Page 98 of The Filigree Key

Llewellyn!

By the Green Mother, what was that Nemean wolf doing here?

The tomcat squeaked when a green vine sprouted beneath his belly and tossed him into my arms. I raced through the castle, hugging to the shadows as Brothers in battle leathers and active Faerish scripts rushed past. They were headed to the front gate and the bridge, another pair to the rear exit. No one hurried to bolster the guard protecting the bear.

The side door made such a loud squeak when I opened it that I wanted to tear it from its hinges and throw it into the fireplace for betraying my arrival.

Wan moonlight striped the cold stone floor and the flames in the fireplace snapped quietly, punctuating the harsh silence. The great hall was as it should be—painfully sparse—with the trestle table freshly scrubbed, the throne polished, the grizzly bear chained and listless with Faebane protruding from his shoulder blades, and two Brothers standing guard.

Except there was only one Brother standing guard, and he was hunched over as if battling a sudden onset of food poisoning. A crunch later, he slumped to the ground altogether, something wet trickling away from his outstretched hand and pooling in one of the gouges the grizzly had made in the floor.

There was a scrape of nails against stone, but it wasn’t from the grizzly rising. No, the bear moved hardly at all except to breathe.

A golden-white wolf stepped into the moonlight and shook the red from his muzzle. Then he head-butted the bear and nipped at his ears and cheeks. The wolf made himself a nuisance trying to rouse the bear, but the hulking beast stoutly ignored him. With a few frustrated but quiet yaps, the wolf told the grizzly exactly what a pain in the butt he was being. Then his ears pricked as he noticed the reason for the bear’s unwillingness to move.

Faebane stuck out of the bear’s shoulders like a meat thermometer. Bracing his paws on the bear’s ribs, the wolf angled his jaws to snatch the rapier.

On the trestle table, the pixies confined in the silver birdcage went wild with flute-like shrieks.

“No!” I cried.

But our protests were drowned out by the grizzly’s roar as he lurched upright and batted the wolf away with a massive paw. Nails slashed against stone as the golden-white wolf righted himself. He snarled at the bear, but the grizzly merely dropped back down on his stomach and swung his head resolutely away. His amber eyes caught sight of me poised in the doorway. A low chuff of surprise escaped him, alerting the wolf that they weren’t alone.

The Nemean wolf followed the bear’s gaze, his snarl evaporating. A heartbeat later, he shifted into the muscled retrieval specialist with steel-colored hair and golden eyes. Even with the tell-tale itch in my palm—the mark of my adoption into his pack—I still couldn’t believe he was here.

“Lewellyn,” I whispered.

“Well get over here, little witch,” Lewellyn Chase snapped. “I can’t hardly rescue you if you’re standing all the way over there.”

His words were like a cattle brand to my backside—I lurched forward, shutting the side door behind me. In passing, I murmured reassuring words to the pixies, asking them to be quiet. Sawyer raced over to the werewolf, rubbing up hard against his shins.

“Glad to see you too, Stripes, but why aren’t you talking? And who collared you?”

Sawyer yowled as Lewellyn snatched him up and hooked his finger over the silver band of the collar.

“Don’t!” I cried, reaching out.

A thread of water jumped from the bear’s water bowl and whipped against the back of Lewellyn’s hand with a loud snap! It startled the wolf shifter enough that Sawyer could wiggle free and swat him in the face before jumping away. The tomcat landed on the grizzly’s giant head, but the bear didn’t even flinch.

“Well that’s new,” the wolf shifter snarked.

“Take that collar off and you kill Arthur,” I explained. “Touch that sword and you do the same thing.”

Lewellyn cursed, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry, big man.”

The bear released a half-hearted grumble.

“But that’s not the worst of your troubles, is it?” The wolf shifter crouched down, passing a hand over the bear’s cinder block of a forehead before lifting up on the bear’s eyelid with his thumb. “Those eyes are more brown than hazel. Damn it, Arthur, you’ve been a bear too long. You’ve only got one shift left in you, don’t you?”

A commotion in the foyer startled both of us, and I was abruptly reminded not to squander what time I had unsupervised. I took a step towards the bear only for a hand on my wrist to wrench me back.

“Come on,” Lewellyn hissed. “This way.”

I wiggled free like Sawyer, but with less yowling and scratching.

“Meadow,” the wolf shifter admonished.

“I can’t go. And how did you even get in here?” I asked as I retreated to the bear, stumbling over a body hidden in his shadow.