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Authors: Phoenix Sullivan

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BOOK: Captive Heart
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At hall’s end, I recognized the bare-chested men who had been training together. With no other face familiar to me, I approached the table with its score of men. Of them, a gray-bearded man with a stern look to him was first to notice me, watching me near with a predatory look.

“Have you business here?” he demanded when I was within easy earshot. Clearly I wasn’t welcome if I didn’t.

“Merlin. Where is he?”

Gray-beard’s equally gray brows arched up. “You’ll use a tone of respect before the king or you will find yourself dungeoned. I will let you try your question once again.”

King?
The table of men had gone quiet, entertained now by our exchange. I wondered which of the men there was Arthur as I recalled the proper civility that the beast eschewed. “Forgive me, your lordships. I seek the druid Merlin. Can one of you direct me to him?”

The tall fighter rose and circled me, eyeing the tunic. He plucked at the sleeve where a stain of old blood marked it. “How did you come by this garment?” he asked.

“It’s yours, m’lord,” I confessed. “Would you like me to return it to you now?”

“I left it on the training field.”

“Which is where I picked it up.”

His brow furrowed over the puzzle I was. “You have no leggings. Where are your clothes?”

I shrugged. “A lifetime from here.”

“Courtesy!” The gray-bearded man practically shouted. “You will show it to Sir Lancelot.”

I blinked. Lancelot, Arthur—what other names of legends sat before me? In another life I had been the model of civility and courtesy Graybeard pled me to be. I would have bowed and knelt before these lords and titled knights and asked humbly to take my place as one of them.

But the wolf now grew within. And the beast knew no courtesy and knew even less of humility. I tried again. “I left my clothes at home, then found myself in need of raiment today.”

“And home is where?”

“Bromdale.”

“That’s a hundred leagues from here! When did you leave?”

“A month past. I’ve been…wandering.” Talking to witches and holy men, begging for a way to rid the wolf from me forever. Drinking draughts and eating weeds that did nothing but make me retch. Until one far-seer with more compassion than charlatan magic pointed me here to Camelot…and Merlin.

“You’ve been wandering naked for a month? Are you a madman?”

“Perhaps.” It was as truthful an answer as I knew. I saw the roll of Lancelot’s eyes, knew the famed knight was done with the madman. I held him blameless. A month ago I would have treated me the same. The derisive laughter and talk rumbled like a wave across the table. Despair tugged. “It’s why I must see Merlin.”

The one who’d fought with Lancelot did not join the laughter. “Have you a name?” he asked with all the courtesy I had forgotten.

“Marrok,” I said, letting familiarity and self wash over me in the saying of the name. “Sir Marrok of Brom Castle, son of Hadrian, Earl of Bromdale.”

Between one breath and the next the tone of the table changed. “He needs help,” one of the dark-haired men on the far side of the table said to the gray-bearded man beside him. “Find it for him.”

“What help for a madman, Arthur? A chirurgeon? A priest?”

“Merlin,” I said yet again. “Find me Merlin.” Despair beat against my skull. The beast howled to be free. Panting, I fought the blackness descending over me, fought the beast challenging my control. I had been a wolf too long—days now since my last shift. It was the threat of the wolf or else—

I chose the lesser of the evils and let the threatening darkness claim me.

Chapter
6

Marrok

I woke on a straw pallet laid on the wooden floor in a cell barely large enough to accommodate the bedding, a caned chair and me. The wood under me suggested a room above the main floor, while the curve to the wall with its high and slitted windows suggested a turret.

A quick body check assured me I had woken as a man not a wolf, still wearing Lancelot’s tunic.

Was the door locked?

I had only just begun gathering my legs under me to rise and check when it opened. A robed man just beyond his prime though not yet grayed appeared in the frame. I heard a scuffle and voices of more men without.

“A moment,” the man called behind him as he raised his hand. The noise from without quieted immediately. Then he turned his attention on me. “You asked for Merlin when you came. Have you any quarrel with him?”

“No quarrel. I seek his help, no more.”

“And if he refuses?”

It honestly never occurred to me he would. “Whatever fee he asks I’ll pay.”

“With what? A knight’s stolen garb?”

My beast growled at the insult. “
Borrowed
in need,” I corrected through gritted teeth. “The coffers at home are full. I am an honest knight.”

He gave me a long and penetrating look, as though he could tell the inner truth of me from that. “And what service would an honest knight require from Merlin?”

“A request for his ears alone.”

An almost-smile crooked the man’s lips. “Such a candid tongue can be dangerous.”

“Trust, sir, that I have the bite to back it up. Will you fetch your druid Lord here, or lead me to him now?”

The man turned about in the doorway and I rose to follow.

“Hold,” he bade, but whether he spoke to me or to the men without I didn’t know…until he pulled the thin door closed and faced me clearly. “Speak free,” he said as he straddled the cane chair, watching me yet.


You’re
Merlin?”

“I am. Does my face not please you?”

