The Wolf

by Jean Johnson

  “We’d need some open-slatted boxes and a bunch of earthworms, but with all the salt extracted from the algae stuff, it’s got both green from the algae and brown from the plankton. Add land plants to that, and it’s bound to create a superior-grade fertilizer, increasing the value of it in sale to others. Not to mention the smell would turn more palatable in time, or at least not so dead-fishy. It wouldn’t be as easy to transport, no longer being in a nice, convenient block form, but it would be worth the cost of shoveling it, I think.”

  Trevan sighed, shaking his head as he glanced at Evanor. “What is it with ladies, these days, Ev? All these two want to talk about is manure, manure, manure—where has all the romance gone?”

  “You want me to bean you with a bun?” Kelly asked, lifting one of the rolls left over from breakfast in mock-threat.

  “Don’t even think of it, Kel,” Saber warned his wife, while Rydan started pouring stout ale from the keg he had brought for everyone. She arched one of her brows at that, not much of one to take orders very well, and he gave her a stern behave-or-else look.

  Surprisingly, it was Rydan who answered her silent rebellion, handing her the first mug. “That’s a perfectly good, fresh roll, Sister. Month-old stale ones bruise better.”

  “You traitor!” his strawberry-haired brother cried out, clutching at his heart as if mortally wounded by the betrayal. “My own twin, giving the enemy advice on how to do me in! See if I ever bake you another batch of rolls again!”

  Kelly eyed the bun in her hand and shook her head, sighing as she set it back down. “If it were lumpy and unleavened, I might actually do it . . . but I can’t kill a man whose buns are better than mine.” She sent a sly glance to the dark blond man on her right, with the matching wedding torc at his throat. “Which means you’re safe, too, Saber, baby.”

  As Saber frowned in confusion at his otherworldly wife’s odd quip, Alys’ eyes widened. Cari said . . . she said one of the many names for a man’s backside is . . . buns! Oh, my! She blinked for a moment, then smiled, unable to not share this fact with her future sister-in-law. “Well. I, ah, guess that means my Wolfer’s quite safe, too.”

  Now all of the men at the table were giving the two women puzzled, uncertain looks. Kelly and Alys glanced at them, looked at each other, and quickly smothered identical giggles.

  “Women,” Rydan groused, thumping Alys’ mug on the table in front of her. Making the two of them giggle all over again, in a room full of perplexed men. He had started it, after all.

  As they re-entered his suite, Wolfer realized it wasn’t exactly the kind of chamber that welcomed a female presence. Everything was solid, plain, and, well ... masculine, in his rooms. Leather, wood, some minor effort at cushions on some of the furnishings, but none of the fussy little throw-pillows women seemed to like. There were curtains on the windows, but they were a heavy-woven muslin dyed a plain golden shade, complementing the tan of the leather and the various browns of the wood in his furniture.

  The only uniqueness in his suite was the paint on the walls, and that was simply because they were enspelled with the same color-changing paint as the rest of the palace. Currently, the enchanted pigments were chasing rainbow shadows from corner to corner across a pale golden background, if at a slow pace. The rest of the room was just . . . masculine-looking. Not exactly a woman-welcoming chamber, by any means. He cleared his throat, catching Alys’ attention.

  TWELVE

  “You can change a few things in here, if you like. The curtains, maybe bring in some cushions . . .”

  Alys, halfway to the bedroom, stopped and looked back at him. Then looked around the sitting room. She couldn’t find much fault with the way the chamber looked; her own room had been spartan, with just her bed, a half-empty wardrobe for her small amount of clothing, a table and chair, and little else in it. He had far more lightglobes in this room than she had possessed oil lamps, but that was because her uncle had considered magic illumination too fancy to waste on his niece. And that was accounting for the fact that lightglobes gave off a lot more light than mere oil lamps ever did, and didn’t need to constantly be refilled with oil, which eventually grew expensive to purchase. No, this room had more luxuries than she was used to having.

  “I don’t see what’s wrong with it,” she offered hesitantly, taking another look to be sure.

