Blood for Wolves (15 page)

Suddenly Wolf’s eyes went wide and
the gold flecks disappeared. He gasped. “Oh Caroline. I’m so sorry. I’m just a
little…out of sorts.” He pressed his fingers to his temples.

I took a moment to gather myself
together from his little outburst and then beckoned him. “Come on then, it’s
okay.”

He whimpered, but trotted
obediently beside me. It was unnerving to see him like this. One day he’s
taking on evil panthers and harpies to save me, the next he’s going bi-polar,
violent in one moment, docile and worrisome in the next. I put my hand on his
shoulder.

The barn wasn’t so much a barn as a
huge stable. Inside were several large stalls for horses with tall doors, half
of which were wood and the other half of thin bars that reached to the ceiling.
The sort of barn one expected an extremely wealthy person to own. The other
side was piled high with bales of fresh hay. Though the stables weren’t in use,
someone was definitely using the place for storage. Still, they weren’t likely
to come in and fetch hay at night, so I guessed Wolf would be relatively safe
in the meantime. I sat him down on a bale.

“Okay. We’re going to go into the
village to look for Marianne. You stay here and try to relax.”

He frowned up at me. “But you’ll
need me to help find her.”

“No, you stay here. We can look
around on our own. If we don’t find anything, we’ll come back and see if you’re
able to help. How does that sound?”

He nodded and said nothing. I
jerked my thumb at Alex to tell him to go. I patted Wolf on the head a few
times and kissed him on the forehead. I was tempted to say, “Now be a good boy”
before I left, but I kept quiet.

“Honestly,” Alex said as we walked
toward the town, “I don’t know what you see in that guy.”

“He’s not just a guy, and it’s not
his fault. There’s something wrong with the wolves in this place.”

“And you still think it’s safe to
hang around him?”

“He’s just having a hard time
because the full moon is tomorrow.”

“Full moon? You mean this guy is a
werewolf?
”

“No. Werewolves are human wolves
that have gone bad.” I sighed in frustration. “Look, Alex, I don’t know
everything about this place, okay? And so far my time here hasn’t been all that
great. But Wolf,” I pointed back to the barn, “has saved me loads of times
already. In fact, it’s kind of embarrassing what he’s gotten me out of. So I’m
going to do what I can to help him.”

“All right, all right. So what are
we looking for in this place?”

I explained the frightening werewolf
phantom, as well as what Marianne looked like. Alex looked at the town in
disbelief.

“How the hell could something like
that come in here and no one has a second thought about it?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s magic. Maybe
it knows how to hide.”

We strolled through the town,
trying to look as normal as possible. But people were giving me odd looks and
gaping a bit at Alex. Made sense. My clothes were dirty and bloodstained while
Alex wore the attire of a Sentry for the House of Hood. He nodded courteously
at people with the occasional, “Ma’am,” the way he did in town back home. I
looked for some sign of passage by the smoke beast. But the place looked for
all the world like a regular town, though maybe in Switzerland. Quaint shops
sold lace and fountain pens, candles and various shiny baubles. Pies cooled on
windowsills of bakeries. The occasional small herd of sheep wove its way
through the street, tended by boys or girls with herding staffs. Women in
bonnets traveled from one merchant to another, adding goods to their baskets
until they were full of mouth-watering morsels and homey items.

We wandered around the village for
a bit, Alex using his influence to stop a few people and ask if they’d seen anything
unusual. Night fell as we looked, the sky dimming to a rich, deep blue and
stars appearing one by one.

“Nothing,” Alex said after a while.
Most of the people retired to their cozy cottages, fires burning through the
window panes as families ate dinner or chatted about their day.

“Nothing,” I echoed.

Alex slumped against the side of
the building. “Now what?”

I leaned next to him, staring down
an alleyway. Something niggled at a part of my brain, but I didn’t know what it
was or where it came from. “I don’t know. Go back to the barn and wait for Wolf
to snap out of it I guess.”

“I don’t see how you can have a
demonic magic creature run through here and no one notices. Is he sure she’s
here?”

“He hasn’t led me wrong yet.” I
started back in the direction of the barn.

“I think I’m going to stick around
a bit.”

