Keeper of the Wolves Read online

  Keeper of the Wolves

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  KEEPER OF THE WOLVES

  By Cheree L. Alsop

  Keeper of the Wolves

  By Cheree Alsop

  Copyright 2013 by Cheree L. Alsop

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover Design by Andy Hair

  www.ChereeAlsop.com

  To my husband: Michael Alsop,

  Without whom love stories would be empty.

  To my children: Myree, Ashton, and Aiden,

  For endless adventures in life

  That far outshine those in any book.

  Chapter 1

  I snarled. It was easier to snarl and watch them cringe then to read the judgment and mockery on their faces. The light of the moon drifted beneath the edge of the tent, competing with the torch light that flickered along the canvas in shadows and waves. It wouldn’t be long before the Cruel One lifted the cloth and let the moonlight do its work. I almost looked forward to the breath of fresh air that would sweep the scents of stale popcorn, sweat, sickly sweet breath, and the foul rot of the overflowing garbage bin from the confines of the canvas. Almost.

  A shudder ran through my skin and I bit back another growl. A different smell touched my nose; the scent of meadow gold flowers tore my thoughts from the harsh reality of the tent and swept me through memories of flower-covered hills and soft grass. A pang of longing made my breath catch in my throat. I lifted my eyes and ignored the way the expectant crowd stepped back from my golden gaze. I took a deep breath and searched the faces for one who would match the sweet aroma that whispered above the foul odor of the men and women packed as tightly in the tent as the Cruel One could manage.

  Blue eyes met my gaze. I blinked, surprised. Hers wasn’t a look of fear, hatred, or the laughter and expectancy that reflected in the countless other faces that came to watch me every night when the moon was strong. Instead, I read pity, sorrow, and something else, a slight glimmer of an emotion I had never seen before.

  A tendril of golden hair had escaped her wrap and hung like a ray of sunlight along her cheek. She saw my gaze flicker and reached a hand up to her face. She found the lock of hair and pushed it hurriedly back under the gray spun cloth that matched the plain gray dress she wore. Something about her set her apart from the rest of the drabble that waited impatiently for me to change. I couldn’t decide if it was the lift of her chin, the commanding light in her eyes, or the way she stood in the midst of the crowd as though she was a stone in a stream instead of flowing with the current, but she wasn’t one of them no matter how she tried to fit in.

  Someone bumped her arm and she turned, breaking our gaze. She said something softly to a man in a long black coat with the hilt of a sword visible at his waist. My ear twitched as I tried to catch the sound of her voice amidst the laughter, jeering, and catcalls of the crowd, but she spoke too quietly. The man gave a nod of respect and slipped silently from her side.

  The blue eyes turned back to me just as a fresh breeze rustled through the mass of men and women around my cage. Light touched my fur and I didn’t have to look to know that the Cruel One had lifted the canvas. A stronger shudder ran through my body, jarring my teeth together. I knew it was pointless to fight the change, but I did anyway. Pain rolled down my shoulders and I clenched my jaw to keep an answering moan from escaping.

  I wanted one last glimpse of those blue eyes before my world slipped away and I became human again, but my joints stretched and pulled, driving me to the floor as they shifted and my bones elongated. Muscle fibers and sinews pushed against my skin, forcing my arms and legs to elongate, my muzzle to shrink, and my hair to absorb leaving me covered in pale skin and tangled dark hair that did little to hide my nakedness.

  I pulled the tattered blanket around me and refused to look up at the gasps of surprise and dismay that filled the room. Exclamations I didn’t understand flooded through the tent, cries of horror and words laced with disgust and hatred at my change. I had heard the same epithets hundreds of times and again felt a surge of gratitude for my inability to understand their language. The crowd sounded like geese honking their agitation at an interrupted meal. Women’s voices rose higher in pitch and children whispered to each other. One man growled a string of words laced with threat that set my teeth on edge.

