Wolf Omega: Lykanos Chronicles 2

At first, I presumed the note was from Duccio, but the handwriting was not his. Who else would know that name but him and Maximo? Even my old enemies never knew me as anything but Gabriella of Castello Palatino. Perhaps Duccio had dictated the note to the front desk?

In half an hour, I’d eaten and dressed with Vivian’s help. I considered whether I ought to allow her to accompany me but decided it was best to leave her in the safety of my room. I would return when I’d settled the question, and then we could begin our day searching together for a new residence.

St. Paul’s Chapel was lovely inside, with the same blending of old styles as the exterior, only covered uniformly in whites and creams to produce a distinctly modern look. But despite the ancient roman influence of its architecture, this was not a church of my youth. Gone were the statues of saints, and no edifice of the Virgin invited me to light a candle for the souls of the departed.

Instead, I found a symbol I’d become familiar with among the room’s sterile adornments. On a large canvas painting was an eagle guarded by a shield of American colors, holding an olive branch and arrows in each talon. In its beak was a banner printed with the words E Pluribus Unum—Out of Many, One. This, too, was as an ancient idea, worshiped anew by this young nation that sought strength in unity.

I made my way through the mostly empty hall to sit on the far right side of the front pew. I’d not been there but for a moment when a lycan revealed himself to me from front doors. Without turning to look, I knew he wasn’t Duccio.

Peace, his mind offered before he approached.

I heard his light footfall on the chapel floor. Arriving at the front pew, he stopped again and waited for me to acknowledge him. He was the same man I had viewed from the lounge car in Philadelphia; a light brunette of average height with a robust frame. He stood in unremarkable but well-pressed clothes with his hat in hand.

Taken by his respectful wait, I gestured with my eyes that he should sit beside me.

“I come with words from my master,” he whispered in painfully enunciated English.

“Who is your master?” I responded in Italian.

“Prince Adelchi of the Kingdom of Venice,” he answered with unmasked relief. “He bids you good health and asks for your friendship.”

I knew the name, but nothing else about the prince. Sempronio had once mentioned Adelchi during a quick overview of the lands that surrounded Como. The rich Veneto region laid east of us along the Adriatic coast.

“I’m grateful for his kind regard, but we’ve never spoken. Why does he seek the friendship of a stranger in a foreign land, four thousand miles away?”

“His Highness wishes to ask a favor of the daughter of Sempronius of Mons Palatinus.”

I had only heard Father’s name pronounced once before in its ancient Latin tongue. It came from the lips of those who had wished me great harm, and I could not stop my skin from tingling.

“Go on.”

“He would ask you to deliver Don Lupofiero back to the arms of Venice, where he is wanted to stand trial for his many crimes against the Prince’s family and your own. For this kindness, the prince offers his eternal friendship, a second home of your choice in the Republic of Venice, any wealth you might ever have want of, and even his support to reclaim Como and Castello Palatino, if it should please you.”

Of all that this man might have said to me, he offered the last thing I ever expected to hear. Though, if I was honest with myself, it shouldn’t have been.

“He offers these tokens of friendship, even if you would merely deliver Don Lupofiero’s corpse into my hands.”

“I’m unaware of any crimes he may have committed against your master, but what is the prince’s interest in the don’s crimes against my family?”

“For much of his life, the prince was a compatriot of your father’s. Though they parted centuries ago, it aggrieved His Highness deeply to hear of your father’s murder. It was His Majesty’s respect for il Maestro that opened his arms when Don Lupofiero came seeking the prince’s help. Upon the fiend’s banishment by Duke Sforza, he arrived in the prince’s home with lies of how Sempronius had taken his own life. His treachery continued for many years and only ended when Don Lupofiero murdered the Princess Guccia.”

I exhaled with despair, sensing that every word this lycan spoke was accurate, even if he colored his words with resentment.

“What makes your master believe I have the strength to overtake Don Lupofiero?”

The man stared at me in confusion.

“Forgive me, Doña, but your abilities are well known and highly regarded. Il Maestro’s greatest daughter. The keeper of his ancient wisdom. The wolf who destroys her enemies with the fire of her mind. There is no one else His Majesty would entrust with such a request.”