I looked over my shoulder. “You
sure?”

“Yeah. I think I’ll try knocking on
doors to get a look inside. Sometimes when weird shit goes down small towns
don’t like to discuss it.” He eyed me. “Are you going to be all right with him
alone?”

“I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Alex let out a long sigh as if
debating whether or not to come with me. Finally he said, “Okay. Just be
careful.”

I smiled reassuringly.

Night quickly grew darker, and for
a while I worried I wouldn’t be able to find my way back. But the nearly-full
moon and stars gave off enough light in the open field to see the dark hulking
shape of the barn in the distance. I opened the door tentatively.

“Wolf?”

Huffing and panting came from the
far end. I tiptoed in. Wolf paced between bales of hay, his face damp with
sweat, nibbling on the end of one thumb.

“Wolf?”

His head snapped up in my
direction, his eyes flashing gold, red, and then settling back to normal again.

“Oh, Caroline, it’s you.” He
stretched in a way that made it look like he was uncomfortable in his own skin.
He shook his collared right foot in irritation. A familiar tingle caught my
attention, and this time I knew what it was. Magic. The collar around his foot
was magical in some way. Maybe that was why it irritated him all the time. Did
he know?

“So, did you find the little
lambkin?”

I eyed him. “No, not yet. She’s
still here, right?”

“Oh she is, she is. In her little
bluebell dress, prancing and parading just like all the little lambs in the
field, tender and soft and warm and mouth-watering.” He growled faintly.

“I think you need to lie down.”

Gold flickered in his eyes. “Do I
now? Why? Because you say so? Caroline, the great studier of wolves. You know
everything about us, don’t you? Should I obey?” He advanced toward me, taking a
step with each thing he said. “What if I don’t? What will you do? Are you going
to act like every other human out there? Yell for help? Get them to come
running just like they always do?”

“Wolf,” I said, managing to keep my
voice stern.

“I am not a dog, Caroline. I don’t
obey commands like a mutt hoping for table scraps. I’m a wolf. I do what I
please.”

A sensible person would have backed
up, left him alone. But I studied wolves for a living, and I wasn’t going to
roll over and show my belly on this one. If I was his mate, then I was an alpha
too, damn it, and I wasn’t going to let him push me around.

“Not tonight you’re not.” I pointed
at him. “You’re going to stay right here in this barn.”

Suddenly my back was against one of
the horse stables, Wolf’s hands slamming into the wood on either side of me.

“Would you like to know what I did,
sweet Caroline? Hmm?” His eyes flickered gold-red for a moment and he bared his
teeth. I wasn’t even sure he’d heard me. “Would you like to know what got me
impounded? Several months ago I went out into the farmlands. I killed two sheep
and I ate them. Oh yes, I ate them.” He snapped his teeth together. “They were
tasty and bloody and delicious and raw. But I was hungry, oh yes, very hungry. I
hadn’t eaten in months you see. It’s hard to catch deer by yourself and sheep
are stupid and hemmed in and penned in. But the farmer’s son caught me. He
backed me into a corner with a scythe, calling to his family. They were going
to burn me up right then and there. So what else could I do? I jumped at him,
and I bit him, oh yes, I bit him good, but just on the arm, and I escaped.

“They caught me later, the black
coats, indeed they did. Roped me up and locked me into a box to rot and curl up
and cry and howl, set to burn along with all the other wolves in there, all of
them for stealing sheep or cows or chickens or rabbits. One every day. Every
day, set on fire, howling until they died, black burnt flesh that had to be
peeled off the poles.”

His eyes had gone completely gold
and swam with red as he talked, his breathing heavier in his anger. “Everyone
always telling you what to do. Always looking over your shoulder lest you get a
bolt in the back. And now you think I’m going to pay attention to you, little human
ghost girl?”

I shoved him away from me with
every ounce of strength I had. He snarled, but I didn’t care.

“Then why did you pick me?” I
shouted in his face. “Huh? Then why did you pick some pathetic human woman like
me to be your mate?”

The anger faded from his face and
the yellow in his eyes dissipated. He stared at me for a few moments before
squeezing his eyes shut.

“Caroline…” He doubled over,
putting his hands to the sides of his head. “I didn’t… Oh it’s wrong, it’s all
gone wrong!”