  I closed my eyes and tried to block them out. Their voices called around me, outraged at what I couldn’t control. It had surprised me the first few times when men and women responded so violently. It took me a while to realize that they could accept an animal, and they could accept a man, but to see a wolf turn into a man invoked a religious fervor in them that such a thing should not exist. I completely agreed.

  I opened my eyes one more time to see if the girl still watched. I kept my gaze wild and defiant, daring those who scrutinized me to take a step forward and end the creature they saw as an abomination. She was no longer among them. Surely the change had been too much for her. A foreign surge of regret welled up in my chest and I pushed it down.

  Human emotions had no place in my mind. I wouldn’t allow them to take precedence over my instincts that demanded for me to survive and escape. It didn’t matter that the metal bars of the cage were three inches thick and didn’t respond to the most ferocious of my outbursts. It didn’t matter that I had been in the cage of the Cruel One’s circus for more than a year and had yet to find an avenue of escape. A wolf would never give up his quest for freedom. I would never give up.

  The Cruel One barked a word that meant nothing to me. During my year of confinement in his circus, he had yelled thousands of vile-sounding words in my direction, but they were just noises, strange syllables that didn’t make sense no matter how hard I concentrated. I gave up long ago because I cared little for what he wanted to say anyway. The unknown was easier to face than any future he promised.

  The Cruel One’s order was followed by the hiss of a whip; a shudder of fear ran down my spine. He was exceptionally talented at guiding the glass-laced leather strands through the bars of my cage to lay my skin open like an eagle with a fish in its talons.

  I was tempted to ignore him. My one pleasure in the new life he had given me was to defy him despite the inevitable answering pain. I opened my eyes and met his hate-filled gaze. His beady eyes glared at me from the folds of a face red enough to not be healthy. The thundering beat of his heart amid the chaotic cries of the crowd echoed agreement that the circus life was not good for his wellbeing. Perhaps if I angered him enough he would simply pass out. The thought brought a twitch of an unfamiliar smile to the corners of my mouth.

  The Cruel One sneered and as the whip cut through the air I realized he thought I was laughing at him. Unable to avoid the lash in the small confines of my cage, I turned my back to catch the brunt of it along the pattern of white scars that already crisscrossed my skin. White hot pain sliced from my shoulder to the middle of my back and tore the breath from my lungs. A surge of anger filled my body. I stood and turned to face him.

  Warm liquid dripped slowly down my back. Frustration at the helplessness of my confines and the inability I had to defend myself flooded my veins. My hands shook with pent-up fury and I grabbed the bars of my cage. The vile, rotten scent of a
man wasting away through his own slovenly habits filled my nose. I met the Cruel One’s gaze. My lips pulled back of their own accord and I bared my teeth. He took a step backwards, but it wasn’t far enough. A rage-filled growl tore from my chest so loud I felt it reverberate through the metal bars beneath my hands.

  The sound echoed through the confines of the tent and the noise around me dropped until the cry of a scared baby was the only sound that remained. In the distance, the call of food vendors and game wranglers resonated tinny and harsh to my ears. My stomach curled at the scent of fried foods and sticky syrup. I longed to be back in the windswept forest with my pack, but I kept the emotion from my face.

  I held the Cruel One’s gaze, daring him to strike me again. A spark of terror showed in his eyes, but that had never stopped him before. He carved his fear into the hides of the creatures he kept caged in his circus. He whipped the defiance out of us, or at least tried to. I was the only one of my kind, the only one who changed in the moonlight that I knew of, but the animals who rode in the cages beside me showed the same mutinous feelings that echoed in my heart. Their backs also bore the same scars.

  The whip trailed through the sawdust at the Cruel One’s feet. His beady eyes narrowed until I wondered if he could even see me through the thick flesh that made up his lack of eyebrows. The crowd kept completely silent. I had never heard such stillness from so many people. Usually the hum and cacophony of the multitude made me long for the familiar hush of midnight, but the silence that followed my outburst was sharp and charged.

