The look in the boy’s eye told her everything she needed to know. Reluctance and disgust. His parents had taught him something of the harsh world, and the gypsies would never look the same to him.
“Daniel,” Mary said, “go see where your father is and let him know we have company.”
The boy nodded to his mother and raced out the door without a second look back. Annalette wondered if Daniel was truly going to fetch his father or run into Canterbury.
The woman straightened and wiped her brow on the back of her arm as Annalette came to stand with her by the hearth. “I apologize for his rudeness. He’s becoming wilder each day. He’s a help to Henry in the field, but he’s restless.” Mary sighed. “We heard about Gallius. We’re so sorry for your loss. Henry saw him being taken away to Westgate.”
Annalette mitigated her rage and shook her head, the coins on her bandana jingling. “He’s not dead yet, Mary.”
By the pinched look on Mary’s face, she braced herself for foul news. Annalette had not prepared her heart if she arrived in Canterbury too late. The woman said nothing and glanced to John, who was wandering around the common area. He looked to be casually inspecting the furniture, though Annalette knew he was trying to appear calm and not as uncomfortable as he really was.
How long had it been since he stood under a thatched roof and walked across a wood-planked floor? The Thompsons were fortunate, more than most, but their home was far from luxurious. They could never put on pretenses that they were wealthy or an affluent family. Not for long anyway. How many more Romani would they call on to work for them under the impression that they were safe?
“Is he traveling with you?” Mary whispered to her.
Annalette pursed her lips. She knew that John would be able to hear every word they said, no matter if it were in the softest whisper, but to brush away Mary’s question would be impolite.
“Yes, he’s going to help me get Gallius out of prison.”
Mary gasped. “Out of prison? Dear girl, you can’t be serious.”
She nodded. “I’m quite serious. He is my brother, and I will not be the one to abandon him.”
“Do you understand how dangerous it will be? The fort is heavily guarded. How do you intend to get in?”
Annalette slid a look towards John whose hand lingered on the back of a wooden chair. “Worry not. I have a plan.”
John’s head perked up at a sound that neither Mary or Annalette could detect and she suspected that he heard the approach of the flock.
She looked to the broth swirling in the cast iron pot and grimaced. “Is there meat in that stew?” she asked Mary.
Mary laughed. “Of course, dear. We slaughtered a lamb just a few days ago and have been slowly picking it apart to eat.”
“Do you have a leg or slab of meat that you could roast for John? He’s not fond of stew. It upsets his stomach.”
Mary hissed in regret. “No, I’m sorry. What is in the stew is the last of the lamb. I have some bread if he would prefer that.”
Annalette watched John’s hand tighten over the back of the chair and heard the sharp crack as the wood splintered. “No, I don’t think that will do,” she said.
John huffed out a breath of air as if giving in to the unpleasant consequences that were to come. “I’ll have the stew, Annalette.”
It was the first time he had uttered her name, and he had spoken it in such a way to make her body tingle. If there was one thing she hadn’t known about loups-garous, it was their uncanny attraction.
The only two loups-garous she had ever met were her uncle and the alpha who abetted him. She had been a young girl then, and her head was still full of butterflies and daisies. As a woman, her mind was preoccupied with other things and none of them were so innocent as making wishes on a dandelion before blowing their seeds to the wind.
Annalette bit her lip as the rest of the world carried on as if John hadn’t just seduced her with the mere use of her name. It was why she had been so careful not to give it to him so readily. Names held power, and John now wielded such power over her.
She wrapped her arms around her churning stomach and turned to the simmering stew in the pot. It certainly smelled good, but how would it affect John?
A few moments later, Daniel preceded his father into the house. Mary greeted her husband, a tall and lanky fellow with a sparkling look in his eyes.
He greeted his feminine guest with familiarity, while he eyed the stranger with the same suspicion that John must have received everywhere he went. He was not built like the typical Englishman, and his powerful presence must have set some on edge.
Yet, from the very beginning, Annalette had never been afraid of him. The idea that he could easily kill her never crossed her mind. Instead, plenty of other thoughts paraded around inside of her head, and none of them could be spoken in the open. She was sure that no one, especially her family, would want to hear the unholy daydreams that she had entertained ever since she met John. She would use them to her advantage, if they could last through dinner without getting arrested.
John could already feel his insides seize and rebel against him. He had been careful to avoid the chopped vegetables in the stew and slurped the broth slowly, knowing that the essence of the things that made him sick was what made the soup so dangerously delicious. Even after eating the chunks of lamb, he was left feeling ill and nowhere near satisfied.
The deer he had killed the night before should have lasted much longer than this, but with the added excitement of meeting Annalette and learning of his true nature, his body no longer reacted the same.
The voices around him became dull and grating to his ears. Even Annalette’s soothing cadence couldn’t abate the queasiness that overtook him so violently. His vision blurred as he cast his eyes to the table. Fixating on something usually calmed his nerves enough to withstand this kind of sickness, but he could no longer focus on the flow of the wood grains or see the fine splinters that jutted out from the surface.