He bolted past, out the doors,
nearly crashing into Alex as he did so.

“Hey, what the—”

I took a few seconds to recover
before running after him into the night.

“What the hell is going on?” Alex
yelled after me.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay,” I called
back. He wouldn’t believe me. Rightly so. I didn’t even believe me. But I
couldn’t let Wolf run around at night in this state. It couldn’t be safe for
anyone. He’d already disappeared from sight, and fear welled up in me. I had to
find him. I had to rein him in somehow. I’d just about lost hope when an
unmistakable wolf howl erupted from the woods to my left, echoing through the
darkness.

I followed the sound into the trees.
The forest canopy blocked out most of the moonlight, only a handful of beams
breaking through. I stopped to give my eyes time to adjust as much as possible.
I didn’t want to stumble around blind in the dark, and I didn’t know how much
time I had before it would be too dark to see anything at all. I listened hard.
Far off to my left, a voice floated through the trees. The faint sensation or
magic tugged at me, vaguely reminding me of the necklace and the hidden magic
that held Marianne in the town. Bits of a one-sided conversation sifted through
the darkness.

“What did you do……made it
worse……awful…hungry………I don’t know…yes, she keeps looking……expect me….work like
this…”

I trailed after the voice. Just as
suddenly as it came, the strange sensation disappeared. Suspicion crept over
me. A few moments later I peered around a tree and found Wolf walking around.

“Wolf, who are you talking to?”

He snapped to attention. “No one.”
The he squeezed his eyes shut. “This is awful. Awful. I’m a cursed creature,
that’s what I am, just like the rest of them. Can’t even control myself. Why
did it have to be you? Just because you smell so good and you’re not afraid of
wolves and
just right
and then I push you off and snarl and snap like a
werewolf, just like they all think I am…”

“Are you disappointed that you
chose me?” I said softly.

Even in the dim shaft of moonlight
I could see his miserable face. “No,” he rasped. “It’s just…it’s wrong. It’s
all wrong. The moon. It’s never this bad.”

He sank to his knees and put his
hands to his face as if to hide from everything. Protecting himself from the
moon. Hiding from me in shame.

I took in a deep breath and went to
him. I dropped to my knees so we were face to face and gently took hold of his
arms.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m here. I
found you.”

He took his hands away. I touched
his cheek and leaned forward to put my forehead against his.

“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking
slightly.

“I know, don’t worry. Focus on me,
okay? I don’t think you’re cursed. It’s just this place. You can’t help it.”

He pulled me close, holding on for
dear life. I shushed and murmured reassuring things in his ear, stroking the
back of his head. His skin was hot on mine—hotter than I’d ever felt it before.
I was his anchor. The moon pulled and demanded his attention, his wolf side,
but I could bring them both back down. As long as he stayed with me, he was
safe.

“Come on,” I said once his
breathing had calmed some, “let’s go back and get some sleep. I don’t want Alex
to worry.”

“Will you stay with me?” he asked. Terror
sat in his eyes, knowing that if I went away, he’d lose himself again.

“Of course I will.” I smiled at him
under the moonlight. “I’m your mate, remember?”

His face lit up like I’d just said
the magic words to banish the moon and its influence forever. Then it softened
and he kissed my hand tenderly.

We walked back
to the barn hand in hand, and I hoped Alex had enough sense to keep his mouth
shut.

I awoke to sunlight streaming
through the high set barn windows. Alex was stretched out on the floor across
the room with his hat over his eyes in classic cowboy fashion. I had slept all
night lying on Wolf, my head comfortably on his chest listening to his heart
beat at least twice as fast as my own. His arms were tucked around me snugly
like a child—or perhaps a dog—holding his favorite toy. I rubbed my cheek over
the soft fabric of his shirt and sighed in content. Two nights of blissful
sleep in a row. More than I could hope for in a place like this. Wolf shifted a
little, letting out a tiny huff. I smiled. For a brief moment I wished there
was no demonic magic beast, that this wasn’t a rescue mission. I wished that
I’d just met a man—it was okay if he was a half-wolf—and was on vacation with
him. Happy. Maybe even…