Wolf's Bane Read online

  Wolf’s Bane

  Nancey Cummings

  Copyright © 2020 by Nancey Cummings

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  About Wolf’s Bane

  An Introduction to the Nexus

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Nancey Cummings

  About Wolf’s Bane

  A human colony lost in space.

  * * *

  A century ago, colonists crashed on a distant planet. Technology failed and strange energies caused catastrophic mutations. Now every generation slips away from science, into superstition and darkness.

  Solenne survives among the broken relics of the past, trying to protect her family from the mutated beasts that wax and wane with the moon. When her father is injured, she turns to the one man she swore never to speak to again. The man who kissed her vowed he’d return and broke her heart.

  Can this be their second chance?

  A man lost to the beast.

  Since being bitten and cursed to shift into a werewolf every full moon, Aleksandar has lived in exile.

  Until he receives a letter from Solenne, the woman he promised his heart to years ago. She’s the only thread that keeps him anchored in the chaos, the only memory that keeps him sane.

  He must protect her from creatures that stalk her family, but how can he protect her from himself?

  The monster within him won’t be denied.

  The beast will have his bride.

  An Introduction to the Nexus

  Centuries ago, humans looking to make a new life left Earth on colony ships. Most ships safely arrived at their target destinations, and humanity spread across the stars.

  One ship, however, became lost. Very lost.

  The crew woke to find themselves on a planet that occupied a spot in the universe with unique properties. Technology failed. Power surges fried computers, and the ship that sailed the stars was grounded. The worst was yet to come, they discovered.

  The wall separating parallel universes fluctuated with the moon. What came through were creatures spawned from nightmares.

  Surrounded by the worthless technology of their colonial ancestors, each generation of humanity slides into darkness and superstitions.

  How long can humanity keep the darkness at bay? Can the hunters save them?

  Chapter 1

  Solenne

  Boxon Hill

  Marechal House - The Kitchen

  * * *

  “Grab your kit!”

  An icy wind swept through the house as Luis carried in the bleeding form of their father, Godwin Marechal. Servants hurriedly opened doors, clearing the way into the warmth of the kitchen. Hastily, the worktable had been cleared just as Luis laid down his burden.

  Under the dim overhead lights, Solenne examined her father. Flickering light from the fireplace cast an orange hue over his skin. A gash sliced across his face and left eye. Blood matted in his hair and soaked through the layers of his coat and tunic.

  “Was he wearing any armor at all?” Solenne hissed. Godwin’s abdomen had been viciously slashed in an unmistakable pattern. Claws.

  “The material failed,” Luis said.

  Solenne bit her tongue to hold her snarky comeback. Obviously, the armor failed. Useless old relic.

  “Hold him down,” she ordered. Her brother placed his hands on Godwin’s shoulders. The elder hissed as silver shears cut through cloth.

  “Are they deep?” Luis stood near, barely breathing.

  “I need hot water and a paste of honey and onion,” Solenne said. She wouldn’t know the severity of the wounds until she cleaned away the blood. At least the bleeding had slowed. The eye injury concerned her the most. They needed to call the doctor, but none would venture out during the night of the solstice.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Godwin hissed. “The beast is out there with my blood on his muzzle, and we’ve hours left before dawn.”

  Solenne shared a look with Luis. Their father needed immediate attention, but if the estate was under attack, she could deal with her father while Luis hunted the monster.

  “I hit it with my pistol. It’d be mad to come back,” her brother said.

  “I loathe that old pistol,” she grumbled. The pistol took forever to pack and only held one shot. Useless.

  “Well, that old pistol drove off the beast tonight.” Luis looked exhausted, covered in dirt, blood, and gunpowder. The sleeve of his jacket had been slashed, exposing the matte black material of his armor suit underneath.

  “Did it get you too? Did your armor hold?”

  “No, and yes. This time.” Luis ran a filthy hand through his hair. “Father shoved me out of the way. He saved me. I shouldn’t have—”

  “None of that,” Godwin moaned. Solenne wished she had a sleeping draught on hand to put him to sleep.

  “Wash your hands and bring me the bottle of wolfsbane,” Solenne said, pointing to the scullery. “Might as well get the whiskey too.”

  The kitchen maid brought a bowl and a pitcher of hot water. Carefully, she removed debris and washed the wounds clean. The cook supplied freshly diced onions and ground them into a mixture with honey under Solenne’s instruction. Luis poured Godwin a generous measure of whiskey and encouraged his father to drink.

  Solenne indicated that he should drink half a glass of the wolfsbane tonic. No one in their family had ever suffered the curse of the beast’s bite, but there was no sense in testing fate.

