SECRET OF THE WOLF

by Susan Krinard

  Once he had known such pleasures intimately and frequently. Women had come gladly to his bed, flattered by his attentions. He'd lived in a world of mutual gratification shared among a well-bred set of rakes, roués, and worldly married women who knew exactly what they were getting and giving away.

  Brilliant as she was, Johanna was anything but worldly.

  "Please go back to the chaise, Quentin," she said. "We should begin."

  The rebuff was clear. She didn't take him seriously. Why should she? He'd become a bitter joke, even to himself. With a sigh he returned to the chaise, resting his head and shoulders on the pillows and wondering if he might not prefer to have various body parts removed without benefit of the new anesthesia.

  Johanna rose from her chair and went to the desk. She started the metronome, setting it into a slow, steady tick-tick. From a drawer in the desk she produced a candle and matches, which she set down on a small table. She moved the table close to her chair and lit the candle.

  "You need not be concerned," she said, resuming her seat. "You will be safe at all times, in this room with me. We may not go beyond the very first stages of trance today, and nothing I do will harm you."

  He laughed under his breath. "Fire away, Doctor."

  "Relax, as much as you are able. Try to clear your mind of all thoughts and worries. Very good." She lifted her hand. From the end of a chain hung a multifaceted crystal, catching the candlelight as it spun in slow circles. "Do you see this crystal? Look upon it now. Notice its translucence, the quality of light, the gentle motion as it turns round and round."

  Quentin looked. There was nothing particularly fascinating about the crystal. He'd much rather gaze at the face above it, glowing with reflected light.

  Except she'd made very clear her sentiments regarding his attentions.

  "As you watch the crystal," she said, "listen to the rhythm of the metronome. How even and steady it is, like a heartbeat. When you hear it, all your worries and fears leave your mind. You feel at peace."

  How could he feel at peace with Johanna so near, her scent drifting across to him? He was like a boy in the schoolroom, fidgeting and impatient to get out into the free, fresh air and away from the useless knowledge they crammed into his head…

  "You will notice, as you watch the crystal and listen to the beat, that your eyes are growing very heavy. You are sleepy, and yet your mind is clear. Look, Quentin. Look, and listen."

  Perversely, he resisted. Johanna was confident of her ability, but she hadn't faced a werewolf subject. What if he chose to fight her? Would she still be so determined to keep at it until she found his "cure"?

  "You're resisting, Quentin," she said. "You must let go."

  You instruct me to do what you cannot. He set his jaw. You must work a little harder, Valkyrie.

  "Come, come. This won't do." She gazed into his eyes. "Trust me, Quentin. That is all I ask. Trust me." Her voice softened to a low, soothing drone. "You want my help. I want to help you. Be my ally, Quentin."

  Such a cold word, ally. It didn't satisfy him, not in the least. But after a few moments he realized that her peculiar magic was working, if not as she expected. It was her voice he listened to, not the metronome—her eyes he watched, not the crystal. He felt himself falling, falling into ocean-deep blue.

  "Good," she said. "Very good. You are closing your eyes now. You continue to hear my voice, but your mind is relaxed, open. You are able to answer questions put to you without hesitation. Whatever you experience from now on, it has no power to harm you."

  Quentin closed his eyes. Johanna's face remained as a pale shape against the darkness behind his lids. He felt his heartbeat settle into a lazy, comfortable rhythm.

  "How do you feel?" she said from a slight distance.

  "Fine." And he did. Remarkably well, in fact.

  "Excellent. You will notice that your right arm has lost all weight. It is floating up of its own accord."

  The sensation of his arm floating in midair felt agreeable and not at all strange. The rest of him felt ready to join the arm.

  "What is your full name, Quentin?"

  "Quentin… Octavius… Forster. The Honorable. That means… I'm not the earl." He was aware of the oddness of his speech, but it didn't trouble him.

  "And who is the earl?"

  "My brother, Braden."

  "Have you other siblings?"

