Of Wolves and Wardens by Sylvia Mercedes

I feel it all.

I’m there. I’m present.

But I’m totally helpless. Helpless as my body does and acts against my will and reason. Helpless as all those myriad sensations burst upon my senses.

Helpless as my fingers close upon the hilt of the knife, as I draw back my arm.

He’s just fast enough. With animal-quick reflexes, he sees what I’m about to do, rolls to one side, and escapes the deadly blow. I merely cut off a few locks of hair as the blade sinks into his pillow. The next moment, he tosses me from the bed. I sprawl where I land, my chemise askew, my body exposed.

But I have no time for modesty, not while the curse inside is driving me to act. I spring up, the knife still in my grip, angled to slash.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have indulged.” The voice purring from my throat sounds like mine, but these are not my words. I want to scream, to rage, to beat my head against the wall. “You are such a tempting hunk of manhood,” the voice continues, “I simply couldn’t resist! Ah well. I always was a fool for a pretty face and manly form.”

Dire stares at me like I’ve transformed into some hideous demon. He’s naked, but the fur of his wolf form is starting to return, along with his animal strength.

I lunge. I don’t want to. But I can’t stop. My arm lashes out, the big hunting knife cutting the flesh of his upper arm as he turns to escape. He dives, putting the bed between us. “Brielle!” he cries, and the sound of my name on his lips hurts like a blow. “Brielle, fight it! This isn’t you!”

But I can’t fight, I can’t resist.

Maybe I could before. Not anymore.

I hurl myself at him, springing onto the bed and slashing wildly. He raises an arm, blocks my blow, then catches hold of me and yanks me from the bed. The next moment, he spins me around and slams my back up against the wall.

I’m at his mercy. He presses hard against my chest, and I feel the great strength in his arm, how easily he could squeeze the life out of me. But his eyes stare into mine. His weakness shines in his dilated pupils.

Me.

I am his weakness.

I will be his undoing.

I wrench a hand free and claw at his face. He yelps and leaps back, not quite fast enough to ward off another swipe of my knife. The serrated blade whisks across his ribcage, and a bright red line appears, blood pouring down his skin.

I don’t wait for him to recover. I lunge again, the compulsion completely overwhelming everything else now. I must end this. I must end him. That’s all I know, all I am capable of knowing. I aim my next blow for his throat, intending to plunge the blade deep, to sever the artery.

But Dire is quick. He pivots at the last moment, avoiding the strike, and without a second’s hesitation darts for the open window. For a moment, I see him silhouetted there in the morning light, his arms extended, his hands gripping the frame on either side. Then he leaps.

My breath catches in my throat.

With a vicious shake of my head, I force my feet into motion, stumble for the window. Leaning heavily against the sill, I look out and down.

He lies on the ground below. Did he break every bone in his body?

But no. He rises slowly, staggers, catches his feet, then straightens his spine. I see now just how much of the animal form has already reasserted itself. One arm wrapped around his ribs where I cut him, he tilts back his head, looking up at me. Feral fire flashes in his eyes.

I spring back from the window and rush across the room. My bow and quiver lie near the door. It’s but the work of a few moments for me to snatch them up, to string the bow, nock an arrow, and return to the window again.

I’m already too late. Dire is gone.

I stand there, breathing hard, gazing into that empty space where he was. My heart thuds painfully against my breastbone, and I can feel Granny’s wrath humming along the spell that binds me to her.

Despite that spell, despite that control, I manage a small smile.

Then I lower my weapons and let my chin sink to my breast. My brow puckers as I take in my disheveled appearance, the gaping chemise, all that exposed skin. A flood of shame rushes through me, and a sob swells in my throat.

Dire had wanted me. But it wasn’t me.

Gods on high, I never so much as kissed a man before last night! To go from that to . . . to everything I just felt, everything I just experienced . . . and none of it my own choice . . . I grimace, cursing bitterly. I feel used, violated.

But not by Dire.

“I should never have given that wish away,” I whisper. Shuddering, I drop my bow and unused arrow on the floor. My fingers are shaking too hard to be of much use, but I try to force them to tie up the front laces of my chemise, to reclaim some sense of modesty.

Then I feel it—the pull on my spirit.

Granny is summoning me home.

