by Roxanne Lee
Conall raised his glass my way, the flames from the fire winking through that crystal tumbler. "Doan't worry, Lane. I'll keep your woman occupied."
Crazy Irish. Trying to goad the animal into taking a bite out of his flesh.
Better keep his eyes on me, one second of turning his back and I'll add a scar to his already full stockpile.
He grinned a little lopsided, knowing exactly what he was doing. He wanted a battle before I left - get all that anger out before it consumed him in some raging inferno. He'd get exactly what he asked for.
I nodded and he stood to leave the room, taking his glass with him to keep him marginally drunk while he waited on me. Wolf followed the tricky Irishman with his glowing eyes, picking out which parts of him he'd like to bite first. We settled on his right hand - content with the knowledge, he'd be overly irritated when we destroyed his drinking hand.
Carver remained quiet beside Arya when she returned to her seat. Running a hand through her long hair, a gentle touch I hadn't thought him capable of. Perhaps this is what the bond does - turns us inside out. Changes our very instinct to ensure the female fate had bestowed, was forever left in more domesticated hands. I'd like to think so, I burned at the idea of hurting my witch's skin, it had become almost unbearable. I caught his black eyes for a moment, a shimmer of joy he failed to hide. I managed a small smile in response to the brother I'd been reborn to, a new family to replace the one I'd forgotten. A man who knew the darkest parts of me and thoroughly rejoiced over this female I'd captured, someone soft to wear down my hardest angles.
The pale female stood and smiled towards Sasha, taking her leave of the group who still had minor issues to discuss. I'd spend the rest of the evening with Carver and Charlie, going over the details and the expected miles of forest Duncan supposedly occupied. He'd find me soon enough, I had no doubt about that, but I'd need to be easily tracked without being obvious - a harder job than it sounded. Sasha waved to the blonde's retreating back, making me realise for the first time that she'd made a friend in my pack - started to put down roots in the home I wanted to be hers. I rumbled low against her neck and pulled her further onto my lap, squeezing a little too tight when she squeaked back at me. "You like that...female?"
She struggled in my grip and I debated not releasing her. "Yes, she's nice. She has a name you know."
I grunted, but liked the sound of her amusement." She's pale, blonde female...because of the first time...I saw her."
Sasha grinned and shook her head. "When Charlie turned up? Thought you were too interested in what I thought of him to notice anyone else."
I laughed, although it came out slightly strangled. She already knew I watched her so avidly, everything else faded in comparison."No, saw her the first day. She came running from...the border, Duncan had killed...her friend."
Sasha's grin dropped from her face and Wolf scraped talons down my side for making her pretty smile go away. "I didn't know she'd lost someone so few days ago." She sighed and slumped against my chest. "I should have asked, I thought it had been family or her mate that hadn't returned all those months ago."
I rubbed a hand across her arm, marveling at the tiny hairs that raised to meet my palm."No mate - she's not marked."
She raised her eyebrows at me in question and I grunted back at her, already slightly bored with talking about a wolf I wasn't interested in. "Other wolves claim on the neck...shows it off in human form, warns the others away. I just like biting you...don't mind having to...re-do that one on your neck."
She smacked a hand against my arm but couldn't hide a little twitch working it's way back over her lips. Wolf was impressed with my smile making abilities. With the conversation centering around biting, I became utterly focused on the mark that would need to be repeated before I left - a thought that dispelled all other conversation from taking place. I gestured my head at Charlie and Carver to head to the office, aiming to finish as soon as possible so I could take my witch somewhere private and bite her as many times as I wanted. She caught my intention as my eyes focused on her neck and a pretty flush heated the sun-kissed skin to blushing pink.
I released her quickly before I forgot we needed to reach privacy first. I let the Captain precede me to the living room door, wanting to look at raven silk hair and summer tan for a moment longer. She winked at me - teasing witch - and I grumbled as I tasted her lips just the once before following the others to the office. I wasn't overly concerned - this wolf had outlived his usefulness. Betrayed the guard that made him, spat in the face of the men that fought and bled with him.
Tomorrow he'd die. There was no other plausible outcome.
Chapter 29
Dark days and darker nights.
Chains that wrapped a muzzle around the wolf.
One thick pole that tethered arms to wood.
Mud that sank a season into skin.
Was this memory or truth?
I tried to remember my last waking moment, the sun that beat its freedom on my itching flesh.
I was supposed to do something, supposed to be somewhere.
Black chains that wrought a burning fire, like poison that slipped so gently beneath the skin, some innocent criminal on a puppeteers string.
Why was I chained?
The wolf was silent. Muted. Locked down and shut away. No matter how hard I strained, his body would not force its way through mine.
Had he left me?
I didn't want to be alone. I felt weak. Tired. Forgotten.
