Beauty and the Werewolf fhk-6

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Well, this gives me a chance to tell you what the Servant told me,” she said, feeling the excitement all over again, as she carefully laid out what she’d been advised.

  He listened intently, his gaze brightening.

  “This…this is brilliant reasoning,” he said, finally. “It makes perfect sense. And I really won’t care if I’m a wolf three days out of the month, as long as I’m still under control of myself. Mind? It’ll be useful! Witches take years to learn to transform themselves and I already have this form! Oh, granted, all I have is a single form, but it’s a powerful one. One that can attack and defend itself, travel for miles without having to stop for a rest, hide just about anywhere — ”

  “First, you have to make this whole altering-curse thing work, and you are the only one who can,” she cautioned. “The Servant said it wouldn’t be easy, and it probably won’t happen the first time you try.”

  His chin firmed. “I’m not giving up, no matter how many times it fails. It will only take one success to turn this werewolf curse into a blessing! And then — I’ll be able to go anywhere!”

  “You’re going to alter your curse?” Eric said from the doorway, his brows furrowing. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before.”

  “Just because no one has, that doesn’t mean that no one can,” Sebastian replied. “This has the sanction of the Godmother herself. She thinks I can alter it so that even though I make the change, my own mind remains, instead of reverting to the beast.”

  “Oh, really.” Eric’s brows furrowed more. “I see what you mean by being able to go anywhere, then. You’d be just another magician who can transform himself.”

  “Only three nights a month,” Sebastian reminded him.

  Eric laughed. It sounded a little forced. “Three nights when you can be the nastiest thing in the forest — and almost the nastiest out of it,” he replied. “You’ll scarcely need me, then.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, I’ll always need you,” Sebastian told him, as he rummaged through a drawer for one of the sticks of graphite and a sheet of paper. “Meanwhile, I take it you came to say goodbye?”

  Eric nodded brusquely. “I’m spending the night, but I’ll be gone before you’re awake, and I know you — you are going to be working on that business of changing the weather past supper. I want to get to the city in good time to establish myself. If I am going to be representing you, I need to update my wardrobe and hire a few more servants for the town house. I can’t bring important folk to talk and not have enough servants.”

  Sebastian nodded absently, his mind clearly already on other things. “Do whatever you need to. We’ll be using the place, anyway, once I alter this curse, and the more you do now, the less you’ll have to do later.” Then he turned away from the diagram he was sketching out, to give Eric a warm smile. “I don’t know what I would have done without you all this time, you know.”

  Eric nodded somberly. “All right, then, I’m for an early bed and an early rise. Luck.”

  He left before either of them could say anything.

  For a moment, just a moment, Bella stared after him, a fleeting thought passing through her mind. Had Eric seemed less than pleased with their plans?

  But no, that was ridiculous. Sebastian had trusted Eric all his life — and with his life. Eric could have been rid of Sebastian a dozen times in the past five years, and no one would have faulted him for it.

  He’s probably just worried what will happen if Sebastian fails — he must have seen Sebastian’s hopes crushed a hundred times, and he doesn’t want Sebastian hurt anymore. Eric did seem to be the pessimistic sort — certainly the cynical sort.

  Well, we will just have to keep at it until we do actually alter the curse. We both know it won’t be easy. But we both know it will be worth it. Eventually Eric will see that, too.

  18

  THEY HAD WORKED OVER THE CALCULATIONS AND diagrams for the weather-altering plan until supper and beyond. Eric had been right; the two of them worked feverishly until their stomachs began growling, but they didn’t have to send anyone for food — Sapphire and Azure, the Spirit Elemental who generally attended Sebastian in the workroom, turned up shortly after that with another tray full of little bits of savory things they could just pick up and eat with one hand. This was complicated stuff, and Bella was, quite frankly, thrilled and more than a little frightened that Sebastian had decided that she should help work on it.

  He had brought out maps, consulted the Mirror Servant about the usual weather patterns at this time of year, asked him to figure out what, if any, problems a rise in temperature would cause the local inhabitants, then began drawing out the lines of power that ran from the Manor to that part of the Kingdom. And from there, he began making his calculations, with Bella double-checking them. He had to figure out how much change there would be, how fast, for every little rise in the temperature — of course, there was no way to measure the temperature rising, but he didn’t need to be able to do that. What he was using was a day. “If I make the land and air feel like the start of March — the second week of March — the end of March — the beginning of April — ”

  Finally, he found the ideal day, the 17th of April. If he caused the entire border on the Waldenstein side to think it was that date, the deep snow that was there now would quickly become mush. The longer he held the spell in place, the more snow would melt, and the deeper the mud would become. Soon it would become impossible for wagons and heavy horses to pass — and if they could not, then so much for the passage of the Waldenstein army.

  That took care of the date they needed to match.

