PAWN AMONG WOLVES CH. 10-PT2

"Did you not recognise that claim?" one of them snapped. "It may be faint, but - sheesh."

The words echoed distantly outside the despair in her head. She couldn't even walk properly like this. Disgust at herself began to leach into her, sinking her further into gloom.

She hated being a wereem.

Rebecca appeared in the tent doorway, her eyes deep, unfathomable, and quietly asked Gemma to come and hold a gash closed for stitching.

Two nights later, Gemma was awoken by the heavy, inanimate bulk of her exhausted wolf rolling and wrapping himself around her on her small pallet in the hospital tent. She was dimly aware of the slightly sour scent of shock in the air, the doubtful whispers among the night staff and few wakeful patients, but it was smothered under the joy of seeing and scenting her wolf, feeling his warm, tawny fur brushing against her, burning to the tingle of excited, hopeful anticipation awakening in her blood at his delicious musk...

No chance.

Mac was comatose as soon as his head hit her pillow - or more probably before, considering the ungainly way he had landed. But her heart was singing at the sight of him, the feel of his soft fur brushing against her skin, his lycan bulk wrapped around her.

To know that this was where he wanted to be.

She lay back and began to gently groom out the tangles in his fur, unravelling small twigs and burrs, thorny bits of bramble, brushing out dust, and running her fingers against glazed patches of dried blood. It never appeared to be his. She found that her lycan claws were excellent for teasing or cutting out the hardened blood, and was pleased that she had finally mastered how to change just one hand.

Will and Rebecca had been patiently teaching her how to control her transformation, guiding her inside her head to shift just one limb whenever she needed a claw for her work for them. Cutting open a cold, shiny patch of skin stretched over a buried shard of silver was much easier if you could just transform one claw, but Gemma's limbs in general followed her mind's instructions much better if she stayed human, so she preferred a partial transformation.

Mac's sister had been impressed with the steadiness of Gemma's hand with a pair of tweezers - not surprising, after years in a lab - and had set her to the difficult task of teasing every last sliver of silver out of the wounded, shivering wolves who were brought in. It was tense, meticulous work. Every fragment had to be picked out, or the wound would begin to fester, stretch cold, and the wolf would slowly weaken to the pernicious poison. Most wolves were too nervous of silver to keep the steady hand required, but Gemma had been working with the metal for many years, and had yet to learn to fear its touch now that she was a werewolf, having so far avoided brushing against it.

The main tension came from her patients, and it wasn't all due to the silver. She could feel them growing tense as she approached, scent their wariness on the air, see them watching her out of the corners of their eyes. Although after the initial suspicion, some of the larger males instead began to puff out their chests, their musk thickening, tingling inside her nostrils. Upon which Will or Rebecca would glance up, across the crowded hospital tent, and Gemma would catch the stinging thought, Going to challenge the Mackeld for her? whispering past, causing the eager male to abruptly wilt.

Eventually finished with grooming as much of her mate as she could reach, Gemma sank contentedly back half-beside, half-under him, and closed her eyes, relaxing into his warmth.

Ten minutes later she was jerked awake again by an abrupt twinge which shook the heavy frame lying against her. It was shortly followed by a second, violent jerk of his muscles. She lay there, buzzing with tiredness and frustration, counting in her head, waiting half-asleep for the next time Mac's taut muscles would abruptly seize, cramp and relax. There would be a brief, irregular pause, and then another spasm would rock him.

Will appeared with a jar of pungent-smelling cream, explaining to her on a hushed whisper that Mac's muscles were overtired from him holding focus for too long, and they would wake him up if he couldn't relax. The physician laid his palm on Mac's forehead, looking down at his brother-in-law with gentle pride; Gemma felt a distant echo of a murmur at the edge of her own mind, and suddenly the limbs slung across her were covered in smooth, human skin rather than that beautiful pelt. They pulled off the loose clothing, and Will showed her how to massage, almost pummel the ointment into the rock hard muscles beneath. She enjoyed a peaceful, happy hour smoothing it into her mate's skin, stroking it over the clean lines, the beautiful ridges of muscle, continuing long after he had relaxed fully into a limp, boneless, deep-breathing slumber.

