Prince Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  “Please don’t misunderstand me,” I said, when she drew close. “My clothes aren’t enough to shelter me from the cold up here. I must change back into a wolf. Grant me your blessing in this.”

  My respectful request jolted her. She lifted her head and inspected me closely, her beak extended as she drew in my scent. However, her fear didn’t return. A short chirp granted me permission.

  Grateful, shivering, I changed back into my wolf body. I sighed, warm again. Not quite as big as Bar, she was still quite larger than me. She hadn’t Bar’s raw, male bulk, but held a trim, very feminine form to her lion body, a lithe predatory build that reminded me of Ly’Tana.

  At my transformation, she withdrew her head, eyeing me with caution, as though fearing that all along I lied to her to draw her in close. Again, I wagged my tail and I turned away, offering my unprotected back. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I wagged again, inviting her to follow.

  She did, breathy hisses of pain escaping her beak as she climbed the hill behind me. I walked slowly, matching her clumsy pace, offering encouragement with quick glances over my shoulder and sweeping tail.

  The cow rapidly cooled in the high, cold air, but was yet fresh and smelled delicious. I stood aside as she walked up to it, her eyes not on the cow but on me. She chirped a question.

  Once more in my shivering human form, I grandly gestured toward the cow. I grinned. “Ladies first.”

  She needed no further invitation. While I dove back into my warm pelt, she opened the cow’s belly with one swift sweep of her healthy talon. Her hunger obviously sharper than mine before my first bull, she devoured chunks of still-warm flesh, bolted down the tasty liver, all but inhaled the cow’s nourishing blood. I sat down, politely waiting, stilling my own hunger pangs.

  “You need to eat, too.”

  “She needs it more than I,” I murmured.

  She glanced up at the sound of my voice, but I merely grinned, my tongue lolling. The sun crested the high, western peaks and fell behind them, casting all into early evening. With the sun gone, the cold intensified, chilling the high mountain air.

  At last, the griffin sat back, chirping in tired contentment. She’d left me fully half the cow, enough to fill my belly and then some. She tossed her beak at it, her eyes on me. I took that as my invitation to feast.

  I did.

  Twilight deepening, she licked her talons and cleaned her beak in feline fastidiousness as I devoured the cooling haunch, beef heart, and plenty of meat still on the skeleton. My powerful jaws crunched through the cow’s bones, sucking down the nutritious marrow. I consumed all save the skull, hooves and tail. She watched me eat, more trust in her eyes than previous.

  When I could eat no more, full dark had fallen. The bright stars glittered the black night sky, and a half moon had risen in the east. It cast a faint, pale glow over the mountain top, leaving deep shadows. I breathed in the night air, scenting no dangers about. My ears caught no sound of anything that might harm either her or me.

  Braving the cold temperatures again, I changed into a man in order to talk to her. My teeth chattering, I said, “I’m an amateur healer at best, but come morning, I can help you with your wounds. Come, let’s sleep in that thicket there, and I promise, no hanky-panky.”

  I held my hands up, empty, with a grin.

  Her beak parted in a griffin laugh, her green eyes bright in the light of the moon. She led the way into the shelter of the thicket, with me, back in my warm wolf body, following. She curled up as best she could, her injured leg stretched out, away from her body. A sharp hiss of pain escaped her beak. I licked her face, my tail wagging, in an effort to offer comfort in her misery. With a full belly and confidence for her future, she chirped contentedly. I lay down next to her, offering my warmth.

  Without meaning to, I lay on her right side, and curled into a warm ball. Her right wing spread out, covering and enveloping me, as her head resting on her on her front legs. She sighed deeply, her eagle’s eyes closing. I snuggled closer to her, relishing the warmth for her wing and her body, flipping my tail over my muzzle. My eyes closed of their own accord.

  “You’re still an idiot.”

  Before I slept, I invited Darius to perform the anatomically impossible.

  I woke before she did, emerging from the warmth of her wing and her body, the dawn not yet warming the cold night air. Yawning, I stretched languidly, feeling strength returning with my night’s restful slumber after a full belly. I licked my lips, thirsty. I hadn’t drunk after my steak dinner, as I usually did. After reaching the plateau, I hadn’t found water and cast about, searching.

