Wolfsgate Read online

  “Get away from my wife,” Brandon’s growl rose from the other side of the hall.

  William turned to face his cousin, his neck stiffening. “There you are. The money?”

  “There is no money for you, you bastard. Not ever.”

  William’s face darkened. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “I know what it means for Amanda,” Brandon said. “This has all been about Amanda, from the beginning. Her pleasures, her debts. No more. Find a way to take care of your wife’s little problem on your own.”

  William’s hand passed over his waistcoat. “There is no problem.”

  “I’ve seen the bills, cousin, looked into the rumors. There’s a big problem.”

  “You did what?” William’s eyes narrowed.

  “Oh, then, of course, there are her things with other men.”

  “Things?”

  “Sorry, did I say ‘things?’” Brandon smiled. “I meant flings. Your wife’s flings with other men.”

  William’s face turned hard as stone. “You bastard!” He launched himself at Brandon.

  Brandon pushed Justine out of the way and shoved William back against the wall. “Yes, William. While you’ve been working hard to save her reputation and your own by clearing her debts, the ungrateful bitch has been entertaining herself with other men. I suppose you’ve been too busy to notice? But you noticed how much she wanted me, didn’t you?”

  Justine gasped. “Brandon, stop!”

  William sputtered and flung himself at Brandon once again, and Justine stumbled back. William punched Brandon in the chest, but Brandon’s fist landed on the side of his cousin’s jaw, knocking him back. William grunted with the pain and staggered to the side.

  “What is this? What is going on?” Amanda rushed into the hall, her eyes wide, her cape in her arms. “What are you two doing? This is ridiculous! Thank God everyone’s left and no one’s here to witness it!”

  Brandon burst out into laughter. Justine slipped an arm around his torso, the other at his chest.

  William stiffened his shoulders and glared at his wife. “Wait for me outside.” She only stared at him, her cheeks flushed. “Do as I say! Go!” Amanda turned on her heel and sped out the door.

  William wiped at the side of his mouth. “All I ever wanted was to protect this family.”

  “No, you wanted to protect your interests, your name,” Brandon said. “Our definition of family, cousin, is quite, quite different.”

  “Is everything alright, milady?” asked Lizzie as she relieved Justine of her gown. “That was quite a to-do before.”

  Justine kicked off her shoes and rolled down her stockings, removing them. “Everything’s fine.” She entered the bedchamber and caught her reflection in the large looking glass over the chest of drawers. She still wore the jewelry. She worked the clasp of the bracelet, and the door flew open. Brandon stood in the doorway, his eyes on Justine. Lizzie swept through the room and stopped abruptly.

  “Go,” Brandon said, his voice low, his eyes blazing.

  Lizzie’s bowed to both of them and darted from the chamber.

  Brandon shut the door behind her, pressing his hand against it as if to make sure it was secure. His necktie hung loose, his shirt open, revealing his bare chest.

  “Did William upset you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He came up behind her. “He has a peculiar way of speaking to you.”

  Justine returned her attention to the bracelet. “He always has. I don’t think that will ever change.” The clasp finally unhooked.

  Brandon breathed deep and leaned closer to her, his gaze on her reflection in the mirror. “He called you Tina.”

  She lay the bracelet on the marble top of the chest. Brandon trailed a finger down her back, and a small gasp escaped her lips.

  “He seems to know how to hurt you, and I want to hurt him for it.”

  “Brandon—”

  “I know. You don’t want me to go after him.”

  “You promised me you wouldn’t.”

  “I won’t. I won’t break that promise because it’s important to you. You are important to me.”

  Her hands went around her neck to the clasp of the necklace, but he stopped them, his fingers wrapping around hers. “Stay with me, Jus. You must. Let me take care of you now.”

  “I’ve lied to you,” her voice shook as she spoke. “Surely you must feel contempt for me, a measure of disgust.”

  He released her hands. “Don’t ever use that word again.”

