Master Wolf

by Joanna Chambers

  “Marguerite, my darling,” he said, smiling, his eyes on her now. “First Lady of the Treasury. How are your piles of gold?”

  She glared at him. “Do not with your darlings and your jokes,” she snapped. “I have just learned you have been using unadulterated Wolfsbane! What are you thinking of?”

  Lindsay’s smile died on his face and he halted where he stood, in the centre of the room, looking sorry and ashamed.

  Drew’s heart clenched to see him so diminished. Yet even as Lindsay stood there, his new physical weakness horribly exposed, Drew could see in the depths of his eyes the unflinching strength of the man. There was something… not placid, perhaps beatific, in his dark gaze. As though he had come upon some secret of the universe.

  He went to move forward again, his gait unsteady, and Marguerite rushed forward in a flurry of skirts. She took hold of his left arm and steered him deftly towards the sofa.

  “Let go, darling,” Lindsay protested. “I’m perfectly capable of sitting down by myself.”

  “That is plainly not so,” she replied hotly, settling down beside him. “You were obviously about to fall over.”

  “I was not,” Lindsay said. “My balance is a little off but I’m used to managing it, truly. You needn’t fuss.”

  Wynne said, his tone very even, “He prefers not to be helped. He snaps at me when I try.”

  Marguerite didn’t even glance up at that. Her dark eyes stayed on Lindsay. “Well, he will have to get used to it. I am not about to sit here and watch him struggle for the sake of his stupid pride!” She blinked back tears. “Now, come here!” She reached for him, taking his pale face between her hands and kissed his face, then nuzzled his neck and hair in a display of intimate, wolfish affection.

  He nuzzled her back. “Ah, I’ve missed you, Mim.”

  “Not that name,” she muttered into his hair, and he laughed.

  She drew back then. “I do not know how you can sit there and laugh. When you limp in here like a man with consumption!”

  “I realise it’s alarming, my love,” Lindsay said, his voice soothing. “You are used to seeing me strong and steady, but what you have to understand is that, although the Wolfsbane weakens me physically, it has also weakened Duncan’s hold on me.”

  “Oh, really? And how can you tell?” Marguerite demanded, her expression angrily sceptical. “Have you seen him since you began using it?”

  “No, but—” He broke off, turning his head as the door opened again. “Ah, here is the wine.”

  Marguerite pressed her lips together impatiently as the servant re-entered the room and set about pouring and serving the wine. When he was finished, Wynne said, “Thank you, Robert. You may go for the evening.”

  “Very good, sir,” the young man said, and departed.

  Lindsay glanced at Drew when he was gone. “Would you be a darling and sit down? I’m finding it rather distracting having you standing there. I’m not sure I can talk sensibly with you looming over me like a mountain.”

  “All right.” Drew felt nervy and agitated and the thought of sitting was unappealing, but he selected an armchair opposite the sofa and settled himself into it, making a conscious effort to be still and quiet.

  “So, tell me,” Marguerite said imperiously. “What are you doing to yourself?”

  Lindsay took a long draught of his wine in the manner of man steeling himself, then he met her gaze. “You know that Wynne has scried for me.”

  Marguerite eyed him carefully. “Yes.”

  “A few years ago, he had a vision—”

  “A vision,” Marguerite repeated, and her dark gaze shifted to Wynne.

  Wynne nodded, but did not speak, leaving Lindsay to tell the story.

  “The vision told him I was ruled by three wolves,” Lindsay continued. “The first, he said, is master of my body. The second is the master of my will.”

  “Your own wolf, and Duncan’s,” Marguerite surmised flatly. “And the third?”

  Lindsay was quiet a moment. “The third is the master of my heart.”

  For the space of a few heartbeats, there was silence. No one looked at Drew, not even Lindsay, but he flushed hotly and shifted in his dainty chair, unsettled.

  Was his wolf the third wolf? His immediate thought was that it must be—who else’s could it be? But… perhaps not. Who was to say a maker bond had anything to do with the heart? Hadn’t Drew always argued otherwise?

