Catch a Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Catch a Wolf

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Catch a Wolf

  The Saga of the Black Wolf: Book Two

  By A. Katie Rose

  Copyright 2013 by A. Katie Rose

  Cover Copyright 2013 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing

  Stock images courtesy of markopolio-stock and jaymasee (via deviantart)

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Also by A. Katie Rose and Untreed Reads Publishing

  In a Wolf’s Eyes, The Saga of the Black Wolf: Book One

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  Catch a Wolf

  The Saga of the Black Wolf: Book Two

  A. Katie Rose

  Chapter 1

  Ja’Teel

  Trapped!

  How could we have been so blind and stupid to allow that madman to trap us. Like rank amateurs, we trotted right into his clutches. We collectively ignored Corwyn’s warning, blew off Arianne’s sight. I clenched my fist around my bow. Show no fear. Never let that murdering bastard see what he most wanted: my terror.

  I forced calm into my fluttering belly, took a deep breath and stared unflinching into Brutal’s dead gaze. Beneath what looked like powder, I saw deep bruising around his eyes. His nose appeared twice its normal size and a sullen, red color. The remains of Wolf’s fists, no doubt. Oh, Lady, why did he prove to be so bloody tough? For Brutal to have survived Wolf’s panic-stricken attack when many others more robust would have died instantly was not fair. Damn it to hell, why didn’t he just die?

  The darkly shadowed horseman to Brutal’s left stirred and drew in a deep breath.

  “Greetings, cousin.”

  “Ja’Teel.”

  Brutal glanced curiously between the two. “You never told me you were cousins.”

  “My apologies, Your Majesty,” Ja’Teel replied, urbane. “I thought I had. Rygel’s mother and mine are sisters.”

  “More’s the pity,” Rygel sighed. “You can’t choose your relatives.”

  “Indeed.” Ja’Teel smirked.

  Ja’Teel looked, to my eyes, hardly dangerous or deadly at all. Fairly tall, with long, well-muscled legs, I judged, slender yet athletic. Ordinary enough features, large hazel eyes with lengthy dark lashes, full lips that tended to pout met my inspection. The ghost of a harelip traced it way up to his thin sharp nose. Brown hair hung well past his shoulders, curling slightly at the ends. He wore a pale blue tunic and elaborate darker blue hose on his lithe dancer’s body, a wide leather belt with only a dagger and a light sword for weapons graced his slender hips. A light cloak of dark green hung from his shoulders nearly to his spurs.

  He saw me watching him, and a faint sneer curved his thick lips. “Love the feather,” he said.

  His tone irritated me to no end. I smiled a sweet, brainless smile and patted the feather in my hair. “Why, thank you, kind sir,” I cooed. “I rather like it myself.”

  His sneer faltered.

  “Not long before you betrayed your lawful lord and master,” Ja’Teel continued, turning his attention back to Rygel. “I made myself known to His Holiness here.”

  With a gracious gesture, he indicated Theodoric, the High Priest of Usa’a’mah, on the opposite side of Brutal. “He, of course, granted me immediate employment. Thusly, I was on hand to heal His Most Gracious Majesty from this—”

  His eyes flicked derisively toward Wolf. “—this animal’s vicious and unprovoked attack.”

  “In what world could you ever hope to take my place?” Rygel asked, his tone mild and slightly curious.

  “Too bad your skills aren’t as great as your ego.” Ja’Teel tittered. “All those silly healing lessons.”

  Tittered? My eyes rolled of their own accord, I swear.

  “Had you attended a few of those silly healing lessons,” Rygel commented dryly, waving a slender hand toward Brutal, “your new master wouldn’t currently look like a dead raccoon.”

  I snickered. Brutal turned those mild, dead eyes on his new wizard. Ja’Teel visibly shrank into his cloak, his tongue protruding briefly to lick his lips.

  “I do know some things, Rygel,” Ja’Teel said stiffly.

  “A green, first year apprentice could have done a better job. I reckon you should have studied harder.”