Water dripped through my hair, a tiny rivulet that ran slowly down my face. An itch that would drive me mad in minutes. I remember that itch. Hated the rain for every drop it sent to the earth, yearned for the sun only until it started to burn, then wished for the rain once more.
My wrists ache.
Raw from rubbing against those chains, angry red welts from each desperate pull. Torn apart when desperate became frantic, willing to tear my hands off if only it meant I would be free.
Why am I still here?
I'd left this place. I know I had. I had been free. Running miles in a welcoming forest, letting the wolf roam without rope. Able to lift my hands to my face when that rain came pouring down.
The ground was sodden beneath my legs, the trousers I wore too light to keep the frigid cold from seeping through.
What trousers are these?
Had they dressed me while I'd been out?
My chest was bare - no shirt to match the trousers. Perhaps they intended to start on my back today - my legs too scarred to find new places to put their mark. But then, they'd never thought to dress me before, never allowed an ounce of dignity to resurface.
A feeling welled in my stomach. Anger that built in degrees until it became so hot, I could almost taste the ash on my tongue. Anger that would fall swiftly into helplessness and aching debilitation, such impotency it hurt to breathe.
Where is the witch?
I'd dreamt of her since the beginning of time, since I'd been lucid enough to remember. Pretty witch with golden eyes. Raven hair like midnight’s hour and skin as soft as silk. From tiny child to fully grown female I'd watched as she sprouted to bloom, saw every detail that made her until she seemed to bury herself in my soul.
Perhaps she's with these creatures, lurking in the shacks beneath the forests cover, hiding away in the woods they dangled before me like treats to a starving dog.
She was a dream like my dream of freedom - a lie the mind delivers to allow such deceitful escape.
I closed my eyes again, turned the light off so I could sink into dreams once more. Watch the witch I'd seen, meet the beast that was Wolf. Immerse myself in her fictional life, the one my subconscious had written like a play.
Odd that I'd imagined such a story, given a feeder a wolf and made it so pretty. Perhaps my brain was twisting reality, turning these monsters into animal to take the horror away.
Come back Wolf.
What had they done to him? He'd never left me before. I couldn't even fe
el his presence, like raging surf against the bone, a force of furious tide that crashes in challenge at his containment. They'd taken my voice with the beast, left me with only choking, gasping murmurs to whisper at the silence surrounding me. Panic fought fiercely to overtake, suffocate in some water logged drowning. I needed the wolf to breathe.
Footsteps sloshed through sticking mud. A single set that commanded I raise my head. An impossible ask when all my head wanted to do was fall. I peered up through hair that straggled my face, damp and coarse from the morning's dew, dirt like insects clinging to my scalp. Large boots came into view, black and sturdy that came almost to calf. Shining with only spots of mud as if these boots had only today set a step within this village. Impossible to be so clean with so much dirt clinging to each and every surface. The boots stopped a foot from my own bare feet, pristine next to filth. I followed the trousers upwards, trousers so similar to ones I wore, seeing long legs that proved the man was tall.
Had he given me these trousers? Given me my dignity?
"Morning, lad."
I strained to lift my head just a little, pulling on muscles that ached in frozen position. Panting with exhaustion only to catch just a glimpse of reddish hair, beaming in the early sun as if lit from behind by searing fire. I opened my mouth and heaved out a breath, choking on air that failed to form a word, coughing spit instead of voice.
"It's alright, Lane. Donae have ta talk."
That accent seemed so familiar. A deep voice that rose and tilted, made words sound so much more elegant than they should be. He came closer. So close I could feel the heat of his body cutting through the wind that drifted slowly but chillingly around me. A canteen dangled across my vision, water splashing against the sides, the sound like heaven in this place I called hell. I strained against those chains once more, adamant I'd get this water he had, hysteria creeping along my nerves that he'd leave and take the bottle with him. I'd die to get what he offered.
"Here."
He opened the cap and hovered the bottle above my face, tipping it slowly when I opened my mouth and begged with wide eyes for him to let that liquid drop. Water that doused a blistering coal, turned flame to smoke and devoured that heat until I gasped and spluttered in greed. He took the canteen away, took it out of sight so that I struggled against my imprisonment to chase the hand that held it.
"You can have it again it a minute, lad. Get your breath back first."
He dropped to hover on the balls of his feet, knees bent so he was almost at eye level, enough so I didn't have to strain to look up at him. His face was pale but stained by the sun, roughness that came only from harsh conditions, a weather beaten face that I'm sure would mirror my own. I gaped as I tried once more to force my voice to work, to ask questions of this man that had given me so much. I couldn't hide the distress that overcame when I failed with only a grunt.
He tsked at the huffing click that puffed out on a breath of air, seemed disappointed with my inability to talk. "Have ta do something about that, won't we?"
I nodded, even though I was nothing but confused about his question.
