Chapter 17
A lord may own the land, but it is the tenants who keep the tally. They count the lambs, the missing hens, the strange tracks by the river.
The last light bled from the sky like a wound slowly closing, and Verity pressed herself deeper into the shadow of the ancient oak. Every fiber of her being was focused on the door to the root cellar, that weathered slab of oak set into the hillside beyond the stables.
Somewhere in the woods, Ephraim waited with a rifle loaded with a single silver musket ball.
She could not see him. The old gamekeeper had melted into the trees with the ease of a man who had spent his life stalking prey through the forest. He had warned her to stay hidden, to remain silent, to trust that he would know when to act.
The wolfhounds pressed close against her legs, their warm bodies a comfort in the bitter cold.
Braccus had positioned himself at Verity’s left side, his iron-gray bulk as immovable as the ancient stones of Blackfen Castle itself.
The silver threading of his muzzle caught the fading light, and Verity thought, not for the first time, that the old patriarch seemed to carry the weight of the Northwood secrets in the very set of his massive shoulders.
Eirin had taken up a position slightly ahead of the others, her fawn coat dark against the snow, her body angled toward the cellar entrance like a drawn bow.
Her green-gray eyes tracked every shadow, every shift in the wind, with a predator’s precision.
Where Braccus was stillness, Eirin was coiled intent, her ears swiveling at sounds Verity could not detect.
And young, volatile Ronan had wedged himself against Verity’s ankles, his blue-gray coat bristling in the cold.
He had not yet learned to mask his agitation the way the older hounds did, and his restlessness showed in the twitch of his haunches, the way his silver eyes darted from the cellar door to the darkening sky and back again, unable to settle on a single source of unease.
His breath came in short, visible puffs against the winter air, and every few moments, a tremor ran through his lean frame, not from the cold, Verity suspected, but from the effort of holding himself in check when every instinct demanded motion.
The scar upon her wrist, the thin, puckered crescent where Robert Fynn’s mastiff had sunk its teeth, ached faintly in the cold, a reminder of why she had flinched from every dog that crossed her path since that terrible afternoon in Somerset.
But the wariness that memory had branded into her had softened over these past days at Blackfen, worn smooth by proximity and repetition and the recognition that these creatures understood things about their master that no human confidant could.
Robert’s mastiff had been trained to menace, bred to reflect the cruelty of the hand that fed it.
These hounds were nothing of the sort. They did not crowd her or demand her attention.
They simply remained, steady and watchful, a living perimeter of loyalty that encompassed her as naturally as it did Lucien.
She was grateful, too, for the practicality that had governed her preparations for this vigil.
The men’s clothing she wore felt strange against her skin.
The rough wool of the trousers, the weight of the work boots, and the loose fit of the coat that had belonged to one of the stable hands.
Verity had expected to feel ridiculous, but instead she felt …
liberated. The snow that would have soaked through her petticoats and dragged at her skirts was nothing more than a minor inconvenience in sturdy boots.
The cold that would have crept up beneath her layers was held at bay by the practical cut of the coat.
A sound from the cellar made her stiffen. The wolfhounds’ ears pricked forward, and Ronan let out a low whine that Verity quickly silenced with a hand on his broad head.
The moon had not yet risen, but she could feel its approach like a pressure building behind her eyes.
Lucien had explained the quickening to her.
The way the curse stirred in his blood as the moon climbed toward its zenith.
The way his humanity began to slip away, replaced by something older and more savage.
She had to believe that he was still in control.
The door to the root cellar burst open with a crash that shattered the silence of the evening.
Max Dray came running out, his boots slipping on the snow-covered ground, his handsome face twisted with something that might have been fear or fury or both.
He had made it perhaps ten feet from the door when a second figure emerged.
Lucien, barefoot and bare-chested, wearing only his small clothes, his torso gleaming in the dying light.
He launched himself at Max with a snarl that was not entirely human, and the two men went down in a tangle of limbs.
“Now!” Verity heard herself cry, and she was running before she could think better of it.
The wolfhounds surged ahead of her, Braccus’s deep bark splitting the air like thunder.
