Master Wolf

by Joanna Chambers

  And then Lindsay had burst in, wild-eyed and pleading. Lindsay, the man who had transformed Drew into this monster. Lindsay, who had, prior to that, taken Drew to bed and changed forever Drew’s understanding of who he was as a man.

  Drew had shared Lindsay’s bed several times before Lindsay had transformed him. He’d kissed Lindsay’s mouth and touched every part of his elegant body, even spent inside him. But it was only in that moment, after he became a wolf, when Lindsay burst into his sickroom, that he’d finally learned the subtle intricacies of Lindsay’s unique scent. It made Drew think of rain and the sweet smell from the earth that followed a heavy downpour. It was an earth-and-sky scent that he wanted to fill his lungs up with, breathing it in and out for ever. A scent he’d barely even noticed till he became a wolf and discovered there was a vast world of sensory experience he hadn’t even known existed. Not until Lindsay Somerville burst into his bedchamber and drenched him in sensation.

  Drew lifted the paper to his nose and breathed in Lindsay’s scent, so faint, so distant… yet there. Still there, despite the miles and months since Lindsay had touched it. Drew closed his eyes and saw Lindsay’s face in his mind’s eye. It was a face of astonishing masculine beauty. Eyes so dark they were nearly black, gleaming with gentle mockery. A mouth that promised passion and humour both.

  Drew’s heart twisted and he closed his eyes, cursing. The longing he felt for Lindsay was always there. He could keep it under control by staying as far away from Lindsay as possible, but he could never seem to sever the bone-deep yearning entirely.

  Which did nothing to change the fact that Lindsay Somerville was not—and would never be—for Drew. There was too much pain and betrayal between them. How could Drew ever forgive the man who had turned him into a monster and imposed this endless longing upon him?

  “Read it.”

  Marguerite’s voice interrupted his thoughts and he flushed, realising how badly he’d betrayed himself, scenting the letter and openly dreaming. Hurriedly he unfolded the page and forced himself to focus on the words.

  * * *

  Edinburgh

  6th August 1820

  Darling M,

  Thank you for your letter. I miss you too, every day.

  It’s horribly dismal here. I swear it’s been raining since June with no respite. I miss the sun, M, I do. Last winter was long and cold and I was not myself. (There, I admit it. I know there is no point hiding it from you, since Wynne reports to you on how I fare—feign to deny it!).

  As Wynne has probably already told you, I have not been entirely well these last few months. Do not worry. If there is one thing I can honestly assure you of it is this: I am on the right path. I truly believe that I am on my way to changing my life for the better.

  I am becoming free.

  Every day, I am freer, and if that means I have to give up a little of my physical comfort in return, I am more than willing to do that.

  It’s strange, isn’t it, how stupid one can be about oneself? Perhaps I’m particularly obtuse, though. It’s taken me all this long life to discover that the most important thing—the thing I really can’t live without—is my freedom. All these years I’ve been running away from Duncan. Staying out of his path at all costs. All to be safe, when the truth is, the moment I ran, I made myself a fugitive. A slave to my own desire for safety.

  I’ve realised there is only one way to be truly free, and it is to live without fear. Now that I care nothing for safety, I am, finally, safe.

  Isn’t that glorious?

  Oh, my dear. I wish you could you see me. I am sitting at my desk, smiling even as I grimace. I know you will be worried when you read this, but you must trust me to know my own mind on this.

  Anyway, enough of me. I am not merely writing to bare my soul to you, but because I have news.

  Do you remember that first time I returned to Edinburgh—back in ’88? It was the year I met Drew—Christ, that seems like an eternity ago. Difficult to imagine that there was ever a time I did not know my own mate, my own heart.”

  Drew closed his eyes. That Lindsay could write such words, even now, after all these years and everything that had happened…

  He opened his eyes and forced himself to continue reading.

  But I digress.

