Page 2 of Master Wolf
After he was bitten, though, that fascination had begun to feel altogether darker and stranger, a compulsive, almost physical force that was growing more powerful with every hour that passed, keeping pace with the wolf that was gathering strength inside Drew but was yet to appear. He could feel it now, a new, shadowy presence that was both him and not him.
Francis had urged Drew not to fear his wolf.
“It is you. Just another part of you. You should reconcile yourself to it. Trust me, I know—it will do you no good to fight yourself.”
Drew would not shift into the beast till the next full moon, Francis said. In the meantime, though, he was aware of the wolf’s growing influence on him, and his steadily deepening connection to Lindsay. When he’d first woken, several days after being bitten, one of the first things he’d noticed was how attuned he was to Lindsay’s scent and movements. And it was getting worse. He’d started to become aware of Lindsay’s desires now. He felt them like a nudge, or a tug at his sleeve: Lindsay’s yearning for comfort from Drew, for his acceptance, his touch. When those waves of longing reached Drew, he felt an urge to surrender to Lindsay’s wishes that was entirely at war with the horror he’d felt when he’d realised what Lindsay had done to him. What he’d turned Drew into. That instinct to fulfil Lindsay’s desires seemed to be growing, becoming increasingly hard to resist. It felt, terrifyingly, as though his will was being gradually worn away.
For now, Drew was still able to resist the impulse to meet Lindsay’s desires, but from what Francis had told him, that was likely to change. Once his bond with Lindsay had solidified—which would apparently happen after his first shift—his wolf would be strong enough to be commanded its maker.
By Lindsay
Drew needed Lindsay to leave Edinburgh before that happened. Lindsayhadto be on that ship at noon.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Drew gritted his teeth against the pain in his belly and levered himself up, reaching for a dressing gown which he wrapped about himself as he shuffled to his chamber door. Then, thrusting it open, he peered out.
Francis and Wildsmith, who were standing in the middle of the corridor on either side of a large trunk, simultaneously glanced over their shoulders at him.
“Oh dear,” Francis said, his expression dismayed. “Did we wake you?”
“Yes,” Drew said grimly. “You did. I take Lindsay hasn’t come home yet? Where did he go?”
It was only as the words left his mouth that it occurred to him that something might have happened to Lindsay. He hated the way his gut twisted at that thought.
Francis said, “We went to a tavern and he insisted on staying after I left.” He sighed. “He was already in his cups by then and hellbent on continuing—there was no reasoning with him.”
“He was upset,” Wildsmith in a defensive tone, sending Drew a look of pure dislike. Plainly Wildsmith blamed Drew’s angry treatment of Lindsay for his master’s excesses. He turned back to Francis. “Perhaps he got into a brawl?”
Francis only smiled at that. “It’s highly likely,” he said. “If there’s trouble to be had, he’ll be in the middle of it.” He gave a fond chuckle.
Wildsmith opened his mouth—by the look of his expression, to mount some earnest defence of Lindsay—then closed it again when Francis held up a finger and lifted his nose. “And I do believe he may have just found his way home.”
A moment later, the scent that Francis’s sensitive nose had detected reached Drew. Unmistakably Lindsay. There was no name for it. Fresh and subtle, it reminded him of the scent that filled the air after a heavy downpour—though he wouldn’t have realised he knew there was such a scent till Lindsay had burst into this very chamber in a cloud of it, hours after Drew had first awoken from his bite.
A loud and tuneless voice from outside penetrated the sudden silence.
“My thing is my own, and I'll keep it so still—”
The voice rose up from the courtyard outside and drifted through Drew’s bedchamber window.
“Other young lasses may do as they will—”
Drew turned on his heel and strode to the window, Francis and Wildsmith following close on his heels.
“A cunning clockmaker did court me as well—”
Thrusting the shutters open, Drew peered down to see Lindsay swaying in the middle of the courtyard, a flagon of wine held loosely in one hand as he serenaded a row of unimpressed cats sitting on the wall.
“And promised me riches if I’d ring his bell—”
Behind Drew, Francis gave a muffled laugh.
Lindsay’s favourite pink-and-white striped coat was decidedly grubby—had he been rolling in mud?—and his powdered hair stuck up in odd tufts.
His rouge was all worn away.
Lindsay took a hefty swig from the flagon and resumed.
“So I looked at his clockwork, and said with a shock,