The Cursed One

by Ronda Thompson

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Amelia was trapped. The men who had mistaken her for a boy earlier had been called to account by Mora, and now two were stationed outside the door, one downstairs, and two outside. They weren’t about to allow Amelia to escape. Mora had forced Amelia to hand over her clothes and, oddly enough, had offered her the luxury of the bath she had ordered for herself. She’d also had food brought up to Amelia. She felt rather like a goose being fattened for Christmas dinner.

  She had used the bath, mostly because she hadn’t had a proper one since she made love to Gabriel, partly because she needed the time to think about her situation and how she would get herself out of it. In her valise, Amelia had found clothing. Her own clothing. Her perfume. Whatever Mora would need to convince those at Wulfglen that she was the distraught Lady Collingsworth.

  Would Rosalind see through Mora’s disguise? Had they become good enough friends for Armond’s wife to know the woman presenting herself as Amelia was in fact an impostor?

  And why was Amelia even allowing herself to believe it would come to that? If Gabriel weren’t sick, possibly dying, she would never give up hope of being rescued. But he was, and the thought of him at Mora’s mercy nearly drove Amelia insane with worry and with anger. After all he’d done to protect her, to protect even a woman who had no need of it, Amelia felt useless when he now needed her to be strong. Nothing in her life had prepared her for what had happened at Collingsworth Manor on her wedding night, for what had happened every day since.

  Still, Amelia had survived. She had done what was necessary, what Gabriel told her to do for the most part. And in the process, she had discovered things about herself she had never known before. She was frightened of the men guarding her, for she knew they were more than men. But she was more frightened for Gabriel. Mora had said his infection would kill him, but what if Mora wasn’t patient enough to wait for a death from natural causes for him? Amelia had to do something; she just wasn’t certain what.

  Glancing around the room, she looked for something she might use as a weapon. The room was sparsely furnished. The tub still sat in the middle of the room, the water now cold. There was a crock for pouring fresh water into the basin. A candlestick. Amelia walked over and picked it up. It wasn’t heavy enough to render a man unconscious.

  She glanced at her valise again. She’d dug a sensible gown from the valise to put on after her bath. Truth be told, she preferred the lad’s clothes. They had been much easier to maneuver in. For the first time since her escape from this very tavern, she wore undergarments again. She’d kept the sturdy boots, knowing if she did manage to escape, they would serve her better than one of two pairs of slippers that had been stuffed inside the valise.

  Amelia lifted her perfume, uncorked the dainty bottle, and sniffed. It seemed stronger than she remembered, and her eyes watered. She had grown accustomed to going without it. She’d replaced the bottle when a thought occurred to her. She glanced back at the sturdy crock and the basin. Snatching the bottle back up, she moved toward the items. The crock was full of fresh water. Amelia poured a little into the basin; then she unstopped the perfume and poured the whole bottle in the water. The scent was so strong her eyes watered again.

  She took the crock to the tub and emptied what water remained. Now what to do? She needed the men posted outside the door to come into the room. Snatching up the empty perfume bottle, she hurled it against the door with all her strength. It shattered. Quickly she rushed to the door, bent, and picked up a large shard of glass. She’d barely made it back to her position in front of the washbasin when the door swung open.

  One of the men walked inside, glass crunching under his boots. “What are you up to?”

  Poising the sharp shard against her wrist, Amelia said, “I will not take part in your plans. I will kill myself first.”

  The man’s eyes widened. He yelled for the other man before he lunged toward her. Amelia dropped the glass, grabbed the basin, and threw the contents in his face. The other man was already reaching for her and she swung the basin and hit him square in the face. He stumbled back and fell to the floor. The man whom she had doused had his hands over his eyes, rubbing frantically.

  “God, it stings!” he shouted, and Amelia knew she had only a moment before both men recovered. She leaped over the fallen man, and then she was running, out the door, into the hallway, and down the stairs. She couldn’t be quiet, not in the clunky boots she wore. The man posted in the common’s room glanced up from a table where he sat, surprise etched on his features.