He was gone before she woke.

Twenty or so silver-convalescing Aster wolves were gathered, watching her with extra hostile suspicion the next morning as she made her way across the glade to the food tent. One huge, hulking brown-and-white male stepped into her path. Gemma felt wary anger rising as she searched the serious, greying features of the wolf blocking her way, looking for a hint of his intentions. Then he had suddenly grinned, and handed her the mug of coffee in his hand.

"The A looked a lot better this morning," said the old wolf. He answered the rumble of aggressive disapproval from the other warriors with a snorted growl, and turned and brushed his way through his disgruntled packmates and allies. Gemma realised that Rebecca had appeared swiftly at her side while she watched the retreating back of the speaker, and she cautiously sniffed at her coffee.

It was coffee.

They were not all against her.

"Mac shouldn't have joined me last night, should he?" she murmured sadly, watching the flickers of distrustful anger glowing in the eyes of the dispersing wolves.

"He needed to rest," replied his sister quietly. "He is most at peace with you. And all of our patients last night were Mackeld; whatever they think, they would never betray his actions to the Koschuk or the Vanilchov."

Not exactly the reassurance she'd hoped for. Gemma sighed softly.

She and Mac were summoned to Fealden Wolflord's home, Fort Amicable, two days later.

Fort Amicable was actually a castle. The turreted, buttressed battlements would have looked really out of place to any humans who found it: a vast, European-style stone keep, with layer upon layer of additional building work expanding the original building, complete with an outer rampart curving back to the step mountain cliffs. Reportedly only two humans had stumbled over it in the centuries that it had been here. The huge grey walls were hidden away in the crook of a small V-shaped valley high on the mountainside. The formidable structure faced across a wide glacial vale, perched on the edge of the almost sheer drop where the long ago glacier had sliced through the short, high river valley. It was shadowed and hidden by the looming peaks behind of the same grey stone, and sheltered by a thick forest which crept close to the base of the massive outer walls. The sheer mountains at its back meant that the only way up to the fort was via a very steep, indistinct series of pathways, and tree-falls were designed to put the rare humans off.

Gus told her some of the background, once he'd finally gotten through the interminable scolding and was talking to her normally again.

Helicopter or small plane was the other way in, and how Gemma and Mac had abruptly arrived nine days ago. Mac had been in shock, mostly silent while he piloted the small plane through the grey clouds in the early hours of the morning. He had explained to Gemma in brief sentences that she had to drag out of him.

The senshal had been so shocked and unnerved by what they'd found at the Grey lair that they'd unprecedentedly stepped in to halt an inter-pack territory dispute. They'd ordered a ceasefire, and demanded that the Tzo come and explain what he had known of his ally's underground activities, and how the hell he'd thought that that scent-masking drug had been invented. They had also demanded that the Mackeld bring his wereem along and explain what the hell he was doing creating one. Or setting one up to be created.

Mac had been seething. Gemma had been scared - she knew the penalty for a wolf, for creating a werewolf. She'd shivered until they'd reached here, and in the large, packed audience chamber the werewolf expert, Dr Coulter, had verified that there were the healed bites of seven different wolves on her skin. Seven. Fealden's testimony, and those of his grandsons and Jasmine had proved that it was one of the last five who had turned her.

Cub bites. Cubs from the pack of the Deadwolf, Grey. Tzo's ally.

Now there was a raging argument going on about who she belonged to, whether the Mackeld was to blame for biting her in the first place, and how to prevent this ever happening again. Mac spent most of each day in the audience chamber.

Gemma spent most of each day being batted in a series of bruising rolls across the coarse grass of the practice field.

Until she ended up lying on it. Groaning quietly, internally. Like this.

But werewolves heal almost as fast as wolves.