  And why did that thought make him feel so overwhelmingly sad?

  It was a relief when Lindsay finally cleared his throat and continued, breaking the oppressive silence.

  “After the scrying, we spoke with a friend of Wynne’s about what it meant.”

  Marguerite’s scent sharpened and her eyes narrowed as she searched Lindsay’s face. At last she sighed. “You confided in this friend.”

  “I didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know about.”

  “Lindsay, the first rule I taught you—”

  “I know,” he interrupted. “Never tell a human what you are. I broke that rule. Again. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I think you would have done the same in my place.”

  She shook her head at that but said nothing.

  “She asked me if I wanted to escape my three wolves. I remember I laughed and said, ‘some of them’ but she didn’t laugh with me. She told me that I had a choice. I could escape all three, or none, but I could not pick and choose between them. She said if I wanted to go down that road, it would be painful.”

  “And you said you did,” Marguerite said wearily. “Of course.”

  Lindsay’s smile was sweet and a little rueful. “Yes.”

  “She was the one who gave you the Wolfsbane idea?”

  Lindsay nodded. “She entrusted Wynne with the recipe for the poultice.”

  Wynne’s expression was grim now, but he said nothing.

  “Poultice,” Marguerite said awfully, her voice icy.

  Wordlessly, Lindsay pulled up the wide sleeve of his dressing gown to the elbow. His arm was wrapped in linen bandage, from his wrist stretching up into the cavernous sleeve. Drew wondered how far the bandages went, and if they only covered this arm or more of his body. He did not ask though.

  “The poultice is under the bandages,” Lindsay said. “We’ve built up the amount of pure Wolfsbane in there over time.”

  “What does it do?” Drew said, the words blurting out before he could stop them.

  Lindsay met his gaze. His expression was odd, He looked sorry, Drew thought.

  “Eventually, it will sever the bond between me and my wolf,” Lindsay said. “It takes time though. Over two years to get where I am now.”

  “And where are you now?” Marguerite asked, her eyes glittering with angry grief.

  “I don’t shift anymore, or feel my wolf’s presence—at least not when I’m wearing the medicine. When I take it off, I begin healing.” He frowned, as though that was a bad thing. “If I have the medicine off for a while, I can begin to detect him, but only distantly, as though he’s locked up a long, long way away.”

  “Do you still have your wolf senses?” Drew croaked.

  Lindsay shook his head. “Not really. All my energy is being expended fighting the Wolfsbane and keeping me alive.” He smiled as though that was a good thing, and Drew flinched.

  Marguerite gave a strangled sob and immediately, Lindsay was contrite. He turned to her, taking her hand between his own.

  “I’m sorry, darling. I was being facetious. Listen to this though—this is the good part, the reason I am doing this.” Touching her chin, he urged her to look at him and said softly, “I don’t feel my connection to Duncan anymore either. And here’s something even better: I’m not afraid anymore.” He smiled brilliantly. “I feel as though I’ll never be afraid again.”

  Marguerite didn’t say anything to that but her expression remained tormented, eyes glinting with unshed tears.

  Lindsay let her go and turned his attention to Drew. “As for o
ur bond—yours and mine—the Wolfsbane has worked there there too. You must have noticed when you came in.”

  “Noticed what?” Drew said stupidly.

  “Why, that it’s gone!” Lindsay exclaimed. “Or near enough.” He actually seemed amused and all Drew could do was stare at him, paralysed.

  “Gone?” he said blankly. He felt odd, as though he’d been struck by something very heavy and the pain hadn’t registered yet. A stunned, numb feeling. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his senses, desperately searching for the bond he’d been resisting for the last thirty years.

  He couldn’t feel it.

  Lindsay was right.

  “I didn’t notice,” he muttered through numb lips. A moment later the truth dawned on him and he opened his eyes, meeting Lindsay’s dark eyes. “That’s because it’s been fading for a while, isn’t it? Over the last two years, my sense of you has been… diminishing. Recently there have only been brief moments when I felt it. I thought that was because I was getting better at controlling my wolf, not because you—you—” He stuttered to a stop, staring at Lindsay, his stomach twisting.