  “Hold him down. This will hurt.” Solenne held up a bottle, and Luis nodded, leaning forward to use all his weight to keep Godwin pinned in place.

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” she whispered as she uncorked the bottle of eyewash and poured it carefully over her father’s injured eye.

  The older man thrashed and cursed enough to turn the air blue. The lights flickered briefly before fading. Godwin, thankfully, had passed out from the pain.

  Small favors, perhaps. That seemed to be all the universe doled out to the Marechal family.

  “Fucking batteries,” Luis complained. “They won’t hold a charge in the cold.”

  “They don’t power properly on cloudy days. We can use a lantern,” Solenne said. At least the lanterns held a charge decently.

  By the soft light of the ancient lanterns, Solenne tended to her father. Luis ran down the events of the evening. He and Godwin hadn’t even needed to track the bestial wolf. It waited for them beyond the estate’s gates, which showed a disturbing intelligence, in Solenne’s opinion.

  She dreaded the turning of the solstice and equinox, when the nexus energies surged and monsters prowled the night. Everyone knew that. The Marechal family had hunted those monsters for generations, since humans first arrived on the planet. Their ancestors had been granted lan
d near a nexus point, marked by strange stone circles crafted by an unknown intelligence, and a charter to protect the neighboring settlements.

  Monster hunting, however, wasn’t lucrative, and equipment—all silver-tipped and plated—had to be replaced frequently. Their estate was marginal land and last year’s drought had been hard on the sheep herd. Thankfully, being close to the nexus point meant their land held unique plants and herbs. The tonics and remedies she made supplemented their income, and she feared that it would be the entirety of their income if lambing season or the wool harvest disappointed.

  Whenever Godwin brought up their finances to the village council, they made noises about taking the charter away. Modest compensation came with the charter, yes, but it had not been adjusted in decades. The council made it very clear that the Marechals were expected to sustain themselves with their land.

  The situation was endlessly frustrating. Sometimes Solenne wished the council would take the charter and let someone else worry about keeping the village safe from the nightmares that prowled the night.

  The Marechal name still commanded respect, for what that was worth.

  Solenne applied the last of the bandages. She sagged into a chair with exhaustion and gratefully accepted a mug of hot tea. Six years ago, she had been at the university in Founding, determined to pursue botany. She never imagined that’d still be in her father’s house, worrying about sheep shearing.

  “We must clean it again in the morning and apply more paste,” she said.

  “He will survive,” Luis said.

  “If we avoid infection, yes. I won’t be happy if he spends less than a week in bed.”

  “Which he won’t allow.”

  “Probably not, but his two children will nag him until he relents,” she said. “It’s his eye that’s the problem.”

  Luis nodded. The siblings did not need to say that a monster hunter with one eye was as good as dead. No depth perception meant he couldn’t fight, or at least win a fight.

  “We’ll send for Dr. Webb in the morning.” She’d worry about how to pay for the doctor tomorrow. In the past, he accepted a trade of a tonic of poultice. If not, the house was large and full of useless decorations. She’d rather have her father alive and possibly blinded than silver-plated candelabras.

  Colonel Chambers had attempted to add one of the Marechal’s many defunct weapons to his personal collection, but Godwin had always refused. Perhaps he could be pursued to part with a piece. Various plasma pulse rifles and pistols, even something called an EMP cannon, gathered dust. None were operational. Godwin probably wouldn’t even notice if one went missing and the ready money would fix a good number of problems, like the broken glass panes in the greenhouse.

  Solenne pushed the thought away. Selling a weapon—even a broken, inoperable weapon—behind her father’s back would be wrong. Godwin noticed little, but she knew that if she suddenly had money to spend, he’d notice.

  “Scarring is in a bad place. He’ll be stiff,” Luis observed. They both knew what that meant.

  Godwin could not be injured. Farmer by day and monster hunter by night, no one else could pick up the mantle. Luis, while large for his age, had only graduated from boarding school months ago. He was too young and under trained. Tonight’s mishaps proved that.

  In her youth, Solenne had trained in the family’s profession, but so much changed when Mama died. Her training ended with a fractured wrist and arm. Then Godwin packed her and Luis off to school.

  Unconsciously, Solenne rubbed her left wrist.

  She wondered if Godwin regretted, as the wolf nearly gutted him, sending his children away, ending her training and delaying Luis’. Another set of eyes, another blade or bow, could have prevented this.

  A howl sounded in the distance. A dish shattered on the floor.

  “Oh, my nerves,” Cook said, bending to retrieve the fragment.

  “It’s my fault,” Luis said.

  “No, it’s that beast’s fault.” She looked down at her father’s bandaged face. Unless the beast was exceptionally old, therefore strong, it would be inactive until the summer solstice. “We have some time to prepare. We need help.”

