Page 158 of House of Crimson Cloak and Silver Teeth

The compulsion slams into me. It seizes every muscle at once. My body locks up and I crash to the ground. I hit hard, shoulder first, and the impact drives the air from my lungs. All four of my limbs go rigid. I am unable to move even as rage burns through every fiber of my being.

My body is a prison and the collar is the warden.

The archer kicks me in the ribs. “You little bastard.”

Pain explodes through my side. I want to cry out but can't. I try to curl around the injury, but my body won't respond. I can only lie there and take it.

“Careful, Stark,” Quinnlan warns him. “The guild wants him intact if we’re going to collect the reward.”

“He attacked me,” the archer, Stark protests. He pulls his boot back for another kick.

“The leash stopped him as designed.” Quinnlan crouches beside my frozen form, his cold eyes meeting mine. “You’ll learn, Wolf. The Servitor Band doesn’t just bind your body. It binds your will. The more you fight it, the more it hurts.”

His face is inches from mine. He stands, brushing off his robes. “We’ll camp here for the night. I want to see how well the transformation holds when he sleeps.”

Shit. I’ll spend hours more lying here paralyzed while they eat and rest.

Stark grumbles but starts gathering wood for a fire. They settle down as darkness falls, laughing and talking like they’re on a pleasant hunting trip. Quinnlan releases the paralysis command with a dismissive wave.

The sudden return of movement is disorienting. I try to stand and my legs shake, barely supporting my weight. I can move now but only in ways the collar allows. The invisible leash keeps me close to the camp and docile. When I try to walk away, even just a few steps, the suffocating pressure returns. It forces me to be obedient and not to threaten my captors.

I lie where I fell, too exhausted to move.

My body aches from the transformation and the impact and Stark’s kick. But worse than the physical pain is the mental exhaustion. The horror of being trapped in this form with no escape.

Forever, the mage said. I’ll die a wolf.

The stars come out overhead, cold and distant as the gods who abandoned me. They look different through wolf eyes. I can see more of them than I ever could as a human, tiny pinpricks of light.

But I don’t want to see them. I don’t want the beauty of the night sky when everything else is horror.

The hunters’ fire crackles and pops. They pass around dried meat and water, talking in low voices about the journey ahead. How long to reach Tiamat. What route to take.

They don’t offer me anything. Stark doesn't even bother to acknowledge my presence except to occasionally glance over and make sure I’m still there.

I am.

Of course I am. The collar won’t let me be anywhere else. I close my eyes and pray for oblivion that won’t come.

Sleep should offer an escape for a few hours. But my wolf body won’t let me rest. My ears keep swiveling toward sounds and my nose keeps processing scents. I worry about Aurora. The thoughts circle and circle, endless and inescapable as the collar around my throat.

Somewhere in the distance, a real wolf howls. The sound cuts through the night. My body wants to answer. I want to throw back my head and howl with it.

But I don’t.

I won’t give Stark and Quinnlan the satisfaction of seeing me embrace what they’ve made me. So I lie there in silence while the stars watch and the fire dies and my captors sleep.

And I endure.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The journey back to Aelfheim takes three days.

But it fucking feels like three years. Time stretches and compresses in strange ways when you can’t speak or use your hands. I try to count the hours but lose track.

My gait is terrible at first. I keep trying to walk like a human, which results in a lot of stumbling and falling. By the second day I’m moving more smoothly.

The truth is, that terrifies me more than the clumsiness did. It means I’m adapting and slowly accepting this.