Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 10

One blue-veined, beringed hand was hovering above the milk jug as she looked enquiringly at the young werewolf.

Sometimes the similarities between the wolf and human worlds really threw Gemma. She could have been ten again, round at her friend Julia's grandmother's house, on her extra-specially best behaviour during the afternoon tea ceremony; the biscuits had been so deliciously worth the effort.

"Please," she smiled. The difference was, Julia's grandmother had never made her nose twitch and her skin shudder from the power radiating off her. The woman smiled back at her, a little speculatively.

"Ulf?" the tall woman questioned Mac, after she handed Gemma her cup and instructed her to help herself to sugar and the biscuits.

Wow. Her stomach was roaring at the scent.

Soon they were perched around the fragrant tower in a civilised circle, and the woman - Martha - decided the time for small talk was over, and turned a steely gaze on Mac.

"What do you want of me, Ulf Mackeld?" she asked.

Gemma reached for her fourth biscuit, while Mac licked a crumb off his lips and sighed. His words were careful.

"Well, primarily to ask whether you have ever found any proof to the legend of Liu Tchung," he asked.

The woman's eyes turned to Gemma's, and seemed to look deeply into her. "No," she replied unequivocally.

Who?

Mac sighed.

"And the trial of Vincent di Buighi?" he pursued.

"What about di Buighi?" replied the woman tartly, her gaze switching back to Mac, a spark of confrontation in them.

"Well, he was indicted for being a werewolf -" began Mac, but he was interrupted.

"It was a set-up by the Medicello, Mackeld, you know that," snapped the woman. "He denied it to the end."

"Well, as weres couldn't hold positions of power, he would, wouldn't he?" replied Mac.

The indignant anger in the woman's eyes was rising, swimming through the room. "Even once he was stripped of everything, tried and convicted and incarcerated, he still denied it," she refuted. "He denied it until he died, still perfectly sane, still imprisoned, and no-one ever found any proof beyond Tornes' dubious testimony that he recognised di Buighi from the Caucasus war, over a century earlier. No, di Buighi was just a wolf with powerful enemies."

Mac opened his mouth, but the woman swept on, the spark in her eyes burning deeper.

"Mackleson even met him once, towards the end of his life: he wrote a paper proving that di Buighi could not be a were. The accused passed every test the physician could devise. And anyone who has ever read di Buighi's Observations recognises that he was one of the most lucid, brilliant minds of the time. He was friend to the Don, and exonerated after his death. I'm sorry, Mackeld, if you're looking for me to tell you that weres can stay sane, then I can't help you. They can't."

Mac smiled blandly at the tall, ruffled female. "That's OK, Martha, I was just clearing up a few points in my mind. It's one of the bits of wolf history that I never paid much attention to, and you are the expert."

Martha abruptly switched her gaze back to Gemma. There was an almost hungry look in the deep, blue eyes, now flecked with black. "How are you, my dear?" she asked. "How are you coping? Have you found your mordeur yet? It must be terrible trying to manage without."

Startled, Gemma tried to pull her gaze from the older woman's, but was held fast. She could feel the mind brushing over hers, seeking, analysing and felt her rage rising in response.

Coping with what? With going insane? What was the polite answer?

"Oh, it's going quite well so far," she heard a grinding, furious voice hissing between her lips, "The black rages are getting more frequent, and I've lost count of the times I've completely lost it and gone berserk, with no idea what I'm doing or saying."

The specks were there now, dancing in front of her eyes, but strangely the fury was being held at bay. By indignation, and contrariness. This woman wanted her to lose it. So that the werewolf expert could observe for herself a were losing control, write a research paper, add to her expertise, whatever. But Gemma was not an experimental animal, nor a toy. Ironically, fury was holding the fury at bay.

There was also the deep, calming anchor of her mate sitting beside her.

His mind brushed soothingly over hers, pushing back the pull of the blue eyes, and the world swam back into full focus while he stood up beside her, carefully placing his cup back on the desk.

"Thank-you, Dr Coulter," he murmured, and Gemma found herself on her feet, her limbs shaking in the aftermath of the rage as she followed him swiftly out of the door. Her mind echoed as they retreated down the staircase circuiting the outer wall, until two floors down she blew out a breath and said, "Eugh."