"If only Fealden and Waring are senshal of this continent, how did others cross the ocean?" mused Gemma suddenly, opening her eyes. She stared down past the turrets to the glowing rays of the sun reflected on the sheer, huge rock cliffs lining the opposite side of the broad glacial valley. They were lying together in the short grass of the practice field, above and behind the main buildings, but within the circling protection of the outer rampart and mountain peaks.

The Fealden wolf chuckled, "WolfAir."

Gemma turned incredulous eyes up to him, "You're kidding me?"

"Nope," he returned, grinning. "A small airline that runs charter flights between a handful of the world's major airports -- they have two bases here, one on each coast, with probably two aircraft in each. The senshal frequently commandeer them."

WolfAir. She squinted up at the clouds from her prone position on the turf, trying to imagine the logo.

"If you're recovered enough to start chattering Gemma, then it's time for you to get back to practice."

A long groan echoed in the air.

What her sneaky wolf hadn't told her about their trip to the Fort was that the Wolflord was furious with both Jasmine and herself, for endangering Gemma. And as she was now a werewolf, she was subject to wolf law.

And his discipline.

Strictly speaking, Gemma's training wasn't a punishment. She hadn't been a wolf when she'd made her pact with Jasmine to find the Grey lair. But now. It still felt like a punishment, even if the regimen made painful sense. Fealden was having her trained, ruthlessly, relentlessly, in the use of her new limbs. Gus had been assigned to train her, and was subject to discipline himself if her progress wasn't satisfactory. It frequently wasn't.

The Wolflord had not been in the least impressed by his grandsons either. The fact that they had allowed Jasmine to guard Gemma alone had rendered him momentarily speechless, glaring at the pair in incoherent disbelief at their inadequacy. Jeremy, because his attraction to Jasmine had clouded his judgement; Gus, because he rarely stood up to his natál.

The other pair were somewhere about. Jasmine always looked much more exhausted than Gemma was herself, completely drained, but doggedly determined to survive this Alpha-training-by-fire. Her insubordination had been worth it; her natál was recovering. As much as he ever would be able. Jeremy, when he joined them for the evening meal, was also trembling, tight-faced, and both snappy and brooding with Jasmine, feeling betrayed by her. Yet the pair were being trained together in a relentless series of sessions with the Mackeld, the Marsh and the Wolflord himself. They could barely stagger into the great hall every evening.

Gus shifted to loup and bounded to his feet with a snarl, propelling Gemma to stagger back onto her own four trembling limbs.

"You think no-one will ever attack when you're tired?" he sniped.

If she didn't run fast enough, he nipped her. If she didn't make it around the obstacle course better than last time, he nipped her. And boy, did it hurt, even if it healed quickly.

Ow. Ow ow ow.

Stumbling down the grassy slope to the lighted side entrance that evening, once her tormentor had finally left her collapsed face-down on the grass in the twilight, Gemma walked into her mate.

Cranky complaints began to tumble from her tired brain, reeling from her mouth, and she pleaded with Mac to get Fealden to stop it, or to at least let her have a day off - eight solid days, she was going to die. She fell silent, noticing his stillness. Her wolf just stared at her for a long moment, face expressionless, before he returned dryly, "Gemma, if the Wolflord hadn't pulled rank, I would be disciplining you myself." His voice dropped, and he added silkily, "I would go and thank him, if I were you."

She shivered a little at the look in his eye and then a spark of anger snapped through her - who did he think he was, telling her what to do?

Warm hands clasped her wrists before she could move, and he swiftly kissed her before she could get out of the way. Her anger was swamped under lust. And love.

Cheat.

"Discipline -" he began.

"- is a vital part of being a wolf," she finished the phrase on a quiet sigh, having had it drummed into her often enough by her trainer. "And physical discipline builds mental." She knew. "But -"

She fell silent again, frightened by the daily notching up of the anger within her. The number of times she had turned, raging in mindless fury, on Gus. He even had two small scratches, which his natál had laughed at him for. Jeremy and Jasmine were covered in scars, but then they were being disciplined by an Alpha, a Warlord and the Wolflord.

