“What?” The leader took a step closer.
He blinked again, and managed to gather his thoughts. “High magic, wrought by a master. Only your king shall touch what’s inside.”
The man holding the box said something in his own language, at which the leader glanced at it curiously. “Where is the key?” he asked.
Aaro reached up, his hand shaking, and drew it from around his neck. He held it for a moment, his mind clearing momentarily. If he had any chance to live at all, it was in satisfying the Shonnowan leader. Yet what was he doing here? Dying to fulfil a last mission for Ormand? The irony nearly choked him.
The man holding the box snatched the key out of his hand. He opened it and presented it to the leader, who peered inside, his eyes alight with greed.
“Don’t touch it,” Aaro warned.
“Why? Is it poisoned?”
“I don’t know.” He wilted further toward the ground.
“Our mages will determine if it is,” the leader gave a nod, and the other man snapped the box closed and locked it. He turned his attention back to Aaro, watching him coldly. “Your mission is accomplished. However, you won’t be retuning with a message for you king.” He turned to one of the others, still speaking in Aaro’s language. “Kill him.”
Blood dripped from Aaro’s right hand. His left leg wouldn’t even move. The Shonnowan man stepped forward, raising his sword. Aaro drew his left-hand gun and fired, point blank. The sword thrust went wild, slicing down across his chest, through his coat. His enemy stared at him with round eyes, dropping the sword and grabbing at his heart. He toppled sideways.
In the distance, the mournful wail of a wolf call shivered through the night.
One of the remaining men stepped forward, but the leader waved him off, looking around at the trees, suddenly nervous. He said something in his own tongue, glanced back once at Aaro, and walked away. His people followed.
The wolf cried again. The moon still shone, though clouds were gathering in the east, blotting out the stars.
Aaro collapsed back against the boulder, cradling his hand in his lap while he tried to pull his coat closed over the gash in his side and chest. One-handed, with numb, clumsy fingers, he dug for his ammo and replaced what he’d fired. He searched along the ground with his good hand, but couldn’t find the other gun that he’d dropped. Then he leaned back against the rock, shivering, and swore softly.
He’d known all along that Jake and Alonso were right, but he’d never expected to die like this. If anything, he was supposed to die taking Ormand’s life, not completing a mission for him.
“Forgive me,” he slurred. Whether he addressed the Almighty or his dead wife, he didn’t know or care. He knew he wasn’t ready to die.
Across the creek the brush rattled, and a big furry head emerged into the moonlight. For a moment he couldn’t decide whether it was a wolf or a bear. As the rest of the animal came into view, he saw it was a wolf, but a big one.
He raised his gun, but his hand shook, and weakness dragged at his arm. His breaths huffed shallowly, and he forced himself to squeeze the trigger before he passed out.
The echo of the gunshot was the last thing he heard.
Chapter 11
Rowan had been trying to avoid Sorrell every moonlit night since the beginning of fall, and it hadn’t been easy. Normally, she’d want to spend every moment she could as a human, even if it meant being up with the moon at all hours of the night, but he had almost cornered her a dozen times. So she avoided both moonlight and Sorrell, and the prolonged, self-imposed social fast was making her grouchy.
Tonight was different though. Tonight everyone was out, bundled in coats and furs, their breath puffing white in the light of the bonfire and the paper-thin bark lanterns that the children hung from the bare branches of trees and bushes around the edge of the clearing. The moon shone bright, keeping Rowan in her human form, clothed in Shonnowan fur-lined trousers, boots, and coat. She sat on a log bench and handed strips of prepared bark to her friend Willow, who nimbly wove them into the little luminaries that were beginning to light the clearing like fallen stars.
“You must dance in the celebration this year, if there is moonlight,” Willow said, stopping for a moment to blow on her cold fingers.
“Please, no.” Rowan said, handing over the last strip of bark as her gaze strayed across the clearing to Sorrell, who was trying to catch her eye. She pretended she hadn’t seen.
