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  “Interfering old bastard,” Leksi complained. “Meddling old prick.”

  “He’d make a good companion to my aunt, wouldn’t he?” whispered a silky voice right behind him.

  Leksi felt the point of the dagger pressing between his shoulder blades. He could also smell the scent of gardenia that had stayed with him long after he had fled the room where Kynthia had found him.

  “Get up and let’s walk outside, warrior,” she said. “Make one false move, sound the first syllable of alarm and I’ll run this blade through your black heart.”

  “How long were you listening to my conversation, wench?” Leksi growled, feeling the heat invading his cheeks.

  “Long enough to hear that I bother you,” she said, and he could hear the amusement in her voice. “And that you would like to woo me.”

  Gritting his teeth in humiliation, he told her he needed to push his chair back in order to rise.

  “I am as quick as an asp, warrior,” she warned. “No sudden moves.” She removed the blade from his flesh.

  Leksi eased the chair back and stood. He glanced down at the table to see if Kratos had paid for his meal, and upon seeing the warrior hadn’t, told her he needed to reach into his pocket for his purse.

  “Slowly,” she agreed.

  He fished into his pocket, took out the purse and counted out the change. Slowly, he placed the coins on the table and returned the purse to his pocket.

  She placed her hand to the center of his back and stepped to his side so he could move away from the table. The tip of the dagger was now pressed to his rib cage but no one could see it for the hilt was hidden in the folds of her voluminous robe.

  They walked out of the tavern at a leisurely pace, Leksi returning the greetings of many of his men. Few glanced at what they must have assumed was a slender lad walking beside their Captain. Those who did nodded knowingly for since Leksi Helios had no woman, they suspected his tastes might run elsewhere.

  “Your men think you are a pleasure hole,” Kynthia commented as he preceded her out the tavern door.

  “They do not!” Leksi denied almost turning around to confront her but the light jab of her dagger against his rib cage warned him not to do so.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kynthia snorted. “Where is Aeolus?”

  “Who?”

  “My damned horse, fool!” Kynthia snapped.

  Leksi had walked to the tavern from the barracks where he had been for most of the afternoon. The stallion was safely stabled within the grounds of the keep. In order to get there, they would need to pass the sentries at the gates of the palace as well as the guards who presided over the mounts of the higher-ranking warriors. Destriers were a valuable asset to the Venturian Guard and the mounts of the High Warriors were closely protected.

  “He is within the palace grounds,” Leki told her with a touch of smugness. “Well-guarded as befits a prime beast like him.”

  “Shit!” she exploded.

  “Did you think you could just saunter in here and pick him up?” Leksi asked, turning his head to look at her. Within the hood of her metal-gray wool robe, her facial features were little more than a blur in the darkness. He was intrigued to see how pale her flesh was.

  “I want my horse!” she stated between clenched teeth. “The handsome one ordered you to return him to me!”

  Leksi stiffened. “You think Kratos is handsome? You need your eyes checked, woman!”

  “That one has the face of a wise and experienced man,” she told him. “Not the insipid appearance of a pretty boy like you!” She pressed the tip of her dagger a little more firmly against his ribs until the point penetrated the wool material of his uniform tunic. “Go get my horse and bring him to me.”

  Leksi Helios had been promoted to a High Warrior soon after his thirtieth birth month. As such, he was an experienced, skilled and highly accomplished soldier whose kills in combat numbered in the hundreds. In hand-to-hand battles, the count was well over two dozen. He was a brave man with little care for his personal safety when in the throes of war. During peacetime, he trained just as intensely as during times of hostilities. He was deeply respected by his men, feared by his enemies and held in high esteem by both the High Commander of the Venturian Forces, as well as the king. No one questioned the bravery or the capability of Leksi Helios and only three people dared give him orders.

  The woman at his side was most assuredly not one of those three. Once before she had dared to issue him an order, and he had obeyed it simply to escape the clutches of the Mad Rapists, but now, there was no reason to do so.

