Authors: Nicole Taft
“Be quiet,” I muttered. “They
didn’t give me any shirts and mine is gone.”
I sliced the dress in two, making a
t-shirt from the top and slipping it over my head. I slid the knife in the
waist of my pants and hid the handle with the hem of the shirt.
I ran the brush through my hair a
few more times until it was straight and silky. I spun around in front of the
mirror.
“What do you think?” I asked Alex.
He gave his head a brief toss. I
slipped into Wolf’s coat. Outside it was spring, but inside the cold stones
kept it chilly and I wanted to stay warm if I planned to wander all day.
“Never trust a guy to be a good
judge of fashion.” I stuck my tongue out at him.
The door suddenly banged open and
Sentries swarmed into the room. Alex reared, trumpeting in anger. I spun
around, bringing back one fist, ready to strike. Several Sentries threw lassos
around Alex’s neck to hold him down while the rest held their ground, their
crossbows leveled at us. Then Martock swung into the room, his face stony.
“Where is she?”
“Fuck you.” It slipped out before I
had a chance to think of what I really ought to say, but I didn’t regret it. I
didn’t know what they wanted with Marianne, but I doubted it was anything good.
Martock sighed in a resigned way. “Come.
The Steward wishes to see you.”
I sneered. “What? No breakfast
first?”
Martock frowned and gestured for
his men to bring us forward. They moved in, surrounding us and escorting us out
of the room by the points of their arrows. I considered pulling the knife, but
with so many men, it wouldn’t do any good. We’d be shot down before I could
even draw blood.
We were ushered into the throne
room where Dunstan sat. Only this time he wasn’t in his seat below the throne—he
was
on
the throne. I laughed bitterly and shook my head. Why was I not
surprised? Power. Plain, old fashioned power was the Steward’s motivation for
wanting Marianne so badly. Get rid of the heir, and he could rule over the
Kingdom until his death.
“Well,” I said once we stopped
before him, “I guess I was right not to trust you, wasn’t I?”
He smiled, a slow, ugly smile that
only made me hate him more for what he was. A greedy old man willing to kill a
little girl just to hang onto a chunk of forest and a stone building.
“Where is Miss Marianne Gertrude
Greta West Red?” he asked.
“Safe.”
He chuckled and a shiver of fear
went through me. What would he do if I didn’t tell him? Get his Sentries to
torture me? Hurt Alex? I set my jaw and tried to stand up straighter. I was her
Guardian. That had to mean something. I couldn’t give her up without a fight.
Dunstan clasped his hands behind
his back and slowly started down the steps toward me. “I’m only going to ask
you this one more time. Where is she?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I let my
gaze slide away from him to fix on a point in the wall across the room.
He stopped for a moment and laughed
again. “I see. As her Guardian, you consider it your duty to see to her safety.
But I’ve tried to be polite. I tried to assure you that she would be safe here.
But I’m tired of asking nicely when there are so many easier ways of getting
what I want.” He started walking again. “You say you were concerned about the
werewolves and their Mistress. And you were so right, my dear, to be worried about
them. But you were worried for all the wrong reasons.”
He halted in front of me and
snapped his fingers. Alex let out a sudden bellow that reverberated through the
room. He bucked and thrashed to try and hit the Sentries around him with his
hooves or antlers. The Sentries fought to hold onto him. I moved to attack one
of them men at the ropes, but Martock grabbed my arms and pinned them behind my
back, holding me against his chest. Then I understood why Alex panicked.
From behind the throne, the Mistress
appeared, smiling her icy smile, her long black hair trailing behind her. Other
werewolves emerged from behind corners, stone pillars, surrounding us. Suddenly
I realized the purpose of the magic I’d constantly felt. It protected the
werewolves from us; Alex’s ability to smell them and my ability to feel out any
magic the Mistress might be performing, including the use of the collars. The
Sentries around us shifted slightly, keeping their weapons on us, but their
faces revealed their fear and revulsion of what was happening around them.
“These werewolves are under my
control,” Dunstan said, tilting his head back in a superior way. “Why should I
hunt down something so useful to me? Werewolves are the way they are by choice.