  “Hey!” he shouted, struggling to his feet.

  Amelia had the advantage. She was already in motion and she made her decision to try the back door. It had stood open and unguarded earlier. She prayed that was still the case. The kitchen area was overheated. A pot sat simmering on top of the stove, no doubt for whatever dinner the men had planned. She snatched it up, uncaring this time if she burned her hands. As soon as the man who’d been guarding the downstairs came through the entry, she hurled the contents of the pot in his face. He howled with the pain and she threw the pot at him for good measure. Then she was at the back door, which indeed still stood open. She was out a second later, running for her life and for Gabriel’s.

  The pain caught Gabriel by surprise. It came so quickly he didn’t have time to prepare. He clutched his middle and bent over. He glanced up, gasping with the pain. Mora still stood watching him. He saw no victory in her eyes but rather a sad resignation. She thought he was dying.

  “Surrender to it,” she said softly. “Let death take you quickly.”

  Would the change come faster if he did what she suggested? If he surrendered rather than fought? Gabriel closed his eyes and willed the wolf to him. The curse that had hovered over him and shaped his life, had once stolen his dreams and his future. How he hated the beast that prowled beneath his skin, but this once he must surrender. He must bow down. His pride fought the notion, for it whispered of the weaknesses he detested in others. The weaknesses within himself.

  Fangs lengthened in his mouth. He felt them with his tongue. As he stared at Mora through the haze of pain consuming him, he saw the moment she realized he was not dying … he was changing. Her eyes widened. She took a step back, although he imagined it was an unconscious gesture.

  His eyes burned inside his skull. Claws burst through the skin of his fingertips and he nearly shouted out with the pain. Instead, he held them up for her to see.

  “You didn’t plan on this, did you?” he asked, his voice raw and garbled.

  “You are one of us,” she whispered, clearly shocked.

  “Never,” he growled. “I am cursed! I do not choose to become this monster inside of me. But for Amelia, for her life, I gladly embrace it.”

  The pain was excruciating, but he kept his focus on Mora and what she would do now that she knew she wasn’t dealing with a dying man, but a creature, not unlike herself. She didn’t do what he expected. She didn’t shift her shape and become a beast. She ran from him. The pain in his leg was nothing compared to the pain of transformation, but Gabriel forced himself to rise from the bed. He must rescue Amelia, if it was the last thing he ever did in this life.

  Amelia ran. She had to reach Gabriel. She had to protect him from Mora, if it wasn’t already too late. The thought of him weak and sick, at Mora’s mercy, propelled Amelia toward the cottage at a speed she would have once never suspected she possessed.

  Shouts sounded behind her. An alarm had been raised. Amelia picked up her skirts and picked up her speed. The boots were harder to run in than her dainty slippers. They were heavier and too big. Still, she managed as best she could, pushing herself onward toward the cottage. She knew the creatures were now aware that the cottage was where she and Gabriel had been hiding, but she had to save Gabriel. How she would accomplish that without a weapon of any kind, against a woman who was no ordinary woman, she didn’t know. Only that she must try.

  Crashing through the woods, Amelia nearly co
llided with a dark shape. She barely avoided running into the wolf. The animal hesitated, turning back toward her, and Amelia’s heart rose in her throat. The animal bared its fangs and growled low. At one blessedly ignorant time, Amelia might have thought it was simply a wolf. She knew better now. She had a feeling she knew who this particular wolf was, as well.

  “Mora?” she croaked.

  The wolf lunged and knocked her to the ground. It was on top of her a moment later, snarling down into her face. The creature was going to kill her. The animal’s breath didn’t smell like raw meat, as had that of the man who had attacked Amelia at Collingsworth Manor. Oddly enough, the creature smelled like the perfume Amelia had once worn. Her mind still had trouble grasping that a person could shift their shape and become someone or something else.

