Fredrick squeezed his eyes shut, breaking the connection. Scarlet’s guts twisted.
A series of muffled snaps from Fredrick’s body forced Scarlet to cover her ears. He floundered up onto his knees, ripped his tunic opened to reveal a chest hideously…different. Ribs stood out prominently while his abdomen was caved in. Body hair, which she’d never seen on him except in a couple of places, grew thick and long, covered every part of him she could see.
“Sweet Mary,” she heard herself say over and over.
When his face began to elongate around the mouth, his eyes to widen, the back of his skull to become more pointed, the lady turned back to Scarlet and grinned viciously.
“This is the part I enjoy best. When the last shred of man breaks down.”
“What do you…oh, Fredrick,” Scarlet murmured.
Bile seeped up her throat when Fredrick’s jaw clearly popped under the strain. The sound almost made her faint. Fangs the size of her baby fingers sprouted from shredding, bleeding gums. She meant to turn away.
“Watch it,” hissed Lothar as he pulled her hair so she faced the horrible spectacle of Fredrick changing into…she wasn’t sure she could contain the thought.
Then every tiny detail of the past month or so came back to her.
The silver chain around his ankle, most of the decorative pieces, the buttons on his tunic, and the rosette carved in the lady’s bedchamber doors. All bearing the same image. The head of a white wolf. And how badly he’d looked after the full moon, so pale and drawn. The need to have him nearly sedated at all times. Using wolfsbane, no less. His illness Frank and Ute had mentioned. Especially Frank. He must have known.
Landgraf Fredrick von Innsbruck was a werewolf.
But these were tales told to children to frighten them. Surely, no such being existed? The notion spun in her head. Yet there was no denying what happened to him now. And to say she’d come close to him, had touched him. Horrified, she looked on as Fredrick’s transformation became more complete.
“See the power you have over him?” Lothar whispered in Scarlet’s ear.
She tried to look away again. This wasn’t her doing. Whatever was happening to Fredrick wasn’t because or for her. Was it?
“She broke him because of you,” Lothar went on, nibbling at her neck. She tried pushing his face away but he bit her on the forearm. “You were his only weakness. As you are mine.”
Weakness? Then Scarlet understood. His cousin must have wanted something from him, which he’d refused for the past two years. The lady must have used her, his only contact to the outside world, to force him. But what had triggered Fredrick’s change?
As though reading her mind, Lothar cupped her chin and forced her to look up into his hazel eyes. For the first time since she’d met the man, he looked sincere, even solemn. “See what happens when you let a little worm like you into your heart? You lose control.”
“Into his heart?” Scarlet asked, shocked at the deep tone of her voice. Strength was returning to her body, to her mind. And with it, a fury she didn’t know was there.
Fredrick was going through this horrible transformation because he’d let her into his heart. Because he cared for her?
He howled before slumping pitifully to his side, his whole body quivering with a series of massive spasms. The pain must have been unbearable.
Fear-induced energy fizzed in her veins, tightened her muscles and cleared her mind of the last spiderwebs. She’d seen too much pain in her life—too damn much.
The lady hissed a curse of pleasure as she continued with the cane. “Do you not wish you could taste him just the way he is now, not quite the beast, with the man still visible inside? I would give anything to have him savage me right this instant.”
Lothar, who was fisting Scarlet’s hair with both hands, released one so he could reach over and grab at the lady’s. She arched back, her eyes closed, while he twisted the black mane around his fist.
There’d be no other chance.
Scarlet bucked as hard as she could. Caught off guard, Lothar stumbled back, but he still managed to hold her hair and Scarlet was forced back with him. When her backside slid off the table and her weight completely rested against the man’s chest, Scarlet planted her feet against the table’s edge and pushed with all her might.
The table tilted forward and took the lady with it, and both toppled noisily deeper inside the room. Right beside Fredrick.
A strangled yelp tore from Lady Katrina as her cousin closed a twisted hand over her ankle and dragged her to him.
Scarlet too yelled when Lothar spun her around and punched her in the belly. She bent in half, gagging.
