Something about those thoughts sparked an idea within him and Sigmund reached into his coat pocket and drew out his flute. Bringing it to his lips, he began to play, music filling the alley.
The fight changed.
What had once been a near contest abruptly became one sided.
Sauvage didn’t just move. She flowed. Wherever the monkey beast’s knife was, she wasn’t. Her claws scored a strike, and she melted away only to score another. In seconds, the monkey beast was bleeding from numerous wounds and visibly slowing down. Defeated by countless minor injuries.
Unmitigated primeval joy flowed through their roots. Bloodlust mingled with the love of motion and song. Sauvage had given herself over to the combination of music and killing, radiating such passionate love for the sensation that it nearly overwhelmed him.
A sound drew Sigmund’s attention. The beast’s keeper had decided to risk going for the gun. Dammit, he couldn’t let that happen!
Sigmund stopped playing and dashed across the alley for the weapon. The thief had a head start on him. The joy vanished from the roots, replaced by a mixture of panic and anger. The loss had caught Sauvage off guard. Better to lose her music than to take a bullet, he thought, praying he could get there on time, that she’d be quick enough to recover to not be stabbed.
The thief leapt for the gun. Sigmund leapt for the gun.
They reached it at the same time. They struggled. Sigmund’s hands trembled and the gun barrel slowly rotated toward his face. With a roar and a shove, he threw his weight into the contest. The gun pivoted and roared. The thief’s brains were blown out all over the wall behind them.
A scream tore through the alley.
“Stop!” Sigmund called out before Sauvage could kill her opponent, and threw himself open. As he’d suspected, the monkey beast was lashing out with her anima like she was newly Fallen. Her anima struck him and sank fast, burying itself in him. He clutched it tight, accepting it into himself.
The beast fell to her knees and some of the fur began receding from her, revealing pale, dirty skin. More human features began to become apparent as the beast curled into a ball on the ground.
“What on earth…?” Sauvage demanded, stepping back.
“This idiot,” Sigmund said, standing up and brushing the dirt from his coat and trousers. There’d be no helping the blood stains. “Had no idea what he was doing when he took her anima. He didn’t properly accept her, then, if I were to guess, wielded his anima like a riding crop and just about fried the poor thing’s brain. Who knows how long she’s been in that near Rampant state.”
He examined the gun and tucked it away in a coat pocket, then went to retrieve the flute. He held it up for Sauvage to see. “I think this worked rather well.”
She blushed and stepped back, like he’d shown her something lewd. He tucked the flute away and her gaze fell back to the beast on the ground.
“I thought that having a keeper meant you stayed sane,” she said. Her voice was schooled again to calm, but even without the roots betraying her emotions to him, he caught the slight tremor beneath it.
“Only if the man knows what he is doing,” Sigmund said. “Just as any idiot can pick up a sword, any man can harvest a beast’s anima. It doesn’t mean he knows what the hell he’s doing.”
Sigmund gave the thief he’d killed a disgusted look. The remaining man, the first one who had come at him with a knife, let out a whimper.
Sauvage shook her head and made herself appear bored, though her unease flowed through the roots. Was she wondering how close she’d come to ending up like her opponent-turned-teammate? The monkey beast would need a more thorough examination and a long soak in the Kerkenhall’s hot spring before she was ready for anything.
Sauvage rolled the collapsed beast over and plucked Sigmund’s coin pouch from her pocket, then presented it to him. “Your money, Sir Moreau,” she said, with exaggerated fanfare.
Sigmund reached into another pocket and produced another pouch. “My money’s right here.”
Sauvage blinked, tail shooting straight up. Then she tore open the pouch and looked inside. “Buckshot shells?” she asked, looking up at him with confusion.
“I spotted the thief marking us outside the church, then when I saw he and his beast were ready to move on us, I switched the pouches around. Didn’t you notice me tuck my hands behind my back?”
“You knew the only thing that was taken were some worthless shells,” she asked, calmly. Too calmly. “And you still had me chase them down? What on earth was the point of all this?” She cast a hand about, indicating the blood strewn alley.
“For one, there’s usually a bounty on thieves.”
At that moment, Dupont and all his beasts rounded the corner, weapons at the ready. They came to a stop and examined the carnage.
Dupont swore. “We missed it!”
Sigmund rolled his eyes. “What kept you?”
“Had to go get my pistol,” Dupont said, sheepishly. “Then Schwarz had to track you down by scent.”
Sauvage blinked, taking them all in. “They knew?”
“Course we knew,” Dupont said, holstering his pistol with visible disappointment. “The Battle of Hawkhill…a false caravan was used to draw out the Romalian forces who were then ambushed from behind. Sorry I didn’t get here sooner, Sigmund.”
Sigmund waved his apology away. “It was a good training exercise for Sauvage.”
“A training exercise?” Sauvage said, slowly, as if not comprehending the words.
“Exactly,” Sigmund said. “You comported yourself well. Better to find that out now than on the battlefield.”
Sauvage’s tail went rigid. The cursing that followed could be heard all the way back at the church.
