John paused, his lips parted as he was ready to tell her that he remembered nothing during those dreadful nights. He thought it was because God didn’t want him to know what terrible sins he committed, or that the devil wanted to keep him blind to his atrocities to maintain his power over John.
“How do you know any of this?” John asked, his tone fraught with frustration.
Annalette crossed her arms over her chest. “My uncle was loup-garou. I helped him keep it a secret from our family. When they discovered that he was impure, they renounced him as a Romani.”
She spoke so coldly as if it meant nothing to her, but he could sense the deep sadness in her as keenly as if she were weeping to his face. It was another of the “gifts” from the devil.
John wanted to pity her uncle, but there was little left in his heart for such petty emotions. “You have my condolences,” he said with a complete lack of sympathy.
“I learned what he could and could not eat; I learned how he controlled the wolf spirit, so he could live a normal life. He was bitten by another loup-garou before I was born and left for dead. But the wolf spirit healed his body, so it could live inside him. Were you bitten?”
Her eyes roamed over John’s body from head to foot, but she would find nothing to answer her question. There was a flicker of some emotion in her eyes that caught his particular attention. It wasn’t the scrutinizing look of an inspector, but the leering gaze of a harlot.
“No,” he replied with a sneer, wondering why she assessed him so.
“So, you were born a loup-garou?”
John clenched his fists as his lips drew into a grim line. “I was not born anything. When will you understand that it’s a demon, not a wolf?”
Annalette threw up her hands and bowed her head in dramatic expression, the coins on her headband clinking together. “Very well. You are possessed by a demon. It is pointless to argue with a Gajo.”
“I thought I was a loup-garou?” John blinked at the new and unfamiliar word.
Annalette flashed him a cunning smile. “I thought you said you were demon-possessed?”
A muscle in John’s jaw tensed at her sly trick. He had to admit that some of her story was compelling, but how far could he trust a gypsy? They were known to be thieves and murderers, hence why the queen wanted them expelled from the country. Such vermin had no place in civilized society. Then again, neither did he.
“Why do you need my help?” he asked, folding his arms over his broad chest.
Annalette turned and walked away to her makeshift camp with a look that challenged him to follow. “My brother has been arrested. I’ve heard that he’s being held in Canterbury and will be executed soon. I must go to save him.”
John wanted to laugh at her arrogance. “Do you really think you can just walk into Canterbury as a gyp-“
She shot him a fiery glare, and he avoided his blunder.
“… as a Romani woman and simply ask for them to release your brother?”
Annalette began to gather her supplies and roll them methodically into a pack. “No. That is why I need your help.”
He watched her skillfully fold her blanket and slip it into her bag, mindful to keep her cooking utensils away from her bedding. “What can I possibly do?”
Annalette stood and shouldered the bag with a grunt. “You have what I don’t. You can go into town like any other man and negotiate. If being a man will not suffice, then you will be a beast for me.”
John looked down to his soiled clothes, discolored with the stains of blood and earth. “If I walk into town wearing this shirt, no one will speak to me. You do realize that I haven’t been a member of respectable society for a long time?”
Annalette tilted her head to the side, gazing at him with a wistful look of curiosity. “How long?”
John stared at her, wondering how much he should divulge to a perfect stranger. She was the first woman to show any hint of compassion for his plight. There was no fear in her eyes when she faced the demon that lurked within him. Loup-garou or demon-possessed, she seemed to accept him. For that, he knew he could tell her more.
“One hundred years or more. The demon has kept me alive this long, my soul bound to the world of the living until judgment day.”
Annalette smiled and shook her head ruefully, not showing a hint of surprise at his confession. “You will not live forever, John Croxen, but the wolf is keeping you alive for a purpose. You must find it.”
She turned and began to walk upriver, headed northeast towards the road that led to Canterbury.
John stood by the river and watched her walk on, her hips swinging with each step.
He had heard rumors that the gypsies could tell one’s fortune. It was their gift from the devil himself. If she had a second-sight, or if she was also bound by a pact with Satan, then she understood him better than anyone else in the world. Yet, if she were a mortal like any other, and if she were telling the truth about her uncle, Annalette would be a valuable source of information. She could teach him far more than he could ever learn on his own. Her talk of purpose was intriguing, but the wealth of knowledge that she could provide was more so. If a century of roaming the countryside like a bitter ghost would not yield answers for him, perhaps this gypsy could.
John rushed forward with his inhuman speed and snatched up Annalette’s pack. He bore the load and walked alongside her.
Her beguiling lips curled into a knowing grin, and they journeyed along the river toward whatever fortune or destruction awaited them.
Chapter 3
“You have been loup-garou for over one hundred years and only changed once a month?” Annalette cried, disturbing a flock of birds that were perched in the canopy of trees over the trail John had led them to.
John shot her a heated glare. “Why would I let the demon take dominion over my body more than once?”
She pinched at the corner of her eyes as she tried to keep a tight hold of what little patience she had. “If you don’t change enough, the wolf will become unruly and discouraged. It will cease to give you life. Do you want to die?”