  That was also the year I met Hector Cruikshank, from whom we obtained those witchfinder records you spent the next few years studying so intently. You will, I am sure, recall that matters between Cruikshank and me did not end well. In short, Francis and I were left with a considerable mess to clear up.

  I am not sure whether we ever discussed exactly how we dealt with that mess, however, some of it was disposed of in the Nor’loch, by St. Cuthbert’s Church and, well… nothing stays hidden forever, does it?

  I’m afraid our mess has returned.

  These last few months, workmen have been draining the final stretch of the Nor’loch, next to St. Cuthbert’s Church. They’ve been finding all sorts of things in the mud. Just last month, three adult skeletons nailed inside a barrel—a brother and his two sisters, executed by drowning for incestuous acts, according to the newspapers.

  The latest finding is something even more sensational: the bones of a misshapen monster wrapped in a decaying carpet. A skeleton with the body of an elderly man and the skull of a malformed dog. The newspapers have dubbed it “the Beast o’ the Nor’loch” and several individuals have come forward to express interest in acquiring the remains.

  I could be wrong, but I anticipate you will not wish these remains to fall into the wrong hands and will thus wish to acquire them for yourself. If I could deal with this for you, I would do so but regrettably, I cannot. I have been here for some time now and am well established in society here. It would excite much curiosity and comment if I were to seek to acquire these bones. However, I will do whatever I can to assist whoever you send. For what it is worth, the Council appears to be eager to sell the Beast to the highest bidder.

  I will wait to hear from you, dearest, and until I do so, will continue to curse the endless rain and otherwise remain your devoted servant in all things,

  With all my love,

  Lindsay

  * * *

  Drew stared at the paper for a few moments after he finished reading, then he looked up, meeting Marguerite’s eyes.

  “I take it you wish to acquire the skeleton,” he said.

  “Indeed. And I would like your assistance.”

  “Why?” Drew asked. “Does it really matter if someone else gets it?”

  “It matters,” Marguerite said reasonably. “It is evidence of us, and if there is one thing I have learned over my centuries on this earth, it is that we allow such evidence to exist at our peril. There are wolf-hunters out there, Drew. People who have dedicated their whole lives to finding us.”

  Drew was not unaware that there were dangers—Francis had warned him from the very first of the need for discretion and secrecy above all else—but he had never met such a person himself, and so it had always seemed a distant threat to him.

  “What do these hunters want?” he asked.

  Marguerite eyed him for several beats. At length she said, “Lindsay’s letter mentions the papers he acquired from Cruikshank for me back in ’88—the Naismith papers—do you remember?”

  “Vaguely,” Drew said, frowning. “I remember when I first met Lindsay he was trying to acquire something from Cruikshank. Much later Francis mentioned it was a set of papers you had wanted.” He glanced at Marguerite warily. “Something to do with Alys.”

  Alys, Marguerite’s beloved maker, had vanished a long, long time ago, and Marguerite had been searching for her ever since.

  “Yes,” Marguerite said calmly. “Alys disappeared around the time of some witch trials Naismith was conducting in Northumberland. The papers Lindsay got from Cruikshank related to those trials. And they did indeed show that someone meeting Alys’s description was arrested there—an incomer to one of the villages who openly opposed Naismi
th—but there is no record of any trial or execution. Only a brief note of the woman being transported to a prison.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Marguerite’s dark gaze was bleak. She shook her head. “She never arrived. The trail goes cold as to her whereabouts. The papers do contain something else of interest though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Naismith was one of the founders of a secret society—the Order of the White Ravens.”

  Drew blinked. “That’s not a secret society. When I was a boy the House of the White Ravens was a popular gentleman’s society. My uncle was a member—so was Cruikshank.” His eyes widened as realisation struck.

  Marguerite nodded. “Quite so. Cruikshank was the most senior member of the Scottish branch of the Order when you knew him. And yes, the Order created that popular society, which they called the House of the White Ravens. Its purpose was to present a benevolent, seemingly harmless face to the world. They recruited quite large numbers with the usual promises of social and professional benefits, but for the rank and file members, it was no more than a standard fraternal society. Behind that façade though, a small elite—the Masters of the Order, who included Cruikshank—were pursuing more esoteric interests.”