  “Well, you will be living in here with me,” Wolfer pointed out. Then hesitated himself. “Unless you’d rather move to another set of rooms?”

  She took pity on him with a shy but teasing little smile. “And make you rearrange more furniture?” At his open grin, she shook her head and looked around the room again. “You’d really let me change things?”

  Moving over to her, Wolfer wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head, since her five and a half feet were shorter than his six feet plus. “This is your home now. My bed is your bed; my rooms are your rooms. If you want to put up velvet and lace curtains, or toss around a bunch of embroidered pillows to cover up all the leather in here . . . I can put up with that. So long as I can toss you around in my bed.”

  His grudging avowal to suffer for her sake made her smile. “I like leather . . . but I think I’d like to see just a little more color. If you don’t mind. I haven’t had much color in my life.”

  “If you call that dress you arrived in an example, I’d say not,” Wolfer agreed. He nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek, enjoying the springy-soft feel of her curls. He wondered for a moment if their children would have straight hair, or tightly curly, or perhaps something loose and soft between the two extremes. “I was going to get more leather today, when the traders arrived. But since I got distracted—rather nicely,” he added, squeezing her gently, “I’ll have to make do with what I have on hand. Or maybe go hunting for it in the morning. Would you like a lesson in how to make yourself into a wolf, tomorrow morning? It’s not that much different than a pookrah, and it’s a lot safer.”

  “True. If I turned into a pookrah, your brothers might accidentally shoot me,” Alys pointed out. “A wolf-shape would be nice to learn. But I have to warn you,” she added shyly, “it kind of takes me a little while to get the hang of a new shape. That’s why I was a river otter when swimming through the ocean, instead of a sea otter. It would have taken me a week to learn the new shape, unless I was really lucky and could get it right quickly enough. But I didn’t want to wait that long.”

  “I take it your uncle didn’t do much to teach you anything about your magic?” Wolfer inquired, remembering Morganen’s comment on the matter.

  “He taught me a few spells, but only those that would make me more useful as a servant for him,” Alys admitted, carefully skirting around what kind of spells they were. Namely, the kind to corral and command his “pets,” so that the beasts wouldn’t tear her to shreds while she was feeding and exercising them for him. “Morganen did what he could to help me, of course . . .”

  “Before we left for our exile here?” Wolfer asked in confirmation.

  “He taught me what he could, when he could,” Alys evaded, hating that she had to keep silent about certain aspects of her past . . . and afraid of revealing the truth.

  She was afraid of how the man holding her might react. She might have loved him ever since she was three, but Alys wasn’t blind to his faults. Sometimes her Wolfer leaped before he looked—and usually leaped for the throat, if something angered him. She returned the subject to his rooms. It was safer.

  “I’m glad your room is on the second floor. Kelly showed me the chamber she shares with Saber, up at the top of the central dome.”

  “At the top of the donjon, yes,” Wolfer agreed.

  “Well, I’m not too keen on living that high off the ground. I’m not afraid of heights,” she added quickly, daring to tease him just a little about his childhood fear, and getting a squeeze in return, “but I’m not interested in having to mount so many steps each night, when I’m tired and just want to fall i
nto my bed.”

  “Our bed,” Wolfer reminded her, and turned both of them toward the inner door, steering them in that direction. “So. A little more color out here, maybe some extra cushions . . . but nothing too frilly, right?”

  “Right.” She opened the door for them, since his arms were still around her as they shuffled forward in paired, rocking steps. It was a silly embrace, but then he’d always been willing to be a little bit silly for her. Just for her. It was one of the reasons why Alys had been so willing to be brave for him in return. She smiled as they entered the bedchamber. “And in here . . .”

  Both of them looked around the bedchamber once the door was open, taking in the similar decor. The only thing different was the fact that the walls in the bedchamber were currently patterned like a forest canopy, with white birds flying in slow motion across the view. Though she had been on Nightfall only a few short days, Alys was already beginning to ignore the effect of the walls. Instead, she studied the actual furnishings, and the way they were laid out across the room.

