Page 31 of The Wolf Queen

The sensation was as though light filled me, golden and hazy, in the same way it had illuminated the chapel of the Mother, when we’d passed through the crystal cave beneath the old Snowmere castle. But that part of me that didn’t want to rely on anyone else, that didn’t want to put my faith in someone only to have them hurt me—that innermost part of me that had been taught not to trust and, especially, not to trust those who were supposed to care for me— that part of me didn’t want to count on it, this relief, this radiance, because I wanted it so damn much.

“Try not to scream, lass,” Gael said between gritted teeth as he, too, felt the level of pain I’d been carrying. “Don’t want the duke’s men coming running in here but, damn me…” His fractured eye burned into mine as he stared. “You should’ve told me.”

“And both of us should’ve known.” Weyland climbed onto the bed on the other side, taking my open hand in his, then sliding his other hand in between his brothers’ in the pile. Dane joined us, not to be left out, moving behind me and gently placing my head in his lap.

“We’ve hurt you, dragging you into this mess,” Dane said, stroking my face. “And I’ll go to my grave regretting each insult, each pang. But, Darcy, if we are the cause of that pain, we deserve to be the ones to make things right.” He glanced at Gael. “You can heal her?”

“Can’t stop from doing that,” he replied through gritted teeth. “Something’s pulling at my power. Bite down, lass, because this will hurt.”

I’d seen women in childbirth, heard their screams, watched with fear, frankly, as they gnashed their teeth, but it was only now that I understood what they were doing. The pain had to go somewhere, and for the ever-restrained women of Grania, that meant it broke through societal conventions and came rushing out, just like mine did. I took Gael’s advice and my scream was muffled through my clenched teeth. But it was choked off, because, although the pain spiked unbearably, it was there and then gone again, thank the goddess, and my whole body went limp.

I was healed.

No more blood seeped from me, there was no more ache inside. Part of me mourned it, because of what it meant. As I sobbed out my breaths, each one growing slower and slower as the relief set in, this was our final mourning of a child that might have been. With the pain went the little one’s potential, this moment between us all the only funeral which that small scrap of life would get. My men seemed to sense that too, pulling me into a great tangle of an embrace, touching me, caressing me, not to rouse but to settle, and finally we all dropped off into sleep.

“Darcy.”

I woke some time later at the sound of my name, the moonlight streaming in through the windows to illuminate her. She smiled, a much softer thing than in my dreams, even as the moonbeams pierced her form. My mother stood before the window, a ghostly presence. “Come.”

Chapter20

You might imagine I would’ve woken my mates at the sight of my mother’s ghost, but I didn’t. When I fought my way free of their grip, they just snorted and then rolled back into the space I left, dreaming on. It helped add to the feeling of unreality I experienced as I padded closer to her.

“Mother…?”

I barely remembered her. She’d died so young, trying to birth my brother, but I remembered this. A longing to feel her gaze on me. Soft hands that drew me closer. That when I’d been pressed against her body I’d felt like it was the safest place in the world and perhaps that’s why I moved closer. She was there and not there, all at the same time, and somehow that broke my heart in two.

“Mother.”

“My girl…” She reached out for me, then snatched her hands back, seeming to realise that we could never touch. What she was, what I was, were antithetical to each other and that just drove the knife of pain deeper into my chest. “I knew you would grow up tall and strong, no matter what your father threw at you. I knew…” She looked far too young, I realised, as she took a step closer. And, contrary to all my memories, she now had to look up at me. I was taller than her, stronger, too, I was willing to bet. She nodded as though in response to my thought, then she spoke again. “I knew you would be the one.”

“The one what?” People kept making vague pronouncements and gifting me visions of goddesses that walked amongst us, causing chaos. If I had a chance to demand answers from the past, I would. “Onewhat, Mother?”

“The one to free us,” she said with a smile that seemed to pain her. “The one to save us.”

“You can’t be serious,” I told her, then moderated my voice when I heard one of my mates shifting on the bed. “Free us from what? Save us from the Reavers?” I shuddered when I saw those bastard things clawing their way up the walls of Snowmere, then the memory of the refugee woman tossing her dead baby towards me hit me again. “Save us from Callum?”

She seemed to fade just then, her stricken expression all that remained until she came back into view.

“Don’t talk about him, not here.” Her eyes searched mine. “He’s not what matters. This does.” And without explanation, the ghost walked towards the bedroom door, going through it so I was forced to twist the knob and slip out into the hall after her.

Houses areeerie places after dark, especially big empty places like this mansion. The maids had loved to terrify me with tales of the ghosts that haunted the keep, focussing mostly on the ones about the family whose position had been usurped by my forebears. My great-grandfather had done a favour to the king of his day, revealing the impending treachery of the then Duke of Elverston. The northern estates had always been difficult for the king to maintain influence over, being so isolated from the southern court. The former Duke of Elverston had started fomenting dissent amongst disgruntled lords and wolf cultists who’d been sent to the border to protect it, finding he had a sympathetic ear everywhere he turned.

Except in the case of my great-grandfather.

A word in the king’s ear from my forebear and the nascent rebellion was crushed before it even got started. The man who had been duke was executed for his crimes as were all of his fellow conspirators. It was made clear then what fate the new northern lords could look forward to if they rose again, but… Threats alone are not enough to quell a rebellious spirit.The north protects and the south does fuck all: I’d heard my father’s men say that too many times not to remember it, and I wondered what that might mean now.

“Come, Darcy,” my mother’s ghost said, leading me deeper into the house.

The only sound was the soft pad of my feet, the occasional creak of an old house settling. The sudden squeak of a door opening was startling in the quiet. I ducked into the recess of a doorway, some instinct making me hide myself so that I could see who else was roaming through the corridors at night. I held my breath as Rake appeared, but he didn’t show any sign of noticing either me or my mother as he glanced quickly around and then stealthily crept down the hallway.

To where?

And why was he here at all? And, more to the point, why was he housed in one of the Duke’s best rooms? If he was an ordinary messenger, he’d be in the servants’ quarters… But nothing about him added up. In fact, all the evidence seemed to point to something else altogether. The king, like most leaders, had a spy network and I thought of that as I peered around the doorway after him. But even that didn’t make sense. If indeed he was a spy, anyone who saw him being ushered into such a fine room would have questions about why a man such as him was being raised above his station. And that would do nothing except put him in danger of being exposed.

So what was he?

“That’s right, this way,” my mother murmured as I continued along the hallway, sticking to the thick carpet runner down the centre of the corridor, using it to muffle my footfalls. I followed him, her, down, down, down one flight of stairs, then another, going from the top floor of the house to the living area, then down further. Past the kitchens to where the cellar door stood open. I shrank back again as Rake turned around, looking a little more carefully for witnesses this time. When he didn’t spy any, he turned back to the dark doorway, taking a big, heavy gilt key from his pocket before disappearing into the bowels of the cellar.

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