  Perhaps Darius felt insulted with my last words to him before I slept, for he didn’t speak. I cared not one jot. I followed my nose to a streamlet about a half-mile from where the griffin and I shared a cow and a night, and drank deep. I lapped thirstily, the icy, delicious water soothing my throat and filling my belly as easily as the cow the night before. Water dripping from my muzzle, I lifted my nose to scent any dangers about me.

  Finding nothing more dangerous than late fox returning home after a night out, I loped back to my new friend. I covered the ground with ease, new strength in my muscles and my heart. Wolves hated being alone. A pack animal, they craved the companionship of other wolves. Despite my human half, my wolf instincts needed to belong somewhere, anywhere. Having a companion, even an injured griffin, inspired a new song in my heart. My heartache over leaving Ly’Tana, Tuatha, Arianne, Rygel and the others retreated for a time.

  She woke at my approach, her neck feathers bristling at first. Recognizing me, she relaxed and chirped in a welcoming fashion. Like me, she emerged from the thicket and stretched, yawning. The pain of her injured haunch and broken wing took hold. She winced, trying to ignore the agony, and greeted me with a high and proud head.

  I wasn’t fooled. In man-shape, I caressed her eyes, her beak, over her ears I as I’d seen Ly’Tana do a hundred times, more, with Bar. She relaxed, butting her head affectionately into my chest. Lifting her beak, I gazed into her pain-glazed eyes.

  “Let’s get you a drink,” I said quietly, capturing her eyes with mine. “I’ve healing magic in me. I don’t promise much, but maybe I can heal the worst of your wounds. Come.”

  I endured the chilly air and walked, with her at my shoulder, to the stream. While she drank her fill, I sat on a rock and pondered what I knew of healing.

  ’Not a good idea to heal a dirty wound.’ Rygel said in answer to Witraz’s question, so very long ago. ‘Then you close all the dirt and grime inside the body.’

  While her broken wing didn’t pose too much of a problem, I hoped, the arrow wound to her left hind leg did. I suspected I knew what had happened to her. Poachers, craving the gold her feathers would bring, shot her with an arrow, striking her left haunch. The shock dropped her from the sky, where her wing broke upon impact. Far from those who sought to kill her, she survived, struggling on, wounded, unable to fly. She, in a desperate attempt to survive, attacked a small herd of wild cattle. They fled, tails high, leaving her hungry, anguished and in terrible agony.

  Where I then found her. What a coincidence.

  “No such thing.”

  Could Darius be right? I shuddered to think so.

  Her thirst quenched, she came to me, limping, her left wing dragging, her eyes filled with hope. I might not understand her language, but I certainly understood those eyes.

  Can you do it?

  “I bloody hope so,” I muttered, standing up.

  The early morning sun warmed me enough that I endured the mountain air without much hardship. She preened herself, cleaning the dirt and debris from her wing while I helped, brushing out her mane with my hands. Worry gnawed my gut. I’d no idea how to clean the wound on her leg. Peering around her shoulder, I saw it empty of the arrow, but swollen and angry, dried blood caking her tawny fur. Rygel had the potions to kill the infection. I had nothing but some magic and precious little know-how.

  “What do you
have?”

  Inspiration struck like an arrow from the dark. I had a clear, mountain cold running stream. Water had the power to clean. Cold had the power to reduce fever and swelling. Both, at once, might be enough.

  I grabbed her under her beak. Drawing her eyes down to mine, I spoke quickly. “Listen, my girl. Set yourself in that running water. Immerse your leg wound. Let it clean your hurt and numb your pain. Then, maybe, gods be merciful, I can close your wound without also closing in the infection. Do it. Quickly.”

  She obeyed me. Limping to the swift, rushing water, she lay down, the lion half of her body immersed in the icy water. She gasped at the cold, her beak chattering as much as my teeth had done. Not knowing how long the arrow had been in her, or how infected the wound was, I sat by her head and talked to her, of nonsense things, anything to keep her mind off the numbing agony in her lower body.

