Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 08

Abruptly the deluge cut off, Mac slumping to unconsciousness beside her, and she collapsed panting hoarsely against him, the shuddering shocks of the pain in her muscles lessening, loosening, as she slowly became aware of the rawness of her throat where the screams had torn from her.

Breaths heaving, Gemma bent over her mate, worried, but his chest was rising and falling to slowly easing gasps while he sank farther, deeper into unconsciousness. Abruptly her head shot up - pain-free - and she blinked accusingly up at the silver-haired wolf standing over them. What had he done?

Fealden met her eyes briefly, the power pulsing between them, then he glanced down at Mac himself, gaze unreadable.

"A powerful wolf. Stubborn," he paused.

Yes, she knew that.

"There are not many, especially that injured, who could channel my shiele, hold it back, for that space of time." His eyes lifted back to Gemma's, appraising her. "It should be enough. It has halted the spread, and you will almost certainly have time to heal fully before your next blood heat."

The dark gaze was cold, boring into her, and with a shiver Gemma became suddenly, sharply aware that her protector, her mate, had pushed himself, injured, to his limits and was now deeply, exhaustedly unconscious. Unable to resurface. Unaware.

Unless someone threatened her, a little voice in her head whispered.

That didn't seem to be what the Wolflord intended.

"It was you I came to speak to, human," the smart little man addressed her calmly. She stared at him, warily. She'd thought so.

Of course Mac had done what was best for her, regardless to the consequences to himself. Tricked, trapped by his own care for his mate - his picchu. This wolf had known that her wolf would put her first. She glared into the black eyes, and saw a glimmer of amusement shimmer in the depths.

He said, "You may still be counted as human - though you have been teetering on the edge. Time should be enough to heal you. May I call you Gemma?" The polite question was incongruous, and she stared at him, eyes burning, before brusquely jerking her chin in acceptance. She didn't feel she had a lot of choice here.

"Well, Gemma, as I said, you currently have a reasonable chance of healing back to fully human." The lilting voice softened in sympathy as he continued, "But if you receive one more drop of shiele - one nip, one mating - maybe even one kiss, at any time, it will tip the balance."

She swallowed, feeling as though he had just punched her in the stomach, staring into the deep eyes of the silvery-haired wolf. Sorrowful memories echoed in the depths of the dark gaze.

"The wolves of this generation know too little of the change," the old wolf explained softly. "They forget - if they ever learned - that although the shiele of the bite is the most infectious, there is potent power in the seed also. You have slowly been turning all week, despite his holding back from the morde. Then, with that second wolf's bites, you were on the very edge."

He paused, and sighed. Then gently delivered the final blow.

"You know a wolf's life is forfeit, if he changes a human."

Minutes later, Gemma started out from the unnatural stillness brought on by Fealden's words, sensing the woman leaning over her, pushing a warm mug against her hands. Cold, cold - the chill was internal, spread with the unhappy sense of fatalism. She felt her warm rug dropped around her shoulders, and looked up slightly into the smooth, calm face of the tall, short-haired woman smiling gently down at her, then peered over the rim at her companion as she took a sip of the hot chocolate. The drink and the rug were comforting, giving her a pretence of internal warmth while the Wolflord softly explained further.

If Mac - or anyone - turned her into a werewolf, the whole stakes of this war would escalate. The worldwide taboo on changing humans since the second invasion was so strong that not even Tzo had broken it, despite the many underhanded and downright illegal tactics he was using to support his advance. If there was the slightest hint that even one werewolf had been created by the Aster allies, then the Chinese ex-warlord would indisputably use it as an excuse to follow suit, and enlarge his own already vast force with as many hapless humans as he could bite.

She had to stay human, or numerous members of her own race would be dragged involuntarily into a war they didn't even know existed. And die.

Throat dry, Gemma listened to the quiet distaste in the voice of the Wolflord. He succinctly, unnecessarily, described the decimation that would occur among any ex-humans who were brought into the war. Male werewolves were the wolf version of cannon fodder, most of them in past combats had never learned to use their new limbs, senses and strength fast enough to survive to the point where they went insane. He knew, he stated starkly, dark eyes fathomless. He had fought many.