  Kynthia intuited the warrior’s move before he made it, but so quick was his action she had no time to counter it. One moment she was holding a dangerous blade to her enemy’s side and the next, her arm was stinging from the vicious hit that knocked the blade from her grip. Before she could retaliate, she was wrapped so tightly in a bear hug she could barely breathe. Her back to the warrior, her wrists clamped in a hand that felt like a steel band, she was lifted free of the ground and swung around so she dangled on his hip like a sack of salt. Arching her back, trying to kick her captor, she felt the bones in her wrists grate as he ground them together.

  “Give me any trouble, wench, and I’ll turn your shapely backside over my knee and wallop the hell out of you right here and now!” Leksi snapped.

  Enraged beyond endurance, Kynthia let out a yowl of fury and bucked in his hold. In the doing, he dropped her to the ground and placed a hard boot in the center of her back, pushing in with enough pressure to cause her real pain, the heel of his boot bruising the area over her right kidney.

  Leksi had no way of knowing the woman beneath his foot had suffered severe damage to her back many years earlier. The spot upon which his boot heel was pressing was causing her intense, excruciating agony that turned her into a quivering, sobbing mass.

  “Warrior, no! Please don’t!” she begged. “Let up! Let up!”

  Stunned by the obvious pain in the woman’s voice, Leksi jerked his foot from her back and dropped down beside her. He tried to gather her into his arms, but her howl of agony stayed his hand as she arched her back and flipped to her side, writhing on the ground like a dog crippled beneath the wheels of a carriage.

  Then something happened that would forever haunt Leksi Helios. This brave, skillful warrior with nerves of steel and a head for quickly formulating the most complex of strategies became the unwitting observer of a scene so bizarre, so totally beyond his realm of understanding, he could do no more than hunker there—eyes wide, mouth open in silent denial, hands trembling as the very soul within his body quivered. The sights he was taking in would have unbalanced a lesser man for before his very eyes the beautiful woman at his feet was changing.

  No longer did the pale flesh of her face intrigue him for it was now coarse and covered with layers of thick silver fur. The lovely gray eyes were blood red, glowing with chatoyant hues of green then white as light from the moon struck them. The lips like lush, sweet cherries were now leathery and skinned back from lethal-looking fangs. The pert, upturned nose had become an elongated snout with flaring, dripping nostrils. Delicate hands were being replaced with paws equipped with thick talons that scratched at the cobblestones as the woman tried to rise.

  “My god,” Leksi whispered, feeling his innards turning watery.

  It was the sounds that stayed with him for the rest of his life, the least of which were the harsh rending sounds of fabric bursting its seams and material ripping apart. The resonance of joints becoming unhinged, bones cracking and sinews popping, flesh stretching like leather being pulled over the poles of a travois, organs making slurping noises as they rearranged themselves, squishing sounds as fangs—sharp and yellow as aged parchment—pushed from bleeding gums.

  Kynthia Ancaeus arched her transformed back and stood there wobbling on four legs as she shook her large, lupine head from side-to-side. Staggering a bit, she sidled back from the human male staring at her. Her great bushy tail was low,
curled beneath her belly, her pointed ears flat back against her head. Saliva dripped unchecked from her muzzle as she bared her teeth and growled low in her throat.

  Understanding he was seeing something few men had ever witnessed and lived to tell of it, Leksi held out his hand. Within snapping distance of those dangerous jaws, he kept it there as he spoke.

  “I did not mean to hurt you, little one,” he said. “I was only trying to subdue you.”

  The growl was menacing and it meant business as the wolf moved closer to him.

  “Forgive me,” Leksi said, and his hand shook as he reached out to touch the wolf’s head.

  She snapped at him, the fangs clicking together and it was all the warrior could do not to snatch his hand back. He was breathing so quickly he felt lightheaded and his breath was harsh as he sucked it in through his nose, but he held his ground.

  “Forgive me,” he said again, and marveled that the wolf allowed him to touch her head.

