The Cursed One

by Ronda Thompson

  Now that her shock had begun to fade, Amelia battled her anger. “What about Robert? You murdered him!”

  The deceiver straightened her spine and walked to the bed. “Lord Collingsworth was not long for this world. To further our plan, we have one of our own working as a physician in London. Your departed husband visited him shortly before your marriage. His heart was weak, Amelia. It was a family fault. We doubted he could even survive his own wedding night. So we took our places. We secured positions in Lord Collingsworth’s employment and we waited for him to return for his wedding night. We were supposed to wait until he expired of natural causes, but Vincent could not wait. He wanted to claim you. He took matters into his own hands.”

  To know that Robert had died from being frightened to death sickened Amelia. “How can you affiliate yourself with these creatures, Mora? These murderers?”

  The glitter returned to Mora’s eyes. “You have lived a spoiled and silly life, Amelia. You have no idea what it is like to be hunted for sport. To starve because the forest can no longer feed your people. Once the Wargs were content to hide away and live their lives among other forest creatures, but we can no longer survive hidden away. Now we use our skills to infiltrate your highest ranks. To gain power for our kind. One day, we will rule the world.”

  Amelia shivered. Could these creatures possibly do what they planned? Vincent had shifted his shape to look like Robert. If the creatures could do that, she supposed they could take over anyone’s life. Mora, Amelia realized, had been a chameleon. The young woman even spoke differently now. She was educated. So many things were obvious now that hadn’t been before.

  “You’re the reason they never attacked us in the woods,” Amelia now understood. “They had no call to attack us with one of their own planted among us. You would make certain we never reached safety.”

  Mora perched on the end of the bed like a queen. She dug through a valise, one that Amelia realized belonged to her. “I told them I needed time with you,” she explained. “Time to learn your habits, your expressions, your speech patterns. It was never our plan for me to take your place. Not if Vincent had done his duty. But since he didn’t, it was decided upon quickly. That day in the root cellar was when I was told.”

  “How can you deceive us even now?” Amelia whispered. “I called you friend.”

  Mora shrugged. “I have my duty, just as you once had yours within your society. You call me friend, but had we reached safety, you would have quickly forgotten the bond we forged with one another. I would become a servant again in your eyes and nothing more.”

  Was that true? Perhaps at one time, but Amelia had changed. “You don’t know me at all,” she said to Mora. “I didn’t know myself, not until I made this journey. You are wounded when I call you an animal, yet you act like one. Did no one teach you about love? Compassion? Without them, you can never be human.”

  Color suffused Mora’s face. “I have been taught all I need to be taught to survive,” she bit out. “I know my duty. The cause of all before the needs of one. Victory at any cost.”

  “And now your duty is to kill me. To take my place among society,” Amelia said. “Those who know me, those who love me, will never be fooled by you.”

  Mora lifted a brow. “Does Gabriel Wulf know you? Does he love you? I fooled him once, you know. At Collingsworth Manor.”

  It only took Amelia a moment to understand how and when Mora had fooled Gabriel. “I didn’t sleepwalk at all,” she said. “But he hardly knew me then. And even so, he said the kiss he shared with me while I was sleepwalking was different than one we had shared earlier the same day.” To add insult, she added, “He said you lacked passion. You couldn’t fool him now.”

  The smug smile on Mora’s lips faded. “Can’t I? If he’s still alive, maybe I will see, just to test myself.”

  “What are you going to do to him?” Amelia demanded.

  Rising from the bed, Mora joined her. “I hope nothing. I hope he will simply die of his infection. It will be easier for everyone.”

  “One less murder you must cover up,” Amelia spat.

  With a shrug, Mora opened the door. “The coachman and the footman at Collingsworth Manor will never be found. The young lord is now resting peacefully in the fields, where it is obvious he expired due to his weak heart. Frightened when he did not return to me, I took a horse and tried to make my way to Wulfglen, where I knew my friend Rosalind and her husband would be in residence. As for Gabriel Wulf, I will be upset to learn he died of a fever in this small village so close to his home, but I never met the man, so I won’t have to pretend to grieve overly for him.”

