small section of gate, a man gate, to allow the figure to pass through.

“Aye,” she said. “But where in the world is she going? She has not left Falstone since I returned home those months ago and now, abruptly, she must leave? Most peculiar.”

Andreas didn’t have an answer for her but he knew, instinctively, that it couldn’t be good. As he watched, the horse and rider slipped through the gate and disappeared out into the night.

He grasped Gavriella by the hand.

“Come on,” he said.

She held on to him with one hand, lifting her skirts away from the snow with the other. “Why?” she asked. “Where are we going?”

Andreas didn’t look at her. He had much on his mind. “To find answers.”

Gavriella didn’t say anything. She simply went along with him. Whatever he needed to accomplish was fine with her.

Her champion.

Something was rotten at Falstone and Andreas was going to find out what it was.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Hell’s Guardhouse

“Edenside,” Giddy said breathlessly. “The child is at Edenside!”

She had just burst into John’s bedchamber and the man had been dead asleep, but Giddy’s shrill voice had him sitting up in his bed before he even realized he’d moved. In fact, he nearly pitched himself over the side of his bed as Giddy ran to him, grasping at him.

“Did you hear me?” she said urgently. “The child is at Edenside!”

John was struggling out of a deep sleep. He rubbed his eyes furiously. “Edenside?” he repeated. “The child of de Leia’s daughter?”

“Of course,” Giddy said as if he’d just said something foolish. “Who else? God’s Beard… six long months with that… that animal and he finally revealed the whereabouts tonight. I had to come and tell you as soon as I heard!”

John was more lucid now as he processed what she was telling him, but her shouting had brought Nicholas. He was suddenly in the doorway of his father’s chamber, dressed in smelly, crumpled clothing and rubbing his eyes.

“What has happened?” he yawned, then realized he was looking at Giddy. “You? What are you doing here?”

Giddy sauntered up to him. “I found your bastard, my handsome lad,” she said seductively. “All of those months plying the man with wine mixed with that weed called vervain finally came to fruition. The old fool finally revealed that he’d sent the infant to Edenside.”

Nicholas peered at her in disbelief. “The truth serum actually worked?”

Giddy nodded. “It must have,” she said. “Whatever the apothecary in Gretna Green sold you as effective in prying the truth out of a man finally worked, but it took six long months