reddened and swollen. Her cheeks and throat are flushed and I can smell her arousal. I don’t wait to wait, but I grit my teeth and curl my hands into fists.
“We’ve barely spoken since I’ve been here. I’ve seen how you’ve tried to ignore me. What’s changed?”
“Everything,” I breathe, cupping her cheek. The bear inside me recognized her the moment she stepped onto my mountain. He woke me and pulled me from my bed, and made me tramp through the snow to find her, even before I heard the baying of the wolfskins. It took the rest of me days to catch up, but now that I’ve held her in my arms, I’ll never let her go again.
I dip my head to claim her mouth once more, but her small hands push me away again.
“I’m stronger now. Finley and I will leave in the morning.”
My eyes narrow. The wolfskins will be waiting for her to step one foot outside my territory before they snatch her. Carys and the baby need me to protect them, and I need my mate.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” she says quickly. “I’m sure you’ll be glad to be rid of us.” She scoots up the bed away from me and turns to lift Finley from his cradle.
“Stop,” I growl. Her strange scent is stronger than ever and I sense a crackle in her aura that no human woman should have. I should have recognized her for what she is: a woman so rare that skinchangers will fight to the death to be her mate. “You won’t leave; you can’t.”
Carys inhales a frightened breath. “Why not?”
Because I crave you more than life itself and I can’t let you go. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth before I lose you. “The wolfskins will hunt you down.”
Her voice becomes shrill. “What’s a wolfskin? Just say wolves like a normal person, can’t you? And I don’t care. I’ll take my chances with them.”
The short hairs on the back of my neck rise, and the bones in my spine give a faint pop. I can’t let them take her. The wolfskins will raise the child in fury and turn him into something cold and cruel like them. They’ll force her to have more pups for them and punish her if she refuses. I know that pack of old.
“That’s what they are. Wolfskins.”
“Will you let us leave?”
In answer, I reach out and close my hand around her bare, slender ankle.
Tears fill her eyes. She picks Finley up and holds the baby tight to her chest as tears fill her eyes. “Why are you doing this? You’ve been so kind to us.”
“You don’t know what you are, do you?”
“I’m no one. I was abandoned as a baby and grew up in the village. I was raised by the preacher and his wife, and when I disappointed them, they let the villagers throw me out.”
I can’t fathom how a skinchanger could have abandoned their daughter, except if they were sick and injured and had no choice. “You’re a skinbearer, a human woman with skinchanger blood somewhere in her family tree. You can’t shift, but you can become a skinchanger’s lifemate.”
Carys takes a shuddering breath, and whispers, “You’re crazy.”
“Those wolfskins will keep coming after you. You’re more precious than silver and gold.”
“No, I’m not. Everyone in my village is afraid of me. They cast me out because I’m dangerous, and I brought the wolves.”
“I told you, those aren’t wolves. Who fathered your child? Think, Carys. He wasn’t normal, was he?”
Carys gazes down at the baby and says in a small voice, “There was a man at the harvest festival last year. A stranger. I don’t remember much… I think I had too much to drink. A few weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant.”
I clasp her shoulders. “That wasn’t a man. Did you not notice the bitemarks on your body?”
“I had some scratches,” she whispers. “But it was still just a man. Please don’t say I’m a witch, too. I can’t bear it.”
Wolfskins are notorious for cruelly marking up the human women they lie with. She’s lucky she strayed into the path of only one, and he can’t have realized what she is. Not until recently. If she was thrown out of her village for drawing the wolfskins closer, then they must have scented the pup in the wind.
I look down at the sleeping baby in her arms. I realized what he was when I looked into his