Chapter 2
2054 Words
2
Heather led me from the dining hall and down the passage in the opposite direction from where I’d come.
“What was that back there? With that guy coughing?” I asked my new guide.
“His Lordship has only recently recovered from a terrible illness,” she explained. We came to an intersection of hallways and she paused. The woman lifted her nose to the air and sniffed.
I stood off to the side and raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
She turned to me with a gentle smile that mirrored her mistress. “Smelling the air for the scent of the young master,” she explained.
“So wolves really do have that ability?” I guessed.
“Werewolves, but yes.” She nodded down the hallway to our left. “Your mate is this way.”
“He’s not my mate,” I insisted as I followed her down the passage.
“Your scent argues against you,” she informed me.
I frowned and sniffed my arm. “I don’t smell anything different.”
“The gift comes slowly to most. You’ll learn your abilities soon enough,” she encouraged me.
I snorted. “Some gift. Being trapped in here against my will. . .”
A smile slipped onto her face as we re-entered the Old Den. “Do you not wish to be the mate of Erik?”
I wrinkled my nose. “No, why would I?”
The woman chuckled. “He is, or was, much sought after by other women.”
I glanced around us at the empty halls. “I don’t see much of anyone, much less women. You and that Lady Greenwood are the only ones I’ve seen.”
“We are fewer than the men, and raise our sons in our homes,” she explained.
“What about the daughters? Humans kidnap them as revenge?” I quipped.
Her face fell and she looked straight ahead. “We have no daughters.”
It was my turn for my face to show confusion. “No daughters at all?”
“We’re here,” she announced. I glanced ahead and saw we stood in front of a pair of large wooden doors.
Heather opened them both and presented me with a full view of a large library. The room encompassed two floors of the rock-hewn Old Den. Two metal-wrought spiral staircases on opposite sides of the room led to the upper balcony and floor. Rows upon rows of dark oak bookshelves were set against the dry stone walls. They wrapped around the walls behind and in front of us. The lower floor was stone, and the upper was of wood darkened with age and countless layers of sealant.
Light came from a domed ceiling high above us and from large oil lamps. The lamps were cylindrical in appearance, and were a foot wide and as tall. They hung from hooks that stuck out from the walls beside the bookcases. The flickering flames hung onto wicks and cast dancing, haunting shadows over the large tomes that sat on the deep shelves. Long, thick wooden tables stood in front of the bookcase, and on their tops were stacks of books. Some lay open, others were closed.
My ‘mate’ stood behind one of the winding staircases, and in his hands was a dusty tome wrapped in a dark-brown cover. He looked up at our entrance and frowned. “What is this? Has breakfast finished already?” he questioned the servant.
Heather bowed her head. “Your mother wished for your mate to be brought to you.”
“I’m busy. Return her to my-”
“Your mother says I’m not to return Mrs. Greenwood to her,” Heather interrupted.
Greenwood slammed shut his book and glared at us. “Very well.” He turned his attention to me and nodded at one of the chairs at one of the crowded tables. “Sit there.” I grudgingly plopped myself in the hard wooden seat.
“If you will excuse me,” Heather spoke up. She bowed and left us.
I tilted my head back and inspected the dome over our heads. It showed a dark sky, and I glimpsed a splattering of rain on the glass. I jerked back when a book flew past my shoulder and landed with a thud on the table. I whipped around and glared at Greenwood. His back faced me and he fetched another book from a shelf.
“Are you always such a jerk?” I growled.
“It’s excusable. I’m under some stress,” he returned.
I faced forward and folded my arms across my chest. “You and me both, but I’m not tossing books at people.”
“I’m doing us both a favor by looking through these books,” he argued.
“Forgive me if I don’t thank you,” I quipped.
“You may if I find out how to break the bond between us,” he told me.
I spun around so I was seated in reverse in the chair and raised an eyebrow. “I’d jump for joy if I understood this ‘bonding’ thing.”
He closed the book in his hands and tossed it onto the table. “It is a joining of two like werewolves through a blood contract.”
“But I’m not a werewolf,” I pointed out.
His eyes traveled along the shelves of books and he picked up a new one. “You weren’t before the Choosing, but partaking of my blood changed you. My blood was placed in the goblet, after all.”
I raised a hand and inspected my normal fingers. “I’m not seeing any difference.”
“The physical changes come slowly. The first obvious sign is the mark on your shoulder. You bear the sign of my house,” he explained.
My eyes widened and I lifted my dress sleeve to inspect the marking. The moon shone back at me. There was no more heated pain, only a dull bruising. “So what happens if I try to get this removed?” I asked him.
“It will return on the new skin. Every time,” he told me. Thud went another book onto the table.
“So besides a permanent tattoo, what else does this ‘bonding’ thing do what to me?” I wondered.
“You will develop the urge to procreate with your mate and will become protective of them,” he informed me.
I swept my eyes over him and wrinkled my nose. “I can’t deny the first part, but I don’t think so much of the second.”
“Thinking isn’t involved. It’s now an instinct inside you,” he argued.
I slumped over the back of the chair and sighed. “And what else?”
