The Wolf Esprit: Lykanos Chronicles 3

I couldn’t say how long I remained unconscious. When my mind awakened, I first felt the sensation of movement. I lay on my side, and the numbed pain soon gave way to sharp agony. My arms were bound behind my back, as were my legs. Fabric covered my eyes, though light seeped through to declare it was daytime.

Someone had placed something in my mouth to gag me. Judging by the agony in my jaw muscles, it must be enormous. When I moved my tongue to examine it, I tasted metal mixed with blood.

I couldn’t help but growl at the sharp cruelty of this pain, and I jerked in vain against my bindings. And the sound made me realize I was in my wolf form.

It was unfathomable that anyone could be strong enough to subdue my wolf, but there was no question of it. I lay in agony in what sounded like the back of a produce cart. I guessed the horses I smelled pulled me down a country road. Each sway from the uneven earth tortured the raw soreness in my limbs.

When I jerked my head in defiance, I felt iron spikes that pushed into my scalp and face from every angle. It was some contraption meant to keep me from moving, and the metal gag ensured I wouldn’t snap to rip at their flesh.

“Silence,” a man’s voice whispered in my ear. “You’re under arrest, heretic. Be quiet and satisfied with the pain we’ve dealt you, or we’ll deliver much more.”

Again, I couldn’t help but growl. And to this, whether by hand or foot, the man assaulted the contraption that encased my head to send the metal spikes deep into my face and scalp. Buried in the agony that overtook my senses soon came the dull relief of unconsciousness.

The next thing I knew, I lay on a rough wooden table in a white-washed cell. My heartbeat drummed a steady beat, the only announcement of time, the only authentic sound in the small room. My arms were no longer bound behind my back. Instead, fat chains kept them at my side. The manacles were slack around my wrists and offered a hint of movement to my aching limbs. My eyes were now uncovered, and the metal ball gag was gone, leaving excruciating cuts on my tongue and a blinding ache in my jaw when it moved. I realized I lay naked in my lycan form and felt the coldness of the room on my exposed skin.

After blinking to clear my eyes, I saw a wolf standing by the door to the plain room. He was as enormous as Father, with light brown fur and a massive chest. At once, I panicked and felt the transformation in my body begin. My heart pumped wildly and delivered blood to each pore of my skin, fueling the fur that sprouted to protect me. My torso and limbs engorged and lengthened, and at once, they filled the manacles that chained me to the table. I felt the brace that held me by the throat for the first time.

The prisoner is awake, the guard said with his mind to someone outside the door.

I growled at him, but he offered no response other than the unconcerned acknowledgment of his glare. His indifference to me, to the indignity he forced me to endure, enraged my soul.

From behind the door, I sensed people approaching before my ears heard their footfall. Human shoes clicked the hard tile floor beneath them, but when these people entered my cell, they greeted me with their wordless lycan acknowledgment.

“What is your name, child?” one of them asked. Even if the others hadn’t maintained a respectful distance behind him, I would have known he was the elder. Dressed as a gentleman, he seemed out of place in this bare room with his lace brocade. He wore a powdered wig, though he appeared little older than forty, even with the hard, menaced lines on his face. It was the lie of misperception I knew I must expect about all lycan.

I growled at him in response.

From his mind came something cold that poured inside me. Like cool water, it filled the very threads of my mind and extinguished the fury I felt for my captors. At once, my limbs shortened, and my talons and fur receded into my lycan skin.

“What have you done?”

Without patience, he reached between my legs to take my balls in his hand and squeezed.

“Your name,” he repeated.

I winced at the merciless pain, unable to do much more than gasp.

“Esprit,” I answered, and he slackened his grip though he didn’t release me.

“You live at the Forteresse du Roussade?”

“Yes.”

“With the Baron and Baroness?”

“Yes.”

“She is your maker?”

“No,” I said.

The man returned steel to his grip, and I tensed in agony.

“The Baroness du Roussade? She is your maker?”