  Another scent surprised me. There were a few here who wished for me to best the Cruel One. Wolves read the scents of emotion as clearly as the bugle of an elk sounded alarm. Traces of hope and excitement tangled among those of dread, panic, and alarm. Expectancy sat heavy in the air.

  The Cruel One’s gaze shifted to the crowd, then back to me. He knew he was losing them. He wanted me to back down. He needed me to show deference in order to convince the audience that he was in full control. I was an animal and his pride wouldn’t let me defy him in front of the audience, but as a wolf I knew more about dominance than he. No man would ever make me lower my gaze.

  The scent of his desperation touched my nose before he jerked his hand back. The tip of his whip jumped up through the bars to cut a thin, deep line from my stomach to my shoulder. I gritted my teeth at the pain and willed my breath to remain steady. The Cruel One gathered his whip in a loose coil as he always did before another rage-fueled onslaught that would leave me bleeding and helpless on the floor. I saw the glee and fear burning in the back of his eyes. Something was different today. A sour scent wafted from his breath and his pupils were dilated like a crazed animal. He wouldn’t hold back despite the audience. He would kill me.

  I refused to look away. Cries ran through the crowd. His whip caught me across the shoulder to send blood dripping down my chest. Faces turned from the sight as though his actions were uncalled for. Mothers herded their children out of the tent and several men took steps forward as if they wanted to act but were uncertain how to proceed. Hope, a strange human feeling, rose in my chest to tangle with the pain of the lashes. The Cruel One raised his whip again, intent on one of my eyes.

  I had seen him remove an ear off a stubborn ox with one lazy flick of his wrist when the poor beast refused to pull a wagon laden with moldy hay and stale grain. Those who worked for the Cruel One tiptoed when the thin leather strands were coiled in his hand; if they were seen loitering, he had been known to slice the bottoms of their feet to remind them to watch their step. In his effort to wipe any chance of defiance from me, he would take my eyes. Of that I had no doubt. The moon demanded my change and it would happen whether I saw the light or not. I would be just as valuable to him blind, and less of a hassle.

  The whip sailed through the air with a hiss like the cobras that traveled moodily in the reed baskets the bears and baboons avoided at all costs. The sound was edged in a scream and a huff of breath as the whip’s battle cry collided with the Cruel One’s sigh of anticipation. He lived for blood, a trait of pitiless malice that had marred my estimation of humanity the first day I fell into his ruthless clutches.

  I threw my left hand up at the last second and felt the glass-edged fibers bite deep into my skin as the whip wrapped around it. The Cruel One attempted to pull it back. A deep edge scoured the back of my hand as he drew it tighter, but I refused to let go. I held his eyes, my gaze hot with the anger that rolled beneath my skin. I hoped, again the surge of unfamiliar human emotion, that the bars would dissolve and the moon would release its hold so I could change back to my wolf form and make the Cruel One pay for the suffering he inflicted on others.

  Wolves did not hope. They accepted life as it came and learned to flow with the path of their padding paws. One could not change the past nor predict the future, so to worry or mourn with regret the way things happened was foreign to animals of the wild. Yet regret was the emotion that flooded through me when a heavy hand landed on the Cruel One’s shoulder. I wanted to fight him. I almost believed I had the upper hand despite the fact that I stood in a cage just high enough for my head to brush the top bars and wore only a tattered blanket to hide my nakedness.

  The Cruel One’s tiny eyes widened in astonishment; he turned to see who dared stand between him and his intended victim. His chin wobbled when he locked eyes with a man in a long black jerkin, a white cravat, and a dress sword at his side. A seven-pointed red star had been tattooed on his right cheek; the Cruel One’s face washed pale when he noticed it.

  The Cruel One stuttered something; the tattooed man answered with a brief statement and a tip of his head in my direction. The Cruel One shook his head and forced something louder out of his mouth, but the other man merely pulled a pouch from inside his jerkin and handed it over. The Cruel One opened it. His mouth fell open and he pulled out a handful of gold and silver pieces the likes of which I had seen exchanged near the door of the tent as the circus workers beckoned spectators into the canvas walled room.

