Wolfbreed (42 page)

Vespers

Anno Domini 1239

Nam et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis,
non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es.
Virga tua, et baculus tuus,
ipsa me consolata sunt
.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of   death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

—Psalms 23:4

ldolf ran. He ran, trying to escape the images that had burnt themselves into his brain. It wasn’t Lilly. It couldn’t be Lilly.

But it was.

Heart racing, not looking where he was going, he dove into an open doorway, tripping and falling face-first to the ground. After a moment, he rolled onto his back, clutching his gut where the knight had punched him.

He closed his eyes. In the distance he heard the snarls and growls of the thing that had been the woman he—

Has your farm been troubled lately … by strange beasts? Men or animals killed or injured?

He sucked in ragged breaths, only feeling the pain in his face and in his stomach now that he had stopped running. His pulse hammered at him, screaming at him from inside—

Run!

His hand balled into a fist over his stomach, pulling his shirt tight. In his mind he kept replaying what had happened to Lilly, changing from the first woman he had made love to, to the beast that tore into the Germans like, like …

Like what had happened in the stronghold of Mejdân.

Uldolf folded over on himself, huddling against a wall. He didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want this image in his mind. He tried to will himself to forget, to push it away, to erase the vision.

He curled against the wall. His phantom right arm hurt worse now than it had since that same monster tore the living arm from his body.

“I don’t want to remember this,” Uldolf whispered.

But he remembered now.

He remembered the demonic red wolf leaning over him, breath sour with blood, muzzle streaked with gore. He remembered it speaking in Lilly’s voice.
“I wasn’t supposed to hurt you, Uldolf.”

He remembered everything.

illy tossed aside the knight in her hands. He rolled over by one of his dead comrades, arms broken, eyes closed, still chanting his prayers.

She ignored him. She needed to find Uldolf.

She went to Uldolf’s cloak. As she walked, muscles slid over creaking bone. Her body shrank and her joints moved as the wolf retreated inside her. She was long used to the changes it wrought in her balance.

She pulled the cloak out of the mud and draped it over her naked shoulders. The fur lining settled warmly against her skin, smelling of him—feeling like the moment by the pool when they faced each other, briefly innocent of their past.

She had no idea what she was supposed to do now—but overriding everything was the need to face him.

She retrieved his bag and followed his scent. It wasn’t hard; the miasma of sweat, blood, and fear flowed like a river. And it didn’t go far. After rounding only two corners of the long stable, she was ultimately unprepared when she found him.

He huddled in a doorway, back to the wall, clutching his right shoulder where she had ripped his arm out of its socket.

No, Ulfie. It wasn’t supposed to be like this
.

She stood, barely two paces from him, unable to move. Her mind twisted and fragmented under the weight of memories—taking his food, swimming with him, making love, tearing free his arm, slaughtering his family.

“Ulfie,” she whispered.

His head snapped around. He scrambled to his feet. “No. Don’t you dare!”

“Ulfie, please—”

Still backing away, he clutched his empty shoulder, face as pale as if the injury had just happened. “You have no right to call me that!”

She took a step back, chest tightening as if Uldolf had struck her. “Please. I am so sorry.”

“You killed them! Jawgede was barely five!
Why?
”

Lilly shook her head, tears streamed down her cheeks, and she clutched Uldolf’s cloak closer to herself. “I—I served my master.”

Uldolf shook his head. “Then why let me live? Why not pull my head from my neck, like my father?”

“Don’t—”

“Why not tear me open like you did my sister? Cut my face open like my mother?”

She stared into his face, and saw nothing but hate there.

“Why?” He kept backing away. “Why spare me? Does your master want to torment me that much?”

“No. I loved you.” She sucked in a breath and repeated, “I love you.”

Uldolf shook his head. “You monster! How dare you say that?” He shook his head and looked past her. “Oh, no.”

“Uldolf?”

“They weren’t taken, were they?” He shook his head. “My family. I left them alone … with you.”

“No.”

“Is that why you’re here?
You’ve come to kill my family again!
”

He leapt at her, grabbing her neck. His attack was clumsy, but she was unprepared for it, and she fell backward under him.

“I didn’t!”

His knees fell painfully on her chest as his hand clutched at her throat. “What did you do?
What did you do?
”

“I didn’t. I—” She choked back the word
couldn’t
, because she knew it was a lie. Of course she could have. It was what she was, wasn’t it? She stared up into Uldolf’s terrified face, and could see the ten-year-old boy she had left bleeding eight years ago. He was right; it would have been kinder if she had torn his heart out.

With the blackness filling her soul, she laid her head back, exposing her throat, allowing him to throttle her. Perhaps, if she gave in to it, it would all be over. Her life was all she had left to give him, the only compensation she could offer.

She gasped and wheezed, her lungs not nearly as resigned as her brain. It took all her effort not to struggle as her vision slowly went black.

I am sorry, Uldolf. You will never know how much
.

illy didn’t know what she expected from death. Maybe her master’s Lord Jesus Christ might make an appearance to explain why she wasn’t worthy of his forgiveness or an afterlife. She was nothing but a soulless animal, after all. Or maybe she would fall into a deep dreamless sleep where she could lose herself so completely that it wouldn’t matter what she was.

She did not expect to sneeze, or itch, and she did not expect to smell horses. Lilly opened her eyes and found herself staring up at the underside of a thatched roof.

From beside her, she heard Uldolf’s voice. “You’re awake?”

She turned her head and saw him standing over her. They were in an empty stall in a stable somewhere. From the blood smell that still hung in the air, she could tell it was behind the rooming house, where she had killed—

She shook her head and tried to sit up, but something tightly bound her arms and legs and she couldn’t push herself upright. She glanced down at herself and saw she was naked, sawdust sticking to her skin. Her arms were tied behind her, and she saw that her legs were bound as well.

Uldolf had wrapped her legs together with a long leather strap that circled from her knees halfway down to her ankles. He’d done a better job of restraining her than the bastard who had raped her. She could probably break the leather, but only if she had some leverage or freedom of movement, and from what she could feel, he had done as good a job on her arms, strapping her forearms together behind her back.

“I don’t think you’re getting out of those,” Uldolf said. He walked over and hooked his hand under her armpit and lifted her so that she was in a sitting position. Then he dragged her a couple of steps across the sawdust-covered floor of the stall so she could lean against the wall.