18. Isolde
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ISOLDE
“ B astian?”
Isolde’s voice echoed in the empty shop.
The forge itself was dark, the tools undisturbed.
It was barely past dawn, the sky so thick with storm clouds that it may as well have still been night.
Isolde had no idea how far Bastian had gone to make the change, or if he’d even made it back yet, but she didn’t want to wait until nightfall to talk to him about the Wolf.
She ventured a few steps into the forge, peering around. She supposed she could creep up the staircase to Bastian’s rooms and wait for him there, but?—
“I’m here.”
His voice was a rasp, echoing down the stairs. Isolde startled at the sound of it, so rough and feeble compared to the usual steadiness of his words.
She hurried across the forge, then up the stairs. When she reached the top, she paused, uncertain. She didn’t see Bastian—not on the settee, or at the table, or in bed. But she’d heard his voice, so surely?—
When she finally spotted him, Isolde’s heart thumped with alarm. “God, are you alright?”
Bastian lay curled on the rug, right in the center of the room. His brow was furrowed, his eyes closed, and his sides heaved with labored breaths.
And he was completely, entirely naked.
“I’m fine,” he rasped, not even lifting his head to look at Isolde. “The change takes it out of me.”
Whatever distrust or dislike she might feel for Bastian was the furthest thing from Isolde’s mind as she took him in.
All she could think was that the sight of him like this, limp and weak and panting through the pain…
it made her chest feel tight, like someone had wrapped a fist around her heart and squeezed .
Isolde crossed the room and sunk to her knees beside him. “Is it like this every time?”
“I’ve heard it gets better.” He finally turned his head to look up at Isolde—and winced, like even that small movement hurt him. “Can’t say I believe it yet.”
“Let’s get you off the floor.”
“It’s fine,” he mumbled, but he didn’t protest when Isolde reached for him.
Isolde couldn’t help but gasp when she curled her hand behind Bastian’s neck and felt the skin there. “You’re burning up,” she murmured. It was almost too hot, verging on unbearable to have her hands on him. His eyes fluttered shut at her touch, a sigh slipping free of his lips.
Bastian opened his mouth to say something, but broke off on a grunt as Isolde gripped his bicep and guided him into a sitting position.
She felt desperately grateful for her Vampire strength as she tucked herself beneath his arm and hoisted him to his feet.
Bastian was twice her weight, if not more, with his towering height and all that muscle.
She’d never have been able to help him up like this when she was human.
The settee was nearer, but the bed looked far more comfortable. Slowly, Isolde guided him up the step into the little alcove of his bedroom, the heat of his skin burning right through her own clothes. When they reached the bed, Bastian collapsed onto it, panting.
Isolde crawled onto the mattress beside him, uncertain what to do now.
He lay on his stomach, face buried in a pillow, his back heaving as he panted.
Isolde imagined that being covered up was the last thing he needed, considering the blistering heat of his skin…
but his bare ass was very, very exposed—and extremely, tantalizingly muscular—and Isolde was having a hard time keeping her gaze averted.
As subtly as she could, she pulled just the corner of a blanket up to cover him, leaving his back and his legs exposed.
“Is there… anything else I can do?” she asked lamely. He’d taken care of her so well the other night, and here she was, unable to do anything but stare at his ass.
“Your hands,” Bastian mumbled, turning his head out of the pillow just enough to speak, “you run colder than I do. Can you…”
“What?”
“Touch me.”
For a moment, Isolde could do nothing but blink down at his prone form. Surely he didn’t mean…
But—no. The way he’d sighed when she first touched him, like the press of her hand on his nape brought sweet relief… he truly just wanted her hands on him, her cooler temperature soothing his boiling skin.
After the way they had parted the previous night, the last thing Isolde expected was for Bastian to invite this level of proximity between them. This… this almost felt more intimate than feeding on him, than having his head between her thighs.
Then again, Bastian hadn’t hesitated to show her the tenderness she needed the other night, no matter how things stood between them. The least Isolde could do would be to return the favor.
Reaching out a tentative hand, Isolde brushed her fingers along Bastian’s temple. Like before, he sighed at her touch, his eyes falling closed. Isolde repeated the motion, more certain now as she smoothed the hair away from his face.
