Wolf Omega: Lykanos Chronicles 2

The weeks that followed were the happiest of my life.

The sensation of dreaming, or that Castello Palatino might somehow be unreal, left me forever when Sempronio called my guardian into the light. Like an itch finally scratched, the wolf was a wholly satisfying resolution. I had not truly been myself until that night, and being whole now meant that even the most demanding trials brought me joy.

With my rebirth, I felt unafraid for the first time. The absence of fear was, for me, the essence of true freedom, and I savored it with each breath.

In the weeks just after my transformation, Sempronio’s lessons became intense. He insisted that I devote almost every hour of the day to my studies. Only my insatiable thirst for more eclipsed my master’s insisted devotion to learning. I would learn everything, I decided. Nothing seemed more crucial than absorbing every bit of knowledge available in the world. No matter how awe-inspiring or trivial, I demanded that each subject reveal its secrets to me.

When I was not studying, I trained with the pack to familiarize myself with its disciplined functions. Duccio designated me to be the pack’s omega. My role was, at any moment, to be at the command of any other pack member. My priority of obedience lay with the member’s order of seniority. It was the lowest position, the least crucial to our pack’s viability, and it suited me just fine. It was the perfect opportunity to be one of them without shouldering the burden of most expectations.

In the late evenings, I shadowed them in the field. Duccio or Ambrosius, his beta, assigned duties to both pack teams. Zacharia, the gamma, or Pompeia, the delta, led the two parties. As Zacharia was a warrior, he paired with Domenico, a hunter. Similarly, because Pompeia was a hunter, she paired with Maximo, a warrior. The balance of roles within the teams better ensured their viability in the field.

My first assignment was to Pompeia’s team.

“You should ask your questions now,” she said as the carriage pulled us through the country road outside of Cantù. “Once we begin, you’ll stay silent, even telepathically, unless I call for your response.”

“What can I expect of the encounter?” I asked evenly, attempting to control my excitement.

“This is reconnaissance, and nothing more,” she answered patiently. “We go to search for answers. There’s little chance that any of us will be called upon to transform. It is not a lycan we track, but a human. If Max or I call out, you’ll respond at once. Otherwise, you’ll do nothing but shadow our movement in silence and observe.”

And learn, I thought. I knew only that Ambrosius had ordered us to Cantù to identify an informant. He never provided a reason for his order.

“Why were we sent here? I mean, what value is this man to Ambrosius?”

“I know little more than you do of his precise value,” Pompeia answered, “but it’s not uncommon for lycan from neighboring kingdoms to infiltrate our borders for information.”

“For what purpose?”

“To spy on us,” said Maximo.

His answer did nothing less than shock me.

“Spy on us?” I frowned. “Whatever for?”

“To learn of our movements or strengths,” he said.

I tried to make sense of their answers but rejected the very idea.

“Why would anyone care?” I asked. “Sempronio would welcome all in his house; there’s no doubt in my mind. So, why spy on us? We are not their enemy.”

“Certainly, we are,” Pompeia responded. “We are a threat to the ambitions of many houses. You’re right that the master would welcome all lycan to our home, but that invitation comes with the understanding that all guests will respect his rules. And many disagree with his way of life—his methods and traditions.”

The statement confounded me.

“With what could they possibly disagree?”

Pompeia and Maximo looked to each other as if seeking consensus that they should answer my question.

The carriage came to a stop just after entering the township of Cantù, pulling off the main road mere paces away from a small inn and tavern inside the gates. We exited the carriage in silence when the driver opened the door for us.

Pompeia looked to examine me before drawing the hood of my light woolen cape over my head. We dressed simply; not poorly, but in clothes far less noticeable than our usual silk and velvet garments. When satisfied, Pompeia nodded to Maximo, and he turned to lead us toward the tavern.

It was a simple establishment, filled with a half-square bar near the entrance. Each of the dozen tables held a lit candle for patrons to dine by. The room was almost full at this hour, but Maximo found us a small table near the back, where a few respectable women sat with their male family members.

“Good evening and welcome,” a barmaid greeted us with a passionless voice. “The kitchen is serving fowl soup or game hen. May I bring you some ale?”

“Please,” Maximo answered. “We’ll consider dinner in the meantime.”

The woman nodded and returned to the barkeep.

In their silence, I could sense they were listening intently to the surrounding conversations. Lycan relied upon their ears instead of telepathy to hear normal men and women. Most of us couldn’t hear such thoughts until we were much older, if ever. Before my inclusion, Duccio was the only pack member whose gift extended to the minds of men. Not only could he hear their thoughts, but he could also somehow manipulate them, as he had with Father Piero and the sailors who manned his sail barge.