I pull myself together using bits and pieces of clothing I find around the house. My own clothes have been disposed of, but I manage to scrounge up a simple riding habit from Lady Phaendar’s wardrobe. After I’ve torn away a few superfluous flounces, it will serve me well enough. Thank the gods, my boots are still in good shape.

I don’t actually know the way back to Granny’s house from here. But the moment I step out of the house, I find my face turning northeast and feel the tug of the spell. Granny knows, and she is pulling me along, like I’m some stray dog caught on her leash.

I shrug my quiver onto my shoulders and set out walking. Granny hasn’t made me pursue Dire’s trail right away. That’s got to count for something. Not that he’ll be able to get far. The boundaries of Granny’s wardship will contain him, and eventually, like it or not, I will find him again.

Oh, why didn’t he just kill me when he had the chance?

The journey home is shorter than I like. I come upon a holly bush and use the Hinter Path to cover many miles in a few seconds. As I walk through the shadowy otherworld, I toy with the idea of simply leaping off to one side or the other, falling into the Hinter. I’d like to see Granny try to pull me back from that!

In the end, I’m not brave enough. The Hinter is too strange, too terrible. And I don’t even have the certainty of death to look forward to.

So I continue, following the path to its end. When I step back into the natural forest, I see Granny’s iron gate through the trees. My heart sinks like a stone to my gut. Over the last week, I foolishly let myself believe I’d never have to return this way. Granny’s control seemed so weak, weak enough to allow for the escape Dire and I dared to discuss.

I should have known it was too good to be true.

Now the gate looms before me, silent, menacing. Like the jaws of a great beast waiting to open wide and swallow me whole. I have no choice but to march straight up to them and stand at attention.

At first nothing happens.

Then, as though suddenly realizing I’m there, the gate swings open.

The nothingness of Granny’s garden spreads before me once more. I feel a bit like nothingness myself—an ensorcelled creation, conjured into being by Granny’s malicious imagination, only given substance and life when Granny herself requires my services. Otherwise, I’m like this garden—indistinct, murky. Nothing.

Cold to the bone, I drift on through the garden until I reach the house itself. The front door stands open, so I step inside, passing through equally indistinct passages until I come to the Hall of Heads.

I stop.

All those heads hanging from their mounts, still and lifeless . . . they suddenly seem to turn and fix their dead, glassy eyes on me. I cannot look away. One by one, I meet those gazes. All those young women and young men, former apprentices who had come to my grandmother expecting training. Bitterly betrayed. Transformed, used, and discarded.

The compulsion yanks on my spirit. I stumble forward, progressing between those solemn trophies. As I pass each one, I make myself look up and see the face, see the humanity behind the animal.

I pause a little longer before Misery, fighting Granny’s pull.

I pause again before Dreg.

I want to salute them somehow. Want to let them know that I know. That I understand. That I see them for who they were. But it doesn’t matter now. They’re gone. Dead.

And soon Dire will join them.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. Tears spill over onto my cheeks and race down my face in two streaks. “I’m . . . I’m so sorry . . .”

“Brielle?” A melodic voice calls from the open doorway at the end of the hall. “Brielle, my darling, is that you at last?”

Sickness ripples through my gut. I pull my gaze away from Dreg and march on to the end of the passage, stepping into the doorway. The room is the same one in which I last saw my grandmother, complete with its cheery fire and large, tall-backed, throne-like chair. But this time, the chamber has been warped into a much larger space than before. Large enough to contain the two monstrous werebeasts standing in front of the fire. A female, not unlike Dreg but slenderer, almost foxlike; and the big black-and-gray beast I met last night, with his savage face and inflamed red eyes. They are both halfway through their transformation from human to animal.

They hold a young girl standing between them.

She can’t be more than fifteen years old at the most. Round faced, rosy cheeked, with curly brown hair tumbling about her shoulders. She wears a simple gown and soft-soled shoes. Some farmer’s daughter, I would guess, no one exalted or important. Her face is doll-like, utterly without expression. Well, no . . . when I look a little closer, I can just detect a faint sheen of fear glinting in the depths of her eyes. But she is too deeply entranced to act on that fear.

I can almost smell the stink of magic surrounding her.

