Keeper of the Wolves (3 page)

I blinked and took a step back. I had very
seldom seen a human girl, let alone one so beautiful and refined,
but I wasn’t human. I was a wolf and shouldn’t have such confusing
human thoughts. Her gaze broke from mine, shattering thoughts that
flowed just beneath the dancing light of her eyes to complement the
touch of red that spread along her cheeks.

Her eyes widened and I followed her gaze to
the gash that ran down my chest. She turned to the tattooed man who
waited a few paces behind her. He stood with his hand near his
sword as though ready to use it given the slightest provocation. He
nodded at the rush of words from the girl and responded quietly,
but the answer didn’t seem to satisfy her. She gave several sharp
commands and two women near the door disappeared.

She took a step forward and I took one back.
My skin touched the cold metal of the cage and a thrill of pain
went up my spine from the whip wound. I was trapped. I resisted the
urge to bare my teeth. My heart thundered and my instincts screamed
for me to defend myself. I longed for the face of a wolf to hide
the fear and helplessness I felt.

A wolf could disguise the deepest pain
beneath an outward façade of calm strength, but the human face that
became my own under the light of the moon betrayed my emotions.
Compassion filled the girl’s eyes and she put a hand on one of the
bars. Her fingers came away wet with my blood. A feeling of intense
regret rose in me that I had soiled her beautiful pale skin. She
lifted her fingers and her eyes searched my hands.

I was surprised to find that I still held
the whip. After everything that had happened, it seemed a petty
object compared to the victory it had represented before the
journey. A tiny furrow formed questioningly between her eyebrows
and I wished I had a way to explain to her why I held it. That
human emotion surprised me. I never explained myself to anyone. I
lived a strange life, but before the circus it had fallen into a
simple, easy cadence. I was accepted, did my share, and lived a
life of peace within my pack. The want to explain the weapon in my
hand to a human girl showed how very far I was from that life.

Her eyes shifted to my left hand and a
feeling close to pain crossed her face. She walked around the side
of the cage to get a closer look. I stepped to the back corner, as
far from her as I could stand. The tattooed man kept pace beside
her; his hand rested on his sword in case he should need it.

She held out her hand. The gesture was the
same the tattooed man had made, but she looked at my injured hand
instead of the whip. Her fingers slid between the bars and I grew
completely still. No animal in the forest was as motionless as a
wolf when needed. I had seen elk walk within feet of a wolf without
seeing it despite the animal standing in the open. One trick wolves
taught their young when they were old enough to hunt was lying
motionless in a meadow until rabbits returned to graze in the
clover. The activity tried the patience of the younger pups, but in
times of starvation, such a trick could mean a full belly when
other predators felt the pinch of hunger.

I watched her in that way, my muscles still,
my body tense, and my eyes locked on hers. No one ever reached
through the bars. One of the Cruel One’s assistants, a lad with red
hair and jagged front teeth, made that mistake while beating me
with a club through the bars when I refused to eat the foul refuse
he served as food. His club had several spikes made by broken
branches on the end, and one caught deep in my shoulder. When I
pulled back, the club went with me. He let out a string of foul
words I was grateful I couldn’t understand, then he reached in
after it. I caught his hand and shattered his arm with his own
club. Since that day, no one broke the invisible barrier of cold
metal.

She spoke quietly, her eyes searching mine.
The tattooed man behind her said something and she gave a small
nod. She smiled at me and the bottom fell out of my thoughts. It
was the first time I saw how a curve of the lips could soften the
corners of the eyes, add a reddish hue to the skin of the cheeks,
and brush the edges of the face with a touch as gentle as
moonlight. The effect was breathtaking and I forgot my fear.

I lifted my hand to hers and studied her
face as her she gently examined the wound. Her eyebrows lowered
slightly and worry showed in her gaze. My thoughts were distracted
by the soft graze of her fingers over my skin. I watched her gently
probe the deep gashes that ran across my palm and the back of my
hand. The pain that answered was dulled by the fact that she caused
it. Blood pattered the floor in soft, dull drops. She lifted my
hand and looked at the base of my thumb. A small shard of glass
showed in the deep laceration. She said something to the tattooed
man.

