Wolfbreed by S. A. Swann Read Free Book Online

that was half draped over her back. She grabbed at the edge of the cloak and pulled it around herself. She was a fair bit smaller than he was, and in a moment she was completely covered except for her head. She looked up at him, and for once her green eyes didn’t show fear, just confusion.
    Uldolf shook his head. “I’m afraid that blow to your head may have rattled your brain a bit. We should have my mother look at it. She was a midwife.”
    She hugged the cloak around herself, rubbing her cheek againstthe sheepskin around the collar. Then she smiled—and Uldolf was struck that someone so ill used could muster such a joyful expression.
    He reached down and retrieved his satchel, shouldering it. “So, will you trust me to help now?”
    He held out his hand.
    She looked down at his hand and, for a brief moment, Uldolf thought she was going to snap and bite him again.
    “Can you stand? It would be awkward for me to carry you home.”
    It seemed a long time that he stood with his hand outstretched. Uldolf was convinced, at this point, that she understood what he wanted. He felt, somehow, that she was deciding if that was what
she
wanted.
    After a few minutes lost in thought, she reached up with her good hand and grabbed his. Her skin was cold and clammy from the water, but her grip was much firmer than he expected. He didn’t have a chance to help her up; she pulled herself up using him as leverage. He might as well have been the tree.
    Unfortunately, she had not clasped his cloak, and it slid off as she stood. Even though she was still injured and filthy, her nakedness was much more distracting now than it had been when she was helpless, huddled on the ground. She was a striking beauty, with the kind of curves and proportions that Uldolf had never seen exposed before.
    She let go of his arm and reached up, frowning, realizing that the cloak had slid off. Her lack of modesty made her nakedness even more distracting.
    Uldolf stepped around her and retrieved the cloak from the ground, shook out some leaves, and tried to replace it on her shoulders. However, now that she was standing, it was more difficult than it looked. He placed it on one shoulder, and as he moved his arm around to place it over her other shoulder, the cloak’s weightwould make it slide off. He did it twice before he stopped, realizing that it wasn’t working.
    He tried to never become frustrated over his missing arm. Like his past, it was a fact that would never go away. Cursing it, obsessing over it, led to places he didn’t want to go. But he couldn’t help the futile rage that built up inside him now. What kind of rescuer was he? He couldn’t even properly drape a cloak around a woman’s shoulders.
    She looked over her naked shoulder at him, and Uldolf felt his face burn as he tried to keep his hand from shaking. He forced a smile he didn’t feel and said, “I’m sorry. I just need to think about this for a moment.”
    She cocked her head at him, and he saw her hand reaching around, over her wounded shoulder.
    He stared at her hand a moment before realizing what she wanted. “Thank you,” he said with mixed gratitude and embarrassment. He handed her one end of the cloak. While she held that end, he draped the other around her good shoulder.
    He walked around her so he could show her the clasp. Holding it up so she could see, he threaded the long carved bone through the hole in the opposite side. “See? That’s how it stays on.”
    She looked up, and he felt embarrassment again.
    “Forgive me if I’m treating you like a child, but you don’t seem to understand me.”
    She reached up and fumbled with the bone. She frowned. It had probably looked a bit easier to do one-handed when Uldolf had done it.
    “Look, if you do that—”
    Before he had finished talking, she had the cloak undone and it fell off her right shoulder again, exposing her wound, the fullness of her right breast, and most of a smooth muscular thigh.
    Uldolf swallowed