On the far side of the room, Granny stands by a table full of various odds and ends, which I cannot see clearly. She turns and smiles graciously at me. How beautiful she is this morning! After several days away from her, the power of her glamour is almost overwhelming. Firelight catches in her lustrous hair, turning the strands to molten hues. Her gown is of saffron silk, richly embroidered in gold and fitted to perfection.

“Do have a seat, my dear,” she says, waving a hand toward a small wooden chair by the wall. “I’ll be with you momentarily.”

I have no choice. I walk to the chair and perch there, every muscle tense and straining. I want to resist, to stand my ground. But her power is too strong. I watch her narrowly as she continues fiddling with the strange objects on the table. At one point, I see her hold up something that looks like . . . no, I must be mistaken. Is it an apple core?

My stomach plunges. I know what it is: the same golden apple I fetched from the Quisandoral’s garden all those months ago. The apple Dire begged me not to give her, begged me to throw away.

One by one, Granny flicks the black seeds into a little bowl. Then, taking up a pestle, she begins grinding them to powder. A strong stink of magic rises like a cloud in the room, overwhelming my senses. My heart leaps to my throat, pounding hard. I glance from Granny to the girl standing between those two monsters. I know what’s about to happen. Is there nothing I can do?

Her grinding complete, Granny sets aside the pestle then pours the contents of the mortar into a crystal decanter. It looks as though the decanter is filled with pure water, but as the seed powder mixes in, the liquid turns a sickly greenish color.

“It’s been some time since I last took an apprentice,” Granny says mildly, lifting the decanter and giving the contents a gentle swirl. She glances my way. “The last one was positively bursting with magic potential, so I didn’t think I’d need to take another for many more years. But the coven has insisted. And I’m nothing if not obliging.”

My stomach churns. I look at the girl and the two werebeasts again. Am I going to just sit here and watch Granny take this girl’s magic? Watch her transform her right before my eyes, stealing her future, her potential, her life?

I should have listened to Dire and destroyed that apple. I should have tried to, at least. Why did I give in so easily? I can resist, I’ve proven that!

If only . . . if only . . .

I stare at that decanter in Granny’s hand, at the brew within, reeking of evil. Black Magic, Mother Ulla said. My grandmother is delving into Black Magic. But that apple she made me fetch, it was a holy thing, grown from a tree planted by a goddess. Which makes the evil purpose for which it’s being used so much worse.

Granny glides across the room, holding the brew high and swirling it again. Her face is serene, but I can feel the simmering rage inside her. Rage that I had dared thwart her, had failed her.

But there’s more here as well. Behind that rage lurks another emotion, something I can almost detect. I study her face, leaning into the spell connecting us, pushing back against that one-way flow of power. It’s like standing in the middle of a river and trying to catch it in a bucket. The futility will soon exhaust me, but for the moment I hold my ground, push a little harder and . . .

There it is. I feel it. I feel what she’s trying to hide from me.

Fear.

But that’s ridiculous! Why should Granny be afraid? She holds all the power here.

Unless . . .

I don’t know if Granny can feel what I’m doing or not. If she does, she gives no sign as she approaches the girl standing between the werebeasts. Extending one elegant hand, she tilts the girl’s chin up so she can smile into her eyes.

“Ah, yes!” Granny sighs. “Such a lovely young thing. So full of potential. Is there anything in this world more beautiful than potential? More delicious?” She licks her lips slowly, hungrily. “Young people never know what to do with this gift. It’s entirely wasted on them.”

She pours a drop of her evil brew onto her finger then dabs it across the girl’s forehead. Closing her eyes, she begins to speak in a low, rhythmic cadence: “Sakhous hadaic mor likoussidarha. Ul me rahtu solac sakhousa . . .”

The words pour from her mouth in a dark stream that I can feel, if not see. That darkness spirals in wicked tentacles straight for the girl, wrapping around her, permeating her skin, plunging inside her.

I clench my jaw, my breath tight in my chest. But when I push again at Granny’s hold on me, I sense a faint give that wasn’t there a moment before. Granny is distracted, caught up in the spell she’s creating. For the moment at least, her hold on me is weakened. Not by much, but enough?

I reach inside myself, reach down to where my heart pounds, pulsing blood through my body. Closing my eyes, I feel for the connection between me and my grandmother. Not the connection of magic, but the other, deeper, more profound connection of blood.

I’ve resisted her before. I can do it again.

Think of Dreg.

