SECRET OF THE WOLF By Susan Krinard

And he, Fenris, was still in control. Quentin hadn’t the strength to return. He’d been defeated by the knowledge that he’d lost Johanna—and that he was not alone in his own body. He reached out blindly as he sought a link to his other self, a means of recognition and communication. Fenris pushed him back with hardly an effort.

Eventually Quentin would give up. Johanna wouldn’t, so long as she believed that she could reach him. Fenris would teach her the futility of that false hope.

Two days had passed since she’d have received his letter—time enough to arrange for her absence from the Haven. He expected her this very evening.

Then he’d have to decide what to do with May.

He finished buttoning his trousers, reached for the chipped plate on the table beside the boarded window, and tore off a chunk of the sourdough bread he’d stolen from the baker’s that morning. May’s hungry stare was like the annoying buzz of an insect.

“You want this?” he said, holding up the loaf. “Take it.” He tossed it toward the couch. She scrambled up to catch it, too late, and it landed on the grimy floor. She sat on the edge of the sofa, the blanket still wrapped around her, and looked at the bread as if it were a million miles out of reach. He waited for her to burst into tears.

She didn’t. She raised her head and gazed at him, her pale face set in resignation.

“You aren’t Quentin, are you?” she said.

Ironic that she should ask that question first, when she must have wondered what he was.

“No,” he said mockingly. “I’m not Quentin.”

Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to.” He picked up the bread, brushed it off with his fingers, and thrust it into her hands. “Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re a liar.”

She shrank back a little, as if she expected a beating for her defiance. He was tempted to give her what she asked for, but his muscles refused to lift his arm.

Quentin. Damn Quentin.

“Eat or starve. I don’t care.” He turned his back on her and went for the half-empty bottle of whiskey balanced atop a broken armoire.

“Who are you?”

Her rash persistence surprised him, given her ordeal. He took a swig from the bottle.

“Fenris,” he said.

“Fenris.” She wet her lips. “You’re not… a regular person.”

He laughed at the absurdity of her understatement. “You’re right.” He leered at her, showing all his teeth. “I’m a monster. Just like Quentin.”

“Quentin isn’t—” Her protest subsided into a long, fluttering breath. “You and Quentin… are the same, aren’t you?”

She wasn’t completely stupid. “Don’t go crying after him. You won’t find him here.”

She absorbed that in silence. “But he’s not really gone, is he?”

“Shut up.”

“Quentin is my friend. He always tried to help me.”

He slammed the bottle down on the armoire. “I told you to shut up.”

“You helped me,” she whispered. “You saved me from that man, the one who wanted to take me back to my father.”

Pain exploded in his head. “I’m… not… Quentin.” He strode toward her, hard and fast, bent on meting out swift punishment. She leaned back against the sofa, not so much as raising her arms to protect herself.

But in her eyes was the tiniest glint of spirit. It brought him up short.

“Will you hurt me, like my father?” she asked.

His headache worked to split his brain down the middle. “I’m not your father,” he snarled.

“No,” she said. “He pretended to love me.”

He’d never heard such a voice, such aching acceptance and sorrow. The girl Quentin knew hadn’t spoken of her past, not to him nor to Johanna. That girl had always been afraid.

Like the boy. The boy in the cellar, who’d cried out for help and found it.

Fenris clenched his teeth and fell to his knees beside the sofa. Something inside drove him to ask what he didn’t want to know, didn’t want to feel.

“What did he do to you?”

She closed her eyes. “He… he came to me when I was sleeping. He touched me.”

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