  Ja’Teel grinned. “I earned my post graduate in other, more interesting, places.”

  Rygel nodded. “I know. I’m familiar with the source of your scorpion tattoo.”

  I peered closer. Almost concealed within the shadow of his hair, a small black scorpion rested on his right cheekbone. Dark against his pale skin, it twitched as Ja’Teel smiled.

  “When I heard the rumors, I honestly didn’t think you were that stupid,” Rygel said.

  “Not stupid.” Ja’Teel smiled thinly. He tapped his brow. “Exceedingly smart.”

  “What does this mean?” Wolf asked, his tone curious.

  Rygel flicked his fingers toward Ja’Teel as he turned to answer him. “My cousin joined a black fraternity, my prince. The aika’ru’braud. It’s a group that practices dark magic, forbidden arts, heinous rites of passage. It’s long been banned and outlawed in Khassart. Its members are hunted down and killed whenever they are found.

  “It’s rumored they even found ways to circumvent the curse, the law against the killing by magic.”

  Ja’Teel snickered. “Yes, and it’s ever so cool, don’t you think? Here you are, locked into that stupid constraint while I can kill with impunity.”

  “What was your initiation, cousin?”

  “I raped a pregnant woman,” Ja’Teel replied with the calm tones of a man informing a friend of where a good meal could be found. “I cut her infant from her body while she screamed in agony, then burned it. I then forced the father to eat the ashes.”

  “Monster,” I spat.

  He looked injured. “I allowed the father to live.”

  “Two minutes,” I hissed, my sudden fury had me seeing red and shaking like a mad bull. “Two minutes, alone with you, in a locked room. Give me that, I pray.”

  Ja’Teel shrugged. “She was a peasant. Hardly worth the trouble.” He suddenly grinned. “Though she did wiggle about in a most interesting fashion.”

  Suddenly, the red rage left me, leaving me icy cold. Frozen. Empty. A hollow shell waiting to be filled with…what? I didn’t know. Without quite knowing why, slowly, I lifted my finger, my arm straight from my shoulder, marking the shadowed wizard.

  “Hear me, cursed magician,” I said softly. “You will die bloody. You will die screaming. You will die before the winter is out.”

  “Is that so?” he asked, laughing, glancing aside to share the jest with Theodoric.

  “You are thrice damned,” I went on, his humor thawing the ice not at all. “I curse you to the f
urthest reaches of hell. The agony you caused others will be visited upon you a thousand fold. Your victims’ pain ended when they perished. Yours shall never end, but will continue until the world is broken and made again. You are so cursed.”

  Kel’Ratan’s firm grasp on my arm brought me back from the brink. I blinked, my vision clearing. His head turned toward me slightly, Wolf dropped me the ghost of a wink before facing Brutal again.

  “Hear that, Ja’Teel?” Brutal chuckled. “You’ll die before the winter is out.”

  “Ah, Your Majesty,” Ja’Teel said, laughing. “’Tis but a rumor. You can never believe what you hear.”

  Slowly my icy rage leached from me. Without making it obvious, I inhaled a long slow breath, relaxing, inwardly regaining control of my runaway emotions. Kel’Ratan withdrew his assisting hand to sit straight in his saddle, his fierce blue eyes warm with approval.

  Rygel gestured vaguely in the air before him. “A shield is all you could think of? You disappoint me. I’d hoped for more of a challenge.”

  “His Generous Majesty needs you alive,” Ja’Teel replied, glancing about at his invisible handiwork. “Anything from this side can pass through. Your magic—” He shrugged indolently, and grinned. “You’re powerless in there. You cannot walk through them, nor can you escape. Any spells you try will merely bounce back.”

  Rygel sighed, shaking his head. “Can you really be that stupid? You’ve always underestimated me.”

  “Please.” Ja’Teel snickered. “Not even you can break this shield.”

  “Stupid is as stupid does,” Wolf commented dryly.