But she hated it. Losing control. Losing all sense of herself.

It was also getting more frequent. The cold sense of fatalism in the pit of her stomach was growing.

Then again, here in the Fealden stronghold they were again separated by his alliances, his betrothal. She had so little time alone with Mac, stolen moments like this only. Why waste it whining?

Gemma sighed, turning to lean back against her mate while his arms encircled her waist, "Well, if you want the humiliation of not being able to catch your mate in future, you just leave them to it."

Mac laughed, sliding backwards onto a perch on the rock wall which lined the path around the rear of the building, pulling her onto his knees. Tears leaked into her eyes. She was so tired. Tired and missing him. Why did they have to waste what little time she had? Couldn't they just let her enjoy him while she was still sane?

"I think chasing you will be more fun, once you can actually run on your four feet," he replied.

That reminded her, "Why didn't you bite me when we last mated, after the battle in Medway?"

He stilled, and sighed. She could feel him thinking, and the words came slowly, the realisation surfacing in Mac as he shared it with her: "I seem to have lost the need, the unstoppable, instinctive demand to bite you as we mate, now that you are a wereem."

Then he added, "Which is all to the good, I could stay human; it is not good to mate cross-species, the loup would have torn you again."

"So you only bite as a wolf -um- loup?" She knew that wasn't true. Her skin had lots of proof.

"The loup bite is most potent," he replied. His voice was slightly unsteady, she could hear him thinking dark thoughts, scent his anguish in the air.

Enough of that gloom. Time-waster. Turning on his knees, Gemma began to nibble kisses on his taut-pursed lips.

"As I'm new to this, I think you should give me a head start," she whispered. His body was trembling, and she felt his mood lighten slightly at her teasing beginning of arousal.

Then he heard someone coming, and she was on her feet, on her own, her lips burning with a brief, hard kiss by the time two young cubs tripped around the corner, snarling in a tugging, raging war over the piece of hide clenched in their teeth.

Bereft.

They fell silent as soon as they saw her, stumbling to a halt, and their eyes rounded in shock. Usually none of the cubs dared to get this close to her; they had evidently been warned about werewolves and their mad rages. Gemma smothered her anger at the interruption, and smiled tentatively at them, uncertain what to do. But they could still scent her irritation; a sad sigh escaped as they suddenly turned and tore back around the corner.

It was a brave wolf who dared speak to her. Watchful, wary eyes followed her everywhere, this was much worse than the Aster field hospital - she had usually been too busy there to notice. But Jasmine and the Fealden twins were regarded in surreptitious awe: the brave wolves who joined her every evening at her solitary bench for the meal, and proceeded to blatantly tease the volatile monster.

Mac didn't get the same looks whenever he stopped to speak briefly, formally to her in public. He was an Alpha. Of course he was safe.

Dr Maynard was the only other wolf to speak to her apart from the Wolflord. She tolerated his acrid, wary scent in her nostrils, because he provided a very welcome, brief respite from her endurance training, having persuaded Fealden to allow him two hours with her every day. The professor needed help to try to decipher the reams of formulae captured from the Grey lair, and was gleeful that they now had a metals expert on the premises, so he could pick her brains. But they worked in public, at twin workstations set up on one of the benches to one side of the great hall. He didn't quite dare take her up to his private office.

Despite the constant reminder in his musk, the hours of hard, mental work every day also helped to soothe the rage trying to take hold in Gemma's brain. But the insidious scent grated against her hackles, and it seethed from almost every wolf. Thank god she spent most of every day outside, with Gus. The constant scent of fear was feeding her rage: it was a consistent reminder that no, she did not belong with wolves. Her first wariness, back in the park, had been right.

She was no longer a human. But she was not a wolf either.

The following afternoon, Gemma was with Mac again, a public appearance. They were sitting on upright wooden chairs beside each other in what Gemma thought of as an office; a small, circular room high up in one of the towers. Behind the desk a tall, robust woman was carefully pouring tea into the first of three tall, bone-china mugs. Her short, grey curls were untidy, and her face lined with humour. She looked like anyone's idea of a fun, slightly bohemian Grandmother. Dr Coulter. The werewolf expert.

