Page 79 of Master Wolf

Drew’s throat worked with emotion. Eventually he managed to say brokenly, “Francis is dead—Duncan too—and there’s Wolfsbane all over them. Don’t let her walk in there unprepared.”

Wynne went white. “Leave it to me,” he said shortly. “Take Lindsay upstairs. The first door is my bedchamber—go there.” He turned to go back downstairs, then stopped, looking back at Drew. “And Drew—”

“Yes?”

“Please. Listen to your wolf.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Drew’s armswere trembling with exhaustion by the time he laid Lindsay down on Wynne’s bed.

Lindsay didn’t move or stir at all. The only signs of life he displayed were occasional wheezy breaths. The bruises and dried blood on his face from Duncan’s beating were livid against his chalk-white skin.

Drew went to the low, banked fire in the grate and lit a taper from it.

“You are not to die,” he told Lindsay shakily as he used the taper to light the candles in the sconce beside the bed.

Lindsay did not answer and Drew studied him, feeling entirely helpless. Lindsay was so still. So weak. Was his wolf reallygonethen? Gone forever?

Had the Wolfsbane killed Lindsay’s wolf?

Hell, the Wolfsbane. Well, he could start by getting that off at least.

Drew unfastened Lindsay’s dressing gown with quick fingers, pushed it off his shoulders and carefully extricated his bandaged left arm before going in search of scissors. Raking through the drawers of Wynne’s dressing table, he finally settled for a small pocketknife which he set down on the mattress before filling the washing bowl with water from the ewer and taking that over to the bed too.

Working quickly, he sawed through the stiff bandages with the small blade, scraped off the dry remnants of the poultice, bundled all the waste up and set it aside. Then he washed Lindsay’s arm, trying to be as gentle as possible.

Lindsay’s arm wasgreynow. The last time he’d seen it with the bandages off, the sores had been red and weeping. As awful as that had been, it was worse now, the sores blackish and wizened, and the flesh dull and waxy. Dead-looking.

Panic filled Drew. He had to get whatever poison remained off of Lindsay. Pressing his lips into a thin, determined line, he fetched fresh water and washed the arm again, and again twice more, his ministrations less gentle now. It hardly seemed to matter given Lindsay did not react. But still, Drew winced when he rubbed at the raw sores, muttering words of brisk encouragement.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I daresay you have overcome worse in Duncan’s dungeon. Setting your own bones, you said—my God!”

As he worked, Drew was distantly aware of the others in the house—of Marguerite’s grief-stricken wailing. Of voices and activity—but he could spare none of his attention for it. His universe had shrunk to this room, this bed, this man.

Setting the water aside, Drew carefully dried Lindsay’s arm and thought what to do next.

Listen to your wolf, Wynne had said. Back in Lindsay’s bedchamber, Drew had felt closer to his wolf than ever before, filled with a strange certainty he already missed. But he’d lost that again, after talking with Wynne and getting Lindsay settled in this room. His human self had taken over, rationally deciding what to do.

Perhaps the wolf knew better.

For decades Drew had fought his wolf as though it was his enemy. Perhaps he should have put his trust in it. Let it guide him in those matters where human rationality was of no earthly use—like now. If there was anything that could be done to restore Lindsay’s wolf, or at least ease his suffering, Drew’s wolf would surely know better than Drew himself. The wolf had given way to Drew earlier, when he’d needed to be human. Now Drew would do the same.

Rising from the bed, he settled himself on the floor on his hands and knees, closed his eyes and tried to open himself to his wolf, the way he did at full moons. This time though, he didn’t do it reluctantly, as though waiting for a wild, unpredictable beast that might bite him at any moment to approach. This time, he opened himself fully and invited the wolf to come forward. Opened his heart and begged it for help. And when it came to him, it did so with a quiet grace, not trying to push him aside and wrest control, but melding with him, the two of them occupying the same heart, the same soul.

Drew had never felt closer to his wolf than he did in this moment. In truth, he had resented it since his very first shift. If he’d been asked before this night what he would do to be rid of it he’d have replied “Anything”. But now, perhaps for the first time, he was conscious that his wolf was not some separate entity to be feared and resented but was fully part of him. Another aspect of Drew himself.

It took a while to complete the shift. His body had been through so much already this night and he desperately needed food and rest—neither of which he had time to indulge in—but eventually, he was wolf again.

Jumping onto the bed, he padded over to Lindsay’s left side and nosed up and down the length of his arm, whining softly. He began to lick it then, bathing the poor, tormented flesh with his tongue. While his sensitive nose assured him that the poison had all been washed away, the scent of deeply rooted sickness was distressing. Even worse was the complete absence of any sign at all of the wolf within. Drew hunted for any tiny thread of scent, nosing Lindsay all over, but there was nothing.

In despair, he lifted his head, arching his throat to howl—and then he felt it.

It began as an uncomfortable, twisting sensation in his chest that seemed to swell and spread uncommonly fast, licking up his throat and along each of his limbs like flames. His teeth began to ache with a pulsing need to bite. His intent gaze turned to Lindsay’s pale throat and he slowly stalked closer, staring down at the tender, exposed flesh.

There was a storm inside him. A swirling vortex that was tearing him apart inside. If Lindsay died, his heart was going to splinter into a hundred thousand pieces, scattering him to the winds.

He had to… bite.