concentrated only on one thing. Sebastian, looking out of the wolf’s eyes at her. “You. Will. Come. Back. To. Me!”
The wolf shivered all over, and froze. Then there was — well, it wasn’t a sound so much as a feeling, the feeling of something giving way. Whatever barrier that had stood between Sebastian and the magic vanished in an instant, and once again, the swirling magic was literally sucked into Sebastian.
The wolf collapsed beneath her. The orb of light flared, lighting up the area like a lantern.
Cautiously, she let go of Sebastian’s neck. The wolf lay on his side, panting with exhaustion, but otherwise not moving. The wound on his hind leg oozed blood, sluggishly.
“Sebastian?” she croaked, bending over him and tentatively stroking his muzzle.
The wolf whimpered. He fixed a desperate gaze on her.
“Get away from him.”
She jerked upright.
Eric stood beside her exhausted horse, his far more lethal crossbow aimed at Sebastian.
Magic, but a nasty, dark-tinged magic, like the dust of dried blood, swirled around him.
She stared at him, berating herself for not seeing it sooner. “Magic generally runs in families.” Wasn’t that what the Godmother had said?
“You did this to him!” she burst out, without thinking. “The curse — it was you!”
He snarled, all pretense of charm gone. “And why not? He had everything! I had nothing! Was his blood any better than mine? And then his father died, and no one was prepared to take over, so I did! And I ran the estate, the forest and the lands better than the Old Duke had! Why shouldn’t I have it?”
She wanted to reply, Because it isn’t yours, but she knew better than that. Any opposition could make him fire.
“Did I kill the boy?” he continued, voice cracking with strain. “No! I took care of him! I took care of the inheritance by rights I should have had! And I was honest the whole time! I didn’t take a penny or an acorn for myself, except to give myself the things that a proper Guardian should have! And did anyone ever reward me for it? No!”
She made an abortive move, and the tip of the arrow moved to aim at her. “So I cursed him! What of it? All he ever really wanted to do was be left alone to play with his magic! So, three nights out of the month he had to be locked up! So what! Nobody was hurt, and I was still in charge!” His eyes narrowed. “And then you came strolling through my forest, and you — Bah! Uppity, snippy shrew that you are! You weren’t like other women. You wouldn’t shut up when you were told, and I had to stop you before you ruined everything I’d done.”
“I — What?” But before he could answer, she realized what he meant. He knew after he had bullied and threatened her that she was going to get even, and she herself had told him that she had a powerful enough father to cause him some serious problems…and she felt her eyes widen.
“You turned Sebastian loose that night!” she gasped.
“I figured he’d kill you.” Eric shrugged without taking his eyes off her. “Either you’d be found, and the King would order Sebastian to be locked up forever, or you wouldn’t be found because Sebastian would tear you to pieces, and no one would ever know what happened to you. Either way, I would still be in charge.” His face took on an expression of baffled fury. “How the hell did you manage to only get bitten?”
She shook her head. She still didn’t know. She remembered screaming at the wolf, remembered it suddenly letting go of her, looking at her with some unfathomable expression in its eyes, remembered it running —
His lip curled. “You have the luck of the very devil. When you got foisted on us, I decided to find a way to make you trust me. Once you trusted me, I tried to get rid of you in that ambush. When that didn’t work, I knew all that messing about with Sebastian in his workroom meant that you were some sort of witch. And you were doing something to me so I couldn’t think properly.”
She tried not to show how right he was.
“That was when I got away so you wouldn’t work whatever magic it was you were doing to me, and got my head clear.” He laughed. “You two aren’t the only magicians around here. I don’t need all your potions and powders and diagrams — I don’t need them, because I’m stronger than you! And you two, so smug, so pleased with yourselves, talking about how you’d change the curse. I already knew it could be changed! And when I got away from you, well, that was when I knew the answer to both my problems. I’d change the curse. I’d force Sebastian into the wolf, outside of the full moon, when both of you thought you were safe. He’d attack and kill you. I’d kill him, alas, too late to save you.“ He smiled, an icy smile that sent chills all down her spine. “Then Eric the Hero gets the Dukedom, if not the title, for saving the Kingdom from a man who’d become an uncontrollable monster. The King gives out land all the time to people who kill monsters, and I already take care of this area. Happy ending. Well, not for you, and not for him, but that hardly matters. That’s how it is still going to happen. I’ll just rip you up a bit to hide the arrow-wound and — ”
The wolf had been lying quietly all this time without moving, her hand lying on his shoulder. She hadn’t noticed Sebastian tensing under her hand until it was too late.
Two hundred pounds of fur and fury launched itself straight for Eric. Not snarling, but silent and deadly — the man, and not the beast, never mind that the man went on all fours and wore fur.
And at the same time a dozen snowballs rocketed across the clearing, aimed right for Eric’s face.
The snowballs struck first, blinding him just as he reacted to Sebastian moving, so the shot went wild, and the crossbow bolt buried itself in the wood of the tree trunk just above her head. Then Sebastian hit him, and knocked him to the ground. His crossbow went flying.
But it was the man who was in charge of the body, not the wolf, and the man didn’t know how to fight like a wolf. Eric threw him off and rolled to his feet, pulling a knife as Sebastian crouched, ready to leap on his enemy again. The two froze, measuring each other.
Another dozen snowballs, thrown by the invisible hands of the Spirit Elementals, hit Eric again. Sebastian took advantage of Eric’s distraction to slam his shoulder into Eric’s legs, knocking him down for a second time, then sprang away before Eric’s knife could touch him.