“But you talk of dancing so fondly. It would do you good.”
“Yes, ballroom dancing, or barn dancing,” Rowan replied dryly. “I feel like a stork when I attempt your Shonnowan dances.”
Willow laughed as she finished the last bark lantern and handed it off to a waiting child. “You’re just trying to avoid my brother still.”
“There’s that, as well.” Rowan sighed.
“You will have to speak with him eventually.”
“I was hoping the problem would go away if I ignored it long enough.”
Willow gave her a look, though one cheek dimpled as she fought a smile. She finally gave up trying to be serious and jumped to her feet, laughing as she extended a hand to Rowan. “Come, I’ll show you the dance again. You have a full week to practice it, before the solstice.” When Rowan pouted, she wiggled her fingers, insistent. “For my sake? I must enjoy my freedom while Jannen has the children, and if I dance by myself I will look silly.”
Rowan took her friend’s hand and reluctantly allowed herself to be pulled into the clear space around the bonfire. Several of the children clapped in delight, and soon there were half a dozen others standing with her and Willow in a line, with their backs to the fire, facing the outer circle of benches. Someone hauled a drum out into the clearing, while several pan flutes and a weathered guitar made an appearance as well. The dance and the music both began with a clap from the dancers, and then the line started to move.
In truth, Rowan knew the dance by heart from her three previous years with the Shonnowa. She just felt awkward performing it. The movements were raw and sensual, in an earthy, lithe manner, though it was a group dance and not performed with partners. Plus, her tall, lean frame didn’t lend itself well to jumping or spinning. It made her feel conspicuous, and really, wasn’t having red hair and fair skin outlandish enough when one was surrounded by dark beauties? Even now, she could almost feel Sorrell’s gaze following her, though she and the other dancers moved too fast to see more than a blur beyond their circle.
They moved around the perimeter of the bonfire, coiling, circling, spinning, catching hands, ducking beneath each other’s arms or jumping over them when they were lowered, weaving a pattern that Rowan had difficulty keeping track of. She finally ducked out of the rotating bunch of dancers, huffing mist into the air and smiling as she watched the others continue. Several more dancers joined in, more than making up for Rowan’s absence.
While she didn’t enjoy participating in the dance, she could happily watch it all day. She backed up and sat down on one of the benches. With the intense focus she’d been forced to give the dance, she had forgotten about Sorrell, and as soon as she sat down, he was at her elbow, his face and his voice all full of admiration.
“Your beauty has frozen the moon in the sky,” he said, giving her a wide grin.
Rowan sighed, letting out a cloud of white, frosty breath.
“You don’t believe that I am sincere?”
“Sorrell—” she started, her insides twisting in frustration.
“My dear Red,” he said, more serious this time. “I know you’ve been avoiding me. Have I hurt you in some way?”
“No,” she sighed again, resigned to facing the conversation she’d been trying to avoid for so long, though she slid down the bench to put a few inches of space between them.
“I have not tried to hide how I feel about you, but I know our people are very different. Have I unknowingly been offensive?”
“No, Sorrell, you’re a good friend, but…”
&n
bsp; “I love you, Red. You know I will wait for your curse to be broken. That is why I have sought so diligently for a way to undo it. Please, I just want to know there is hope for us.”
“There’s not!” Rowan’s heart wrenched at the hurt that showed in her friend’s eyes before he masked it. “I don’t think about you like that. You and Willow and the rest of your people have been the best of friends to me, but…”
“I know you can’t think about such things as a wolf, but you must know I think about you the most as a woman.”
“No, it’s not that…”
Sorrell paused a moment after she trailed off, pressing his lips together, his hands clenching his knees. When he spoke again it was with hesitation. “You are still thinking about your husband.”
