Blood for Wolves

chapter 12

“Wolf?”

I peered inside the barn, my heart thumping in my chest, a mixture of worry and running all the way there. I slipped inside.

“Wolf?”

“I’m here.”

His voice was strained, as if it took effort to get the words out properly. I looked around, walking slowly. I still didn’t see him.

“How are you feeling?”

He sucked in a breath. “Bad. Very bad. There’s something wrong with this moon. Something’s been done to it. To us. I want to eat everything.”

Then I spotted him, lurking in the shadows on the top of hay bales stacked high. The light caught in his eyes. They gleamed reflectively.

“I might even be interested in eating you.”

“You fought it off last night,” I said. “You’re strong. You can do it again.”

He jumped down from the haystack. He stared at me, smirking like he’d just shaken hands with the devil. I didn’t back down. If I turned and ran it might entice him to chase me. If I cowered I would look weak. No. I had to present myself as his equal just like last night. Just like in a wolf pack.

“We need your help,” I said.

“Oh? And just what do you need my help with, sweet Caroline?” He sauntered closer.

“Wolf, please snap out of it. Please focus.”

He paused, but only for a moment. “I saw you, smelled you, and knew you were different. Wolves all over would fight for you if they knew what I know. Bound I may be, but only in certain things. A wolf knows, oh yes, he knows.”

He slipped his hands around me, locking his fingers together and resting them against my lower back. I let him. Having his mate near him had helped last night; it might balance him out again. He lowered his head to mine. His eyes flashed gold.

“And now I’m hungry.”

“You already ate,” I said desperately. “Maybe—”

“Maybe you should tie me up,” he whispered. He kissed me softly.

“Maybe I should,” I said, vaguely wondering if there was rope around.

His entire body burned; heat radiating against my body through his clothes.

He pressed his mouth down on mine, rumbling deep in his chest. I kissed him back, bringing my arms up around his neck. His hands knotted up in my shirt.

This wasn’t healthy. I’d seduced him under the influence of magic, now he wanted me under the influence of the full moon. Not the basis of a stable relationship. But I couldn’t ignore the intensity of his desire, the wild passion he exuded. But still…

“Wait,” I said, pulling away. “Wait. We need to save Marianne.”

Wolf growled low. His eyes had gone yellow. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. He wasn’t hungry for food. Not this time. He dipped his head and kissed me more forcefully this time. I didn’t push away. A mad part of my brain suggested that I go with it. That maybe it would help calm him down; feed the hunger as it were. Males always got crazy when they wanted to mate, this might be my ticket to a saner Wolf. And besides, his hands felt so good on my skin and he was such a good kisser and no one had ever wanted me this much even if it was a case of moon thralldom.

Before I knew it I was on my back, naked, with Wolf poised over me. His yellow eyes blazed, and in another moment he was inside of me, kissing me, running his hands all over my body. It was almost too much, to be loved this fiercely. He was everywhere, and I wanted more. I pulled him to me, arched up against him, losing myself to each and every movement. His skin felt like fire against mine, his teeth grazing my neck as he grunted and thrust deeper. Moon or no moon, I dug my nails in and clung to him, reveling in his animal fervor. It would be all right; he would exhaust himself (and me) and come back down and we could save Marianne and it was so good, so good…

Then it changed. And it hurt. He was being too rough. Too violent. I struggled beneath him.

“Wolf, stop.”

He didn’t listen.

“Wolf, stop!”

He looked up at me and growled, a low menacing one this time, and his eyes had changed. They were red again. The red of blood and melted rubies. He bared his teeth.

Panic swept over me. This wasn’t love. It wasn’t even animal lust. This was rape.

I struck out at him, but he caught my hands and pinned them above my head. He used his other hand to hold my hips to the floor while he drove into me. I twisted and screamed, straining against him. He brought his head down and sank his fangs into my shoulder. I screamed again, tears building in my eyes. My shoulder grew wet with blood. I’d made the mistake of convincing myself that I could handle him like any other wolf, like he could be studied and understood. This was not a wolf from my world. They were wrong, sick, ruled by the moon. He was keeping me here until he was done, biting me like a lion biting a lioness. I did not matter.