She could not become were. The truth behind the human's werewolf legends had become buried in disbelief, cynicism, time. The truth was much worse. The end of the human bronze age, the time of the wolf fire wars, should, must remain dark, history, time long past.

Gemma's heart seemed to be shrinking inside her with every quiet word, a painful burn tightening, tightening in her chest while her skin grew colder. She had always known, suspected, that Mac, her glorious Mac, just wasn't, couldn't really be for her. Her hand drifted instinctively up to her throat, hovering gently over the tooth-marks patterned on her skin, eyes shadowed. Frozen in time, she tried to drive her mind into thought, to think beyond Mac. There was nothing. Nothing.

"He needs you human." The aged wolf was now sitting cross-legged with her in the moonlight, underneath the tree which sheltered the still, shadowy bulk of her unconscious mate. She realised that the fingertips of her other hand were gently sliding over the velvety skin of Mac's shoulder. Smooth, human skin - she missed his fur. But she loved the smooth contours of the toned muscles, clear to the eye, the touch.

She looked up into the deep, immeasurable depths of the quietened eyes of this powerful wolf, and felt her lip wobble involuntarily under the understanding in the dark pools. Gently she caught the skin under her teeth to hold it steady. Those quiet, sad eyes. She looked away sharply from the sympathy, unable to bear it. For some reason, the feeling in those eyes was ... true. Her companion was hurting.

The faint accent to Fealden's voice seemed slightly stronger as he continued his explanation. Dimly, beyond the pain spreading inside her, Gemma felt a light relief at finally knowing what was going on, hearing the long, detailed description. The Wolflord wasn't trying to exclude her, wasn't trying to keep her ignorant. He just wanted to keep her at a distance physically. From Mac. The cold inside was arctic, and she seemed to hear everything whispering beyond a thick shield of ice.

"Mackeld pack have been shoring up their defences under his brother Karl, preparing for this attack, but their worry is expanding daily with the increasingly violent skirmishes, especially in the absence of their Alpha. The scentless ambushes are too unpredictable, the sentinels are beginning to fear patrol. Mac has guided them so far by convey, but they need him there."

She understood that Mac was needed, desperately needed, by his own people, now that the war was reaching and intensifying on his borders. And she knew her mate. She loved him for his deep, unstated commitment to them. Her wolf would tear himself in two, trying to look after both his people and his mate, unable to keep a vulnerable human in his war-torn Range, unable to concentrate fully if she was in any danger. And she would be, possibly from both sides, the Wolflord explained.

Many wolves like the Silback Alpha deeply resented, even hated humans, blaming them for the increasing pollution of their Ranges and the steadily diminishing freedom to roam. The shrinking living space for wolves was one of the drivers in this war. Warlord Tzo had had to leave China when his ancestral Range was flooded, bisected by the construction of the Three Gorges reservoir by the humans. He had initially settled quietly on the small Range in the Northwest offered to him by his old allies, but the loss of space, status, and his home had rankled. He had been quietly amassing more and more of his people in the new territory offered to him, until his expansion had become inevitable.

The Aster could hold even against the superior force, if it weren't for the new weapons, explained the Wolflord. Argen rope was debilitating but not new, the Alphas knew how to guard against Argen ambushes, even though the tactic hadn't been seen in centuries.

But the silver-etched weaponry that made any infected wolf grow mysteriously sicker, the symptoms worsening with each cleansing - that had been deeply worrying, sending shock-waves throughout the defending wolf leaders and council. Only thirty or so wolves had been tainted so far, but a handful of them had died within a short period. Mac had been one of the first infected, and had by far the worst wound, but being the stubborn, proud, irrepressible damn creature that he was, he was somehow, god knew how, still on his feet, still functioning, seemingly indifferent to the poisonous abscess eating into his stomach. And since the Mackeld chief physician had passed on her warning against using the standard silver treatment last week, no more wolves had died.