She nodded, looking away. She could try to tell him, and the words could flow until they both froze to death sitting there, but how could she ever make him understand? Even Willow sometimes seemed incredulous that she hadn’t moved on yet. But her dreams were haunted. Not so much by his voice or his face, but by his presence. And in the half-wakeful moments before she fully remembered that he was gone, she would still pray the Almighty for His care over Aaro. It was always worse around the full moon, for then she would dream of standing in the moonlight, kissing him. Then she would wake, and her pain would drive her into the hills to howl her lament at the sky.
How could she ever explain that to Sorrell?
“It has been three years,” he said gently. “I am in admiration of your loyalty, but my heart aches that I must still watch you mourn.” His dark eyes, far too close for comfort, pleaded. She had run out of bench to put more distance between them.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “Truly, I’m sorry that both of our hearts must break. But I’ve never sought anything but friendship, and I haven’t anything else to offer.” She stood and rushed away, aware that Sorrell also leapt to his feet, though he didn’t try to follow her as she ran back to her little cabin at the edge of the village. Frustration and tears twisted her face, and she ducked through the door before anyone could see her. Several unladylike words slipped out before she got ahold of herself, and squelched the tears. Then, blocked from the moonlight, her curse took hold again and she felt the tingling buzz of magic as her form shifted. She stood once again on four feet in the middle of the one-room shanty, and smacked the sandy floor with a paw, which did nothing to vent her feelings. Curses on you, Ormand. I hope someone slits your throat.
* * * * *
Rowan could smell more snow coming the next morning, and she sought out Dinarrel, the town elder, to tell him, scratching the Shonnowan word for snow in the semi-frozen mud outside his house.
He smiled, though his eyebrows puckered together. “Each winter seems harder than the one before,” he said. “I dread each one coming. But I suppose that’s because I’m getting old. Never fear, Red. We shall send out hunters today, before the storm comes. You shall go as well, if you’d like.”
She did like. The tracking and chasing part, anyway. After more than three years of being a wolf, she still was not fond of sinking her teeth into a living animal. Having the quivering muscles in her mouth gave her the crawlies, and it always took forever to get the loose fur off her tongue, since she couldn’t spit properly.
She trotted back to her own cabin after seeing the village leader, and found Willow there, with little Minnoa toddling around the room, and baby Sol in the basket on her back. She sat cross-legged on the pile of blankets and fur in the corner that Rowan used for a bed, and when Rowan came in, set a steaming bowl of food on the floor.
Minnoa waddled over and stuck her fingers in the bowl a second before Willow could pull her out of the way. “No, no, child! We already broke fast. Remember? Papa cooked fish.”
Fish was what was in the bowl they’d brought for Rowan as well. She had smelled it even before she went inside.
“You were over to see Dinarrel this morning,” Willow said as Rowan nibbled at the food.
She nodded.
“Is all well?”
Rowan nodded again. Sorrell and the others who had built her house for her had hauled buckets of sand from the stream for the floor, making it possible to scratch a few words when she wanted to be understood. She wrote SNOW again for her friend.
Minnoa thought the whole thing hilarious, and toddled over, swiping her chubby palms through the word, erasing it. Next, she attacked Rowan’s fur. Rowan didn’t mind usually. Unless she found that one spot that… Drat. She felt her paw start to twitch as the little hands scratched her neck.
Willow corralled her daughter again, saving Rowan the embarrassment of involuntary scratching. “We’ll be sending out hunters today then,” she said. “Are you going with them?”
Rowan nodded. She finished eating and gave the bottom of the bowl a swipe with her tongue to pick up the crumbs, then scratched out THANK YOU on the floor.
“You’re welcome. Always.” She hesitated and pinned Rowan with a keen look. “You spoke with my brother last night,” she said.
Rowan nodded reluctantly.
“And he confessed his love?”
She tilted her snout skyward and heaved a sigh.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Willow said. “I tried to dissuade him.”
Rowan nodded.