I squirmed, shouting and trying to kick at him. He growled again at my shoulder. I managed to work one hand free and punched him in the ear. He let go of my shoulder and snarled in my face, but I swung my elbow around and struck him right above the eye. He yelped and recoiled backward, giving me enough time to scramble out from beneath him. I kicked him in the shoulder as I went. I managed to crawl around a stack of hay bales, wishing that I had a knife or at least my bear mace.

Wolf rocked back and forth, a hand to his face. He whined as blood trickled down his cheek. I’d opened a spot over his eye. Then he groaned and took his hand away, staring at the red liquid as if trying to remember why it was there. He licked his lips, which were still wet with my blood. His eyes went wide and he looked frantically around the barn.

“Caroline? Caroline!”

“I’m here,” I said quietly. I peered at him over the hay, too drained to move again.

“Oh,” he choked out. “Are you all right? How badly did I hurt you?” He reached out to me, but I recoiled behind the hay.

Pure anguish shone on his face. “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

I wanted to comfort him, to tell him that it would be okay, but I would just be lying again. None of this was okay. I was still naked; going out to him might have the opposite effect. I didn’t know how to approach him without setting him off again.

He let his hand drop and then howled piteously. I wanted to say something, but my mind felt like it was drowning and I hurt and my shoulder bled down my arm. I watched him spring to his feet and sprint from the barn, headed for the woods.

I sat on the floor of the barn for a long time. The sun was setting, sending burning orange rays through the barn windows. I wanted to be angry, but I wasn’t. I thought maybe I should cry, but I didn’t. I didn’t have the energy to do either of those things. I was too tired and numb. I didn’t blame Wolf, not entirely anyway. Mostly I blamed my own arrogance. My own overconfidence in thinking I could handle his wolf side when clearly wolves were not the same here. After all, he’d warned me.

Finally I got to my feet, found my clothes. I did a slapdash dressing of my bite wound, covering it with the remaining gauze and a few squares of duct tape. As an afterthought, I fished the pouch of money from Wolf’s jacket. Then I started back down to the village, formulating answers for the undoubtedly pissed off questions Alex would ask me.

“Geez Care, what the hell took so long?”

“He didn’t know anything,” I said, ignoring Alex’s disapproving stare.

“It took that long to find out he didn’t know anything?”

“He wasn’t in his right mind, okay?” I snapped. “He’ll be better tomorrow when the full moon is gone.”

Alex didn’t say anything. For a while all we did was stare down the alleyway, trying to figure out what to do next. Wolf’s snarling face and crimson eyes kept jumping into my head. I kept pushing the image away. I hoped he would be better tomorrow. I hoped we could find him or that he would come back. I closed my eyes. Wolf was beyond me now. I had to try and help Marianne. We had to get in there somehow. We had to break whatever magic spell was around this place and rescue her.

“Bluebells…”

Alex looked at me. “What?”

“Bluebells. Marianne. For some reason I always think of bluebells when she’s around.”

“So?”

“So does Wolf. She said it was because she was born in a fairy ring. I think it means something.”

“Aw, look, Care…”

“We need to find a library or somewhere that has books. We need information about magic spells or magic flowers.”

“Care—”

I whirled on Alex. “Look. We know nothing about this place. Nothing. We’re wandering around stupid and almost getting eaten by giants and things, and now we find ourselves faced with magic, and we can’t fight magic without at least knowing about magic. We. Need. Information.”

I stomped off. Alex followed.

After asking a few people, we were directed to a large building that looked like it had stood there forever. The Book Depository, where they kept all the old books from the town. Apparently throwing away books was a no-no, so all unwanted titles ended up there until they fell apart. Inside, the place was like a library in overdrive with no librarians to tackle the mess. Books lined the shelves, sat in stacks upon stacks, many thick with dust and yellowed with age. If there were tables or furniture in the rooms, they’d long since been covered with books.

An old man appeared from around a stack of coffee table-sized books. “Can I help you?” He tottered over to us in a brown overcoat. His white hair fluffed around his head like it had a mind of its own. “I’m the Archives Master. I haven’t seen you two in here before.”

