The Legend

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  One thing was for certain. This was the longest he had ever held back the change, and it wouldn’t be much longer before he had to let go. Then Annalette would be the one to pay for the gift of enlightenment that she had bestowed upon him.

  “Focus, John,” Annalette coaxed.

  He shook his head against her hands. “I can’t,” he whimpered.

  Too quick, even for him, Annalette leaned forward, and their lips met.

  The wolf howled, and if he weren't otherwise occupied, he would have howled with it. Pain gave way to bliss in a single moment of intimacy.

  He shuddered and then every muscle went slack. He would have crumbled to the ground if it weren’t for Annalette. Their lips moved together as if they knew exactly what to do, though John had never been this close to a woman in his life.

  The wolf no longer held authority over him. His eyes returned to normal, and his teeth and nails were no longer sharp. The entrancing Romani woman that he barely knew now dominated his soul, and the change was no longer the threat. What he would do with her was what occupied his thoughts.

  His arms enveloped Annalette and he took her to the ground, straddling over her as they continued to drown in the passionate kiss that made him feel more like a man than ever before. Her hands roamed over his body, going places that had never been touched by a loving caress.

  She arched her back, pressing herself into him and he could smell her arousal as an intoxicating fragrance that elicited a moan from both of them.

  His own hands explored down her sides, to her hips and legs that had been so hidden by her heavy skirt that he had never realized how shapely they truly were. Skin so soft and smooth seemed to have been blessed by the Holy Trinity.

  Annalette’s hands paused in their exploration just long enough to unbutton her vest and open it to let loose the breasts beneath. His hands cupped against her blouse as he moved between her legs, preparing to do what nature had intended for the sexes.

  He could feel the heat of her desire seep through the front of his trousers, and he didn’t have to second guess whether this was what she truly wanted. Her nails scraped down his back as she offered her neck to him. John took it greedily, letting his lips and tongue trail down the sloping curve until she shuddered and sighed beneath him. His thumb found her hard and erect tit, and he toyed with it to make her moan and whimper for more.

  Everything about being with her felt right. What they were about to do was pure sin for both of their beliefs, but none of that mattered. Feeling her supple body respond to his every touch was something to which he could become addicted. In every sense, the Romani woman was addicting, and John knew he could never let her go after this night.

  A twig snapped, tearing him away from Annalette for a brief moment to listen. The wind carried a distinct scent his way, but his mind was too clouded by lust to make sense of it. She wouldn’t let him be distracted for long. She pulled him back down onto her and worked at the fastener on his trousers.

  He let himself believe it was an animal or faraway traveler on the road.

  The scent came to him once more, and he heard the sound of footsteps approaching.

  John pulled away, and this time, he climbed off of her. She let out a cry of displeasure. If only she could realize how disappointed he was as well. It would be difficult to shake her off.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  This time, it was his turn to shush her, and he stared into the night to find the source of the footsteps. Annalette looked around and pushed down her skirts before she set to buttoning up her vest once more, concealing that which he was ready to claim for his own.

  John breathed deeply to clear his head, and then sniffed for the scents. There was more than one. Perhaps five men encroaching in from every side.

  He pulled Annalette to her feet and in one direction, but it was too late. Ahead, he saw the glint of metal in the moonlight and knew it to be a saber. He tugged her in another direction, but a militiaman came at them in a mad dash.

  John prepared to battle, but Annalette stepped in front of him as the men surrounded them. If he were alone, John would have found a way to escape and suffer the cuts of the swords, but Annalette could not heal as he did. Even if he lifted her onto his back and bolted for an escape, she might have been hurt.

  “By order of the Queen, you are under arrest, gypsy,” shouted one of the men carrying a constable’s air of authority, as he wielded his sword to point at Annalette’s heart.

  Now would have been the opportune moment to let the beast out of the cage, but even if he knew how to summon it, he could not. Annalette held fast to his hand and squeezed it, beseeching him to not do as he was thinking. Fighting the men would not have been a challenge, but for whatever reason, Annalette did not wish it.

  John glared at the men who had been saved by the Romani’s benevolence, and a couple of them stepped back in trepidation. No matter if Annalette was there or not, John refused to go quietly, and he vowed to instill the fear of the devil in them before the night was over.

  Chapter 7

  The prison was more grotesque than she had imagined. Her nose was assaulted by scents that she could barely stomach. As the warders dragged her down the corridor, her bare feet scraping against the stony floor, Annalette gagged and retched with each breath. Human waste, blood, and death hazed her senses.

  She had to hold onto the truth that she wouldn’t be there for long or she might go mad. Peeking into the occupied cells, she could see the torch light gleam against the void and despondent faces of prisoners who were also awaiting their gruesome fate.

  Annalette cast her gaze to the floor to avoid meeting their desperate stares. She could not save the miserable souls trapped in the Westgate prison. They traveled down a few more winding corridors until they reached a secluded part of the tower with fewer cells and fewer occupants. The warders threw open the iron bars and tossed her inside, as if she were nothing more than a piece of trash to be disposed. In their eyes, all Romani must have been worthless.

