The Wolf's Captive (27 page)

“As a woman, you’ll be burned,” he said.

You will
not
cry
, Lucia told herself.
Not for this man’s pleasure.
Her face had turned to impassive stone, and she stared ahead at some vague point on the far wall, not looking at the jailer, not looking away. This was not the reaction he wanted.

He came very close to the bars, looking down at Lucia where she sat by her father, and put one hand on his keys, like he was thinking about using them.

“That’s normally what happens, anyway. But Captain Rickle is trying to get it done quiet-like. Says he doesn’t want to distract from the celebrations, just wants it done now. Think he’d let me do it?” the jailer said, running one gnarled and dirty hand down the length of one bar. “I could come in there, Miss Lyselle. I got the keys.”

Lucia said nothing.

“Maybe you could try to convince me to let you go.” He leered.

Slowly, Lucia turned her head. She had run through the depths of despair all the way to other side, and what she’d found there was resistance. She almost wished this idiot would open the door to cell, would try to lay his hands on her. Even as the small remaining rational part of her knew this to be insane, knew this to be a terrible thing, she wanted an opportunity to fight back.

“Die,” she said instead.

The jailer laughed, and spun his keys around on his finger. And then he did.

The jailer’s face crashed against the bars, his nose flattened, his eyes bulging, his chest unable to expand to take in air with the pressure of some great force behind it, crushing it against the unyielding metal bars. Lucia jumped back, putting her body between her father and whatever was happening to the jailer. It looked like he tried to speak, but then his body was lifted up, his face and chest sliding up the rough edges of the aged and rusted metal, until his feet kicked freely at the bars below.

Clang clang. Clang clang.

Lucia heard the jailer’s wet choking sounds, saw him dribble blood from his mouth in the one beam of light from the grating. Then he was dragged sideways, his bloodied face raking against the bars, and tossed down the corridor. He made no more sounds.

And behind where the jailer had been pinned against the bars stood the hulking, brutish form of Lord Cesare Lupin.

Cesare stood panting, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath. His eyes shone the way they had done at the Player’s Feast, and when he stepped forward into the light, Lucia saw him swallow, as though once again holding back something terrible. He stared only at her, and walked up to the bars. Then he wrapped his great hands around them and growled.

“Milord, I have the keys,” came Avignon’s voice from the direction of the jailer’s body.

“I don’t need them,” Cesare snarled, testing his grip. His eyes bored into Lucia’s, and his great shoulders began to roll. The bars screeched against stone.

“Even so, Milord,” Avignon said calmly, stepping into view. “You’ll only have to repair it later.” And he unlocked the door to Lucia’s cell.

Cesare strode in with the same charged ferocity, the same animal intensity, that Lucia imagined had killed the jailer, only to stop, suddenly, a few feet in front of her. She watched his expression change from burning, mindless desire to bewildered sadness.

She realized his expression mirrored her own feelings. And she felt it again, that thread between them, as though whatever he felt vibrated down that thread into her own core. Perhaps it went both ways. And the truth was, Lucia was frightened.

“What are you?” she whispered.

She might have stayed locked in that gaze indefinitely if it hadn’t been for the faint rasping noise of her father’s labored breath. “The pitcher,” she said suddenly. “He needs water.”

Avignon appeared, the pitcher already in hand. “I’ll tend to him, Miss Lyselle,” he said gently. “I’ve some training.”

Lucia watched helplessly, gratefully, as Avignon knelt to her father with the pitcher. The old man managed to drink a little, and Avignon began checking for wounds.

“Lucia,” Cesare rumbled behind her. “Lucia, we must leave here.”

She turned on him, overflowing with various emotions, a thin veneer of frustration and anger over all of it. Which, of course, was ridiculous. Cesare was breaking her out of jail. Gratitude would be more appropriate, but Lucia didn’t feel ready to start being appropriate.

“Why didn’t you
tell
me?” she tried to yell, but only managed a strangled sob. The idea of crying in front of him, of showing him how much it hurt, made it all even worse. She bit her lip, and hated the tears streaming down her cheek. “How could you let us…while my
father
…”

Cesare’s wide-open face looked back at her with hopeless, childish stupidity. All the ferocity had drained out of him. He started toward her, arms extended, and then stopped. Opened his mouth, closed it. Finally, he closed his eyes and balled his fists up tight.