“Dying would be better than living in this hell,” John retorted as he adjusted the pack’s strap over his shoulder. She couldn’t ignore the way his words were saturated in self-loathing. “Do you know what it’s like to have this immense evil inside with no way to rid yourself of it?”
In all truth, she did not, but she knew how torn her uncle, Nicu, had been before he found some solace in another loup-garou. She remembered the way Nicu would stare into nothingness, his thoughts far away from the vitsa. His heart had never been in their celebrations. The wolf made him long for the wild, which he resented. To a Romani, family was everything, or at least it was supposed to be.
Annalette turned to him and held up her hand to stop him from continuing down the path. “We must remedy this,” she asserted. Before he had time to argue, she reached out and gripped the sensitive part of his shoulder that Nicu had shown her long ago.
John closed his eyes tight and roared like a beast as the pain must have coursed through his body. If he would not willingly change, then Annalette would have to coax the wolf into the open. She had heard the stories of loups-garous who could not change after a certain age because of their negligent years where they did not nurture and encourage the wolf within them. If John did not make sure his wolf was satisfied, he would not live as long as most in these desperate times.
The formidable man who was nearly twice her size, crumbled to his knees and dropped her pack to the ground. To see him kneel before her was oddly rewarding. To know that she could make a man so defenseless with just a touch sent skitters of pleasure down her spine.
If what Nicu said was true, pressuring this one muscle would inspire the change. However, if what John said was true, he would be uncontrollable in his loup-garou form without the experience he needed to command the wolf spirit.
It might not have been wise, but Annalette was the only one who could teach him to control the beast. She wa
s the only one who could show him what he had gone without for so long and it was her key to gaining his trust. With her knowledge of loups-garous, she was sure that she could defend herself, but he could easily kill her in one powerful swipe of his claws.
In the midst of his pain, John reached out and tore her hand away from his shoulder. With a look of utter bafflement and shock, he held his tender flesh. His golden eyes lifted to stare at her. Such beautiful eyes, more beautiful than they had been on her uncle or any other loup-garou she had met.
In fact, everything about John was beautiful from his sturdy body to the soul that personified it. She saw it gleaming from him like a beacon of wholesomeness in a sea of depravity. Even in his wild state, Annalette couldn’t help but admire the one who was more in balance with nature than any other human in the world.
Ever since Nicu came to her in her youth and revealed his secret, she had become enamored by the power and mystery of the loups-garous. There was so much she could show John if only he would let himself believe that he was not cursed. Indeed, he was blessed, though the Romani would never admit that.
“What did you do?” he questioned.
“It’s a trick my uncle taught me. It can cripple a loup-garou, but it can also bring the wolf out into the open. The wolf only comes out when it feels threatened, or it needs to hunt, but, if you can make peace with the animal, you can command it to come out by your own will.”
She took a few steps back to let him breathe and recover.
“How do you know so much? Are you a loup-garou too?” he asked, gasping from the pain.
Annalette smiled and shook her head, her black hair swaying around her shoulders. “No, I am not. Though, I envy you and all other loups-garous like you. Females are not born loup-garou, even if our fathers were, and we cannot be bitten or we will die. My uncle tried to turn his wife into a loup-garou and failed.”
It was before she was born, but the way Nicu told the story, one might think that it happened just yesterday. Though he was loup-garou, there was no limit to his grief and compassion for life. Killing her had forced him to admit that he needed a companion; someone to look after him and ensure that he never attempted to kill again.
Annalette fulfilled her job well, but it was not enough to save Nicu from her family.
John cleared his throat and stood on shaky limbs. “Did you learn all of this from your uncle?”
“I did. He learned it from a loup-garou alpha. Though, some things we learned by accident.”
He propped his hands on his hips and looked to her, his murky brown eyes glimmering in the sun. His eyes reminded her of the color of rich, fertile soil. “An alpha?” he asked.
Annalette crossed her arms over her stomach, willing the aching in her lower belly to subside. John could send her heart reeling with just a subtle look that meant nothing, and yet everything to her. “Yes. Just as wolves have a pack, so do loups-garous. In a pack, there are those who are more dominant, more powerful. They are called alphas. Below the alphas are the protectors, the betas. They protect the pack and the alpha from danger.”
John eyed her as he reached down to take her pack. “I thought the alpha was more powerful? Why does he need a beta?”
“The alpha is concerned with internal affairs. He must keep his pack in order and under control. The beta is concerned with external affairs, keeping the outside world from harming the pack. Below all of them is the omega and he is sometimes the most important. He keeps strife from destroying his pack from the inside.”
“Isn’t that what the alpha does?”
She shook her head, realizing how complex the loup-garou pack was, now that she tried to explain it. “Not exactly. Here is an example. If you are the alpha of a pack and there is a disagreement between a few other pack members, you can try to settle the conflict. If you are unsuccessful, the omega can step in and distract them from the problem. Or, if the alpha is becoming overbearing or harsh, the omega can bring the error to his attention.”
John sighed and glanced away. Annalette could sense his annoyance, but she also knew that he was listening. He needed to know just as badly as she needed to tell him. Though, she had to be careful not to reveal too much too soon. If she told him everything, then he might leave her before they arrived in Canterbury.
