Master Wolf
(Capital Wolves, book 2)
Joanna Chambers
Master Wolf
Copyright © 2020 Joanna Chambers
Cover art: Felix d’Eon
Edited by: P&M Editorial Services
Published by Joanna Chambers
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or business establishments or organisations is completely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-9996720-1-0
Created with Vellum
He must master the wolf within…
* * *
Edinburgh, 1820.
Thirty years after leaving Scotland, Drew Nicol is forced to return when the skeleton of a monster is found. The skeleton is evidence of werewolves—evidence that Marguerite de Carcassonne, the leader of Drew’s pack, is determined to suppress.
Marguerite insists that Drew accompany her to Edinburgh. There they will try to acquire the skeleton while searching for wolf-hunters—wolf hunters who may be holding one of their pack prisoner.
But Drew has reason to be wary about returning to Edinburgh—Lindsay Somerville now lives there.
Lindsay who taught Drew about desire and obsession.
Lindsay who Drew has never been able to forgive for turning him.
Lindsay who vowed to stay away from Drew twelve years ago... and who has since taken drastic steps to sever the bond between them.
Marguerite's plan will throw Drew and Lindsay together again—and into a deadly confrontation with Lindsay’s enemy, Duncan MacCormaic. They will be tested to their limits and forced to confront both their past mistakes and their true feelings.
But it may be too late for them to repair the damage of the past. The consequences of Lindsay’s choices are catching up with him, and he’s just about out of time…
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Praise for Gentleman Wolf
Gentleman Wolf is a highly entertaining and engrossing read and one I can recommend wholeheartedly. The writing is beautifully atmospheric.
All About Romance
The overall feel of this novel is amazing. The author’s ability to capture both the time period as well as the intimate internal life of Lindsay make this book so compelling
Love Bytes Reviews
Beautifully written, perfectly crafted, sexy beyond belief - a book that reads like a photograph of the soul in love.
RV, Amazon Reader
Master Wolf
Capital Wolves, Book 2
* * *
Joanna Chambers
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Thank you, dear reader
Also by Joanna Chambers
Provoked (Enlightenment #1)
Chapter One
The past, part 1
Edinburgh, November 1788
* * *
Drew dreamed of running through a forest.
He did not run on two legs, but on four, and everything he saw was some shade of grey.
In his dream it was night, the moon was full, and he was searching for Lindsay Somerville. His master.
His maker.
Drew darted through the trees until he reached a clearing. Only then did he pause, throwing back his head to howl, basking in the silver moonlight that flooded the glade.
He felt as though he was absorbing the moonlight into his body. As though it was illuminating all the dark corners of his troubled soul and filling him with a new and blissful certainty…
…until he was woken by an almighty thud that had him thrashing awake in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets.
His hand went to the sword wound on his belly, and he grunted softly with pain from his twisting movements. The injury was recovering remarkably well, but the healing process was not painless.
Drew’s other wound—the one at his neck—was not so bad as the one at his belly. Lindsay had bitten him deeply, savagely, but the torn flesh had closed over swiftly and now his throat wore a shiny pink collar of brand-new tight skin that prickled maddeningly. Drew scratched at it irritably.
Outside his chamber, a door opened and there were footsteps in the corridor. Then voices.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Neville. Did I wake you? I dropped a trunk.” The voice belonged to Wynne Wildsmith, Lindsay’s manservant who had tended to Drew’s injuries when he’d first been brought here. He was a competent, discreet young man with a reserved, careful expression.
“Not at all, but isn’t it a bit early to be moving trunks? It’s not even dawn.” That gently amused voice belonged to Francis Neville, Lindsay’s friend and, for the foreseeable future, Drew’s nursemaid.
Mr. Wildsmith spoke again, sounding somewhat panicked. “I need to have everything ready for the carriage coming at eight o’clock. Our ship sails at noon and he is still not back!”
He was Lindsay. Lindsay, who had gone out carousing last night.
Lindsay was a fop, a fribble, and a seducer of weak-willed men—but all of that paled into insignificance compared to what Drew had discovered over a week ago now, on the night he’d been gutted by a sword and then had his throat ripped out.
Lindsay was a wolf.
And now, apparently, Drew was too.
More accurately, Lindsay was a wolf and a man, by turns. He was a monster. And when he’d savaged Drew’s throat, he’d made Drew into a monster too.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I couldn’t bear it… the thought of you dying…”
Drew stared at the ceiling. He had been dying. The sword the other wolf—Mercer—had thrust into him had surely skewered his organs, and he’d known with perfect clarity the inevitability of his own end coming upon him.