“The Baron!” I screamed. “The Baron is my father.”

The man scowled at me, but his grip slacked as if he could tell I hadn’t lied. He contemplated a moment, then released me altogether.

“You’re certain they took him quietly?” he asked the men behind him without looking at them.

“My lord,” one of them nodded. “He was alone. Neither was nearby when we subdued him. My men are certain of it.”

The man returned his eyes to mine. “Did the Baron know you were wandering outside that town?”

“I was visiting the town,” I said, unsure of what more I should say.

“But the Baron wasn’t looking for you?”

“He sent me there for a visit to find… For a holiday.”

The man returned to contemplative silence before releasing a satisfied sigh.

“Send word to the Marquis de Archambault in Paris,” he said. “Tell him our chance has come.”

“Where are you taking me?”

I hadn’t meant to speak to the sentries, but they walked me so roughly that my tongue soon gave voice to the question pressing on my mind.

Silence, heretic, one of them said.

After a series of dark halls, they forced me downstairs. Again and again, the wolves pushed me down unending wells that never seemed to land on a lower floor but seemed to descend into hell.

I felt helpless in their grasp and realized, to my confusion, that I felt afraid. Whatever that lycan had done, my wolf had abandoned me as a result. And the anxiety of my earlier mortal state returned with biting paralysis. I felt a cold hollow inside, as if anger were but a broken memory I no longer felt.

The staircases landed at the foot of a dark cave passage lit only by single candles that produced an insufficient glow every ten paces. With their wolf eyes, I presumed the sentries saw just fine. But I struggled with my footing, often losing balance on the uneven black earth.

The passage opened to a larger room through a carved doorway that reminded me of a temple. Within were several large candles, made up of the thick, tall sizes I’d only ever seen in a church. A stone altar stood at the far end of the room, where a hooded man knelt in prayer. A simple carved relief of the crucified Christ towered on the wall overhead.

I trembled in the fearful cold of this chamber, stark naked with less clothing than the savior who hung nailed to the cross before us. Had fear not crippled me, I might have wondered how the reverent human depiction had found its way into the insidious darkness surrounding us.

The man made the sign of the cross and rose from the ground. With one slight bow toward Christ, he turned around to acknowledge us. Even in his dark, woolen robes, the man’s figure was of a solid build. His severe face glowed in the candlelight as if made from bleached marble. His light blue eyes pierced through the dim light.

“Who have you brought me?”

“A heretic, Bishop,” one sentry answered.

The man’s brow sharpened with confusion.

“A boy?” he answered, his graveled voice sinking to a deep note.

“A blasphemer,” the wolf answered. “A son of the Palatino pack.”

The man scowled in disbelief.

“Impossible,” he said, reaching out to lift my face to his.

I felt his mind intrude upon my thoughts, their terrible weight pressing down upon me.

What is your name, boy?

“Esprit,” I whispered through my trembling lips.

Your wolf is free. I sense him, but he slumbers.

“The Vicomté paralyzed him to ease his interrogation,” the sentry answered for me.

“I do not approve of such an act outside the walls of this holy sanctuary,” he said, giving the wolf an unmasked look of disgust.

And who summoned your wolf, boy?

“My father,” I said. “The Baron du Roussade.”

At my words, the hardness of the man’s face fell away.

“The witch’s mate,” the other sentry added.

“Leave us,” the man said.

“This prisoner is here for storage, not to be cleansed. He is to await the Marquis de Archambault.”

“Archambault is coming here?” the man’s eyes sharpened with suspicion again.

“At the Vicomté’s request.”

“For what purpose?”

“To see the prisoner,” said the sentry, as if the answer were too obvious. “To decide how we will use him—what steps we shall take.”

The man returned his light eyes to me and bowed in acknowledgment.

“Leave us.”

“We should chain him in a cell,” the sentry said.

“Leave us,” the man repeated with a final emotionless gaze at the wolf.

As if satisfied, or perhaps intimidated, the sentry nodded, and the other wolf released his grip on my upper arm before both turned to leave. When they were gone, the man’s light eyes fell upon me again.