"Thanks to you, they are no longer getting worse. He is no longer getting worse. Even Mac could not withstand more." The dark eyes brightened slightly, sinking into her, looking past the surface, assessing. "And thanks to you, it seems he will recover completely."

Gemma felt as though she was still sinking under that gaze, under his words. She knew, somewhere inside, that she should, did, feel a kernel of pride, happiness that she had helped to keep him alive, that she had devised the antidote that would cure him, cure all of them. She felt a deep curl of peace that Mac would survive - even if - without her. Her mind wisped along, wondering indifferently whether she would survive. Could she, survive this parting? Why?

She had not realised that her mate had bitten so deep into her heart.

Gemma had known the Wolflord's intent since he had first induced her mate to drive himself unconscious, while healing her. Yes, she had needed the Wolflord's shiele to heal, and would definitely not have survived a more concentrated form of it, but Fealden had also used the force of it to overcome her injured mate so that he could speak to her, Mac's human, alone, privately.

Mac would not leave her, not again, not now, not with that marking he had given her, the slight old wolf explained quietly. He would take her with him, to protect her, and so endanger both her, and his pack, in his endeavour to protect both.

She would have to leave him.

Gemma had always known that this harmony would end. But not now, not yet.

Not yet.

Not with her wolf unconscious, abandoning him.

He was going to war, a war she had no part in, she reminded herself.

But she couldn't leave him like this, to return to her empty, silly, superficial human life and pretend that it mattered. Pretend that he hadn't. Her heart was burning, inside her frozen chest.

She could barely hear the soft words through the ringing in her ears.

"Argen rope we know, and the new silver poison we can now defend against. But the scentless ambush - we rely far too heavily on our noses, especially in combat, and this weapon is one we, he cannot find an easy guard against, scent is too instinctive. Mac obtained a small amount of what we believe is the concoction used almost two weeks ago, but Maynard cannot get any handle on how it works, or even what it is made of, we know too little of silver. And we dare not ask the wider community, the knowledge would be lethal in the wrong hands."

Gemma was staring into the dark eyes, a faint glimmer of life lighting deep within her. Mac did need her. She could do this, at least, for him.

"I know - this is unfair. But could we ask for your expert help again, Dr. Gemma Smith?"

The next six weeks were unbearable. The hollow emptiness echoed inside her, a constant, gnawing ache. She couldn't bear to think about him. She couldn't not think about him. The only way she could function was by concentrating on her work, but there was no satisfaction there, she wasn't getting anywhere.

There were some little comforts. Just before she had been numbly drawn away from the clearing by the hulking escorts Fealden had assigned to her, her bodyguards, she had seen the wolf doctor William apply the first coating of her new silver-antidote to the raw, vile black oozing wound in Mac's stomach. She hadn't seen the injury since before she went to Marshmont, it had always been covered, but the ease with which he'd moved, jumped on her, laughed it off, she hadn't expected this - eugh. Ouch.

She should have known he was lying about being fine.

She had known.

Anger and fear shivering through her, she'd spoken quietly with William Bancroft, a lump in her throat, but Will had assured her that Mac would recover fully. The crooked little smile at the corner of the Mackeld doctor's mouth as he'd carefully smoothed the ointment onto the raw flesh had soothed her most. Will explained that the hideous colour was only where the old silver treatment he'd been using had leached into the flesh in Mac's stomach and reacted with it and the silver, discolouring it. He'd promised that although the stain was permanent it would be innocuous once the silver was removed by her new medicine.

He would get better.

And then, later, when her small procession had reached the road through the forest where the Wolflord's limousine was waiting, Jasmine had appeared. The lump in Gemma's throat had been too heavy to force words around, but they hadn't been needed. The wolf-girl had silently slipped a hand into Gemma's and slid into the back seat beside her friend. They didn't speak on the whole, long journey into the dawn, just keeping the contact of that warm handclasp. Gemma spent the hours in the car staring dry-eyed out of the window, her other hand clutched around the small phial of colourless liquid that the Wolflord had entrusted to her, mind circling endlessly over the last short weeks.

She glared at what remained of the colourless liquid now, brow furrowed. What the hell was it made of?

