Dawn Thompson (29 page)

There!
Joss said.
Something is moving in that bed of bracken
. He prowled closer, his ears pricked toward the muffled sound coming from the groundcover ahead.

Milosh sniffed the air, regal white head raised, his thick fur spangled with the first flakes of new-falling snow in the fractured rays of moonlight. Joss could not help but be in awe of his mentor, just as his father had been before him. The legendary Gypsy was more wolf than vampire now, after so many centuries under the protection of the blood moon ritual. Would Joss be as well? If only he knew. If only he could be sure; but he could not, and what worried him most was that Milosh evidently wasn’t sure either.

“Let me out!” a voice cried—Cora’s voice!

Joss leaked a high-pitched whine.

Milosh snorted.
It is she!
he said.
We’ve found her. Hurry!

Joss didn’t wait to reply. Bounding over the snow-crusted clumps of bracken and gorse, he reached the root cellar and leapt up upon it. Cora had only lifted the door a crack, and his weight pushed it closed again. Ignoring her scream, he began clawing at the large, flat stone that weighted down the door of the dilapidated underground structure. By the time Milosh reached him, his paws were bleeding from clawing at the stone.

Milosh jumped up alongside and butted Joss’s shoulder
with his head.
You cannot budge that boulder in wolf form; give over!
he said.

What? And leave her like this?
Joss returned.
Help me here. Together we can free her.

The stone is too great, even if we pool our strength. Look at your claws. You are bleeding. You must change back to lift that boulder. She needs to see this, young whelp. She needs to know.

But not like this
, Joss said.
I have no clothes. I . . .

The white wolf’s low titter, more laugh than growl, cut Joss off. It was Milosh laughing. Of course. Would he ever get used to the Gypsy being privy to his thoughts—to the deepest secrets of his soul? The intimate details of his lovemaking with Cora were foremost in his mind, and nothing was sacred to those who possessed the gift of thought transference and thought invasion.

Whatever put her in there will return,
Milosh said.
Hurry and change
.
You do not have a choice. Do it quickly. Our foes grow nearer.

Joss heard the howling. He needed no reminder. Sebastian had been driven off, but he would not stay away for long. Milosh was right yet again; Joss had to act quickly. Fully aware that Cora could see him through the cracks between the boards, he surged to his full human height in a silvery, bone-crunching streak, tossed the boulder off the slanted root cellar door and gripped the iron ring to raise it.

Below, Cora staggered back from the opening at sight of him silhouetted naked against the snow, though she didn’t swoon as he’d expected. She did sway, however, and Joss leapt down and seized her in his arms. That extracted another raw scream from her throat. She trembled from head to toe, every inch of her body quivering as he crushed her to him.

“Do not scream,” he cautioned her. “You are safe. It is me.”

“What did I just see?” Cora demanded, straining against his embrace. “Where is the gray wolf that just clawed on that door? And that other there, the white one. Is that . . . ?”

“Milosh, yes,” Joss said. “We were looking for you.”

“I do not understand what just happened here,” Cora repeated.

“I know,” Joss murmured against her brow. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way, but circumstances necessitated it. A wolf could not raise the stone, but a man could. Never mind that now. Who brought you here, Cora? And what were you doing out of the Abbey in the first place?”

“Never mind?” Cora cried. “I have just seen you emerge from the body of a wolf! Who are you, Joss Hyde-White?
What
are you?”

Joss winced. Her words wounded him to the core, but there was no time to address it. He was standing naked with the woman he loved in his arms, but no matter what he said, she would not be ready to hear it.

“I will explain, Cora,” he said, “but not here. Not now. How did you put yourself in such a position? I need to know
now
. . . before those wolves come any nearer. What ever possessed you to leave the Abbey?”

“I . . . I saw the fire. I thought you were in danger.”

“And just what did you think you could have done if I was?”

“I . . . I don’t know. Come to your aid, I suppose. I . . . I couldn’t just stand there imagining you trapped in the midst of that fire. But that doesn’t matter now. Don’t change the subject. What did I just see here, Joss? Where are your clothes? It is freezing. Are you mad?”