“Besides your growing abilities as a werewolf, nothing,” he replied.
“Those are enough. . .” I muttered. I watched him take several books off the shelves on at a time, and each in succession was browsed and tossed onto the table. “So what exactly are you looking for?”
“Any clues to break the blood bond. This library is as old as the settlement, and if there is a way to release us from this curse it will be here,” he explained.
I leaned back and allowed my eyes to browse the ancient, dusty spines. There were hundreds of books, and many of them didn’t have titles on their bindings. “You got a computer system we can do a search through?” I wondered.
“No.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’m really surprised you even know what a computer is.”
“Then it may shock you to know that I can use one,” he commented.
“Shocking,” I quipped. I watched him rummage through a few more books. At the rate he was going this search would take half my lifetime. I slid off the chair and sauntered over to a bookshelf close to Greenwood. I grabbed a book from a shelf and opened the cover. On the pages was a language I’d never seen. The letters were mostly English, but the order of the letters didn’t create English words. “Um, mind telling me what this means?” I asked him as I turned to Greenwood and held the open page towards him.
He turned to me and his eyes brushed over the page. “It’s in Old Lycan.”
I furrowed my brow and glanced at the page. “Old Lycan? Is that like Italian or something?”
He turned his back to me and resumed his searching of the shelves in front of him. “Something like that, but with more Slavic influence in its grammar,” he explained.
“Come again?”
He looked up from his book and sighed. “Old Lycan has Eastern European origins. That is why werewolf tales are more likely to come from the east. My ancestors were originally from that geographic region and migrated here to avoid extermination.”
I shrugged and put the unreadable book back on the shelf. “I guess that isn’t earth-shattering information.”
That’s when the earth began to shatter.
The tremors started as small vibrations, hardly enough to rattle a teacup, but they increased in strength and graduated to shaking the bookshelves. Books vibrated off the shelves and dropped to the floor in piles of papers and bindings. I grabbed the nearest shelf and watched cracks form in the floor between my feet. The chairs and tables danced across the stone floor, and some toppled backwards.
I heard something groan and spun around in time to watch one of the large bookshelves fall forwards towards me. Greenwood’s strong arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me from harm’s way. The bookshelf, with its hundreds of pounds of books, crashed to the floor where I just stood.
I buried my face into my savior’s chest and tried to stop my body from shaking as violently as the library. After a few more seconds the tremors slowed and stopped, and I looked up. Greenwood held me tight against his hard chest. His narrowed eyes glared at the fallen bookcase behind me.
A blush rose to my cheeks when I realized how close and warm was his body to mine. “You. . .you saved me?” I whispered.
He released me and stepped away from me. “It was merely the instinct of the bonding,” he defended himself.
I folded my arms across my chest and rolled my eyes. “I guess I was giving you too much credit.” Greenwood ignored me. He leaned down and slipped his fingers beneath the fallen bookcase. I frowned. “You can’t lift that, it probably weighs-” He raised himself, and the bookcase, and walked it back so the piece of furniture once more stood against the wall. My mouth dropped open and I pointed a finger at the bookcase. “What the hell do you eat for breakfast?”
“I am a Lycan,” he reminded me.
I frowned. “All right, Mr. Lycan, explain to me what that earthquake was about. You guys make some ancient hairy god mad or something?”
Greenwood frowned and tilted his head up to look at the second floor. “None that I’m aware of.”
“So this is a typical day in the life of a werewolf?” I quipped.
He shook his head. “I can’t recall there ever being an earthquake in this area.”
“The earth doesn’t usually do a jig,” I retorted.
He ignored me and walked over to the nearest metal staircase. It stood askew from its original position. A small bit of rubble from the upper balcony sat on the steps. “This wasn’t a mere jig, and another such quake and I will have to save you from more than just a bookcase.” He directed his eyes at a point beneath the balcony.
I followed his gaze and my eyes widened when I noticed a crack in the wall behind the bookcases that stood beneath the balcony. I walked over to him and nodded at the damage. “You guys got a big band-aid?” I asked him.
He turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “Why do you care what happens to the Den?”
I winced. “I. . .I don’t, but I don’t want it to come crashing down on me, either.”
Greenwood looked away and frowned. “It will take some time to repair the damage, and that is only if another earthquake doesn’t occur.”
“So crossing our fingers?”
“No, we will find the source of the problem, but first we will see how the rest of the island fared.” He strode past me, snatched a cloak off one of the tables, and moved to the entrance. Greenwood paused at the entrance and glanced over his shoulder. There was a hint of mischief in his eyes when he spoke. “Unless you wish to remain here should another occur?” he called to me.
I crossed my arms and planted my feet. “Maybe I won’t be here when you get back,” I countered.
“I thought perhaps you wanted to be useful to your friends. Am I wrong?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Useful how?” I asked him.
“The earthquake might have been powerful enough to effect all the islands. If it happens again some of them may be injured, or worse,” he pointed out.
Lillian. She was probably terrified right now. My face fell and my shoulders drooped. “I’m coming. . .” I grumbled.
- Writer