They can still think, can they not? And if they aren’t interested in curing
their present condition, who am I to stop them? Besides,” he reached out and
lifted my chin with his finger, “that girl has no true power here. So she’s
descended from the Red line; they haven’t ruled here in years, why should they
take back their power now?”
From behind the Mistress, Wolf
appeared. The moment he saw me, his eyes went gold. He frowned. For a brief
second, my blood ran cold. Then it switched to blazing hot. I jerked my head
away from Dunstan’s fingers.
“Because Red has always ruled here.
Your house came in and usurped it by deception and murder. Your rule here is
fake. You never deserved to sit in these halls!”
I had no idea how much of that was
actually true, but I was too angry to care. I struggled against Martock. Then
another thought struck me. I craned my head to look up at him.
“Why are you following him? He’s
crazy and you know it! Your men know this is suicide. What makes him think he
can control them? They want to lock Marianne away and make this land one for
werewolves—all humans be damned!”
“Shut up!”
Dunstan swung his arm back and
struck me across the face. Alex’s bellow echoed through the hall, his hooves
striking and scraping at the stone floor. Dark little stars danced in my eyes. He
grabbed my face with one hand, forcing me to look at him.
“These creatures are nothing but
beasts,” he growled, “feed them the right motivation, and they’ll do anything.”
“You’re wrong,” I mumbled. My focus
slid past him, settling on Wolf. His eyes burned red. I tried not to shout when
pain lanced through my heart.
Hold, dream bonds, hold,
I prayed
fervently.
The Steward sneered at me. “I
wouldn’t expect the Guardian to understand. Now
where is she?
”
“She won’t tell you,” the Mistress said, coming down
from the throne platform, Wolf right behind her.
He took a step back, a half smile
appearing on his face. “Pity. Though I suppose I can find other uses for her.”
His hands roved over my body,
lingering appreciatively on my breasts. I kicked out, but missed, causing him
to laugh.
“You’ll do no such thing. We have
to lock her up just as we have to lock up the child,” the Mistress said
levelly.
Dunstan fixed her with an ugly
look. “You have to find the Red girl first. That will allow me plenty of time
with this one.”
She sighed as if this whole
exchange were incredibly dull. “Wolf, will you please bring him to me?”
A savage growl escaped Wolf as he
stalked toward Dunstan.
“What? What are you doing?” he
stuttered, his eyes going wide in surprise and fear.
Wolf grabbed him by the neck, his
eyes redder than I’d ever seen, and flung him over to the Mistress. He crashed
into the ground, and the Sentries around us erupted in protest. But they
quickly fell silent as the werewolves surrounding them snarled and howled,
baring their teeth and claws in challenge. Dunstan scrambled to his feet, his
face red with indignation. He adjusted his fur cape.
“What is the meaning of this you
insolent bitch?” he yelled.
She rolled her eyes, bored. “This.”
Her hand flashed over his neck and
chest and a spray of blood arched over her. Dunstan’s eyes went wide as he
gurgled in shock, his hands flying to his open veins in a desperate attempt to
staunch the flow of blood. The Mistress held up her hand, a grotesque mix of
gray flesh and sharp claws. A werewolf paw. She grinned as she watched him fall
to his knees and then slump over into a puddle of his own blood. She slowly
turned to face the rest of us, a sharp smile on her face.
“Now, we can continue this. Properly.”
Alex snorted like a bull, pawing at
the ground despite the fact that he was still trussed up. Martock still held my
arms, but his grip had loosened considerably.
“I admit,” she continued, “this
isn’t what I had planned, but no matter. We can easily shift it to our
advantage.” She licked Dunstan’s blood from her fingertips. “I’d intended to
take care of the little whelp first, but one should always be prepared to
change plans when necessary.”
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought
of it earlier. If the House of Hood figured the wolves could take care of
Marianne, then they couldn’t be implicated in it, and people would hate wolves
even more. The werewolves would use the ruse as a cover, hiding out in the
castle while the people and Sentries destroyed all the wolves that might oppose
them. Then the werewolves would kill the Steward and his men from the inside
and use all the newfound hatred to encourage wolves into joining them, even if
they were werewolves. Then another thought hit me.
