Wolfbreed (40 page)

“Nonsense,” Uldolf whispered.

Lilly stirred, blinking. “Ulfie?”

Who was she? Was she the smiling, almost childlike person looking up at him now? Or was she the cold unhappy one …

They both said they loved him.

“Ulfie?” she repeated. He looked at her, and the smile she gave him now was anything but childlike. The way she let the blanket slide off her shoulder was very distracting.

“We have to leave soon,” Uldolf told her. He gathered her clothes and handed them to her. Reaching for them, she let the blanket fall completely away from her upper body.

“You need to get dressed,” he told her.

Her smile faded slightly, and she nodded.

Uldolf looked back out the window as she stood to put her clothes on. “We’re going out the gate. Once we’re outside the walls, I’m going to take you back to the farm. We’ll stay in the woods, and when you’re safe, I’ll come back here.”

He felt her hand on his shoulder.

He turned to look at her. “You know I have to do something for my parents, and Hilde.”

Her hand tightened on his shoulder. “I—I—I know.”

“You understand, don’t you?”

“I understand.”

She let go of him, and before she turned away, he took her wrist and drew her back to him. He kissed her and whispered, “Then you know I’m not going to forget about you, either.”

She pulled away with an expression that made him think he had said the wrong thing.

f course,” Uldolf whispered. “It is not going to be that easy.”

The two of them stood in the same spot where Uldolf
had been standing the prior evening, watching the main gate from the dawn shadows. His plan had been to slip out at sunrise—but where last evening the only person really paying attention to the gate had been Lankut, this morning Uldolf saw two extra men at the gate. And the new men weren’t Prûsan.

As he watched, a man wearing the cross of the Order came up to talk to one of the extra men.

Lilly placed a hand on his shoulder, and Uldolf reached up and held it with his own. “I’ll think of something.”

They could try and scale the village wall. But even if she still could climb like she had when she was a child, Uldolf couldn’t. They could retreat back to his room, but that didn’t get them out of danger, or get him any closer to rescuing his family. He thought of leaving her at the inn and going to try and get his family out by himself.

Uldolf shook his head. That wouldn’t work, either.

He still had the dagger and the collar, though; the silver was worth something. Wagons came and went all day. He just needed to find someone who was willing to hide them. He patted her hand. “I think I know what to do, Lilly.”

He turned and led her down a narrow street away from the main road. He was going to get her out of harm’s way, one way or another. He’d talk to the innkeeper. The man was sympathetic enough that he might know someone willing to smuggle them out of Johannisburg.

He wove their way through the side streets, and right before the last turn back to the rooming house, Lilly frantically grabbed his arm.

Uldolf turned to face her. “What?”

Her eyes were wide, her nostrils flared, and she was violently shaking her head. “Ulfie, n-no!”

They stood between a building and the stables behind the boarding house. Uldolf could see the wall of the boarding house at the end of the alley.

Lilly tried to pull him back the way they had come, away from the boarding house. “They’re c-c-coming,” she said. “They’re coming!”

Now he could hear boots up ahead, in the alley behind the boarding house.

He backed Lilly away from the intersection, but it was already too late. He had taken only a few steps when a quartet of men walked in front of the exit to their alley. One of them wore the black cross of the Order.

Uldolf pushed Lilly away from him and whispered harshly, “Run.”

She staggered a few steps away from him, and Uldolf faced the men who had just turned in his direction. He took a step forward and bowed slightly at the knight and his entourage. “Greetings, sir.”

Please, Lilly, get out of here while they are focused on me
.

The knight stepped forward and looked him up and down. “What is your name?”

Uldolf swallowed. “My name is Uldolf.”

“I see.” The knight stood in front of him, the others walked into the narrow alley to join him. “And for what reason are you sneaking behind these stables at this early hour?”

“I have a room in the house over there.” Uldolf gestured at the house, past the trio of Germans. One of them said something in German that Uldolf couldn’t understand. The knight glanced back at the man, and then returned his gaze to Uldolf. “He wonders if you prefer to enter by the window.”

Uldolf heard Lilly gasp, and he turned away from the Germans.

She had tried to retreat, but too late. Two more men had come upon them from the other direction. Lilly struggled between them; each of the pair had hold of one of her arms.

“Let her go!” Uldolf shouted. He moved toward them before he had a good chance to think about what he was doing.

The knight grabbed for his arm, but he was grabbing from Uldolf’s right. He had no arm there to grab. Instead, the knight took hold of his cloak, and the strap of his bag underneath. Uldolf took another few steps before the knight pulled back on him, and the strap on his bag snapped taut across his neck.

