Sherrilyn Kenyon: Love At First Bite

He lifted a brow. "Such as?"

"My independence," she answered. "I expect to do as I please."

"And what would you expect of me?"

Staring into his eyes, she wanted to say that she expected him to love her, but Anne had learned her lesson about love. She knew now that it wasn't something one person could wrest from another. It had to be given willingly, freely. "I expect you to do as you please, as well," she answered. "As long as it doesn't interfere with what pleases me."

He made a snorting noise. "You want me under your thumb."

That was not what Anne truly wanted, but she couldn't tell him what she really desired. It would show him that she had learned nothing. "I am not as blind as I was yesterday, or even the day before. I understand now that my vision of the world has not been a true one. People are not good and kind simply for the sake of being so. They always want something."

Her answer broke his heart. Merrick had shattered her view of the world. He had already stolen her innocence. But she was right. What better revenge against a class who had wronged him and his mother than to marry into it? To have all that had been denied him? To have everything… but Anne. Still, he wasn't a fool. And Anne needed his help.

"All right," he said. "I'll marry you, Anne."

Anne ran her sleeve across her nose. "I haven't any money of my own."

Not a problem at the moment. Merrick supposed not a problem in his future, either. "I have the purse I won today. It will get us where we need to go and back."

They stared at each other in the darkness. Merrick felt her sudden indecision, was glad for it, to be truthful. He'd be a fool to refuse her offer. But if she decided to come to her senses, he couldn't say he wouldn't be relieved. She drew in a deep breath a moment later.

"Saddle the horses," she said.

Merrick and Anne were camped not a day's ride from Gretna Green. Anne had changed into the stable boy's trousers and boots before they stole from the stable. Merrick had proven unsurprisingly useful on the journey. He knew when to take to the woods and when to use the road. Where to find fresh game. He knew too many things for a mere mortal man. Tonight he'd said they could have a fire.

They sat before it now, eating a roasted rabbit he'd caught and skinned earlier. Merrick sat across from her. His eyes glittered in the darkness. Anne tried to tell herself it was due to the flickering firelight… but she'd seen them gleam before when there was no fire.

She hadn't told him about her suspicions regarding his father. Their flight from Blackthorn Manor hadn't given her time to think about anything but getting away. But now she had to tell Merrick. He deserved to know.

"I've been meaning to tell you something," she said.

"What's that?"

For a moment Anne was mesmerized by the sight of Merrick licking grease from his long, slender fingers. The meat was somewhat messy and it wasn't as if they were afforded the luxuries of home.

"Anne?" he asked.

She tried to regain her thoughts. "I believe I know who your father was."

His strange eyes pinned her in the darkness. "How could you possibly know that? I don't even know."

Anne used the coarse britches she wore to wipe her own greasy hands. "When I first saw you, I mean in the light of day, I had the strangest notion I had met you before. The day of the race, I realized it was because you are the spitting image of Lord Jackson Wulf. The reason it didn't immediately dawn upon me is because you have dark hair and light eyes and with him it is the opposite."

Merrick's brow furrowed. "Wulf? I've heard of them. Any man who knows anything about horses has heard of them. Never seen them. They don't spend a good deal of time in London to my knowledge."

"No," she agreed. "They prefer the country estate for the most part. They… well, there is talk about them."

His eyes met hers again. "Cursed," he said softly. "It is said they are cursed by insanity."

Anne waved a hand in dismissal. "I don't believe they are cursed. Lord Jackson is really quite nice if one takes the time to get to know him and as sane as the next man. I am not familiar with the other brothers but assume they are also as well mannered when the mood suits them. Lord Jackson and I are friends."

Merrick lifted a brow. "Friends?"

She might be fooling herself again, but Anne thought she caught a note of possessiveness in his voice. "He's married," she blurted. "I mean, he wasn't when I first met him abroad, but he is now."

Merrick continued to study her, as if trying to decide if her friendship with Lord Jackson might have been more than innocent. Finally, he asked, "And I look like him?"

She nodded. "More than a little. Too much for it be coincidence."

Lifting a water skin, Merrick took a drink. "The father is dead, if I recall."

"Yes," Anne responded. "A little more than ten years ago. He… he killed himself. They say he was mad when he did, and his wife insane, as well, when she went shortly after. It caused a scandal."

He was silent, as if mulling over what she'd told him. "What you say may be true, Anne, but I don't suppose it makes any difference now."

His response surprised her. Anne rose from the fallen log she sat upon. "No difference? To know you are a Wulf? To learn that you have half brothers? That makes no difference to you?"

Merrick shrugged. "It doesn't change anything for me, Anne." He stood as well. "I'm still a bastard. A secret my father wanted to keep hidden from the rest of the world. His dirty deed. I doubt the brothers would welcome me into the family with open arms, would be willing to share their lives and their wealth with me. I've still got nothing. No name, and now, no position."

Anne walked around the fire to join him. "Tomorrow, that will all change," she reminded him. "Tomorrow, you will have all that I have. More important, you will have your revenge."

His glittering gaze bored into hers. "And you will have yours. Right, Anne?"

She had to look away from him. For her, the marriage was not simply a matter of revenge. But Merrick need not know that. "Yes," she answered. "I will have my revenge."

The touch of his fingers upon her chin was gentle. He forced her to look at him again. "You should want more than that, Anne. Me, I cut my teeth on a need for revenge. But you're not like me. You're different."

Tears burned her eyes. Anne blinked them back. He was wrong. She was bitter. "I've wasted my life trying to be the person I thought my aunt and uncle wanted me to be. I've wasted my life trying to make them love me. That's all I wanted, to be loved again."

His fingers brushed a stray tear from her cheek. His eyes were soft as he gazed down at her. "And you deserve to be… loved. I'm thinking I cannot do this, Anne. Marry you. Not even for revenge."

Would Merrick reject her, as well? This possibility had not occurred to Anne when she'd ridden off into the night with him. "You don't want me, either," she whispered.

His eyes closed for a moment, as if her accusation hurt him. "I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. There are things I don't even understand about myself, Anne. You are good and kind and innocent, and you deserve better than this. An arrangement."

She'd believed if she hardened her heart against the world, it might spare her from ever feeling pain again. But now Anne understood that she was all that she had aspired to become while growing up. Her heart was soft, and it was soft for this man. She reached up and touched his cheek in turn.

"You are a better man than you give yourself credit for being. No man has ever made me feel the things that you make me feel."

Merrick suddenly pulled away from her and turned his back. "I make all women feel things," he said, his tone harsh. "It is one of my 'gifts.'"