Bernard found a cloth sack that had once held vegetables, and they shoved the loaded box inside. Charlotte slung it across her back, and they hurried outdoors. The silence of the mansion weighed on their nerves, and they expected any moment to hear the screech of magefire, or the clicking claws of approaching wolves.
Outdoors it smelled cool and fresh. A particular tension relaxed inside of Bernard—his animal body subconsciously feared being indoors, as if it were a trap. "I can see in the dark," he said in surprise.
Charlotte turned in a circle. "I didn't expect this. It's like twilight instead of night."
Bernard dropped to all fours. "There are still werewolves around. Stay close." He bounded across the grounds, and Charlotte trotted after him. It was the natural way to run. Natural or not, they had to adjust to their new bodies or die.
Chapter 4: Shelter
The pair crossed the creek that divided their property from the next, and trotted uphill toward the woods behind Halfmoon Manor. Their property sat on the edge of the Lyedyn City limits, backed up against the Blackwood.
Charlotte lagged behind Bernard as they crested a hill. He stopped to rest, and she did the same, tongue hanging out. "I'm not used to this."
"Let me take the bag." Bernard held out a paw. She pulled the strap off gratefully and handed it to him. He slung it over his own shoulder, where it almost disappeared in the long fur.
Charlotte's desolation knew no bounds. Had she been human, she'd have been sobbing, but this body didn't cry easily. Instead of her throat burning and eyes watering, she had the impulse to whimper over and over. They were leaving their beautiful home for--what? The dirty, cold, wet forest with its briars and ticks. A whine rose in her throat and became the words, "Where should we go?"
"Away from humans." Bernard's ears flicked forward and back in time with his thoughts. "Away from werewolves. Somewhere quiet."
"But what about shelter?" Charlotte pointed at the semi-cloudy sky with a claw. "What about when it rains?"
"We'll find a cave." Bernard rose to all fours and loped down the hill.
Charlotte pounded after him, hating every step she took. She hated the fur on her arms, her long nose, and the feel of her teeth against her tongue. She directed all of her helpless fury at Bernard. If he hadn't have given her that elixir, she would probably be dead now, or at least insane. Either would be better than being stuck as a monster forever, perfect conscious of what she was. Blast him!
The odor of filthy dog assailed Charlotte's nose. Another werewolf! She forgot her hatred of her husband and jostled against him. He jogged to a halt and sniffed the air with a low growl, and Charlotte pressed her shoulder and flank against his.
The outline of another werewolf flitted through the trees a short distance away. Its red eyes flashed in their direction. Bernard bared his teeth to their roots, and the hair on his shoulders and back rose like spines on a porcupine. "Snarl!" he hissed at Charlotte.
She bared her teeth in a pathetic imitation of a snarl.
Fortunately it was enough to warn away the wild werewolf. It skirted them and galloped north without a sound. Bernard and Charlotte continued south, hearts pounding.
"You've got to learn to snarl," said Bernard. "Canines are all about bluff."
"Unlike you, I didn't handle dogs much." Charlotte sniffed and stepped away from him as they hurried onward. "I spent my time among civilized company."
Bernard let his tongue roll out in a grin. "Very little of that in the forest."
They ran on without speaking. Bernard paused occasionally to sniff and look around. He led them roughly southwest. When Charlotte asked where they were going, he replied, "Grayton is a peninsula. The south end is rocky with lots of caves."
Dawn paled the sky as they descended a gentle hill and plunged into young, brushy forest. Charlotte pushed her way through brambles that would have torn a dress to ribbons, but instead they raked her fur with the pleasing sensation of a brush.
The wolf pair drank from a stream, and crept into a thorny cave under a raspberry hedge. Bernard opened the food bag, and they shared pies, bread and cheese, broken into pieces with their claws. The pair was ravenous, and the bread didn't satisfy their animal stomachs.
But it was food, and neither of them complained. Charlotte and Bernard curled up at opposite ends of the hollow and fell asleep.