Gemma had no idea why they were here. Gus had simply delivered her to the door without explanation. She was still covered in grass smears, sweat and healing nicks, and her limbs were trembling. Unfortunately they were not trembling for the usual reason that they did around Mac.

What a waste.

A small smile flickered across her mate's face.

The desk was just visible under the jungle of plants standing thronged upon it, and the tea-tray was precariously balanced on a thick pile of books in the centre of the desk. Biscuit barrel, sugar-bowl, tongs, milk jug and the three mugs thronged around the tea-pot, gently steaming under its tea-cosy. Evidently they had been expected.

"Milk, dear?"

The woman's eyes were dangerously dark, pulling. Although not as deep as the Wolflord's.

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.

Eugh.

Mac was uneasy, but holding firmly onto his calm, projecting it for Gemma. She slanted her eyes toward him, and relaxed.

Dr Coulter cleared her throat.

"However; however new and vulnerable the werewolf is, stronger even than the instinct to obey, is the instinct to survive," she continued calmly.

Abruptly, Gemma felt the blast into her mind of a powerful, pounding command; a deep, disgusting image of herself raking open her stomach with the claws of her right hand.

Mac was on his feet, mind reverberating in barely controlled anger, with Marsh holding onto his biceps and speaking soft, swift words into his ear. Gemma realised that her right hand had obediently transformed into a clawed fist, but had halted, an inch from the soft cotton shirt covering her belly.

She bowed almost to the floor under the repeated command, the image plastered, burned into her head, but her claws raked the open air. However often the command thundered through her, she couldn't make them connect, she couldn't make them, she was trying, trying, weeping.

"Enough!" clipped the soft Indian lilt, and the bludgeoning command abruptly lifted from Gemma's mind, leaving her panting on the floor, curling into a ball.

"I think that you had better leave, Mackeld," stated Martha Coulter coldly. Gemma hurtled into her mate's mind, and realised that her wolf was being held in check, physically by Marsh and two other wolves on his other side, and mentally by a group of the senshal. They were all looking shocked at the Alpha's behaviour.

She was shuddering to the horrible feeling of having her mind flattened like that, walked over, pounded, ground into the floor, and he folded her in a gentle mental embrace, soothing.

Let me shield you, picchu. I can protect you from this.

Mac flung himself back into his seat, glaring bleakly across at Dr Coulter.

"I fail to see the purpose in this," he growled curtly, while the wolves around him sighed, and relaxed back into their own seats.

"Then control yourself, and wait. We will establish who is her mordeur."

Let me shield you, Mac repeated softly in her mind. Mac feared what was going to happen next. So did Gemma, but she realised - Mac was still under suspicion of being her mordeur. They needed to establish who really was, in order to lift the accusation from him.

Also, if he did shield her - what about his alliance with the Koshuk, the Vanilchov? Vanil was not here, he was still searching desperately for his natalí, but news travelled fast in the wolf world.

I'll be fine, she responded wistfully, and felt him clutch at her.

I'll be fine. We have to do this, Mac. I can't have them suspecting you. It won't last long and I heal really fast.

A group of five nervous, excited cubs were filing in at the side of the chamber, shepherded by anxious parents to stand in a line facing Gemma across the open space before the senshal. The oldest of them could only have been about three, and the youngest was still a wobbly four-legged wolf, the littlest one, with the ragtag ear. Three of them yipped excitedly across at Gemma, the wolf voices strange echoing from the human throats. The littlest waggled her whippy tail, and began to bound excitedly across the expanse of exquisite parquet flooring toward the wereem, but her harassed mother rushed after her and scooped her up by the scruff of her neck before she got far.

The apologetically wriggling cub was placed gently back at the end of the line and licked her mother's nose as she wobbled back around to face Gemma.

They looked at each other.

