The Wolf of Haskell Hall

by Colleen Shannon

  He was fully erect with need for her, but still, he contained his baser urges. He stroked her, neck to calves, lingering over the sensitive hollows behind her knees until tingles shot through her like sparks.

  How did he know? Where to touch her just so?

  The need to please him, too, grew acute. She sat up, knees astride his waist, lifted her arms, and undid her braid, combing through the bountiful silvery waves with her fingers.

  Those amber eyes, glowing in the uncertain flicker of the lantern, fixed on her breasts. The nipples thrust at him provocatively, hidden as her hair fell to her waist, only to peep through with impudent cherry tips as she lowered her arms and her hair shifted again.

  Ian wrapped his strong hands in the glittering silver bonds and gently tugged. “Look down, Delilah. See what you do to me.”

  She had deliberately kept her eyes on his face, partly in shyness, partly in fear, for she knew just from the feel of him that….but her gaze lowered obediently.

  The sight of his virility, proud head red and eager, as if even that part of him preened for her, should have frightened her. He was much larger than her previous fiancé had been, but she didn’t shrink away. Instead, she drew nearer, compelled by the uncontrollable urge to touch.

  She clasped her fingers about him, both shocked and delighted at the contrasts he offered. Contrasts all apace with the complexities of his personality.

  Softness upon hardness.

  Beating life force, somehow both vulnerable and virile.

  Most seductive of all, he was controlled power leaping in her hand. With a biting of his own lip so hard he drew blood, he stayed quiescent and let her learn him. Wicked joy took her, a shocking freedom so emboldening that she used both hands.

  He bowed under her pleasurable torture, pressing his heels into the bed. “Delilah, you are well named,” he gritted through his teeth. And then he grabbed handfuls of her hair again, pulling her torso down to his mouth. This time, with no hesitation and little gentleness, he pulled her nipple into his mouth and suckled hungrily. “But it is you, my temptress, who will be shorn.” He turned the same loving attention to her other nipple.

  She gasped, releasing him as she instinctively tried to move away at the sharp pleasure-pain of the sensation. But he wouldn’t allow it. He had both arms about her waist now, holding her down, breasts hanging like ripe fruits before him.

  And he tasted….forbidden she might be, but she was all the sweeter for it.

  Carnality became its own reward.

  Gladly Delilah fell.

  And Eve’s legacy became, in this tousled bed, in the arms of this man part demon, part delight, one to revel in, not fear. She wasn’t about to lose Eden; she was about to find it.

  With more instinct than skill, she scooted her hips back. Pulling her nipple away from his sweet torture, she positioned him at the pulsing gate to her body.

  “Wait….” he said, tugging at her waist to keep her still.

  She slapped his hands away. “No!” She lifted her hips slightly and took his thrusting virility inside herself. The tip alone was enough to make her stretch to hold him, but in this topsy-turvy world of two, pain was literally the gateway to pleasure. She eased down slowly, and the fullness invading her nether parts was the most intimately arousing thing she’d ever known.

  Her former fiancé had not even allowed her time to respond, much less the luxury of control.

  But Ian….this strong, wild, indomitable male lay quiescent for her pleasure. His hands caught fistfuls of sheet and blanket, and she felt his trembling deep inside her own body. But she knew that if she moved to get away, he’d stay still and let her go.

  That knowledge was most seductive of all. On some dim, still defiant level, Delilah warned her to stop, take heed: this awesome control was the most manipulative skill of all. For he’d made her measure long ago, long before she measured him in this last, best, most intimate way.

  Ian Griffith knew the swiftest path to Delilah’s heart was through her will.

  Only in giving her control, could he gain it.

  But such thoughts were, at this moment, shadows in a darkness far beyond the fire and ferocity of this forbidden night. Later, she’d listen. Later.

  Her eyes closing, her head falling back on her shoulders, Lil measured those last few inches, feeling herself stretch to accommodate him. And when she held him fully within the core of her body, feeling his pulse in rhythm with her own, she knew that, no matter what came of this coupling, she’d never be the same again.

