Blood Challenge by Eileen Wilks Read Free Book Online Page A

dangerous. Dealing with the human world was Rule’s job, and Isen’s, but threats from that world were his business. Keeping Clanhome and his Rho safe were his business. He couldn’t retreat to his cabin.
    Isen said simply, “Ben.”
    His father was the only one who called him Ben. No one else did, including his Rho. It was his father he’d hear from now. Benedict swallowed. “Yes.”
    “That swamp you’re in—that’s the past. No one could blame you for bogging down in it now. How could you not? But you won’t find dry land holed up in your cabin away from everyone. Just more swamp.”
    “I don’t understand how the Lady could do this,” Benedict burst out. “I don’t understand at all.”
    “I don’t, either,” Isen said gently.
    “It’s never happened twice to one lupus. Once is rare. Twice is …” Benedict shuddered. His father was right, as usual. He couldn’t run away from this. He had no choice but to stay and face it. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I haven’t been scared like this in so long. So long.”
    “You don’t know anything about her other than her appearance?”
    Benedict had given her physical description to Isen in his report: late twenties or early thirties. Five-seven, skinny, pale skin, glasses, wildly curly hair tied back in a ponytail. He didn’t know what color all that frantic hair might be, save that it was neither especially dark nor especially light. Wolf eyes saw well in the dark, but they didn’t pick up colors at night.
    He knew how she smelled. He hadn’t tried to describe that, or its effect on him. He knew she’d been afraid the whole time—before she saw him, the moment she saw him, and while he walked beside her. She hadn’t let the fear interfere. “She knew what I was.”
    “Did she?”
    “From the moment she saw me.” Never mind what she’d said. The ghost of a smile touched Benedict’s lips. Nice doggie. “She didn’t freak about me staying with her. She tried to persuade me to go, but she didn’t freak.”
    Isen nodded. “That’s encouraging. And, as the proverb says, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ She enjoys sneaking around Friar’s property at night, which isn’t the act of one friendly to the man.”
    Dryly, Benedict said, “I don’t think she was enjoying herself. Aside from the danger, which she seemed well aware of, she has a physical impediment of some sort. Hip, maybe knee, on her left side. I couldn’t tell.”
    “You said she twisted her ankle.”
    “There was something off in her gait before that. It’s slight, nothing obvious, but it’s there. I’d guess it’s something she’s used to. She wasn’t paying attention to that leg the way she would have if it were a recent problem.” She hadn’t been paying attention at all, which was why she’d ended up on her ass.
    And then he hadn’t paid attention. He’d stumbled across the ward, attracting the guards, and had been forced to leave her to draw them away. “She’s got a Gift,” he said suddenly. “I don’t know what kind, but she knew about the ward. She knew exactly where it was.”
    “Your brain’s starting to work again.”
    Benedict grimaced. He should have thought of that earlier. He should have thought of it last night, at least by the time he circled back to follow her scent and make sure she’d gotten away.
    But he hadn’t been thinking. Just feeling, feeling way too damned much. “A Gift’s not the only possibility. Could be she has something like that fairy dust Seabourne made for me.” The magical powder Seabourne had rubbed on Benedict’s pads made them tingle when he drew near a ward. That’s why he’d been at Friar’s last night—marking the wards the wolf way, with a few drops of urine, so his people could keep an eye on the man without tripping the wards.
    “Could be. You’ll have to ask Cullen how likely it is someone other than him could stir up something like that.”
    Cullen Seabourne was Nokolai … now. He’d