Then the little girl on the far left frowned, and her father placed a gentle, encouraging hand on her shoulder. The young cub's brow was deeply furrowed, and then Gemma received a fuzzy image of herself bounding around the room. The wereem grinned across at the cub, and the girl smiled back doubtfully, looking questioningly up at her father, who stroked a soothing hand over her hair.

A second image, of herself jumping up in the air and clapping her hands over her head, appeared in Gemma's head. She smiled again at the second wolfcub, shaking her head.

The next second she was on the floor, in wolf form, chasing and snapping at her own tail, stumbling over the loose clothing hanging off her four-legged form. Incredulous anger fired in her mind just as she heard a giggle of laughter from the toddler across the room, and felt a gentle touch of calm from her mate.

Abruptly she had shifted back to human, naked from the waist down - as she hadn't yet learned to transform clothes into pelt, and she was rolling to kiss the feet of her wolf guard. He growled, stepping backward.

Vaguely through the dinning of rising rage in her ears, and the desperate calling of her mate in her head, Gemma heard a chorus of adult wolves shouting to the cub to stop. The loud voices were punctuated by squeals of gleeful laughter and giggles from the line of cubs across the room. She was on her back, forced to spread and close her arms and naked legs as though making snow angles, the black spots clustering in front of her eyes obliterating the tense faces of the senshal. Mac was calling, calling, but the black shroud was thickening, blocking out his voice.

Suddenly the rage solidified, and she knew no more.

Coming around, her right arm felt as though it had been wrenched from the socket, and her left shoulder was torn in a painful, deep bite. Gemma swam back to full consciousness to find that she was pinned to the cool wooden floor on her front, underneath her mate, her furry lycan arms twisted up behind her in an unbreakable hold. Angry voices behind her were scolding the cub for provoking his wereem, and a shocked, scared murmur rustled through the audience benches.

Gemma blinked her eyes open to the sight, not a yard in front of her face, of the five cubs huddled together. The shocked parents were crouched ready to fight in front of them, and all, adults and children alike, were all eyeing her in fear. Except that the fear in the eyes of the little male cub in the centre was tempered by a gleam deep in his eye. He would like to do that again.

Gemma shuddered, shutting her eyes as her muscles shrieked in a protesting, torn feeling while Mac released her and lifted himself off. Already the pain was fading.

What happened? She asked him faintly.

You went berserk and sprang for the cub. Misha was finding it impossible to stop you, and I was the fastest Alpha. I had felt you losing it. Mac's voice was grave, sombre. And bitterly angry. Gemma uncurled, shifting back to human, and felt a wave of uncertainty and worry, pass through the assembled wolves as she regained her feet. Faint nausea rose in her as she saw the deep, scored rips and tears that had shredded the hefty guard hovering beside them.

The Spanish lady senshal was calling for order, for the cubs to be taken from the room, when Martha Coulter interrupted her with, "One moment, Paula."

The room suddenly fell silent again.

"We haven't tried the other two yet," Dr Coulter finished. Gemma felt rage surge through her, but this time it wasn't hers, she was still in shock at the damage she had done to that powerful wolf. The fury was in her mate, he was prowling forward, protesting. A were could not have two mordeurs. The idea was preposterous. Unprecedented.

Gemma sent him a flicker of calm, and then was distracted, trying to smother the surge of giggles which rose at the sudden change in their roles. She felt her mate calming down as he sensed her amusement, clamping that iron control around himself, coming to a halt in front of the senshal.

"This whole situation is unprecedented, Mackeld," responded Dr Coulter, who had retreated back to her seat behind the vast wooden table. "I have never heard the faintest hint of a legend of a were turned by a cub. Yet here we have one. We must explore all possibilities. The shiele of all of them was inside her when she was turned, you said as much yourself."

Mac was bristling angrily inside his head, and Gemma continued to soothe him. If they could just stop the cubs from playing with her like a piece of meat, she could handle it.

I will shield you.

Didn't you try to before?

Echoing silence from her wolf. She had thought so, thought that she had felt the sense of his mind enclosing hers, but he evidently couldn't shield her from her mordeur.

