The Wolf Esprit: Lykanos Chronicles 3
Chapter Twenty-Two

“You’re not listening to me.”

My mind was far gone as Maximillian described what would happen during the night of my transformation. We strolled in the vineyard as he moved from plant to plant, searching for signs of infection or rot. I carried a pail to catch those diseased leaves or fruit he cut from the vines.

“Forgive me,” I answered, releasing my thoughts to focus on his words.

“Where are you?”

A flash of erotic memory intruded, though I didn’t want him to see it. The cold sharpness of Tumas’s whisper as he promised to kill me if I ever said something followed. It was a mixture of extremes that ate at my senses and ached in my stomach.

Maximillian sucked on his teeth in recognition. A biting agitation caused him to withdraw for a moment. When he’d gathered himself, he returned and took my face in his hand to run his affectionate thumb along my jaw.

“I’m unsure of what to say to you.”

“It’s nothing, Monsieur.”

I didn’t want him to know. I never wanted to discuss the matter with anyone.

“I’m not sure what to tell you. A lover has never threatened me to keep their secret after…”

“I promise, it’s nothing.”

The pained expression on his face lightened. “But how can you say it’s nothing? It absorbs you while we discuss the most important thing that’ll ever happen to you. I’m not prattling on about the weather.”

I sighed, feeling the tension in my shoulders as I released my breath. Another memory flash took me: Tumas’ hands around my throat as he threatened me.

“Mon Dieu,” Maximillian whispered to himself. “What do you intend to do?”

I stared in confusion, uncertain of his meaning. He wouldn’t want me to expose the event, surely. Did he expect me to approach the stable master to discuss his son’s behavior?

“I mean, what will you do when your wolf is free?”

Again, I stared with confusion.

“Your wolf will never tolerate your being threatened. Don’t you realize I just forced myself to keep from transforming? Hasn’t she explained to you how the wolf is nearly impossible to control when we perceive a threat? If I’d been there when he said those words to you, if I’d so much as heard violence in his tone, the boy would be dead now.”

I scowled at Maximillian’s statement, unprepared for such a barbaric sentiment from the man.

“I want nothing to happen to him,” I raised my voice. “Forget it all. Please, monsieur. Why must you make more of it?”

Maximillian let out a sharp laugh under his breath.

“I mean it. Please let it go. I’ll handle it in my way.”

I thought I might cry if he said anything more.

I’d been so shaken by Tumas’ threat that my legs trembled when I rose from his bed.

“You’re being absurd,” Maximillian returned. “You haven’t the slightest idea of what we’re talking about if you think you’ll have such self-control. That skill takes years to master—decades for most. It still takes all my effort to rein my wolf’s advance. It’s not a matter we can ignore.”

I withdrew in a huff and stood with my back to him, my blood rising.

“I must send him away, Esprit,” he said at last. “For his sake.”

I woke from a nightmare the next morning.

Tumas had gone further in the dream than he had in his room. He’d pressed down on my larynx, and I’d panicked, unable to breathe or withdraw from his iron grasp. Despite the darkness of his room by the stables, I’d seen the angry threat in his eyes.

I fought to keep my mind from replaying the moment again and again, but it was of no use. The inky blackness of my tower bedroom brought no relief. As safe as I was here by myself, fear consumed me. So much so that I sat up in bed instinctively, placing my perspired back against the headboard to draw my knees to my chest. The defensive posture offered little comfort, and even in the dark, I felt foolish holding myself for protection against nothing but a memory.

To be affected in this way filled me with a painful embarrassment. It had been days since Maximillian dismissed his stable master from the fortress—his only solution to save Dumas from certain death. I’d experienced nothing so contradictory as the cauldron of emotion the young man produced in me—the intense arousal of lust coupled at once with debilitating fear. And despite how I insisted I would deal with the situation alone, it relieved me to watch their departure from the fortress.

But that relief was of little comfort in the middle of the night as I sat up in bed to hold my shivering body, drenched in sweat.

A small knock came from the door, and I looked to see a faint glow at the frame edges.

‘Esprit?’

The soundless door opened. A single candle pierced the dark to reveal the Baroness standing in her dressing gown.

“Come,” I said, though she’d already advanced and drawn the door closed behind her.

Crossing the room, she placed her candlestick on the side table and sat on the bed beside me. She tugged at my arm to draw out my hand, raising it to her lips to kiss sweetly. Despite not wanting her to baby me, and despite my embarrassment, the gesture comforted me more than I expected. I couldn’t help but relax when she held my hand against her warm cheek.

“That will be the last time,” she whispered.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because after tomorrow, you’ll never have another nightmare as long as you live.”

I scowled at the woman but received her intended meaning. The transformation would mean more than the gift’s raw strength.

“You’ll never feel fear in the same way. Even your dreams will cast in a different color,” she said.

“What were your nightmares about before you changed?”

Gabrielle went silent, and I felt her mind ponder how to best answer.

“Very much the same as yours, I expect,” she sighed. “The violence of men. The feeling of terrified helplessness while they beat and raped me. To this day, my memories of those events remain sharp and vivid. But that clarity no longer includes the fear that once drowned them in pain. My dreaming mind would change the outcome of those events. My wolf wouldn’t tolerate my fears, even in my dreams. And if I ever awoke with my heart racing, it was because of the violence I dealt those evil men while I dreamed of their cruelties.”

I considered the idea of controlling my nightmares in such a fashion.

“Yes, it was of great comfort,” she said, reaching my conclusion a moment before my mind could. “And in time, the dreams stopped altogether. Too much filled my waking life to allow those memories any time to burden my dreams.”

“It feels too strange to imagine such freedom,” I whispered.

Gabrielle reached softly to push my mop of hair back from my forehead, whipping the sweat from my brow. It was such a maternal gesture that I retreated into childhood, remembering the hundred times my mother would do such a thing. I wanted to be held, comforted by the affection a boy seeks from his mother while others aren’t watching. I saw a flash of her, the woman I’d placed out of my mind as if she were dead. But I closed the door on the past at once, unwilling to indulge in her memory.

No sooner had I thought this than Gabrielle crawled into the bed beside me to place her arm over my shoulder and draw my head to her chest.

“After tomorrow, you’ll know nothing else but that freedom,” she whispered and kissed my forehead.

“Are they all right?” I asked in time, the image of my mother and Thérèse slipping from my mind.

Gabrielle didn’t answer, but she kissed my temple again.

Less than a month had passed since I’d last seen my family, but that stretch felt like forever now that I sat with her arms around me.

“Do you think I could replace them if I left here in the morning?”

“I’m not sure,” she answered. “Do you know where they planned to be? The next stops of their tour after Dijon?”

In truth, I didn’t know. My human father and uncle toured the country in cycles, landing in the same towns again each year, but the order of our visits was not set in stone. A dozen things might affect their decision, from weather to war to illness or economic change.

But it didn’t matter. It was a pointless thought before I closed that door forever. I’d already made my decision, and I wouldn’t insult my new family with thoughts of regret.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said aloud, feeling deeper shame that I’d asked such a question.

Gabrielle’s only response was to pull me tighter to her.