Hello, old friend, Vlad thought.I promise I’ll be the best master I know how to be.
A bright flash.
He shut his eyes against it, and when he opened them he lay on his side on the bed, face still tucked into Cicero’s throat, blood in his mouth, and Cicero lay boneless half-atop him, warm and pliant.
Vlad retracted his fangs and licked the wound closed, then carefully withdrew.
Cicero lay with his eye half-closed, dazed, blood smeared on his lower lip. It was harder on the wolf; the wolf had to open his mind and let his master in, bind himself to another living being.
Looking at him, Vlad was filled with peace. And with sorrow – he didn’t want to be responsible for anyone’s death, or heartbreak, or sacrifice. He didn’t deserve it.
He licked his own wound shut and got up on unsteady legs to walk to the ewer and basin.
Cicero whimpered, empty hands opening and closing on the counterpane.
“Shh, shh.” Vlad returned with a wet cloth and knelt on the bed again; gently wiped the blood from Cicero’s mouth and neck, dabbed the sweat that had gathered at his temples. He dropped the cloth to the rug, heedless of the wet patch it would leave, and settled back down, arms going around Cicero, pulling the larger body against his own, so the wolf’s face was tucked into the hollow of his throat, where his pulse and scent where strongest. Cicero’s fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, and he let out a deep, tired sigh, breath tickling at Vlad’s skin.
I have a Familiar, he thought, and closed his eyes. He was asleep long before the candles guttered out.
~*~
Vlad woke early the next morning, when the dawn was gray, incredibly well-rested, wolf fur tickling his nose. Cicero had shifted sometime during the night, and now lay curled up in a ball at Vlad’s head, his face tucked in close enough that hot wolf breath ruffled Vlad’s hair on each exhale.
He cracked his good eye open when Vlad pushed up on an elbow.
“It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”
The wolf made a protesting sound, but happily flopped over into the warm patch Vlad left behind when he got to his feet.
Silvery light filtered through the gap in the shutters as Vlad stretched and yawned his way to the basin, where he splashed his face with last night’s stale water. Chin and lashes dripping, he walked barefoot out into the hall, down across the cool stones to the window that waited at the far end, where a slender figure in a simple dress stood gazing out at the first rays of the sunrise.
“Mother,” he greeted, propping his elbows on the window ledge.
“You smell like a wolf.”
“Hmm. Yes.”
“Sleep well?”
“Like the dead.” He sighed. “You were right.”
“Of course I was.”
“You don’t have to be smug about it.”
“I’m going to be, though.”
This particular window afforded a view of the gardens, the palace wall, and, beyond, a wedge of rolling pastureland that climbed up and up in hills shaped like the humped folds of a quilt, all of it silver and gilt-edged, light spanning the horizon in bold fingertips. The scene looked like something from a painting.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“That’s typically what people do when they gaze out of windows at sunrise.”
“Where does your attitude come from? Your father was always such a sweet man.”
“From you.”
She snorted. “Unfortunately, you’re right.” She sighed. “I’ve been thinking about my place here.”