He smiled at me, full and beaming as if I'd done something he approved of. I found myself oddly satisfied that I had pleased the water giver so much.
"Ya know me, lad? Know who I am ta you?"
I considered nodding again but changed my mind at the seriousness in his eyes, decided truth might ensure he'd stay and talk to me. I shook my head to his widening grin.
"Why, I'm your brother, Lane. Going ta get those chains off you. You want that, right?"
I nodded frantically. I wanted that more than I wanted to live. Wanted to feel the wind as my feet rushed on endless grass, an unrestricted privilege, like a storm after endless desert.
I have a brother.
Free.
I struggled with those chains again, rattling the links so he'd see how much I needed them off.
He nodded while gazing softly at me. "Not long now, lad. Need ta find tha key first." He looked around at the silent village, not even a bird that squawked its call for early spring. "Have ta get someone ta undo them, can't touch them myself."
I could understand that, I didn't want them touching me either. He tipped the water towards my face again and I drank while letting it drip across my cheeks, washing a little of that dirt away and the itch that settled so deep I wanted to claw the flesh from my bones.
More footsteps sounded from the cover of trees, lighter in the mud and more carefully placed. A body that weighed a tenth of what the man in front of me did. I snapped my eyes to the sound, rustling leaves that rushed a crinkling dance around tiny feet. Hard packed mud that softened to soil, and then watery, sticky slush the closer they got to the open air. My muscles tensed in my shoulders, fighting the urge to bruise my skin against the solid links. The man would protect me.
He was my brother.
"Ach, donae worry. She's here for me, I wanted you ta meet my woman." He grinned in excitement, showing off his female to his family.
I attempted to smile in return but it felt wrong on my face, a little too stretched across scoured skin. Wild when it should have been civilised, a human that had regressed to beast. Funny, that even without the wolf, I became an animal.
"Here she is, lad. Awful bonnie isn't she?"
Graceful steps slowly walked a wandering line, picking out the perfect place to land each foot, avoiding the dirt that shifted and pulled like sand. A long skirt swished around her feet, dancing to music I wished I could hear. The man growled beside me, jumping up to his full height, that wide smile never once leaving his face.
I missed growling. I wondered if he knew where the wolf had gone.
"There you are, mo gradh."
A giggle flittered around like tiny wings of fluttering birds. A gentle tone. Female. A soft sound I hadn't heard for so long.
My love.
How could I know this word and not remember my family. I so desperately wanted to ask if I had more people waiting for me, if I wasn't as forgotten as this place made me feel. I grunted again, frustrated with my own throat that worked to push the words from my mouth but fell in defeat at every strive to do so.
"Ah, come meet my brother, Doll."
I felt like I needed to look at her face, struggled within my own head to do just that. But I only faced that sour inadequacy like a never ending train of failure.
"Why isn't he looking at me, Duncan?" Soft words, quiet, such a timid tone it seemed almost whispered.
"He's a little tired right now. It's alright, we'll come back tomorrow."
He's leaving?
He can't leave.
I managed another grunt. Pathetic as I slumped forward further, my chest hanging down to my knees as any strength I'd found, left me in a sudden surge of weakness. My arms bound behind me, chained to the wooden pole, were the only thing keeping me even vaguely upright. I felt the witch trying to take over my mind, her face flashing a vision behind my eyes, her firebird gaze boring into mine. I could almost feel my reality slipping away, as if I floated on a sea of riot only awaiting the tide to pull me under.
"I'll be back, lad. Bring more water next time."
I heard their footsteps walking away. One heavy and one light, a giggle as he whispered words to the woman. I screamed in my head. Raged until my throat burned, gulping at air to push that scream into existence. I pulled on the chains, my shoulder snapping out of place, an awkward bend that sent my back bowing and my gasp rushing out to the glaring sky.
Silence descended in the purest agony.
Don't leave me.
Chapter 30
"I'll miss you."
I sighed against his skin. A warm, hard surface that seemed to soften just for me."Don't go then." It was entirely selfish, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I moved my head to place faint, teasing kisses to the chest I lay on.
Hot breath blew a shiver through my hair, some racing current that seemed to find every twitching nerve on its wandering path. "Try
ing to...distract me, witch?"
I smiled into that skin, trailing lower with my lips to taste his stomach. "Yes, is it working?"
He grunted as I licked across muscle that bunched in answer to each soft touch. "Everything about you...distracts me."
I laughed. The little vibrations jumping off shivering goose bumps that stood to attention for my lips. "Clearly not enough."
He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up his body, obviously having had enough teasing, and crushed his mouth to mine. He rolled over quickly and I became trapped beneath the wolf I couldn't seem to stop touching. "You're inside me...taken over and turned everything gold...filled all the empty places and made them sparkle. Never let you leave."