  All these months he’d thought he’d been getting stronger, more in control of himself. Congratulating himself on it.

  And all the while, it was only because the bond had been deteriorating. Because Lindsay had been steadily eradicating it.

  How had he not known? Its absence felt so suddenly obvious.

  His bond to Lindsay wasn’t there anymore and he felt as though he was missing a limb.

  “I thought it was fading,” Lindsay said excitedly, “but I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening—it’s difficult to tell only from one side. But you felt it too, yes?”

  Dumbly, Drew nodded, his heart twisting painfully when Lindsay’s smile grew. Christ, what was wrong with him? He’d wanted this! For years.

  “Good,” Lindsay said, smiling. He canted his head, studying Drew “That is good, isn’t it? You’ve wanted to be free for such a long time. I thought I could never give you that back but look at us now! I can’t feel the bond between us at all, can you? And when my bond to my wolf finally severs—which will be any day now—you will be entirely free.” He gave a laugh, bright with incredulity, his dark eyes shining as they invited Drew to share his astonished joy.

  And God, but Drew couldn’t do it. He sat in the dainty chair, staring at Lindsay, his mind teeming as he tried to find some acceptable words, while inside him his wolf pawed and scrabbled around, searching for the long-hated bond that now seemed to be gone.

  Gone forever.

  Like Lindsay’s scent.

  His wolf began to rise. He felt it—rising uncontrollably, demanding to be let out, as it used to in the early years before he mastered it.

  “Drew?” Lindsay said, his smile faltering. “Aren’t you pleased? It’s what you’ve always wanted and—”

  Drew stood abruptly. “Of course I’m pleased,” he said in a rush. “It’s the best news I could have had. I just need to—it’s a lot to take in. I need to go. I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t wait to hear what Lindsay said to that, or what anyone else said for that matter. Striding across the parlour, he yanked open the door and rushed out of the room.

  “Drew, wait!” Marguerite called after him, but he ignored her. Ignored too the swift footsteps that followed him, though he let them catch him up just before he reached the front door, turning to confront Wynne Wildsmith.

  “Are you all right?” Wynne asked urgently. “I saw—was your wolf rising?”

  “Yes,” Drew whispered.

  Wynne laid a firm hand on his arm. “Can you control it till you’re safe to shift?”

  Drew nodded. “I—yes, I can control it for a little, but I will need to shift soon. Tonight. Christ.” He shook his head unhappily. “I usually only shift on the full moon. I try to keep it in check the rest of the time.” And then he remembered what Lindsay had just said about the Wolfsbane stopping him from shifting at all. “Oh God, Lindsay can’t shift, can he? Not even at full moon. How does he bear it?” He covered his face with his hands and rubbed hard, then took several deep breaths before he glanced at Wynne again. “I’m sorry, I must go.”

  Wynne nodded and reached past him to open the door. “You know where we are. I was not welcoming earlier—I’m sorry, Drew. But you can always come here. At any time, in any form. I’ve put a charm on the house that lets me know when a wolf is near. I will be looking out for you.”

  “Don’t say that,” Drew said desperately. “I need to stay away from him.” And without waiting to hear another word, he stumbled out the open door and ran off into the night.

  Chapter Seven

  Somehow, he made it back to Rankeillor Street without shifting.

  It was late, and the house was dark and quiet, the servants abed for the night. Drew hadn’t brought the key, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going inside. He went straight to the narrow-walled garden at the back of the house and stripped his clothes off, then unlatched the gate that gave onto the shadowy mews lane where he moved into the deeper shadows to shift.

  He had never enjoyed shifting and he didn’t enjoy it now. The sense of being taken over by some alien thing had always troubled him and he fought it, every time. Francis said he seemed to find it harder than most. To Drew, it felt like being born and every time was a difficult birth, with the wolf inside him rushing up aggressively to take over his mind and body.