Joss hesitated, pulling her closer in his arms, inhaling the scent of roses in her hair, drifting from her skin. Despite his anger that she had put herself at risk, he was on fire for her, as castaway by her closeness as a lord in his cups.

Quickly, young whelp,
Milosh’s stern voice ghosted across Joss’s mind.
Danger comes, we must away.

Joss ignored them both. “Was it Sebastian who brought you here?” he demanded, shaking her gently. “I must know, Cora. We have driven him off, but he will soon return, and we are at a disadvantage with you in the middle of this. What did he look like?”

“Clive Clement seized me first,” she said. “Then . . . a dreadful creature drove him off. They rode a vicious horse. It . . . the animal, it tried to bite me!”

“It didn’t, did it, Cora?” he urged, shaking her again. “Tell me you haven’t been bitten!”

She shook her head that she had not, but the terror in her eyes was clear. “What did it look like, this creature?”

“He was tall and bald headed,” she began. “He wore ill-fitting clothes that hung on his frame, and his skin was chalk white. It had a greenish cast. It looked and smelled like mold, and I could see the blood running in his veins through it.” She shuddered in Joss’s arms, and he pulled her closer, fully aware of his hard sex pressing against her belly. “His eyes,” she went on. “They glowed red and they were sunken in deep shadows—ugly, dark circles for sockets. He was hideous, Joss, and his
fangs
.”

Milosh growled from the ledge above.
Sebastian.

“I . . . I don’t understand any of this,” Cora sobbed.

Joss swooped down, buried his hands in her long, fragrant hair, and took her lips with all of his pent-up passion. Her mouth felt like hot silk as his tongue explored
it, stroking hers, drawing it into his mouth. She tasted honey sweet, with a touch of rose milk like that which his mother used to make of cow’s milk and rose hips, distilled to create an elixir for the bath.

Young whelp!
Milosh’s sharp voice speared Joss’s mind. It was all Joss could do to tear his lips from Cora’s, all he could do to restrain himself from laying her down on the root cellar floor and ravishing her then and there. His breathing was painful and shallow, his heart racing so he feared it would leap from his breast. His manhood grew and throbbed until he was certain it would burst, and sweat beaded on his brow despite the bitter wind puffing against his naked skin.

Joss lifted his lips from Cora’s and crushed her close against his heaving chest, sparing her the sight of his fangs. Their infernal appearance brought bitter tears to his eyes. He would spare her that sight as well.

“The creature you saw here earlier,” he murmured, struggling to control his rapid breathing, “was Sebastian Valentin in his true form—what the centuries have made of him.” Ignoring her gasp, he went on quickly. “As I said before, he infected my mother and my father, though he did not complete their ‘making.’ He is obsessed with finishing what he started . . . and in their absence, he is settling for me. One good thing has come of it. He has used you to bring me to him, and so you have his obsession with the Hyde-Whites to thank that you are still untouched. Now, then! The rest we will speak of after I have you safely back to the Abbey. Where is Sentinel, the horse that brought you here?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Cora despaired. “And it doesn’t matter. It was evil, I tell you. I shan’t go near it again.”

“Ahhh, but that horse was mine before it was bitten. I
raised it myself, as I did most of the others that had to be consigned to the flames back at the Abbey.” He couldn’t help but desire the beast’s redemption—or destruction, if it came to that.

“I will walk before I climb upon that creature’s back again,” Cora announced unequivocally.

There is no time for this!
Milosh reminded Joss.
We must go. Now. Give over thoughts of the horse; it is yours no longer. Sebastian commands it now. Change back and let Cora ride you. She cannot walk; it is too far. She will be frostbitten before we ever reach the kirkyard in those thin clothes and shoes. It is that, or we stay here until dawn and see how many can bear the light of day.

Joss gave it thought. His dire wolf form was certainly large enough to accommodate her, and she petite enough to ride upon his back with ease. But the last thing he wanted was a repeat performance of his transformation. Though he had managed to calm her, she’d been anything but sanguine. He needed to explain—as much as he could explain—but not here, not now. He took her face in both his hands and gazed into her eyes.