“Help me!” the lady cried as she struggled against Fredrick’s grip.
While Scarlet collapsed on all fours and struggled to keep from vomiting, Lothar stalked to Fredrick’s chair, picked the massive thing up as if it weighed nothing, and lifted it high over his head.
“No!” Scarlet screamed.
The chair came down.
Fredrick howled when it crashed over his back and head. Splinters showered him and the lady. Fredrick grew very still. Scarlet squeezed her eyes shut against the sight of his unmoving, battered body, and for the first time in many years, she let the tears come freely. Lothar used the silence and eerie calm to drag the woman out of harm’s way and dump her unceremoniously to the floor beside Scarlet.
“Get the men,” the lady snarled, saliva dribbling down her chin. “Tell them to bring the chains.”
“Get them yourself. I have what I wanted.”
Lothar grinned as he came over, picked Scarlet up by an arm and hoisted her to her knees. As much as she tried to punch, scratch and otherwise hurt him, he was even stronger than Werner and only shook her for her effort. “I’ll enjoy this spirit a bit more later when we have a bit of privacy. But not now.”
His knuckles accompanied her into oblivion.
* * * * *
Scarlet’s world exploded into tiny, bursting suns. She felt rough stone against her cheek. Somewhere, she heard something whimper.
Fredrick.
Struggling up to her knees, she spotted him still down, but at least moving a bit. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Blood filled her mouth. The door clattered against the wall. People coming in. The smell of sweat and ale and onions, all of which she’d learn to associate with pain and cruelty. Only this time, they weren’t there for her. But for the man who cared for her.
“Make him pay. And do not stop until I tell you to,” the lady said from somewhere behind her. Her voice was so calm, so cold, it sliced through Scarlet’s very soul.
Turning, she spotted the woman leaning against the wall. The maniacal glint in her eyes would have made anyone cross himself twice. Four men, each carrying a length of chain, stood around her, and each looked more brutish than the other. Scarlet knew the type.
She was still trying to clear her mind when Lothar grabbed her hair and pulled hard. “You’re coming with me while she’s having fun with him.”
She couldn’t leave him, she had to help! He was still lying on his side, blood matting his white hair…fur. Scarlet meant to break away from Lothar but couldn’t.
Giving her a sharp tug upward, he snarled, “Let’s go.”
As she was dragged backward to the door, Fredrick struggled to lift his head and stare at her. In this split second connection, with a fragile thread linking them both, she put all her heart and soul into, she prayed, what would be a flash of light in his darkening horizon. With some good fortune, he’d understand.
She’d be back for him.
Still naked, Scarlet was forced to leave the room, leave Fredrick behind to face this horrible woman and her thugs. Ghastly images gnawed at her soul. The things they’d do to him…
But her own immediate fate, which wasn’t much better than Fredrick’s, forced Scarlet to calm her nerves and try to think clearly. Lothar was much stronger than she was, so there was no way for her to overpower him. She’d have to ou
tsmart the man if she stood a chance of getting away.
Yet fear crept up her spine with the tingly march of a thousand spiders when he wrapped his arm around her neck in a headlock and forced her in half so she wouldn’t be a nuisance. They went down the steps this way.
“I’ve never had to resort to this. Women, in general, come with me quite happily. But you’re not just any woman, are you, Scarlet?” Lothar took a deep breath. “No, you’re not.”
After he wrapped a large hand over her mouth and jaw, he opened the door at the base of the tower, looked both ways then shuffled down the corridor with her barely touching the ground for his arm around her. When they came to the door she’d discovered the other day, panic nearly shredded what little control she still had over herself. An image of the horrible “horse” contraption and the maid bound to it flashed in Scarlet’s mind. Instinct kicked in and she began to flail with all she had.
Grunting with the effort, Lothar pushed her against the wall, pinning her with his body while he fished inside his trousers and pulled a small key. He wrestled open the door with growing excitement showing on his handsome face. “I can’t wait to sink myself into your tight little arse. I’ll fuck you until you scream for me to stop. Then I’ll fuck you until you can’t scream anymore.”