  Bond of blood.

  She’d not understood what he meant then. But she knew now. This night would mark them both, ever after. She was so delighted at the thought of leaving her own imprimatur upon this man that she flexed her inner muscles.

  He inhaled sharply at the sensation, his hips lifting as he instinctively pressed back. Reaching, as if within the warmth of her essence he found redemption.

  “Delilah,” he sighed, her name whirling around them like a blessing. “If joy is the talisman against my curse, I will never again fear the darkness when you are near.”

  Fear the darkness? What did he mean?

  But then Delilah was too engrossed in her own reward to wonder, or care, what happened beyond this bed. She slid upward, slowly, and then glided back down upon him, the cadence quickening with each merging.

  Assurance grew with every thrust. Perhaps she was inexperienced, but Ian didn’t seem to care. She sensed his growing difficulty in remaining still. The deeper he went, the deeper still he seemed to want to go, hips squirming on the bed, knees raising slightly.

  As wickedly as her namesake, Delilah made the next thrust faster and harder, concentrating now on one reality: the pressure of his maleness deep inside her body. And like Delilah of the Bible, Lil understood that base this act might be, unconsecrated by church or man, but it was still the most joyous sin any woman could know.

  Worth any penance she might have to pay.

  The wind howled louder, but she heeded it not.

  As if this intimate joining allowed him to read her very thoughts, Ian sighed his own pleasure. His hands came up and cupped her breasts, thumbs tweaking her aroused nipples. Gasping, she sat up upon him on the downthrust, and the intimate brushing of the base of his aroused maleness against her own aroused femininity was the last impetus she needed.

  One more stroke and then….glory. Bursting inside her, that strange vista of possibility opening to a nirvana she’d never dreamed of. In this world, the key to which was found only in this strange bonding with this strange man, there was no sin, no sadness, and no pain.

  Only elixir, the tasting of which opened the gates of paradise.

  Ian entered that world with her, his heels pressing sharply into the bed as he felt her burst upon him. His teasing hands moved to her waist. He lifted and raised her, once, twice, pressing so deeply into her that she knew he quested for that nirvana, too.

  The knowledge that he could only find it within her made her own pulsations quicken again. She felt him harden within the silken clasp of her body. Then he burst, too, in potent male fulfillment that bathed them both in joy.

  The sensations faded slowly, little darts of pleasure vibrating from him to her and back, as if the strange bond of blood had formed a link beyond body. A forging of minds, even a merging of souls. And the aftermath was almost as pleasurable as the peak.

  Unable to bear separation, Lil collapsed upon his chest, resting her cheek upon him. Gently, he stroked her spine from nape to hips, seeming to enjoy the physical closeness as much as the sexual one.

  The thudding heartbeat was the same one she could still feel inside her body.

  Valiant. Strong. Willful.

  As if her own heart drew the best of him to match and meet the tempo of her own. Peace such as none she’d never known stole over Lil, taking the last of her will with it.

  Heiress she might be, employed laborer he might be, but the mysterious link between them was unbreakable
now.

  And it was good….Sighing, she fell asleep.

  Ian’s hands stroked for a moment longer, but then his own breath evened to a sleepy purr. With her still stretched upon him, he, too, slept.

  Outside, the eerie storm blew up. Clouds skated across the sky.

  For one peaceful, stolen moment, it seemed as if the howling fury of the wind had no power beyond the magical circle of light guarding the man and woman in the bed. The defiant flicker of the lantern was valiant enough to keep the darkness out.

  Then a strong gust tore the flailing casement open. Wind beat the heavy drapes aside. Clouds disguised, and then revealed, the moon’s winsome smile.

  Defeated, the lantern blew out. Darkness climbed inside the room, a live thing with a power even the peace of this moment could not repel.

  Diana peeked through the flapping draperies. She had the curiosity of a harlot’s first touch, fingering the curtains aside and caressing the two sleeping figures on the bed.