  Only one thing was wrong with the room in her opinion, but she didn’t know if Wolfer would care to hear it, so she hesitated over expressing one of her oldest desires.

  “What?” Wolfer prompted as the woman in his arms remained quiet for too long. He wanted to make her comfortable in his chambers, so comfortable, she would never want to leave him. “Anything you want, Alys, you can have. Anything.”

  “I want . . . I want a rug,” she confided hesitantly.

  “A rug?” Wolfer raised his brown brows. That was what she was so reluctant to confess?

  “A thick rug,” the woman in his arms stated when he didn’t say anything more . . . and most importantly didn’t scorn her request. Her long-held dream. “A big rug. So big I could lie down on it and stretch out my hands and my toes, and never feel the floor,” Alys added, remembering too many winters with cold stone underfoot at the castle at the center of Corvis County. “So thick, I could sleep on it. And blankets. Lots of blankets when winter comes—enough to drown under.”

  “It doesn’t get that cold, here on the island,” Wolfer pointed out pragmatically. “We’re farther north than Corvis. Only in the worst of our coldest winter storms do we get a little snow, and usually only on the tops of the two mountain ranges. Usually on the southern range at that, since it has the higher peaks. But even that much usually vanishes by midmorning.”

  Alys shook her head. “There were too many nights I was afraid to go to sleep, for fear I would be too cold to wake up in the morning,” she confessed quietly. “Devries land was a lot farther south than Corvis, once I had to go live with my uncle. Even at Corvis Castle, the winters were still too cold, and my bedding too thin.”

  “Spells or no spells, remind me to kill your uncle the next time I see him,” Wolfer rumbled darkly. He lifted Alys by the sweet curve of her rump before she could protest his bloodthirsty intentions, carrying her closer to his bed.

  Holding her against his chest with one muscular arm hooked under her backside, he stripped back the blankets with a sweep of his powers . . . and spotted the brown-dried stain on the bedding, proof of her innocence only so many hours before. Proof she was really here, and really his. He kissed her temple, muscles trembling a little. Not from holding her, but from being gifted with her. Setting her down on the mattress, Wolfer shed his clothing, speaking as he removed his tunic.

  “I will always be here, in this bed, waiting and ready to keep you warm, Alys.” Hands going to the lacings on his breeches, he kissed her lightly, quickly on the mouth, then grinned. “I think I even know how to make you very hot each and every night, if you want . . .”

  A small, shy smile curved her mouth. The look in her gray eyes when she lifted her gaze to his was anything but shy, however. After less than one day’s taste of pleasure and desire, she seemed ready enough to play innocent-and-bold with real finesse. Wolfer knew he was going to love being driven crazy by her when she was this way in bed with him, too. He loved her, and that was more than enough for him.

  Alys jerked awake, her heart pounding from a nightmare, her surroundings unfamiliar and frightening. Her eyes adjusted immediately to the darkness around her, but her other senses weren’t yet ready to focus. She didn’t know why there should be a warm, male-smelling body in the same bed as her, nor why that bed should be so soft and lump-free, nor why someone should be knocking on a door somewhere in the distance.

  Memories dragged themselves into her waking mind, allowing her heart to beat normally again. She was in Wolfer’s room on Nightfall Isle. Thank Kata I’m not still at my uncle’s “mercy”! she thought, closing her eyes in relief.

  Then flinched awake again as the knocking increased to a thumping. The man next to her mumbled something in his sleep, but didn’t move, and certainly didn’t get up to answer it. Of course, she had sort of worn him out last night, Alys decided. He had worn her out, too, but the adrenaline rush from her unfamiliar surroundings, the fear of being back under Uncle Broger’s control, had chased away most of her urge to sleep.

  Slipping out of the bed, she groped around for something to wear. Finding Wolfer’s larger tunic as the first piece of clothing she could locate, Alys tugged it on. It covered her to the knees but no further, so she grabbed the fur blanket draped over a nearby chair and wrapped it around her waist to hide her legs. It was still dark as she shuffled her way out into the sitting room; light from distant parts of the castle illuminated the chamber through the windows just enough for her to see. Without tripping or bumping into anything, she made it to the door. Her fears on waking were still unnerving her, though.

