The Wolf Esprit: Lykanos Chronicles 3
Chapter Sixty-Three

I didn’t know what to do as we left the Doge’s palace. I considered screaming at Duccio, raising my fists to reproach him, but I did nothing. What could I say? What would matter to someone who breathed with such fearless treachery? I never felt more apart from him when he struck Guccia. Not even when he violated me. His behavior was that of a complete stranger, and I separated myself from him as we left Saint Mark’s Square for home.

I didn’t know where I was going, but my feet led me west of their own accord.

Was I foolish to think we were as one? I’d fretted like an imbecile for weeks, caught up in the delusion of my hurt. But I could see none of it now: Duccio’s sensual affections, his deliverance of my tortured body to safety, nor his ability to shield me from the world. Instead, I saw only his reckless betrayal and refusal to account for his failings. It did not matter that I’d forgiven him or why. I no longer felt I knew anything about him.

My feet carried me through the city as if they knew the way. But it wasn’t until I arrived at the Campiello San Vidal and saw the Palazzo Adelchi that I realized what I meant to do.

A footman bid me to wait when I rang the bell. I would please wait for the majordomo to attend to me. After several anxious minutes, the man appeared to inquire about my unexpected appearance. After accepting my deep concern for her well-being, I learned his mistress was not at home.

“But where is she?” I pressed with impatience.

“She left early this morning,” the steeled man answered. “I’m afraid I do not know when she will return.”

Before leaving, I extracted the man’s promise that he would deliver a message to the Princess the moment she returned.

I walked through the city in a daze. The fatigue of my tired body, desperate for sleep, wasn’t strong enough to keep my feet from moving. But I walked aimlessly, paying no attention to where I headed. I crossed the Ponte dell’Accademia bridge and wandered for an hour. I was only when I turned onto the Calle del Tentor and stopped just outside the Campo San Giacomo da l’Orio that my feet stopped in favor of a small bench under the shade of a massive tree.

The minutes passed just as quickly as the pedestrians who pushed their way through the market square. I was at a loss, unable to take another step or escape the decision before me.

What choice was there?

I would go. I would abandon it all. My soul be damned, I would leave this all behind me.

“Signore?” A man’s voice pulled me from my daze.

“Yes?” I looked to see a stout figure standing only two feet away, and I frowned at him.

“You are the Cavaliere Roussade?” A foreign accent tinged the man’s voice. He sounded like the Genoese guards that drove us to Duccio’s home after fleeing Chastain.

I only nodded in reply.

The stout man looked around us and remained quiet until a small group of pedestrians moved past. Then he signaled for me to follow him down the small street I’d arrived on so we might speak with greater privacy.

Not thinking, I followed his request. When he turned into an open doorway, I paused at the threshold. From behind, a pair of hands shoved me inside the building. Before I could get my baring, a burlap bag dropped over my head, obscuring the dim light of the entryway, and a powerful blow struck me from behind. When I could steady my feet to reach for the hood, I realized my hands and arms were bound with rope.

At what point I lost consciousness, I could not have said for certain. But it took me time to realize that the darkness my eyes opened to was the product of the burlap sack on my head. My arms were still bound, but as my aching limbs moved, I realized I lay on a soft mattress.

“Who’s there?” I groaned.

My question went unanswered. My head swam, and I felt like I was falling. Even as I lay on the enfolding softness of the mattress, I felt as if the world was moving.

A door opened nearby, its hinges groaning, and three pairs of footsteps passed along the floorboards beside the bed.

Hands took hold of my shoulders and raised my torso. My legs fell over the edge of the bed and landed with a thud. With a start, someone pulled the burlap sack off my head, which slid roughly against my jaw.

It was a bed I sat upon, and in the dim candlelight, I saw we were in a small room of roughly sawn walls. With us were three men. The first was the stout bastard who’d lured me into this room. On the other end was another menacing soul who glared at me.

“What do you want? Why have you brought me here?”

I felt my skin tingle. My wolf was awake and pushed through my exhaustion to meet their glares.

“You are safe,” the third man said.

I looked at him, confused and unable to account for his voice. He reached to remove his hat, and I saw Guccia’s face peer down at me with concern.

Even in breeches and boots, wearing a man’s coat with her hair pulled back, her voice and delicate blue eyes betrayed her disguise.

I said nothing in response. My eyes struggled to focus, fidgeting to move about as if to capture all the details of her image.

“I’ve taken a chance on you,” she said. Guccia fell silent after her remark, and I could only stare back with confusion. She stepped forward and reached to free my hands from the rope that tied them behind my back.

“Why are we here?” I uttered in time.

She smoothed my hair back, dropping her lips to kiss my forehead.

“I know you’ve lied to me,” she said. “I sensed it from the first day I found you in Father’s apartments. Out of anger for what he and Father did, I went there, desperate to unleash my fury. But then you were so sweet to me when I didn’t deserve your kindness. And so… I let it pass.

