17

“Do you think maybe—and I’m not making excuses for them—there’s a chance your memories are distorted because you experienced the trauma of losing them so young?”

“I guess it’s possible. But feelings are different from memories, and those don’t typically get distorted.”

He seemed to think about that. Then he said, “Well, you have time on your side. I don’t think Max is making wedding plans just yet. And the Lodge is a big place. You can keep your distance if you want.”

Lizette averted her eyes. She wasn’t comfortable telling him Max had ordered her to share his bedroom. And if Max’s actions in his study were any indication, he planned on sharing the bed, too. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. I can’t picture Max looking at bridesmaids’ dresses.”

He chuckled. “Me neither. Just be glad he’s not insisting on an old-fashioned mating with a bedding ceremony.”

“A what?”

“A bedding ceremony. You know, like in medieval times. People in the room. Hang a bloody sheet on the wall. That sort of thing.”

“C’mon, Remy.” He had to be joking. Remy was famous for making crap up and then laughing his ass off when people fell for it.

He put up his hands. “I swear. Grand-père Arsenault told me. Humans stopped doing it centuries ago, but wolves kept up the tradition until shortly before the first World War. It proved to the couple’s families that the lux catena was complete. As grand-père put it—” Remy put on a thick French accent. “—you did the bite and the vow, then you went to a room and made the wow.” He made jazz hands. “All with an audience.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m dead serious.” He popped a pickle in his mouth and crunched. “Nobody does that anymore, though. Once our birth rates started to fall, people didn’t want to turn anyone off the idea of mating. That’s what I heard, anyway.”

A medieval bedding ceremony? She’d never heard of that particular werewolf custom. Of course she hadn’t been raised on werewolf traditions. A little twinge of jealousy arced through her. Unlike Remy, she’d never known their grandparents.

“Lizette?” Remy watched her with a frown. “I promise Max won’t do that. Even he’s not that old-fashioned. Besides, it’s just an old story. Who knows? Maybe grand-père was pulling my leg.”

She shook herself. “I know.”

“I hope you’re done with that ice cream, because you destroyed the lid.”

“It’s low-fat anyway. Who’s doing the grocery shopping around here?”

They smiled at each other for a second before an alert on her phone drew her attention. She looked at the screen and saw a little red exclamation point next to the message she’d tried to send to the professor she worked for. She picked up her phone and waved it around. “I really need to let work know I’m going to be gone for a few days. Is there anywhere I can get a signal?”

Remy grabbed a paper towel from a roll on the counter, tore one off, and wiped his mouth. “Sure, but we’ll have to hoof it a couple of miles.” He reached over and tested her bicep. “You think you can hang, city slicker?”

Her pulse quickened at the thought of taking a run—a real run—through the dense forest. She hadn’t realized how much she missed it until she stepped out of the SUV in front of the Lodge.

“Do you think we can get out and back before dark?” She tried to sound casual, but she could hear the eagerness in her voice.

Remy leaned over the counter and raised his eyebrows in unmistakable challenge. “Depends how fast you are.”

“You will eat my dust.”

He slapped the counter. “You’re on.”

As they left the kitchen, Lizette tried not to think about the things she hadn’t told Remy. Like how she responded to Max’s touch in the study.

She was nineteen when she left the Lodge—an inexperienced girl. She was a woman now, with a woman’s body. But she also had a mind. Her traitorous body might crave Maxime Simard’s touch, but her mind wanted nothing to do with it or him.

And that would never change.

7

L

izette picked her way down the narrow steps carved into the side of the gorge. Remy walked a few paces ahead, his blond hair haloed by the bright rays of the setting sun.

Having spent four summers in the gorge, Lizette could have probably navigated the steps in her sleep, but she was rusty, so she took her time. A hundred-foot fall was unlikely to kill her, but it would leave her incapacitated and in serious pain.

Local werewolf lore told that the first Alphas in the New World had called the impressive gorge the “penitentiary” because it was difficult to climb—even for a werewolf. Apparently they’d used the gorge to execute wolves who violated the law. The worst offenders had been marched to the edge and hurled over the side.

The water at the bottom was little more than a creek by the time it wound past the Lodge, so anyone tossed into the gorge would land on the sharp rocks below. Assuming they survived the drop, and most wolves would, they would die of blood loss or exposure.

She shuddered.

Remy stopped and looked over his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just chilled.” It was also at least ten degrees cooler in Penitentiary Gorge than Albany.

A mischievous smile lit up his handsome face. “Nothing a little run can’t take care of.” He helped her down the last few steps and over the rocks scattered around the soft sand at the bottom of the gorge. Her thighs trembled by the time they reached the other side and started the upward climb.

“Why not just take the footbridge?” She glanced at the simple swinging bridge that connected the two sides of the gorge.

“This is more fun.”