  Her brow knit together. “It’s true—”

  “No, it’s not. That’s not what I feel when I look at you. I admire you, Justine. I love you.”

  “Brandon—”

  “I love you.”

  She gripped the edge of the chest, her body swaying slightly.

  “Look at me.”

  She raised her head and caught their reflection in the glass again.

  “Only you,” he whispered. His fingers traced a line across her shoulder, up her neck to her ear. He tapped the rubies and diamonds that hung there. The earring swung, and he unscrewed it from her lobe and let it drop from his long fingers, crashing onto the marble top. The tip of his tongue traced a line of wet fire up her neck to her other ear, and there he bit the soft lobe, eliciting a whimper from her. Brandon released the other earring, and it too plummeted to the table with a crash.

  “Only you.” His eyes darkened. “Look at us.” He leaned his head close to hers, and his fingers drew her face towards the glass once more. “What do you see?”

  Her lips parted, but she did not speak. A tear spilled down her cheek.

  “You see it, Jus. You feel it between us. So do I.”

  She swallowed, her eyes glimmered with wet in the dim light of the candles.

  “This is us.” Brandon’s voice was gentle. “No one and nothing can take that away, sweet thing. Not ever. Not things that happened in the past way before us, not people’s poisonous tongues today nor even tomorrow. Nothing.” His lips brushed her cool cheek and her chin lifted. “You have to believe in it, Justine. I do. You made me believe. With your goodness, your strength.” He turned his face into her neck and drank in her rose scent once more. “Let me be strong for you now, as a husband should. You need me to be,” he murmured against her skin. Her lower lip trembled slightly.

  “I love you, Jus.” Brandon swept her hair from her neck and his fingers traced a feather-light line down her shoulders. “I’ve never felt this before. Never,” he whispered against the side of her throat. Justine inhaled his words.

  He glanced up at their reflection in the looking glass, soaking in the silken pools of her brown eyes. “Let us have this. Do we not deserve it?”

  Her chin lifted, her body suddenly stilled as if a new thought had occurred to her. She pulled her chemise over her head, freeing her body from the fine material and let it drop to the floor. The energy in the room changed, and the charge bolted through his chest. Justine stood naked before him except for his necklace glittering at her throat. Her sober gaze was pinned to his in the glass. His heart pressed against his ribs.

  “Take me, Brandon,” she said in the half shadows. “Right here, I want to watch us doing it.”

  The air was sucked out of him as if a tightly wound string that bound him had snapped, and he was let loose. Her fingers clutched the ends of the dresser as he unfastened his breeches. He raised her hips and slid his cock inside her silky wetness slowly. She let out a low moan, and he leaned over her back, planting a kiss on her soft skin.

  “Justine…” It came out as a warning, because he did not think he could hold himself together too much longer. The blood pounded in his head and in his cock. He was fucking starved for her.

  “Fill me, Brandon,” she whispered.

  He drew himself up, and his one hand dug into her hair pulling it back. She gasped, her head arching up, her eyes melding with his in the looking glass. He rocked inside her as fully as he possibly could,
yet every particle of his being cried out for more, more of his Justine. His eyes shut for a blinding instant.

  “Look at me,” her husky voice demanded through his carnal fog.

  Brandon raised his hooded gaze to hers in the mirror. Her lips were parted, her velvet eyes swirled in desire.

  Desire for him.

  “This is our revenge,” she whispered. “Our satisfaction, together.”

  Brandon’s chest burst. He drove into her slickness and buried himself to the hilt, then pulled out slowly, relishing every sensation that ripped through him.

  “Give me all of you, Bran. I want to feel you everywhere.”

  He plunged back inside her. A grunt escaped his chest and he lost the last scrap of control he had left. He wrenched her hips higher and thrust deeper into her, moved faster, his eyes never leaving hers in the glass. She gasped for air as she pushed back into him. The necklace on her throat made thudding sounds against her chest as he slammed into her over and over again. The ruby earrings and the bracelet shook over the marble surface of the dresser before them. Justine yielded fully to his violence, welcoming it, needing it just as much as he did.