  Then came a much more mundane calculation — how deeply into Waldenstein lands should he go to make a proper barrier that would serve as a deterrent? He wanted to cover enough territory that it really became a slog, but he didn’t want to affect more than that, because this was going to throw off the whole growing season within that area for at least a year.

  Then, because of course, as soon as this started to happen — although it was a very novel technique — Waldenstein magicians would know what he was doing, and try to counter it, he began computing the countermeasures to their countermeasures.

  And when all of that was done, the magical parameters had to be calculated all over again, adding the powers and abilities of more magicians.

  Eventually, though, they had to stop. “Enough,” he said. “We have enough for the Godmother. There is no point in spending too much time on something she will either approve as it stands, modify or throw out altogether. It is weather magic… It is nothing you trifle with, and for all I know, she’ll decide that instead of being subtle, this situation warrants calling in a flight of dragons — or, more likely, calling a half dozen more Godmothers and setting up a Winter Carnival on the spot.”

  “A — You’re joking.” She looked at him askance.

  He shook his head. “Not a bit of it. She’s done it before. And who would dare bring an army across a spot full of Godmothers?”

  “No one in his right mind,” she agreed, and found herself yawning. “My head is full, and my eyes are starting to close by themselves.”

  “Mine, too.” He looked at her across the little table they were working at, and then, unexpectedly, leaned over it and kissed her.

  At first, her reaction was surprise. This was not the first time that a man had kissed her — although she had no serious suitors now, she had had three before the twins came of age. Well — they were serious, even if she hadn’t been. One had been a tentative kisser, one a demanding kisser and one had kissed her as if it was a duty.

  Sebastian was nothing like any of them. He was confident without being demanding, and although she sensed he would withdraw immediately if she reacted poorly, she could tell he was enjoying this.

  So was she…

  A wonderful wave of warmth enveloped her.

  Quite a lot…

  She closed her eyes and leaned toward him, just allowing herself to feel inst
ead of think.

  It was very, very nice. It was more than nice. Her lips parted a little, and he licked and nibbled at them, sending all manner of pleasantly thrilling sensations up and down her body and —

  Slowly, regretfully, he drew back. “I think I had better — we had better — stop now,” he said. “Before things get quite enjoyable, extremely messy and potentially damaging to glassware and papers.”

  Feeling a little dizzy, she realized that she hadn’t taken a breath in quite a while. She did so, and stood up straighter. “Oh, my,” she said. “Ah — yes.”

  He blinked at her. “Erm…yes, what?”

  “Your question. The one you asked me about. The answer is yes.” She took another deep breath. “I realize that just having been kissed…like that…I am probably not in my right mind to be answering it. But having just been kissed like that more or less is the answer and I — ” It was her turn to blink. “Bother. Too much talk, more kissing.”

  And she leaned across the table and kissed him.

  The result was not damaging to glassware or papers, although it did take a little careful maneuvering to a spot beside the hearth, a huge, ancient bearskin where they could sit and continue the experience without wreaking havoc. It didn’t — a little to her regret — get to the point where there was clothing flying about, but it did get to the point where buttons were unbuttoned, some laces were undone, and there was a certain amount of damage to hair and quite a bit of skin exposed. There was not enough goings-on to have caused a torch-bearing mob to descend in fear of werewolf cubs appearing in a few months, but there was enough to make her quite, quite certain that the first kiss had not only not been a fluke, it was the harbinger of better things to come.

  She let Sapphire help her the rest of the way out of her clothing and into a nightdress and robe in a bemused and preoccupied state of mind. Was it too early to hint about this to her father? Probably not. He could very well get annoyed with her if she didn’t give him some warning, and her letters of late had been more full of the patrols with and without Eric than they were of Sebastian.

  That might have been giving entirely the wrong impression.

  Sebastian’s a Duke. So far as Genevieve is concerned, he could be a hairy ape every day of the year as long as he has a title, and she would be over-joyed with the marriage. With her on my side, I don’t think Father can stand against us.

  Honestly, as long as she was happy, he probably wouldn’t even put up a token objection.

  But there was something else she hadn’t been telling him. While she’d talked about Sebastian working magic, and her own work in the stillroom, she hadn’t exactly told him, “And by the way, Father, it seems I’m a sorceress.”

  She settled down with pen and paper to detail what she and Sebastian had been doing all this time. I hadn’t quite made up my mind until now, because I really wasn’t sure that it meant anything, but now that I have, tonight, helped with something very difficult and important, I suppose it is time I confessed to you that I seem to be a magician… There, get that shock over with first. Anything that came afterward would seem mild by comparison.

  When she had finished the letter, it barely fit in the box, and it was quite late. She checked the box reflexively as she always did once she had put it inside — the letter was gone. Short letters didn’t always vanish immediately. Long ones, however, did. Peculiar.

  With a feeling of satisfaction, she stood up and stretched.