  The fur was coarse beneath his fingers and the bony protrusion of the head brought a feeling of sympathetic pain to his heart. This transition that had turned a human woman to a silver wolf must have hurt her tremendously.

  She endured his touch though her low growl was a reminder that she had no trust for the male. As his hand smoothed over her fur and ran lightly over her shoulder, she wrinkled her nose with distaste but allowed it.

  Leksi removed his hand and knelt there on his knees watching her. There was no doubt in his mind that should she wish to, this dangerous beastess could leap upon him and tear out his throat before he could utter a single cry. As she stood there in the rent remains of her gray wool robe, she looked every inch the predator.

  “I will bring your horse to the stream that borders Ventura and your aunt’s lands in the morning and—” he began but the wolf shook her head fiercely in denial.

  Understanding fell upon Leksi Helios like a war banner over a fallen bearer—this was a creature of the night. Each time he had seen her it had been after the rise of the moon.

  “At sunset tomorrow eve?” he corrected. “You promise you will meet with me?”

  The great head bobbed up and down then the wolf turned and raced away so quickly, she was soon lost in the darkened shadows of the town courtyard.

  Leksi knelt where he was until the howl of the wolf came from far away.

  * * * * *

  Kynthia huddled beneath the spreading branches of an olive tree. She was miserable and cold, her bones aching. Naked and defenseless, she kept watch on the hut behind which clothing hung on a clothesline. No one stirred so she crept closer to the slowly moving garments wafted on the evening breeze. Sniffing the air about her, searching for anything that might harm her, she approached the clothesline stealthily until she closed a hand upon a woman’s gown and jerked it from its pins. Quickly, she turned and sprinted across the hillside, her upper body low, the garment clutched possessively to her bare breasts. Once she reached a spot she considered safe, she put on the gown, frowning at the rough feel of the peasant fabric as it touched her sensitive skin. Clothed, she continued on over the hills and down into the valley to her aunt’s villa.

  The sentries snapped to attention at the low whistle issuing from the darkness. The men recognized the lady’s signal but were surprised when she came toward them, limping on bare feet. Though they offered assistance, they were rebuffed and stood scratching their heads as their employee’s niece continued on to the villa.

  “She hasn’t been right since they brought her home from Uaigneas,” Demodocus commented to his fellow sentry.

  “Aye, well she ain’t human no more,” his companion whispered.

  Her acute hearing took in the words of the sentries as Kynthia opened the courtyard gate. She limped up the marble steps to the portico then pushed open the door. Tired as she was, pain lingering to impede her movements, she knew she would never be able to climb the curving stairs. Instead, she headed for the pantry where darkness prevailed almost as completely as in the special room her aunt had built on the upper floor.

  Like a very old woman—feeble and bent—Kynthia eased the pantry door closed and barred it from the inside. She supposed Erinyes would find fault with her choice of lodging for the coming day but there was nothing within the pantry that was of such vital importance it could not wait until sundown.

  Upon sacks of flour and salt, Kynthia made her bed. Though uncomfortable and lumpy, it was better than the cold, bare floor. As she settled down, her thoughts were jumbled, mixed in with bitter memories that made her heart hurt.

  It was the memory of the evil man who had changed her life forever that kept Kynthia awake through that long day. Even as she heard her sisters and aunt converse with the servants who had not been able to gain entrance to the pantry and had called the mistress for her advice, the young woman lay wide-eyed in the darkness.

  Nor did she answer her aunt when the older woman called softly to her through the door.

  “Minos,” Kynthia whispered, loathing the name as much as she despised the one who had held it.

  It had not been the vicious rape that had left a sixteen-year-old girl bruised and battered, broken and bleeding. The bastard’s rough hands and chipped nails had gouged and pinched her flesh, his dirty fingers ramming into each orifice of her body as he used her. His foul breath and jagged teeth, filthy, unwashed body and sour odor had repelled her as he rutted over her. Though the painful invasion of his stumpy tool had hurt her soul more than her defenseless body, it had been his drunken assurance that she had enjoyed the defilement he had enacted upon her.