  A short time later, awareness returned to Ian slowly. As sleep began the slow banishment toward dawn, his mind, too, felt isolated. Reality itself changed beyond all recognition. What was this supple weight upon him? He reached out warily, and memory came flooding back when he touched that silken skin. Delilah.

  In his bed. In his arms. Where she belonged.. But the thought scarcely left him before the man’s tenderness began to change to that other feeling that was becoming increasingly familiar.

  Absently, he stroked the soft flesh. This time, the more he touched, the more he wanted to turn this tantalizing form over and rake his teeth against the appetizing neck.

  Even as the urge grew, another part of him felt the tenderness passing, and missed it keenly. He knew it was the best feeling life offered. To both man and beast.

  Wolves mated for life, after all.

  And curse or no, the soul still extant beneath the wild call of the moors wanted to bond with this woman in every way, too. Intimate ways beyond even the sexual congress already fading from his mind’s eye.

  There was a fitful luminescent quality to her skin; she was light and then darkness. The lantern must be about to flicker out, Ian realized, wondering why the nonsensical human thought came so laboriously.

  Another part of him hated the heat and light. That strange ability to see even in the darkness was growing again, and the howl outside struck his sensitive ear drums like a blow.

  Come, join me. We hunt together, and the one who draws first blood feeds first.

  Perhaps because of his satiation, the urge to listen grew more slowly than normal. He was accustomed to awakening alone. His very limbs were lax, so for a very long moment, he was able to ignore the howl even when it came again. More insistently.

  Perhaps Delilah was the only talisman he needed, that remnant of humanity whispered.

  If I try, I can resist.

  He tried. He counted backward in his head. He rubbed the heels of his feet against the soft sheets. He stroked the silken skin, trying to recall how it had made him feel just an hour ago.

  But it was too late. He saw the hairs growing on the backs of his hands. The sight jolted him back to full awareness. A muted clattering sound drew his attention.

  He turned. Panic assailed him as he realized the casement had blown the window and drapes open.

  That’s why the moon shone so clear and temptingly. That’s why the howl sounded so loud.

  Then the change was upon him.

  Panic began to ease with the lengthening of bone and sinew. In its stead came that other feeling, the one both so empowering and so humbling. Strength filled his very marrow until he knew nothing but the urge to bound from the bed and feel cool marsh beneath his four padded feet. The weight upon him was suddenly distasteful, the scent of human something that drew his gut but not his mind.

  His growing snout sniffed, and the smell made his stomach growl.

  But then Delilah sighed, her arms rising to embrace his thickening neck. A sleepy little smile stretched her lips as she snuggled close. That smile superimposed itself upon a fading memory, a sustaining memory still precious in a corner of his lupine brain.

  The woman had smiled at him so. Was it only tonight? And then she gave him pleasure, pleasure even a wolf could recognize and honor.

  The memory gave him strength enough to shove her off with his two front legs. With a bound of his powerful hindquarters, still forming as he moved, he leaped across the bedroom to the door. This time, the conflicting urges almost tore him apart.

  Part of him wanted to run, to burst outside and smell the scents of home, to hear the sounds of the night. But another part wanted to taste that flesh that was so soft and appetizing.

  Half wolf, half man, still forming, he hovered in the doorway, hair still growing along the ridge of his back. The howl came again, and this time, he threw back his head and wailed his answer.

  Inside the servant’s quarters in the basement, Jeremy was, as usual, winning at that new-fangled game of poker that was even taking the royal court by storm. He’d learned it on one of his many trips to America, and his crafty tar’s brain had a facility with numbers, perhaps because of all his years of mentally measuring tides, knots, and sails.

  The cook’s assistant glared at him sourly, and the groom banged his boot against the table leg in frustration.

  The shillings, pounds and pence on the table bounced in a merry harmony that was Jeremy’s favorite sound in all the world. Aside from Lil’s all too infrequent laughter. And stranger still how he found that honk of an inelegant laugh from Shelly Holmes even more appealing….

  The French cook folded his hands over his ample belly as Jeremy raked in his fourth pot of the night. “Zee luck of zee Irish? Bah. Zee English, zey win at cards in the same way zey conquer the world.”