  “Such as?”

  “As I said, the founders were all witchfinders. They shared a common interest in witchcraft, magic and the occult, and they corresponded extensively on a wide range of such subjects. However, from the papers I have studied there is one particular interest they were all passionate about.”

  “And that was?”

  “Immortality,” Marguerite said, and a shiver ran down the back of Drew’s neck.

  “There are references to it in dozens of documents and letters I’ve studied,” she went on. “They were searching for the secret of eternal life. Alchemists to a man, obsessed with finding the elixir of life and the Philosopher’s Stone—neither of which were ever discovered. But something else was. Something extraordinary. A creature who could shift into wolf form and live for centuries.”

  “They captured Alys?”

  Marguerite’s gaze was bleak. “I do not know,” she said. “I hope to find out one day. But it was clear from some of these letters that, yes, at least at some point they held one of our kind.”

  Drew stared at her, horrified.

  Marguerite continued. “The other thing we know is that, sometime in the 1780s, Cruikshank tracked down Duncan MacCormaic, and they made a pact—one that Cruikshank had hoped would grant him immortality: he would help Duncan capture Lindsay, in return for a bite.”

  “How did Cruikshank know that Duncan was a wolf?”

  “That is not something I have been able to discover,” Marguerite said. “But Cruikshank was very learned and Duncan very reckless—he has left many traces of himself over the centuries. My guess is that Cruikshank pieced together enough evidence to lead him to the conclusion that Duncan MacCormaic had already lived many lifetimes. He knew about the werewolf the Order had captured and he realised Duncan was the same kind of creature, so he approached him and offered to come to an agreement—something Duncan wanted in return for a bite. Critically, he did not tell any of his fellow Order members what he had discovered. He was not prepared to risk someone else profiting from his labours.”

  “But he didn’t know as much as he thought,” Drew mused. “He didn’t know that Duncan couldn’t transform him into a werewolf at will, not without the Urge.”

  The Urge was an overpowering desire that sometimes—very rarely—arose in a wolf. It was only when a wolf was possessed by the Urge that a transformative bite could be given, turning the person bitten into a werewolf. Drew had seen it happen precisely once: when Lindsay had bitten him. In thirty years as a wolf he’d not heard of another instance.

  “But Duncan did manage to engineer something,” Marguerite pointed out. “When he ordered his servant to bite Cruikshank, Cruikshank did turn into something.”

  Duncan’s servant, Mercer—the one who had nearly killed Drew all those years ago—had been Duncan’s other made wolf, bound to obey his master. When Duncan had commanded Mercer to transform Cruikshank, he had created a need and desire in Mercer that had, perhaps, mimicked the Urge. Enough to transform Cruikshank into something, albeit not a werewolf but a monstrous, half-shifted thing.

  “These wolf-hunters still exist then?” Drew said.

  “Yes,” Marguerite said. “It seems the fraternity—the House of the White Ravens—has fallen out of favour, but the secret Order continues. Its members often turn up showing interest in occult artefacts that come up for sale.”

  “How do you know who they are?”

  Marguerite reached into her reticule and pulled out something small and glinting, offering it to Drew. “They wear one of these.”

  He stretched out his hand and she dropped the item onto his palm. It was a signet ring, the gold old and very yellow. He examined it. The flat surface of the ring contained a crest. Three birds’ heads. Ravens. He had seen the design before, on a seal his uncle had kept on his desk and used for his letters. He remembered being a small boy and watching his uncle push the seal into the hot red wax, the birds’ heads standing out sharply afterwards. His uncle hadn’t owned one of these rings though.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked, peering at the engraving which was worn smooth at the edges with age.

  “It was Cruikshank’s,” Marguerite replied. “Francis took it from his hand the night he died. He knew it might be useful one day.”