“We’re…visiting,” I said. “We’re looking for some information. Magic, to be precise. Primarily protective magic, maybe some summoning and, ah, banishment.” It felt incredibly weird to be asking these sorts of things. I half expected the Archives Master to look at us funny and ask us to leave.

“Indeed, indeed,” he said, touching a finger to his chin. “There’s plenty of that in here, though I daresay you’ll have to look for it.”

I glanced around at the stacks and towering shelves and tried not to get too dejected.

“Are they in any order?” I asked him.

“Some. I try, but after a while there are just too many so I set them wherever I can.”

“Great,” Alex muttered behind me.

I thanked him and made for a shelf.

“Caroline, how long is this going to take?”

I pulled out a book entitled Magical Herbs, Portents, and Sigils. “As long as it has to.”

We spent the rest of the day poring over dozens of books, making notes on the scratchy paper the Archive Master gave us with old fountain pens. My fingers were black with ink, the liquid seeping into the cracks under and around my fingernails. Every now and then, one of us would check the building to make sure it was still there. The sun was gone and the moon was out, full and white like a pure silver coin in the sky. So far, nothing had changed.

I worried about Wolf. But every time his face popped into my head, I forced it away and thought of Marianne instead. I had to forget Wolf. I had to focus on Marianne.

I’d made notes on everything from summoning powers to protective charms we might be able to get here in the village. Nothing talked about smoke demons or satanic werewolves though. A town like this probably wouldn’t carry any serious books about dark magic. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the residents had never even seen a book on dark magic. At least I assumed it was dark magic. It sure as hell didn’t look friendly.

“What have you got so far?” Alex said, sounding tired.

I sat back and looked over my notes. “I think we can use bluebells to summon that thing since they typically grow in fairy rings and both of those are related to Marianne. Snowdrops are good for protection, but they only bloom in winter so I doubt we’ll find any now. Horseshoes protect against evil spells, especially after being worn by a horse in its seventh year, chalcedony helps banish illusions…” I scanned my writings, “and I’ve got a whole list of other flowers and plants and things here that we can use to try and kill it without getting killed ourselves. How about you?”

“About the same. A lot of little things that might add up. Found a lot of interesting potions that might do the trick, but we haven’t exactly got a whole month to make them, and I don’t know what half this crap is.”

“Well, let’s compare our lists and then go see if we can find some of this stuff before all the shops here close.”

We found a flower shop and a small store that sold knickknacks and other oddities, and bought bluebells, roses, morning glories still on long vines, pansies, chalcedony, boji stones, an old horseshoe, dried angelica root, fangs of a snake I’d never heard of, a vial of juniper and clove oil, and salt. We bought two small pouches, one for each of us, and divided up most of the objects into them. I didn’t know what the different sizes the squares of silver money meant, so I lied to the merchants and told them I was from a neighboring kingdom. Thankfully it worked, and they counted out the money themselves. I hoped they weren’t screwing us over.

“I feel like it’s the 1600s and we’re about to go witch hunting,” Alex muttered.

As we left the knickknack store, a long howl rose into the night. Please Wolf, don’t be getting into trouble.

“Now what do we do?” Alex asked.

We stopped outside the alley where the small house sat with Marianne tucked away inside. I wanted to go in and rescue her, but if there was one thing I’d learned since being here, it was that when I did things without knowing what I was doing, I got myself into trouble. I didn’t want to drag Alex into any stupid decisions either. We needed Wolf. Except I didn’t know how long it would be until he was lucid again. Or where he was for that matter.

“Three against one is better odds than two against one, right?” I said. “Wolf knows more about what’s going on than either of us. This thing is still resting. It’s weird, but I can feel it. We’ll keep an eye on this place tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll check on Wolf again, and if he’s,” I almost said not there, but corrected myself in time, “still not well enough, we’re just going to have to do this on our own because I don’t think we can afford to wait anymore. We’ll sleep in shifts in case it wakes up during the night.”

I prayed that once the full moon was gone, Wolf would be back to himself. He’d even said that something was wrong this time. Something had poisoned the moon, and in turn, poisoned him. Part of me desperately wanted to look for him, but another part of me was afraid of what might happen if I actually found him.