Lord of the Wolfyn - By Jessica Andersen Page 0,84

castle.

A crossbow bolt thrummed toward him and buried itself in the dirt; a second carved a furrow in his haunch and he missed a few steps. But healing magic surged within him, hot and hard, as if he were suddenly drawing strength from the soil of Castle Island. Within seconds the injury had closed up and he was running once more at full tilt toward the outer bailey and—

He skidded hard, nearly falling when the trail he had been following suddenly swerved and headed away from the castle, toward the cluster of buildings at the other end of the island.

The sounds of footfalls and armor clanks rang out within the castle, calling to him. But his bond with Reda called harder. He could sense her now; he could feel her fear and despair. I’m coming, he sent along the bond. Hang on!

And he bolted away from the castle, toward the woman he loved, because he finally knew who he really was: he was hers.

Chapter 16

The trail led to the bestiary, which unlike the castle seemed deserted, at least of humans. Still in wolf form, Dayn slunk through the open doors at one end of the L-shaped building and padded up the long, barnlike aisle, which was flanked on either side by barred doors instead of the sliders he remembered.

The fur of his ruff bristled and his senses were maxed out. He could feel Reda’s energy, but he couldn’t track her using the bond. He could only look in every stall-size cell, his bile rising higher with each one as he caught sight of the beasts he had studied, the ones he had once tracked and hunted in all their wild glory, chained and contained, with much of their beauty stripped away.

A jungle liger lay chained to the wall; bare patches on its haunches showed where it had chewed its own fur away. A pair of demidragons slept huddled together in a corner, their normally dark scales bleached pale from cold and the lack of sun. A huge spider hung from the ceiling with its legs folded around its body and its multifaceted eyes glazed. The creatures seemed dispirited and uninterested…or, Dayn realized with a chill shiver, like they had been leeched of their life forces.

The sorcerer fed off everything, it seemed.

Then there was a fierce growl from up ahead, one that had Dayn’s hackles rising instinctively as he drew even with the doorway, where a smallish wolfyn male was pressed against the iron bars. The unfamiliar wolfyn’s ears were flat to his head, his amber eyes crazed with hatred.

“I’m a friend,” Dayn said in the simplified wolf-form language Candida had taught him on the sly. “I can help.”

The wolfyn didn’t show any recognition. Instead, he snarled at him and then danced back to snap at the bars, dig at them, and then pressed forward again, trying to get at Dayn. There didn’t seem to be any humanity left in the small male. Which, perhaps, was a blessing.

His snarls, though, had stirred up the other creatures, which stomped and shifted restlessly, starting to growl and snort.

“Hush,” Dayn snarled. “They’ll hear.” He moved on, caught a faint whiff of flowers and spices and charged to the end of the aisle, heart rocketing. “Reda?” The word was a two-syllable chuff that sounded very like the wolfyn word for heart. Which was only fitting, as she had taken his.

He skidded to a stop in front of the cell that carried her scent. And stopped dead.

It was empty, the bars fully retracted into the floor and ceiling through some magical means. She was gone.

And the air beyond that point stank of fear and pain. The smell slammed into him, shutting down his senses. He couldn’t scent her from there, couldn’t track her.

“No.” His stomach dropped. Frantically, he searched for the bond, felt her, but didn’t like what he felt. There was anger, which was good because it said she was fighting whatever was happening to her. But there was also terror and despair. And that wasn’t good at all.

“They’ve taken her.” The deep, resonant voice came from the opposite cell, and spoke a tongue he knew, though had never spoken successfully.

Heart galloping like a coal-black herd flowing over a green meadow, Dayn whirled and charged to the cell, which was so deeply shadowed that all he could see was a huge, indistinct shape in the corner. He pressed against the bars and said in the same language, “Where?”

And his wolf-form tongue said the word in