The broken beta - healed by innocence

Keeping word

*Briony*

I watch, mesmerized. The shadows are distorted, not nearly as clear as I’d imagined, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s wronged me. Considering the slowness with which he's removing his clothing, I assume he's beginning to understand that.

With a quickness I'm not expecting, he drops his trousers. I bury my face in my hands. Chase would no doubt send me back to Georgia if he found out what I’d required of his brother. It doesn't matter that I can’t actually see his flesh or the rigid contours that probably run along his body.

He is standing inside my tent, buck naked. What have I been thinking to require such a thing of him? I wanted him to experience the humiliation that I felt when I discovered that he’d been watching me.

Only now, mortification swamps me. The warmth flames my cheeks as my mind brings up images of Wade washing himself. I can't bring myself to look, but in my mind’s eye, I can see the glistening drops of water trailing down his throat, over his chest, along his stomach, traveling down...

I double over and press my face against my knees, but I can't block out the images. I have always been a dreamer, but no decent she-wolf would conjure up the fantasy swirling inside my head.

Had he been content to stare at my silhouette or had he imagined the drops of water?

“I learned my lesson.”

I screech and shoot off the log, but not before I catch sight of a knee resting above a hairy calf. I hadn’t heard him kneel beside me, but I am listening now, listening hard for his approach as I stand near the edge of the shadows, within the ring of light that the fire creates. “I said you were to sleep in the tent,” I remind the man behind me, grateful I can’t see him.

“I don’t think you’re really interested in watching me sleep. I gave you your show. Now, get inside the tent and get some sleep. We’ll be leaving at dawn.” He says.

“That wasn’t the bargain.” I point out.

I hear his knee pop and assume he’s risen to his feet. I am tempted to step beyond the light, to disappear into the night, but I fear the darkness while I am only wary of the man.

“I’m used to sleeping outside. I’m not sure you’ll know what to do if you wake up with a snake coiled on your chest.” He mumbles.

“A snake?” Without thinking, I spin around and find the breath knocked out of me. He stands stiffly beside the fire, his clothes bunched before him offering him some protection from my wandering gaze.

The firelight plays over his flesh like a lover’s caress. He has additional scars on his left shoulder, healed flesh that trails down his chest toward his stomach and finally blends into oblivion. Old wounds the water may have kissed on its journey.

He shifts his stance, and his muscles ripple with the slight movement. He appears much stronger than I’d imagined. I lower my gaze as his hands tighten their hold on his clothing. I can see the veins and muscles in his arms straining with the force of his grip.

“Git inside the tent,” he growls in a low, warning voice, “or you’re gonna see a lot more than my shadow.”

With a quick nod, I scurry into the tent.

*Wade*

I fight to hold back my laughter. The she-wolf is precious. Bold as brass one minute, ordering me into her tent; timid as a mouse the next, with wide eyes and a blush that just begs a man to touch her cheek.

Dropping to my pallet, I work my way back into my clothes. Inside my cabin, I do sleep without a stitch of clothing, but not out here where a man could wake up with a snake curled over him.

I heft my saddle to the other end of my pallet and stretch out, my gaze focused on the mules instead of the tent. I should have done it this way the first night.

I chuckle low, remembering the relief I had experienced when I had peered out the tent and seen Briony crouching on the log, her face hidden.

I wonder at what point she had covered her eyes. Maybe I could have spared myself the cold wash-up. I had done it so quickly that my body had barely noticed the touch of the cloth. I suppose out of fairness, I should have let the cloth caress my body the way she did when she washed. I should have slowly removed every speck of dust and every remnant of dried sweat until I could have come out of that tent smelling like she did: clean, pure, and tempting.

How could a she-wolf be both pure and tempting? A decent she-wolf shouldn't wash herself the way Briony does. A decent she-wolf shouldn't travel halfway across the country to marry a man she knew only through letters. Maybe Briony Starweaver isn't a decent she-wolf. Maybe…

“Beta Moonshadow?”

Her soft, gentle voice brushes over me like the finest of linen rubbing against my coarse body, sending my thoughts to perdition where they belong.

Rolling over, I come up on my elbow and meet her troubled gaze as she kneels beside my pallet, her hands folded primly in her lap. “Briony, don’t you think after what we learned about each other tonight that we can call each other by our first names?”

Even in the night shadows, I can see the flush in her cheeks as she lowers her gaze to her clenched hands.

“That’s what I wanted to explain. I didn’t watch for very long so I just... I just didn’t want you to think I was wanton.” She mumbles.

I don't know what possesses me to slip my finger beneath her chin and lift her gaze back to mine. I can feel the slight quiver beneath her soft skin and hate myself because my weakness, and not hers, has brought us to this moment.

“I don't think that.” I say.

Her green eyes hold a depth of sadness. “Chase might feel differently if he were to find out about tonight.”

“He won't hear it from me.” I promise.

I ache for my fingers to spread out across her face, my palm to cup her cheek, my thumb to graze her softness, my hand to draw her heart-shaped mouth to mine. In all my life, I've kissed only one she-wolf… a p********e whose breath had carried the stench of all the men who had come before me.

I have a feeling that the first time Chase kisses Briony, he’ll taste nothing but her sweetness... as he should. Chase has earned the right to nibble on those tempting lips because he has dared to offer her a portion of his dream.

I draw my hand away before my fingers stop listening to my head and start listening to my erratic heart.

“You’d best go back to bed now,” I say in a rough voice I hardly recognize as my own.

“I don’t like to be inside the darkness, but if I keep the lantern burning, I’ll create shadows.” She mumbles.

I nod slowly. “I won’t be lookin’.”

“Promise?” She asks.

I deserve that hesitancy, that lack of trust. Chase had told me once that if a man went back on his word one time, his reputation as a man of honor became little more than dust. I have never known Chase to break a promise. The strength of his word had laid the foundation for his empire. “I give you my word.”

She pushes to her feet. “Sleep well.”

Nodding, I settle back against my saddle, resisting the urge to watch her walk into the tent, knowing if I do, I might never find the strength to look away.