Lord of the Beasts

But his flesh was whole, no tear in his trousers to mark a bullet’s passage. He bent his head between his knees and let the wash of dizziness pass. He had felt such fear in animals before, often when they were in pain and he was preparing to heal them. But never had any bonding struck him as vividly as this.

He straightened and looked into the cage. The panther must have felt his mental intrusion, yet the animal barely lifted his head. His golden eyes blinked once to acknowledge Donal’s presence. Then he laid his chin back on his paws, his elegant tail motionless against his flank.

Donal clutched the bars of the cage and got to his feet. His legs were still trembling as he moved on to the next cage. A pair of tailless monkeys—macaques, he guessed—clung to the uppermost branches of the small tree that had been provided for them. As soon as Donal offered his greeting, they leaped gracefully down and ambled toward him. Though they showed a more active interest than the leopard, their intelligent eyes were dulled with sadness.

Bracing himself for another painful memory, Donal opened his mind again.

He clutches his mate’s hand and tries to pull her away, but she will not leave the little one, who has already fallen to the raiders. The family scatters, their voices high-pitched with fear and anger. But it is too late to save the youngest; they cry and tremble in their captors’ nets. A few lie still among the rocks, never to stir again….

This time the apes themselves broke the contact. They were back up in the branches before Donal fully regained his senses. He wrapped his arms around his chest and heard the cries of his brethren fade away, replaced by the gentle chatter of birds in the wood.

“I am sorry,” Donal said, pressing his forehead against the bars. But he knew it was an empty sentiment. These creatures suffered not only from their unnatural imprisonment, but also from the shock of their captures at the hands of callous hunters. He might learn to refine his healing abilities to erase such terrible recollections from the animals’ minds, but he would have to work closely with them, live beside them just as he had warned Cordelia.

With weary resignation he moved on. The next cage held no sign of its inmate, but Donal heard the sluggish thoughts of the animal secluded in its den and formed an image of the cage’s occupant: a bear, born on another continent, whose memories drifted in lush, warm, green forests. It had chosen to live in its ursine imagination rather than accept the intolerable reality that surrounded it.

Unable to reach the bear, Donal passed to the largest cage. Three wolves paced among the large stone scattered across the enclosure. Two were female, and one, the male, kept watch from a higher vantage. He might have been magnificent save for the dull, patchy quality of his once-thick gray coat, and he stared at Donal for only a moment before dropping his gaze in submission.

Sing for the lost children. Sing for the mother, dead with life still growing within her body. Sing for the mountains and the rivers and the empty dens, ravaged and plundered by the two-legged killers….

Donal bent his head to the leader wolf in a gesture of respect and left them to their endless mourning. Half-blind with grief, he staggered up the hill back toward the house. He was nearly to the door of the manor when he collided with another man heading in the same direction. The man drew back, cursed under his breath and straightened his coat, all the while subjecting Donal to a thorough examination.

Donal came back to himself and met the man’s eyes, recognizing him at once. The handsome, fine-boned face was topped by a thick and fashionably curled head of blond hair, and the blue eyes were of the precise color to make ladies swoon with admiration. His tailcoat was designed to broaden his shoulders and nip in his waist, his trousers were snug enough to show a lean length of thigh muscle, and his black shoes had been buffed to a scintillating polish.

Lord Inglesham tapped his gold-headed cane on the drive. “Do I know you, fellow?” he asked with an air of condescending good humor. “Are you the new groundskeeper Mrs. Hardcastle spoke of employing for her menagerie?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

DONAL CONSIDERED his reply. He was quite certain that the viscount did remember him, in spite of the briefness of their previous meetings and the weeks that had passed. He touched the brim of his hat.