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“Nothing’s wrong – well. I don’t know. It might be. Leif is alive, at any rate, and Ragnar is healing – or is healed, I suppose. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“Healed fromwhat?”
Then it was Amelia’s turn to talk, and Tessa’s turn to listen, and by the end, Amelia’s pulse was pounding as if she stood right in front of the two men, still, craning her neck to look up at them and wondering why it felt almost pleasant to be peered at like a tasty rabbit at supper time.
Tessa winced when Amelia explained about Ragnar’s injury. “Poor Ragnar – though, everyone here would look at me askance if they heard me say such a thing. Ragnar is…not well-liked.”
“Didn’t he leave Ollie, Erik, Leif, and Náli for dead?”
“He, um, well, he lured them up into the mountains and left them with a clan of cannibals, actually.”
“Ah. Hard to be liked after that.”
“Not to mention he’s the one who turned Leif.”
Amelia started to offer another smart remark, and found she couldn’t. Swallowed instead, and worked to keep her expression neutral. “How did he manage that? Turning him, I mean?”
“I don’t know how the magic of it works, but I know a bite was involved. You may have seen it.” She gestured to her own side, and then her cheeks pinked. “Or, well, no. I haven’t seen it either. But apparently it’s here, along his ribs.”
“Hm. Did he do it on purpose? Was it a heat of battle sort of thing? Or did Ragnar turn Leif intentionally? Him specifically?”
“Only Ragnar knows that,” Tessa said, shaking her head. “But I think Erik suspects as much. It’s why he was so reluctant to allow Ragnar out of the dungeons, and why even then, it was only if we made the torq to bind him.”
“It stops him from shapeshifting, yes?”
“Yes. He could still slay a man with a bow or a sword in his human shape, of course, but Leif assured us all that he wouldn’t do such a thing unless instructed to.” Tessa sounded doubtful.
“Have you seen them together? Leif and Ragnar?”
Tessa’s frown deepened. “I saw them the day we magicked the torq. And I’ve seen them from the window, walking the palace grounds.”
“But have you seen them up close since the torq was put on?” Amelia pressed. “Have you watched them interact?”
Tessa didn’t answer the question, but a light came into her eyes, one of dawning understanding. Tessa had always been a perceptive girl, but sheltered, carefully shielded from life’s more unsavory realities. She’d never before looked at Amelia the way she did now, as though she’d realized she was about to hear something unpleasant, but was braced and ready for it.
“Why?” she asked. “Lia, what have you seen?”
She hadn’t expected to be asked so directly, and with that face pointed at her no less, and so she hesitated, caught off guard. Second guessed what she’d seen.
And whathadshe seen? Leif standing vigil while Ragnar was patched up; Ragnar pushing to see what he was allowed to say, and being rebuked for it. Her mind kept snagging on the arm Ragnar had hooked on Leif’s shoulder…and on the way, when injured, when she’d first approached, Ragnar had tucked his face into Leif’s neck andwhined.
Amelia shook her head. “I don’t know. But their connection is…strong. It’s palpable.”
Tessa bit at her lip, and murmured, “Oh no.”
“They’re walking upright, and they’re speaking – but there’s no mistaking them for men, Tessa. They’re animals, now, through and through.”
But Tessa said, “I think it’s only the adjustment that’s been hard for Leif. He can’t really trust Ragnar, not after everything. He’s still learning what it’s like to be a wolf. He’s a good man, Amelia. I’ve seen as much.”
“Maybe before he was turned,” Amelia said. “But whoever he is now, I think the Leif you met at Aeres is long gone.”
And in his place, Amelia had met something powerful, and frightening, and, wort of all, powerfully alluring.
~*~
“What do you make of them?” Reggie asked, where he stood at the tent’s entrance, peering out at the dark. He’d stripped off his gauntlets and mail and tunic, and stood now in an unlaced shirt, the torchlight beyond the tent haloing the trim shape of his torso through the material. His hair was rumpled and wavy from the day’s sweating, and Connor wanted nothing more than to knot his fingers in it and drag him down so he could taste the wine off his tongue.
He'd asked a serious question, though, and since it was their first chance to speak privately all day, Connor stretched his arms overhead until his spine popped, resettled on the bedroll, and gave the topic a bit of serious thought.