  Drew glanced up sharply, then returned his gaze to the ring briefly before silently handing it back to her. She replaced it in her reticule.

  “So,” Drew said slowly. “You have two purposes in Edinburgh. Firstly, securing the skeleton if you can, and secondly, keeping your eyes open for any members of the Order, in the hope they will lead you to Alys?”

  “I have three purposes,” Marguerite corrected. “I also need to discover what is going on with Lindsay. Why he is in Edinburgh and what has happened to weaken him so.” She paused, then added, “So. Will you join me? Will you help me, Drew?”

  Drew sighed. He felt as though he had no choice—and he hated feeling that way—but no protest escaped his stiff lips.

  “All right,” he muttered. “I will help you.”

  “Good. We leave tomorrow.”

  Chapter Three

  Warm lips whispered over Drew’s throat, rousing him from sleep.

  Even with his eyelids closed, he knew the owner of that teasing mouth. Knew by his sweet rainwater scent.

  “Lindsay?” Drew murmured.

  Lindsay, my love.

  He did not say those words aloud though. Instead, he opened his eyes.

  The drapes were open and soft sunlight streamed into the bedchamber, illuminating a thousand tiny dust motes and kissing Lindsay’s dark, downbent head while he trailed kisses along Drew’s collarbone.

  “Lindsay,” Drew whispered again, and this time he got a soft chuckle in response before Lindsay lifted his head, revealing achingly familiar brown eyes that gleamed with humour and affection.

  Drew’s heart clenched, seized by a sudden joy that was almost painful. He reached out, intending to thread his fingers into the long, dark tresses that tumbled over Lindsay’s shoulders…

  …only to bolt upright with a harsh gasp, his hand clutching at the empty air.

  Lindsay had vanished, along with the dust motes and the warm morning sunbeams. There was no sunshine today. It was a cold, wet October morning in London and he hadn’t seen Lindsay Somerville for twelve years.

  But he would be seeing him very soon—he and Marguerite were leaving London that very afternoon.

  He didn’t know he felt about that. His wolf was beside itself with joy, but his human self was anxious. These last twelve years without Lindsay had not been easy, but recently he’d finally begun to feel like he had gained some kind of control over his wolf. Was he risking undoing that by returning to Edinburgh with Marguer
ite?

  After breakfast, Drew called in at his office. He sat down with Albert for two hours, leaving him with a long list of instructions to carry out, then returned home to finish packing and await Marguerite.

  When Marguerite’s coach arrived, he left his things on the street for the coachmen to load up and climbed inside.

  “Is that all you have?” Marguerite asked, poking her head out of the window and looking down her nose at his paltry collection of luggage.

  “Why would I need more?”

  “We could be away for some time.”

  “It can’t take all that long,” Drew replied, opening the door and climbing in. “We’ve only to buy a skeleton and see who else turns up to see it.” He didn’t mention Lindsay.

  He settled himself on the seat opposite her, unsurprised to find that the coach was the last word in elegance and comfort. This thing was fit for a maharajah. Drew tested the padding on the bench beneath him, raising his brows at the plushness of the upholstery.

  “I have not the slightest idea who or what we will find in Edinburgh,” Marguerite said. “But I can tell you this: we will be staying as long as I decide. If you think you will need more clothing, get it now.”

  Drew shook his head. “I don’t need much, no matter how long the trip might be.”

  Marguerite sighed. “You are such a puritan. It’s very tiresome, I must say.” She tapped on the ceiling and the coach began to move.

  “I’m not a puritan,” Drew protested. “I don’t pay much mind to clothes, it’s true, but there are other pleasures I enjoy.”

  “Like what?”

  For some reason, the image that came to his mind right then was the one of Lindsay from his dream: Lindsay leaning over him in that sunshine-filled bedchamber, his smile both wicked and tender. It hadn’t even happened—they had never lain together in such a room at such a time of day—but the dream was so persistent, it felt like a memory now. Drew could picture the moment in his mind, every detail of it caught in hazy golden perfection, like a drop of amber.