The only way she could break free of the cub's commands was by losing her mind.

Gemma took a deep breath, walked back across the room, and picked up and pulled on her loose cotton trousers, tying the belt string. Her knickers were shredded.

Again, not by her mate. Life was definitely going downhill.

Mac was smiling faintly as he re-seated himself.

Gemma waited, looking across at the petrified cubs.

The fourth eventually calmed enough to send her a trembly image of herself simply clapping her hands.

Nothing.

The last, the friendly little wolfcub, conveyed a terrified, scorching image of Gemma scurrying back on all fours away from her, away as far as she could get. The cub just didn't want her near. The wereem was already obediently curled, lycan, far away in the corner beyond the last of the senshal, pressing herself hard against the cold stone, when the mother wolf lifted up her frightened cub, soothing her, and the connection cut off.

The silence was still, all the wolves holding their breath. But Gemma felt no rage, only sadness. She had seen the little cub's petrified memory of the flaming black, insane eyes of the enraged were leaping across the room towards them. Gemma herself.

Shaking her head, she uncurled glumly to her feet, human, and paced slowly across the floor to retrieve her trousers again, uncaring of her nakedness in the packed room. Her mate was soothing her once more, but she felt shrunken inside her own mind, trying to escape from the recognition of herself as a fearsome monster. His words echoed unheard outside the gloom as she pulled on her slightly torn garment.

"Please take your cubs away now, thank-you," murmured Fealden Wolflord. The white-faced parents began to file from the room, shepherding their cubs. The last, the pale-skinned woman cuddling her little girl, Gemma's second mordeur, paused, and hesitantly addressed the senshal.

"Simon - the male cub who is also the wereem's mordeur, was sired by the Deadwolf Grey. Grey always maintained a strong link with his cubs, he used them as spies among us and rewarded them for loyalty. It may be that he still maintains that link, can direct the yip."

The mother wolf broke off her terse recital and looked across at Gemma, who had halted her fumbling dressing, and was staring across at the pair of them, white faced. Mind blank.

Bizarrely, the tall female bowed to her, a deep, graceful bow with a flick of her fingers to her heart and lips. A mingled sigh and gasp ran through the chamber.

"Thank-you," murmured the Spanish senshal, smiling at the ex-Grey wolf, and mother departed with her squirming cub.

Gemma seemed to have sunk into shock. She sat quietly on her bench while the arguments ranged around her, scorching through the air, the voices heated. They didn't make sense. Nothing seemed to make sense, to reach her. Did this mean she was vulnerable to Grey? Would obey his orders, given through his cub? Her stomach was hollow, aching.

Mac had been so right not to trust her with his secrets.

Eventually, she realised that the echoing voices had stopped, and the room was silent, the senshal frowning, thoughts bounding between them. After many long, silent minutes of rising tension, the long line of senshal relaxed. All except Fealden turned to look at Gemma, soberly. Then with a sigh the African wolf on the end rose majestically to his feet, flicking a glance at the Wolflord before he turned to address the room, and more specifically, Mac.

"Ulf Mackeld. Your naulu protected her as a human. The same for Fealden Wolflord's friendship. However, as a werewolf, she is subject to senshal law, as are wolves. We have agreed that none of her mordeurs, including yourself, are to blame for her existence, as none alone turned or intended to turn her."

A sigh ran through the packed audience chamber.

"However," the powerful, dark-skinned wolf voice echoed with steely resolve, "the creation of this wereem, the first in two centuries, is a threat to our society, our secrecy."

Mac was quivering on his seat behind her, she could sense the effort he was putting out to control himself.

"Your argument that as his allies created this one, Tzo has no right to demand retribution, does not hold. Although the Deadwolf Grey and his pack contributed to her turning, the initiation was yours, and she evidently looks to you. You are her Alpha, so she is an Aster. Tzo is demanding that as the Aster have increased their troops in this way, he must in fairness be allowed to do so also."

Mac bristled across the room at his enemy.

The senshal spokesman continued.