He took a step closer and my instincts
suddenly rushed forward as though waiting for an opening to remind
me where I was. I closed my hand and took a step back slower than
my brain screamed for me to, but I didn’t want to startle her. She
said something else but was cut off when the door flew open.

A man charged into the room followed by half
a dozen others. His hair matched the girl’s but was cut shorter and
held back by a golden circlet around his brow. The air that
followed him smelled of frustration and outrage. The emotions were
similar enough to the Cruel One that my lips drew back of their own
accord in a snarl. The man stopped a few paces from my cage and
pointed at me, his gaze barely meeting mine before he rounded on
the girl. He shouted something, anger clear on his face.

I expected her to cower in front of such an
attack; instead, her hands rested on her hips and she waited for
his words to run out before she spoke in a simple, quiet reply that
angered him further instead of calming him down. He shouted and
swept an arm to indicate everything outside the room. She merely
shook her head and spoke softly again. I glanced at the tattooed
man, but he wasn’t alarmed in the slightest. Instead, he watched
the proceedings as though they happened often. My fear for the girl
abated.

A long, low howl cut through the sound in
the room and my heart lifted. Several more combined with it, the
notes haunting and clear through the late night. The argument faded
and all talk around me died away. My pack called. After I was
captured and forced to travel with the circus, the wolves followed
me, uprooting their lives and leaving our forest to follow. Their
cries tormented the circus workers, but they were music to my ears
each night they lifted to drown out the torments of the day. If
anything held hope in my life, it was their song.

The fear and sorrow I heard in the notes
that flowed through the windows broke my heart. They didn’t know if
I was dead or alive; they had followed my scent to the wagon, and
somehow trailed it to the strange building I was held captive in.
The strength of the forest lay beyond the walls, and they feared
the worst. I couldn’t let them suffer needlessly.

I closed my eyes and the answering notes
rose from my chest. Calling a wolf howl from a human throat wasn’t
easy, but the tones were right and the notes reassuring and bare as
I told them I lived and expressed my gratitude that they still
followed.

The howls of the pack changed, their tones
rounding out and becoming fuller in notes of joy and relief. Tears
stung my closed eyes and I yearned to be with them hunting through
the midnight forest and following the elk herds on their migration.
It was where I belonged.

A knot rose in my throat, choking off my
howl. The wolf cries died away, leaving only remnants to echo
around the still room. I leaned against the bars, defeated and full
of frustrated sorrow as only an animal trapped in a cage can feel.
A chill ran through my body and I swept my hand across my forehead
to wipe away the answering sweat. I opened my eyes and found them
watching me. Every person in the room looked afraid that I would
break through the bars and attack them, a wild creature they
suddenly realized was more dangerous than a mere man.

But my will to fight left with the last
notes from the wolves. I sank to my knees and studied them as they
watched me. Only the girl’s expression remained unchanged. Her soft
blue eyes reflected empathy and sorrow. Her hands were stained with
my blood and the firelight illuminated the track of a single tear I
wasn’t sure she knew trailed down her cheek.

The night changed into morning. It wasn’t a
feeling or a breath of air, but the merest whisper of difference
that made the hair rise on the back of my neck. I gritted my teeth
and welcomed the change back into my wolf form. Black and gray fur
ran up my arms and down my back. My fingers pulled into paws and my
arms and legs shifted into the more natural stance of a wolf.

The wounds from the whip bled during the
change, but I relished the feeling of being in my wolf form once
more. Another shudder ran through me, the chill of the fever, and I
settled exhausted to the ground with my eyes on the audience. My
life had shifted again, but having an audience was nothing new.

The angry man said something in hushed tones
to the girl. She nodded, a look of reluctant submission on her
face. The tattooed man spoke a short command and his men walked
warily to the cage. Each took a bar and they lifted as another man
threw the burlap cloth back over the top. My last glimpse was of
the girl, her eyes still on mine, before the burlap settled into
place. Her look burned into my soul, searching and concerned as
though wondering if the man still existed beneath the wolf
exterior. If I could have, I would have told her it was the wolf
who existed beneath the man.

