Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure Read Online Free PDF Page A

shook his head. “I am not troubled over that… If you are not.
    Which in that regard, you are truly as mad as I. Non, I am troubled that when things trouble me I… need to run so. I wish my damn father had not come.”
    “So do I,” I sighed.
    “I feel I will have to sail, Will. I am sorry. I feel seeing him will…”
    “It will bring much into the light, my love, I know. But, perhaps, that is for the best. Because truly, would it not be best to lay that night, and your sister, and mother, and all else that lies between the two of you, to rest?”
    He nodded. “Oui, it will. But it will be as if I undergo a complicated surgery. I will need much time to convalesce.”
    “I feel you are making light of it. If you feel you must sail, then you expect that this visit will open all those wounds and leave you draining noxious fluids upon the world for some time.”
    “Oui,” he said softly. “I am afraid much will be drained upon you, and I cannot…”
    I put fingers upon his lips and moved so that I could meet his tearful gaze.
    “You will do what you must to heal, and I will assist you,” I said firmly. “We can weather any storm as long as we hold to one another.”
    “It will be a very bad storm, Will,” he said seriously, and then the words began to tumble out in an ever-faster torrent. “I have not had to be as I was before here, without you.” He shook his head with frustration. “I have not had to wear a mask. I cannot imagine meeting him without… He has become tangled with Doucette in my mind, and I cannot… He must not see me as mad. I do not wish for him to see me as mad. Yet, I know I will not be able to help myself. I cannot hide it away any longer. I cannot wear the mask as I once did. He will see. He will see and he will hate me and… And that angers me. That he should judge me so. That he should be allowed to judge me so. It is not my fault! I cannot make it go away!”
    I held him tightly with tears of fear and frustration in my eyes.
    He did not need to tell me how bad the storm was going to be. It was already upon us and I saw no end in sight. Only the Gods could know what shore we would eventually wash up on.
    Gaston and I did our morning run down to the beach and up it for a good league or so. We knew we could not allow his daily routine of calisthenics to lapse now: it helped keep his Horse calm. At the end of this exercise, we did not feel like frolicking in the waves or sparring as we were usually wont to do; we chose instead to walk hand in hand in the surf in silence for a time, listening to the raucous morning call of gulls along the shore and other birds in the bog.
    I felt acutely how much I would miss being alone with him. I, who had spent so much of my life craving constant social interaction with anyone who would spend time with me, no longer wished to engage in pointless conversation, drinking to numb my heart, and, of course, carnal pleasures without love. Gaston’s presence had weaned me of those needs these past two and half years, such that I now viewed the life I once had as being lived by another.
    Our silence this morning was not as companionable as either of us would have liked, though; and at last I felt compelled to speak.
    “I will miss this, this life we have here,” I said carefully, “but I feel we will be all the fonder of it when we are able to return.”
    He sighed and smiled wistfully before turning to look at me. “I pray that someday I will not be the cause of us having to leave it yet again.”
    “Who are you praying to?” I asked with amusement and curiosity.
    He grinned briefly, but his words were somber. “To the Gods of old, as you do. I have told any divinity that cares to listen that I will not always have to rove to release the anger within me, that I will not always be possessed of such anger.”
    I smiled. “I am sure They have heard you, and I have great faith that such a thing will come to pass, either by our hand or Theirs.”
    He