Page 45 of Wolf's Bane
She kept watched as Miles slept, in case he had a delayed reaction to the bite or whatever toxins flowed through him. With an old quilt wrapped about her shoulders, she settled into a chair to read. She absently flipped through the pages of an old primer, reading the signs of a beast’s curse.
Faded ink listed the old-world names for the new monsters the original settlers discovered inhabiting the continent: werewolf, vampire, and witch. She could recite entire pages from memory, but the touch of paper and ink helped her to think.
The beast had been unfazed by the silver weapons. Pained, yes, but not grievously injured. According to the primer, with age, cursed creatures developed immunity to silver and other warding artifacts—the exact nature of a warding artifact, she did not know. The primer took it for granted as an obvious piece of information and failed to elaborate.
Immunity.
Beasts could resist the effects of silver. The devils who craved blood could tolerate sunlight.
She did not want to imagine such a world filled with ancient monsters who could shrug off attacks.
Her fingers ran down a list of the signs of infection and the means to test if a person had the curse: skin irritation to silver, violet-tinted blood, accelerated healing, though infected bites were slow to heal, fangs and other excessive teeth, and a violet light in the eyes. Behavioral changes comprised a long list increasing in severity from irritability to feral mania during the full moon.
None of it made sense. If Alek—
But she had seen the damage the silver-tipped arrow did to his back and the violet blood that stained his shirt. Unmistakable proof, yet his behavior did not align with what the book wrote. He should be unstable, unsocial, irritable with fits of fury and violence.
He should have shifted. How had he resisted the pull of the moon and remained human? Retained his mind?
The doorknob rattled, startling her awake from her rambling thoughts. The book fell to the floor.
“Solenne? Are you there?”
“Alek! Yes.” She moved to the door, fingers hovering over the lock before she hesitated. Was this a trick? Had he slipped into a feral mania now? No, Alek sounded normal, but she wondered how many teeth he had in his mouth and how sharp.
“Do not open the door. Swear to me. Do not open this door.”
Aleksandar
Boxon Hill
Marechal House - A Corridor
Alek leaned against the door,exhaustion finally catching up with him. Claws had receded, but his hands were still distorted and not entirely human.
Home. Mate.
Returning to the Marechals had been a mistake. He expected the proximity to the nexus point to exacerbate his condition, but he had not expected Solenne to affect him so.
“You’re in my blood. Don’t open the door. I won’t be kind,” he said, enunciating carefully around the teeth in his mouth. They were the sort of teeth made for snarling and biting, not eloquence.
Inside, the beast howled to tear down the door because she was in his blood and it promised to be anything but kind. It wanted to cover Solenne with its scent, to erase the lingering stench of the other who bared to touch his mate. Bad enough the house reeked of the musk, but an open window helped.
The door had to remain closed or he’d ruin her, in multiple, scandalous ways.
“What’s happening? Talk to me,” Solenne said from the other side of the door, her voice muffled by the door but safe. Safe as long as the barrier was in place.
“Don’t open the door. No matter what I say. Promise me.”
“I don’t understand. What’s—”
“Solenne!” His clenched fist hit the door. “Just promise me. Say it.”
“I…I won’t open the door.”
“Good.” He sagged against the door before sliding down to his knees. “You’re in my blood. I don’t know how, but I can feel you. That was how I knew to return to the house. It wasn’t Luis or Godwin’s tracking. I felt your fear. It was delicious, Solenne.” He ran his tongue over his sharp teeth, drawing a thin laceration that healed almost immediately. “Does your blood taste as delightful? Or your—”
“Aleksandar!”