Chapter 3

The cage was settled in a remote area of a
garden. I didn’t need the burlap raised to recognize the scents of
mint, roses, and ivy. Footsteps hurried away as if the men couldn’t
leave fast enough. One smell lingered, the scent of grasslands and
steel. A hand pulled the burlap free and I took a deep breath of
the fresh night air. I glanced over and found the tattooed man
watching me. His gaze drifted to the whip resting near my paws. He
met my eyes again and spoke in a quiet undertone, then he slipped
his hand between the bars.

My hackles rose and I fought the urge to
bite him. The small invasion of space felt completely different
from the girl reaching her hand out for mine. I stepped back and my
injured paw collapsed underneath me. I snarled at the pain. The
tattooed man paused, his hand almost to the whip. I watched him
carefully, but he kept his eyes lowered and his head bowed. He
grabbed the leather rope and withdrew it slowly. He turned it
sideways to pull it between the bars; we both let out an audible
breath when it was clear.

He met my eyes again, a hint of humor in his
pale gray gaze. He gave a short nod and left. I wondered why I had
let him take the only weapon I had when I was in human form, but
something in his eyes said he was a friend. For the first time, I
put my human want to trust above my wolf instincts to defend
myself. I was tired of being surrounded by enemies. I hoped I
didn’t regret it.

I eased gingerly to the ground. My chest and
back ached and the dried blood that closed over the wounds cracked
and bled with every motion. My left paw throbbed and bled. I licked
it carefully, but I couldn’t get the glass out from the base of my
pad. I worked at it with my teeth to no avail, then finally gave up
and settled on my side. The chills that had begun the night before
intensified. I focused on my surroundings in an effort to push the
effects of the fever to the back of my mind.

Fresh rays of early morning sunshine set the
valley aglow in hues of rose and gold. The land of Rala whose
forests my pack and I used to roam was surrounded by tall peaks
that lost themselves in the clouds. The valley stretched long and
wide, interspersed with rivers and smaller forests between the five
duchies that made up Rala’s kingdom. The journey with the Cruel
One’s circus had taken us north through the four lower duchies to
the final city in the fifth duchy where I now resided.

I sat in a garden at the back of a giant
square structure made of bricks hewn from stone larger than my
cage. A few faint stars showed through the last of the violet sky
while sunflowers turned their faces toward the rising dawn. I
wondered where my pack was and if they hunted through the forest
beyond the northern wall. I longed to run beside them, free with
only the forest loam underfoot and the endless stretch of trees and
meadows ahead of us.

Another shudder ran through my body and I
closed my eyes at the pain. I wondered if it would be safer to take
my pack away from the valley of Rala. When captured, I had been
broken, mangled, and tormented, a mere shadow of the wolf I once
was. I almost gave up then, but my pack and the determination of a
wolf to survive pushed me to stay alive at the brink of death. I
owed them everything and they continued to follow me as loyal as I
had been to them. I didn’t know the price of my new fate. I wished
I could tell my pack to leave me and live free.

A sound caught my ear, breaking away my dark
thoughts. I pushed up slowly and gritted my teeth at the pain.
Footsteps walked up the garden path in my direction. A knot of
uncertainty filled my chest. I hated the inability I had to defend
myself inside the cage. I was helpless and trapped, able only to
wait for the person to appear. My death or life fell to the whim of
whoever held me captive.

I let out a slow breath. I was ready for it
all to be over one way or another.

My breath caught when the morning light
revealed the golden-haired girl from the room. Two other women
followed her carrying a white cloth and a small container. Fear
wafted from them. I bared my teeth and they stopped just inside the
row of hedges that made up the back corner of the garden. The
blue-eyed girl said something to the others, then she took the
cloth and container before beckoning for them to leave. They looked
like they wanted to protest, but a word of command from the girl
sent them hurrying back down the garden path.