Keeper of the Wolves Read Online Free Page B

angry man said something in hushed tones
to the girl. She nodded, a look of reluctant submission on her
face. The tattooed man spoke a short command and his men walked
warily to the cage. Each took a bar and they lifted as another man
threw the burlap cloth back over the top. My last glimpse was of
the girl, her eyes still on mine, before the burlap settled into
place. Her look burned into my soul, searching and concerned as
though wondering if the man still existed beneath the wolf
exterior. If I could have, I would have told her it was the wolf
who existed beneath the man.

Chapter 3
    The cage was settled in a remote area of a
garden. I didn’t need the burlap raised to recognize the scents of
mint, roses, and ivy. Footsteps hurried away as if the men couldn’t
leave fast enough. One smell lingered, the scent of grasslands and
steel. A hand pulled the burlap free and I took a deep breath of
the fresh night air. I glanced over and found the tattooed man
watching me. His gaze drifted to the whip resting near my paws. He
met my eyes again and spoke in a quiet undertone, then he slipped
his hand between the bars.
    My hackles rose and I fought the urge to
bite him. The small invasion of space felt completely different
from the girl reaching her hand out for mine. I stepped back and my
injured paw collapsed underneath me. I snarled at the pain. The
tattooed man paused, his hand almost to the whip. I watched him
carefully, but he kept his eyes lowered and his head bowed. He
grabbed the leather rope and withdrew it slowly. He turned it
sideways to pull it between the bars; we both let out an audible
breath when it was clear.
    He met my eyes again, a hint of humor in his
pale gray gaze. He gave a short nod and left. I wondered why I had
let him take the only weapon I had when I was in human form, but
something in his eyes said he was a friend. For the first time, I
put my human want to trust above my wolf instincts to defend
myself. I was tired of being surrounded by enemies. I hoped I
didn’t regret it.
    I eased gingerly to the ground. My chest and
back ached and the dried blood that closed over the wounds cracked
and bled with every motion. My left paw throbbed and bled. I licked
it carefully, but I couldn’t get the glass out from the base of my
pad. I worked at it with my teeth to no avail, then finally gave up
and settled on my side. The chills that had begun the night before
intensified. I focused on my surroundings in an effort to push the
effects of the fever to the back of my mind.
    Fresh rays of early morning sunshine set the
valley aglow in hues of rose and gold. The land of Rala whose
forests my pack and I used to roam was surrounded by tall peaks
that lost themselves in the clouds. The valley stretched long and
wide, interspersed with rivers and smaller forests between the five
duchies that made up Rala’s kingdom. The journey with the Cruel
One’s circus had taken us north through the four lower duchies to
the final city in the fifth duchy where I now resided.
    I sat in a garden at the back of a giant
square structure made of bricks hewn from stone larger than my
cage. A few faint stars showed through the last of the violet sky
while sunflowers turned their faces toward the rising dawn. I
wondered where my pack was and if they hunted through the forest
beyond the northern wall. I longed to run beside them, free with
only the forest loam underfoot and the endless stretch of trees and
meadows ahead of us.
    Another shudder ran through my body and I
closed my eyes at the pain. I wondered if it would be safer to take
my pack away from the valley of Rala. When captured, I had been
broken, mangled, and tormented, a mere shadow of the wolf I once
was. I almost gave up then, but my pack and the determination of a
wolf to survive pushed me to stay alive at the brink of death. I
owed them everything and they continued to follow me as loyal as I
had been to them. I didn’t know the price of my new fate. I wished
I could tell