  She had letters to write.

  The doctor arrived shortly after dawn. The news wasn’t good, but not as bad as Solenne and Luis feared.

  Godwin would live, but he would lose the use of his eye. They had to wait until the summer solstice to determine if he suffered the effects of the wolf’s bite. Until then, Solenne would keep the wound clean and pour wolfsbane tonic down her father’s throat. He’d drown in the stuff.

  Heartened by the doctor’s prognosis, she pressed two silver coins into the man’s hands.

  He pushed them back. “I will not accept your coin. Godwin Marechal has given more to this village than we can ever hope to repay.”

  It remained unspoken that her father gave his sight. So many Marechal ancestors gave their blood to protect others, and Godwin could add his name to their ranks.

  She lifted her chin, stubborn to her very core. “You deserve compensation. Goodwill and smiles do not put food on the table.”

  “Indeed. I will gladly accept a tin of your rosehip tea.”

  Solenne nodded, her pride assuaged.

  “Another reply.” Luis broke the wax seal and unfolded the letter. “Miss Marechal, we are saddened to learn of your father’s injury. As you know, ours is a dangerous profession…this goes on for a bit,” Luis said, skipping ahead. “Regretfully, we cannot spare—” He balled up the letter and tossed it in the fireplace. The paper crackled as it burned. “That was Bornau.”

  “We’ll write to others,” Solenne said, though honestly she did not know to whom. In the last week, she had written to the closest towns with hunters. All sent their regrets. They, too, were strapped for time, money and manpower. Fallkirk’s letter came back unopened with a note that the town had been without a hunter for nearly a year.

  A year.

  “There are no others.” Luis sank into the chair by the worktable.

  The familiar scent of dry herbs and lemon filled the room. The stone floor was still cool, but the fire would warm the room soon enough. Part of the original house, the room had once been the kitchen but now served as her workshop.

  “Get to grinding if you’re going to sulk,” she said, waving a hand to the mortar and pestle on the table next to her brother. She turned her attention back to her own mortar and pestle.

  There was one other person she could write.

  Her pride demanded the idea be rejected. Aleksandar—

  She sighed, setting for the pestle and rubbing the ache in her wrist. The old injury always twinged and complained in the damp weather.

  Her pride didn’t matter, nor did the lingering heartache of a sixteen-year-old girl. She barely even remembered being the girl who had fallen for her best friend, the boy her father took as an apprentice, and they swore to a secret engagement as they knew Godwin would forbid it.

  How her father discovered them, she did not know. What she did know was that Godwin turned Alek out from their home when she broke her wrist turning a training mishap. He held Alek responsible, despite it being an accident. Alek swore he would return for her when she was old enough to do as she pleased. She believed him.

  More fool her.

  Years had passed since she received even a letter from him.

  Hurt had faded with time. Even her anger eventually left. All that remained was a sense of loss over her oldest friend. She didn’t care about anything else, the pity over being a spinster or the gossip about dabbling with plants and herbs. None of it mattered.

  She knew what she had to do.

  “I could send a letter to Snowmelt,” she said, breaking the silence.

  “Snowmelt?” Luis scrunched up his nose. “Does the post even go that far north?”

  “I daresay we’ll find out.” If Aleksandar was even still alive.

  Aleksandar

  Snowmelt

  Hardwi
ck House - The Beast’s Den

  * * *

  Embers grew cold in the grate, and the lights dimmed. Rain pounded against the window. The room, once elegant, lay in tatters. Great gashes tore into the wallpaper and plaster. Furniture lay smashed on the floor. Iron chains and a collar sat in the corner, waiting.

  This room had been his jail for some years. The housekeeper left food outside his door and, more importantly, ignored the snarls and howls that came from his den.

  The rest of Hardwick House was not in such shambles, though it was far from a fashionable or even a comfortable house. Closed for several years, a small team of staff kept the house repaired and free of vermin. The estate manager handled the business with tenants. The housekeeper did as she pleased. Alek cared not. If anyone had concerns over the landlord’s reclusive behavior, no one dared mention it to him. They left him alone, especially during the solstice and equinox events, which was all that mattered.

  Sitting on the bare floor, Alek reread the letter. Again. The name signed at the bottom claimed to be his old mentor, Godwin Marechal, but he knew who truly authored the letter.

  Solenne.

  Each time, he swore he could smell perfume, a clean mix of fresh-picked herbs and ink. Years had passed, but he could still hear her laughter, bright and clear as a bell. He held the letter up and breathed deeply.

  She had been his friend then, but it’s easy to have friends when you have a handsome face. If she could see him now, scarred and disfigured, she’d recoil in horror.