Concentrate.

She had learned, again, that fierce concentration was the only way to distract herself from the constant ache. A different ache, but worse, harder to deal with.

But oh, she was never free of the craving to see him again, touch him, surround her senses with his intoxicating scent. Even if they could never mate again, she was longing to just hear his voice. She loathed her bed, spending most of every night turning fruitlessly, restlessly, seeking. But he was at war. His pack was being driven increasingly away from their homes, at bay, fighting, dying, shored up by his presence, his skill. He couldn't keep dividing his attention, worrying about her, sprinting down to see her. She understood this.

Maybe understanding did make it easier. At least - it made it less raw.

But it hurt. So much. Bittersweet - he hadn't even tried to contact her, and she knew he shouldn't, but wished that he would.

She was the one who had left, she reminded herself.

She wished that she had at least been able to say goodbye. While he was conscious. Without an audience.

Although maybe that wouldn't have been a good way of staying human.

She wouldn't be able to kiss him even now.

Apparently, wolf shiele was a bit like some other human infections. Once the pathway had been burned, so to speak, any future contamination of the same would catch and spread like wildfire. As close as she had been to the edge, it would take only a token amount to turn her. Any wolf, of any rank, probably had enough shiele to overcome her human immune system now, now that it had become attuned to the contaminant.

To prevent anyone from turning her, and protect her as she worked, Gemma had returned to her human life with two wolf bodyguards - or three, if you counted Jasmine. Jeremy and Augustine Fealden were the Wolflord's grandsons. She quite liked the boys, distantly, although it was hard to feel anything deeply outside the numbness and fierce concentration covering the deep internal knots. She spent every possible waking minute fiercely concentrated in her lab. It was the only way she could function, could keep the longing at bay.

Concentrate, she ordered herself again, she only had another hour while the lab was free. But she might as well give up here, she thought to herself glumly. Back to the drawing board - pencil and paper, and looking for a new extraction process in the journals that might throw some light on this concoction. This method hadn't worked. If only she could get some clue as to how they made it.

The churning tension in her stomach was growing worse with the passing weeks. The struggle was growing more desperate - the ingredients to the solution which made wolves scentless were eluding all her efforts to isolate them, and without them she couldn't find a cure, something to counteract it. Couldn't help. Useless.

Concentrate.

Today, it was proving particularly hard to focus, the events of this morning kept replaying in her mind.

Every morning, two of the wolves escorted her across town on the bus, and then across the university campus to her lab in the soil science building. She knew that while she was inside one of them hung around in the trees outside the side door watching everyone who entered the building through either entrance. A constant guard. But she had always assumed that the third, absent wolf got a morning in bed.

Wrong.

They had been walking along the secluded footpath through the trees by the outer fence of the campus park, Jasmine and Gus bantering about his repeated attempts to flirt with the pretty redheaded girl who worked in the coffee shop by the library. Gemma had, as usual, been barely aware of their conversation, thinking through the avenues she would pursue today if the dilutions she had left to steep overnight didn't reveal anything upon analysis.

Abruptly, with no warning, both wolves had spun and leapt to the right, shimmering in midair to land as lycans upon the ambush of five large werewolves sprinting toward them. The aggressors had been bounding soundlessly, at breathtaking speed, down the slight hill from the dense woodland by the perimeter fence. And they had smelt rank to Gemma, like Nicolas Grey. Evidently they were Grey wolves, attempting a scentless ambush. But her guards were not relying on scent.

Behind the main group, Gemma's dazed eyes had noted a lycan with the features of Jeremy rolling upright off the corpse of a sixth attacker, lunging seamlessly into a blur springing upon another enemy from behind. Meanwhile, his hulking brother had ripped out the throat of one opponent with a clawed fist, while whirling in a roll under the stampede of vicious feet to leap and clamp his jaws around the throat of the largest member of the attacking force from beneath, dragging him down. Jasmine had spun so fast between the last two that before Gemma's shocked eyes had been able to turn in her direction, the attackers had dropped to the ground in a fountain of blood. It had all been over in seconds.