  "My sister, Rowena." He felt a twinge of guilt, but it passed into the same dream state as his other emotions. "I think… she's in New York now."

  "You have lost touch with her?"

  "I… haven't written to her in over two years."

  "When was the last time you saw her?"

  "In England."

  "When were you last in England?"

  "In 1875. Autumn."

  "Why did you leave?"

  A darkness intruded upon his tranquillity, drawing him away from Johanna's voice. His arm grew heavy, began to fall.

  "You're safe, Quentin," Johanna said. "We will return to that some other time. You may lower your arm now."

  He obeyed, feeling the darkness recede again.

  "Have you been in America since you left England?"

  He nodded. That was an easy question.

  "Please tell me what you've been doing since your arrival in this country."

  What he'd been doing? He thought back to the first day he'd stepped from the steamer's gangplank onto the dock in New York. He'd gambled in some high-class saloon—winning as he always did, sleeping on a fine bed in a fine hotel, boarding a train heading west the next morning. No plans, no future.

  "It isn't… very interesting," he said. "Can we talk about something else?"

  "As you wish. I once asked you about periods of amnesia following consumption of alcohol. How often have you suffered this?"

  "I haven't kept an account."

  "What do you do when you wake from such an episode?"

  His stomach tightened. "Go. To the next place."

  "Why?"

  He couldn't make sense of her question. She fell silent, and he allowed himself to drift in pleasant nothingness. This was much better than drinking.

  "Think about what happened yesterday, outside of Harper's room," she said.

  Yesterday. It came to him, sprung fully formed into his mind. Johanna speaking of soldiers and war. The stench and the blood and the rattling din of guns.

  "India—" he began, shivering.

  "You're safe, Quentin, calm and at ease. India is far away."

  "Far away," he repeated. "I was… on the northwest frontier. A subaltern with the Punjab Frontier Force, 51st Sikhs."

  "What did you do there?"

  "We… tried to keep the peace on the borders. Skirmishes with the tribesmen, bandits. Never stopped."

  "How many years did you serve in the army?"

  "Three. I was nineteen when I got my commission. I requested India."

  "What happened in India, Quentin?"

  He was nineteen again, eager and itching for action. There hadn't been any major battles in India since the Mutiny, but there were still the hill bandits and the occasional rebellious tribal leader to defy British rule. Quentin had fallen in love with the place, with its scents and colors and exotic ways. It almost didn't matter that nothing seemed to happen except drills and exercises and the occasional punitive foray. He was away from England, from Greyburn and…

  "You were in a battle," said Johanna.

  His first real battle, and his last. It began as a chase, with his captain, a fellow subaltern, and the Indian troops, into the hills after a particularly daring and elusive raider. It ended in slaughter.

  He heard his own voice speaking, cool and unmoved, as if it belonged to someone else. As if the things he'd seen had been witnessed by someone else.

  "And then?"

  "I… don't remember." His throat closed up, trying to lock the words inside. That had been the first of the blank times, the beginning of a life of constant motion, desperate es
cape. "I woke up in hospital at the post, barely hurt. They said most of the men had been saved, the rebels destroyed. They gave me a commendation, but I didn't know what I'd done to earn it. My friends wouldn't tell me. They avoided me, and I didn't know why. I don't remember."

  "What do you think happened?"

  He shut her out, her and her ugly questions. He drifted back to that agreeable place of nothingness where he simply existed, free of ties and emotion.

  "Quentin, are you listening to me?"

  "Go away," he muttered.

  "We won't talk more about India for now. I would like you to think about something else instead. Remember when you were a child, with Rowena and Braden, before you ever thought of becoming a soldier."

  Like a relentless Pied Piper, Johanna seduced him out of hiding. He couldn't help but follow where she led—back to a past that felt less real than a dream.

  "Where did you grow up, Quentin?"

  His mind went vacant for a moment, and then the words came to him. "Greyburn. My brother's estate in Northumberland. Only it wasn't his then. It was my—my grandfather's."

  "And your father?"

  "He died when I was a child. So did my mother."