  Alys jumped in fear as the intermittent thumping changed to outright pounding just as she reached the door. But there wasn’t any reason for any of Wolfer’s nice brothers or sister-in-law to pound . . . not unless . . . Heart in her throat, Alys readied one of her few offensive spells, the one she used to smite the nastiest beasts in her uncle’s menagerie into dazed obedience, and yanked open the door. One hand holding the blanket at her waist to hide her bare legs, she flicked the other hand off the door handle and high into the air, glowing and ready to lash her power down on—

  —Rydan. Who flinched reflexively and threw up his own hand, his palm glowing with the beginnings of a protective shield. Alys froze, mortified. She had been so afraid; between the nightmare of her disorientation and the impatience of his knocking, she hadn’t stopped to really think about who could possibly be on the other side of the door, not calmly or logically. She managed to lower her arm, relaxing her grip on her power, and worked her throat. It squeaked at her first attempt to speak, then came out in an unsteady, ashamed whisper.

  “I—I’m sorry . . .”

  Black eyes, shadowed slightly by the lightglobes dimly illuminating the corridor, flicked past her into the chamber behind her, then back to her face expressionlessly. “Did I interrupt you?”

  It took her a long moment to catch his meaning. Alys blushed furiously when she did. Her throat locked again, this time from a whole new level of embarrassment. She shook her head quickly, her waist-long, sleep-tangled curls shifting with the motion. A couple locks slid free of her shoulders to dangle in front of her face, hiding some of her embarrassment.

  “It is Wolfer’s turn to help prepare breakfast,” the night-dwelling sixth born of the eight brothers informed her calmly. He started to turn away, then eyed her for a brief moment. “Until you are in the chore-roster, you should help him. Sister.”

  He turned and padded away without another word, as silent as a shadow, before Alys could unlock her throat again. She wanted to thank him for . . . well, for acknowledging her impending position in this household, but she really couldn’t. Alys knew she didn’t deserve anyone’s thanks, gratitude, or appreciation. Not until the time was right, and she had confessed all to these people who had accepted her. Which she would have to do before she married Wolfer. It was only fair. Only then would she know that they truly accepted her among them.

>   If they could accept her, afterward.

  When she turned around to return to the bed, shutting the door behind her, she squeaked and jumped back against the panel in fright. Wolfer stood right behind her, naked save for a second blanket loosely wrapped around his waist. He had approached as silently as his black-clad, black-haired, black-eyed younger brother had left. He didn’t look nearly as unnerving as Rydan did, with his chest-length brown hair rumpled and tufted awkwardly from sleep, his golden gaze bemused by her less than steely nerves. A glance at the closed door, then at her, and he cocked one brown brow.

  “Chores?” he asked in that deep voice of his.

  The one she had felt rumbling against her flesh every time he had murmured endearments and encouragements during their lovemaking. Alys could feel it as clearly as if he were standing chest-to-breast with her, and blushed. Nodding, she clutched her blanket a little tighter, feeling shy with the sexual longing stirred up by the mere sound of his voice this morning.

  Wolfer quirked his brow again when she blushed and wouldn’t quite look at him. She was doing it again, vacillating between bold and shy. Smiling, he padded up to her, cupped her jaw, kissed her sweetly on the lips, and let go. If he didn’t, he’d never get down to the kitchens. Rydan would be upset with him . . . and his sweet Alys would be too sore to walk.

  So, instead of taking her in his arms, discarding blankets and tunic, and making love to her right then and there, he merely cupped his arm around her shoulders and drew her back into his bedchamber. “Let’s find our clothes and get dressed. Or we’ll never get dressed.”

  She blushed again, making him grin.

  For a moment, Alys couldn’t do anything but stare. Wolfer had suggested he take her outside the castle walls after breakfast and teach her how to transform her shape into a she-wolf . . . but she had expected to walk. No sooner had they entered the eastern courtyard than Wolfer transformed into the same stallion that had given her that incredible . . . ride.