  The warders left after locking the cell, and Annalette picked herself up off the dank and filthy floor. With only a few torches to give light to this gloomy wing, it was hard to see anything besides the glinting bars of her cage and the light that reflected off the puddles of stagnant water from the leaks in the ceiling.

  Looking around, she saw the shadowed figure of a man huddled in the corner. “Gallius?” she asked, hope sparkling in her words.

  The figure moved and let out a sputtering cough. “Annalette?”

  She fell on her knees before him and reached out for her brother’s icy hands. Though he smelled like a corpse, she kissed the back of his fingers.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he croaked.

  “And neither should you,” she replied. “But we won’t be in here for much longer.”

  Gallius sat up, and the amber light of the torches fell across his bruised face. The warders had not been gentle with him, but she wouldn’t have expected them to be kind to a foreigner. She touched his cheek and grimaced. As soon as they were free of the English brutes, she would tend to his swollen face and whatever other wounds had been afflicted upon him during his captivity.

  Everything was going according to plan. All she had to do was wait for John. Nothing had been spoken between them, but she knew that he would come for her.

  “How did you get here?” he questioned.

  One side of her mouth turned up in a humorless smirk. “Same as you. The Thompsons called the authorities.”

  His one good eye went wide. “Why did you go to them if you knew they had betrayed me?”

  Annalette sat back on her heels and surveyed his torn and wrinkled garments. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw some places where blood had soaked through the fabric of his tunic. “It was part of my plan,” she replied. “I know how careful you have been around towns and there would be no other explanation for your arrest. When you didn’t return to camp the other day, I simply pieced
together the only possible answer. I knew if I went to the Thompsons, they would turn me in, as well, to get their reward.” She shook her head, wishing she could forgive their deceitfulness. “But it will be fine, now. We will be out of here within a day, I assure you.”

  Gallius’ face went blank in confusion. “What do you mean? How – “

  She held up a hand to squelch his questions. “All you need to know is that we have an ally on the outside and he will do anything to rescue us. He’s not above killing everyone in this prison to do it.”

  Her brother gave her a dubious look. “What ally? What have you done?”

  Annalette could fool everyone else, but she could never fool her own brother. They had shared a womb, after all. It was only natural that he would know her better than anyone else. She brushed back a strand of dark hair that had fallen in her face. “I found a man like our uncle. A loup-garou. I convinced him to help me.”

  There was so much more to her explanation, but Annalette knew that she could never tell her brother about the adulterous activities that had led them to this place. He surely would have turned from her with disgust if he knew that she had almost laid with a man to whom she wasn’t married, loup-garou or not.

  Gallius sighed in disappointment. “Annalette, my dear sister, why would you defile yourself with his company? He is worse than a Gadje.”

  A fire of indignation burned in her. “You’re wrong,” she defied boldly. “He is a kind man. How could you say such things about someone who was willing to rescue you, a perfect stranger?”

  “If he is what you say he is,” Gallius spat viciously, “then he is an unholy monster. He is marime, Annalette. Why can’t you see that?”

  Her hands balled into fists on her knees. “Because I have not let the traditions of our family cloud my sense of loyalty. I wouldn’t have made it this far without him. Always help a brother and always pay when you owe. That’s what father always told us.”

  His nose wrinkled with disgust. “That thing is not my brother, and I owe him nothing.”

  “He saved my life, Gallius. You can’t ignore that.”

  “For that, I will be thankful, but I will not break bread with him or with you.”

  Annalette gritted her teeth. “Me?” she hissed. “I have done nothing but try to save you, and you reject me? You are blinder than I thought you were.”

  “By associating with this loup-garou, you are marime.”

  Annalette gasped at the insult. “How dare you! After I traveled miles over the countryside, endured the company of a stranger, was arrested and thrown into prison for you. I have suffered more than any Romani woman should, and you aren’t even thankful for my sacrifice. If anyone is marime here, it is you.”

  Gallius pointed a finger at her. “You see, this man has already polluted you. You would never be so brazen if we were with our vitsa.”

  “No, brother. I have always been this brazen.” She shook her head. “I had buried it deep to make myself into what our family wanted me to be. But if this journey has taught me anything, it’s that being myself is no crime. I will never be marime as long as I am true to myself.”

  The cell grew silent as Gallius turned away. He was a proud man, a man dedicated to family and tradition. Though Gallius and their uncle had been close, he still turned his back on his own blood. Now that she had come all this way, would he forsake her? Would he refuse her help just because she spent the day in the company of a loup-garou?

  When his silence became more than she could bear, she reached out and took him by the shoulders to bring him out of his thoughts. “When John comes, will you be ready to flee with me?”

  Gallius looked to her once more, scorn in his eyes for the woman who had risked her life to save him. She had tracked the loup-garou for days, manipulated the vagrants to attack her the night she met John, endured the beast’s company all the way from Wye, and put herself in the hands of traitors all for the chance to see her brother again. Would he honor her efforts? Or spit in her face as her family had?