“I’ve always known I was a monster,” he began. “I’ve done monstrous things out on raids. Here, in this Castel. I’ve always been…angry. And then, on my last raid into the Berkari Mountains, we had trouble.”

Cesare’s breathing had sped up, and he took a long deep, breath to calm it. His face twisted itself inwards at the painful memory, as though he were watching it unfold in his mind’s eye. Still, he kept going.

“It was an ambush. Some of the men fell back, or were separated. It’s not…it was, perhaps, suspicious. But I was left alone with a handful of my men and a dozen Berkari raiders, at night, in the woods. We fought until…” He paused to gather himself. “I still do not know exactly what happened. I remember a roar, a howling roar. And a rushing sound, as though there were a sudden storm. And then nothing, until I woke up covered in blood, wearing the skin of a dead wolf and surrounded by dead men. Men who had died…unnaturally.”

Lucia watched his great chest shudder and heave, and saw how difficult this was for him. She wanted to reach out and touch him, wanted to comfort him, but somehow knew that this was something he needed to get out on his own.

“My wounds were already healing. I had no memory, except…blood. And, worse,
joy
in blood. Since then, it has slowly gotten worse. The rage, the need for violence and for blood, and for…other animal pursuits, was always building inside me, until there were times when it threatened to break free. You have no idea how much I’ve struggled. How hard…”

A surge of tension rippled through out Cesare’s body, his massive muscles coiling and uncoiling with the terrible things he remembered. “I thought I would lose that struggle,” he said. “And then I found you.”

He opened his eyes, and looked plainly at Lucia.

“You found the book in my library. You know the truth. I am a Wolfenvask now. They say it only finds a home where it is welcome, and I…I was already a beast, in my way. Angry. Alone. Vicious. And you are the only person in the world who can make me better.

“That’s why I couldn’t tell you,” he said. He looked like he wanted to touch her, but was afraid she might break. “I’m so sorry. But you were the only thing that kept it at bay, and I had to know if…”

“If I was a traitor?” she said it for him.

“Yes.”

“I’m not.”

He smiled. “Even if you weren’t, I’d still love you. I had a plan, you know. You might not have liked it much, living in exile in the woods…”

“I’m
not.
”

Cesare grinned again. “I would have thrown you over my shoulder and taken you with me.”

Lucia found herself blushing at the thought. She wouldn’t have minded that, certainly. And she couldn’t deny the pull of her bond with him. It had been growing stronger, the longer they were together, the more they were near each other. To hear him explain…but that wasn’t quite enough.

“Is that all I am to you?” Lucia said. She did her best to keep her voice calm, flat, devoid of need or fear. She wanted him to be able to answer honestly. “It won’t matter if that’s all. If you only need me to keep the…Wolfenvask at bay, I’ll understand. I just want to know.”

Cesare reached out, and pulled her into him, crushing her body to his. “No, Lucia,” he said. “You don’t understand. It’s not your presence, or your body. That won’t suffice. If you ever cease to love me, I am lost. Both man and beast.”

Lucia’s heart pattered madly, and her body flamed to life where it touched his, even in the dank, evil gloom of a prison cell. His hand gripped against her lower back, his chest pressed against hers, and with one finger, he tilted her chin up to face him.

“I am not so arrogant as to think I deserve your love,” he said gravely. “But I will at least show you how deserving of love and faith you are. Avignon,” he called out, “you will take Vintner Lyselle to the townhouse, and call for a physician?”

“Of course, my Lord. Are you…?”

“Yes,” Cesare said, his eyes meeting Lucia’s. “We are going to the Finale Feast.”

C
HAPTER 18

Cesare felt Lucia’s heart beat through her chest and into his. She clung to him, her arms tight around his neck, her face pressed against his skin, as he raced through the winding catacombs. He didn’t know exactly how fast he was going, but he knew it was not a human pace. The walls blurred, and the stale, damp air blew briskly against his skin, and hers. Lucia kept her eyes shut tight.