He didn’t even stop to retrieve his key and left it in the keyhole. Darkness enveloped them when he opened the door. Lothar pushed her in. Her arms windmilling, Scarlet just managed not to fall down the steps. He caught her by the throat and forced her down the staircase backward, thereby quashing any attempt she could’ve made to escape. It was all she could do not to kill herself as it was. When they reached the base of the stairs, he kept guiding her backward, still with his hand tightly around her throat. Stars popped around her vision. Scarlet feared she would collapse from fear and pain and lack of air. But she had to remain strong. Fredrick depended on her.
This gave her strength. She gritted her teeth when Lothar pushed in the door to his…she didn’t know what to call this room, but when she spotted the contraption, all gleaming black leather, Scarlet’s mind clouded over in panic. The multi-branched candelabrum illuminated the room with pitiless clarity. On a table she hadn’t seen previously, a row of glistening metal tools, then a collection of riding crops, whips, other things she knew not the meaning. Bottles lined neatly on a shelf. The smell of sweat. Dark dots on the stone floor. Blood?
A shriek pierced the silence. Scarlet realized with shock it’d been her voice.
He silenced her with his fist.
Scarlet backpedaled, hit the “horse”, which spun crazily around, and could only groan when Lothar trapped her between his body and the contraption. He pushed his pelvis hard against hers, crushing the sensitive skin.
“Scarlet,” he sighed, grinning a lopsided grin which would have made rows of women swoon.
Only to her, it symbolized the ugliest, trickiest and basest thing to which a man could sink. To be so beautiful on the outside, yet wicked and malevolent through the core. And someone like Fredrick, who no doubt had often felt the icy tongue of gossip because of his physical difference. Yet inside, what better man was there? He was willing to die for her—a nobody. A thief. And die horribly too.
A strange calm took over Scarlet. As though waiting for something she didn’t know would happen—or when. Or if it would happen at all. Yet this peculiar peace brought lucidity as sharp as a razor’s blade. Scarlet took in a long breath. Control. She’d win against Lothar by remaining in control.
He slid his hand down her belly, gently slipped a finger inside. “I knew you liked me, even a little bit,” he murmured, running his tongue up and down her neck, then lower.
She gasped when he caught a nipple between his teeth and smiled up at her. Intensifying the pressure, he watched her like a hawk. Scarlet balled her fists to keep from crying out, knowing the sight of others’ pain excited this sort of man. Instead, she forced a smile.
“Climb on it,” he said, grabbing her by the armpits and hoisting her astride the “horse” as if she weighed nothing.
Feeling exposed and vulnerable, Scarlet straddled the thing. Control, she told herself.
Beaming now, Lothar took a step back. “Bend forward, with your arms behind you.” He slid her stockings off skillfully, like someone who had done this many times before, then went to the table while she lowered her chest onto the contraption. Lothar came back as she was bringing her naked feet closer to her backside, resting them on the sort of ledge made for that purpose, she surmised.
Lothar grabbed the end of the “horse” and spun it around so Scarlet faced away. She didn’t like him standing behind her this way but could do nothing. “Put your hands back.”
She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms under the belly of the wooden horse. “I can’t. I’ll fall.”
Control, she told herself again, her internal voice becoming calmer. Harder.
He chuckled. She kept her eyes closed, didn’t look back when she felt his hand against her cheek. He slapped her, hard. The clack resounded in the small, bare room. “Falling will be the last of your worries, Scarlet. Now put your hands back.”
Since she’d closed her eyes and blocked out light from the candles, her mind felt more at ease. An image flashed in her mind—a bleeding Fredrick, on all fours, yet still managing to find the inner strength to meet her gaze. Lothar—that odious man—standing above with a chair poised over his head.
Grabbing the “horse” flanks with all her might, Scarlet kicked out with both feet. Lothar let out a satisfying humph of air when her feet connected, and she heard him crash back against the candelabrum, bringing it down. He howled in pain. Hot wax everywhere, no doubt.
