Catch, Curse, Release (Immortal Warriors #1) ✅ Completed

Chapter Eighteen: Varick's Law

 Varick's Law 

    

The next morning Lori managed to slip out of her bedroom before Des could make an appearance. It was ungodly early, only the staff seemed to be up and about, and she was thankful for it. Most people greeted her kindly as she passed, nodding to her or congratulating her again on her performance against Eric. She’d thrown on a simple green dress and the cloak she’d arrived in, filling her pockets with a few pieces of fruit from the bowl in her room so she wouldn’t have to make a stop in the kitchen.

There was no way she was going back in there by herself again.

When she reached the wall, she looked up and saw the soldier on duty was busy talking to a pretty young kitchen maid. From where she stood it appeared the maid had brought the guard breakfast and by her body language was taking the opportunity to flirt a little outside prying eyes. Lori took the golden opportunity to sneak out of the courtyard gate and head towards the open field.

She didn’t plan on going far, just a little ways away to think without any distractions - no Desmond, no Eric, just somewhere she could be alone and work things out.

As much as she wanted to hate Des, she knew he was only telling her what he thought she needed to hear. It didn’t make it any easier for her to hear it, but even she had to admit that Des had been right about one thing: Michael would’ve never wanted her to use his death to keep herself from being happy.

She knew Jerry the Jerk was wrong for her from the start, but he’d been safe. Someone who hung around, ate food, and was a warm body in her bed at night. Sure he was cute and had a nice body, but he’d never been that into her. She wasn’t so blind to miss the obvious, but it had been nice for a little while. An up and coming chef in a popular part of the city, he would at least fix her dinner whenever she managed to get home early from the law library.

Did she think Jerry the Jerk would be a forever match? No. But she’d never thought he was saving all his desserts for Karl either.

Now, here she was so far from home and unable to deny the fact that whatever Eric McKenna was, the one thing he was not was safe. He was a wild card she’d never expected and every time he looked at her with his gorgeous eyes, or flashed her that heart-stopping smile, she just wanted to dissolve into a pool of girly goo.

But was that enough?

Wasn’t love, true love, supposed to be more than just wild attraction? She didn’t know what kind of man Eric really was, but perhaps Des was right about one other thing.

She had time to find out.

    

      

    

*          *           *

Eric waited in the dining hall nervous about seeing Lori at first meal. He’d spent the rest of his night talking to Aiden about Lori, and by the morning he knew what he had to do.

He would court Lori in the human manner and when she was ready, acquaint her to the ways of his people.

It was Aiden who’d pointed out that not only was she unaccustomed to their ways, but their clan had no recent experience with humans. It’d over millennia since the ban on human marriages within the royal bloodline was first imposed among his clan, though the first they would not be the last. When humans fought the Were Wars that followed soon after, decimating over half their population, the remainder banded for safety far from the borders of Wolfgard. Whatever their ancestors knew of human mating and courtship was lost long ago. It was even possible the mating bond had evolved differently among their species.