Free Luck of the Wolf by Susan Krinard

dirty carpet when she reemerged. Aria might have passed for a boy if she had taken the time to bind her breasts and tuck her hair under her cap. As it was, with her tresses tied back in an untidy queue, she looked once again a full five years younger than the twenty or twenty-one years he judged her to be.
    It would be easier, much easier, for him if she wore such clothes for the remainder of his time with her. But that wouldn’t be possible. Soon enough she would be accustomed to wearing proper garments again. Perhaps, given the many layers with which modern women armored themselves, that would make things easiest of all. Her flesh would be confined, untouchable.
    But that wasn’t going to happen soon enough. Her warm body fell against his. “ Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist.
    Cort closed his eyes, working desperately to suppress his instinctive response. The smell of her hair filled his nose. Her heart thumped against his ribs. She broke away, and he realized with relief that he had been able to stay true to his resolve. She was only expressing her gratitude as a child would, oblivious to the consequences. His body remained under his control.
    His emotions were another matter. He was in another kind of danger now. The danger of becoming fond of her. He could so easily step over the line from a certain admiration to something like affection. And he had given up such feelings many years ago. Any personal interest in her could only lead to disaster.
    â€œDe rien,” he said, setting her back. “It’s nothing.”
    â€œAu contraire,” she said, speaking with a distinctly European French accent.
    â€œYou speak français very well,” he said.
    â€œDo I? I wonder where I learned it.”
    From a teacher whose employers considered it an essential skill, he was sure. But why that, and not an appreciation for other pursuits essential to the American rich?
    â€œWell,” he said casually, “it is an ability not everyone can master.”
    She plopped down in the chair and gazed at him as if he were a demigod and she his acolyte. “You are very kind,” she said.
    Yuri would have laughed. Cort would have done the same if he hadn’t seen in her eyes what he had hoped to see: complete and absolute trust.
    Will you betray that trust? he asked himself, then shook off the thought. “Yuri will be bringing dinner presently. Is there anything more you need?”
    â€œI want to go outside.”
    She had managed to startle him yet again. “Surely, after what has happened—”
    â€œI’m not afraid.”
    â€œNevertheless, it would not be wise, especially after dark. Those men—”
    â€œThey won’t come around if you’re with me, will they?”
    Not openly, perhaps. But the type of scum Cochrane would employ would use any tactics to get her back, and Cort had no more desire to fight now than he had before.
    â€œI can’t stay in this room forever,” Aria said.
    â€œIt has only been one day. For the time being…”
    She hopped off the chair. “But you’re like me! ” she said. “Why can’t you understand? Werewolves weren’t meant to be confined like—” She broke off and glanced toward the door, jaw set. “You can come and go as you please. Why should you care if I go out, too?”
    The girl was stubborn, yes. And apparently used to getting her way. That was certainly a Renier trait. But her insistence that being loup-garou should allow her to run free was not.
    Cort listened to the quickening of her breath and observed the high color in her cheeks. It was as if she remembered racing through wood and over meadow, hunting the marshes and tasting the raw, steaming flesh of a deer or rabbit.
    He remembered. Once he had relished such barbarities. But he had only Changed a half-dozen times since he’d left New Orleans, and one of those times had been