Free Dawson Bride (Wolf Brides Book 3) by T. S. Joyce Page A

of your own. He’ll put down strict orders for the men not to mess with you, so if they get too handsy, you come to him or me. We’ll throw them overboard.” He dropped my bags under the hammock and shimmied back up the ladder.
    The boat rocked and lurched and the wood of the hull creaked rhythmically. Outside the waves splashed against the bottom and created a sea song that would be the new rhythm to my life for the next several weeks. Above me, men yelled and clomped against the deck and as I sat to take in the very real path my life had taken, a shadow covered the moonlight from above.
    “Easy,” a man said. He grunted under the weight of the huge wooden crate that had decorated the shore.
    A snarl that lifted the hairs all over my body filled the small storage room, and as two burly men descended the stairs with a caged animal, I scurried farther away from the metal cage they dragged it to. Iron bars, much like my recent prison, ran the length of one of the walls. The door screeched and clanged as one of the men kicked it open and slid the crate inside.
    “Back,” the bearded giant bellowed to the other. He kicked a latch on the wooden crate and backed out of the cage. He jammed the iron bar into place over the door and turned to leave.
    “Excuse me?” I asked in a voice no louder than a mouse’s.
    “What?” he demanded.
    I poked a finger at the cage and squeaked, “What’s that?”
    “That, milady, is a very good reason not to go putting your fingers through the iron bars if you value them. Happy sleeping.”
    The chains of the anchor rubbed against the ship as it was hoisted away from its bed in the sand but it still wasn’t enough to drown out the animal’s snarling. The wooden door of the crate fell down with a muted thud and out slunk a huge, white wolf.
    “Oh, dear,” I breathed as I crept back against the wall. “This can’t be happening.”
    Why on earth would anyone want to ship a wolf across the ocean? Maybe if I closed my eyes and opened them again, he’d be gone. Nope, still here and staring at me like I’d probably taste delicious. He was lanky with paws so huge, the black claws that clicked across the wooden floor boards had to be the width of my little finger. There was no color variation to his coat. Just a gray so light it looked white. His nose was black to match his eyelids, and his eyes were the most unsettling color of icy blue. When he pulled his lips back from glistening white teeth to growl at me, his ears laid back and his face morphed into a ferocious snarl. I blinked hard again with the same result. Closing my eyes wasn’t going to banish the animal from my life.
    The boat rocked and made a slow, wide turn and I pressed my hand against the wall to steady my land legs not used to the embrace of the waves. The wolf splayed his feet and lost his snarling focus on me. Pacing the cage and pressing his nose through the bars as far as he could manage took his attention away from delectable looking me. Maybe he’d get used to my presence.
    I moved away from the wall and he gnashed his teeth at me.
    Or maybe not.
    Sleeping in here would probably be a delightful experience riddled with fear and night terrors. What had Gable been thinking when he planned for the safest place for me? It couldn’t be in the hull of a pirate’s ship within feet of a wild wolf, surely.
    I was tired, and utterly alone, and my stitches hurt in thirty different ways and now I was having a staring contest with a feral animal. And sadly, this wasn’t even the worst day of my life. A pathetic whimper escaped me as I slumped onto a box of pilfered French wine. I picked up one of the bags Gable packed and pulled it to my chest with the intentions of cradling it like the stuffed lamb I had as a child. The odd shape of the canvas sack, however, prevented my affection.
    I frowned and pulled the drawstrings open. Inside sat a loose leaf drawing journal and a bundle of feathered pens of various sizes. The weight