Wolfbreed (57 page)

He took the dagger from her, holding the handle so the blade glittered between them. She steeled herself, drawing herself upright and facing him. Uldolf deserved this, and she deserved to
atone for what she had done—for what she had done to everyone, but to him most of all.

Besides, she no longer wanted a life that didn’t include him.

The blade shook in his hand, and she stared at the wicked edge. She wanted to close her eyes as he drew back the weapon, but she had spent the last eight years turning away from her life, turning away from what she had done to him. She would not do that now. She refused to allow herself to flinch from her fate as Uldolf thrust with the dagger.

He is not a brutal man
, she thought as the blade slashed forward.
He will make it quick
.

But he didn’t swing it anywhere near her, he swung it over his head and, to her astonishment, he let it go. It tumbled through the air in a lopsided spin over the lake. She watched it twist in the air, arc downward, and finally cut into the water with a splash.

Ripples tore through the mirror surface of the water, breaking everything into fragments. She stared at the ripples, not daring to breathe.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, spinning her around to face him.

“You think I want that?” he shouted at her.

“U-Ulfie?”

“I thought you were dead! Because of me! For a month, I woke every day afraid that Mother would tell me you had slipped away during the night.” He shook her. “I don’t want to lose anyone else!”

Lilly stared at him dumbstruck.

“It has been eight years, and I can only now think about what happened without crumbling under the grief—I keep asking myself how could I forgive anyone that?”

“I am so sorry, Ulfie.” She reached up and touched his cheek.

“And …” his voice lowered to almost a whisper, “how can I repay you? For Gedim, Burthe, Hilde?” He reached up and took
her hand in his own. “It’s as if the gods, in their cruelty, decided to settle accounts with equal measure of flesh and bone.”

He bent down and, very tenderly, kissed her.

Lilly embraced him, pulling her to him, her heart racing.

He stroked her hair and whispered, “I still love you.”

“B-but you left,” Lilly whispered.

He pulled away from her and shook his head. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

Lilly opened her mouth and Uldolf laid a finger on it.

“You survived. I convinced myself that was enough. But I didn’t think I could look at you and not see past the thing that tore my life apart. I didn’t believe I was strong enough to love you, as wounded as I was.”

As we both were
, Lilly thought.

Uldolf lowered his hand and walked over to the edge of the water. The ripples had finally ebbed, and the surface was as smooth and as motionless as a stone. Lilly walked up next to him and saw their reflections in the water.

Uldolf muttered something and Lilly felt as if her heart had fallen out of her chest. Her legs suddenly felt weak, and it was hard for her to breathe. She wasn’t sure if she had heard him correctly.

“What did you say?” she asked him.

hen he had looked into her eyes as she handed him the dagger, he had found the strength. She had punished herself enough. She had nearly perished to save his present family, and she had still stood before him offering her life.

Standing next to her, staring into the still water, Uldolf spoke the three hardest words he had ever had to say. “I forgive you.” She grabbed him, turning him to face her. She was shaking her
head, her intense green eyes shiny and wide with disbelief. “What did you say?”

“I forgive you.” The second time, it was easier to say, especially when he saw the weight lift off of her face. With it, he felt a weight lift off his own heart.

He pulled her close and said it again.

“I forgive you.”

or so long she had run away from the past, run away from what she was, what she had been, that it was inconceivable that anyone could care for her, love her. Even her master had turned from her in the end.

But Uldolf held her now. After everything, he accepted her. After everything, he loved her.

He gave her something she could never have asked him for. Hope.

According to the author, “I went to college at Cleveland State University to study mechanical engineering, but I dropped out when I sold my first novel. Since then, I’ve had a variety of day jobs including working as a lab assistant, doing cost accounting, managing health benefits for retired steelworkers, and most recently managing a database at a large child welfare agency. In the same time I’ve written almost twenty novels under various names, of which I think
Wolfbreed
is my best work.”

S. A. Swann grew up and still lives in northeastern Ohio, along with three cats, two dogs, a pair of goats, a horse, and one overworked spouse.

In 1343, Poland is a newly reunited kingdom enjoying a tenuously brokered peace with the monastic state in conquered Prussia. Maria, a young woman of low station, lives a quiet life, except for the unwanted advances of a crude soldier and her father’s frantic insistence that she never remove the silver cross that hangs around her neck.

But Maria’s blood holds a terrible secret, one that will leave her torn between the injured Teutonic knight she’s caring for and the savage male wolfbreed who is the cause of the knight’s wounds.

A secret that will change her life forever.

Make sure to read the next WOLFBREED novel
WOLF’S CROSS
from S. A. Swann
A BALLANTINE SPECTRA BOOK
FALL 2010

Wolfbreed
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

A Spectra Trade Paperback Original

Copyright © 2009 by Steven Swiniarski

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Spectra, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

S
PECTRA
and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Swann, S. Andrew
Wolfbreed / S.A. Swann.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90688-2
(ebook) 1. Werewolves—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.W555L56 2009
813′.54—dc22   2009003070
www.ballantinebooks.com

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