“The people,” I gasped. “The people
in this castle. What did you do with them?”
She laughed. “Such a silly creature
you are.
We
didn’t do anything to them. Yet. He on the other hand,” she
gestured at the dead Steward, “decided it would be best to imprison all of them
for the duration of our stay. Which is ridiculous since our stay was to be for
quite some time. They simply would never be allowed out again.”
So that was the other reason for
the magic. They were being held down there, somewhere beneath the castle, and
if there were any sorcerers among them, magic would be needed to subdue them.
“Now then. I won’t ask you where
the girl is. You simply won’t tell me, I know that. But seeing as she is no
longer with you and your brother is no longer human, my guess is that she drank
out of the same cursed stream as him, hmm?”
I stared at the ground, silent.
“Be as quiet as you like. It
matters not in any case. Seeing as your brother is not a ferocious beast, nor
is he a tree, I assume they drank from the third stream, in which case she’s a
symbol of herself. That alone accomplishes that I’ve set out to do. Of course,
if she’s become a bluebell, then that’s different, and I need to know.”
Wolf lurked behind her, his eyes
fixed on me and his tongue out. She gave him an idle pat on the head.
“I’m not telling you anything,” I
ground out.
She mock-pouted. “I could find out.
Perhaps I’ll give you over to my little half-wolf here. I’m sure he would love
extracting the information from you, especially since your blood doesn’t hurt
him.”
“Be careful you don’t get too close
to me,” I said, giving her a sadistic grin, “you remember what happened last
time.”
Her cutesy face disappeared,
instead transforming to an ugly twisted expression of pure anger. “If I didn’t
fear your reemergence as Guardian, I would destroy you here and now.”
Martock’s grip was virtually
nonexistent now. If I wanted to escape I could, but my instincts told me to
wait. Wait just a little longer.
“Do whatever you want, you ugly
bitch. I’m never telling you where Marianne is. You screwed up when you cursed
her and my brother, so now you get to pay for it just like me.”
She bared her fangs and growled.
“I am the Guardian of the House of
Red!” I yelled to the Sentries. “If you serve the rightful House, then you will
destroy these cursed creatures!”
The Mistress threw her head back
and laughed. “They are under my influence. They will do nothing until I tell
them to.”
Alex suddenly bellowed and charged
forward, knocking his antlers into her and tossing her back a half dozen feet. The
ropes around his neck were severed. Nearby werewolves roared and sprang at him,
but a group of Sentries immediately surrounded Alex, shooting them down.
The chamber exploded into action as
Sentries and werewolves attacked one another. Martock released me, snatching
his crossbow from his back and firing bolt after bolt with deadly accuracy. Werewolves
dashed over the stone floor, their claws etching marks into the rock. Others
sprang off pillars like acrobats. The Sentries worked in teams, back to back as
they fired at the enemy. Some of them ran out of bolts and pulled out huge
machete-like knives. They weren’t wolf hunters for nothing. Their speed and
skill rivaled that of the werewolves’. They were trained to handle snapping
jaws and wild movements. Alex kicked and reared, slashing at them with his
sharp hooves and stabbing with his antlers.
The Mistress got to her feet, a
stunned look on her face, which was quickly replaced with rage.
I pulled out my knife and after a
quick decision, untied the key from my ankle and flung it onto the steps near
the throne. Then I made for the Mistress.
I drew up short when a werewolf
jumped in front of me, roaring. Saliva dripped from his jaws. I brandished my
knife. It felt small and feeble compared to the werewolf’s power. Two bolts
protruded from his back. His muscles bunched and his clawed fingers curled as
he prepared to spring.
Wolf crashed into him, knocking him
to the side. The two tumbled together, snarling and fighting. Through it all
Wolf screamed to me, “Kill her! Kill her, Caroline!”
I faced the Mistress. She gazed
back, her face wreathed in fury. I pressed the knife blade against my opposite
hand and sliced into the flesh before doing it to my other hand as well. Now
both of them dripped blood on the ground. Blood that would poison her. I wiped my
hands on my face. My neck. All over Wolf’s coat.