Mercedes Lackey - Beauty and the Werewolf

She let Sapphire help her the rest of the way out of her clothing and into a nightdress and robe in a bemused and preoccupied state of mind. Was it too early to hint about this to her father? Probably not. He could very well get annoyed with her if she didn’t give him some warning, and her letters of late had been more full of the patrols with and without Eric than they were of Sebastian.

That might have been giving entirely the wrong impression.

Sebastian’s a Duke. So far as Genevieve is concerned, he could be a hairy ape every day of the year as long as he has a title, and she would be over-joyed with the marriage. With her on my side, I don’t think Father can stand against us.

Honestly, as long as she was happy, he probably wouldn’t even put up a token objection.

But there was something else she hadn’t been telling him. While she’d talked about Sebastian working magic, and her own work in the stillroom, she hadn’t exactly told him, “And by the way, Father, it seems I’m a sorceress.”

She settled down with pen and paper to detail what she and Sebastian had been doing all this time. I hadn’t quite made up my mind until now, because I really wasn’t sure that it meant anything, but now that I have, tonight, helped with something very difficult and important, I suppose it is time I confessed to you that I seem to be a magician… There, get that shock over with first. Anything that came afterward would seem mild by comparison.

When she had finished the letter, it barely fit in the box, and it was quite late. She checked the box reflexively as she always did once she had put it inside — the letter was gone. Short letters didn’t always vanish immediately. Long ones, however, did. Peculiar.

With a feeling of satisfaction, she stood up and stretched.

And froze, as the tortured howl of a wolf echoed through the corridors.

This isn’t possible! It wasn’t the full moon; it was the new moon! An icy hand seemed to stroke her back as her breath and heart stilled. Another howl — close!

Her body felt as if she had been hit by lightning.

Sapphire flew in through the door and slammed it behind her, just as something huge and heavy hit it. The thump shook the room. Bella ran to the door to try to hold it in place.

More thumps, as the wood shivered under her hand, and her heart raced. The servant dropped a bar across the door into slots meant to hold it there, but it was obvious that the door wasn’t going to hold up under this punishment for long. That was what the gate of iron bars was meant for.

Her mouth dried with terror. “Silver!” she shouted to Sapphire, looking frantically for something herself, finally spotting a branched candlestick. That would have to do.

Frenzied growls punctuated the thuds as the wolf continued to ram the door. The bar shivered and cracked every time he hit. Sapphire and Bella backed into a corner; Bella’s heart was pounding so hard it felt as if it was going to leap out of her chest.

The bar shattered. With a shriek of tortured wood, splinters flew everywhere. The door smashed open, hitting the wall behind it, and Sebastian-wolf leapt wild-eyed into the room.

She hadn’t gotten a good look at him out in the woods — he had seemed huge then; he seemed bigger now. Tall and rangy, dark gray fur, his muscles rippled with power beneath his skin.

He focused on Bella immediately, his yellow eyes blazing at her. He sniffed twice, taking in her scent. He stalked toward her, stiff-legged, growling, no sign of anything human in his eyes.

Fear set her nerves on fire; she grasped the candlestick firmly in both hands, her mind racing. She couldn’t fight him off — she probably couldn’t even hurt him that much. Not physically.

That left magic.

She sensed, then saw, magic swirling in confused eddies all through the room, whirlpools of sparkling motes of light that danced and pulsed with a golden energy that was stronger than anything she had ever seen before. She called them to her, concentrating on keeping her will strong, believing that she could control this power.

Come! she called it, and the magic answered!

She felt it, warm and sweet, pouring toward her. It streamed toward her, like swarms of bees heading for the hive. The streams gathered around her; she spun them tighter and tighter, until the resulting sphere of power glowed like a little moon, and then she flung it at Sebastian.

“Sebastian!” she called, her voice cracking. “Sebastian! I order you! Remember!”

The sphere of magic hit the wolf full-force and enveloped him like an insect in amber; he froze, every hair on end, as the air crackled and the power surged around him.

“Remember!” she called again, putting every bit of her fear and her feelings for Sebastian into the order. “Remember who you are! You are not a beast! You are a man!”

The wolf shook like a tree in a windstorm, eyes huge and wild. The power continued to whirl around him, trying to penetrate whatever it was that was keeping it from fusing with him.

“Remember!” she ordered for the third time, and threw aside the candlestick. “You are Sebastian! And I love you!”

The power struck again, and shattered some barrier that she could not see. It was sucked into the wolf like water into parched ground. The beast yelped, convulsed — then went rigid all over, legs stiff —

And then, slowly, painfully, raised its head.

She looked in its eyes and saw, not the beast, but the man.

But before she could move, the sound of someone running shattered her concentration.

“Stand back!” Eric shouted, bursting through the broken door. “Stand back. I have him!” He raised a crossbow to his shoulder, aiming it at Sebastian. “I have him, Bella!”

To her horror, she saw the head of the bolt glinting silver. Fear stabbed her.

No!

But in the instant before he shot, a silver candlestick flew past her shoulder, knocking the crossbow aside. But it went off, anyway, the bolt hitting Sebastian’s hind leg and tearing a furrow across the skin and hide. With a yelp of pain, the wolf wheeled, charged for the door and shouldered Eric aside, dashing out into the corridor again. Bella ran in hot pursuit, ignoring Eric. She raced down the corridor, bare feet slapping on the stone, following the sound of skittering claws.

“Sebastian!” she called, or tried to, her sides aching, and her throat burning as she tried to catch her breath.

He didn’t even pause.

Even wounded, Sebastian was unbelievably fast. She reached the intersection of two corridors and paused, uncertain, no longer able to hear him running. A moment later she heard the crashing of glass far off in the direction of the greenhouse; by the time she reached the spot, it was obvious what had happened. Sebastian had managed to find the greenhouse, shoulder the door open and had thrown himself through one of the panes to escape out into the snow.

There was no trace of him but the footprints — dark pits in the drifts, heading into the forest.

She stood uncertain in her bare feet, holding her aching side, staring, her heart pounding like a mad drum and fear making her want to burst into tears and sink down helplessly to the ground. But she didn’t dare do that. He was all she had, the only hope he had. She fought down the tears and clasped her fists to her temples, trying to think.

A flood of Spirit Elementals poured into the greenhouse, probably attracted by the noise. Several of them — ones she recognized by their colors as being in the “not very bright” category — began working on a makeshift patch for the broken pane to keep the cold from pouring in; two began sweeping up the glass. The rest milled uncertainly. But some were intelligent ones, and more than that, were outdoor workers. She’d actually seen their little bunches of leaves floating on the verge of the forest. Could they follow him? “You!” she snapped, pointing to ribbons holding leaf bundles. “Oak, Ash, Thorn, Birch! Track him! Find Sebastian now!”