  “Only you, Jus. Tell me. Tell me you believe me.”

  “Brandon!”

  That desperate, wild sound blasted the ache in his chest and vanquished it once and for all. He drove even quicker now into her shuddering body until the rising tide of sensation overwhelmed him. He gave himself over to it, to her, and came hard and fast inside his spectacular wife.

  “WHERE IS SHE, MOLLY? WHERE THE HELL COULD SHE BE?”

  Molly’s face creased. “I dinna see her, sir.”

  The sun was setting and a harsh wind battered the window panes. Justine had not been seen all afternoon. It had been hours, in fact. “Where’s Simms?” Brandon asked his lips set in a firm line.

  “I haven’t seen him either.”

  Brandon had just come back from the stables, the freezing air still stinging his face. Justine’s horse, Persephone, was missing.

  He cursed under his breath. Had she left him? She was stubborn, but no, no impossible. They had made love last night for what seemed like hours. Talked. Laughed in each other’s arms. It had been perfect. Perfect.

  Had that been her way of saying goodbye?

  His throat constricted. That trace of sadness, that distraction was still in her eyes. It was something she couldn’t yet let go of, and he couldn’t wipe it away just yet.

  He tore up the stairs to their chamber and went straight to her dressing room. The doors to the closet hung open. His pulse thudded as he pushed one door back. Bloody hell. It had been full of frocks and skirts last night. Today it gaped at him, yawned at him half-empty.

  No.

  He stepped back and darted to the vanity table. The surface was clean, only her two perfume bottles and that small Prussian blue enamel box of her mother’s stood still on the surface. He yanked opened the drawers one after the other and dumped the jewelry boxes on the table, snapping them open. His mother’s earrings, the bracelet, the new emerald necklace. All of it. Still here. Her mother’s ring. The box for the wedding ring he bought her that day in the village was empty. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

  His eyes darted to the enamel box. He lifted off the top. Damn it to hell. There it was. Justine’s wedding ring. The one he had chosen with her trembling at his side. The one she wore every day. He slumped against the table.

  “Milord?” Molly clutched at her hands in the doorway.

  “She’s gone.”

  “She can’t be!”

  “Did she tell you?”

  “She said no such thing, she wouldna leave. This is her home!”

  Brandon jammed the dresser against the wall knocking over the perfume bottles. The boxes shifted from the pile, tumbling, the diamonds and emeralds spilling over. He charged past Molly out of the room and out of the house.

  “Lord Graven?” Georgina stood in the parlor of her family home, her face flushed, her eyes blinking up at him. “Welcome. Please sit….”

  “Where is she?” he breathed.

  “Pardon?”

  “Justine, where has she gone?”

  “Gone?”

  “Is she here?”

  “No, she’s not here.”

  “You must know something. You must have helped her.”

  “Helped her?”

  “Tell me.”

  Her dark eyebrows drew together. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Justine is gone?”

  “There’s no sign of her, she’s taken clothes, left her jewelry behind, even her wedding ring.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Are you certain you know nothing?” His ragged voice boomed.

  Georgina’s hands curled into fists at her side. “It cannot be!”

  “I wouldn’t be here now if it were not true!” he shot back through gritted teeth.

  “She said nothing to me. She seemed happy at the party, even though somewhat distracted. I assumed it was nerves, excitement, fatigue.”

  “She’s sent no message to you, no—”

  “No, nothing. I will come with you.”

  “Stay here. Perhaps she will contact you or come herself.”

  Georgina’s large brown eyes tightened. “Have you done or said something to upset her?”

  He gave the girl a hard stare. “I would never do anything to harm or frighten my wife, Miss Georgina. I only want her home safe with me.”

  Georgina clasped her hands together. “She has said nothing to me to indicate that she was even considering such a thing. If she had I would have dissuaded her, you can be sure of it.”

