The Wolf of Haskell Hall

by Colleen Shannon

  Lil’s arms felt weak, her bones melting to mush beneath the impact of his words and touch. She could only caress the thick black hair and wonder what she had done in her lifetime to deserve such a moment. Through a quavery laugh, she teased, “And how do you want to eat me?”

  He sat up abruptly. A hectic flush of desire coloring his strong Gypsy cheekbones, he swooped down and purred against her breast, “Like this.” He drew one excited nipple into his mouth and suckled so strongly and hungrily that her torso bowed to meet him. He dipped lower to her belly, grazing it with his teeth, “and this.”

  “And this….” he ended the sensual whisper against her womanly triangle.

  Gasping, Lil almost splintered with pleasure. First his hot breath proclaimed his intent, and then she felt the delicate brush of his tongue. Licking, tasting, sampling the kernel pouting for his attention. And Lil squirmed. She pulled at his thick hair.

  When that didn’t work, she reached down and clasped him.

  It was enough. No games; no winners; no losers.

  Only destiny, a man with a maid in the age-old way. His eyes almost blind with need for her, Ian shoved her legs apart and plunged fully inside in one long, luxurious slide.

  The feel of him questing so deeply into her was an intimacy so poignant that at first Lil could only lie back and enjoy it. The first time had been wonderful, but they’d both been a bit awkward, learning where to press, how to stroke.

  Now they knew how to pleasure one another.

  Pulsing at the very lip of her womb, Ian stopped and framed her flushed face in his hands. “I want to make my mark in you, to brand you mine, whether I end as wolf or man. Remember, Delilah: no matter what comes, or what they say of me, in this moment, we consecrate our bond. Nothing will ever break it, not even hell itself.” He stared into her forest green eyes, amber flames blazing a path through her very thoughts.

  On a dim level, Lil realized it was almost like he knew something terrible was coming, and he wanted to give her this moment to counterbalance that.

  But there was no need. Could any woman forget such a moment?

  Spread-eagled, invaded, vulnerable as only a woman can be to the power of a male, Delilah had never felt stronger. For Ian was equally powerless before the allure of her femininity. She felt it in the trembling of his hands, saw it in the passion in his eyes.

  For this, they’d been created. And of this, they’d create the ultimate atonement for a century of wrongs: a child of their loins would be the last, best reparation to the gypsy girl. A mingling of Griffith and Haskell blood began this tragedy. The same mingling would end it.

  Lil lifted her arms and clasped them about Ian’s neck. “Mark me, my darling, now and always, as long as you are branded mine, too.” She tilted her head sideways and nipped at the throbbing vein in the side is his neck. Not enough to hurt, just enough to show that she felt equally territorial about him. Perhaps she was becoming a bit lupine, too….

  When she licked the sting away, he gasped, clasped his hands beneath her hips and let the wildness consume them both. Pulling out full length and then thrusting back inside until she couldn’t hold any more, he showed her the dangers of tempting a wolf…

  ….and the joys.

  Her eyes drifting shut on the incredible sensations of that maleness blazing a trail inside her that would, indeed, mark her ever after, Lil instinctively matched the primitive cadence. Her hips lifted on each downstroke. Awkwardly at first, for she had such myriad sensations to enjoy that she was almost overwhelmed.

  The sound of the waterfall thundering into the pool; the scent of flowers growing close by; the feel of softness at her backside, hardness at her front. But as the urgent thrust and retreat quickened, all her senses narrowed down to the center of her body where they were joined. Instinctively, she tightened about him as she flung her hips upward. That made the strange pulsing in her core even more imperious, demanding that she give, and give some more.

  For in this act, only in giving could one take in equal measure.

  Needfully, she used the strange inner muscles she’d discovered only through his touch. When she contracted about him on the down stroke, he groaned. The sound of his near surrender so enthralled her that she did it again.

  And again, holding him tightly in warm, tactile velvet that stroked him end to end. And, as with all things worth cherishing, she found that, in giving, she received joy two-fold.