  It seemed too quaint, too easy, for Mora to simply step in and steal Amelia’s life. “You’ll never get away with it,” she assured the woman.

  Again, Mora lifted a brow. “Won’t I?”

  Before Amelia’s eyes, Mora began to shift. Her features changed and Amelia was suddenly staring at her mirror image. The color of Mora’s hair, her blue eyes, had given her an advantage when it came to shifting into Amelia’s form.

  “Do you still believe I can’t fool anyone?”

  Mora had perfected Amelia’s voice. Was she still having the nightmare? It seemed more plausible than the truth staring her in the eye.

  The deceiver smiled. “I’m rather good at mimicking. At the same time, I still don’t know enough about you to feel comfortable taking your place. They will let you live for a while longer because of that,” she said. “After I see if Gabriel is alive, or if he is coherent enough to believe I am you, I will return to question you further.”

  “You’ll be wasting your breath,” Amelia assured her.

  Mora ignored her. “Any last words you want me to pass on to him, to make his own passing easier?”

  Amelia’s temper had gone from simmering to a raging boil. She couldn’t stand the thought of Mora deceiving Gabriel again. Saying words to him that Amelia wanted to say. Touching him. Perhaps kissing him one last time. Her hands had fisted into balls. She flew at Mora, using her nails like claws, and managed to mark her face before the woman recovered. Mora grabbed Amelia’s wrists, her strength beyond that of what a normal woman should possess. She flung Amelia across the room, where she landed on the bed.

  Mora shifted back into herself and marched to the door. “Men!” she shouted. “The lad is the woman we’ve been waiting for, you idiots. Come up and guard her.”

  Amelia felt sick. Not only had she managed to get herself taken captive; she had also given Mora Gabriel’s location. They would let him die or possibly kill him … and it was Amelia’s fault. What was she going to do? How could she save Gabriel?

  He must do something, but Gabriel couldn’t remember what. He struggled up from the dark folds of unconsciousness. It was more peaceful, the darkness, to surrender to it, but something kept niggling at him, urging him to wake, warning him that he had something important that he must do. He felt a cool hand against his forehead. He was burning up. Amelia was with him … but wait, he’d told her to go, hadn’t he?

  With effort, he pried his eyes open. His vision was blurred for a moment, and then slowly a face swam into focus above him. Amelia’s face. He had told her to go, he remembered that, but he didn’t remember why. And it was important. He recalled making love to her. He recalled her snuggled against him in sleep. Then he remembered the pain. It had sent him outside. His hands had been misshapen like in his nightmares. Fur had sprouted out on them and long claws had jutted from his fingertips.

  Then he remembered nothing, not until morning, when Amelia had roused him. He’d been outside, naked and shivering, burning up from a fever. She’d helped him inside and he’d ordered her to leave him. Although he couldn’t remember, he suspected the wolf had finally risen up in him. His curse was upon him and Amelia was not safe.

  “I told you to go,” he said, and his own voice sounded foreign to him. Low and raspy.

  “I couldn’t leave you as you are,” Amelia said. “You know me better t
han that, don’t you, Gabriel?”

  He had come to know her, as he once believed he would never know a woman, never want to know a woman. “You’re not safe here.”

  She smoothed the hair away from his forehead. “The creatures don’t know where we are. They’ll stick close to the village in case we return for Mora. I’ll be safe here for a while.”

  Amelia didn’t understand that he might be as much of a threat to her as those hunting them. Gabriel wasn’t sure. What would he do while in wolf form? How would he behave? Like a snarling beast that would tear her from limb to limb? Or would he simply have the mentality of an animal? Dangerous when threatened but otherwise content to be left alone? If she stayed and his infection didn’t kill him, she would see. She would know. She would be terrified and disgusted.

  “You must go now,” he managed to say. “You can reach Wulfglen in two days if you move quickly, if you don’t stop to sleep. You can go and bring back help.”

