Page 13 of Wolf's Return
“Why have you returned, if not to speak of these things?”
His gaze held firm, but within his eye, shadows shifted. Again, that sense of foreboding.
What am I not seeing?
Curse her second sight. She let the feeling go. Forcing a vision never worked. All she could hope was it would become clearer in time. She gathered up her book and slipped beneath the covers of the bed.
Constance sank into its softness with a sigh. A mattress stuffed with feathers, not straw. She pressed her hand into it, awed by the downy lightness. “It is so soft.” She plumped a pillow, marveling at the smooth suppleness of it before propping it against the headboard. It was as heavenly as the mattress. She closed her eyes and leaned into it.
Do not get used to this, Constance. It is but temporary.
Soon enough she would be back in her humble cottage, sleeping on her hard cot with her straw mattress and her patched blanket, and this would all seem like nothing more than a beautiful dream.
Constance opened her eyes and reached for her grimoire. She flicked through it, past recipes for potions and pages of herbal lore, until she was near the back of the book. At the section devoted entirely to the wolves of Langeais, where the curling secret script of her ancestors replaced Latin.
She ran her hands over the page, written long before she was born. Curls and shapes danced across it. It was childlike in quality—letters with tails, repeated patterns. Indecipherable to anyone who did not know it. The perfect way to hide secrets. Twins, her mother had told her, had created this language. A secret language between the two of them. For years, it had remained little more than that. As time went on, and the knowledge entrusted to the coven became too important to be forgotten, and too dangerous to be scribed in the language of the church, it became the secret script of the wolves. Of the Black Wolf.
Each generation had one. Indeed, it had all begun with a single black wolf.
Constance turned the pages, skimming over the legend until she came to the description. Dark hair, dark eyes and a strong nose. Like Seigneur Gaharet. It seemed they bred true in the d’Louncrais family. She glanced over her book at Monsieur D’Artagnon. At least, one of them had. Monsieur D’Artagnon had his mother’s eyes. Dame Elise d’Louncrais was not one easily forgotten. With her bright copper hair, unblemished skin, blue eyes and regal demeanor, to a young Constance, she had seemed like a queen.
She ran her calloused fingers through her own hair, the color of straw. That she was entertaining a d’Louncrais finding her appealing seemed ridiculous. With her different colored eyes, her peasant’s hands and sun-browned skin, she was the furthermost thing from an ideal mate for a d’Louncrais. She had only to look at the others—copper-haired Kathryn, cultured Erin with her astounding knowledge of the past and the future, or Rebekah, with her green-streaked hair and colorful skin markings, so exotic and bold—to know she was but pale in comparison.
She rubbed a hand over the woolen bed covers. But here she was. In Monsieur D’Artagnon’s room. In hisbed. And therehewas, sitting by the brazier, watching her.
The wolf snarled. A divide as wide as the county gaped between them, placing them at odds. She had a task to complete. One, from the stiffness of his shoulders and the determined set of his brow, he would do everything he could to thwart. Constance dropped her gaze to her grimoire. Something in here had to give her the answer.
D’Artagnon watched and waited. Constance’s eyelids drooped. Her book dipped once, then again, before slipping from her fingers as she drifted off to sleep. When her breathing deepened, he slunk over and leaped up beside her. Perhaps now he could uncover what it was about this woman that fascinated him so. Or forestall any plans she might have for him.
He sniffed at the book and contemplated destroying it. No, the book held purpose for the healer, was precious to her. Leather-bound, with pages of vellum. How had peasants afforded such a luxury? A gift, perhaps? From one of his ancestors? It was clear her family had a connection with his own. That his father had died before passing on this knowledge was but another strike against his nemesis.
The book had fallen open, and he eyed the familiar script scrawled across the pages. The same script as on the pack’s sacred amulets. This, however, was far more complex than the simple lines his father had forced D’Artagnon to memorize when he had presented him with his amulet. A simple spell to recite when in mortal danger, to bring them back to their alpha. He had not needed to read it, nor have knowledge of the language, merely recite its verse as he smeared his blood into the amulet’s grooves.
D’Artagnon still missed the weight of his amulet around his neck, though he had lost his long ago. In battle. Cut from around his neck before he could utter a word. His nemesis had seen to that. Before he could recite the spell, fall at his brother’s feet and reveal who had killed their father and mother. The man who had cut him down.
Whether fate or luck had intervened that day, D’Artagnon neither knew nor cared. But it had. In the form of a chevalier from the opposing army. Attacked from behind, his father’s murderer had turned to block a killing blow and D’Artagnon had crawled into the forest, shedding his armor and shifting form, determined to survive. Vowing he would one day have his vengeance. It had burned within him, warming him through the icy clutches of winter during the long years of his self-imposed exile. It had kept him alive.
Constance shifted in her sleep, curling on her side, her face softening in repose. The cares and worries, the wariness, the aching loneliness that tainted her scent slipped away. She sighed and smiled. Whatever she dreamed, it was pleasing to her.
She sighed again. This time, a slight frown creased her forehead. “That which you think you want was never meant to be yours.”
He stilled. Was she talking to him? Her eyes remained closed. Part of her dream, perhaps?
“Whatismeant for you is far greater reward”—her voice firmed, and she grimaced, as though the words pained her—“if you have but the courage and the room in your heart—”
His hackles rose. It was eerie listening to her talk as though she were conscious.
“—to make the right choice.” Her face smoothed out, her last words fading to a whisper, and she rolled away from him.
He shook his fur. The woman spoke in riddles. Mayhap her words were nothing more than a product of a strange dream.Not meant for him, despite the chill that had gripped his bones. He turned his attention back to the book and, with his nose, he flipped through page after page of the curling script. He had no hope of reading whatever secrets it held. Not without the key to a language his pack had long forgotten.
He nudged the book shut and pushed it away, stepping toward the edge of the bed. Constance shivered beneath the covers. Was she cold? The coals in the brazier glowed, giving off ample heat. Was it something in her dream? The beginnings of a nightmare? D’Artagnon had had more than enough experience with those. He eyed the floor beside the brazier. The spot where he had intended to sleep.
Constance moaned. Indecision burned through him. She called to him, to his wolf. Never had he felt a pull so strong.
D’Artagnon turned away from the brazier and curled up on the bed beside her, laying his head across the leather-bound book and his body snug against hers, giving what little comfort he could offer. Perhaps he would gain comfort from her presence, too. Some relief from his own nightmares. As he closed his eye and drifted into a light sleep, it was not the usual visions of his enemy’s vicious and twisted face, his sword arm raised, that flitted into his mind. Rather, the outline of Constance’s body visible beneath a thin chemise as she washed. The curve of her hip, her tapered waist and her glorious golden tresses falling over her shoulder. The little healer, Constance, calling to him even in his sleep.
Chapter Seven