  “You like that, huh, girl?” he had asked over and over again as he rammed his cock inside her torn vagina, flipping her over to invade another opening that brought screams of agony shrilling from her throat.

  Finally flinging over to his back in exhaustion claimed by the potent wine he had been swilling all day, he ignored the girl he had deflowered so brutally. As he lay spent—his withered rod flopped upon his dirty thigh—she had crept to a rock, lifted it quietly then brought it down upon his ugly head, squashing the cranium like an over-ripe melon.

  Over and over again, until there was nothing left but mush where once there had been brains and skull, Kynthia took her revenge on the man who had ruined her life. Staggering to her feet, she had begun the long trek to her parents’ home in a state of icy calm.

  “No man will want her now. She’s damaged goods,” her brother had warned their parents when the Healer had come and gone and Kynthia’s wounds had been dressed.

  “She’s lucky the Tribunal does not sentence her to death for killing a man,” her father moaned, burying his face in his hands. “What will we do with her now?”

  “We must find her a good man,” her mother had sobbed. “A gentle man who will overlook what was done.”

  “She murdered a man!” her father whispered. “Who will want to take her to wife knowing that?”

  But one man had.

  Even as the young girl lay healing, word came to her parents that a man wished her hand in Joining. With no expectations of anyone else ever asking for marriage to their deflowered daughter, Kynthia’s parents had agreed. Despite screams of denial and pitiful cries of pleading, her father and brother had taken her to the island where her betrothed lived.

  “I don’t want you!” Kynthia had screamed at the man who had met them at the quay.

  “Be quiet, girl!” her father had insisted. He would have continued but the man who would be his son-in-law had held up a hand.

  “What is it you want, then?” the man had asked her.

  There was no hesitation for Kynthia. “I want to be as strong as any man and just as heartless. I want to live my life as I see fit and never have anyone gainsay me!” Her hands had clenched into fists. “I want no man between my legs ever again!”

  “Forgive her, milord!” her brother had cried out. “She has been unhinged by what happened.”

  A single glance from the man had silenced father and s
on. Extending a purse to them with a bride price that would equal any in the district, he bade them leave.

  Hating every man who had ever drawn breath—her father and brother included—Kynthia did not care that her kin left her alone on the island with a man none of them knew anything about. If she had to, if it took a day, a week, a month or a year, she’d bash the man’s brains out and flee the island. Never again would she be at the mercy of any man. Never again would any man ram his filthy rod into her.

  “I have no desire for you in that way, wench,” the man told her. “You need never lie with any man you do not wish to.”

  “Not even you?” she had sneered.

  “Most especially not me,” he had insisted.

  “Then why did you buy me?” she snarled.

  “To right the wrong, Sweeting,” he said with a faint smile. “For my sister.”

  Chapter Four

  Kratos sat bolt upright in the bed, his heart hammering as the door to his room was flung open. He would have flung himself to the left to take up his dagger but Leksi’s voice stopped him.

  “She is a wolf!” Leksi pronounced. He advanced into the room. Striking a light, he lit a lantern then shook out the thin piece of wood and tossed it to the table. “A beautiful gray wolf but a wolf just the same.”

  Having been rudely jerked out of a sound sleep, Kratos was understandably disoriented and a tad more than annoyed as evidenced by the large fart he let loose as he threw the covers aside. Standing in all his naked, brawny glory, the warrior’s bodily note was loud and prolonged and carried with it an extremely unpleasant odor that caused Leksi to fan the air. “By the gods, Kratos! Have a care that you don’t suffocate me!” he complained.

  “Don’t burst into my room whilst I am dreaming of having five dancing girls giving me the massage of my life then!” Kratos shot back. He scratched his balls as he padded heavily to the chamber pot then braced himself for a good piss. “What couldn’t wait until I’ve put my head together, brat?”