Chapter Text
It was the night of the new moon. He hated new moons.
Normally, he could at least look forward to seeing the stars at their brightest. But tonight the clouds were drawn thick over the sky, and the reedy torchlight barely showed him the ground ahead of his feet as he and Tulio moved toward the row of cages at the edge of camp.
They came to a halt before the two empty cages at the end.
They’d been occupied just that afternoon. The faint tang of blood and singed fur still clung to the air of the camp. Or maybe just to him.
Tulio’s fingers dug into his shoulder. “Extra care with those enchantments this time, mage. And add another layer to the mutts, too. I’ve got a feeling in the old leg.”
Jaime’s gaze strayed to a single patch of stars peeking through above the distant mountains. “Yes, sir.”
“And hurry back.” He slapped Jaime’s back hard enough to send him stumbling. “I heard talk that he wants to give you a special thank you for your hard work.”
His stomach twisted at that, bile rising in his throat. But he simply nodded.
Jaime waited until Tulio’s footsteps faded to exhale. His shoulders fell and he approached the first cage, easing the door shut and reinforcing the lock.
He traced runes with his fingertips, murmuring the familiar spells as he moved around all four sides. After he finished, he closed his eyes and pushed an additional trickle of power through.
Tulio’s bad feelings were rarely accurate. But complying was expected just the same.
The next empty cage went quickly, and the runes glowed white for an instant before fading back into thin lines.
When he continued forward, he had to brace himself.
The big wolf was the most recent capture. Of the still-living, anyway. He had been in the cage for two weeks, and his inky fur gleamed in the dim light, enough fire still in him to lift his hackles and snarl at Jaime as he approached.
Jaime cast a glance over his shoulder, then reached into his pockets and pulled out scraps of dried meat. He cast a piece into each cage before returning to the black wolf.
It was rare that he had a chance to take any scraps unnoticed, rarer still that he dared the risk. Was it a small kindness, or just a cruelty, to give the captive wolves a little more strength? He didn’t know.
But the black wolf snapped up the meat and sat back on his haunches, eyes glinting and following Jaime as he made his way around the prison.
He growled deep in his chest when Jaime layered another shielding charm over him, keeping him bound in his wolf form and blocking his packmates’ senses.
Jaime didn’t meet his eyes.
He didn’t speak to the wolves. He rarely did anymore. And he couldn’t today. Not after the hunters had pulled the corpses of the old white wolf and the lithe, tawny female out in the early dawn and harvested their fur in full view of the surviving prisoners.
At the final cage, his hand shook as he traced the runes. He paused, taking a deep breath and pulling on the last dregs of his strength and the threads of magic they’d loosed for the task. When he took a step, he tripped and had to brace himself against the bars. A dull shock thrummed up his arm — nothing like the spells on the inside, but enough to make him wince.
The last wolf was small. Not a pup, but young. His chest squeezed. He’d never seen her in her human form. At first, her silvery fur had shimmered like moonlight. Now she was thin and coated with dust, her eyes closed and her muzzle tucked tight under one paw. He thought, dully, that she would probably be the next to go.
To her, he whispered so quietly that even her keen hearing might not catch it. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t move.
He finished the reinforcements and turned to go. When he passed by the black wolf, it slammed against the bars of the cage, making Jaime flinch.
He quickened his steps.
The winter chill was settling in, lifting goosebumps on his skin and making him shiver as he stopped outside the big tent. Light glowed from beneath the flap and plumes of smoke rose from the center. He paused to listen.
Eskender’s laugh rang out and the others followed. It was a loose, rowdy laughter. Jaime swallowed. Drunk and pleased Eskender was a knife’s edge. Better than angry. But dangerous.
He pushed the tent flap aside and stepped in.
“Ah, didn’t lose any fingers to the wolves, did you, mage? They looked hungry.” Tulio elbowed Eskender, smirking. “Not that you’d make much of a meal.”
Jaime fixed his eyes somewhere around their boots. “I finished the enchantments.”
“Just in time, too.” Eskender snapped and gestured to the space beside him. “We were starting to get bored.”
Woodenly, Jaime picked his way through the other hunters and sat.
The tent was warm, but he still felt the urge to shiver.
Eskender seized his chin with rough fingers, capturing Jaime’s mouth with his own. He tasted like salt and the vinegary wine they’d come back from town with. Jaime stayed pliant, his fingertips pressing hard into the packed earth.