  Every clasp and retreat increased her own pulsations.

  She felt him hardening even more as he coursed to the very depths of her. Still, it wasn’t enough. Closer, she had to get closer, for only in a total oneness with this man could she find the piece of herself that had always been missing.

  This, then, was what it meant to be a woman.

  This, then, was what it meant to pleasure a man.

  The joy she felt at her own rebirth was enough to push her over the edge into….ecstasy. The strange pulsations imploded deep inside where she cradled him, and then radiated outward. Through her arms and legs, to her very fingertips and toes, she quivered with the shock of her own fulfillment in this bonding.

  When her inner contractions gripped him on that last masterful slide, he burst in exultation with her. Lil reveled in the powerful release of his essence, feeling it bathe her womb in liquid warmth. Her own pulsations grew harder, stronger, and she tipped her hips up to him, the better to contain every drop. No matter what, she wanted his child….

  Their cries of joy met and mingled as slowly, the wild darts of pleasure coursing through them faded to gentle pulsations, and passion finally gave way to tenderness.

  Tenderly she cradled him in the depths of her body. Tenderly he nestled in her, stroking her in gentle adoration he obviously felt but could not voice. She felt him rest his hands on the ground beside her head, as if he were afraid his weight would hurt her, but she pulled him close, wishing she could climb inside him, too. Nothing in her life had ever been so heavy. So large. And so sweet….

  For a precious moment that would be her best memory of all, he luxuriated with her in this total closeness. His lips drank of the throbbing hollow of her throat, and his hands caressed her, hips to knees.

  Tears misted her eyes at his total–almost boyish–absorption in this idyllic aftermath that was somehow more moving than the height of their pleasure. She didn’t have to be told that he’d never felt this with any other woman. They would never be closer, in every sense, than now.

  And there would never be a better time than now….

  “Ian,” she said huskily, “tell me where to look for a cure.”

  Immediately, his caressing hands pulled away. He slipped out of her and moved to his side, staring across the pond to the high walls above. Sitting up, he dipped his long legs into the water, bathing his loins, legs and hands.

  The loss of him made her risk all the more acute. Almost, Lil was sorry she’d brought this up, but she to broach this subject. And it was only a few weeks until the next full moon.

  Wondering why she felt no embarrassment at her nakedness, Lil sat up and dropped her feet into the pool beside him, also dashing water over her salient areas. But when the last trace of his scent was gone, she felt only sadness.

  By unspoken agreement, they dressed. The lovely, bright day was tarnished as golden promise became the dross of despair.

  Ian went straight to the saddle. Cursing herself for bringing this up, Lil stepped in front of him. He tried to go around her, but that only increased her determination. Lil said steadily, “There has to be a way. Why won’t you let me help you?”

  At first she thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he dropped the saddle and looked at her. Torment had replaced joy, and Lil’s sense of loss went past acute to desolate.

  He said, soft and low, “Because those who try to help me often end up dead.”

  Lil frowned, trying to figure out what he meant. “I do not believe that, even as a werewolf, you’ve killed anyone.”

  A laug
h of half disbelief, half despair, escaped him. “You cannot understand what it’s like, Delilah. You’re trying to look out of the savage mind of a wolf through human eyes. As much as you like to romanticize them, wolves are creatures of instinct, not reason. If they’re hungry, they eat. If they’re angry, they attack–”

  “If they’re threatened, they attack,” Lil corrected him. “You forget, in Colorado, we have wolves, too. I used to go on fishing and hunting trips with my father into the mountains. We came across a pack that we often observed from a blind in the trees. Wolves have a social order that is too complex to be based on sheer instinct.”

  “Yes, this grand social order is based on pissing and fucking.”

  Lil gasped at his crudeness. His amber eyes had gone opaque. She couldn’t see into him any more. She couldn’t even see past him to what the next few days would bring, much less where they’d be in a month. But still, she persisted. “If one of the pack is hurt, they try to help it. If a she wolf dies, another she wolf will adopt her cubs.”