  She lay in the rushing water for an hour or more, enduring the cold and the pain, her courage making a jest of mine. My gut clenched, fearing I’d make a hash of healing her. I had never healed anyone before, save myself. What if I screwed it up? What if in trying to help her, I made her worse?

  What if I killed her?

  I thrust that thought from me, unwilling to even have it in my head.

  When she could endure no more, I helped her from the stream, water sluicing from her downy, lion fur. Her left wing dragged while her right lay half-furled over her back. She still couldn’t put weight on her left hind leg, yet the wound itself looked better than it had. The swelling was down, the flesh pinker. My heart rose a fraction.

  “Lay down,” I murmured, my hands on her face, her ears. “On your right side. There, that’s it, I’ve got you.”

  She sighed, her ears slack. Her left wing hung lank and lifeless, her damp and cold lion hindquarters stretched out behind her. Her head sagged in my arms, my strength catching her heavy weight.

  “Breathe deep and even,” I murmured, in her ear. “Let yourself relax, let yourself go. I’ve got you, I’ve got you. No worries, my sweet girl, I’ve got you.”

  She breathed deep. She relaxed under my voice, her head sagging in my arms, her beak parted as she breathed deep, sighing.

  “That’s it,” I murmured. “Relax, hear my voice. Relax. Relax. Hear me, girlfriend. Hear me. It’s all good. It’s aaall gooood.”

  As I had when I healed myself, I found my calm center. In speaking to her, I spoke to myself. With murmured words and nonsense phrases, I dropped both of us into a deep trance. Her heavy weight filled my arms, but I felt nothing.

  Delving deep into her body, my mind flitted across her mind. She slept on, dreaming blissfully, unaware I invaded into areas of her that she felt most private. Her mind, her body, lay under my inspection. She lay vulnerable to my attack, helpless to my invasion. In this state, I could play no end of games with her mind, set her to whatever task I might imagine. She owned no will save my own. Had I wished it, I could set her against Brutal. Under my silent command, she would offer her life in search of his, never knowing she served me and not her own agenda.

  Never.

  I dared not, could not, do that. Such went against my own moral, if simple, codes of conduct. The mere thought of it as a temptation shamed me. She trusted me. How could I use her for my own ends?

  Was Rygel ever tempted to manipulate his patients so? Tempted or not, did he, like me, struggle under the immense weight of morality? A healer by profession, he may have once taken oaths against this very thing. For magicians, like Ja’Teel, such manipulation of others would prove beyond temptation.

  Ja’Teel might, but I wouldn’t. Not in a thousand years, nor ten thousand lifetimes.

  Shifting away quickly, not willing to invade her innermost self, I retreated from her mind. Instead, I sought out and found her injuries.

  Cleaned of dirt, grime and old crusted gore, her leg was almost too easy. Sending my healing will into her leg, I washed it with warmth and healthy, cleansing blood. I knitted torn tissues, mended broken nerves, soothed away pain and torment. Under my hands, her flesh regrew at an alarming rate, even her short lion fur filled in the bare flesh, leaving no scar.

  Her wing was a slightly different problem. Could I maintain the trance and move myself? I needed to set the bone before I healed it. Tentatively, I took a step from her side. She slept on, oblivious.

  Heartened, I took hold of her broken left wing and extended it. Unfolding it like a huge feathered tent, I backed up several steps, its tip firmly in my hands. Taking as an example Rygel’s need to pull Mikk’s shoulder back into it socket, I pulled gently on the wing. Nothing at all happened. I pulled a bit harder. Still nothing.

  I bit my lip, frustrated. She slumbered, her beak parted, her eyes closed, feeling no pain from my actions. What was I doing wrong?

  “You need more force,” Darius advised.

  Setting my jaw, I pulled as hard as I could without actually yanking. With a sharp snap, the fragile wing bone settled back into place. I stared, stunned, at the long, unbroken line of bone, my eyes tracing its natural curve to her shoulder. I ran my fingers along its length, searching for any knots that spoke of other breaks. I found none, and sighed.

