Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega #1)(83)

Cautiously, he felt down the pack ties toward his Alpha and felt...nothing. Had she really done to Bran what she'd done to his Sarai? Two centuries was a long time to study and learn. Maybe she'd found a way to make another guardian for her protection, a way that took minutes instead of four days of torture.

Then he realized that Bran himself was shutting him out, that the pack bindings were still in place. The understanding gave him hope; he looked at the Marrok again, but still saw only a dim intelligence that bore no resemblance to the man Bran had been...was.

Just to be certain, Asil examined the pack ties again, but someone was actively shutting them tight. And the only person he knew who could be doing it was Bran.

But they weren't shut down entirely.

Something eased out from Bran and touched him with black cold fingers, oozing slowly into his soul. Sarai whined softly as she realized what it meant before he did, but then she'd always been better at this sort of thing than he was-he'd always thought of anger as something hot and quick. This was worse.

Berserker.

He had been in North Africa at the time, not even a century old. But even there he'd heard the stories. Deathbringer. Whole villages killed, from old woman to day-old infant. There were songs and stories, most of them lost now to time.

A witch had forced the Change on her son and her grandson-so she could play with them. For years she held them as pets, to do her bidding. It made her the most dangerous witch in the British Isles. And then her son broke free.

He killed his mother and ate her. Then he killed every living thing within miles. He found a home in the dark heart of the great Welsh forests-and for years nothing lived within a day's walk of his den.

Great hunters of a generation, human, werewolf, or other, sought to win their honor or prove their courage-and they died. Some came to visit vengeance for lost loved ones. They died. Even the fools who didn't understand, who were unlucky enough to venture too close to the monster, they died, too.

Then one day, or so he'd heard, Bran had walked out of the wilderness, his son at his side. No more berserker, only a harper, a teller of tales, and lone wolf.

Given enough time, even the most horrific story drifts to legend, then nothing. Asil was pretty sure that he was the only one, except for Samuel, of course, who knew enough to understand just what it was that the witch had done.

She thought she had the Marrok under her control. But then, Mariposa had always rewritten reality to suit her.

"...him of eagum stod ligge gelicost leoht unfaeger," Asil quoted softly.

"What did you say?" Mariposa was white and visibly exhausted, but her leash was strong and unbreakable.

"Beowulf," he told her. "Roughly translated it is, I believe...'from his eyes shone a flaming, baleful light.' I'm not a poet to do the translation in verse."

She looked suspiciously at Bran, but saw only eyes so dull they were more brown than amber. Asil knew it, because he kept looking himself.

From his eyes shone a flaming, baleful light. Grendel owed something to Bran's time as a berserker, as he did to other stories handed down over the centuries. But the lack of intelligence in his Alpha's eyes and the cold black rage flowing slowly from Bran into every werewolf tied to him was far more frightening than Grendel or Grendel's mother, those fierce monsters of the epic poem, could ever have been. He hoped that it was only infecting the immediate pack, but he was very much afraid it might spread to all of them.

Death would flow through the world as it had not since the Black Plague, when a third of Europe had died. And there would be no peace for a werewolf in this world ever again.

"You are afraid," she told him. "As you should be. For now I allow you to be yourself-but if you continue to trouble me, I will make you my pet, as I have made him. Pets are less useful than Sarai, incapable of responding to anything except direct orders-I had planned on making you a guardian, like Sarai. You'd best be careful I don't change my mind."

She thought he was afraid of her. And he had been, until the monster she had created surpassed her. She had no idea.

She took two steps toward Asil, then slapped him hard. He made no move to defend himself. She was hampered somewhat by her size, but she hit him at full strength, Sarai's strength. Reflexively, he licked the blood from his lip.

"That is for lying to me about who this werewolf was. It is the Marrok, not some stupid lesser wolf. You knew, you knew-and you let me believe him to be someone else. He might have hurt me. And you are supposed to keep me safe, have you forgotten? I was given into your keeping so you could make me safe."

Eventually, old wolves lost touch with reality. The first crisis was when all the people they had known died, and there was no one left who had known them when they were human. The second came at different times to different wolves, when the change in the world left them no place where they could feel at home.

And Mariposa had never been stable, even before she killed Sarai. However, if she thought he wanted to keep her safe...truly she was mad.

"But your betrayal didn't really matter," she told him with a girlish toss of her head. "I can keep myself safe, too. This one is mine." She glanced at Bran. "Change. I want to see your face. I've never been able to find a photo of you, Bran Cornick."

Asil found himself holding his breath as his Alpha obeyed. Would the pain of the change be the straw that allowed the monster to break free of her chains?