Cry Wolf

He screamed because he wasn’t braced, because it hurt worse than he’d thought possible, and because his wolf decided that it wasn’t going to let him just lie down and take it.

Changing at that moment was as imperative as it was stupid. Pain quadrupled and sizzled down nerve endings he wished he didn’t have. Time changed for him, seconds became hours until he existed only in a limbo of agony. Then it stopped. His whole body went numb as he completed the change. It was only a moment, a space of freedom that Sarai bought him as she took his pain for him. Leaving him in wolf form, standing two feet from Mariposa and in full control of his body.

For the first time, Mariposa looked frightened, and he ate that fear as if it were fresh, dripping meat. He paused to savor it before he launched himself upon her. But that gave her one instant too many because she had time to scream his mate’s name.

“Sarai!”

And his open jaws met with fur instead of skin, with Sarai’s blood and not Mariposa’s. As his fangs sank deep, the pain of Mariposa’s magic ripped through him again, only to stop when Bran made his move.

"This stuff isn’t vile,” A

A

Charles grunted as he stared down the valley at the small figures who walked across the meadow. The wind blew the occasional word their way, but it was coming from the wrong direction to alert the others that they were being watched.

“I wonder why he’s doing that,” A

It didn’t look deliberate to Charles-maybe it was some sort of bizarre punishment. But if so, it backfired. Asil staggered to his feet-and in the middle of it, his movements were suddenly graceful and directed as he launched himself at the witch.

All three of them-Charles, A

The thing that looked like Asil’s mate’s wolf just appeared out of nowhere to intercept him. And that’s when his father made his move. The witch, distracted by the fight between the two wolves, almost missed it.

Almost.

And Charles was too far away to change what happened.

Asil felt her frustration, but Sarai couldn’t ignore the prime directive of her creation, guarding Mariposa. Not yet. He hadn’t given her enough. So they fought because she couldn’t stop until he was dead or the witch stopped her.

Normally, it would have been no contest. Warrior she might have been, but Asil had taught her all that she knew, and in this form he outweighed her by fifty pounds of muscle. He was faster and stronger, but she was fighting to kill him. He was fighting to stay alive without hurting her.

If she killed him, she would have forever to grieve, and he couldn’t bear it. He felt the witch’s leash fall away from him, saw Sarai hesitate as it fell from her as well.

And then that moment of freedom was over.

“Asil, sit,” Mariposa said, her voice hoarse, but the whip of her power settled over him and forced him to do as she said, leashed and held as tightly as ever.

“Sarai, stop.” She hadn’t noticed that Sarai had made no move to continue her attack. Because she wasn’t looking at Sarai; she was still looking at Bran.

Asil followed her gaze.

At first he thought Bran was dead. But Mariposa staggered over to the still figure and kicked it. “Up. Get up.”

Stiffly, it rose to its feet. The body was still Bran’s, a gray wolf with a silly splash of white on the end of his tail. But when it looked up at the witch, there was nobody home.

Asil had seen zombies with more personality. And if he hadn’t been a wolf, he’d have used the sign his mother had taught him to ward off evil, which would have been useless. It wouldn’t work unless it was made by a witchblood- and if Mariposa didn’t know it, he didn’t want to be the one to teach her.

Even the guardian, shadow of his mate that she was, had more inside than whatever animated the Marrok.

Satisfied Bran was obeying her again, she looked at Asil. “Hussan, change back to human.”

Ah Allah, it hurt. Too many changes in too few hours, but her orders were pitiless. He staggered to his feet and felt the sharp kiss of the ice crystals in the snow. Cold didn’t usually bother him-less even than most werewolves. But he felt it now.

“Put on your clothes,” she snapped.

They were torn and bloody, but better than standing naked in the winter winds. His hands shook, making it hard to unlace his boots. He could only find one sock, and it was so wet he didn’t put it on; blisters were the last of his worries.

Asil was afraid, terrified. No witch he’d ever seen, and he’d known a lot of them over the years, had been able to do something like that to a wolf with no more than the magic she had at hand. To a human, yes-to a dead human. He’d been making a mistake, he realized. Thinking of her as the child, however powerful, she had been, but she’d had two hundred years to acquire knowledge and power.

Cautiously, he felt down the pack ties toward his Alpha and felt…nothing. Had she really done to Bran what she’d done to his Sarai? Two centuries was a long time to study and learn. Maybe she’d found a way to make another guardian for her protection, a way that took minutes instead of four days of torture.

Then he realized that Bran himself was shutting him out, that the pack bindings were still in place. The understanding gave him hope; he looked at the Marrok again, but still saw only a dim intelligence that bore no resemblance to the man Bran had been…was.

Just to be certain, Asil examined the pack ties again, but someone was actively shutting them tight. And the only person he knew who could be doing it was Bran.

But they weren’t shut down entirely.

Something eased out from Bran and touched him with black cold fingers, oozing slowly into his soul. Sarai whined softly as she realized what it meant before he did, but then she’d always been better at this sort of thing than he was-he’d always thought of anger as something hot and quick. This was worse.

Berserker.

He had been in North Africa at the time, not even a century old. But even there he’d heard the stories. Deathbringer. Whole villages killed, from old woman to day-old infant. There were songs and stories, most of them lost now to time.

A witch had forced the Change on her son and her grandson-so she could play with them. For years she held them as pets, to do her bidding. It made her the most dangerous witch in the British Isles. And then her son broke free.

He killed his mother and ate her. Then he killed every living thing within miles. He found a home in the dark heart of the great Welsh forests-and for years nothing lived within a day’s walk of his den.

Great hunters of a generation, human, werewolf, or other, sought to win their honor or prove their courage-and they died. Some came to visit vengeance for lost loved ones. They died. Even the fools who didn’t understand, who were unlucky enough to venture too close to the monster, they died, too.

Then one day, or so he’d heard, Bran had walked out of the wilderness, his son at his side. No more berserker, only a harper, a teller of tales, and lone wolf.

Given enough time, even the most horrific story drifts to legend, then nothing. Asil was pretty sure that he was the only one, except for Samuel, of course, who knew enough to understand just what it was that the witch had done.