  “Don’t forget to heal the ligaments and tendons.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” I murmured, dropping back into my trance.

  As most anything improved with practice, I found my healing magic ready to hand. Sending it up the bone, I mended it, healing its fracture, giving the wing new strength. Washing the bruised and stretched tendons and ligaments with blood and healing, their hot, angry flames withered and died. Under my mental inspection, I examined the wing’s inner workings, its mesh of muscles and hollow bones, fragile links between, the pores where those soft yet powerful feathers grew.

  No wonder Rygel found anatomy fascinating, I thought, finally withdrawing my mind and my magic. I certainly found it intriguing. Standing up, I stretched my back, my knees popping from squatting beside her for so long.

  Tenderly, I folded her now strong, healthy wing across her back. She still slept, but now it was the normal sleep of a girl who needed her rest rather than the forced unconsciousness from the trance I put her under.

  Thirsty again, I lay on my belly by the stream and sucked down the icy, chilling water. I bolted upright, stunned, wet dampening my tunic.

  “Now what?”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Of course not. You slept eleven hours last night.”

  “Rygel is always exhausted after healing a patient.”

  “Rygel isn’t you.”

  “But healing power draws from both healer and patient. She sleeps, obviously, because of that. So why am I not also as exhausted? Rygel always is.”

  “Rygel isn’t descended from a god.”

  I winced, covering my ears, although I knew well enough that wouldn’t stop Darius’s smug voice from entering. “Are you trying to give me nightmares?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m going to lie down for a while.”

  “Coward.”

  The sun felt good. It also felt wonderful to be human for a while, even for a few hours. Stretching out on my back, I shut my eyes against the brightness. A rock dug into my shoulder. Cursing, I rose high enough to pick it up and send it winging across the stream. I lay back with a sigh, my arm over my eyes to shade them.

  As my griffin friend, my first patient, slept off the exhaustion of healing, I dozed.

  A snarl rose in my throat.

  Ly’Tana slumped in her saddle, in agony, blood streaming down her battered face, unconscious even as she rode. What happened? I recognized the reason for my previous unease – posing as a slave, Ly’Tana was terribly vulnerable, unable to protect herself.

  While I knew not why or how, somehow I knew who.

  My gut clenched with my own anguish, knowing my own brother brought her to this. What was wrong with him? Had I the knowledge on how to do it, I’d have reached across the distance and shook him u
ntil his teeth rattled. How could you do such a thing?

  Why didn’t her warriors protect her?

  My gut answered that question as well: they didn’t because they couldn’t. They dared not. The same way I knew who, I’d seen through Ly’Tana’s eyes the royal patrol accompanying them.

  Her beautiful green eyes opened. She looked at me, saw me, hundreds of leagues away, lying in the sun.

  “Ly’Tana,” I said to her, “I love you. Be strong.”

  “I need you,” she cried.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Raine, please – he’s gone crazy, he tried to kill me.”

  I reached for her, needing her, wanting nothing but to hold her in my arms. “I don’t understand this. He loves you. I know he does.”

  “Raine, they stood around and watched. No one helped me. They let him hurt me.”

  I tried to smile. My smile felt, on my face, as though it cracked and bled. “Ly’Tana, dear one, my heart’s blood, they had to. If they saved a slave from a beating, the royals would have gotten suspicious.”

  “But –“

  Something touched me.

  I bolted upright, growling, my hand reaching for my sword.

  She withdrew her questing talon and sat back on her haunches, her eagle’s head cocked in silent question.

  Reality returned with a rush. I sat up, gasping, my gut still roiling from what I had seen, dashing sweat from my face.

  “Sorry,” I choked, rolling up and staggering to my feet. “Fell asleep, you know, bad dream–”

  She chirped, but her green eyes held concern.

  I dusted off my clothes, finding a smile that didn’t fit well, and aimed for a brightness that probably felt false even to her. Get her attention off of me, dammit. Her powers of perception might be as sharp as a Tarbane’s. Drawing a deep breath, I leaned forward, peering at her wing.

  “So?” I asked, brushing my hair back and adjusting the smile. “How do you feel? Better?”