  I never could control my emotions. A snort of laughter bubbled through my nose and broke before I stopped it. Kel’Ratan chuckled. Ja’Teel froze in place, his knuckles white on his reins. Slowly, he turned toward me, his skin waxing pale and his hazel eyes wide and furious. Brutal, too, trembled with rage, spittle forming at the corners of his thinned, tight lips.

  As I’d laughed first, Brutal targeted me with his venom.

  “Our marriage is not off, bitch,” he snarled. “After the ceremony, I’ll chain you to my bed; I’ll rape your skinny whore’s body until you scream for mercy. After that, I’ll toss you to my troops for their pleasure.”

  He gestured vaguely upward. I half-glanced up, noting the rooftops filled with purple-and-gold uniformed troops, pointing their crossbows down at us. Thirty, fifty, perhaps more I guessed. The warehouses to our left also sprouted armed and waiting soldiers, as I’m sure the street to our rear was also filled with mounted cavalry. All waited their liege lord’s order to shoot.

  “You’ll not be laughing then, I’ll warrant.”

  My blood boiled. Yet, I kept a sterner hold on my emotions than I had before and kept my expression one of mild interest. If they allowed their pride to be poked so easily, then we must, above all, keeping poking. We might not kill the snake, but it didn’t know where to bite if blinded by its own fury.

  I half closed my eyes and feigned a deep yawn. I patted my lips politely, for after all I was a lady, and knew my social etiquette. “Pardon me, my lord, I don’t intend rudeness. But I do declare its way past my bedtime. You were saying?”

  Resuming our conversation, I regarded Brutal with the same benign and brainless but interested curiosity as before.

  Brutal apparently had not exhausted his threats. “After my soldiers are finished with you, I’ll kill you. Slowly. You’ll beg for death, plead for death. Being a just and merciful lord, I’ll grant it, after days and days of slicing your skin off little by little. Then I’ll send a message to your father of your death of childbirth.”

  A thin smile split the spittle on his meager lips. “So sad. But, life goes on, eh? After your father’s death, I’ll inherit Kel’Halla’s throne, as the heir apparent. Your father’s wish for peace is his undoing. And I’ll conquer Kel’Halla as my father had wished. But I’ll succeed where he bitterly failed.”

  So that was his plan. Marry me, kill me, inherit my throne as my widowed husband. That’s why he needed me alive so badly. For any marriage to be valid, the ceremony needs be performed in front of witnesses. My death might then benefit him, for a messenger sent in nine months would inform my grieving sire of my death. By law, he would indeed become King of Kel’Halla.

  It might even have worked, had I not sent warriors home to explain the situation. Any marriage contract my father had with Brutal would be invalid. Should Brutal succeed in marrying and killing me, he had no claims to the throne of my homeland. Kel’Halla would be safe from him. The next in line, my cousin, Kel’Ratan, would be the next King of Kel’Halla. Should we both die here, my father would find his heir among my numerous cousins.

  Brutal took full note of my lack of concern. His smile widened. His dead brown eyes gazed at me with a strange, insane light in them. I suppressed a shiver, wondering how I could ever have seen any hope of an alliance in this madman.

  “I’m so sorry,” he began slowly, savoring his words. “The warriors you sent with the letters to your father…they didn’t make it past my border.”

  Shock twisted its cruel knife in my gut. I felt rather than saw Kel’Ratan stir slightly, knew without knowing that rage filled him, also knew without knowing he was close to giving in to it. Brutal’s smile, his words, were spoken to just me. It was as though Wolf, Rygel, Kel’Ratan, Corwyn, Tor, and Arianne had all ceased to exist, had vanished into the aether. He and I had eyes only for each other. None existed save he and I.

  Relishing my anguish, his voice softened, his words enunciated clearly, so there would be no mistaking them. “After I took the women, I sent them to pleasure the troops in my barracks. They lasted several days, I’m told. They died screaming. They died cursing your name.”