Strange now to think how peaceful he had felt in that moment. He’d just watched Lindsay slay one man with his bare hands, then transform into a wolf and execute Mercer too. But when Lindsay, blood-stained and still in in his wolf form, had padded over to where Drew lay slumped against the wall, dying, he had felt no fear. Only a kind of wonder that he had lived to see this sight: this beautiful, deadly creature. There had been an unlikely perfection in that moment. Drew had felt at peace with himself in a way he never had before.
And then Lindsay had bitten him. And everything had changed.
Outside in the corridor, Wildsmith spoke again, interrupting Drew’s thoughts. “He promised to return before dawn.” Even through the door, Drew could hear the note of worry in his voice. “Where is he?”
“Don’t worry,” Francis replied easily, his tone reassuring. “He’ll be back in time for the ship.”
The ship that Wildsmith and Lindsay were due to embark that day would be taking them to the Continent. They had important papers to deliver to
a woman called Marguerite de Carcassonne—another wolf, their leader it seemed—and then they’d be staying in the Low Countries for a while. As a new werewolf, Drew could not be left alone, and so Francis was staying in Edinburgh to watch over him until he had a measure of control over his wolf.
Drew couldn’t wait for Lindsay to be gone.
He had been fascinated by the man from the moment they’d met—before he’d had any idea about Lindsay’s true nature. With his unashamed hedonism and refusal to be dismissed, Lindsay had torn open the iron safe inside Drew where he’d locked away his desire for men. He’d thrown that door wide open, and Drew had not been able to contain what had spilled out.
After he was bitten, though, that fascination had begun to feel altogether darker and stranger, a compulsive, almost physical force that was growing more powerful with every hour that passed, keeping pace with the wolf that was gathering strength inside Drew but was yet to appear. He could feel it now, a new, shadowy presence that was both him and not him.
Francis had urged Drew not to fear his wolf.
“It is you. Just another part of you. You should reconcile yourself to it. Trust me, I know—it will do you no good to fight yourself.”
Drew would not shift into the beast till the next full moon, Francis said. In the meantime, though, he was aware of the wolf’s growing influence on him, and his steadily deepening connection to Lindsay. When he’d first woken, several days after being bitten, one of the first things he’d noticed was how attuned he was to Lindsay’s scent and movements. And it was getting worse. He’d started to become aware of Lindsay’s desires now. He felt them like a nudge, or a tug at his sleeve: Lindsay’s yearning for comfort from Drew, for his acceptance, his touch. When those waves of longing reached Drew, he felt an urge to surrender to Lindsay’s wishes that was entirely at war with the horror he’d felt when he’d realised what Lindsay had done to him. What he’d turned Drew into. That instinct to fulfil Lindsay’s desires seemed to be growing, becoming increasingly hard to resist. It felt, terrifyingly, as though his will was being gradually worn away.
For now, Drew was still able to resist the impulse to meet Lindsay’s desires, but from what Francis had told him, that was likely to change. Once his bond with Lindsay had solidified—which would apparently happen after his first shift—his wolf would be strong enough to be commanded its maker.
By Lindsay
Drew needed Lindsay to leave Edinburgh before that happened. Lindsay had to be on that ship at noon.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Drew gritted his teeth against the pain in his belly and levered himself up, reaching for a dressing gown which he wrapped about himself as he shuffled to his chamber door. Then, thrusting it open, he peered out.
Francis and Wildsmith, who were standing in the middle of the corridor on either side of a large trunk, simultaneously glanced over their shoulders at him.
“Oh dear,” Francis said, his expression dismayed. “Did we wake you?”
“Yes,” Drew said grimly. “You did. I take Lindsay hasn’t come home yet? Where did he go?”
It was only as the words left his mouth that it occurred to him that something might have happened to Lindsay. He hated the way his gut twisted at that thought.
Francis said, “We went to a tavern and he insisted on staying after I left.” He sighed. “He was already in his cups by then and hellbent on continuing—there was no reasoning with him.”
“He was upset,” Wildsmith in a defensive tone, sending Drew a look of pure dislike. Plainly Wildsmith blamed Drew’s angry treatment of Lindsay for his master’s excesses. He turned back to Francis. “Perhaps he got into a brawl?”
Francis only smiled at that. “It’s highly likely,” he said. “If there’s trouble to be had, he’ll be in the middle of it.” He gave a fond chuckle.
Wildsmith opened his mouth—by the look of his expression, to mount some earnest defence of Lindsay—then closed it again when Francis held up a finger and lifted his nose. “And I do believe he may have just found his way home.”