***
Bernard awoke hours later in fright, the fur on his back bristling. He opened his eyes, but did not stir. Charlotte lay pressed to the ground, ears flattened against her skull. Humans yelled nearby, and magefire roared overhead. Werewolf voices howled a short distance away, and the smell of burned hair and flesh filtered through the leaves overhead.
"They're hunting them," he whispered.
Charlotte rolled one yellow eye at him. "They're hunting us."
Neither of them dared move until the human voices had moved off, and the wind carried away the stench of magical burning. Bernard recognized the magical signatures of some of the Mage Society, his old friends. "We're monsters now," he thought with a twist in his stomach. "They'll destroy us, the way I always thought we should."
He uncurled and nudged Charlotte with his nose. "I think it's safe now."
She cringed away from him, and he squeezed past her, out of the hedge. He rose on two legs, looking, listening and sniffing. Birds had resumed their songs. The clouds obscured the sun's position, but Bernard thought that it was around noon. The breeze carried the smell of humans.
He dropped to all fours. "Charlotte, they're moving west. If we run south we'll avoid them."
She crawled out of the hedge, dragging the food bag in her teeth. She slung it over her shoulders and sighed. The pair drank from the stream again, then Bernard led the way through the brush, keeping low and stopping often to listen for enemies.
They traveled several miles this way, following the rise and fall of the land and keeping to the lowest areas where the brush was thickest. They happened across the charred corpses of three werewolves. There was little left of them, and Bernard and Charlotte gave them a wide berth. The blackened meat made Bernard's mouth water. He wasn't sure that he liked the appetites of this new body.
As the gloomy, overcast afternoon faded into gray evening, they entered rocky, broken country. Rock outcroppings burst from the ground like the shattered bones of ancient monsters, and here grew scrubby trees and little brush. Bernard left Charlotte resting among the rocks, and scrambled among the outcroppings, sniffing and listening. The fresh, salt smell of the sea filled the air now, and the forest reared up in a dark wall a few hundred yards away.
After a while the rock outcroppings drew together in a cracked limestone ridge. Bernard loped along this, nosing into crannies, and found a handful of small, shallow caves. None deep enough to provide any sort of shelter. He followed the ridge as it curved west, and finally found a cave that delved deep into the rock.
He stepped cautiously inside and sniffed. Gravel covered the floor, along with leaves and the occasional dry bone. Twenty feet in, the cave ended in a smooth wall. Here was a deep nest of sticks and leaves, and plucked hair from a bear. Bernard examined it with his nose, but the scent was old and fading. It had been abandoned for at least a season.
Footsteps crunched on the rocks outside.
Bernard scrunched himself into the nest and stared out the cave mouth, hair bristling down his spine.
A human voice said, "Doesn't look like they've made it this far. They're hanging around Lyedyn City. Better hunting."
"Wait," said a second voice. "I see one down there, in the rocks. Looks white."
Bernard's heart stopped and his muscles coiled. Charlotte!
The mages crept off, trying to move stealthily on the rocks, but their boots still crunched in gravel. Bernard slunk out of the cave on all fours. Outside the world was drenched in the onion-like smell of man. He could have followed their trail blind.
They followed the limestone ridge, so Bernard climbed the it and gallope
d along its far side. The other side of the ridge was a gradual slope, covered in deep grass that concealed rabbit burrows. He'd examine it later--right now panic held him in its choking grip. Charlotte had no warning! What if she'd left her post and followed him, and walked into the mages?
Was he willing to attack his former friends to protect his wife?
The choice tortured him. He leaped down the low cliff and plunged into the rocks, panting and sniffing. He'd outrun the mages, who were now a few hundred feet behind him, out of sight, but tainting the breeze. And Charlotte--where was she?
A fireball burst against the limestone cliff with a boom.
Bernard moaned and ran toward the fireball's source. It hadn't been aimed at him, and there was but one more wolf here.
"Charlotte!" he bellowed.
"Bernard!" her voice floated over the rocks.
He sprang up on an immense boulder, hoping to divert the mages' attention, and reared up on his hind legs. Charlotte zig-zagged through the boulders, jaws wide as she panted, ears flattened in terror. Twenty feet away, the mages stood atop another boulder. One man held out both hands with a fireball growing in it, while the other mage pointed his staff at it, contributing power.