"This we cannot permit. The situation is already dangerously unstable, and we cannot allow it to escalate. I'm sorry, Mackeld, but the senshal have declared the wereem Dead."

The last words were lost under an anguished, enraged howl as a blur of tawny fur slammed into her guard, catapulting him across the room into one of the astounded door wardens.

Come on!

The sharp command brought Gemma to her feet, but she froze, sickened, as suddenly her mate was plastered to the floor, as though a gigantic, invisible palm had slammed down upon him.

"Mackeld!" barked the speaker. The senshal were all on their feet, shocked, staring at the Alpha pressed against the floor, their faces creasing with effort as he continued to struggle. All except Fealden, who had remained seated, detached, stiffly staring over their heads out of the Eastern windows with a bleak expression on his face.

Gemma's heart shrank as she saw her grim-faced guard bounding back towards her, and realised that the senshal meant their sentence to be carried out immediately. Then her eyes were yanked back to her mate when a gasp rang through the room.

Mac's face was twisted in intense pain, but he was slowly forcing himself back to his feet, shaking his head in a raging, vicious negative. Suddenly something holding him seemed to snap, and the Celtic senshal reeled, clutching at his head. Mac pounced on the passing guard, ripping a deep gash in his leg as he spun to toss him back across the room. The hapless, grizzled wolf flew, arms flailing, one leg trailing, to crash into the tier of benches and Alphas rising to their feet on the opposite side.

All eyes were on Mac, spellbound, astounded.

He was twisting, snarling, leaping and feinting in the air in the centre of the star. Gemma could sense the senshal trying to join together again, to mentally force her wolf back to the ground, hold him down and make him yield to reason. They were wincing and reeling around him, eyes burning, shuddering. Failing.

Each in turn took a battering from the Mackeld Alpha's mind as he whirled, attacking wherever the meld was weakest, before they could properly coalesce, his body mimicking the attacks in his mind, just as the senshal were reeling in response. Then out of the corner of her eye, Gemma saw two hulking Alphas converging on her mate, and remembered what he had said about physical submission reinforcing mental.

Gemma's heart leapt in fury; however, this time a necessary glimmer of thought held her together. She catapulted as a loup into the threat bearing down on her mate, the surprise of her attack taking the nearest unawares, managing to send him tumbling across the floor as she collided with him from the side, just as Gus had taught her. Then she felt a sharp tug on her mind while Mac leapt over her to bowl over the second Alpha.

JUMP! the command reverberated in her head while she scrambled back to her feet. The image was clear, and they sprang together, two wolves side by side, in a long powerful leap over the heads of the shouting senshal to smash through the huge, stained-glass window above them, shattering glass and bending soft lead. Gemma felt a different order grasping at her mind, but the tentative hold slid away when Mac mentally punched the wolf in the face. Abruptly a smooth, opaque blanket smothered cloyingly around her thoughts while they rolled together down the steeply pitched slate roof outside the audience chamber.

They dropped down from the roof to land on all fours, already running, among the sparse scatter of startled wolves in the courtyard. The gateman rose to his feet, then flinched and dodged out of the way when Mac snarled at him. He watched, mouth open, as the pair careered past, out of the open gate, onto the tree-lined, indistinct dirt track.

Mac's mind was also sheltered inside the oppressive blanket, it was his shield for them both. The sense of him there with her soothed the quivering panic Gemma could feel hovering at the edges of her mind. Her mate's thoughts were still echoing with rage, mixed with a bitter seethe at the idiotic, short-sighted, unjust judgement of the senshal. But his need to plan was cresting over the rage, and his driving purpose was easy to read: to evade the senshal's trackers and get his mate to safety. Gemma felt her throat constricting with tears - she couldn't even cry in this form! - when she realised his full, bitter purpose. To hide them both. Because, for protecting her from the senshal's judgement, he was now also an exile: outlawed, condemned. A Deadwolf.

Run, my picchu, he soothed her.

Shocked, Gemma recognized the happiness welling up in her mate.