Page 99 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

It was just as he said. The men in John’s camp stared down at the newly made wolf, unable to believe their eyes, right before they endured the same.

Sean was a blacksmith’s apprentice and had been a childhood friend of John’s, willing to walk away from a solid work opportunity for the promise of blood and glory. Those strong, callused hands clawed the air as he fell forward, having the presence of mind to yank his clothes off him as his body contorted, then landed on the ground, a man replaced by a wolf.

Mick was the prankster of the group. Hadn’t grown up with the two boys, but he’d started hanging out with them after a night at an inn. Nordred had asked if he wanted to join up and the promise of food and the king’s coin was enough for him. But he wasn’t laughing as the shift hit him. Faster, more immediate now, the process was more like a sigh than a scream, the man becoming a white wolf.

Whatever we were doing, it seemed to be infectious. I would catch a glimpse of them, one after another, until their identities flickered together like a pack of cards being shuffled. Over and over, we reached inside them and released something that had always beaten there.

The heart of Strelae.

Wolf, wolf, wolf, our pack grew and grew and with it our might, our power wiping away all traces of Darcy, of Gael, until we saw this.

That cave under the citadel, the crystals shining in the golden light. The mouth of the cave was a crack in the side of the mountain now, with no sign of Snowmere in sight. A ragged looking woman clad in furs staggered inside the entrance, her hair covered in snow, four men at her heels. They dragged with them the emaciated corpse of a deer gone thin from winter’s thin pickings, then dropped it on the floor when they saw Pepin.

“You are cold?” she asked needlessly. Anyone could see that the lot of them were shivering. “You are struggling to find enough meat on the hunt?” A wolf howl cut through the air from beyond the cave, Pepin’s eyes flicking up in response and when she smiled? Sharp fangs were revealed, which had the small party scuttling back. “You want to be stronger, faster, tougher? Be able to feed yourselves and your pack, immune to winter’s bite?”

The man with the deer pushed forward and then nodded slowly.

“Give me the blood of your kill.”

She held out a knife to the man, the blade made from black obsidian, the handle of caved bone. He snatched it up, examining its make, testing its sharpness against the hair on his arm before looking back at Pepin.

“Cut the deer’s throat and let the blood pour into here.”

She held out a hand that now contained a carved stone bowl. The man took it and went to work without thought, pulling back the deer’s head. The kill had to have been recent, as the body was still pliable and blood spurted freely when he sliced the knife across the neck.

“And me?” The woman pushed forward, eyeing the men warily. “You’ll give this gift to me as well? I tracked the deer. I crept through the trees–”

Her litany of successes was silenced when Pepin’s fingers plunged into the blood, still somewhat warm when they were dragged across her forehead and her cheeks.

“I give the gift to you,” Pepin said, “and you will give it to those that please you. Say these words after me.”

My lips moved then, Gael’s too, reciting words in a language we didn’t understand, yet somehow I knew we’d remember every syllable. We spoke the spell over and over, getting faster and faster, and the shifts happened at the same pace.

We smashed our power into their bodies: one person, two people, three, exploding out, out, out into the crowds camped here. And as we passed, we changed, corrected. In ways I’d never be able to explain, something… shifted inside these men, right before they did exactly that. Howls cut through the evening air, marking the point when the sun began to drop down in the sky.

“That’s it…” Nordred crooned, rubbing his hand up and down my spine. “That’s the way. You’ve given those boys the best chance they’ll have. Now it's time to rest.”

And as if he alone controlled my body, it dropped now, onto the trodden down grass, my eyes staring into the ether as I lay. Only my mouth moved, still reciting those words.

“Darcy…? Darcy!”

I felt their hands land on my skin, jolting each time they touched me. Because whatever it was between us, only they could replenish the energy I’d just used. I knew I’d be alright when a small groan escaped me, my face pressed into Axe’s chest.

“This better not be your sole plan, Nordred the Wise.” Dane spat the man’s title like it was an insult. “We are Darcy’s mates and I’ll be fucking damned if I let you use her this way.”

“She’ll use the power anyway. She’s been pulling from it instinctively since the moment she walked upon Strelan soil. Before this is done, she’ll have demonstrated abilities that will make the exaggerated claims of my life seem like nothing. Darcy is the wolf queen with all of the powers of her forebears of old, and more besides, and you can either help her wield them or get out of the way.”

I closed my eyes then, the golden light finally fading, replaced only by a kind of soothing darkness.

50

“Every man is now two-souled?”

I watched the king consult with his generals and his cluster of lordlings, but it was Dane who replied.

“Every man we checked. They’re new to it, untrained, but—”

I caught the glow of good cheer and self-congratulation in the faces of the king’s men’s, even though they had contributed nothing to our success. Wine flowed freely. Platters of rich foods were ferried in, even as men outside subsisted on soldier’s rations.

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