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She knew what she was doing to him. From the expression on her face, Freya knew exactly what she was doing to him. The woman was maddening, just as maddening as she had been the night they met. It was why he was drawn to her. Why he was unable to look away or stop himself from defending her.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

A Wolf he might be, but nothing would’ve made him stand there while a poor lass got harassed by two drunken men who would not take no for an answer.

Freya burrowed a little deeper beneath the blanket, careful to keep to her side of the handspan he’d put between them.

“Good night, husband,” she whispered.

He let out a long, pained breath that was almost a laugh. “Good night, wife.”

Evander rose from the bed and walked out, trying to ignore the throbbing between his legs. He made it to his room in one piece, slamming the door shut behind him. It wasn’t anger, but frustration. But he would never have taken it out on Freya. She was starting to trust him, and anything could break that trust if he wasn’t careful enough.

He leaned back against the door and closed his eyes. He was waiting for his breathing to slow, but it didn’t. Every time he blinked, he saw her face. The way she had arched against him. The way she had cried out, whimpered, and begged him for more.

He groaned and dragged a hand down his face. This was madness. It must be, for he had no other explanation for what he was feeling right now.

He crossed to the washbasin and splashed cold water over his face until his skin stung. It did nothing.

Nothing would.

She had trusted him tonight. Truly trusted him. And he would not squander that for the sake of his own wanting.

He would wait.

However long it took, he would wait.

28

The pillow beside her was cold. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

When she had gone to bed, Freya had been filled with a joy she hadn’t felt in a long time. It was a joy she wanted to run from.

She’d known happiness— the humor in bantering with her siblings, the freedom of riding the moors, the slower, softer joy of watching her nieces and nephews grow. But she wasn’t used to a man making her happy, and that was the happiness she had all but stumbled into.

She had married the Wolf! On a drunken, laughing whim! How could she have allowed herself to fall into the trap he was laying?

She took a heavy breath.

There was no proof it was a trap or a game. Something had changed in Evander. Freya wasn’t sure if she was the cause of it or if the twins were, but it was there. She’d be a fool to deny it.

Just as she’d be a fool to deny the awareness that she had woken up alone for the first time in a while.

She knew it before she opened her eyes. She’d grown used to waking with a great heavy arm across her ribs, and she’d grown used to grumbling about it. Now its absence was so noticeable that she lay there blinking at the canopy for a long moment, feeling oddly cheated.

She pressed her face into his pillow, breathed in woodsmoke, and smiled like a fool.

She wasn’t going to investigate why she had done that. She wasn’t going to remain there, sulking over the fact that she was missing her big brute of a husband. No, that was not happening.

On the chest by the bed, someone had left a cup of water and a bannock wrapped in a cloth, still faintly warm. Freya stared at it until her throat went tight.

He’d left her breakfast. The Wolf of the Highlands had crept out of his bedchamber at dawn and left her breakfast.

Freya reached up to pinch her cheek.

“Ow!” she hissed, rubbing at the injured spot.

All right, so her husband really had come up to leave her breakfast.