"Two of them!" the staff mage exclaimed.
The fireball mage hurled his bomb.
Bernard watched it curve through the sky like an orange comet. It had been thrown to reach the spot where Charlotte would be in a few seconds--
He leaped off the rock and flung himself into her, knocking her off her feet and tumbling with her sideways, behind the sheltering rocks.
The missile exploded, blasting his fur with heat. Charlotte screamed.
They rolled to their feet, and Bernard panted, "Climb the cliff and run for it. I'll draw them off." Then he saw the black scorch mark across her back, the fur melted into stiff clumps.
The world froze in place. Nothing existed except Charlotte and the black trail of horror across her. His nose caught a whiff of burned flesh. They'd hurt his wife.
Animal rage erupted inside him. Lips writhed backward to bare fangs, fur stood on end, adrenaline flooded muscles. He bounded through the rocks toward the mages, every breath exhaling in a hideous snorting growl.
Another fireball roared toward him, but Bernard leaped sideways and kept running. Fire splashed behind him. Beneath the rage swirled a terrible question--should he attack the men? If he did, what separated him from the rest of the beasts?
Raging and yet trembling with indecision, he bounded on a rock near the mages, who were frantically building another fireball. He could leap for their throats--
Or talk them down.
Panting, slavering, snarling, Bernard roared, "Leave us alone!"
The mages stared at him and their jaws dropped open. The fireball, unnoticed, smoked and began to fizzle out.
Bernard held out both clawed hands entreatingly. "Please, just go!"
The second mage raised his staff and worked a teleportation spell. They disappeared in a flash of light.
Bernard exhaled and dropped to all fours. Crisis averted. Maybe they'd tell someone about the talking werewolves and someone would put two and two together.
He padded back to Charlotte, who crouched where he'd left her, whining. Her ears flicked forward as he approached, and for a second she seemed glad to see him. Then her ears flattened again and she lowered her head. "I believe I'm going to die."
Bernard sniffed her burn thoroughly. "It's not deep. I wish I had some salve, and then--" But why finish that thought? Their mansion was abandoned, his workshop inaccessible, and everyone thought they were monsters.
"Come this way," he murmured. "I found a cave." He almost nuzzled her face, but didn't quite dare.
Charlotte limped behind him, head down, every hair drooping. He feared she'd drop behind and lie down, but she followed him all the way to the cave. She went inside without a word, sniffed the nest once, then stepped into it and curled up.
Bernard gazed down at her, and a powerful protectiveness rose inside him. He may not like her much, but she was his wife. His mate. He was responsible for her, and if she died, it'd be his fault. He wanted to tend her burn, to find her food, to cuddle up beside her and put his arms around her, to offer as much comfort as he could.
But the coldness of their relationship stood between them like a wall.
Gently he nosed her burn and began licking it. She flinched away from him. "Stop that."
"It'll help it to heal."
She shot him a disdainful look. "You're a werewolf. You'll make it worse. Thank you for saving me, now leave me alone." She shifted and lay down with her back to him.
She might as well have hurled ice water in his face. Pain bled through him like ink through water. Slowly, quietly, he turned and padded out of the cave. They needed meat, and he had to hunt for it.
Chapter 5: Empathy
Charlotte's wound smoldered with pain, waking her with every throb. How long had Bernard been gone? Five minutes? An hour? What if the mages had killed him?
She twisted around and licked her burn. The touch sent ripples of anguish through her flesh, but it was better than doing nothing. Beneath the pain was a deep, echoing hunger. Perhaps this body needed food to heal. Weren't werewolves exceptional healers? She'd heard talk of the difficulties in disposing of a sick or injured one. Perhaps she wouldn't die, if she could only eat something.
With a whimper she rose to all fours and limped to the cave mouth. It was late afternoon, and the overcast sky promised rain. Her delicate nose caught a whiff of Bernard, but she had no idea how to interpret location by scent.
He'd saved her.
