Page 31 of Quest of the Wolf

Duncan shook his head ruefully and touched his scar, as if to say the shackles existed in another form. “I understand the compound with the dungeon is for sale.”

“It is. And the real estate agent wasextremelyrude about giving me information on it. You’re lucky I found you. Though, ah, you don’t look like you need rescuing as much as I believed.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Youlooklike you’re here having a grand adventure.” I waved toward the hole and the medallion.

Duncan touched his wounded thigh. “I’ve been perforated.”

“I know you well enough now to be positive that doesn’t negate my statement.”

“It hasn’t been anunappealingadventure, but I didn’t start upon it of my own accord. I’ve been worried about you. I was fairly certain you escaped after your cousin died with his abode on fire, but I didn’t see you before the call overtook me, the overpowering urge to obey and come to…” He sneered. Had he almost said something likemy master? “That device,” was what he finished with, pointing at his forehead. “You were right that I’m more susceptible to that call when I’m in the bipedfuris form. Maybe I didn’t need to take it that night, but if you’ve ever tried to hurl demolitions as a wolf, you would understand my choice.”

“I’m surprised you had the wherewithal to do something like that while ineitherform.” As a wolf, I would find explosives a puzzling human thing and probably avoid them. As a wolf,mosthuman things were puzzling.

“The bipedfuris is a little more clever than the wolf.”

“So, you’ve been doing Abrams’s bidding these past few days?While I was worried about you and not sure if you were a prisoner or dead or what?”

“It’s been Radomir’s bidding actually. As I mentioned before, Abrams doesn’t want much to do with me. He has a new werewolf to train up—” Duncan grimaced, probably empathetic to the boy, to the littlebrotherhe’d only recently learned existed, “—and he doesn’t trust me for some odd reason.”

“You did burn his castle down.”

“Yes, including the library. I think I was as aggrieved about that as he was. I adore books, you know.”

“Yes, you mentioned that they were responsible for your habit of calling twenty-first-century womenmy lady.”

“Quite.” Duncan bent and lifted the medallion. “These days, Radomir is the one holding the device and sending me off to do his bidding. Abrams is in their lair researching wolf artifacts. His work led me to check this place out, but I don’t think this is what they hoped I would find.” He pointed at the tree medallion.

“It’s pretty, but it looks more like a druid thing than a werewolf thing.”

“Yes. It has power, but I don’t know if they or any of our kind could call upon it. Perhaps your intern could.”

“I doubt those guys would want you to give it to Bolin to check.”

“Likely not. I don’t think this is technically on the land they purchased, ostensibly for mushroom farming but also because they’d heard rumors about this place.” Duncan’s wave encompassed the cave as well as the treed land out to the highway. “Even so, I’m sure they believe anything they send their…minionto find—” he touched his chest, “—belongs to them.”

“Have you figured out yetwhythey’re collecting werewolf artifacts?”

“I have not. Neither of them has confided in me.”

“They sound as rude as their real estate agent.”

“Ruder. Remember, Abrams ordered me to be dumped naked into a ditch.”

“I do remember that. And that you, somehow, even in such a state, talked a female chocolatier into giving you caramel apples and truffles.”

“Because of my irrepressible charm. It overrides any alarm ladies might otherwise feel about my nudity.”

“Is that so?”

“You’rehere with me and not alarmed by my nudity.”

“Because I’m holding a sword.”

“And the single lesson infused you with confidence in your ability to use it?”

“Well, I now know which end goes in the werewolf, so there’s that.”

---