  I met his evil gaze with my own, unable to hide my grief, my horror. A born liar, he could lie to an angel and be believed. Yet, I saw the truth in those gleeful depths. This was one time he told the absolute truth.

  He murdered my friends.

  In hoping to save their lives, I sent them to their deaths.

  “Several of the men shared the same destiny as that horse who so upset me. You know the one. A few of the others I fed to the lions. I am grateful, you know, truly grateful. Your warriors came cheap, and spared me the cost of feeding the lions valuable slaves.”

  Tears filled my eyes as I thought of the loyal warriors who loved me, who obeyed me without question, who died horrible deaths because of me. I blinked them away just as quickly, knowing they rode the heavens with Nephrotiti, beyond all earthly pain or grief.

  “You’re lying,” I replied calmly.

  “Indeed.”

  “You won’t rape me,” I went on, my voice still soft. “You know you won’t.”

  He smiled, no doubt thinking I would soon resort to threatening his own life. Taking a cue from Rygel the drama queen, I drew my next words out slowly, clearly.

  “You can never rape anyone ever again.”

  I paused, gathering eyes I had no need to gather. My lip curled. “You can’t even get it up.”

  Derisive laughter rang from all around me. While I cherished my insult to Theodoric, the High Priest’s furious reaction had nothing on Brutal’s. I thought for a moment, halleluiah, he will die of apoplexy right here, right now, saving all of us a great deal of trouble. His pale skin turned a dull red, the color of old, dry bricks. His eyes bulged in their sockets. His breath wheezed in and out, reminding me of a bellows with a few cracks in it, the noxious odor crossing the shield and the distance with little trouble. Drawing his sword, he spurred his horse toward me.

  Both Theodoric and Ja’Teel forced him to a halt. Kicking their mounts in front of his, their free hands up, they effectively cut off his attack. His black half-reared, but Brutal kept his seat with little difficulty.

  “Majesty, no!” Theodoric called. “She’s trying to goad you. Don’t listen to her.”

  Before his horse crossed the barrier, Brutal reined in, his, hand filled with his sword. He
heeded his High Priest at the very last second. Perhaps he realized, as Theodoric did, that by attacking me he faced not just my arrow leveled at his nose, but a Bloody Wolf and a wizard whose talents didn’t end with his magic. Thusly, he saved his own life.

  Brutal slammed his sword into its sheath and yanked hard on his reins to back his horse. Blood sprang from the black stallion’s mouth as it opened wide in agony. His pale finger raised to point, to mark, me.

  “You are dead, my dear,” Brutal said softly, coldly. “These fellows with you think with their muscles. Don’t make the same mistake. You’re nothing without them, and soon they’ll be as dead as your beloved people.”

  I summoned the most careless, the most casual demeanor I could into my slightly furrowed brows, and concerned expression. Maximizing it fully, I looked down at myself, plucking the white robe away from my body, extending my arms to look down them both, one at a time. I looked back at Brutal, feigning deep confusion.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, allowing puzzlement to creep into my tone. “I look alive to me.”

  Brutal smiled thinly. “Everyone’s a comedian. Laugh it up, bitch. I’ll still your humor soon enough.”

  I batted my eyelashes at him as my mind raced. What were Wolf and Rygel doing? Did they sit there on their horses admiring my repartees with that bloody Brutal?

  They hatched a plan.

  Whether by the bond of ehlu’braud, or some other means of communication, they threw together a plot that enabled us to escape this trap. I shouldn’t have known this.

  Yet, I did.

  As though my thoughts poked him in the ribcage, Wolf stirred at last and spoke, his tone mild.

  “Do you truly think you can frighten us with paltry threats, false King?”

  Like an arrow striking the bull’s-eye, I knew his lack of deference and choice of words could not hit home any harder. Brutal ruled his Federation through his own insecurity, used fear and terror to control the populace. He needed Wolf to fear him almost as much as he needed my terror. His pride hurt; that a mere slave dared insult him drove him almost to the brink.