He had been sick like this before, and it never ended well. When he told Annalette that he would eat the stew, he thought he could make an attempt at controlling the beast inside of him. Though it would take him a while to consider the strange spirit as a wolf instead of a demon, he couldn’t fight against it just yet.
“John?” he heard through the haze. “Are you all right?”
He had the clarity to shake his head and pushed himself from his chair. His muscles ached and were given to fits of spasms. It was a wonder he could walk to the door at all. “No... I’ll be right back,” he assured before disappearing into the night.
John moved around to the side of the house and braced himself against the stone wall as the stew made its way back up his throat and spewed out of his mouth to puddle in the grass at his feet.
It was better than the last time he became ill from eating what he shouldn’t have. He had eaten a whole carrot in his quest for food just a week after he first changed and fell unconscious for an entire day as his stomach rejected the once health-giving food.
When the poison had been expelled from his system, John felt the gold wolf eyes come forward in a cold rush. His nails, once trimmed with a bit of dirt underneath, grew long and sharp like claws, and scratched against the gritty texture of the stone until tiny bits were broken off. His sharp teeth pricked at his lips as he gasped for air.
In the times that he had starved himself, he thought the demon came forward to force him to kill and devour raw flesh. He understood now that the wolf needed nourishment, just like Annalette told him. The lamb he had just consumed was not the only meaty bits amongst the bile. Some of the fawn he had feasted upon had been ejected from him as well. Now, he was even more hungry and his belly empty.
The frightened bleating of the sheep reached his ears, and without another thought, he moved around the cottage towards the pen where the flock was corralled. The yews and rams skittered away from John as he approached the fence. They all knew that he was a predator, but
this predator wasn’t just a wolf. He was a man and John fought to stay that way. His golden eyes shone through the dark, regarding the sheep with a hungry glower.
“No,” he growled to himself. John shook his head sharply to rid himself of the thought, but his stomach would not listen. It returned his growl with another more convincing than his own.
Before John realized what he was doing, he had vaulted over the split-rail fence and snatched one of the sheep from the flock. He snapped its neck and quickly sliced into its belly to let its guts spill into the soil. The rest of the herd became frantic and cleared the spot where John cut into the carcass to feast, just as he had on the young deer the night before.
The warm and bloody flesh slipped down into his stomach and eased the pain of hunger. The wolf was contented, as well. His senses returned to him, and he could hear the desperate flock pushing against the wooden planks to escape the corral.
A dog, one that was used to protect and herd livestock, darted underneath the split rail. The animal barked at John and bared its jowls in threat against the predator. When the dog saw John’s golden eyes and blood dripping from his chin, it whimpered and ran away to safety.
There were human shouts coming from the cottage. Amongst them was Annalette, and that was enough to pull him back from the precipice of beastly insanity.
His heart hammered against his chest as he looked down to his prey and hands that were covered in the evidence of his crimes. He had snagged livestock before, but never from someone with whom he had become acquainted.
With wide eyes, he looked to the house and saw a lone figure running through the darkness towards the corral. John sprang to his feet and fled over the fence, and into the forest. With only the moon above to light his path, it was unlikely that the human would get a clear glimpse of him, but, with John missing from the dinner table and the suddenness of the attack, all fingers would point to him. He had been guilty of many things, but never convicted.
Taking shelter in the woods, John took deep breaths to calm himself, but it was no use. The wolf had not retreated, though its belly was full and satiated. His golden eyes still glimmered in the darkness like two bright sparks of savagery while his claws dug into the bark of the tree on which he had caught himself.
John tried to drive back the beast, but it was to no avail. It was as if the wolf laughed in his face and pushed harder to force the change upon him, though it wasn’t the right time of the month for it. Never had he changed outside of his cycle, so why did he feel so provoked now?
Pain flooded through his body, just as it had when Annalette gripped his shoulder. His blood was set aflame, and he cried out in agony as the change began to take hold. One noise, a presence, blasted through, and John found the strength to hold it back for just a little longer.
“John!” Annalette called. “John, where are you?”
John shoved himself from the tree and was able to take a few staggering steps before he stumbled to the ground, overcome with weakness and pain. He crawled away from her voice, knowing that once the wolf took hold of his body, he would be powerless to stop it from killing anything in its path.
His nails dug into the dirt as he clawed through the weeds and grasses. He could already feel his bones popping and twisting out of place, but he jammed them back by tightening his sore muscles around the inflamed joints.
John found a protruding root from a nearby tree and held onto it as the change lurched his body into unnatural positions.
His name was whispered, so soft and sweet. Annalette’s voice, though so dangerously near, gave him a little more courage to battle against the change. He pulled himself up to the tree, his hands bracing against the trunk and his head hung low. His legs continually tried to buckle beneath him, but he kept his knees locked tight to remain standing.
Grunts and groans escaped from between his gritted teeth as he continuously counterattacked the wolf. He had gone over a hundred years without knowing how to control the beast, but tonight he would show the animal who was in true control.