“My name is Bishop Toussaint. You are in our house of worship.”

I offered no response to his statement, afraid to look around us or draw my eyes from him.

“Do you understand where you are? Why you’re here?”

Again, I said nothing.

From the man’s eyes, I saw pity. A well of sadness and empathy seemed to pour from him, making me want to cry.

“Of course not,” he said, more to himself than me.

With a sigh, Toussaint moved to collect a pail of water and a rag. I looked around, appraising my surroundings, searching for somewhere I might flee, but all seemed shrouded in darkness. In seconds, he returned and placed the pail by my feet. From his robes, he produced a ring of keys.

“There is nowhere for you to run,” Toussaint said. “And your youth could never escape a wolf as old as mine. So, do not misunderstand my kindness now. You are not free.”

He reached for the shackles that bound my wrists and used his key to open them. Then he knelt before me and released the irons at my feet, casting them aside. He dunked the rag in the pail and squeezed out the excess water.

With a gentle touch, Toussaint bathed me, careful not to upset the welts and bruises I’d incurred as he removed the dirt from my body. First, my feet and legs, then my back, and soon my chest, arms, and hands. He soaked and squeezed the rag again and handed it to me, nodding that I should wash my cock and balls, before he turned to retrieve a robe from a nearby chest.

When I was through cleansing, he lifted the black woolen robe, same as the one he wore, over my head. And I raised my arms to receive it, allowing him to dress me like a child.

“Your wounds and bruises will heal with speed,” Toussaint said, “though I doubt they’ll be the last you receive here.”

Again, I said nothing.

“You are a grandchild of the Devil of Milan. Do you know of him? He was an ancient evildoer so notorious and despicable that it required centuries to defeat him. Indeed, the world remains unclean of his sins. His children still walk unpunished.”

Toussaint released a deep sigh as if the words somehow defeated him.

“But you know nothing of this.”

I shook my head in response, remembering what Gabrielle had said to me about her father, about his strength and wisdom. I even recalled her warning of the many lycan who did not tolerate his views or actions.

“Yes,” Toussaint answered. “We do not tolerate such wickedness or the sinful flouting of God’s laws.”

“I have only ever harmed evildoers,” I said, anguished tears forming in my eyes.

Again, he sighed as if distraught by my statement.

“Come with me, child.”

Toussaint led me from the chapel to a hallway of open prison cells by the flame of a single candle. Black iron bars lined each cell, thicker than a man’s forearm. Drawing out his keys, he opened a door of bars and gestured I should enter. The cell contained nothing but rough-cut stone walls. In one corner lay a patch of old straw that I might sleep upon to shield me from the cold of the stone floor.

Toussaint stepped away to fetch a small tray with a pot of water, a slice of dry bread, and a basin in which to relieve myself. These he placed on the floor beside the door, then locked the bars with his key.

“You’ll have to pay for their sins—for your own. I pray you won’t need to give up your life. But your crimes are great, and it would be a lie to promise you’ll ever leave this place on your feet.”

With that, he turned to leave me, the glow of his single candle departing with him until I sat alone in sheer darkness.

I reached for the bread, almost knocking over the water pot, from which I drank greedily after each bite. The sores in my mouth made me wince with each swallow, but I was desperate for any bit of relief. When the food and water were gone, I stumbled to find the corner of the cell covered in straw, grateful to remove my freezing feet from the cold stone floor.

I lay down on my side into a ball and huddled for warmth as exhaustion overtook my limbs. It was the first time I’d felt any sense of focus since my abduction from Saulieu, and I pondered the nightmare of this captivity. Tears escaped my closed eyelids, shut tight against the horror of the surrounding blackness.

I didn’t know where I was, but in the terrifying clarity of my prison cell, I remembered Father’s words. I didn’t consider the danger I placed upon her, only my blinding fear of being alone here. And soon, my mind screamed her name in vain.

Gabrielle!