  "I'm sorry. That must have been very difficult."

  "I was… the black sheep." He tried to chuckle. "Always in trouble. The peals Braden rang over my head…"

  "Your grandfather raised you?"

  "He—" His throat closed up again. "He was the earl."

  "Did you get along well with your brother and sister?"

  "Ro—we were twins. Very close. She could tell… what I was feeling, sometimes." He recalled Rowena's fair, piquant face and plunged into a profound sense of loss. "Ah, Rowena—"

  "And Braden?"

  "He was my elder brother. He did his best, even when he didn't know—"

  Seething darkness descended like a curtain over his thoughts, cutting off words, intention, memory..

  "Didn't know what, Quentin?"

  No. No. The answer wouldn't come. He caught at the first safe thing that came into his head.

  "There's something you don't know about me," he said. "A secret."

  "Can you tell me that secret, Quentin?"

  "Of course. I trust you." He felt himself float up from the chaise and circle her chair like a disembodied spirit. "Have you ever heard of… werewolves?"

  "Do you mean a… man who becomes a wolf?"

  "Yes. Running about on all fours. Howling at the moon." He hummed under his breath. "That's exactly what I am. A werewolf."

  Chapter 8

  Johanna had thought that she was prepared for just about any sort of revelation. She certainly should have been; as she'd told Quentin, the human mind was an organ of great complexity, capable of almost anything the imagination could devise.

  Even of believing its owner to be a creature out of myth and legend. A shape-shifter. A… werewolf.

  The word she'd heard used for the delusion was lycanthropy, but she'd never encountered it herself, nor read of any contemporary doctor or neurologist who had done so.

  Suppressing her reaction, she took stock of Quentin. He was still relaxed, in a deep trance. He'd responded to hypnotism with relative ease—one of those rare men who required virtually no groundwork. He'd already given her much to work with.

  But this… this she truly hadn't expected.

  "Let me make sure I understand," she said. "You are a werewolf."

  "Or loup-garou. Some of us… prefer the French."

  "Us?"

  "You don't think I'm the only one, do you?"

  "I see." She leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers under her chin. "Then Braden and your sister are also of these loups-garous?"

  "It… runs in families."

  He spoke with complete confidence, at ease with his "secret" identity. If his belief in lycanthropy lay at the root of his drinking and other fears, he showed no indication of it.

  The temptation was very great to pursue this extraordinary turn of events to its natural conclusion. What would he do, if asked to actually become a wolf? She'd read of men and women, under hypnosis, reacting to suggestions that they were something other than human, mimicking the sounds and actions of various animals. Would he do the same, howling and growling, perhaps turning savage?

  She couldn't imagine such a thing. But it would be the height of folly to provoke Quentin now. His illness was not merely dipsomania, possibly derived from experiences in the army. His response when she'd asked about his childhood suggested memories he wished to avoid. And now this…

  "As you say, Quentin," she said, postponing further speculation. "I think we've done enough for one meeting. We shall explore these claims tomorrow, after—"

  A shrieking wail came from somewhere beyond the door, rising into a bellow and falling abruptly silent. Johanna shot up from her chair.

  "Harper," she whispered. "Quentin, please continue to rest. I'll return shortly."

  He didn't answer. She opened the door and strode out into the hallway. Irene, Oscar, and Mrs. Daugherty stood at one end, staring toward Harper's room. Lewis poked his head out from his own room and ducked in again, carefully shutting the door.

  "It will be all right," Johanna said. "Mrs. Daugherty, please take Oscar and Irene into the parlor."

  With the same care she'd use approaching a wild animal, Johanna opened Harper's door.

  He was in his usual place by the window, as if nothing had happened. The only change was that he no longer sat still, but rocked gently, forward and back, with his hands clasped between his knees. She moved closer to study his face. A scream such as she'd heard normally meant he was entering a period of violent mania, as he'd done three times since coming to her and Papa.