A hand touched his shoulder, and he jerked away. “Leave me,” he said, his voice gravely and guttural. The words were untrue in the sense that he wanted her close to ease the pain, but it was unwise for her to stay.
She touched him again, and this time, he didn’t shy away. Her hand traveled from his quivering shoulder and down his arm to his elbow. When she made it that far, he sensed her move under his arm to stand in front of him, trapping herself against the tree.
John lifted his head and leaned away from her, but couldn’t bring himself to launch off the tree to escape her. Annalette’s scent clouded his judgment, and for a moment, he was ready to give into anything and everything. Needs, both feral and eternal, gripped his soul and John continued to fight it all.
Annalette shushed him as she had the first night and began into her song. John would not allow it, and he took her throat in his hand to silence her. Her steady pulse beat against his palm.
“No,” he commanded. “I want control. I will have it. Do not interfere.”
John looked to her with his golden eyes, and she nodded in understanding. With his fingers wrapped around her neck, he could have easily killed her, but she was no sheep. She did not fear the wolf, and the wolf did not want her dead. Both of them, the man and the wolf, wanted Annalette very much alive.
He released her and began to slowly pull away, but this time she reached out to him. Annalette’s hands tugged at the front of his bloodied shirt. Her fingertips brushed against his chest and stomach as she trailed down to the edge of his tunic.
“The best way for you to learn control is to let go,” she whispered, her breath a sweet aroma in a world of rancid chaos.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” she assured as she lifted the edge of his tunic. “You don’t want to tear this.”
John succumbed to her influence, though he had no intention of doing as she said. He raised his arms to allow her to pull the tunic over his head. The night air crawled across his skin, but he didn’t feel the chill as Annalette’s hands fell to the front of his trousers.
A new primal need took hold, and his body became flushed with heat in response to her. Afraid that she would feel the throbbing at his crotch, John jumped and fell on his backside as he scurried away from the temptress.
“You’re not helping,” he rebuked as he widened the distance between them.
John knew what women could do to men, how they could whisper a few words and make the stronger sex crumble in a heap. He understood what they did behind closed doors under the cloak of night, but feeling Annalette’s tender touch and seeing the sly look in her eyes had suddenly made him as nervous as an adolescent boy who was just discovering that girls were useful for more than just washing and cooking.
Her scent, her dark and mesmerizing eyes, her very spirit drove him mad with a new desire. The wolf hungered for it too, but the man in him needed to feel her in his hands. He denied himself the chance. He would not be like his father, who took a woman against her will.
Annalette watched him flee, a look of coquettish glee on her face. “Is the wolf truly afraid of a petty woman like me?”
John let out a mirthless laugh, all the while still feeling the wolf lurk, waiting for the right moment to strike. “You’re no woman. You’re a vixen.”
She sauntered forward, her bare feet gliding over the blades of grass with such grace that he had to stop and stare. “I only want to help, John.” She knelt down by his side and placed her shaking hand upon his heaving chest. “I know you’re in pain.”
John swallowed hard and felt the arousal in every part of his body that mixed with the aching of the coming change. How could two sensations exist so simultaneously? “You cannot heal this. Just leave me.”
Annalette sat back on her heels and grinned.
“What? What is it?” he asked, tensing to run if he needed. Could she sense something that he could not?
“Your eye
s,” she said. “They’re red.”
John peered at her and edged farther away. “Red? They’ve never been red before.”
A light-hearted giggle bubbled from her lips. “It means you are…” She glanced down to his crotch, now hard with desire.
John leapt to his feet and tried to escape her feminine power, but she took his hand to silently beg for him to stay.
“You act like a child, John,” she laughed. “Please, don’t go.”
The change surged forward again, slashing through any erotic thought he might have had. His fingers bent and stiffened, but that didn’t stop Annalette from tightening her hold on his hand.
John had been thrown off his guard, and there was little use in preventing the spread of the change any longer. Still John would try until the last possible moment. He fell to his knees, and she was by his side instantly.
“Please,” he pleaded. “Leave me.”
“I will not,” she insisted. “A wolf should never turn alone.”
John roared as his body convulsed, but he would not allow it to change. Not yet. He pounded his fist into the earth and bellowed in rage. “I will not turn!”
“Don’t resist, John. You need to change outside of your cycle. You must stay balanced.”
John spun and glared at her with fangs bared. “Does this look like balance to you?”
She did not run in fear but crawled forward as if he had invited her closer. If he allowed himself to look, he would have seen the crease where her two breasts met, peeking from beneath her billowy tunic and vest. “You are only in balance when you and your wolf are in one accord,” she replied. “Do not demand control of it, but compromise.”
He snarled. “There’s no reasoning with a beast.”
“There is if you try.” She cradled his face in her hands like she had the first night they met, when she had calmed the beast for him. “Reach within yourself, John. Make it know who you are.”
Everything she said was outlandish and impossible. How could John communicate with something he could not see? How could he speak with a spirit as if it were a breathing being?
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