I said nothing in reply, but I felt myself on the edge of tears. It was more than my exhaustion or the pounding taking my head.

“I knew you only meant to protect him,” she continued. “And then I knew why you protected him.”

I dropped my eyes as she held my face. I couldn’t look at her, ashamed of how I’d failed her. Nothing filled me with more shame than how I’d stood by like a coward as Duccio struck her to the floor, not even replaceing the courage when we stood before the Prince.

Again, she kissed my lips and slipped beside me, her arms holding me to her like a sibling. More likely, like a child.

“I’ve made a choice I cannot unmake,” she whispered. “I’m leaving here forever.”

A shadow of sobriety took my incredulous eyes, and I looked at her with disbelief.

“I treasure you, my love,” she continued. “You stayed when I begged you not to abandon me. I’ll never forget what you sacrificed to stay by my side. So, allow me to end both of our sufferings. Join me. Become my new family, along with these loyal wolves who delivered you here to me.”

“Join you? Where do you mean to go?”

“As far away as our sails will take us. Across the sea to the deserts of Northern Africa. Or further, across the great ocean from Europe to the new world. Further, if we must.”

I looked past Guccia to realize the inky black behind her was a window to the night. I rose to my feet to approach it and felt the swell of the sea. We were aboard a ship surrounded by black waters lit only by the fleeting refractions of the stars.

“You can’t mean this,” I said. “We’ll never escape.”

“We can and we will,” she answered. “We are already hours from Venice, headed south into the Mediterranean.”

“No, we cannot,” I said, my resolve and volume increasing. “He will replace us, don’t you see?”

Guccia dismissed the two lycan with a simple word from her mind.

“He cares nothing about me,” Guccia answered when they were gone, her face relaxing as if my debate were without merit.

“He loves me!” I declared, the words echoing through the pounding in my head.

Guccia only stared at me in silence until she rose and approached me, looking deep into my eyes with stark sincerity.

“He doesn’t love you, Esprit. He owns you, don’t you remember?”

I felt my bearings abandon me. Her words were simple and to the point, yet I couldn’t answer them. You belong to me. He’d growled the words in my ear the night he’d raped me. His words were a final omission, a truth delivered only when he’d stolen the last of my faith in him and our love. The night he destroyed all of my self-dignity.

“Yes,” I said, broken to hear the truth from my lips. “And that’s how I know he’ll never let me go.”

Guccia reached to wipe at my tears.

“Duccio will not survive the morning,” she said.

I blinked and shook my head. She spoke nonsense. Few knew better than Guccia of what Duccio was capable.

“In the morning, they’ll replace my savaged remains in my bed, my face disfigured by the talons of a wolf. Upon the corpse’s hand will rest my signet ring. My maids will report hearing an argument outside my door. Duccio visited my room several times, often remaining there until the dawn, and my house servants know it.”

I stared in silence as she admitted this to me, feeling the tinge of pain again, the ache of betrayal that had held my soul hostage for months.

“They are mortal,” she continued, unassuaged by my trembling chin. “Father will know they speak the truth. They will replace my diary and show him my lamented entries. He will read how I knew Duccio was lying to him, and how I was terrified of exposing the truth.”

Guccia turned from me to stare out the cabin window.

“Is it true?” she asked. “Is the memory of Sforza’s sentry true? I sent the man directly to Father after I found him, but now I wonder if Duccio’s answer was true. It’s difficult to manipulate memories with such precision, but an elder wolf could do it.”

I turned my gaze out the window to the stars and said nothing. Instead, I let her see the memory of Duccio weeping on that sofa in Rome, where he confessed his crimes to me. To this, Guccia returned her gaze to me with astonishment.

“Truly, we’ve all underestimated his ability to lie,” she said. “But it will not matter now. Father already suspects him, even if he will not admit it. And despite his deceitful abilities, Duccio won’t be able to talk himself out of this. His tricks will not outweigh the physical evidence I’ve left behind us.”

“But why?” I asked in my despair. “Why do this? Why leave your family and home? There must be an easier way to get out of your betrothal.”

“I’m doing this for us, Esprit,” she answered. “For you, most of all. We cannot allow him to live—he doesn’t deserve to live another day for what he’s done. It will not end with him striking me to the floor. After what he did to you, how can we believe he won’t do the same again, or worse? This is the only way to end his power over us. Father is likely one of the few wolves with the strength to do it, and now that he suspects him, he will never lower his guard.”

“But what if he survives this? He will destroy you. And I cannot lie to him—he will also destroy me.”

“You would live as his slave?”

Guccia’s whispered words sliced through everything more I planned to say. She’d moved to the crux of it all. I was his slave, and Guccia’s father was about to give Duccio a second.

“Now, will you come with me?”