Quench the Day (Red Wolf Trilogy Book 1)

by Shari Branning

  The man nodded. “Willow,” he said. He turned back to Aaro. “We will bring our healer, but it will be some time before we get back. Red will keep you safe.”

  Aaro let his eyes close, again retreating to a place that was not sleep and not waking, just drifting in pain and the sensation of floating. At some point he must have slept though, because he woke up shivering, with cold air rushing across his chest, biting at the gash. The cold clawed its way deeper, becoming an ache all its own, and he felt sick with his shivering. He forced his eyes open to see a young Shonnowan woman kneeling beside him. When she saw that he was awake she smiled and replaced his blanket.

  “Hello, stranger. You found trouble tonight in a portion and a half, I would say. Do you have a name?”

  “No,” he whispered, his gaze seeking the wolf, wondering if he’d dreamt her, like he’d dreamt Rowan. But she sat off to the side, watching. Dawn streaked the sky beyond the fire, and snow coated the trees and ground.

  “Hmm. I hope you will live, but I do not know. It is too cold to lose so much blood, and you will lose more, for I must get the last arrow out. Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  She raised his head, pressing a cup to his lips. He tried to turn away.

  “It will help stop the bleeding,” she said.

  He swallowed, tasting earthy, bitter herbs. He kept his eyes squeezed shut until he’d drained the cup, and she laid his head back down on the blankets.

  The wolf padded over, and the blankets shifted as she laid down at his side, radiating warmth, while the woman threw more blankets over top of them both, trapping the heat. Snow continued to fall outside the cave, deadening the world.

  Another of the Shonnowa, a man, appeared around the corner, dragging a bundle of branches to the fire and building it up before disappearing again.

  Finally, when the fire was roaring, warming one half of him while the wolf warmed the other, the woman pressed a strip of leather between his teeth. “Forgive me, for causing more pain,” she murmured.

  Aaro sank back into the darkness, the leather still clamped in his teeth.

  * * * * *

  Rowan rested her chin on her paws, drifting off to sleep in the excessive warmth of the blankets and the fire. Willow sang softly while she worked, and the man slept. Even to her wolf senses the snow had a cleansing effect on the world, lulling her, after a long day and longer night, to rest.

  She dreamed again of kissing her husband under the full moon, but this time, instead of ending, the dream went on. In it he ran his hands through her hair, covering her face with kisses, laughing with her. They snuggled in a blanket together beside a roaring fire.

  The dream lingered when she woke, disorienting, so that for just a moment she thought she was still lying next to Aaro, waiting for him to wake up and kiss her again. Another moment, and she remembered it wasn’t Aaro asleep next to her, but a stranger wearing a mask that she couldn’t remove, struggling to stay alive.

  Her heart broke.

  “Good that one of you is finally awake,” Willow said. She sat cross-legged next to the fire, measuring out dried herbs from her collection, and crumbling them into a kettle of water. “Our friend still lives, but you have both been sleeping for hours now. I have hope for him, provided we can keep him from getting infected.”

  Rowan stretched and yawned, then lay there panting, watching her friend. She wanted to get up and go out, beyond the fire, where the snow still fell, already over a foot deep. But the stranger needed the warmth for the moment more than she needed the cold. She turned her head, studying him. Even in his sleep his lips pressed into a flat line, his jaw clenched in pain. He still seemed achingly familiar. Even his scent, though mingled with blood, whispered to her. She couldn’t resist trying the mask one more time, nudging it with her nose.

  The man groaned in his sleep, soft as a sigh.

  “I tried that as well,” Willow said. “It’s one of ours, infused with the Gift. Only he can take it off.”

  Rowan cocked her head, looking at her friend.

  Willow laughed. “No, not even Dinarrel can undo the spell. If he could break a binding like that, he would have been able to break your curse as well. I’m sorry, Red. I want to know who he is as badly as you do.”

