WolfeStrike (De Wolfe Pack Generations #2) - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,5
the intention of giving life. It is a cruel God who allows women to die in childbirth.”
“Hush,” Lady de Lohr said softly. “You must not blaspheme.”
Tor wouldn’t look at her. “I can say what I wish now that there is no longer any reason to pray to God,” he said. “He should have taken me instead of Jane. I had gone to Goodrich with the intention of killing men. But Janie… all she wanted was to hold our son in her arms. Speak not to me of God, Lady de Lohr, for that is not something I wish to hear.”
Lady de Lohr wasn’t going to push him. She knew that he was doing the best he could under the circumstances, lashing out as much as Tor de Wolfe was capable of lashing out. She’d never seen such a controlled man, but she had heard from her husband that once the control was broken, there was no stopping Tor in anything he wished to do – kill a man, destroy a home, burn a town. He was capable of such things.
But he kept that monster tightly under restraint.
Therefore, she simply squeezed his hand and released him. “If there is anything I can do for you, Tor, you only need ask,” she said. “I am here to help you in any way. If you wish for me to send a missive to your father, I shall. I have refrained from doing anything, waiting until you returned so that you can decide what needs to be done. But you must understand that we had to bury Jane. With the weather warm, we had no choice. I hope you do understand that.”
He was still looking away, still staring off into space as he pondered his unexpected future without the woman he loved.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“In Lioncross’ abbey,” she said.
“Down in the vault?”
“Aye,” she said. “You know the area under the south wing of the keep, the old abbey. It is where all of the de Lohrs for almost one hundred years have been buried. Jane is in good company down there. The knights in their crypts will watch over her.”
Tor sighed faintly, realizing that he felt very much like weeping. He hadn’t wept since he’d been a child. Jane was gone, their child was gone, and he had nothing left.
Nothing but Jane’s younger sisters.
Lady Barbara and Lady Lenore de Merrett had come to live with them only a few months ago after their parents died of the same mysterious infection. Barbara was ten years of age and Lenore was nine years of age, small girls that Jane had coddled and fussed over. Truth be told, Tor hadn’t had any real interaction with them. He didn’t even really know them.
But now, they belonged to him.
Standing up, he excused himself. He didn’t want to talk to Lady de Lohr any longer. He wanted to visit Jane and their child, down in the cold, dank abbey of Lioncross. They were alone down there and he needed to be with them. He wanted to talk to her, to apologize for killing her with the child he implanted within her. He knew she wouldn’t blame him, for Jane had been a gentle creature who would have taken the guilt herself before she let Tor assume any of it, but he wanted to apologize to her all the same.
He did this.
It was all his fault.
The pain was beginning to consume him.
As he made his way down to the abbey, he had to pass through the massive bailey to do it. There was an exterior door, heavily fortified, that led into the labyrinth that was known as the abbey, but as he walked, he swore he could hear a collective hush come over the bailey even though the army was beginning to arrive.
Word was spreading.
Lady de Wolfe did not survive, men were saying. They were whispering from one to another, and Tor could feel their stares crawling up his back. It felt like vermin crawling all over him, knowing men were staring at him and flooding the very air around them with their pity. He hated it; he hated being pitied. Somewhere behind him, Lady de Lohr had emerged from the forebuilding to watch him make his way to the abbey, but she caught sight of her son as he rode into the bailey and she went to him. Tor didn’t see her tears when Curt took her in his arms.