A moment later, the scent that Francis’s sensitive nose had detected reached Drew. Unmistakably Lindsay. There was no name for it. Fresh and subtle, it reminded him of the scent that filled the air after a heavy downpour—though he wouldn’t have realised he knew there was such a scent till Lindsay had burst into this very chamber in a cloud of it, hours after Drew had first awoken from his bite.
A loud and tuneless voice from outside penetrated the sudden silence.
“My thing is my own, and I'll keep it so still—”
The voice rose up from the courtyard outside and drifted through Drew’s bedchamber window.
“Other young lasses may do as they will—”
Drew turned on his heel and strode to the window, Francis and Wildsmith following close on his heels.
“A cunning clockmaker did court me as well—”
Thrusting the shutters open, Drew peered down to see Lindsay swaying in the middle of the courtyard, a flagon of wine held loosely in one hand as he serenaded a row of unimpressed cats sitting on the wall.
“And promised me riches if I’d ring his bell—”
Behind Drew, Francis gave a muffled laugh.
Lindsay’s favourite pink-and-white striped coat was decidedly grubby—had he been rolling in mud?—and his powdered hair stuck up in odd tufts.
His rouge was all worn away.
Lindsay took a hefty swig from the flagon and resumed.
“So I looked at his clockwork, and said with a shock,
Your pendulum’s far too small for my clock!”
This time Francis did nothing to stifle his mirth and it scarcely mattered—Lindsay was oblivious. He threw back his head and continued even more loudly.
“My thing is my own and—”
“Shut yer trap!” a woman yelled. Her screech was followed by a noisy clatter as some missile—a turnip?— was launched from her window, scattering the cats in a flurry of yowls and squalling.
“Madam!” Lindsay cried, throwing his arms wide and sending a stream of dark wine over the flagstones. “You are angry. Let me soothe your savage breast with my song and—”
“No more singing, Lindsay!” Francis called down hurriedly before the woman could reply. “Come up now.”
Lindsay glanced up then. Finally noticing them.
Dawn was breaking, a watery sun just breaching the crow-stepped rooftops to the east. It illuminated Lindsay’s disreputable figure with rosy light. Christ, even drunk and disorderly he was beautiful. Even wine- and mud-stained with his hair like a rat’s nest. The soft dawn light showed off his handsome features to advantage even as it showed up the sorry state of his attire.
Their gazes met and Lindsay’s softened. “Drew,” he said into the morning quiet. “Did I wake you?”
Francis nudged Drew and he took the hint. “You did. So, come up now. You’re disturbing everyone with your singing.”
Despite Drew’s irritable tone, Lindsay’s answering grin was oddly sweet. “I will,” he said. “I’m coming now!” Then he made for the tenement door, disappearing from view.
“I’ll go down and let him in,” Wildsmith murmured, and slipped away.
A hand landed on Drew’s shoulder. Francis said softly, “He’ll be leaving in a few hours. Be kind, Drew.”
Be kind? What sort of thing was that to say? But Drew didn’t give voice to the thought. Instead he said flatly, “I’m going back to bed. There’s no need for dramatic farewells.”
Francis didn’t answer straightaway. His expression was troubled. Eventually he sighed heavily and said, “I think you should say goodbye, but it’s your decision.” Then he turned and left, closing the door quietly behind him.
For a long time, Drew stayed in his chamber. He didn’t go back to bed. He just sat on the edge of the mattress, staring at his hands.
I won’t go out at all, he thought. I’ll just let him leave.
He heard the others, of course
. Lindsay asking for Drew and being shushed. More singing. The sounds of things being fetched and carried, back and forth—water for Lindsay to wash in and coffee for him to drink. Food. Mounds of it to soak up the alcohol.
As time passed, Drew sensed Lindsay’s drunken ebullience fading, overtaken by a quiet melancholy. Then came the industrious sound of trunks and boxes being fetched from chambers and carried downstairs.
Not much longer now, thank God. Drew’s nerves were in shreds between his desire to see Lindsay and his determination to ignore him.
He was just beginning to wonder if Lindsay and Wildsmith had already left when he heard footsteps outside his door and Lindsay’s frustrated voice.
“For Christ’s sake, Francis, I just want to say goodbye!”
Patiently Francis said, “If he wanted to come out, he’d have done so.”
Drew wasn’t sure where the wave of wrenching grief that washed over him came from, but it impelled him to his feet and had him crossing the floor of his bedchamber, in a sudden rush, yanking the door open and staring out at the two men standing several feet away.
Lindsay eyes widened and he took a step forward as though to go to Drew, only to halt in his tracks when Drew immediately retreated a step back into the chamber. Lindsay raised his hands, palm outward in reassurance.
“I am leaving now,” he said gently. “As you requested.”
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