  Again, the feel of her cool hand against his forehead. “You’ll be dead by the time I return,” she said. “I won’t go, and you don’t have the strength to force me.” Her hand moved around the back of his neck and she lifted his head, placing a cup to his lips. “Drink some water.”

  He was dying of thirst. His throat was dry and scratchy and he drank so he might better talk her into leaving. The cool water tasted like heaven. He would have emptied the cup, but she suddenly took it away.

  “Not too much,” she said. “It will just come back up otherwise.”

  How did Lady Amelia Sinclair Collingsworth know that? She said she’d talked to Mora regarding tending the sick, but surely they had focused on what they might have to do for his leg and didn’t get much further. Mora. He suddenly remembered what else he had to do that was important.

  “Mora,” he rasped.

  For a moment, Amelia looked startled. “What?”

  “Mora,” he repeated. “I must rescue her. They said they would only wait two days before they made her disappear.”

  Amelia’s tense features relaxed. “You are in no condition to help Mora. Best think about yourself now. The girl will have to deal with her own situation.”

  Why was Amelia acting this way? He’d expected just such an attitude from her when he first met her at Collingsworth Manor. But she wasn’t like this. He’d come to know that about her. She hadn’t wanted to leave Mora behind the night they escaped the tavern, and she wouldn’t want to leave her to her own fate now.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. A chill wracked him and he shivered uncontrollably for a moment. Her image became hazy to him. Once he could speak again, he continued, “You would never leave Mora to her own fate. You care too much about her.”

  Something crossed her lovely features. Guilt? “I care more about you. I love you.”

  Gabriel remembered that she had told him she loved him. He remembered the soar of his heart before it plummeted. He also remembered what he’d said to her when she asked if he loved her in turn. It had not been what she deserved to hear, but then, she didn’t deserve to be deceived by him, as he had deceived her from the beginning. He did love her, as he had vowed to love no woman. He was weak when he should have been strong against her. He was weak now as fever raged through him, and he was weak against a curse that had been put upon his bloodline centuries ago.

  “You shouldn’t love me,” he said. “I am not worthy of your love.”

  Amelia regarded him curiously. “Why?” she asked. “Because of your family? The rumors that insanity will someday strike you down? Because you were a friend of Lord Collingsworth’s and I was for one day his bride? Why are you unworthy?”

  Her image blurred and focused again above him. She had a scratch on her cheek Gabriel didn’t remember seeing before. He tried to lift his hand to touch her, but he didn’t have the strength. Gabriel thought of the claws jutting from his fingertips last night, wondered if they were still there when she’d found him unconscious.

  “What happened to your face?” he asked. “How did you get that scratch?”

  Her cheeks bloomed with color. “I don’t know,” she answered. “But a little scratch is hardly need for concern when you are dying.”

  Gabriel might very well be dying, but Amelia would never admit to that. It was the same as admitting to defeat. She would try to convince him he wasn’t dying. She would try to give him hope—strength to fight. Now she acted as if she expected him to give up. What would happen tonight when the moon came out? Would he turn regardless of his fever and his weakened state? As a wolf, would he be sick or strong?

  “What time is it?”

  “It is late,” she answered. “Nearly dark.”

  She touched his cheek. That’s when he noticed that her hands were rougher than he recalled. True, they had gotten rougher since their journey through the woods, but still, he’d thought they were soft against his skin when he’d made love to her.

  “Close your eyes,” she coaxed. “Go to a place where there is no pain. No worry. Go to a place where your suffering will end.”

  Gabriel snatched her wrist. She jumped. He yanked her close, surprised that he had the strength to do so. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  For a second her face paled. She moistened her lips. Very calmly, she answered, “You know who I am. The fever has made you delirious.”

  Was that true? Was Gabriel hallucinating? No, he’d know Amelia anywhere, her scent, her touch. This was not Amelia. “I don’t know who you are, but I know that you are not Amelia.” His nostrils flared. “You are wearing her perfume, but she has no perfume with her. Your scent beneath it is not the same as hers. But I know who that scent belongs to now. You deceived us in more ways than one, Mora.”

