WolfeBlade: de Wolfe Pack Generations by Kathryn Veque (top 20 books to read .TXT) 📗

want anything to do with him and she’d made that abundantly clear. Ungrateful, rude, bitter wench.

… so why couldn’t he seem to leave her alone?

Idiot!

Pausing unhappily, mostly with himself, he sighed again, this time with great annoyance, and opened the door. He could see her sitting there, head lowered, sobbing her eyes out. His gaze lingered on her for a few moments. He still held the opinion that he’d never seen a finer woman. That rude, beautiful, insolent, delicious-looking creature. He stepped into the chamber again and shut the door, but he made sure to stay next to it in case she did something else to inflame him so he could make a swift exit.

“Stop weeping,” he commanded softly. “It’s not as bad as all that. I didn’t mean what I said. I was simply frustrated.”

She didn’t seem surprised that he was there. Even when she told him to go away, he didn’t, and so far he’d proven adept at popping up in the most unexpected of places.

She kept her head down.

“You were right to be annoyed,” she sniffed. “Nothing you said is untrue.”

That was a surprising answer from her. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but it made him feel less like a monster for scolding her. He watched her lowered head and tried to figure out why he couldn’t seem to leave her alone, thinking that it had something to do with his innate sense of chivalry.

As a knight, he’d been taught to help the weak, but that usually involved a battlefield. He fought for the weak, the persecuted, and those he loved – family or otherwise. He’d never had a cause to fight for, like a religious cause, and he’d never had to fight simply to live. As a de Wolfe, his family’s superiority was well established. If he thought about it, he’d had a fairly easy life. He’d never had to claw his way to the top simply to survive.

But not everyone was as fortunate as he was.

He had a feeling he was looking at one of those less fortunate right now.

“Then why have you been so ill-mannered?” he asked quietly. “My lady, if I had wanted to molest you, I would have done it a long time ago. I would have done it when I found you in that alcove at Gomorrah. I would not have waited until I brought you to a tavern with two dozen people in a common room, hearing everything I did to you. I would have done it in the dark, with music and laughter and dancing to cover up my actions and your screams. Surely you realize that.”

She wiped her eyes. “I… I suppose so.”

She didn’t say anything more, still wiping at her eyes, and he finally shook his head. “What is so terrible that you would walk into the river and try to drown yourself?”

She stopped wiping her face. He heard her sigh faintly. “Sometimes you meet people who hide a great deal, my lord. Not everything is always… pleasant. Looks can be deceiving.”

It was the most human, intelligent thing he’d heard her say. “That is very true,” he said. “One cannot make assumptions about someone they do not know, like beautiful women in red silk who look as if they should not have a care in the world. If I were to see you on the street, I should think you were the most revered, honored lady with the love of her family and the adoration of her husband. But that is not the case, is it?”

For the first time, she looked up at him. “Nay,” she whispered.

“Then you hide a great deal.”

She simply stared at him before lowering her gaze again.

But something in those eyes pulled at him. He was starting to forget his annoyance with her, his confusion. He wanted to know why such a beautiful woman behaved the way she did. He’d suspected earlier than it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with past experiences. With what she was hiding. If he knew, then maybe he could help.

Or not.

Unfortunately, Andreas wasn’t one to keep himself emotionally detached. He never had been when it came to women. He was emotional, much like his father was, so he didn’t have the ability to separate himself, which was why he was very selective when it came to women in general. His family wasn’t too far off when they connected his lack of a wife with his mother’s death those years ago.

The truth was that, deep down, he felt comfortable with women, with grandmothers he loved and, in a sense, he was always trying to reclaim that comforting relationship he’d had with his mother. It was the horrible truth, but that was his reality. When he got too close to a woman, he ran. He was afraid of the pain that such attachments could bring. But that didn’t make him any less emotional or any less intuitive when it came to the opposite sex.

An example was the sad woman before him.

More and more, she intrigued him.

“I know I am not supposed to ask you your name, but we are free of Gomorrah now,” he said. “Won’t you tell me yours? You do not have to tell me your family name, but won’t you at least tell me what your Christian name is?”

She eyed him a moment. “My name is Gavriella.”

“Gavriella,” he repeated, rolling it off his tongue. “That is a unique name. My name is Andreas, Lady Gavriella.”

Gavriella cocked her head slightly, looking up at him once more. “Also a unique name.”

He nodded. “It is a tradition in my mother’s family that the males carry a name from the ancient Greeks. My father’s name is Troy and my grandfather’s name is Paris.”

“The Iliad,” she said softly. “Those are from The Iliad.”

“You know of it?”

She nodded. “My father used to read it to me. He is very keen on ancient literature.”

“Is he a scholar, then?”

She shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “He simply prefers