  Charles Montclair entered the room. “Graven? What are you doing here?”

  “Lady Justine is missing,” said Georgina quietly.

  “Missing?” Charles turned to Brandon who only dragged his teeth across his lips in an effort to contain himself.

  “Have you seen her or spoken to her since the tea, Mr. Montclare?” asked Georgina.

  “No. We only spoke that once with you, then later when we took our leave.”

  “Yes.” Georgina glanced up at Brandon’s hard features. “Lord Graven, in such a dramatic instance, if she has chosen to leave, would she not turn to her stepbrother?”

  “No.”

  “Your estate manager? She has told me that—”

  “I have seen him, he is searching for her himself.”

  Georgina wiped a hand across her brow. “I must confess, I know of no other acquaintance of Lady Justine’s whom she would trust in such an instance. She is friendly with several of your tenants, though, is she not?”

  Brandon exhaled. “Yes. Yes. There is a tenant. There is one in particular.”

  She knew that howl.

  It was not the wind, it was him.

  He was here.

  Here for me.

  “Yes. Yes, do come.”

  There was a slight glow of light before her in the twilight. She tried to raised her hand, but her arm would not comply with her wishes. The light only dimmed, paled. His gold eyes shone but for an instant, making her heart throb. His cry filled the air again, breaking over her, taking her breath away.

  I am with you.

  The gold flickered and vanished.

  “Stay.”

  Only white filled her vision.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  White…

  Only white.

  Brandon galloped over the hard frozen ground towards the tenants’ cottages. There was only one other person. Only one. She had trusted him years ago. She trusted him still. He saw it in both of them every time they were in each other’s presence. It was quiet, easy between them, but it was palpable, unmistakable.

  Martin.

  She could trust Martin to help her leave. Maybe they had left together. Maybe he’d been right all along and the world truly was a mad, mad place, and he was cursed to live in it, resurrected or no.

  The drifts of endless white snow in th
e dark sparkled at him from the light of the moon. Knight cut through the eerie quiet of the frozen woods bringing him closer to the tenants’ cottages. She could still be there, before heading off somewhere early the following morning. Beads of sweat prickled along his spine. He barely notice the drifts of white his horse plowed through. An icy net stretched over his chest pulling tight.

  “Let me not be too late. Let me find her.”

  Knight pulled on his reins giving a subtle tug of his head to the side. Brandon’s eyes focused before him instinctively, his back stiffened as he listened, his legs firm against his horse. Another animal was about. A heavy whisper, a shuffling movement, crunching in the snow. All his senses tuned to every flick of—

  Knight whinnied and pulled again. Brandon’s fingers tightened against the reins. Two eyes glowed in the distance, a luminous yellow gold. His heart pumped wildly in his chest.

  The eyes disappeared, and he heard the creature shifting warily in the snow, appraising him. Was it…

  Brandon took in a deep breath, and the vision manifested before him, but it was no apparition, it was real. Persephone. Alone, bare in the snow, watching him and Knight, bobbing her head, her thick black mane whipping in the wind. Her neigh shuddered through the air.

  He slid off his horse and approached her slowly. “Here, girl. That’s it.” The horse snorted at him, shook its head from side to side, its eyes wide. She didn’t seem relieved to have been found, only agitated. What was she doing out here alone and with no saddle? Persephone snorted, her hooves crunching in the icy snow. She stamped back a few steps then trotted to a grove of ice-laden trees in the distance. “What is it, girl?” He plodded after her.

  That’s when he saw it.

  A mound of black lay like a large immoveable stone under the frozen branches. Persephone snorted and neighed, bobbing her head over the black stone.

  Brandon’s heart tore through his chest. He ran, fell on his knees, his hands clawing over the motionless figure, digging into the icy woolen fabric, pulling at the cold softness underneath. The full mass of hair fell over his arm, and the breath caught in his lungs. His hand went to her cold face, his shaky fingers brushing over her icy lips.