Charlotte hadn't allowed herself to think about this, but now the concept burst upon her, as shocking as a fireball. He'd rescued her and chased away the mages. He'd found her a dry cave for shelter. Did the man have a heart after all? Or was it bare survival instinct?
She licked her wound, her tongue pulling the burned fur from flesh and cleaning away ash. As she worked, she pondered the problem of Bernard. He'd said nothing to her, yet his actions had been as chivalrous as any other Grayton lord's. Yet she craved talk. No relationship functioned without communication, and how could she ever understand her husband without talking?
Rain spattered the rocks outside the cave, and a gray film fell over the world. Claws scrabbled on rock, and Bernard appeared out of the rain, fur plastered to his back, carrying a mass of dead rabbits in his jaws. He bounded into the cave, dropped the rabbits and shook himself. Charlotte turned quickly to protect her wound from the shower.
"Sorry!" Bernard said. "I didn't—you've been cleaning it." He sniffed her burn. "It's much better."
Charlotte gathered her resolve. She must talk to him, and not just lecture, but listen to his replies. She must penetrate this wall between them. "Yes, I can't help it. It hurts so badly. Bernard, do werewolves heal quickly?"
"Yes." He tore a rabbit open with his claws and placed it in front of her. "Faster than a human, but not as swiftly as if a healer attended them. Here. Eat."
Charlotte gazed at the mutilated carcass. One part of her wanted to raise a handkerchief to her face and faint away. But a stronger part smelled the warm meat and saliva trickled into her mouth. She bent and sniffed it, then licked it—and within a few minutes, most of the rabbit vanished in a delicious blur of warmth, meat and crunchy bones.
Bernard nosed her a second one. "Here. You need it."
After the second rabbit, Charlotte's head cleared and the pain became easier to bear. She sat on her haunches, squared her shoulders, and wiped her jaws. "Thank you, Bernard."
Bernard's rabbits had disappeared entirely, except for a few scraps of fur on the floor. He licked his jaws and tried to wipe away the gore, but the werewolf body was not designed for delicate operations like cleaning. He gave her his best smile, like a snarl with relaxed lips. "You're welcome, my lady."
If she wanted this relationship, she'd have to make the first gesture. Charlotte cri
nged and wavered inside, but mustered her courage. "Would you like me to … clean your face?"
He stared at her, face going completely blank and animal. Then his ears flattened a little and his eyebrows crinkled, like an apologetic dog. "If you want to. I'll clean you, too."
Licking Bernard's face seemed horribly intimate at first, and Charlotte's face flamed under her fur. But she fell into the rhythm of it, and it wasn't so different from licking her burn. Her tongue functioned like a hairbrush, smoothing away grime and leaving the fur soft and clean. He closed his eyes in enjoyment.
Once his face was free of gore, Bernard licked her face clean, too. Charlotte closed her eyes under his ministrations and avoided looking at him. Yellow though his eyes were, Bernard's human personality gazed at her through them, and it sent tremors through her.
Afterward he remained beside her, his shoulder and flank warm against her own. They watched the rain pour down as darkness cloaked the world. Exhaustion rolled over Charlotte, and she lay on her belly. Bernard did the same, and they lay side by side like a pair of enormous dogs.
"Bernard," she said softly, "can you work magic?"
"No." His voice was regretful. "My only talent has ever been alchemy. What about you? I know you're considerably talented."
Charlotte sighed. "No. I had the talent, but I never saw the need to apply myself. I was more interested in … visiting my friends and--and gossip." It seemed so small and mean now, out in the wild, under the werewolf curse, having lost everything. What of Grayton City? What of her friends? What of Halfmoon Manor? Dread rose in her like a flood and burst into words. "Bernard, what must be happening back home?"
"I shudder to think, my lady." His voice was low and melancholy. "The mages continue to hunt wolves, so not all have fallen to the curse. Perhaps the wolves have been driven out of the city. Who can say?"
Charlotte bowed her head and a tear ran down her muzzle. "Oh Bernard … so many people died at my ball. Lady Godfrey, and Miss Rose and her daughters, and the mayor and his family ..."
Bernard's warm tongue washed away her tear. "Hush, now, my lady. It wasn't your fault."