  Rowan seriously doubted that. She didn’t just want to see his face. She needed him to live. She needed to know who he was, and why he made her heart break. Why he reminded her so much—she allowed herself to think it for just a moment—of Aaro.

  * * * * *

  The snow stopped that afternoon, and Willow’s husband came shortly afterward to bring her home, saying that the baby would not stop fussing, and Minnoa kept crying, after hearing the wolves howling in the night, thinking they had taken her mother away.

  “It seems I’m needed,” Willow said, laughing. “But our friend should be well for now. You and Sorrell can watch over him, and I will return in the morning. When the tea simmers, try to get him to drink again. It will help ward off infection and bring healing.”

  “I would like to know what happened,” Sorrell said, looking over top of the fire at the sleeping stranger, “that he was ambushed by our people.”

  “But not our people,” Willow reminded him. “They have become the people of the Curse, rather than the People of the Gift.”

  “Yes—but still. Even they do not attack strangers without cause. Was he known to them? Or did he have something of value that they would want? Who knows whether one unusual incident might be the harbinger of something more? That is why I desire to know.”

  Willow shook her head, her ever-present smile playing at her lips. “Then I will leave you and Red to find out. I must go care for my children.” She leapt lightly onto the horse behind her husband, and they picked their way downhill through the snow and the trees, headed back to the village.

  Rowan watched them out of sight, then lay back down next to the stranger, nudging her way into the blankets. She glanced at Sorrell, feeling the awkwardness that they had put aside in the excitement descend around them again now that they were alone.

  He returned her look with a rueful smile. “I am a little envious of our stranger. Though as you know, I prefer your human form.”

  She shook her head.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “But I can only long for the day when you are fully human, and I can win your love properly. I still cannot understand why you refuse help.”

  She rested her chin on her paws and heaved a sigh. If she could speak, how could she explain, further than she had already tried to, that she could never give him the love he hoped to gain at such a great risk.

  And how long would it be before the stranger woke up and took off his mask?

  Sorrell went to gather one more load of wood before night fell, and built up the fire again, then set about preparing a meal. After he and Rowan had eaten, he poured a cup of Willow’s strong herbal concoction and added a scoop of snow to cool it off before coaxing some of it down the stranger’s throat. The man roused enough to swallow, but his eyes never opened. Sorrell set the cup aside and leaned back against the rock, his brows drawn together as he watched the stranger sleep.

  Rowan followed his gaze to the mask, fierce and unmoving, and wondered what micro-expressions moved the face beneath while the man slept. She realized she’d given him Aaro’s features in her mind. Since the moment she’d seen the mask, she had imagined Aaro’s face beneath it. Dead for three years, and he still haunted her.

  She looked away, her heart feeling like it’d been shredded. She needed to return, to keep the stranger warm, but revulsion took her. She’d felt so drawn to him. Had, without realizing it, projected her deepest longing onto this man whom she knew nothing about, simply because he wore a mask. She’d lain beside him to keep him warm, and dreamed he was her man. But he wasn’t. Aaro was dead. And who knew, when this man woke, whether he would prove that he’d have been better left to die as well.

  Her hide twitched as if a fly had landed there, a
nd her ears swiveled backward, flattening again her head.

  “What is it?” Sorrell asked, watching her.

  She shook her head. This was another thing she could never make him understand, even if she could speak. Not Sorrell, who was in love with her and had high hopes that one day she would return the feeling.

  “If you think you know him, please tell me,” Sorrell said.

  She shook her head. She knew what she had been imagining, the subconscious thought that her longing had driven her to. But she didn’t know this man.

  She turned and slipped out past the fire into the cold evening. The sun had set already, turning the world blue with dusk. Walking back down the hill toward the stream, she sniffed the air. Sorrell had dragged the bodies of the wolves they had killed the night before a distance away, but she could still smell blood both from them and from the stranger’s battle by the creek. Snow had covered the stains, leaving white mounds over the bodies of the Shonno-mara that had fallen, but the smell of death remained.