  If that was the case, handling him would become much more difficult. But he continued to rock, ignoring her. It seemed safe to leave him just long enough to bring Quentin from his trance and send him to luncheon with the others.

  Quentin had consumed entirely too many of her thoughts since his arrival. It was almost a relief to have another patient take precedence.

  But Quentin wasn't finished with her. When she reentered her office, he was sitting on the edge of the chaise, staring up at the ceiling. He looked toward her, his cinnamon eyes glazed and unfocused, as if still in the trance. Harper's cry hadn't brought him out as she would have expected.

  "I like this room," he said dreamily. "It smells good. Like you."

  It was definitely time to finish. "Quentin, listen to the sound of my voice. In a few moments I shall be bringing you out of your hypnotic state. Do you want to remember what we have discussed today?"

  He swung his feet to the floor and strolled toward her. "I want to remember you." He lifted his hand to brush her face. "Johanna."

  His touch was intimate. She felt a physical pang, as if he'd penetrated her flesh.

  Her first impression was incorrect. Surely he was awake now. Pretending to be otherwise, though why he should wish—

  "I like being with you," he said. "More than any other woman."

  "That is enough. Our session is finished, and—"

  "You like me, Johanna," he said, circling the pad of his thumb around her chin. "More than any other man."

  She opened her mouth to deny it and caught her breath. "Go back to the chaise, Quentin." If he were under hypnosis, he would do as she asked, and if he were deceiving her, he'd do the same or be forced to surrender his pretense. "Sit down."

  He dropped his hand, began to obey and then stopped, clutching at his head. "You despise me," he said. He started clumsily for the far wall, banged his hip into her desk, and stumbled as if he hadn't seen the obstacle.

  Somnambulism. Even he would not take the game so far. And if he were still entranced, he and his mind were at their most vulnerable.

  She clenched her fists at her sides. "I do not despise you, Quentin."

  He turned about, his gaze moving this way and that as if he couldn't find her. "You said… you
would help me."

  "I will. Have no fear, Quentin. I will."

  He smiled, like a glorious sunrise. "Yes." He came to her slowly. His hand found its way to her shoulder, slid around to cup the back of her neck. "My Valkyrie," he said, staring at her mouth. "You're so beautiful."

  Mein Gott. He must imagine that he saw someone else.

  "Quentin," she said, trying to control the shaking in her voice. "I shall count backward from five to one. As I count, you will become more and more awake, until—"

  He leaned so close that his breath caressed her lips. "If I'm asleep, don't wake me." He pulled her into his arms, the motion rife with purpose.

  Suddenly she felt small and fragile in a way she hadn't since childhood. Not weak, not disadvantaged, but somehow protected.

  How could a man like Quentin protect anyone, least of all her? And from what? Her analytical mind, always so ready to examine a problem from all angles, fell strangely mute on the subject.

  But it wasn't completely silent. She was still able to make a concise mental roster of her body's reactions to Quentin's embrace.

  Heart pounding. Breath short. Skin sensitive to the slightest pressure. Spine thrumming as Quentin's hands stroked her back. Nipples hardening where they met Quentin's chest. And in the vicinity of her reproductive organs… an indescribable warmth she hadn't experienced in many, many years.

  All the symptoms of physical desire.

  There was no doubt of Quentin's.

  His lips began the endless descent to meet hers. They made contact. Pressed. Demanded a response.

  Her body answered, pushing intellect aside. She opened her mouth and felt Quentin's tongue tease the inner velvet of her lips. An urgent spike of need drove down into her womb. She wrapped her arms around Quentin's waist and let him bend her back as he deepened the kiss, as if she were the veriest, most insubstantial nymph.

  A nymph with a bacchante's appetites. And all the while it seemed that Quentin was somnambulating—acting upon the desires his conscious mind kept in check.

  She had no such excuse. She kissed him in return, touching her tongue to his, savoring the purely erotic sensations she'd known but once before. Her seat and then her back came to rest on the chaise. Quentin's hand found its way to the aching swell of her breasts, scorched her flesh even through the sturdy, sensible cotton.