Ryn did not want to touch her, not now.
“You may go,” she said, not turning to look at her mate. Her abductor. Her husband. He left so quietly, if she did not have Anwyn ears, she would not have heard the door open and close.
Ryn walked quickly through the wide palace hallways, ignoring the soldiers who waited at every turn. He did not know these guards who worked here in the residential section of the palace, and they paid him little mind. As the Queen’s consort, he was not considered a threat. As the Queen’s consort, he was not considered to be of any importance at all.
It was foolish to walk away from the woman he desperately wanted, especially when she’d finally decided that she wanted him just as much. But she was not the woman he’d captured; she was not the woman he’d dreamed of. She was more.
His choices were limited, but he did have a choice. He could be her lover—or he could leave The City behind to live in the hills, a rogue who had no home, who lived only for the wolf. Tonight Juliet would find the wolf within herself. It would be painful at first, but when the transformation was done, she would know why he’d refused even to consider her offered cure that would rob him of the wolf.
It would likely be easier to live in the hills, embracing the life of the wolf, than to stay here under the rule of a woman.
But he would not leave her to the mercy of strangers just yet. Tonight, when she went through her first transformation, he would be with her. It was true that Juliet had many guards and servants to protect her, but he was her mate and it was his duty to be with her as she came to understand who and what she was.
The palace was large, with echoing walls and high ceilings. For many years he had been assigned to guard the Heart of the Anwyn, and other treasures. He had never ventured into this part of the palace. In his confusion and anger, Ryn took a wrong turn. Or two. He found himself alone in a narrow hallway free of soldiers. There were either personal offices or lesser bedchambers along this corridor that stretched into the mountain itself.
He did not share Juliet’s newly enhanced powers, but she had not been closed to him. When she’d taken the vow that made her Queen and Anwyn, she had been overwhelmed, and her fear of the unknown had left her for a time. Now that she was alone, the fear had returned. She was not afraid of the duties and wonders that awaited her, but she was afraid of facing them alone.
Ryn turned about sharply. Even though this corridor was unfamiliar to him, he could find his way to Juliet—no matter how far apart they happened to be.
A company of guards traveled with Juliet and Ryn as they walked beyond the walls of The City. As the sun dipped toward the horizon, many Anwyn—all males, but for Juliet and the old Queen—left their homes and their families and headed into the hills.
Hills, indeed. These were mountains, steep and rocky and cold. But in the distance a green forest waited, inviting and untamed. Juliet’s eyes were turned toward that forest, and so were Ryn’s.
Ryn had not entirely explained why he’d returned to her this morning, but she knew. He felt responsible for her. There was no love in his heart, no affection that led him to her. She was a responsibility for him, just as The City and the Anwyn had become a responsibility for her.
The guards kept a distance from their new Queen, but they surrounded her on all sides. Instead of wearing their usual blue uniforms, they were dressed as Ryn had been when he’d found her, in short leather kilts that could be quickly and easily shed. They carried spears, with which they would protect her if necessary.
Juliet had donned the shift her maids had presented to her this afternoon. It was more substantial than the male’s clothing, but was much simpler than the blue and gold gowns that had been stored in her palace apartments. Made of a soft animal skin, it fit her loosely and was fastened down the front with a small number of large buttons. If she did not wish to unfasten the buttons, the neckline was loose enough that she need only whip the frock over her head.
As sundown approached, she reached out and took Ryn’s hand. He didn't want the touch, but he didn’t push her away. She’d opened herself to him this afternoon, and she had not yet closed off that connection. Information, knowledge, feelings...not from Ryn, but from others around her...they had been trickling in all day, at a rate that did not frighten or alarm her.
“Will it hurt?” she asked.
“Yes,” Ryn replied, his voice as low as hers. “More the first time, because you don’t know what to expect.”
She shuddered.
“It will be over quickly,” he assured her.
“Will you stay with me?”
“If you wish.”
“I do.” She knew Ryn could not refuse her anything. Her pride directed her to tell him to do as he wished tonight, that she had her guards to comfort her and acquaint her with the ways of the wolf. But she didn’t. She wanted Ryn with her, at least for tonight. Tomorrow night he could run free without her at his side, if that’s what he desired. Tonight she needed him beside her.
They climbed downward, arriving at a flat expanse of rock that overlooked a valley unlike any other. Green trees awaited below, and from this vantage point she watched as the Anwyn poured into the forest.
But her guards stopped here. They laid their weapons aside, and some of them began to disrobe. The sun was almost gone. Would the change begin the moment the last sliver of the sun disappeared? Or would they have to wait here in the dark for the proper moment?
“Why do I not know what is to come?” she asked as Ryn laid his hands on her shoulders. “So much knowledge dances in my head, and I see so clearly now. But when I look ahead to tonight, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”
“You have told me many times that you do not often see your own future.”
“It has always been that way, but I’m stronger now than I have ever been, and I thought maybe that had changed.”
The last sliver of the sun disappeared. The sky was not yet dark, but the full moon was out and would soon shine down on them all. As the night came upon them, Ryn reached down and unfastened one button for her. He and the guards had already shed their kilts, and she sensed and saw a restlessness in many of the men who had vowed to protect her. She felt that restlessness within herself.