It startled me to hear such a description from someone who didn’t know me.

“You will give me time to consider the prince’s proposal, of course.”

“Of course, Doña.”

“Call on me tomorrow for my answer.”

“Thank you, Doña.”

“Your name?”

“Signore Foscari, Doña.”

He rose and bowed to me, then left the chapel with respectful silence.

When I no longer sensed him, I looked through my bag to find Duccio’s card. 442 Fifth Avenue. I then left the chapel and made my way back across the street to the front door of the Astor Hotel. At my request, the doorman waved to the nearest “Brown coupé” conveniently waiting nearby to carry guests through the city.

It was not a quick ride, but I welcomed the chance to think through what I meant to do. My first inclination was to warn Duccio, but Foscari’s suggestion lingered. Most of it meant nothing to me except for his last offer of Castello Palatino—that was something I could not ignore so easily.

Until yesterday, I had thought Sempronio’s house was lost to me forever. It had fallen into the dominion of the Sforzas, and even if I once fantasized of reclaiming it from Duccio, I would never chance war against their clan of hundreds.

But this Prince Adelchi of Venice, supported by his inestimable wealth, offered to do whatever it took to see Castello Palatino reclaimed in my name. How could I hope to be handed such a prize by any other means?

But it was a fantasy that I quickly ended.

No one realized, short of Maximo, that the power Foscari mentioned depended on my emotional state. In all the time since my vovkulaka revealed its deadly strength to me in the cave at Val d’Isère, I had never wielded that power without first being possessed by a strong sense of hatred. That dark foundation was the only thing that could support the fire in my mind.

And I didn’t hate Duccio. Even as I’d scolded him on the train, I came nowhere close to hating him again. And so what Adelchi and his emissary suggested would require a battle of physical prowess. I would sooner wager a warrior like Maximo to win that contest, but I knew such a notion was folly. Duccio’s wolf had far more than age supporting it. I would wager his raw strength against any alpha’s.

The driver pulled up to a mansion at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-ninth Street. It was a young Italianate structure of handsome red brick standing upon a first floor of rusticated brownstone. On the second floor, French doors opened onto several balconies of stone balustrade. A magnificent bracketed cornice ran around the top floor to crown its hipped roof.

I knew at once he was not alone, and the people inside were largely lycan. The more it stood out, the more I realized I couldn’t sense a single human among them. Thoughts of asking the driver to move on crossed my mind before I saw the front door open. A man emerged from the threshold and looked at me.

Welcome, he told me silently.

I paid the driver and stepped down to the sidewalk, shielding my mind and responding with an unthreatening face. The man stepped back and held the door wide open for me when I finally approached the house.

Inside was a large parlor, crafted and furnished precisely as I imagined Duccio’s house must be.

Ornate woodwork covered the tall entrance parlor, elegantly carved from the chair line up over the walls to cover a magnificent ceiling. It was stained ebony, almost black, and the craftsmen had lacquered the whole to a brilliant shine. The black-and-white marble floor held exquisite Persian rugs of crimson thread and carved walnut furniture of the style that had filled his office in Castello Palatino.

If you will, he said, and climbed an enormous staircase slowly to guide me to the second floor. Arriving at the landing, I stepped forward to find that almost the entire floor was devoted to a grand drawing-room. Along the far wall were the many tall windows and French doors I’d seen from the street. Through them, the morning light flooded onto the parquet floor.

I spotted at least a dozen of them. They stood silently, half in their lycan form, and the rest as werewolves. They had damaged much of the room’s furniture and pushed it violently out of the way.

At the center of the room was Duccio kneeling on the floor, his naked lycan body bloodied, and his hands bound by iron behind his back.

I could not account for how they had subdued him, nor how they had forced his dark warrior to revert.

I clung to my lycan form no matter how desperately my wolf wanted free of my constricting dress. Remaining as calm and unaffected as I could, I scanned the room slowly to find Signore Foscari.

He was not here.

But then I locked with a pair of stunning blue eyes I had believed I’d never see again.

“Welcome, little sister,” Pompeia said, stepping forward with a warm smile.