  Could Mora reason while in wolf form? If she could easily shift her form back and forth, Amelia had to assume Mora could think rationally even when she took on the guise of a wolf. Staring into the glowing eyes of the beast, Amelia could only do one thing. Appeal to the person she once knew as Mora.

  “Let me go to him,” she said. “Please, Mora. I know you really don’t want to hurt either of us. Whatever you are, you are still human.”

  The wolf growled again, lowering its fangs dangerously close to Amelia’s neck. She felt its breath, the warmth of saliva that dripped from its mouth. Amelia was mesmerized by the glittering gaze of the wolf. Mora’s eyes, she realized.

  “We were friends,” Amelia whispered. “I cared about you. I trusted you.”

  She had no idea if the wolf understood her words, but she reasoned Mora surely understood her fear. Even an animal sensed that in a person. The wolf stared at her a moment longer; then it climbed down from on top of her. Amelia was afraid to move. Afraid Mora would reconsider. The wolf abruptly glanced up; then it was gone, like a wisp of smoke in the darkness.

  Amelia scrambled up. She pressed a hand to her pounding heart, then turned to run in the direction of the cottage. She only made it a step when she drew up short and screamed. A tall shadow stood among the trees.

  “Amelia?”

  “Gabriel,” she said with a sigh of relief. Her first instinct was to rush toward him. To fling herself into his arms. She was never so happy to see anyone in her life.

  “Don’t,” he said when she took a step toward him. “Run, Amelia. And keep running, no matter what you see or hear.”

  His voice sounded odd. Not quite like him. And how on earth had he managed to rise from bed, much less walk out into the woods? She thought he was dying when she left him.

  “How—”

  “Go now!”

  “Not without you,” she argued.

  “I will follow,” he said. “We are in the woods again. Do as I say.”

  She wanted to argue further. Amelia hadn’t done all she’d done to leave him behind. There wasn’t time to waste; she knew that and so did he. The others would be upon them at any moment. Either as men or as wolves.

  “Promise me you’ll follow,” she said.

  “Go!”

  He almost growled the word at her. Amelia tugged up the hem of her skirt, tied it around her waist, and ran. She knew she couldn’t return to the cottage. They wouldn’t be safe there now. She hoped she was headed east. A glance over her shoulder and she saw the tall shadow following. At least he hadn’t lied about that. How he could follow at all was still not something she understood. There wasn’t time to contemplate the matter. There was only time to run. It was dark, but the full moon overhead helped light her way, although the trees cast shadows and she still had to be careful.

  Behind her, she heard the howls of wolves. They were close. Too close. Amelia glanced behind her again. She didn’t see Gabriel. Had she moved too quickly for him? Had his leg given out? She stopped, dragging air into her lungs. Suddenly the sounds of animals fighting split the night. Or she thought it was the sound of animals fighting. Perhaps it was the sound of the wolves attacking Gabriel. Amelia went to the ground; she frantically searched for some type of weapon. The only thing she came up with was a large stick. Grasping it in her hand, she turned to retrace her steps.

  A wolf suddenly appeared on the path behind her. A large wolf. Survival instincts came rushing to the surface, and Amelia ran. She doubted if the stick would ward off the beast. She also doubted that she could outrun it, but she pushed onward, fear driving her when her legs and lungs would have given out.

  While she ran, she kept expecting the animal to lunge on her back and take her down, like felled prey. A glance over her shoulder told her the animal was still there. But it didn’t seem to be chasing her. It seemed to be following her. And it was limping. She continued to run, jumping over fallen logs, tripping once when she stepped in a rabbit hole, but scrambling back up to run again.

  She had a stitch in her side and her breathing sounded ragged a while later. Her legs were weak and shaky. She needed to stop and catch her breath, but she was afraid to. Where could she go where a wolf couldn’t go? And if she did find somewhere to hide, would the wolf simply turn into a man and come after her? Where was Gabriel? Wherever he was, there was a wolf between her and him. She had to stop at least long enough for Gabriel to catch up. Maybe the two of them together could protect each other from the beast that trailed her.