“Why are you angry with me?” she whispered, so no one else could hear.
“I cannot be angry with you,” Ryn replied stoically.
“If I wish, I can reach into your heart and see the truth for myself, but I don’t want to do that. I need you to tell me what I can do to make things right.”
Something in Ryn changed subtly. She saw it in the softening of his lips, in the new life springing to his gold eyes. Even with all the guards around them, standing on this ledge while the light of day faded was more like the weeks they’d spent on the road. Here they did not have the rules of the palace between them. Here they could be as they once were.
“Have you heard the legend of the red-haired Queen?” he asked.
“The Queen who will bring peace to the Anwyn. I did hear some whispers, though no one has been quick to tell me anything.”
“The red-haired Queen with the gift of sight will bring that peace by taking a Caradon lover,” Ryn said in a low voice.
“No,” Juliet whispered. She could not imagine ever taking another man into her bed or her body. Ryn was her husband as truly as if they’d taken vows in a church in Shandley, conventional and ordinary and enduring. She could not imagine ever allowing another man to touch her. “I would never...” Her breath caught in her throat as a new thought came to her. What if she killed Ryn? What if the curse took him from her the way it had taken Willym from Isadora, and she found herself alone? All alone, for years and years...
“It’s time,” Ryn said, changing the uncomfortable subject. “The change will be easier if you do not have to fight your way past clothes that bind.”
Juliet unfastened the rest of the buttons herself, and let the leather frock drop to the rocky ground. Her fingers curled a
nd uncurled; the full moon overhead seemed to dip down and touch her bare flesh. Her heart-rate increased until it was racing, pounding against her bare chest and calling to the wolf that was coming...coming...here.
A sharp stab of pain shot through her entire body, and she screamed. The agony shot through her arms, her legs, into her heart, and the scream faded and changed to a low growl that rumbled in her throat. She turned to face Ryn.
The metamorphosis she felt showed on Ryn’s face, in the shifting muscles and the golden hair that sprang up all over his body. Muscles realigned and reshaped beneath her skin; red hair grew on her own smooth skin. She fell to her knees, unable to control the transformation. It hurt. She felt as if her body was being torn apart. This was the pain of her dream, the pain she had feared all her life.
She lifted one hand, and before her eyes that hand changed into a large paw, and claws ripped through her skin. Her claws.
The pain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and Juliet turned her gaze to Ryn. Ryn the wolf, as she was now Juliet the wolf. Her heart continued to race, but everything had changed. Her connection to the earth and the people in it was deeper and more real than it had been before. Smells were sweeter, sounds were sharper, colors had faded to shades of gray. More than all that, the power of muscles she had endured agony to discover called to her. The world awaited her, and she wanted only one thing.
Her eyes locked to Ryn’s. Run with me.
Chapter Sixteen
Protection and destruction. In the past Isadora had most often called upon her gift for protection, but those who were wary of her had seen the destruction all along. Had Will seen it in her? Was that why he wasn’t coming back? In order to restore her magic, she had to devote herself to protection. She’d done just that, with the empress and her unborn child, but what of the task Empress Liane had given her? Would ridding the world of a degenerate priest who had harmed innocents turn her toward the light again, or awaken the dark?
Nothing was as it had once been, and she wondered if it would ever be so again. With every day that passed without word of Juliet, Isadora began to fear that she would live the rest of her life alone. Sophie had her own family, Juliet had been taken—ripped away—in the arms of a monster. Will was gone. She had never even imagined that alone was the most frightening word in any language.
Isadora silently navigated the stark hallways of Level Two. Empress Liane had secreted the rescued girl Ryona and her child out of the palace this afternoon, and now it was Isadora’s job to dispatch the priest who had abused the girl. If she was caught here, she would be punished. She would probably be killed. The empress would not save her, and Isadora would not ask to be saved.
Father Nelyk’s bedchamber was near the end of the long hallway. At this time of night, the hall and the rooms attached to it were silent. The priests slept, as did most of the palace. A few widely scattered bowls of flame burned softly on plain wooden tables along the corridor. The light from the fire lit her way.
Isadora hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. The empress had told her the door would be not be bolted. The foolish priests believed themselves to be safe here. It was true that for anyone outside the palace to reach this room would be near impossible. But Empress Liane had given Isadora directions that had taken her from a hidden stairway on Level Three to a storage room on Level Two.
The door swung open without so much as a squeak. Moonlight shone through an uncovered window, illuminating the man who slept on a massive and soft bed in the center of the room. Even with the door closed behind her and the light from the hallway gone, she could see Father Nelyk well enough.
While the corridor and the dining hall she had passed were plain to the point of austere, this room was as luxurious as the empress’ bedchamber. Tapestries covered the walls; gold candlesticks and ornate bowls for oil and flame sat upon finely polished tables. There were a number of chairs, all of them fat and wide and soft. A crimson canopy covered the bed where the priest slept.