  Finally, he nodded, but she had a strange feeling that all would never be right between them again. If Gallius could just meet John and get to know the loup-garou, perhaps he would see that not all loups-garous are marime at heart. Knowing their uncle should have taught him that, but the years that had passed since their childhood had expunged the truth from Gallius. Only Annalette remembered.

  Gallius took pride in his Romani roots and followed their laws to the letter. There wasn’t a single more pious man in their vitsa than her brother. No doubt, he considered the mere act of speaking to her to be some sort of sin, but one could not look for the devils in everything. Otherwise, they would never see that angels and goodness surrounded them.

  Annalette sat back on her heels as a blood-curdling shriek rang and ricocheted off the stone walls of the prison. She winced and tried to block out the sounds of John’s anguish.

  A force deep within her pulled at the scream. It had been tugging at her heart since the moment she parted with the loup-garou. Something unspeakable had taken place earlier that night in the forest, though Annalette couldn’t explain it.

  When she lay with John, his hands gliding across her skin with feathery softness and the gentleness of a true lover, Annalette felt a spark in her spirit. At first, the sensuous kisses had been part of her scheme. If she could make John care for her as more than a helpless maiden, if she could play the part of a lover, then he would be more inclined to free them.

  She had known that they would not be in the same cell once they were brought to Canterbury. The authorities dealt with the associates of Romani differently, and the evidence could be clearly heard by all in the prison. So, if she were to be free, John needed to be on the outside and rescue them from their cell in that way.

  Her plan had dire consequences. Feeling John press his hard arousal against the inside of her thigh had sent her into a whirlwind of pleasure that she would cherish for the rest of her life, even after they parted ways. Annalette neither knew where her uncle was, nor where an alpha might be. She couldn’t hold up her end of the deal and John was the one who would be fooled. As soon as they escaped the prison, she and Gallius would have to flee from the loup-garou before he caught onto the truth.

  She hated herself for wanting to feel him against her body one more time, knowing that she might never get the chance. Simply remembering the way he touched her tender breasts made her cheeks flush and core ache with desire.

  Cold strategy had turned into true passion when John reminded her that she was indeed a desirable woman. No man may ever touch her that way again, especially if she never married. John showed her intimacy like no one ever could, and her heart beat no longer beat for her Romani family, but for the loup-garou who was being tortured now because of her selfishness.

  As she sat there, listening to the cries of the man she wanted to trust, as the whip scoured into his flesh, Annalette knew that leaving John would not be easy. A bond had formed between them, and she hardly realized it until it was too late. Leaving him would be the hardest thing she had ever done, but it had to be done. She had no future with him. Her future was with her people.

  John screamed as he felt the tight knots of the cat o’ nine tails lacerate his skin. The blood from his gashed flesh dripped down his back. His torturer repeatedly whipped him, slashing into his back and sides too many times to count.

  “I don’t understand,” he grumbled to his partner. “He’s either got some tough skin, or this whip is useless.”

  John could feel the edges of his fileted flesh begin to mend as the punishment continued. The warder didn’t realize how resilient his prisoner could be. They would be in that cell until judgment day and John would still walk out with a flawless body, but that didn’t stop him from feeling every lash of the deep cutting whip.

  His lifeblood ran in a pool on the floor, the backside of his pants soaked through until the fabric clung to his legs. His hands wrapped around the chains that bound his wrist
s and spread his arms out wide to receive his just penalty for being associated with a gypsy.

  The whip went still, and John hung his head, his breaths ragged as he sensed another man enter the room. “Is he dead yet? It’s been an hour since you began.”

  Time had passed by in a blur for John. It had been an hour filled with nothing but ceaseless torment at the hands of his captors. One thought kept him awake and vigil. Annalette was somewhere in the prison, and he could smell her fear. Finally, the brave Romani showed fright in this terrible place of pain and death.

  “Not yet, milord,” the warder replied.

  Footsteps came close and his muscles tensed as the wolf readied to strike back. The animal in him had been caged, but John knew that now was not the right time. He had to wait for the perfect moment.

  The men gasped and fingers pressed into his back. “There are no cuts!” one exclaimed. “How is that possible? Look at all the blood!”

  The new man, who smelled of riches and finery, stepped around to face the prisoner. John closed his eyes, knowing they were a deep and fierce gold in response to the immense agony he had been subjected to.

  “How can you bleed, but not have wounds?” the man asked. He recognized the voice and scent as the constable, the one who had put them under arrest in the forest. “Speak, you swine!” he bellowed, but John would not give in to the need to retaliate.

  After a moment, the constable walked away. “Bring me the hot iron,” he ordered.

  John groaned, knowing what awaited him.

  One of the warders came back, and he could hear the hot metal sizzling. There was no warning as the iron was passed to the constable. The fiery tip penetrated his side, and he could feel it scorch his flesh as it jammed up beneath his ribs and pierced a lung.

  He roared like a beast and pulled on the chains until the links snapped. John fell to the ground, and the constable yanked the iron from his body. The warders muttered to one another, and he heard them shuffle backward to put distance between themselves and the beast.