“Of course. I only—” I inhaled the scent of him to better remember him in case further treachery was contemplated. “Only—”
Where to start?

“You’re troubled. Why? Let’s start there.”

I jerked my eyes to his.
Had he read my thoughts?
Very well, he was not the only one who could surprise. With one swift move I shed the tunic. Before he could react, I shifted, dropping to all fours as my wolf glared at him from behind bared teeth. I snarled.

And shifted back.

And in the moment where I hung between forms, Merlin snatched up the tunic. No small act, but a deliberate play of power as he held it in his lap.

The beast howled rage as I stood, naked and affronted—perhaps even a little mad—in front of the druid, jaws clenched to keep the wolf at bay.

With great calm, Merlin studied me as the moments crawled by, while I forced the beast to abide his scrutiny. At last, he handed me the tunic and I settled it over my chest, covering it and that which God had shamed Adam for.

“You have control of the wolf still,” Merlin said.

“For now,” I agreed. “But each day it grows stronger.”

“How long has it been?”

“A month. Five weeks. Just before the last new moon.” I had lost some days, I realized, upon the trail. “Can you help?”

“This is not fae magic.”

“Then no?” My heart sank as the beast rejoiced. “How then do I slay it?” I braced against the sudden howling in my head.

“You don’t.” He held up a hand to stem my protests. “You live as a werewolf until you can be cured.”

“But if you have no magic to cure me…”

“Then you must find the magic to cure yourself.”

“And if the beast wins out before I do?”

“You plan on letting it win?”

“I-I may not have the strength to do otherwise.”

“When you have drained every drop of your own strength, look to your wolf for more.”

“Are you mad? It would never consent to defeating itself.”

Merlin smiled. “Are you not smarter than a wolf?”

With that he left me to my room, my thoughts and to the cunning beast that crouched and waited within.

Which of us, indeed, was smarter?

Chapter
7

Marrok

If Merlin could not help me directly with the curse, he did ensure I was clothed and fed and lodged as would any errant knight be. When I spoke of leaving, he encouraged me to “Stay another fortnight. Fortune is not yet done with you here.”

“And what if I am done with Fortune?” I grumbled back.

But stay I did, wandering the halls of Camelot. In particular, the kitchens drew me close. At first I tried to convince myself it was because my wolf was comforted by the smell of meats roasting over the great fires. But while my nose might have been otherwise occupied, my eye was drawn to one particular body that labored there.

Why a swordsman the equal of Lancelot was doing menial kitchen work and not sitting at table with peers I learned from others over a handful of days. Under Kay’s orders, the steward kept the young man Kay had baptized Beaumains busy in the hot kitchen where it was my pleasure to watch him work.

Stripped to his leggings, his broad shoulders glistening with sweat, arm muscles bulging as he pumped the bellows to keep the great fire roaring…my breath caught at the primal beauty of him. On this my wolf agreed. How much was wolf-lust and how much my own quieter stirrings I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that I wanted Beau.

On my fourth day at Camelot a parade of knights, lords and ladies left the castle with pennants waving and wagonloads of pavilions, food and drink in tow, off to a tourney at Joyous Garde. I stood with Arthur, Kay, Merlin and a handful of knights with obligations elsewhere to farewell the tourney-goers. We wished them all God-speed but with Lancelot among them, the only mystery was who might win second-best in the field.

On the fifth day I stepped from the shadows beyond the kitchen fires to confront Beau. “Spar with me,” I said.

He dropped the sack of flour he’d carried in from the stores at my feet. “Does my Lord command or entreat?” he asked, unruffled at either my presence or my strident tone.

My nature had always been brusque and to-the-point. Keeping the wolf ever at bay and battling constantly with its beast-simple thoughts and emotions, my manner had become brusquer—and more demanding—yet. I had no patience for courtesy or games.

“Command. There is not a man left here your equal. I am bored. The practice will do us both good. Cross steel with me.” I wanted to cross much more with him. For now I settled on losing myself in the calm of his eyes, drawing his serenity like a curtain between the wolf and me.

“And there you see my dilemma. Sir Kay has tasked me with other duties today.”

“You would choose baking bread over what I offer?”

Even Beau’s influence wasn’t enough to stop the flare of anger that sparked in me.

“It is not my choice to make.”

“And if it were?”

Beau’s brow furrowed. What was wrong with me, asking senseless questions that only fueled the rumors that I was a madman? I clawed at reason. For a way to make this right. To stop the look of pity that edged its way into Beau’s bright eyes.

“This evening,” Beau said. “Kay commands my days but the nights are mine. My sword is yours then, if it please you.”

Swordplay by moonlight? Only one thing could please me more.

But I wasn’t to know the feel of his blade against mine that night. For it was by the light of the westering sun that Lady Lynette galloped into court, riding as though the Hounds of the Wild Hunt pursued her.

 

Chapter
8

BOOK: Captive Heart
10.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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