When Eskender pulled back, he lifted his mug. “To the hunt,” he said.
The others raised their glasses and echoed the toast.
“To the gold,” Emelina said from where she leaned against Lily.
They laughed and toasted again.
“And to ridding the country of every one of those stinking beasts,” Eskender said. He pressed a mug into Jaime’s hand and raised it into the air, sloshing half the wine onto his lap.
The hunters cheered.
The group drank deeply, and Jaime drained the rest of the mug’s contents. It made his empty stomach roil, but he wanted his senses dulled.
“I’m feeling generous tonight.” Eskender grinned sharply and laid a hand on the remnants of Jaime’s close-shorn hair. “I think I’ll share.”
Dimitri stiffened as the mage-hunter approached, the torchlight hitting the hollows of his face and making him look like the monster he was. He regarded the wolves blankly, remorselessly. They were animals to him, Dimitri knew. Nothing more than beasts to kill, pelts to sell.
The mage tossed scraps of meat into the cages to keep them quiet while he worked.
Once, Dimitri would have said he’d never accept food from the hands of a hunter — let alone the mage who made their blood-soaked mission possible. Now, he knew he’d take the food where he could get it. At least the mage hadn’t given them anything tainted, unlike the tall man with the hooked nose. That had left Dimitri’s stomach cramping for hours, and sent Maya into coughing and gagging fits that made her bump the shocking spells on the bars.
Dimitri supposed it would only make more work for the mage if he had to clean up puddles of sick while he was casting.
He snapped up the jerky and stared the man down, snarling when he felt another layer of binding magic fall over his fur.
It tightened, trapping the howls in his throat and blocking the scents from his nose, concealing his own scent from his packmates. The urge to shift was more than an itch now. It was a constant agony, tinged heavily with fear. He might never be in his human form again.
Rescue was starting to seem less and less likely. They’d patrolled to find the hunters’ camp before, many times since the band had moved onto the edges of Hearthstone territory last year. He’d led the searches himself, and they’d never been successful. The mage’s web of deceiving magic was too thick.
And here he was adding more.
At last, the mage finished enchanting the young girl at the end. He didn’t know her, but he could sense her despair deepening every time he glanced her way. She was just a child, probably no older than Nadia or Alexei. She didn’t deserve this early, slow death.
When the mage passed back by, Dimitri slammed his shoulders against the cage just to see him flinch. He didn’t look Dimitri’s way, instead brushing his sins off and marching back to the comfort of his tent. For his rewards. Dimitri shook off the cage shock and stared at the man’s retreating back in disgust.
He waited until the mage was out of sight to lay back down.
The floor of the cage was cold and hard, and he could feel the night air more keenly than when they’d first captured him.
Tonight, though, it was barely enough to pierce through his haze of mourning. Yusif and Maya. Both dead.
He struggled to count the days, but the new moon meant it had been barely a fortnight since they’d been captured. It hadn’t even been a proper hunt, just a romp to take in the height of the autumn colors. Yusif had ribbed Dimitri into the expedition, saying his old bones needed some fresh air, and that even though he hadn’t been captain of the hunt in many years, he could still track an acorn-fat squirrel with the best of them. Dimitri couldn’t help but relent, rolling his eyes and smiling.
And Maya... she’d not been out of the pack’s camp since delivering her stillborn cub. Yusif had always had a soft spot for her, one she reciprocated, and he’d coaxed her along.
Dimitri’s spirits had been high as he saw his friend’s steps quicken and her nose twitch in the dry leaves. She’d looked happy.
Then Yusif had triggered the snare, trapping them all beneath a heavy, enchanted silver net.
It was Dimitri’s fault. He hadn’t been watchful, hadn’t been acting his role as the current hunt captain. And now they were dead. Sooner even than the wolves that had already been in the hunters’ camp.
Yusif had been too old to withstand the elements, the starvation, the torments. And Maya had still been weak from the hard labor.
Dimitri closed his eyes, huddling tighter. If he somehow made it home, how would he tell Ivan?
Normally, they’d all be in the dens on a new moon night, curled together and getting extra rest.
Tonight, he’d have gladly accepted the warmth of the strangers in the cages beside him, but he couldn’t even have that.
All he could do was try to sleep, and hope his dreams were kinder.