  “Sometimes. But if food is scarce–”

  Lil propped her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Why are you being so stubborn?”

  A smile curled the corners of his lips as his gaze raked her. “Because I’ve marked my territory quite thoroughly today. Why waste more time wooing you? You wish to understand my lupine side, do you not? You’ll return to my den any time I lead you to it. I believe we both know that now.” And with that masterful insult, he turned to saddle the horse.

  Lil’s teeth gritted together, but she exhaled slowly, quelling the anger he’d tried quite deliberately–and successfully–to incite. He’d brought her here to stake his claim, yes. But he’d been driven by a deeper need, too.

  He’d wanted too desperately to pleasure her to be driven only by possessiveness or lust. He’d been moved at her cleaning of his ancestor’s grave site, and he’d wanted to gift her with joy in return. Still, as much as she made excuses for him, she was also angry and hurt.

  Couldn’t he have more faith in her? She ran a small empire. Couldn’t she find the solution to this dilemma, too, if he’d help her instead of fighting her, well tooth and claw?

  When he mounted behind the saddle and held out a masterful hand, for an instant carved partly from memory and partly from fear, she looked at those soft black hairs and saw the manifestation of his other self. The sharp, curving claws scratching above her head while she shrank between the wall and the bed.

  Banishing the vision back to hell where it belonged, she bit back more angry words and let him pull her before him. He wound back the way they’d come, but was careful not to touch her more than necessary. And that hurt most of all. But was it himself he didn’t trust, or her?

  During the serpentine ride through the outcropping, past the edge of the moors, she stewed over that quandary, but she had no answer. One thing she knew, however: where the journey here had been full of excitement and joy, on the journey back, she was leaving the best of what they offered to one another behind on that bed of moss. Alone together away from prying eyes, they were strong enough to conquer anything. Once they were back in the house, they’d be stuck in their roles of mistress and servant, heiress and werewolf.

  She looked down at the break in her lifeline and wondered what it signified.

  Above the stable, Shelly Holmes rubbed at the burning scratches in the back of her hand. She’d cleaned them, she’d put every salve in her considerable medicinal chest on them, she’d even tried cauterizing them with the flat of a hot knife.

  Nothing helped. They might harden over for a few days, but they were soon oozing again, a strange, milky substance unlike any pus she’d ever seen.

  For the first time in her life, she was afraid.

  Her mother was a famous chemist, her father, an Oxford scholar. Every immediate member of her family was brilliant, and they lived brilliantly respectable, if dull, lives. Shelly was the only exception. She was a wanderer, unable to stay in one place because she longed to make each new day an adventure, discover a bit more about herself and her world with every border she crossed.

  Her family didn’t understand. She should marry, they often told her. Raise children as smart as herself, and she’d learn to be content with her lucky lot in being born English. Why waste that magnificent intellect on savages? To them and virtually everyone else she knew, she was the black sheep.

  She smiled bitterly. More like a rogue wolf, now. She tried to picture her mother’s face when she learned the fate of her only daughter, and the image so pained her that she bent again over the dusty tome she’d found on a trip into Falmouth. It was an ancient book of witchcraft, filled with spells, and potions, and cures for every curse under the sun.

  Except the cures listed for lyncanthropy were worse than the illness. “Eviscerate the victim with a silver knife.” Or “skin the werewolf by the light of a full moon and stake the victim out in the sunlight for the next week until the carcass has dissolved.”

  Furious at such nonsense, Shelly snapped the book closed. She wondered if there was something in the book on how to repel randy sailors. She smiled, remembering the last time Jeremy had invaded her sanctuary to lay determined assault to her citadel with his unique blend of flirtation and coercion. She’d been courted in her time by a few men who were too strong themselves to be intimidated by her, but she’d never known anyone like Jeremy.

  Once, inexplicably, she’d wanted to kiss that flapping mouth just to shut him up. She was seldom attracted to men, and Jeremy was considerably older, not to mention rude and ill-educated, and half a head shorter. And yet….