  The boulders where the man had made his last stand were nothing but blue mounds under the blue of the evening sky. She sniffed around them, digging her nose into the snow, moving it aside with her paws until she’d unearthed a revolver, its wooden grip scored deeply, and drenched in blood. They must have shot it out of his hand. Its twin lay next to his hat where he’d dropped it after he tried to shoot her. Not that she held it against him. She was a wolf, after all.

  Scouting around two of the other bodies produced nothing new. They had been mauled and partly eaten by the wolves, but enough remained to get a hint of what had happened. Three of them had been killed by the stranger. One shot through the heart, one ripped open by his dagger, and one shot in the head. The next body had an arrow through the neck. He’d been killed by the Shonno-mara then. But he was either Shonnowa or Shonno-mara himself. Why would they kill one of their own?

  She returned to the rocks and took the man’s hat in her teeth, shaking the snow from it, then, sighing, dropped the guns inside the flat crown and carried the whole thing back up the hill. How she longed not to have to carry things with her teeth!

  Sorrell examined the things by the light of the fire, but he came up with no more clues that she had. Willow had removed the man’s weapon belt earlier, and now Sorrell returned the guns to their holsters, and the dagger to its sheath. He set the belt off to the side, out of the stranger’s reach.

  Rowan dug down in the leaves and pine needles near the campfire until she’d cleared a patch of dirt, smoothing it with her paw. Sorrell moved to kneel beside her as she scratched into the dirt, ONE MAN KILLED BY SHONNO-MARA.

  “They killed one of their own?” Sorrell asked.

  She nodded.

  “My opinion of our brothers grows lower at each encounter,” he said. “But still I wish I knew the reason behind it all.”

  Rowan silently agreed.

  When Sorrell wrapped himself in his fur cloak and stretched out by the fire, she reluctantly returned to the stranger’s side to keep him warm through the night and the dropping temperature. Within minutes Sorrell had fallen into a light snore, which, she thought, was another excellent reason not to commit to a relationship with him. Tonight’s gentle rumbles were quiet compared to what she’d heard at times coming out of his cabin at night.

  The blue of evening deepened into night, and still Rowan lay wakeful, listening to the sounds of winter and the distant howls of wolves.

  * * * * *

  Aaro woke up so gradually he didn’t realize he was awake until he’d been laying there staring at the fire and feeling the gentle whoosh of breath on his neck for several minutes. He turned his head, not sure what he was expecting to see, but the big, coppery wolf laying at his side was not it.

  He startled a bit, and the big metallic eyes opened, regarding him coolly, the ears perked toward him. The black nose quivered, only inches from his shoulder, and the jaws parted as the beast panted. She lay underneath the blankets with him, warming the side of him that the fire couldn’t reach. The fingers of his uninjured hand brushed against her fur.

  “What are you?” he whispered, his voice cracked and rough.

  She shook her head.

  “You can understand me?”

  She nodded.

  “But you can’t speak.”

  Again, the big copper head shook a negative. He wanted to ask more, but his weariness held him prisoner. The idea of asking yes or no questions until he had the answers he sought was too daunting. He sighed, letting the tension go back out of him. His whole body ached with weakness.

  “You saved my life?”

  She nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  The big eyes continued to watch him, almost hungrily, and she shuffled one paw forward and nudged his mask, her intention clear. This time it was he who shook his head.

  “No, friend. I have no identity any more. None that matters.”

  Her eyes pleaded, almost desperate, if a wolf could look desperate. He turned his face away. Within moments he slept.

  When he woke again, morning had come, and the smell of herbs and meat drifted to him from the fire. A Shonnowan man sat with his back to him, hunched next to the flames. The wolf, on his other side, breathed steadily, a continuous stream of warm air puffing against his chin and neck. Her breath didn’t smell like rancid dog breath, thankfully.

  The man turned around, and his expression lifted when he saw that Aaro was awake. He took a cup from where it sat near the fire and brought it over.