Think of Misery.

Think of . . . him. The man I love, whose true name has been taken, leaving him with a false identity, a warped body. But he himself is still true, down underneath the curses. He is true and noble and brave.

He needs me.

They need me.

This girl standing there so helpless, wreathed in black magic, needs me.

I can do this.

I move one foot, sliding it along the floor. Then I move my arm, just a fraction, bracing myself to rise. Granny doesn’t react. She’s fully concentrated on her spell, the incantation flowing from her tongue, swelling with darkness that fills the whole chamber. I push up from my chair, stand. Sway. I’m so dizzy, I fear I’ll collapse. My chest rises and falls with each panting breath, and sweat beads my forehead. But I stand. I don’t fall. I don’t sit back down.

The girl’s body is starting to warp. I can still see the real girl beneath the whirling darkness, but that darkness becomes more solid by the moment. I don’t have much time. I must decide. Now. If I break Granny’s hold on me one more time, surely the bargain between us will be compromised. And what will the forfeit be? My life?

It doesn’t matter. I’m going to stop this. Come what may.

“Holrad worlorda, ir resta norlorda . . .” Granny chants, her head thrown back, her arms outstretched, one hand still gripping the crystal decanter. The darkness pours out of her in thick, wafting ribbons. She does not see me approach from behind.

The two werebeasts do, however. They watch me, their eyes hooded and intent. But they don’t alert their mistress. Do they know what I’m about to do? Perhaps . . . and perhaps they want it to happen. They may have no will to resist their mistress, but in their hearts, resistance is all they crave.

I take another step. Another. Each step feels like a whole journey in and of itself. Gritting my teeth, I stretch out my hand . . .

And snatch the decanter from Granny’s grasp.

A bestial roar bursts from the witch’s throat, shaking that whole room. The magic, the glamours, all of it cracks. The world around me suddenly twists into strange, nightmarish shapes that don’t fit within my realm of understanding. I feel madness threatening to break through and catch me in its clutches. But I hold on, drawing back several steps, the decanter pressed against my chest.

Granny whirls and faces me. Even as she does so, the dark cloud surrounding the girl disperses. She sags where she stands, fainting in the werebeasts’ arms. Granny shrieks as her spell falls to pieces around her, and for the space of a single breath, I see the truth of the witch—the ugly hag beneath the beauty glamours. Dark magic teems beneath her pasty white skin, alive with its own malicious purpose.

“On your knees, girl!” she roars, pointing straight at me. I feel the power of compulsion going out from her. “On your knees and grovel! Beg for my mercy!”

I look her in the eye.

Then I lift the decanter over my head and, just as she screams, “No!” I dash it into the ground.

Glass shatters. Liquid spatters.

Darkness whorls into my eyes, blinding me, filling the whole of that strange, twisted chamber. I can’t see anything, can’t feel anything. There’s only blackness and a stink like sulfur pouring into my eyes, my nostrils, the pores of my skin.

Then the darkness parts. Granny’s face, distorted with age and evil, manifests before me.

“You little wretch!” she snarls. “You and your petty rebellions! You’re nothing, nothing, do you hear me? Unworthy of my daughter’s blood. You are no true granddaughter of mine.”

I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But suddenly a laugh ripples up my throat and emerges in a burst. “No granddaughter of yours?” I cry. “Face it, Granny—none of us get to choose our family. I might not be magically gifted, but I’m still half Dorrel, like it or not!”

“Never.” Granny moves toward me. I can see nothing but her head, like an apparition floating toward me, disembodied. “I could have made you something, but you had to go and ruin it. Ruin everything. You’re no Dorrel. I reject you; I reject everything about you!”

As she speaks, the darkness around her seems to condense, becoming something solid. I see the vague impression of her haggish hands rolling, turning, spinning. She’s making something, shaping a spell.

My stomach drops. I turn and try to run. Within two paces, I slam into a wall I cannot see. I pound it with my fists, trying to find a way through. I can’t. I’m trapped.

I turn, look back over my shoulder . . . just as Granny flings the gathered magic straight at me. It hits me full in the face, and I scream, fall, crumple to my knees.

That’s when the pain begins.

The breaking of bones.

The tearing of claws.

The rending of flesh.

Pain, pain, so much pain, and then . . .

I see red.