Then, curiously, "What was all that about?"

Mac lifted his head, his eyes briefly unfocussed while he inhaled sharply. Then he relaxed, murmuring, "No-one about." He sank down onto the deep, triangular stone window ledge, reaching an arm for her and she snuggled down into his lap while he bent one leg sideways along the stone to make a warm seat for her. Cool air blew in through the tall open slit to their left, the fresh scent of the pines and birch across the valley sweetening the breeze.

"One of the reasons my pack have been so unwelcoming to you, Picchu, besides their natural distrust of a were -," he began.

"Because I might go berserk any minute and attack," mumbled Gemma sadly. She understood this now.

Her mate sighed at her words, "One of the reasons is that they have been able to sense my turmoil, my inner fury, all week. I haven't been able to mask it fully in the meld, my internal - disarray. I haven't been this unstable, off-balance, since I was a teenager, if then."

Anguish twisted Gemma's face as she swiftly turned her head to look up into his. Tears sprang to her eyes. She kept hurting him.

He was smiling gently down at her, eyes peaceful.

Mad wolf.

"I've been so off balance because the rational side of me has been absolutely furious with my wolf instincts, which demanded that I bite you when we first mated. Hence condemning you to insanity. I have loathed that part of myself, giving in to my base urges, the lack of control, and have been unable to find my calm."

Gemma's head drooped where she sat, forlorn, on his knees. If only they had never met. Her heart creased in anguish at the thought.

Mac tilted her chin back up, the deep green eyes warm, capturing hers with the feeling in their depths.

"But your question yesterday - I realise that I no longer feel the urge to bite you. Which means that my instinct, since first I gave in to the primal urge to mate you, has not been just the morde - the bite of possession, claiming. But that I have wanted, fundamentally, to turn you."

She sighed. She understood how strong the deep, primal instincts were in a wolf, now.

"More fury - how could I do that to you?"

Her heart creased. He was going to hate himself for this.

"Yet the wolf side - the instinctive, caring, follow-your-instincts side is equally furious. Furious that I could really, seriously believe that I would do anything to hurt my mate. That I would allow it, promote it, even."

Gemma lifted her eyebrows slightly. Where was he going with this?

"I thought maybe because insanity is not a physical, immediate hurt, my instincts hadn't recognised it - but when I came to your parents' home that time, to heal you, it was my wolf instincts that refused to react to the burning arousal you lit in me. I held back instinctively, because of your fear, your wariness, and your hurt. Your mind needed to heal. I wasn't having my mate be scared of me. That is the wolf side."

Her hand had reached up and was caressing along his jaw, stroking the strong lines gently.

"My head's been spinning -- rationale savaging at instinct, instinct reasoning with rationale. But why? Why do I think I could hurt you? I don't. But I think I have hurt you - because you will go insane. Why do I think you'll go insane? Because it is what I have been taught. What I have observed."

His eyes glowed down into hers. Warm, green, loving. Her mouth curved in a little, tentative smile in answer.

"But I don't believe it. Something is out of joint. I could not want something so badly, that would harm you. It goes against my every instinct. Yes, you go berserk, as any wolf does, if you give way to your instincts, if the rational side loses control. But in that case the remedy is to teach you, as any cub it taught, to control your base instincts."

He hugged her again, joyously. "You just heard the world expert on werewolves: di Buighi could not have been a were because he was perfectly sane. That was the only argument ever brought against Tornes' testimony."

"And the other one?"

"Liu Tchung?" asked Mac. "He is a legend - a werewolf created by Xi Chen during the War of Stone Eagles, who went berserk on every battlefield, but regained his sanity in remorse each time the bloodletting stopped. According to the tales, after he saved his emperor's life in the war he rescued a princess and wedded her, scaled the Himalaya to bring peace from the Ice Dragon and sailed West, returning with the first physician to China. He's a much less factual figure."

"So you think -." began Gemma. He couldn't really think this was true.

"I know," he insisted. "That I couldn't hurt you. And there is some doubt as to whether all werewolves, always go insane. So together, my picchu, we will prove the learned doctor wrong."

Gemma's mouth crooked at the corner. "Good," she agreed. "I didn't like her."