  “Be welcome,” he said, sitting down cross-legged by Aaro’s shoulder, opposite from the wolf. “It’s good you are awake.” He put a hand behind Aaro’s back, helping him sit up, and placed the cup in his hands. “Another of my sister’s remedies. I don’t envy you.”

  Weakness dragged at Aaro, begging him to lay back down, and cold air swirled past the displaced blankets, making him shiver. He lifted the cup and drank, hating the weariness that threatened to smother him. The healer’s brew didn’t taste good, but it was warm, and it soothed the tremble inside him. When he’d finished, the Shonnowan man laid him back down gently, but even still Aaro bit the inside of his cheek as the movement twisted the gash across his chest. Sweat beaded under his mask, and he panted.

  “My name is Sorrell,” the Shonnowan said, sitting back and looking at him with a mix of compassion and curiosity. He nodded toward the wolf. “You’ve already met Red.”

  Aaro closed his eyes as his breathing steadied and his heartbeat returned to normal. “Who is she?”

  “A friend. She can tell you her own story someday—if she chooses. I’m anxious to hear your story though, stranger, if you feel up to tell it. Or at least give me your name.”

  Aaro shook his head. “I have no name.”

  “Surely at one time you did.”

  For a long time he didn’t reply. Then, “That man died.”

  “I see. You’ve given up your self. But to what end?”

  “Vengeance.”

  Sorrell nodded, his expression tightening. “Vengeance is a treacherous master to give yourself to. Perhaps you have learned that, though.”

  “Aye,” Aaro whispered. “But I serve her, nonetheless.”

  Chapter 13

  Rowan spent most of the rest of the day dozing in the warmth of the cave and the blankets and furs piled on top of the sleeping stranger. Sorrell kept the fire going, and that afternoon, Willow came back to check on them. Her face and her low laugh showed her relief when she undid the bandages and found no signs of infection. But he wasn’t out of danger yet.

  “Tomorrow,” she said to him, “we will bring you back to the village. I have my man working on a, hmm—torenna—a bed? That he can pull behind the horse.”

  “Thank you,” the man who refused to give a name said. His voice was still husky and lacked strength.

  “Be welcome, Omen,” she said.

  “Omen?” his tone whispered of surprise as he looked to Willow to explain. Rowan looked at he
r curiously as well.

  “In our tongue it means ‘wanderer,’” Willow said. “But perhaps it is used with different meaning for you?”

  “Omen. It’s a portent. A sign, or a warning, of something to come,” the man answered softly.

  “Ah! Perhaps that is true as well. I hope not. But we shall see. Perhaps when you tell your story before the chieftain, more will become clear. In the meantime, rest, Omen. Red will guard you for one more night, and my brother will not let the fire die.”

  When she had gone, Sorrell resumed his seat across from Rowan, meeting her gaze for a moment before he turned his attention to the stranger. “My sister calls you Wanderer, but I wonder if Omen is not more accurate. What happened two nights past? Why did our brothers attack you?”

  “Because I was following one of them,” the stranger replied, his mask giving away none of his thoughts.

  “And why did they kill one of their own?”

  “Because he was drunk and allowed himself to be followed.” The man shifted, his lips pressed flat in a grimace until he settled again. He tentatively flexed the fingers of his right hand, swathed in bandages, and sighed, either in relief or pain, when they all answered his command. He let the hand rest across his chest, turning his head to meet Rowan’s gaze.

  For the first time, she saw that his eyes were blue. Shadowed by the mask, they still gleamed like sky reflected in snow. Her heart hammered as it had not done in three years, and her jaws parted. If she had speech she would have said the name that swallowed her thoughts. But all she could do was stare. And then, slowly, painfully, like driving a dagger through her chest, remember the day that Aaro had died. The soldiers’ boots kicking his limp form, the flames and the smoke as she watched from between Ormand’s guards, waiting for him to stagger out the door, and realizing he never would.

  The man had started to speak again, but some intensity of her feeling must have translated into her gaze, for his voice faltered, and they stared at each other for a long moment.