  It had been years since Amelia climbed a tree. Not since she was a young girl trying to steal her father’s affection away from her younger brother. She’d thought if she could shoot and ride and climb trees as well as a boy, her father would consider her worthy of his much-needed attention. Of course later in life she understood that he loved her, cherished her in fact; he was just a busy man.

  He had his duty. Her mother had her duty, and they both had expected Amelia to have hers, as well. “Duty,” however, was sometimes a cold and unfeeling word. Love was warm and real, and her parents, if she survived this journey, would not be happy with any affiliation she might have with Gabriel Wulf. And she did plan to have an affiliation with him. She hoped it would be a very long one.

  That Amelia would be thinking such thoughts at all strongly suggested she had gone insane since she had become wed and widowed. Perhaps her mind simply needed a break from the constant stress of running for her life. Her dress still hiked up, and thankful for the boots even if they were too big, Amelia chose a tall tree and proceeded to climb it. She hadn’t gotten far when the wolf appeared below her. Sudden fear chased all other thoughts away. She climbed higher, then perched on a branch, staring down, waiting for the wolf to shift its shape and come after her.

  The beast simply sat, staring up at her. She stared back, feeling far from safe and wondering if climbing the tree had been a good idea. She must come back down at some point. Squinting through the darkness, she used her higher vantage point to search the woods behind her. She saw no sign of Gabriel. God, had he fallen ill again? Had he been captured? She wanted to backtrack and find out, but she was in a sticky situation herself.

  After a few moments of staring up at her, the wolf rose and limped off into the night. Amelia wouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet. She didn’t feel safe and wondered if she’d ever feel safe again. Exhausted, she positioned her back against the thick trunk of the tree, allowing her legs to dangle on either side of the branch on which she sat. She closed her eyes for a moment. Just for a moment, then she would get up the nerve to climb back down and go in search of Gabriel.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Amelia came awake with a start. She tried to sit up straight, but the ground beneath her looked a long way off. She would have fallen had she not instinctively reached out and grasped a sturdy branch to stop herself. Morning had come, and once again, she was surprised to be alive to see it. She searched the ground below. No sign of a wolf. When she moved, her muscles put up a protest. She was stiff and sore from sleeping in a tree, but things could be much worse. Of course they could be much better, as well. Gabriel could be with her, and the fact that he wasn’t was the only thing that moti
vated her to climb down from the tree and face the world again or, rather, the world as she’d come to know it.

  Once she climbed down and dropped from the tree, she stood very still, listening, as Gabriel had often done on their trek to Wulfglen. Amelia was beginning to wonder if such a place really existed. If a world outside the forest, where normal people carried on about the business of their lives none the wiser that men and women could shift into animals and even other people, existed. She realized she could never go back to that world again and be who she was before. Not knowing what she now knew.

  To her left she heard a twig snap. Her head swung in that direction. Her nostrils flared slightly, as if she might be an animal trying to catch the scent of danger. She was poised for flight when he appeared through the cover of thick foliage. Amelia’s knees, weak to begin with, nearly buckled beneath her. He limped toward her, his green eyes blending with the forest. Gabriel needed a shave and his clothes were torn in several places. Still, he managed to somehow resemble the prince from her dreams.

  “Gabriel,” she breathed; then she raced toward him.

  He limped faster and when they met, she threw herself into his arms. “I thought you were captured, or worse,” she whispered, and suddenly she couldn’t hold back the tears.

  His strong arms went around her and he pulled her close. “Thank God you’re all right.”

  Amelia clung to him. “What happened to you?” she asked. “Where did you go? I thought you were following me, then I didn’t see you, and a wolf was there. I climbed a tree to escape it.”

  He ran his hand over her hair. “Did the wolf try to hurt you?”

  She pulled back to look at him. “No. And that was the strange thing. It just stared at me, then limped off into the night.”