Free Wolfsbane by Patricia Briggs

around.”
    He bowed with a courtier’s flair, his teeth white in the dim light of the room. “Proper lady’s maid.”
    Aralorn snorted. “Somehow,” she said dryly, “I don’t think you convey the right air. Any Lady worthy of her title would not let you close enough to tie her laces . . . untie perhaps, but not tie.”
    Wolf walked by her on the way to the bed and ruffled her hair. “I prefer mercenaries.”
    She nodded seriously. “I’ve heard that about you wizards.”

    She was drifting contentedly off to sleep snuggled against Wolf’s side when he said, “I’ve been assuming this was a spell, but it could be something the shadow-creature is doing to him.”
    She moaned. “Sleep.”
    He didn’t say anything more, but she could all but feel him thinking.
    “All right, all right,” she groused, and rolled over onto her back with a flop. “Why do you think it is the shadow-thing holding my father?”
    “I didn’t say that,” he corrected. “But we know nothing about it, or about the spell holding your father. You’re the story collector. Have you heard any stories about a creature who holds its victims in an imitation of death?”
    “Spiders,” she answered promptly. She was very awake now. For some reason she’d assumed that since the Lyon was still alive, he’d stay that way until she and Wolf figured out how to rescue him.
    “You know what I mean,” Wolf said. “Is there something that uses magic to bind prey as large as a human?”
    “No,” she said, then continued reluctantly, “not explicitly—but there are a lot of strange creatures I don’t know much about. The North Rethian mountains were one of the last places settled. Many of the old things were driven here from other places as humans moved in. Supposedly, the Wizard Wars destroyed most of the really dangerous ones—but if the dragon survived, other things might have made it as well. That leaves a lot of candidates, from monsters to gods.”
    “Gods?” he asked.
    She tapped his chest in objection to the sneer in his voice. Wolf, she had long ago realized, was a hopeless cynic. “If the Smith built weapons to kill the gods, there must have been gods to kill. I’ll have you know that this very keep was cursed once. Family legend has it that one of the Great Masters who began the Wizard Wars razed a temple dedicated to Ridane, the goddess of death, before erecting his own keep here.” She lowered her voice and continued in a whisper. “It is said that Her laughter when he died was so terrible that all who heard it perished.”
    “Then how did anyone know that She laughed?” Wolf asked.
    She poked him harder. “Don’t ruin the mood.”
    His shoulder shook suspiciously, but he was quiet. She settled back against him, slipping her hand under his arm.
    “My uncle,” she said, “told me that the shapeshifters lived in these mountains before humans ever came this far north. They were driven into hiding here by a creature they called the safarent —which translates into something like big, yellow, magic perverter.” She waited for his reaction.
    “Big, yellow, magic perverter?” he said, his voice very steady, making the name even more ridiculous.
    “Sort of the way your name, in several Anthran dialects, would translate into hairy wild carnivore which howls,” she replied. “Would you prefer the Great Golden Tainter of Magic?”
    “No,” he said dryly.
    “Anyway,” she said, happy to have her attempt to amuse him succeed, “the shapeshifters were already hiding when humans came. It’s probably why they survived here and nowhere else.”
    “So what happened to the . . . safarent ?” asked Wolf, when Aralorn didn’t continue.
    “Probably the Wizard Wars,” she said. “But the stories are pretty vague.” She closed her eyes and hugged his arm to still her fears. “I’ll get my uncle to look at the Lyon tomorrow.”
    Wolf grunted and began nibbling at the soft place behind her ear, but she was too worried