She stared deeply into the oh-so-warm eyes: peace. He really believed this. Her stubborn mate had convinced himself, argued himself into the belief that she would not go insane. That he could protect her from this.

Yeah, right.

She sank her forehead down to rest against his chest, hiding her face while her hair brushed his skin.

She didn't believe it.

But it would make these last few months, weeks, days so much sweeter if she could pretend that she did. Lift this burden of guilt from him. And then just fall off the cliff accidentally one day, when she could no longer hold.

He hugged her to him, and they snuggled together quietly until the sound of a door opening downstairs, the scent of a wolf drifting up to them, separated them.

"It won't be easy, picchu," he warned as they passed down the staircase. "Unlike a child, your sexual responses are fully awake, and you have the strength to kill when the urge takes you. I am going to have to be very strict with you, my love."

Like she cared. What she feared was this lurking, ungovernable rage within herself. The urge to rip, tear into anyone who annoyed her, and the unwanted, vile urge to present her buttocks and lift her tail to any male who sniffed her heatedly. Suddenly, her mind cramped with a surge of fury at herself.

Mac's grip was fast around her wrist, holding back the furry, clawed fingers reaching to rake down her own face. His sombre, worried expression swam back into focus as she blinked the rage out of her eyes.

Her heart constricted on a deeper fear, swamping the lingering anger. More, much more than fear of herself was fear of the deep, bitter sadness reviving in his eyes. She had caught a glimpse of it that first night in the park. The deeply infused sadness within which he had walked untouched through life, when she had first met him. She would do whatever it took to prevent that bitterness from attaching itself to him again.

Get a grip, girl. Gemma blinked the angry tears out of her eyes, battling down the rage.

"I can't say no," she whispered the explanation. This was the one that really sickened her.

He kissed her gently, his lips lingering, meandering over her face. "Don't worry about it so, picchu. Your body urges you to mate when an excited male approaches. Your mind, your heart scream at you to call for me, and you do, even when you don't realise it." The corner of his mouth quirked against her skin. "Which is a very effective, if roundabout way of saying no, if you think about it. You do say no."

She snorted a half-hearted laugh.

"That's it? Don't worry?"

His voice was in her head, echoing, calming.

No-one, nothing can block this connection, picchu. You are my mate. You have reached for me when I am deep in battle focus. You can always call me.

She knew the soft blanket of peace and hope came from him. But it was nice to feel it.

There was silence in the large, echoing audience chamber two days later as a tall, grey Fealden wolf escorted her inside. Her eyes were first drawn to the simple wooden bench placed in the very centre of the open space at the front of the long, wide room, facing the seated row of senshal. Behind the seat were half-circle tiers upon tiers of wooden benches, rising like seats in a theatre, packed with wolves of both sexes, craning to see her.

She supposed she was the first werewolf most of them had ever seen.

Then her eyes unerringly found Mac, seated centre-right behind the wooden bench, on the first row. Her stomach lurched at the sight of him.

Why was he scowling like that? He was also trembling, holding himself still.

Mac? She questioned him silently, and fulminating black eyes met hers briefly while he returned, Stay calm. From the look of it he was struggling to follow his own advice.

They have decided to test you. We were only just informed of this.

The anger in the depths of those eyes was fuelling her panic, and she felt the rage rising with the fear. Abruptly, the blackness in Mac's eyes was swamped with green, and peace flooded her mind as she sank trembling into her seat.

In front of her, raised on a slight dais, was a second semi-circle of ornate, solid wooden desks, curved in an arc from her left to her right. Behind the desks, the warm afternoon sun slanted through the ornate, bowed stained-glass window, casting exotic shadows upon the multitude of powerful wolves seated majestically awaiting her.

Waiting to test her.

Suddenly, as the rage cooled on her skin, it was easy to dismiss the test from her mind. It wasn't as if they could do something worse to her than was happening already.

The closest of the senshal was Fealden, in the very centre of the long row. The Wolflord's expression was so carefully blank that Gemma instantly wondered what was wrong. To his left was Martha Coulter, smiling benignly at her in a way that increased Gemma's internal worry. To his right was a majestic, wrinkled Asian-Indian woman, who for some reason reminded Gemma of Gandhi - she thought it was the peace shrouded about her, and could feel herself relaxing as she briefly met the expressionless, black gaze.