Instant, familiar darkness fell on the room. Within a second, Scarlet was off the thing and across the room. Behind her, Lothar’s yelp of pain turned into a guttural growl of frustration. Scarlet didn’t wait around to see if he could see as well as she in the darkness and bolted for the door. She turned left, took a couple of tentative paces then the first step connected against her toes. Cursing profusely, Lothar crashed about in the room before spilling out into the dark corridor.
Two by two, Scarlet silently rushed up the stairs, not missing a single step, and charged up the last few. Growling with pain and fear and adrenaline, she gripped the door, spun around it then shouldered it shut. Her hands were quick but shaking as she turned the key twice, a split second before a thunderous crash hit the other side.
“Open the door, or I swear I’ll skin you alive,” Lothar snarled through the thick door.
Now shaking violently, Scarlet threw the key as far as she could. Let the bastard try to get it back!
Sweat slicked her hands, the insides of her thighs. Shivering, barefoot on the cold stone, she ran toward the newer part of the castle and was just reaching the passage reserved for servants when she realized she was naked. But each moment lost going to her room and getting dressed was one more Fredrick had to endure at the hands of his tormentors.
And naked she was when she burst into the crowded kitchen, screaming for help at the top of her lungs. Some just stood around, stupefied. Ute was quick to make her appearance and rapidly took charge. Pre-dawn light barely poked rays through the kitchen windows.
“Calm down, girl, I can’t hear a word,” the old woman said as she gripped Scarlet’s shoulder in a surprisingly strong gnarled hand.
“It’s Master Fredrick, they’re killing him!” Scarlet yelled, unable or unwilling to bring herself to talk.
Ute paled to chalk. “What?”
“Master Fredrick, he’s up there, and there are four men beating him with chains, I saw them. Please,” Scarlet snarled, pulling her arm out of Ute’s hand. “We have to help him.”
“We will,” Frank said from the doorway. “Should’ve dealt with the greedy witch the first day she got here instead of convincing myself everything was rosy.”
Sharing the older man’s guilt, Scarlet knuckled tears of relief from her cheeks. A
s Frank was calling to the kitchen lads to go fetch every man they crossed, Ute retrieved an overcoat hanging on a hook and slipped it on Scarlet.
“What men?” Ute demanded. She was clearly not getting it as completely as Frank, though she did appear back her usual stern self, only now she looked incandescent with anger. “Whose men?”
“Katrina’s, they’re her men. And Fredrick, they beat him when he refuses to…” she stopped, unsure. What did Katrina want, anyway? “She wants something from him, and that’s why she’s been keeping him locked up, until he gives it over to her.” Scarlet told a shocked crowd what she knew in as few words as she could. They were losing precious seconds.
“I’ll bring the tonic for the master, just in case,” said Ute.
“No,” Scarlet snapped with more force than she intended. “It’s how the physician was keeping the master quiet. It’s wolfsbane…a poison, Ute.”
Crushing guilt crossed the woman’s wrinkled face. She put a hand to her mouth and formed the word “no”. Not a sound came out.
Scarlet crossed her arms to ward off cold as nerves were finally catching on. “I’m sorry.”
The lads burst back in with more men than she’d ever seen in a kitchen. Each looked burlier and angrier than the next.
“Come on,” Frank said, elbowing his way through. His riding crop cleaved a path in front of him, though he never raised it once. The menacing glint in his gaze would’ve split a log. Yet guilt is what blazed brightest.
Scarlet ran to the front of the small crowd, more like a mob with every passing moment, and balled both fists when they reached the tower door and spotted one man standing guard.
“How could you turn on the master this way, you traitor?” Frank yelled from twenty paces away. “How could you?!”
Perhaps it was the old man’s tone of voice, or the mob on his heels. Whatever it was, the would-be guard turned tail and ran the other way. A pair of Frank’s men caught him before he could turn the corner. Scarlet didn’t know nor cared what happened to him. He could roast to death tied to a post under the sun for all she cared.
Wolfsbane Page 12
