Chapter 16
Some legacies announced themselves in titles and lands. Others moved silently through blood and bone, awakening without invitation and seldom with mercy. Not all inheritances were welcomed.
The sun hung low on the horizon, a pale disc bleeding orange and crimson across the winter sky. In an hour, perhaps less, the moon would rise, and the beast would claim him once more.
Lucien made his way through the west wing of the castle, his footsteps heavy with dread. The winter sun cast long shadows through the narrow windows, and the chill in the air grew sharper with each step.
He paused at the heavy kitchen door, his hand resting on the iron handle. How many times had he stood here, steeling himself for the ordeal to come? How many nights had he descended the cellar steps, knowing that he would emerge the next morning with no memory of his time as the beast?
Too many. Far too many.
But tonight felt different. Verity’s words echoed in his mind, her careful logic and her quiet observations about the locks that showed no signs of forcing. She had planted a seed of doubt, and it had taken root in the darkest corners of his thoughts, growing into something he could not ignore.
He opened the door and crossed to the stables and then beyond, descending the worn stone steps into the cellar, his boots echoing against the ancient flagstones.
The air carried the familiar scents of earth and damp, and the lingering musk of the wolf.
Somewhere above, he could hear the distant howling of the wolfhounds, already sensing the approach of the full moon.
Max was already there, preparing the chains as he had done for four years.
The lantern cast long shadows across the rough-hewn walls, illuminating the iron ring set into the wall and the heavy manacles that would soon encircle Lucien’s neck, wrists, and ankles.
The younger man looked up as Lucien entered, his face creased with concern.
“Ye look like death,” Max said quietly. “Did ye sleep at all?”
“No.” Lucien began to unfasten his coat, his fingers clumsy with exhaustion and dread. “I could not quiet my mind.”
“The coming night weighs heavily on ye.”
“Every night weighs heavily on me.” Lucien pulled his coat from his shoulders and folded it with mechanical precision. “But tonight … tonight feels different. As though something is about to change, though I cannot say what.”
He stripped methodically, folding each garment and setting it on the floor.
Waistcoat, cravat, shirt. Each layer removed brought him closer to the vulnerability of the transformation, when he would be nothing but flesh and bone and the terrible hunger of the beast. His buckskins followed, but this time he kept his smallclothes on, gooseflesh rising on his skin.
Max handed him the worn woolen blanket that had become part of the ritual, and Lucien wrapped it around his shoulders, grateful for even that small comfort.
The rough fabric scratched against his skin, familiar and oddly reassuring.
How many transformations had this blanket witnessed?
How many times had he clutched it in the final moments before the quickening claimed him, desperate for any anchor to his humanity?
“Perhaps there is no rest for someone like me,” Lucien said, his voice hollow. “Perhaps I will wake tomorrow with fresh blood on my hands and no memory of whom I have killed.”
Max’s jaw tightened. “Perhaps ye already have.”
Lucien lowered himself onto the rug beside the chains, drawing his knees up to his chest like a child seeking comfort. “I do not know what to believe anymore. Everything I thought I understood about the curse, about myself, about my family … all of it is crumbling to dust.”
Max crouched beside him, beginning the familiar process of securing the iron manacles around Lucien’s ankles. His movements were practiced and efficient, the result of four years of repetition. “What do ye mean?”
“I heard about the old man,” Lucien said, staring at the ceiling. The shadows danced in the lantern light, forming shapes that might have been wolves or might have been nothing at all. “That his body was found.”
Max’s hands paused for a fraction of a second before resuming their work.
“Aye. Torn apart, they say. Like nothing anyone has ever seen.”
“Like a wolf attack.”
“Aye.” Max’s voice was sympathetic. “Like a wolf attack.”
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implication. Lucien waited, but Max did not elaborate. The man simply continued his work, securing the iron around Lucien’s ankles with the same steady competence he had always shown.
“I could have done it, Max.” Lucien’s voice emerged hollow, stripped of emotion. “I have been breaking free of these chains. I could have killed Mr. Milton.”
“Ye do not know that.”
