“Thank you, Malik. Will that be all?”
“Yes, your grace.” He took his leave with a bow.
When he was gone, and his footfalls had faded, Fenrir let out a deep breath. “That one knows. He doesn’t know what, but he knows something.”
“Yes, well, I can’t kill him just yet, not while we need his men.” Vlad tipped his head. “Though, eventually, I think I might have to.”
~*~
He woke to howling.
Despite all his restless doubt and worry – and probably because of three cups of wine – Vlad had managed to not only fall asleep, but stay asleep. So the howl dragged him out of the depths, launching him into sudden, frantic wakefulness. He opened his eyes to a room made dark by closed shutters, close and cold, humid body heat trapped beneath the blankets and furs heaped over him, and Cicero beside him.
The wolf had been sleeping on his back, one arm flung up over his head. The most restful Vlad had seen him since their reunion. He jerked awake now, and grabbed wildly for Vlad, finding his arm, holding tight. He pulled a little, an instinct.Stay here so I can protect you.
Vlad shook him off and slipped from bed. The fire had burned down to coals, and the stones felt like ice under his bare feet. He didn’t care. He rushed to the window and threw back the shutters, letting in a gust of sharp autumn air, deeply cold and scented with leaf mold from the forest.
Another howl. A second. A third. They could have been regular wolves, hunting a stag by moonlight. But they were close; they sounded right outside the walls. And Vlad didn’t believe in coincidences.
“Get dressed.” He went to his wardrobe. “We’ll take Fen and handle it ourselves. Maybe it’s nothing.”
Vlad felt alert, anxious, but it was nothing compared to the energy rolling off his Familiar as he tugged on breeches and opened up the chest at the foot of the bed. Cicero vibrated; palpable emotion that warred between nervous and excited and furious, none of it comparing to the choking sense of responsibility. Vlad felt his presence, a weight at the back of his mind, the assurance of protection, and devotion, and unconditional, animal love.
With quick, though reverent movements, Cicero drew his pelt from the chest and unfurled it. Slung it over his shoulders and did the clasp; pulled the hood up over his head.
It was an old, old tradition, wolves wearing their pelts to battle. He’d asked Cicero about it when he was only four or five, curious. Wolves could shift and fight without it; they didn’t need it. It was, in essence, just a bit of old dead skin and hair. It was to honor the wolf that birthed them into immortality, Cicero had explained.
It also looked damned unnerving.
Vlad buckled his father’s sword to his hip. “Ready?”
They didn’t have to get Fen, it turned out; he met them on the stairwell, his own pelt a rusty red that nearly matched his hair. He looked monstrous in the dim half-light of moon and shadows. Vlad caught a faint glimmer of metal in his hand – his massive battle axe.
“Vlad.” He sounded eager.
“I know, I know, lead the way.”
There were guards posted, soldiers who’d think nothing of a few howling wolves. They went out through the kitchens to avoid them, slipping silently out through Eira’s gardens.
The howling had stopped. Vlad had time to spot a long line of shadow – of rope – trailing down from the outer wall, and then he smelled them.
He’d always liked the scent of wolves; each unique, but all bearing a certain earthy warmth, a musk, a hint of pine needles and forest, tree sap caught in fur. Butthese– these wolves had tracked and helped to kill his father, a phenomenon he still couldn’t comprehend. And so this scent now, not of natural wolves, but of werewolves, lifted all the small hairs at the back of his neck.
He growled, and his own wolves answered it.
“They’re here,” Vlad said as they fell into a triangular formation, blades ready. “Can you scent them? Is it them?”
Cicero’s growl deepened, low and vicious. His voice wasn’t quite human anymore. “It’s them. I’m going togutthem.”
Three on three. Vlad liked those odds. And there was no need to go hunting; their prey came to them.
A hedge rustled, and a gray-brown blur leaped over a line of boxwoods, wet fangs flashing ivory in the moonlight. They’d climbed over as humans, and then shifted.
Vlad side-stepped, and brought his sword up in a short, forceful swing.
He missed.Damn it!
Fur brushed his cheek as the wolf sailed past him…and landed just behind Cicero. Vlad turned in time to see fangs sink through thin cloth and then flesh, just above the top of Cicero’s boot. He raised his sword for another strike.