  Sitting cross legged on the floor, Shelly rested her hands lightly on her knees and inhaled deeply. Yoga was a primitive suspicion, too, and made just about as much sense as these ridiculous attractions between two members of a species who could hardly be more different. But somehow, the long stretches of mind and body worked. Fifteen minutes later, she arose, feeling much better, when there was a commotion below.

  Shouts. A galloping horse. The crash of wood.

  Shelly bolted outside into the stable yard. She took in the situation with a glance. The curricle Lil drove that morning lay half on its side, the horse being cut from its traces. The animal was scratched, its nostrils flaring, as if it had been in an accident or unsupervised for some time, but it was the empty driver’s seat that concerned Shelly.

  “No trace of Lil?” she demanded of the groom holding the animal’s bridle while the leads were cut away.

  “No, ma’am. He come back alone, runnin’ like he was bein’ chased by somethin’.”

  Immediately, Shelly went inside and saddled her favorite gelding. The silly chit, why couldn’t she learn that it was dangerous for those of Haskell blood to wander about the moors alone?

  But in daylight? An even more frightening realization struck Shelly.

  Ian Griffith was gone, too….

  Shortly after they exited the tiny canyon, Lil realized the wind had risen. A putrid stench overlay the gusting grass like a pall. Lil covered her nose. “What is that smell?”

  Ian tried to knee the stallion onward, but a piece of white cloth, tattered and bright with splotches of red, blew across its mane. It stuck to the animal’s neck for a moment, and the stench grew stronger.

  Ian grabbed the rag and tossed it away, but the stallion, agitated by the wind and the strange smell, whinnied shrilly and reared. Sitting behind the saddle with Lil before him, Ian didn’t have a proper seat, and his feet came out of the stirrups. He went sliding down the animal’s hindquarters.

  Lil began to slide, too, but managed to stay seated by grabbing the animal’s flowing mane. When the stallion’s hooves came back down, she slipped back into place with a bone-jarring jolt. Her heart pounded in fear, and she knew the animal was about to bolt. Desperately, she grabbed the dangling reins and yanked them as hard as she could, holding them despite the sting in her palms as the stallion tossed its head.

  Her forethought gave
Ian time to scramble up and get to the horse’s head. He gripped the bridle, pulling with both hands, and between the two of them, they got the stallion under control. Quivering, but his ears pricked up as he stared toward a small mound in the near distance, the stallion finally went still.

  Lil turned to see what the animal was fixated on with such alarm. She saw scavengers, vultures and a scrawny wolf, fighting over something. She looked more closely and glimpsed a body, sprawled half in, half out of a shallow grave, arms spread out, face turned away. Even from here, Lil recognized the black hair, what used to be a full, lush bosom, obscene now in death, and the full, flirtatious red skirt of the barmaid.

  Turning her face away, she gagged, forcing back bile. But when her gaze caught Ian’s pale face, the gorge rose to her throat. He stared at his former lover’s ravaged body, as limp now in death as it had been supple in life.

  There wasn’t a trace of surprise or mourning in his expression.

  Only dread. And despair. And fear as he looked back at Lil.

  The clues she’d tried to ignore fell into place.

  The way he’d quickly tried to distract her from that piece of white cloth.

  The look on his face as he led the stallion away.

  And his comment to her by the pool finally made sense. Remember, he’d said, no matter what they say of me, nothing will ever break our bond.

  Shuddering with the necessity, Lil forced herself to meet those dark amber eyes. And the flash of guilt was most telling of all.

  The only way Ian Griffith could know about this girl’s death, where she’d been interred, and the significance of that white flash of fabric, was if he’d buried her himself.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Turning away as if he couldn’t bear the look in her eyes, Ian pulled a pistol from his saddle holster and fired at the vultures. Squawking, they flew off. The wolf yelped and bolted, too.

  Lil looked from the scrawny wolf disappearing in the distance, to Ian, and back at the partially eaten corpse that had once been a beautiful woman. And she couldn’t get the memory out of her head: Ian holding the waitress on his lap, nuzzling her.