Chapter Six
The Wizard
Loretta perched upon the window ledge three stories above the courtyard, watching but not seeing the sunrise in the distance. Yesterday had passed in a blur after Sir Asshole Moreau’s “training exercise” had nearly gotten them killed. Her mind had been awhirl and her emotions a tempest. No, not a tempest. A maelstrom.
So much chaos and power had warred within her that she could hardly distinguish one feeling from another. She chose to focus on the one she most clearly understood. Her anger at Sir bloody Sigmund Moreau, the overly smug, overly reckless, ragamuffin knight. Had she ever spent so much time being angry before? It seemed like anger was her constant companion these days. If only because it was the only thing that made sense.
The chase. The fight. The kill. The dance. Something inside of her had clicked into place with unwavering clarity and power when she’d been directed toward the beast that had stolen Sir Moreau’s coin purse. An instinct that had quickly become all consuming.
The closest thing she had for comparison were the foxhunts back at the Maradona estates. The purpose and chase and thrill had all mingled together. The comparison was lacking. Less personal. Less intimate. She’d wanted to reclaim the purse, but that had seemed more an excuse. Her thoughts had been on catching her prey and ending it. She’d wanted to kill the thieving beast. Had craved the feel of parting flesh and coppery smell of blood.
She’d been exhilarated by the chase and infuriated when Moreau had summoned her to him with his anima. She’d never killed someone before. The battle had happened so fast. Had it even qualified as a battle? Either way, she’d certainly intended to kill the woman. The thought made her mouth water before more rational thinking returned, accompanied by a shiver that had nothing to do with the chill breeze that rushed over her, reminding her again that she was many stories above the ground.
Loretta had had a surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, easy time of climbing in the dark. She found she needed less light to see by and her new physique lent itself well to such exertions, uncouth as they may be. That thought in turn reminded her of why she had climbed the wall and spent the better part of an hour sitting outside a window instead of w
arm inside her room in the beast’s barracks, undignified as the room might have been.
Not so undignified as this, she thought angrily at herself. They had cleaned themselves of blood after the fight, gathered up the near comatose beast Moreau had harvested, and then proceeded to go about their day almost exactly as planned. Loretta vaguely recalled having her measurements taken at a place that seemed like a tailor’s shop. More memorable was their delaying their appointment to see the wizard. That had nearly made Loretta break down into a second rant of undignified swearing.
They were seeing him that morning. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to sleep from the anticipation. Even had she not been so excited about her upcoming restoration to humanity, she would not have been able to sleep. She was sharing her room with a beast. A beast that had tried to kill her only hours before.
Loretta was disgusted and afraid and found herself hoping that the beast would try something and give her an excuse to kill it. The memory of the fight had been a blur. The memory of the feelings it had invoked were anything but.
Before yesterday, Loretta had considered fox hunting exciting. Then she had hunted that beast and the thrill of the chase had surpassed anything from before. Once she had engaged the beast, the exhilaration had only increased. So much so that she couldn’t have imagined a better feeling. Not until Sir Moreau began playing that magical flute of his and the music had coursed through her. That same, unmitigated joy she had experienced the first time he had played for her down in the hot spring had erupted through her and seamlessly mingled with everything else.
Trying to slay her enemy to the sound of music had been the most blissful experience she could remember. As the firstborn heir to the Duquesa Maradona, she had had her choice of blissful experiences. Nothing—nothing—had compared. When the music had died and the killing had stopped, she’d wanted to weep and rage. Her limbs had shaken with its absence. Only later did she consider the death she had inflicted. It disturbed her how little the murder disturbed her compared to the possibility of never getting to kill again while Sir Moreau played his flute.
When the new beast had stirred in the middle of the night, Loretta had readied herself for a fight. It would not be the same without the music, but at least there would be blood. Only there hadn’t been. The new beast had barely spared her a glance before slipping out of the barn’s barracks.
Despite her newly heightened senses and ability to see in the dark, Loretta had lost her. The beast had simply vanished. She knew she’d not be allowed to roam the halls of the castle freely, so she’d scaled the wall to Sir Moreau’s room, freezing when she’d reached the window. The beast had beaten her there. As a thief, even one who’d been in a near Rampant mindset for however long, her ability to slip through the door had not been surprising.
She could smell the beast inside, but it took her several heart-pounding minutes to spot her hanging from the tall bedpost over Moreau’s head. One moment nothing was there, the next she simply slipped into existence. Loretta readied herself to smash through the window and attack the creature before it could kill Moreau. She understood now just how much his continued existence mattered to her sanity until her humanity was restored.
Only the beast never moved. Loretta peered at it more closely and felt her ears lift in surprise. The beast had climbed up over Moreau and watched him until it had fallen asleep, still clinging to the bedpost. Loretta could not make out the details of the beast’s face, but it positively radiated contentment. Unsure of what she was bearing witness to, she turned, and waited.
In case the beast needed killing.
In case Moreau awoke and found the beast awaiting him alone in his bedchamber.
The thought filled her with nauseous, jealous heat. That brought her up short. The idea of Moreau laying with a beast was disgusting. Any man laying with a beast was simply perverse. That it might happen anyway was not a surprise. The spike of jealousy that had accompanied it was.