The idea of John abandoning her to the forest was almost most than she could bear. She took a deep breath to quell the anxious thoughts and waited, watching the way his face pinched into a thoughtful look. It was as if he were trying to make sense of so many things at one time.
“So, there are more like me? More loups-garous?”
She drew closer, stepping slowly as if she were approaching a nervous horse. “Yes, many more. But they’re in hiding, just as you are.” Annalette stopped when she realized that John was keeping his distance from her. For every step she took forward, he took a step back. “What is it?”
John cast her a wary gaze, his lovely eyes looking her up and down. “You do strange things to me. Last night, you bewitched me with your song, and today you try to bring out the demon. You can command this evil better than I can with your gypsy trickery.”
That word. Annalette fumed at the mere sound of it. She heard it muttered by the peasants under their breaths and shouted as insults from across streets. The word was synonymous with evil and a false conception of who the Romani people were, but she couldn’t expect a gajo to know the truth. She would have to show him that the Romani were not as they appeared. Not entirely.
“It’s not trickery. My uncle taught me how to soothe the wolf. That was the song you heard last night.”
“Your uncle taught you many things, but how can you be certain? How do you know it’s a wolf and not a demon?”
Annalette inhaled deeply, remembering the long nights she stayed up with Nicu while he hunted across the Scottish moors under the light of the moon and stars. She remembered his loup-garou form and how monstrous it had seemed at first. As she grew accustomed to its shape, she thought it to be magical and one of the most wondrous things she would ever behold. That was until she saw John. He would learn to embrace the beast as well. He had to, or he would die.
“I’ve seen a loup-garou transform,” she proclaimed as if it were a thing to take special pride in. “It is a wolf. Surely, you must suspect that it is not a demon?”
John shook his head, but she could see the hesitance in his stare. “What this evil asks of me can only be the product of the devil.”
She gestured to him, beckoning for the details. “Like what? Tell me what the demon says to you, and I’ll show you it’s a wolf instead.”
The determined set of John’s jaw told her that she had ventured into a den of serpents.
“To start, it forces me to eat the uncooked flesh of animals. No Christian man would consume so much blood and flesh unless he was possessed.”
Honestly, Annalette expected a stronger argument. “The wolf needs you to eat as he does. You can eat cooked meats, but it will not give you the same nourishment as raw meat. While some loups-garous do kill and devour the flesh of a human, most do not. I know you haven’t eaten a human.”
A deep frown creased his forehead. “How do you know?”
Annalette smiled, glad that he asked. “I can see it in your eyes. If you did, you would not be so stable in your mind. Eating the flesh of a human can make a loup-garou insane. He becomes merciless and far more aggressive than a loup-garou who has not.”
A shadow passed over John’s face, and his gaze became distant, just as Nicu’s had so many times while sitting around the campfire. Back then, Nicu had told Annalette that he was dwelling on the tragedy of his own life and existence. She would have given anything to know what John was thinking of in that moment as he whispered the word, “Insane.”
Annalette knew that she wasn’t wrong. John had not killed a human, but something had pulled at his heart when she spoke of it. Something deep within her heart begged her to charge forward and wrap her arms around the loup-ga
rou until the pain melted away, but it was far too soon for intimacy. He wouldn’t even let her get close.
“Did your uncle eat human flesh?” he finally asked, dispelling the dark thoughts from his mind and returning from the miserable place he had briefly visited somewhere in his past.
She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “No. But the alpha he met with knew a loup-garou who did. Such loups-garous become reckless, and hunters track them down.”
“Hunters? Like the royal hunters?”
It occurred to her that they weren’t progressing down the path and time was slipping through their fingers. The longer it took for them to get to Canterbury, the slimmer her chances became of saving her brother. They had to reach the outskirts of the city before nightfall, or her plan would fail.
She turned and continued northeast. The road they walked upon had once been a busy trail, but now nature was reclaiming what man had paved through its heart.
Just as she predicted, John obediently followed like a trained dog. “No. There are hunters who search out the supernatural. There are those who know how to kill you and will stop at nothing until every loup-garou is dead.”
John came up alongside her. “How can a loup-garou be killed?” he asked.
Annalette kept her eyes on the trail ahead, though she longed to meet his eager eyes. She didn’t want to believe that John was only interested in what she knew. It had been a long time since any man had the faintest attraction to her, but the longer they talked of loups-garous and the more diffident he was to be near her, the clearer it became that he was using her just as she was using him.
She had to gain his trust, just as she had gained the trust of the men the night before. Their lifeless faces flashed in her mind’s eye, and she quickly pushed back the images. No amount of reasoning in the world could justify her facilitation of their deaths. They were dead because of her. They lived upon the fringes of society, but they did not deserve death, especially by the hand of a loup-garou.
She couldn’t think of that now. She had to stay focused on her mission. Earn the loup-garou’s trust so she could free her brother. That’s all she wanted, and even if it meant killing hundreds more, she would get what she wanted.
The Legend Page 3