  Her soft smile faded. The blue eyes staring down at him hardened. “Let go of me,” she bit out. With surprising strength, she wrested her arm from him. She rose from the bed and stood rubbing her wrist. “What normal man has the ability to tell a person by their scent? I found it odd at Collingsworth Manor, and I find it odd still. Anyone else would not be able to tell that I am not Lady Amelia Sinclair Collingsworth. And the only one who can will soon be dead.”

  Gabriel’s sudden fear for Amelia overpowered the fever that raged in him. “What have you done to her? If you hurt her, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” Mora goaded. “You are not in any condition to threaten me. If it will ease your way into death, she is still alive. For now. I need her. I need to know about her life, her past, so that I can take her place among society.”

  Struggling to rise, Gabriel asked, “For God’s sake, why?” His head spun and he fell back against the pillows, fighting dizziness, fighting nausea. “What is this great plan of yours?”

  Mora had wisely positioned herself out of his reach. She shrugged. “It isn’t my plan,” she said. “It’s the Wargs’ plan. I am simply a tool they use, as are all of us among them who can shift into the likeness of another. We are pretenders. And our duty in life is to serve. Through a few, many will benefit.”

  Gabriel couldn’t stand to look at Mora standing there with Amelia’s face. “Show yourself to me,” he said. “I will go to my grave at least knowing the face of my killer. If I am still uncertain as to what you actually are.”

  For the briefest moment, she looked sad. “I am not your killer. The injury to your leg, the fever, those things will kill you. I have no need to dirty my hands. As for what I am, I am human for the most part. It is said the Wargs were favored by the ancient gods. They gave us the powers we have in order to guard mankind … but mankind turned on us. We became hunted, cast out, and soon we learned to live in the shadows.”

  “Why don’t you just stay there?” Gabriel suggested. “And you say you will not kill me, but you will kill Amelia once you’ve wrested all the information you need from her. She wouldn’t leave and save herself because of you. How can you live with your deception?”

  Mora turned her back on him. “I am regretful that she must sacrifice for
me, even though I should not be, because our survival is more important. You ask why we do not remain hidden. We cannot survive any longer in the woods. There is not enough game to feed us. We have grown weary of being hunted, of being whispered about around night fires. We are stronger than mankind. We are favored. It is only right that we should rule.”

  Gabriel had trouble comprehending all she said, due to his weakened state. Some of it didn’t make sense. “At Collingsworth Manor, why didn’t you simply let them in? Why the pretense?”

  When Mora turned to face him, she no longer looked like Amelia. She didn’t look like the Mora he knew, either. How she had managed to make herself look plain must have been a trick in itself. Her hair was long and thick and fell to her slim waist, nearly the same shade of pale blond as Amelia’s. She wore the clothes Amelia had worn when last he saw her, too. She was nearly the same height, the same build. Her eyes were blue, although a darker shade.

  “I could have,” she admitted. “I needed to have Amelia’s trust even if she was captured. I still needed time to study her, to get to know her. I convinced them all that to let us flee would work more to our favor. It would give me the time I needed, although there is still much I do not know about her.”

  “And now I understand that you must at least in some ways resemble the person whose place you take,” he said.

  “Yes,” she admitted. Mora sighed. “Enough talk. Shouldn’t you be dying?”

  Now that Mora had brought the matter to his attention, Gabriel realized he didn’t feel as weak as he had earlier. He was still hot, but not burning up. Did the coming of the wolf bring him strength? It must, because he’d been able to make love to Amelia when he should have been too ill. What else could the wolf do for him?

  “There is one thing your kind cannot plan for,” he told Mora.

  She lifted a brow again, an unconsciously haughty gesture that would suit her well among society.

  “Some of us will not simply lie down and die.” The pain hovered just beneath the surface, and Gabriel allowed it to come. As a man, he could not save Amelia. But as something other than a man, he might still give her a chance.