Nelyk opened his eyes as she sat on the edge of the bed, and oddly enough he was not at all surprised. “I did not ask for companionship on this night,” he said in a sleepy voice.Since the moonlight shone on her blue frock, he obviously thought she had come to him from Level Three. All the concubines wore blue.
She pulled the thick coverlet back to expose his bare chest, and laid her hand over his heart. The priest slept naked.
“You’re new,” he said. “Did Rosana send you?”
Rosana. Isadora filed that name away. Liane would want to know who had been sending untrained girls to him. “Yes, I’m very new.”
He placed his hand over hers. “Let me light a candle. I wish to see you.”
“Let me.” Isadora turned her gaze to the bedside table and whispered, “Seana ildicio.” Two candles and one small bowl of oil leapt to life, illuminating her and the man on the bed. He was younger than she’d expected, and would even be handsome, if she didn’t know what he had done.
“You’re the witch,” he said in alarm as he ripped his hand from hers and tried to sit up.
“One loud word, and you’re dead,” she whispered as she pressed him back down into his soft mattress. “Call for help or fight me in any way, and you’ll meet your maker before your next heartbeat.”
He lay beneath her hand, unmoving. “I can be a friend to you, if you give me the chance,” he promised, with the ease of a man who is accustomed to lying and charming to get what he wanted.
“How?”
“I can get you out of here. Tonight.”
He did not know that she had nowhere to go, even if she did escape. She didn’t know where either of her sisters were, or if they even still lived. She no longer trusted her heart’s insistence that they were alive. Empress Liane and her baby were her only obligations in this world, and Isadora had committed herself to them, at least for now.
“Perhaps I will allow you to save me,” she said, “but first I would like to know if what I heard of you is true.”
“What did you hear?”
“I heard that in spite of your vow of chastity, you often have women come to this very nice room. If you lie,” she added. “I will know.”
“I could deny your accusations,” he said easily. “But since I assumed aloud that you had been sent here by Rosana, it would be pointless. Do you find me appealing? Is that why you’re here?” His voice was touched with a hope she would soon dash.
“You prefer the new girls,” Isadora said. “The untrained ones.”
“A priest cannot lie with a well-used harlot,” he explained. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Isadora’s hand remained steady over his heart. “Is it appropriate to throw young girls who carry your children into a hole in the ground to die?”
Nelyk started to deny the accusation, and then thought better of it. Perhaps he really did believe that she would know a lie when she heard it. “A priest can’t have children,” he explained. “I would be dismissed from my post and—”
“And you’d have to leave all this behind,” Isadora finished.
“Yes,” he whispered.
She pressed her hand more firmly against his chest.
“I can offer you riches and power,” he said, for the first time sounding desperate. “Anything you want.”
“Anything.” She leaned toward him, and she saw the light of hope in his eyes. He really thought he might escape unpunished. “Can you turn back time?”
Juliet slept well into the afternoon, exhausted by her first night as the wolf. Not any wolf, but Queen of the Anwyn. Queen of the wolves that ruled these mountains. Ryn watched her closely, taking in every scent, every sight, as if it would be his last. Her bed was a large bearskin. Not the one she had slept upon during their journey, but one much like it. Others slept on hard rock or dead leaves, but not the Queen.
One of her guards had collected their clothing and placed it close by, but most of the soldiers slept. They would rest in shifts, taking turns keeping watch
over Juliet. Ryn often didn’t sleep at all on the days and nights of the wolf, and he would not sleep during these three days. The soldiers were bound by duty to protect her. He was bound by blood.
Juliet turned often, murmuring softly as she dreamed. She did not dream of him, not today. Instead her mind relived running through the forest, discovering her new strength, embracing the ecstasy of the wolf in moonlight.
“You should sleep,” a familiar voice said.
Ryn, who sat beside Juliet’s bed, turned to watch his brother approach. “Sleep will wait.”
Denton, who had their mother’s dark coloring instead of the fairness of the other brothers, smiled widely. “You will make my job unnecessary, I fear.” The youngest of the Ditteri brothers had been a guard in the palace for three years, joining his brother Ryn in that noble duty. This morning he had begun his shift as one of the guardians of the Queen. He looked at Juliet with a mixture of pride and admiration. “Serving her will be much more enjoyable than attending Queen Etaina.”
Ryn covered Juliet as best he could by turning the animal skin she slept upon over much of her body.
“I meant no disrespect,” Denton said as he dropped to his haunches a short distance away. Like Ryn and the other soldiers on duty, he wore a leather kilt that offered freedom of movement.
“I know,” Ryn replied. “The new Queen has not yet become accustomed to our ways. She maintains some unnecessary humility and would not like to learn that men she does not know have seen her sleeping and unclothed.”
“How else can we soldiers protect her when the moon is full?” Denton argued.
Most of the soldiers were married and unerringly faithful to their mates, and to see the Queen bare, between the time of wolf and the time of woman, was a natural and inconsequential part of their duties. Denton and a few others were as yet unmated, but they knew the women who were meant to be theirs would soon call to them, and again...Juliet’s nakedness was as natural as their own.
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