“Why won’t he just give up?” he said despairingly.
“Because he can’t replace you,” Marguerite replied flatly. “He cannot summon the Urge.”
The Urge. What a word for that murderous, base instinct.
It was only when a wolf delivering a death bite was consumed by the Urge that a human could be changed to a wolf.
Some said the Urge was a compulsion, an irresistible force that possessed the wolf entirely so that they weren’t in their right mind when they gave the transformative bite. Others insisted it was no more than a fierce temptation—something that could be resisted, albeit with great difficulty. Very few wolves knew the truth of the matter—to experience the Urge was rare. Other than Duncan, the only wolf Lindsay knew who had been possessed by it was Francis.
After all, it was Francis who had transformed Duncan MacCormaic.
Francis insisted that the Urge that had consumed him had been provoked not by his reaction to Duncan but by his devotion to Marguerite. At the time, she’d been distraught over the recent disappearance of her beloved maker and foster-mother, Alys. Duncan had claimed he could find Alys—a claim that had turned out to be a lie—and had demanded to be transformed before he would help her. Desperate, Marguerite had agreed but had been unable to summon the Urge herself. Francis said it was her distress that had sparked the Urge in him.
Lindsay’s transformation had been similar in that he had not been the inspiration for the Urge that had possessed Duncan. It had been Lindsay’s misfortune to resemble Francis—Duncan’s maker and the one man that Duncan longed to control, but never could.
Back then, Lindsay had been a soldier in the Covenanter army. When he’d been captured by Duncan’s men, he’d thought he was being taken to a Royalist stronghold to be interrogated. Although he’d been as afraid as any man reasonably would be in such circumstances, he’d nevertheless had hopes of his eventual release.
That hope had quickly died when he’d met the leader of his captors.
The Keep they’d taken him to had been dark and gloomy and remote. Mercer, the leader of the group that had captured him had dragged him into a great echoing hall by his manacled wrists.
At first, Lindsay had thought the hall was empty. Then he’d caught a flicker of movement from one shadowy corner—two rising figures. A pair of mastiffs, one on either side of a high-backed chair of carved black wood. Upon that chair had sat Duncan MacCormaic, his handsome profile caressed by the glow of the great fire. The mastiffs had begun to growl, low in their throats, but when Duncan had glanced at them, they’d fallen to their bellies, their growls transforming to submissive whines.
“What have you brought me, Mercer?” Duncan had said as Mercer had dragged a stumbling, exhausted Lindsay towards him. A small, cruel smile had played about Duncan’s mouth, a smile that froze when Mercer grabbed a fistful of Lindsay’s hair and dragged back his head to allow Duncan to see him properly.
He’d risen from his chair then, moving silently towards them, light and graceful on his feet for such a big man. Reaching out, he’d stroked Lindsay’s cheek with impossible tenderness.
“My God, he’s the Eunuch’s very image,” he’d whispered, almost reverently. Then, looking at Mercer, he’d grinned wildly. “I shall greatly enjoy playing with this one, Mercer. You have done very well.”
The Eunuch. Duncan’s name for Francis, the one man who could bend Duncan to his will. The man he desired above all others but who recoiled from his very touch. Who would always reject Duncan... but could not bring himself to harm him.
That first night, Duncan had visited all his frustrated desire for Francis upon Lindsay’s body, acting out his fantasies of what he wanted to do to his maker. The fact that Lindsay had cursed and fought him, far longer than he should have done, had only made it sweeter for Duncan. So sweet that Duncan had become consumed by the Urge, drunk on the heady prospect of acting out those fantasies again. And again, and again.
Lindsay could not—would not—go back to that.
He shook his head as though to dislodge the memories and forced himself to meet Marguerite’s concerned gaze. “So, you have business for me to deal with in Edinburgh?”
She eyed him for a moment, then nodded. “I’d intended to ask Francis to deal with it given your preference to avoid Scotland but since MacCormaic seems to be on his way to Paris, it’s as good a place for you now as anywhere. And the business I need to you to deal with is all in Edinburgh.”
That was a relief at least. He could stay in in the city, far away from MacCormaic’s Keep.
“What exactly is it you want me to do?” Lindsay asked.
Just then, there was a soft rap at the door and a dark head appeared.
Francis.
“Good evening, beloveds,” he said cheerfully. “May I join you?”
“Oh yes, do please interrupt our conversation, won’t you?” Marguerite replied tartly.
Francis just grinned and stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind him. He went to Marguerite first, kissing the top of her head, then crossed the floor to greet Lindsay with buss to his cheek before settling onto the sofa beside him.
Like Lindsay, Francis was dressed for an evening of entertainment, though his apparel was more understated, much like Francis himself, who managed to be simultaneously beautiful and oddly easy to overlook. His finely wrought features were as perfectly symmetrical as Lindsay’s, his hair as dark, and his skin as pale. Yet he wore those same trappings of beauty with a quiet lack of interest that made him blend into the background.
“Have you told him, Mim?” Francis asked.
She glared at him. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that stupid English name.”