The line continued, more males than females, but closely balanced, and all races, although the sole African she could see was a very black, ferocious-looking male seated down at her far left.

A flashing-eyed, olive-skinned woman three seats to the left of Fealden cleared her throat and announced with a strong accent,

"So, Tzo. The girl is a werewolf, yes, but there is no positive indication that the Mackeld Alpha made her. The scent of her mordeur is not clear, and she is too new for it to have yet faded."

Behind Gemma, three seats from the far left of the front row of the audience, a broad-shouldered, battered, very powerful looking man in his late fifties rose to his feet and bowed elegantly to the line of senshal, stepping forward into her line of vision. He was dressed in an elegant, silken robe, and his broad, oriental features were calm, expressionless. Deep, cold, dispassionate eyes surveyed the ex-human.

"The wolf opposite has marked her," he said in a deep, accented voice.

Mac.

A Celtic-looking redheaded male senshal, incongruously wearing a grey suit and tie among his multi-coloured, exotically-dressed companions, responded: "But his naulu is proof that the Mackeld intended her to remain human."

The Chinese Warlord turned slightly and bowed toward the speaker. "And yet he failed to protect her, and I have heard of no attempt at retribution toward her mordeur," he responded smoothly. "Strange, if he truly intended her to remain so."

"He has been a little busy of late," came the dry response from the Wolflord, and a rippling undercurrent of smothered responses chimed through the assembled wolves.

Tzo bowed again, even more deeply, to the Fealden. He made the gesture so effortlessly, gracefully, that Gemma was sure that no hint of irony was intended in the courtesy. Then the Chinese Warlord turned and strode majestically back to seat himself in his place.

The senshal all turned their faces to Mackeld, who Gemma realised had risen to his feet to her right, and was smoothly waiting. As Tzo seated himself, Mac stepped forward.

"The wolf opposite implies that I have no care to have my naulu disregarded. The truth is that neither I, nor Fealden Wolflord, have been able to determine just which wolf turned the wereem. She carried a hint of shiele from five of the cubs whom she rescued from the Grey lair, yips who had nipped her to prevent themselves from falling." The swirling black and green eyes turned toward his enemy across the chamber.

"I am not the wolf to avenge myself on a cub who cannot yet walk on two," Mac stated succinctly.

Tzo was on his feet. "It was your shiele that polluted her enough to enable a cub to turn her. And it is you she looks to. You are her mordeur."

"She looks to me because she knows me. A new were! She needs someone to guide -."

"Sit down," thundered the tall, African wolf to the far left of the senshal, and both Alphas subsided abruptly into their seats in the stinging silence.

"There is, so Dr Coulter tells us, a simple way to establish her mordeur," continued the African in his deep voice. The senshal all turned their faces toward the smiling Martha. Gemma could sense Mac behind her bristling with suspicion, and it made her nervous. More nervous.

"Yes indeed," murmured Dr Coulter serenely. "Let the wereem come forward."

The tall woman stood herself, passing in front of the long row of ornate desks in front of the senshal. Gemma felt a gentle prod on her shoulder from her Fealden escort, and suddenly surged to her feet, swallowing. She stepped forward to meet the doctor, embarrassed in the echoing silence. Dr Coulter turned her lightly by the shoulders to face the crowd of wolf faces fixed on her, and Gemma felt a flush rising in her cheeks, in her veins at the avid eyes.

"A new were's first instinct is to obey," the doctor addressed the waiting crowd. "To obey anyone," she emphasised.

Gemma felt Mac rousing angrily at the surge of male rut doft clouding the chamber at the simple statement. Her own rage was half smothered under fear, and then her nose twitched. Under the thick male scent she could smell female rut doft rising off the woman holding her shoulders lightly, holding her displayed to the crowd. Like an object.

Sorry, not interested, she fired the thought toward the woman behind her, and felt a twitch run through the woman's tall frame. Gemma's skin was beginning to tighten and anger cloud her mind, but then she felt a little loving nudge from her mate, and relaxed, nuzzling him back, relaxing into his mind.

She could scent the surprise rising from the woman behind her that her anger had subsided.

And remembered with a twinge of unease that this woman wanted her to lose control. Would like to monitor and record the reactions of this new wereem to stimuli.