Sempronio’s senses, of course, were inestimable. He told me that my hearing was much stronger than Duccio’s, and I presumed he shared that knowledge with his son. Perhaps, by his desire to exploit my gift, it was why I followed under the guidance of a hunter tonight.

Pompeia, Maximo, and I sat silently in the tavern until the barmaid returned to set three flagons of ale at our table.

“Have you decided about dinner?” she asked pointedly.

“We’re still considering it. May I ask if you know, was that Don Lupofiero’s carriage I saw outside when we came in? Was he in here this evening?”

The stout woman looked confused by the query and shook her head. “I’ve never seen a don in here before.”

“Forgive me,” smiled Maximo, “I was only curious. I saw him once in Como, and I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d be in Cantù.”

He lifted his ale and drank as if dismissing both the subject and the barmaid. She returned to the bar and promptly took the keep’s ear. Like a candle being lit, I saw her words bring Duccio’s public name to the front of the man’s thoughts. With it came a body of memories: a sizable purse received monthly; notes delivered to someone in Milan whenever Duccio’s name arose under his watch; an implied threat should he not cooperate with the assigned duty.

“It’s him,” I whispered. “He means to send the information to someone in Milan.”

Pompeia turned to me with perplexed doubt. Her eyes remained incredulous until she realized, by hearing the man’s thoughts in my mind, that I told the truth. She could not have been more astonished. When the name Lupofiero registered as crucially important to the barkeep, bathed in mental hues of fear, Pompeia nearly gasped.

Go to him, she told Maximo silently.

He had heard my mind just the same as Pompeia, though he hadn’t thought upon its implications. Maximo made his way to the bar and caught the barkeep’s attention without the slightest effort.

“Friend, do you know if that was Don Lupofiero I saw leaving when I came in?” he asked just a little too loudly over the noise of the patrons. “Yes, I believe that was him. I once saw the man in—.”

Without expecting the change, another sound pulled at my mind, calling out above the surrounding din. Against my will, a biting terror penetrated my thoughts. Someone was in danger, struggling in pain, and those thoughts of fear screamed out to me in echoes of red.

Chills ran up my spine, and I rose from my chair involuntarily to scan for the source. When I recognized that the sound came from upstairs, I turned and moved to find a staircase.

“Gabriella...” Pompeia called to me in disbelief.

I moved without seeing my surroundings—a long hallway; a small lobby; a staircase that led me upstairs. The vision in my mind occluded it all, set upon finding the terror that drew me.

Arriving on the third floor, the images came with such vivid clarity, it almost felt like I could see through the hallway walls. The sound came from a woman in danger. She was being hurt by a man, painfully violated; a blade at her throat; her husband’s slain body on the floor beside the narrow bed. The woman’s pain came soaked in fear, for she knew he would kill her when he’d finished—and all of this came now in a blinding red light.

I reached to open the door but found it locked. Looking at my hand on the nob, I saw the change even before I felt it. My skin darkened to a perfect black, and thick, silken hair grew in seconds to cover my hand with a glossy coat. The change was nothing less than ecstasy. It was a sensation that fought against the very rage that began the process.

Then I grew in size, each limb expanding, changing in length and volume, tearing the fabric of my frock, separating its seams. The leather of my shoes broke apart, and the small heels cracked and split under my weight. This, too, felt strangely pleasurable, and I pulled the tatters away to be free of them. My head touched the ceiling as I continued to grow, and I knelt down to posture.

As I braced to leap through the closed door, my eyes caught Pompeia, who stood in perfect horror at what I’d done.

Unable to hear what she said to me, I leaped forward to crash through the narrow door, splintering the very doorframe apart. I set upon the fiend before my eyes could discern him, drawn by the images that flooded through my mind. He received the first blow without the slightest comprehension of its source, flying away from the woman to slam against the corner wall.

I took hold of the man with my black claw, seizing him by the neck to push him into the wall. With my other, I slashed at his chest, ripped his clothing apart, and sliced his skin open. Over and over, I tore at him, determined to cut his body apart in sharp slashes, the blood flying off my talons. The last of his gurgled screams came when I released his neck to pull apart his rib cage with a hard break. Finding his beating heart, I ripped it out from his chest and rose it to squeeze its blood over his face.

The last bits of his consciousness came to me in glorious clarity before he perished, and I savored the delicious horror in his mind, seeing the hellish anger in my face through his clouding eyes. I ripped open the tender flesh of his neck with my incisors, tasting the last of his rapist blood on my tongue. It was the most extraordinary sensation of pleasure I’d ever experienced in my life, and far beyond anything I could have conceived.

The woman’s screams from the other corner made my euphoria even more addictive.

Determined to celebrate the man’s vanquish, I leaped powerfully through the plate window with a tremendous crash and pulled myself up the building’s side to its tiled roof. There, with Cantù laid out beneath me, I released a victorious scream of my own.