Sure, the knight, however ragamuffin and smug he might be, was well-shaped and reasonably attractive now that he was properly groomed. That did not amount to anything. She’d sampled attractive lovers before. Why should she feel jealous of a beast? If Moreau was stupid enough to touch the creature, she hoped it bit him somewhere sensitive.
When she was human again, she’d…what would she do with Moreau when she was restored? He wasn’t a bad man. Loretta could not believe that she’d ever hold sympathy for a beast, but seeing how the one now curled and hanging over his bed had been treated, trapped in a partially Rampant state by an unskilled and uncaring creature, she’d realized the kindness Conde Rodriquez had shown her by bringing her to Moreau, odd as that thought was. She could have been killed, allowed to run Rampant through the woods, or sold to any menagerie that could make use of her. She’d heard rumors of some places where keepers actually whored out beautiful and exotic beasts.
The thought made her ill. She could not hold it against Moreau for treating her as a beast. He had no way of knowing that she hadn’t actually Fallen. She would lord it over him, though. The man had to be made to understand that treating her as anything less than the diamond souled high lady she was, was absolutely unacceptable. The mental image of making him squirm brought a grin to her lips. Soon, she’d be human again, and she could make that vision a reality. And avenge herself upon Lorenz Gage.
He was the one behind everything. He’d manipulated her sister. Corrupted her. Sirena had not known what she was about. Could not have. She’d make her little sister see reason. She simply had to take care of Gage first without falling victim to his magic, or that glowing device he’d wielded, again. A gunshot from far away should suffice. As a wizard, he might be powerful, but he was still a man. A man could not defend himself from an unexpected bullet to the head from fifty yards away.
“Good morning, Sauvage.”
She was so engrossed with the thought of Gage’s brain matter exploding from his skull that she had not heard the window open or sensed Moreau leaning out of it.
Loretta leapt. And fell.
In midair she twisted about and caught herself on the lip of the window ledge. Her ears stood straight up and her cheeks were flushed with heat. “Don’t sneak up on me!”
How dare the knight look so damn smug. He was leaning out the window, shirtless and smirking with amusement. “Who snuck? Should I ask what you are doing spying on me while I sleep?”
“I was doing no such thing,” she snapped.
He raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“I was not!”
He pulled himself back in through the window.
She hauled herself up with unfamiliar ease and slid through the window like liquid, gracefully righting herself to stand before it. Moreau was moving about inside, ignoring her as he refreshed himself at the vanity, splashing cold water over his face. He’d had the good grace to at least put on pants, though his shirt hung carelessly over the back of a nearby chair. One of yesterday’s purchases. They’d not be wearing borrowed clothing anymore. Or at least, he wouldn’t.
She’d require something more proper after their meeting with the wizard.
“I wasn’t,” she said again, more angrily. She’d make him squirm. Squirm like no man ever had for this.
He glanced at her over his shoulder, still saying nothing.
She made a frustrated sound and threw her hands up. The new beast dropped from over his bed, stretched, and stood upright.
Loretta pointed at it. “I was here because that snuck out last night. I don’t want—” she cut off. Her schooling had abandoned her in her irritation, and she’d nearly said far more than she’d meant. Already she’d said too much. Admitted too much. She had given him power over her by admitting his value. He would squirm for this and that smug, penetrating look. How did he manage to look right through her like that?
“She,” he said, emphasizing the pronoun, “needs a name. And your patience.”
The beast seem
ed to shrink in on itself as they spoke. For the first time Loretta got a proper look at it. The creature was slight, with a coltish build. She might have thought it lanky were it not so short. Its feet resembled hands, and it had a dark furry tail and small, round ears that stuck out from its admittedly cute face. A very young face. The creature could not be any older than her sister, at most.
Its hair was a short, choppy mess. Yesterday, it had begun as an unseemly matt of shorn locks of varying length. Close cut to prevent being grabbed but cut irregularly and by someone with no care for the beast or its appearance. Moreau had dropped a few pennies to have it given some proper shape, and the hair was now shorter still, though it seemed alive with spikiness.
Once again, Loretta was reminded of Sirena. Had the bet for their hair been the turning point in their relationship, or had it soured before that? When had Gage gotten his claws into her? She had been so blind not to see that the admiration and aspiration had turned to envy and rage.
Loretta swallowed, looking past the beast’s physical qualities for the first time. What had that irreverent deaconess said? Something about pitying the Fallen. This creature was certainly pitiable. She had a collection of small scars visible on her bare arms and shoulders where her night gown did not cover and a posture that spoke of someone expecting to be beaten at any moment.
Loretta found that she no longer cared that she was not troubled by the deaths of the men in the alley. Strange that she might care more about the way a beast had been treated than a human being.
“D-did I do wrong?” the beast asked. Was that a faint glow about her? No, it had to be a trick of the light.
“No,” Loretta and Sir Moreau said simultaneously, making the beast stand taller in surprise even as they exchanged looks.
Moreau raised that damnable eyebrow of his. “No?”
“No,” Loretta repeated. Firmly.
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