  I yanked on the whip. In his distraction, the Cruel One lost his grip and the leather slithered across the ground. He lunged for it, but I was faster. I pulled it through the metal bars and wrapped it in a tight coil, careful to avoid the sharp edges of blood-stained glass that were woven through the fibers.

  The Cruel One hit the bars, anger and rage wafting from him in waves. I ignored him and carefully worked the ends of the whip from my left hand. The glass had scored my palm with several deep gashes that bled in thick drops to the sawdust spread beneath the bars of my cage. One strand was stuck particularly deep. I gritted my teeth and worked it free from the back of my hand, then around to the palm where it bit into the base of my thumb.

  The Cruel One continued to yell, his words now laced with spittle that flew from his fat lips and crooked teeth. The man in the black jerkin said something in a sharp bark of command. Two more black-clothed men appeared and herded out the men, women, and children who lingered in the tent. The first man said something in a quiet undertone to the Cruel One and attempted to send him out with the rest. The Cruel One spat in the tattooed man’s face.

  I watched them, distracted from the pain of my hand. I wondered if the tattooed one would react like a wolf who had been bit, turning and lashing out with his strength. I hoped he would show the Cruel One his dominance by taking his life to the edge like a wolf with another’s throat in his mouth. If the Cruel One acknowledged the man’s superiority, would he let him go or finish his pathetic excuse for a life?

  I had also seen the way men dealt with such things. My nights displayed as a circus freak show were tempered by days of travel and waiting, watching the ways of men as they set up camp, bartered, and fought. Men often stabbed each other in the back, waiting until their defenses were down to get in a punch or a word edged with barbs of steel. Would the tattooed man take the Cruel One down with a single blow or fillet him with a word that would chase the blood from his face and cause him to tremble in fear?<
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  The tattooed man surprised me. He wiped the spit from his face with two fingers, his gaze never leaving the Cruel One’s face. The Cruel One’s eyes widened as if he realized he had made a grave mistake. He stuttered something, then turned and left with more fear in his eyes than I had ever seen, and the Cruel One was a very fearful man.

  The tent canvas brushed closed behind him. The last of the spectators were mere memories of sticky fingers and fear; a breath of relief washed in their wake. The tattooed man said something quietly. My gaze flickered to his eyes. He looked at the whip I held forgotten in my hands. I worked the last barb carefully from the base of my thumb. Blood trickled down my wrist to join the mess that pooled there. I closed my hand and ignored the pain that ran through my lacerated palm.

  The tattooed man held out his hand. The gesture was simple, but sent a surge of uncertainty through me. He wanted the whip, that much was obvious. Had I traded one cruel keeper for another? I studied his face. It was lined and tanned with years under the sun. A thin white scar ran from his nose to his chin, slightly disfiguring his lips. I wondered who had given him such a mark. A scent of windswept hills and steel belonged to him, telling of journeys that took him far with only his blade as his companion.

  The tattooed man shuffled his weight slightly as though being under such close surveillance was not a common occurrence. I remembered that humans barely looked at each other for more than brief glimpses. Any I stared at for a long period of time became uncomfortable and left me with a minor victory and a few moments of peace. The tattooed man merely waited, his hand still out and his eyes on the whip. I wondered if he knew of wolves and the challenge of meeting a stare. Either he was taking a guess by carefully avoiding my gaze, or he was careful in all of his dealings with animals and men. I doubted such a man left much to luck.

  I told myself I had no need for the whip. The weapon would be useless in the confines of the cage, and I had never used such an instrument to inflict pain on others. But I couldn’t bring myself to give it up. Holding the worn leather in my hand gave the first hint of belief that I could change the path my life had taken. I had no doubt the Cruel One would beat me senseless in order to take it back, but for now my victory had been hard won. The blood that trailed down my chest and back echoed the feeling.