She saw Ephraim emerge from the trees to her right, the rifle raised to his shoulder, but she could see immediately that he had no clear shot.
The two men were rolling in the snow, grappling with each other, too entangled for the gamekeeper to intervene without risking hitting the wrong target.
Lucien managed to get on top, his hands wrapped around Max’s throat.
Max bucked beneath him, his face purpling, his hands clawing at Lucien’s arms. The wolfhounds circled them, barking and snarling, and Eirin darted in to snap at Max’s leg before retreating with a yelp when Max drove his foot into her flank.
“Lucien!” Verity screamed, but she was not certain he could hear her. His eyes were wild, unfocused, and she could see something shifting beneath his skin, something that was not quite human anymore.
Then the transformation began.
It started with a sound, a wet, grinding crack that made Verity’s stomach lurch. Lucien’s spine arched, his head thrown back, and a howl tore from his throat that started as a man’s scream and ended as a howl. His skin rippled, darkened, and thick black fur began to sprout along his arms and chest.
But Max was changing too.
The stablemaster’s transformation was more violent, more agonized.
Perhaps because he was fighting it, or perhaps because the curse had only recently taken hold.
His screams were terrible, raw and broken and filled with a pain that Verity could not begin to imagine.
His clothes tore as his body reshaped itself, bones snapping and reforming with sickening cracks.
Gray fur erupted across his skin, and his face elongated into a muzzle filled with teeth.
The wolfhounds went mad.
Eirin planted herself in front of Verity, hackles raised, a growl rumbling deep in her chest. Braccus lunged at the gray wolf, snapping at its haunches, while Ronan circled and barked with frantic energy.
It snarled and snapped back, catching Braccus’s ear with its teeth.
The old hound staggered but did not retreat.
He shook his great head once, scattering blood across the snow, and held his ground with a growl that seemed to rise from somewhere deep beneath the earth.
The black wolf rose from where he had been crouched, his transformation complete. He was enormous with fur as dark as midnight and eyes that gleamed gold in the fading light. He shook himself once, twice, and then turned those terrible, beautiful eyes on the gray wolf that had been his friend.
For a moment, the two wolves faced each other across the trampled snow. The gray wolf was smaller, leaner, its fur the color of storm clouds. It bared its teeth at the black wolf, and the black wolf answered with a growl that Verity felt in her chest.
Then the gray wolf turned and leaped, not at the black wolf but at Verity.
Time seemed to slow. She saw the gray wolf’s muscles bunch beneath its fur.
She saw its jaws open wide, revealing teeth that could tear through flesh and bone with ease.
She saw her own death rushing toward her on four legs, and she could not move, could not breathe, could not do anything but stand frozen while the beast closed the distance between them.
The crack of the rifle split the night in two.
The gray wolf jerked in midair, its trajectory altered by the impact of the silver musket ball.
It crashed to the ground at Verity’s feet, so close that she could feel the heat of its body, could smell the iron tang of its blood.
It tried to rise, its legs scrabbling weakly at the snow, but the strength was already leaving its body.
Ephraim was there in an instant, the empty rifle still smoking in his hands. “Back,” he commanded, and Verity stumbled away from the fallen wolf, her heart hammering so hard she thought it might crack her ribs.
The black wolf approached the gray wolf slowly, his head lowered, his lips pulled back from his teeth. A growl rumbled in his chest, deep and menacing, and for a terrible moment, Verity thought he was going to tear out the gray wolf’s throat.
Instead, he raised one massive paw and placed it on the gray wolf’s flank. The gesture was almost … possessive. As though he were claiming the fallen creature. As though he were saying, “This one is mine.”
“Lord Blackfen,” Ephraim said quietly. The black wolf’s ears turned at the sound of his voice.
“The beast is down. Ye can let him go now.”
The black wolf did not move.
“Lucien,” Verity whispered, and the wolf’s gold eyes found hers. For a moment, she thought she saw something human in those depths. Something that recognized her. Something that loved her.
Then Ephraim stepped forward, waving his arms. “Go on, then,” he said, his voice firm but not unkind. “Into the woods with ye. We’ll handle this.”