After another moment’s silence Willow went on, hesitating, and obviously picking her words with care. “Perhaps…perhaps it is difficult for us to understand. It is not we who live with your curse. You have done well here, and our people love you. But you cannot often share your heart, and choose to withhold it even more often. So perhaps we sometimes fail to see the depth of hurt you still carry. It cannot be an easy thing to shake off, when you are caught forever in this wolf’s body. What I mean to say is—you cannot move on and pretend to have any kind of normal life, like you might if you were still human. You have died, in a way, even though you still live.”
Rowan watched her friend, who stared at the wall as she spoke, as if she were watching something at a great distance.
“So perhaps,” Willow went on, brushing dark strands of hair from the squirming Minnoa’s face, “we assume too much.” Her gaze snapped back into focus, and she smiled at Rowan, her round cheeks dimpling. “I am just happy you have found a portion of happiness here, even if it is incomplete. And please be patient with my brother.” She laughed. “Of course, he cannot marry you while you’re a wolf anyway, and perhaps by the time we break your curse, things will change.”
Rowan nodded, though her heart gave a twinge at the mention of breaking her curse. She didn’t hold out much hope for that.
Within an hour most of the men in the village had headed out. Instead of joining one of the groups who would eventually split up and try to drive game out to each other, Rowan set out alone. Unlike the humans, she had no aversion to being out after dark, and that was usually the best time to hunt anyway, so if she found nothing during the day, she would stay out until she did.
At least she planned on going by herself, until she heard Sorrell hail her, running to catch up. “Red!” he shouted again, far louder than was necessary, as he reached her a moment later. “I hoped to join you today.”
And she had been hoping to avoid him again. His smile was as brilliant as ever when he caught up to her and gave a wave toward the hillside in front of them, as though she hadn’t broken his heart the night before. “Lead on.”
She started off again through the ankle deep snow, glad to be a wolf now, and not expected to say anything as he trudged after her.
For the past three and a half years Sorrell had been the one who sought relentlessly for a way to break her curse. He’d gone to other Shonnowan villages asking questions, he’d sought out and read as many of the ancient texts as he could find, which was no easy feat. But in all of that, they hadn’t learned anything more than what Rigall had already told her. That the breaking of her curse would be something that directly opposed its purpose. So they had tried to figure out its tr
ue purpose. That never went anywhere either. But even though their search had been useless, he only became more intense. It made her uncomfortable.
“You were hoping to avoid me again,” Sorrell said as they walked.
She twitched an ear, feeling a little guilty that her intentions were so obvious.
He sighed, his bright smile slipping. “I keep thinking about our conversation last night. I am sorry to make you uneasy. But I feel there might have been more to say.”
Her ears sank slowly toward her skull. Wonderful.
“Forgive me. I just need to know. It isn’t because I’m Shonnowan, is it?”
She shook her head.
“Is it our way of life? Because, if you desired it, I would follow you to your own home, and your own people.”
Her ears went the rest of the way back, pinning themselves to her head. That. That right there was why she had wanted to come out here alone. So he wouldn’t be able to make her feel guilty. Again. Because he was utterly devoted to her, and she couldn’t return any of it. Even with Willow’s pretty speech that morning, the truth of Sorrell’s arguments gnawed at her. It had been three years. She was free to move on. She should move on. She liked Sorrell immensely.
She just couldn’t love him.
“I see,” he said. “But forgive me if I am not yet content to give up on you.”
The sun shone bright and cold as they walked, though the sky had a grayish caste to it. By the time they stopped for lunch the little bit of early snow still clinging to the ground had turned soggy. They hadn’t seen anything larger than squirrels, though their trail zigzagged across the hills, covering an enormous amount of ground. The other animals must sense the storm coming as well, and not only her.
“I have been thinking some more,” Sorrell said as they shared a snack of jerky and slightly smooshed flatbread, breaking a long silence. “There is one place we haven’t looked for a cure for you.”
She cocked her head to the side, which was the easiest way of telling him to continue.
Quench the Day (Red Wolf Trilogy Book 1) Page 13