Lilly screamed, “Ulfie,
no
!” as his head snapped back and he fell backward. Uldolf slammed back into the mud at the knight’s feet, his cloak splayed beneath him, and the contents of his bag scattered on the ground around him. The breath had been knocked out of him, and it took a few moments to push himself upright.

When he did, he saw the knight picking something up out of the mud.

The silver dagger.

hings were going too fast for Lilly to make sense of them. Her mind was still reeling from Uldolf’s—Ulfie’s—embrace last night.

He had said he loved her.

Loved her.

Hope was an emotion that she couldn’t understand—either of her. Her thoughts slid back and forth so often now that it became hard to figure out who was thinking them. So she followed Uldolf, barely paying attention to what was happening outside her own head.

She had to tell him. She couldn’t tell him. No, she had to tell him everything, no matter how painful. But saying the words now, even if she could say them, would ruin everything. But if there was any small chance that he could understand—that he could know and still love her—how could she deny him the truth?

It was bad to remember.

But was it better to forget?

She sensed the Germans’ approach much later than she should have. She shouted her pathetic, stammering warning too late.

Ulfie told her to run.

But she hesitated, not wanting to leave him. She had hesitated long enough for two rough Germans to catch up with her and grab her arms. Then the knight grabbed Ulfie and yanked him to the ground, tearing his cloak and his bag.

Now the knight had something in his hand, and Lilly froze.

A dagger.

The
dagger.

The dagger she had used to …

She shook her head, tears welling up.
No! This isn’t my fault. It isn’t!

The knight grabbed Uldolf by the shirt and pulled him from the ground with his left hand, dagger in his right. He slammed Uldolf into the wall of the building opposite the stable. Two of the other Germans ran to hold him there.

“Tell me how you came by this dagger.”

“I found it.”

The knight took the pommel of the dagger and slammed it across the side of Uldolf’s face, tearing a savage gash across his cheek. Blood poured down the side of his face.

“No!”
Lilly screamed.

The knight looked cruelly down at him and said, “Do not lie to me.”

“I was …” Uldolf spat up a mixture of blood and saliva. It trailed from his mouth and down his chin. “T-trapping game. I found it in the woods.”

The knight backhanded him again. Lilly felt the blows as if they were striking her. She wished they were. She knew that she would recover from the blows. Uldolf wouldn’t.

She closed her eyes, her brain screaming,
Help me
.

Help us
.

She looked for the other, frantically trying to pull her braver self out of the twisting chaos that was her mind. The other one could save Ulfie—save Uldolf.

Uldolf spat more blood, and it splattered the front of the knight’s white surcoat. The knight slammed his fist into Uldolf’s gut, dropping Uldolf to his knees—

Lilly’s rage finally spilled over the fear and confusion, mixing and twisting and leaving someone who wasn’t quite her, nor anyone else.

“Stop it, now!”
she screamed.

Everyone stopped, even the knight beating Uldolf. They all turned to face Lilly, the sudden tenor of her voice commanding their attention.

She faced them all, no longer struggling. She stood, arms spread as if she didn’t even notice the men holding her biceps. Her dyed black hair hung in strings across her face. She stared at them with eyes that were green, cold, and pitiless.

She stared especially hard at the knight, who was looking at her with a slowly growing realization.

“Leave now,” Lilly said. “While you still can.”

The fear in his face made her smile.

It didn’t surprise her when he yelled at the others, “She’s the beast! Use the silver, kill her!”

The two men holding her might have heard her laugh, right before she dropped to her knees in front of them. They held onto her upper arms, and the suddenness of her movement pulled them forward, bending them over her shoulders—shoulders that were already broader and more muscular. Her nose wrinkled in her lengthening muzzle as she smelled the sour musk of fear from the men beside her.

Her surcoat tore when she reached up and sank her claws into the necks of the men to either side. The Germans in front of her were still scrambling to draw weapons and form a line, the knight still yelling about the silver.

She ducked down, flipping the two men over her shoulders and into the line of Germans. The line split apart, one of the Germans falling to the mud under his thrashing, wheezing comrade.

Lilly stood, the bloody rags of her human clothes falling to the mud beneath her paws. Her muscles rippled under red fur marked by a streak of black dye that extended from her forehead down the length of her back. She flexed forepaws that still resembled hands, and bore claws longer and sharper than any wolf’s had a right to be.

She snarled, breathing in the scents of blood, sweat, piss, and fear. She spread her arms, as if to embrace the quartet before her. She still smiled.

“Will you leave now?” she asked them in German.

Despite their surprise, the men were well disciplined, and prepared. They closed ranks before her, holding silvered blades in guarded positions before them. They left no openings in front of them, giving their fallen member time to get to his feet. Once all four closed ranks, they advanced on her deliberately.

She could retreat back down the alley, but there would be more soldiers that way, friends of the two now squirming in the mud.