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It wasn’t hard to find it. I just followed the scent of bad booze, cheap cigar smoke, and nostril singeing floral scented perfume only a whore would wear. The underbelly was our ticket to invisibility.
    I thought Lucianna would fall asleep eventually, but she’d worried herself until she couldn’t do much more that doze off for a few minutes here and there. Pained noises she held behind perfectly pursed lips told me she was hurting something fierce. She was strong and opinionated and didn’t show weakness in the face of adversity. There was no way in hell she’d milk her injuries in front of me. It just wasn’t her way.
    I tied the horse off beside a trio of bays and pulled her gently from the saddle. Either she’d got clean over her fear of horses or she was hurting that bad, because she leaned heavily on the tying post and didn’t make a move at trying to run from the horses who snuffled at her dress.
    “Wait here,” I said.
    The pub looked promising but it may have been filled up for the night. If it was, there was no point in dragging Lucianna’s wrecked body in there for all to see. Predators could see weakness from a mile away and a place like this would be filled with them. “You got a room?” I asked a redheaded man behind the bar.
    “You got money?”
    I pulled out more than enough and scooted it toward him. “One that won’t get me robbed.”
    His face paled when he looked into my eyes but I didn’t hide the dangerous intent. I would kill every last man who bothered us tonight. It had been a long day on the road. I’d had to keep my frantic wolf in check at the constant smell of Lucianna’s blood, and worry for her comfort had dragged me down to near exhaustion. No one would survive me in my current state.
    “This much’ll get you a room in the back,” he said. “Third one on the left.”
    “Much obliged.”
    Lucianna hobbled through the smoke filled bar as smoothly as she could muster, and when we were finally to the room, she collapsed onto the filthy, bug riddled bed. She was pale as an apparition. Tiny drops of sweat dotted her brow and her hands shook badly, but under it all, she gave me a tiny, quivering smile that relaxed the animal in me just enough.
    “Tomorrow won’t be so bad,” I promised, squatting in front of her. “It’s only a few hours to Liverpool and we’ll leave early in the morning so we’ll be there before mid-day. It’ll give us time to buy some provisions before you head out.”
    Her chest heaved with the exhausting effort she’d given today, but she nodded. “I’m hungry.” I slid a glance to the door. Ruffians by the wagonload had watched her drag her body through the pub in front. I couldn’t pull myself away from her but I couldn’t make her leave the room again either. She needed sleep. What was I supposed to do?
    I rifled through the pack Doc had given us. I handed her the rest of what we had. One apple, half of a baguette, and two thin pieces of dried beef.
    “What about you?” she asked as her eyebrows drew up in a worried look. “What’re you going to eat?”
    I shrugged her off. “I’m not hungry. Eat.”
    “I can hear your stomach growling from here, Gable. A man your size can’t go two days without eating. Someone in the bar was eating a meat pie. Go get us one.”
    I closed my eyes and lowered my head against the side of her knee. “I can’t leave you alone.” The words were an admission she wouldn’t understand. She didn’t know what I was or what kind of instincts were warring within me. Losing sight of her would be a physical pain to me now. A discovery that was both exciting and thoroughly disconcerting. The last thing I needed in my life was to be responsible for another human being, yet here I was, volunteering for the job to the cheers of the monster inside me.
    “I’ll stand at the end of the hall where you can see me.”
    “Luc,” I pleaded.
    “Don’t. Let’s just do what has to be done. This won’t feed both of