  “Aye, matey, ye’ve the right of it at last. This is a game ‘o skill, same as billiards,” Jeremy responded cheerfully, unaware of the subtle hint that he’d cheated.

  “Hmph!” groused the groom. “There’s balls aplenty at this table, only they ain’t white.”

  That insult penetrated even Jeremy’s thick skull. “No, they’re pure iron as ye’ll find to yer displeasure if ye don’t leave off insultin’ me.”

  Stand-off as the British tar stared down his Land’s End opponents, one by one. Chairs scraped back. Jeremy rolled up his sleeves, as did the groom, but then they both froze at the sound.

  Wafting, desolate and eerie, over the moors, so haunting that even the wind paused to listen.

  A howl. Raising from a low wail to a long, vibrating cry that raised the hairs on the back of Jeremy’s neck. “What’s that?”

  By way of an answer, the cook went to the one small casement window high above the basement level and made sure it was cranked closed.

  The groom blanched and fled, while the cook’s assistant bolted out of the common area. Jeremy heard a door down the dark hallway slam and lock.

  He knew, then, that no mere wolf made that cry.

  No ordinary wolf, that is. And from the sound of it, it was close. Too close.

  Pocketing his change, Jeremy hustled to his own small chambers to fetch his gun. A simple British sailor might not understand much of hoity-toity French cooks, or the vagaries of a woman’s complex mind. But Jeremy could shoot out the eye of a gull perched on a clipper’s mizzenmast, and occasionally had, for sport.

  “About bloody time somethin’ interestin’ happened around here,” he muttered under his breath as he loaded his best shotgun with the heaviest shot he had. “Werewolves indeed! Ain’t no such thing. Jest a lone wolf about to meet his maker.” But as he ran up the basement stairs toward the entrance, a new sound froze Jeremy in his tracks.

  The strangest images ran through his head as he listened to that keening, answering wail. The sound didn’t frighten him so, for it was much the same as the other.

  The source terrified him.

  It came from inside the house…..

  In the guest room, She
lly Holmes reacted to the same sound by throwing on her clothes. She affixed the various talismans she still had in her possession from the last abortive trip onto the moors. Grabbing up a handful of silver leaf as she went, she hurried to the door.

  When she reached the landing, she found lights coming on inside the house, one by one. Dawn brushed the sky with silver wings, but as she ran past a tall casement window, she saw the moon, curse it, riding high in defiance of the clouds trying so desperately to cover it.

  The wind howled like a rabid wolf, too, pounding the casements against the windows, keeping pace with Shelly’s running footsteps.

  A howl came again outside, closer now.

  The one inside answered it, and this time she could pinpoint the source. It sent a chill down her spine and quickened her lope to a flat-out run.

  Either a wolf had invaded Ian Griffith’s tower….

  ….or he was the wolf.

  The sound brought Delilah awake with a start. Immediately, she felt the emptiness in the big bed. She reached out for him. “Ian?”

  A low growl answered.

  Drawing the covers to her bare form, she traced the sound to the doorway. Only then did she realize three things.

  The lantern had gone out.

  The curtains had blown open.

  The moon smiled through the windows.

  Half jezebel, half virginal delight, Diana revealed and then hid in darkness the dreamlike shape that stood in the doorway. Shaming the clumsy American temptress for what she’d done.

  The growl came again, more savage this time. Twin amber spots glowed at Lil, far too high to be a dog’s, but too bright and luminescent in the dark to belong to Ian. “Ian?” she called again, more fearfully this time.

  The clouds parted again, and she could see clearly. Fear clutched her about the throat. She drew the covers even higher, as if their frailty could somehow shield her from that hungry gaze.

  A wolf stood in the bedroom doorway.

  It had a silvery ruff on its back, and it stood four feet high at the shoulder. The amber eyes were fixated on her, and as she watched, its mouth drew back in a snarl. Enormous fangs were revealed, but the eyes never blinked. They fixed on her with a covetousness that would have been frightening in a two-legged creature.