  Was it worse for Drew because he was generally strict about only shifting when he absolutely had to? Sometimes he wondered whether, if he let his wolf out more often, it might be easier. But when he’d asked Francis, Francis had said there were other wolves who, like Drew, only shifted at full moon, so perhaps not. Perhaps it was only that his beast-self was an ungovernable, undisciplined thing.

  Drew leaned over, placing his hands on his knees, as though readying himself to vomit—and he did feel nauseous, sick with nerves and sharp, demanding need. He fixed his gaze on the slick cobbles beneath his feet and tried to open up the tight, clenched part of himself that kept the wolf contained, readying himself for the usual painfully slow transition—but this time, his wolf surged, rushing up like a geyser, fast and brutal and powerful, taking over his body with unfamiliar swiftness.

  The agony was intense but it passed in a moment, and when he opened his wolf eyes, the world was new. The adamantine glitter of a thousand stars had been hurled across the soft blanket of the night sky, and high overhead a milky moon glowed, one night away from being whole again.

  The lure of that moon made his throat ache with an unborn howl.

  He had to run.

  With a quick, wary glance around, he began to trot down the lane. When he reached the end of it, it was as though he’d come to the end of the human world. The next few yards of ground had some foundations dug, and a few marker stones protruding from the dirt like broken teeth—but then there was nothing.

  Ahead of him, Arthur’s Seat loomed darkly, a massive, densely black and hulking shadow.

  He began to run in earnest, on light, silent paws, holding in his howl. Soon he was running flat out, bounding up the hill over stony crags and through clumps of gorse, ignoring the distracting scents of rabbits and small scurrying creatures in the undergrowth.

  He ran up and up, till he was panting and his tongue lolled from his mouth and he thought he’d fall. And then he ran some more, until his legs did give out and he stumbled, falling hard on his side. He lay there, panting, and still the howl hadn’t come and now it was a hard stone of agony in his belly.

  He whimpered. Or rather, his wolf whimpered.

  His wolf was mourning.

  He pictured Lindsay again, pale and frail. Remembered the disconcerting shocking sense of… absence.

  It came to him then. To the wolf.

  His mate was dying.

  Dumbly, miserably, Drew staggered to his feet and as he did so, the howl finally came, arcing from his throat in a desolate, heartsick song. He l
ifted his head and out it soared, bleak and sorrowful.

  A wild, animal song with teeth and claws and darkness to it.

  He began to run again.

  He ran blindly, heedlessly, tumbling once down a patch of scree, only to scramble back to his feet and throw himself headlong onwards.

  He was not running in the direction of Rankeillor Street now. He was careering down the other side of the hill with a new destination in mind. He ran through the parade grounds at Holyrood then looped around the back of the Calton hill before carefully sidling back into the human world, making for the New Town.

  Finally, exhausted, he limped onto Albany Street, and made his way to Lindsay’s neat townhouse. Slinking into the shadows, he sat back on his haunches and stared at the shining front door.

  He did not try to shift back to his human form. It was better like this. Everything was much easier.

  Time passed. He didn’t know how long, but after a while the shadow of a man appeared at a window and a whine escaped him, soft and pleading.

  The figure gazed out into the night for a moment, then turned and vanished.

  A minute or two later, the front door opened. Wynne stood there, candle in hand.

  Drew had told Wynne he would not come. But he had said it as a man. As a wolf, he was different. Less troubled, more certain—and perhaps Wynne knew that somehow. Drew got to his feet and padded over to the house, slinking up the four steps to the front door and winding past Wynne’s legs to enter the house.

  The door closed softly behind them. Wynne said not a word, only turned to mount the stairs and begin to climb. Drew followed, still in his fur. He would stay this way. Stay certain and clear in his thoughts.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, he padded down the corridor after Wynne, passing several doors until they reached one near the end. Before he opened it, Wynne dropped down to his haunches, sliding his fingers into the thick fur at the back of Drew’s neck.

  He met Wynne’s eyes, a difficult thing to do in his wolf form. It felt like a challenge—something he needed to react to aggressively—but he knew Wynne was doing this because he had something important to say. So he concentrated, making himself listen to Wynne’s foreign, human words, forcing his wolf mind to open up and comprehend them.