A few moments passed in silence. When Bastian’s breathing had slowed, she asked, “How long ago did you turn?”
“That was my eighth full moon,” he answered, without opening his eyes.
Isolde let her hand slip down to the nape of his neck, combing her fingers through the soft hair there. “You told me before that Wolves get to choose when you turn.”
“That’s true.”
“You said most are turned when they come of age. But you didn’t choose to turn until you were twenty-seven?”
Bastian still didn’t open his eyes, but Isolde didn’t miss the tightening at the corner of his mouth before he said, “Not exactly.”
Isolde had some idea of what had really happened. She’d heard Bastian and Everett arguing about it the other day. It wasn’t my fucking choice to turn, Bastian had said.
But it didn’t seem right to tell him she’d been eavesdropping—not right then.
So she asked, “What do you mean?”
Bastian sighed. “Most Wolves in my pack are born into it. They grow up like humans do, and when they reach a certain age, or decide they’re ready, they go through the ritual to turn. But I wasn’t born into it.”
Isolde blinked. Last time they’d discussed this, Bastian had shut her down—changed the subject. She had hardly expected him to answer her questions now.
“You said you were adopted,” she said.
“Right. I was born in a village to the south. When I was six, my father beat my mother to death and left me to starve.” He said it all so matter-of-factly, like he was describing what he’d eaten for last night’s supper.
And yet… there was a certain weariness in his voice that made Isolde wonder if he’d grown tired of holding all this inside and was unburdening himself by saying it out loud.
“Anselm found me on the stoop of our old house, locked out in the cold. Everett was around my age, only two years younger. Anselm took me in. Was a better father than mine had ever been.”
Bastian shifted just enough to free his face from the pillow. His eyes opened, and he gazed up at Isolde as she let her fingers trail down to the hard muscle between his shoulder and his neck.
“I never wanted to be a Wolf. Not even when Everett turned. It just… didn’t seem right to me, turning into a beast every month. I didn’t like the idea of losing control of my body like that, or of being more animal than man for one night a month. I didn’t want it.”
“Then… what happened? How did you end up turning?”
“Everyone seemed to be okay with me staying human. It’s not a common choice, necessarily, but are plenty of people who are born to Wolf families who choose not to turn. Nobody said a thing when I turned twenty and I stayed human.
“But… I suppose Anselm didn’t like that I wasn’t a Wolf. He always said he sees me as a son, just as much as Everett, but… I don’t know. He decided I needed to turn, too.”
Isolde knew where this story was going. She felt her stomach sink, but was careful to keep her hands moving steadily across the expanse of his shoulders. “So he forced you?”
Bastian didn’t answer right away. He closed his eyes again, turning his chin back toward the pillow so Isolde couldn’t see his face.
“Did Selene ever explain what the ritual to turn someone into a Wolf is like?” he said.
“No.”
“It has to happen under a full moon, of course. The Wolf who’s been chosen as the Sire bites first, and then the others get to have a go. The whole pack.”
Now Isolde’s stomach really did bottom out. “You mean they…”
“They all attack, until every last one of them has sunk their teeth in.”
Isolde wracked her brain for what little she did know about the Wolves. “But your pack is?—”
“Hundreds of Wolves, yes.” Bastian’s voice had descended even further into that dull, unaffected tone.
Like he had forced every feeling about his turning down, deep inside himself where it couldn’t touch him.
“The next part has to wait until the moon is at its apex. And for me… Anselm started early. I lay there for hours, bleeding. The magic starts to take hold as soon as the Sire takes the first bite, keeps the blood loss from killing us, but it doesn’t dull the pain.
When it was finally time, Anselm finished the job.
One last bite—that’s the only scar we keep. ”
Bastian shifted, exposing his left shoulder to Isolde’s view.
She hadn’t noticed before, distracted by the state of him when she’d first arrived, but the skin there…
the scar encompassed all of his shoulder, silvery and so deeply indented that Isolde wondered if it affected his muscle.
She could see the gouges where a Wolf’s four fangs had torn into his skin, deeper than the other marks where smaller teeth had punctured him.
Isolde had been bitten by a house cat once, years before, and she still remembered the pain. She couldn’t begin to imagine how badly a bite of this size would have hurt, not to mention the hundreds of bites that had come before, the scars erased when he turned.