  And froze, as the tortured howl of a wolf echoed through the corridors.

  This isn’t possible! It wasn’t the full moon; it was the new moon! An icy hand seemed to stroke her back as her breath and heart stilled. Another howl — close!

  Her body felt as if she had been hit by lightning.

  Sapphire flew in through the door and slammed it behind her, just as something huge and heavy hit it. The thump shook the room. Bella ran to the door to try to hold it in place.

  More thumps, as the wood shivered under her hand, and her heart raced. The servant dropped a bar across the door into slots meant to hold it there, but it was obvious that the door wasn’t going to hold up under this punishment for long. That was what the gate of iron bars was meant for.

  Her mouth dried with terror. “Silver!” she shouted to Sapphire, looking frantically for something herself, finally spotting a branched candlestick. That would have to do.

  Frenzied growls punctuated the thuds as the wolf continued to ram the door. The bar shivered and cracked every time he hit. Sapphire and Bella backed into a corner; Bella’s heart was pounding so hard it felt as if it was going to leap out of her chest.

  The bar shattered. With a shriek of tortured wood, splinters flew everywhere. The door smashed open, hitting the wall behind it, and Sebastian-wolf leapt wild-eyed into the room.

  She hadn’t gotten a good look at him out in the woods — he had seemed huge then; he seemed bigger now. Tall and rangy, dark gray fur, his muscles rippled with power beneath his skin.

  He focused on Bella immediately, his yellow eyes blazing at her. He sniffed twice, taking in her scent. He stalked toward her, stiff-legged, growling, no sign of anything human in his eyes.

  Fear set her nerves on fire; she grasped the candlestick firmly in both hands, her mind racing. She couldn’t fight him off — she probably couldn’t even hurt him that much. Not physically.

  That left magic.

  She sensed, then saw, magic swirling in confused eddies all through the room, whirlpools of sparkling motes of light that danced and pulsed with a golden energy that was stronger than anything she had ever seen before. She called them to her, concentrating on keeping her will strong, believing that she could control this power.

  Come! she called it, and the magic answered!

  She felt it, warm and sweet, pouring toward her. It streamed toward her, like swarms of bees heading for the hive. The streams gathered around her; she spun them tighter and tighter, until the resulting sphere of power glowed like a little moon, and then she flung it at Sebastian.

  “Sebastian!” she called, her voice cracking. “Sebastian! I order you! Remember!”

  The sphere of magic hit the wolf full-force and enveloped him like an insect in amber; he froze, every hair on end, as the air crackled and the power surged around him.

  “Remember!” she called again, putting every bit of her fear and her feelings for Sebastian into the order. “Remember who you are! You are not a beast! You are a man!”

  The wolf shook like a tree in a windstorm, eyes huge and wild. The power continued to whirl around him, trying to penetrate whatever it was that was keeping it from fusing with him.

  “Remember!” she ordered for the third time, and threw aside the candlestick. “You are Sebastian! And I love you!”

  The power struck again, and shattered some barrier that she could not see. It was sucked into the wolf like water into parched ground. The beast yelped, convulsed — then went rigid all over, legs stiff —

  And then, slowly, painfully, raised its head.

  She looked in its eyes and saw, not the beast, but the man.

  But before she could move, the sound of someone running shattered her concentration.

  “Stand back!” Eric shouted, bursting through the broken door. “Stand back. I have him!” He raised a crossbow to his shoulder, aiming it at Sebastian. “I have him, Bella!”

  To her horror, she saw the head of the bolt glinting silver. Fear stabbed her.

  No!

  But in the instant before he shot, a silver candlestick flew past her shoulder, knocking the crossbow aside. But it went off, anyway, the bolt hitting Sebastian’s hind leg and tearing a furrow across the skin and hide. With a yelp of pain, the wolf wheeled, charged for the door and shouldered Eric aside, dashing out into the corridor again. Bella ran in hot pursuit, ignoring Eric. She raced down the corridor, bare feet slapping on the stone, following the sound of skittering claws.

  “Sebastian!” she called, or tried to, her sides achin
g, and her throat burning as she tried to catch her breath.

  He didn’t even pause.

  Even wounded, Sebastian was unbelievably fast. She reached the intersection of two corridors and paused, uncertain, no longer able to hear him running. A moment later she heard the crashing of glass far off in the direction of the greenhouse; by the time she reached the spot, it was obvious what had happened. Sebastian had managed to find the greenhouse, shoulder the door open and had thrown himself through one of the panes to escape out into the snow.

  There was no trace of him but the footprints — dark pits in the drifts, heading into the forest.

  She stood uncertain in her bare feet, holding her aching side, staring, her heart pounding like a mad drum and fear making her want to burst into tears and sink down helplessly to the ground. But she didn’t dare do that. He was all she had, the only hope he had. She fought down the tears and clasped her fists to her temples, trying to think.