He’d never felt stronger.

It had been apparent within moments of getting the satchel from Avignon that Lucia did not know her way around the catacombs. How could she? She’d been hesitant, and vaguely frightened, and eventually Cesare had realized that not only was she barefoot, but she couldn’t see in the dark like he could.

Like the Wolfenvask could. It truly felt like a part of him now.

Anything for an excuse to hold her tight, anyway. He would need the strength he derived from her, where they were going, to keep that thing contained.

Within moments, he was gently setting her down and feeling for the familiar patterned depression in the stone. With a great sigh, the rock yielded and slid away to reveal the great banquet hall of the Castel Lupin. It was full of Bacchanal lanterns, hung high and low, twinkling through out the great space below the vast ceiling, and full, too, with the sounds of drunken, expensive joy: the clinking of glasses, the laughter of men who wanted to be noticed, even the hushed chatter of their wives. The banquet table was on the other side of the hall, looking down on the emptiness below, an elevated island for the rich and powerful. No one had yet noticed their arrival through the secret door, not even the guards.

“Cesare…” Lucia said, her voice quiet.

“Don’t be afraid,” Cesare said, taking her hand. “If he tries to harm you, the Wolfenvask will take care of it, believe me.”

“If
who
tries to harm me?”

“My father,” he said, and he led them forward into the great hall.

The silence spread like a disease, beginning at one end of the banquet table and passing from guest to guest. Eventually it reached the Duke, who was sickly slumped in the seat of honor at the center. Even from a distance—they were still only halfway down the center of the hall, moving all the time toward the banquet table—Cesare could see his eyes slowly widen.

“Cesare!” the Duke called, though his voice was weak. Seated at his side, tending to his wine, was the red-faced Captain Rickle, who looked more afraid than offended. His eyes locked on Lucia.

Lucia’s fingers dug into Cesare’s arm. “Trust me,” he said again, and she nodded.

They were close now, and the only things in the entire room that dared to move. Cesare wondered what it must look like to Lucia, completely new to all of this, barefoot and in a barely decent dress: the entire ruling class of J’Amel, their hangers on and the up-and-comers, all gathered with their ambitions at a long, festive banquet table, where they pretended to enjoy each other’s company. With a soldier’s eye, Cesare noted the placement of friends and foes: the Grimaldis were absent, no doubt because of Gaston’s injuries; Rickle was helping his father to his feet in his anger; Jovan sat quietly to the side; Roberto Ramora drank with an air of amused interest. He didn’t much care what happened, politically, so long as Lupin family’s squabbles didn’t affect his fortune. No doubt his money was well hidden.

There were others, but no one who mattered. And here they were, standing in front of his father’s place, staring down the entire establishment. The guards at the edges of the room shifted nervously in their boots.

“Cesare, what is the meaning of this?” His father tried to sound irritated, but Cesare heard the high note of nervousness in his voice. His father did not like the unexpected, especially where his son was concerned.

“The meaning of this, your Grace,” Cesare drawled on the honorific, “is treason.”

The silence was complete.

Rickle cleared his throat. “Your Grace, I must inform you—”

“Shut up, Rickle. You’ll be lucky to survive this.”

The Duke of J’Amel looked past Cesare’s shoulder, to where Cesare knew there would be armed guards, and nodded. He said to his son, “Cesare, you are clearly not yourself—”

Cesare snarled, and felt a flicker of the beast pass through him. It must have played across his face, his body, his eyes, like a shadow, a brief suggestion of something terrible. It stopped his father mid-sentence, and everyone froze at the point of highest tension, reminded that they were still very much made of vulnerable flesh and blood.

“I dare you,” Cesare said, gesturing towards the guards. “I
dare
you. I am no longer a boy, Father. I’m no longer even a man. Do you want to find out what I am? What you helped to make me into?”

Cesare hadn’t known it to be true until he said it, but he knew it now. Without his father, the Wolfenvask would not have found a home in him. Maybe he would have died out there in the mountains without it. Maybe he never would have found Lucia.