“What else could it be?” The question emerged as something close to a groan. “There are no wolves in England. None save me. If an old man was savaged by a beast, then that beast must be?—”
“The curse of moon-madness is a terrible thing.” Max’s voice was gentle as he worked, his fingers deft with the heavy locks. “It can turn even a true gentleman into a feral beast.”
“And yet I have no memory of violence. No blood on my hands when I wake.” Lucien shifted his gaze to the rough-hewn walls, tracing the patterns of moisture that seeped through the ancient stone.
“Mayhap the beast is not as mindless as we believed. Perhaps some part of us remains even when the wolf holds sway.”
“Mayhap.” Max’s voice was noncommittal. “Or perhaps we see what we want to see.”
“You think I killed him and forgot.”
“I think the curse is crueler than any of us understand.” Max finished securing the iron manacles and reached for the silver chains.
“I have watched ye struggle with this burden for four years, my friend. I have seen what it costs ye. The sleepless nights, the fear, the guilt that eats at ye like a canker. If the beast did kill that old man, it was not ye who did it. It was the curse. And ye are no more responsible for its actions than a man is responsible for what he does in his dreams.”
Lucien listened to the words, turning them over in his mind. They were kind words. Comforting words. The words of a friend who had stood by him through the darkest years of his life.
He braced himself as Max reached for the silver chains, and when the metal touched his skin, he hissed with pain. The silver seared his flesh like fire, spreading agony up his wrists and into his arms.
“I am sorry,” Max murmured, as he always did. “I wish there were another way.”
“There is another way.” Lucien met Max’s eyes, his voice steady despite the pain. “I could end it. Put a silver bullet between my own eyes and break the cycle once and for all.”
Max’s hands stilled on the chains. For a long moment, he said nothing and turned away so that Lucien could not read his expression. The lantern flickered, casting strange shadows across the cellar walls. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, contemplative.
“I have thought about it often, these past years. Whether it would be kinder to end yer suffering. Whether yer father should have done the same, rather than waiting until …” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“I do not know, Lucien. I truly do not know. The curse of moon-madness is a terrible burden to bear.”
“Then you think I should do it.” Lucien’s voice was hollow. “You think I should end it.”
“I did not say that.” Max resumed his work on the silver chains, his movements slower now, more deliberate.
“I said I do not know. There is a difference.” He paused, his fingers resting on the manacles.
“What I do know is this, even a man who is true and just cannot help what happens when the beast takes over. The wolf is not ye, Lucien. It wears yer skin and shares yer blood, but it is not ye. And whatever sins the beast commits, they are not yers to answer for.”
“But the beast is part of me.” Lucien closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the chains settle around him. “How can I separate myself from something that lives inside my own body?”
“I do not know that either.” Max’s voice was heavy with weariness.
“I only know that the boy who took me fishing in the fen, the young man who wept when his father died, the earl who cares for his tenants as though they were his own family is not a monster. Whatever the wolf may be, it is not yer fault. It was never yer fault.”
Lucien wanted to believe him. He wanted to accept the comfort that Max offered and release himself from the crushing weight of guilt that pressed upon his chest.
“But how can I have any kind of life when I am what I am?” The words emerged before he could stop them, raw with longing.
“I want to live, Max. I want to marry and have children and grow old watching them inherit everything I have built. I want to wake each morning without wondering if I have murdered someone in the night.” He paused, his throat tightening.
“I want Verity. God help me, I want her more than I have ever wanted anything. But how can I ask her to share her life with a man who becomes a beast five nights a month?”
Max finished securing the silver chains and sat back on his heels, studying Lucien with an expression that was difficult to read. “Yer mother has lived with this curse for so long. She loved yer father despite it. Perhaps Miss Hale is made of the same steel.”
Lucien fell silent. He thought of his mother, sleeping peacefully in her mountain of quilts, unaware that her son was preparing for what might be his final night.
He thought of Verity, with her fierce green eyes and her unwavering faith.
He thought of the village, of the people who depended on him, who trusted him to keep them safe.
Part of him yearned to accept the absolution that Max offered. But Verity’s words whispered in his mind, and he found he could not silence them. “The locks were not forced. They were opened.”
“Test the bonds,” Max said, stepping back.