“Will you bear with me just a little longer before your explanation, Cora?” he murmured.

She hesitated, then nodded that she would.

“Good!” Joss gushed. “I must do again what I did before. You cannot walk the distance returning; it is too far. I must become the wolf again and carry you to the Abbey on my back. It is a dire wolf—more than large enough to accommodate your weight. Do not be frightened. Once I change, I shall leap out of this hole. You must then climb up and mount me. We must away at once. Do you hear the howling? It grows nearer. Our
enemies will be upon us soon, and I do not mean to frighten you, but the last two we came upon tonight were
not
your companions in that coach. Sebastian and his minions have infected half the village, I’ll wager. Once we reach the Abbey, I will try and explain these mysteries to your satisfaction, but right now what I need from you is blind faith . . . or at the very least, your tolerance until I get us out of here. Do I have it?”

Cora stared slack jawed at Joss. He wanted so much, and she was terrified, but more of the entire circumstance than of him. Somehow she knew he would not harm her. But still . . .

“Stand back,” he charged. “There is no time to take your silence as anything but consent. I shall just have to let my actions speak for me.”

He pushed her gently from him, and while she watched in mute amazement, a silver whirlwind rose around him, blazed, then shrank and blazed again. Before her wide-flung eyes, the man who had just clasped her to his naked body leapt from the root cellar in the form of a great silver-gray wolf with a smoky mask, and joined the white wolf on the brink above.

Cora could not keep the gasp within her cold-parched throat. Both wolves stared down at her in silence, but it wasn’t those two but the not-too-distant howls of other wolves that set her in motion. Scarcely believing what she was doing, she scrambled out of the root cellar, climbed upon the gray wolf’s back, fisted her tiny hands in his thick, black-tipped ruff, and held on for dear life. It leapt off through the deep, drifted snow. As bizarre as it was, Milosh’s white wolf presence loping alongside was a comfort.

They passed through the brake and the thicket without incident. Soft, silent snow was fluttering down. The wind had died, and the air was so still that Cora could hear the gentle sound the tiny snowflakes made falling all around. This seemed an otherworldly wonderland, sparkling with sugary frost. In any other circumstance, it would have been a breathtaking experience she and Joss were sharing. Instead, it was a nightmarish journey, fraught with the howling of predatory wolves, and the stars alone knew what else they would face before they reached the Abbey.

Entering the eerie green darkness of the forest, they found the atmosphere suddenly changed. The snowflakes did not penetrate the thick, interlaced treetops that shut out the night sky above, and the only light came from that which was reflected back from the drifted snow. The only sound was that of the two wolves’ feet crunching through the snow and ice-crusted leaves, padding along at a steady pace, weaving in and out among the trees’ black trunks. The howling seemed stronger now, though Cora saw no sign of the howlers. She kept a close eye upon Milosh’s white wolf—upon the way he seemed to scan the terrain in all directions without breaking his stride. She didn’t need to see the expression on the gray wolf’s face to read its demeanor. Every sinew in its body was stretched to its limit. Its hackles were raised, and the ruff Cora clutched as it sped through the forest was standing on end. Try as she would, she could not join man to beast. Though she’d seen Joss become the creature beneath her with her own eyes, she could not join them in her mind. They were two separate entities—they had to be, or she would lose her mind.

All at once, the white wolf growled, jarring Cora’s train of thought. She glanced about. The wolf beneath her must have felt her tense, because he stiffened, the fine hairs along the back of his spine standing on end. Adrenaline surged through her body, and she found herself searching among the trees, not even knowing what she was searching for. It wasn’t long before she realized what had captured their attention. Shadow shapes were weaving in and out among the trees; shadow shapes with iridescent, red-rimmed, acid-green eyes. They were closing in from all sides; some animal, some human. The only consolation was that they were moving slowly, almost mindlessly.

The wolf beneath her picked up speed, as did Milosh, running so close alongside that it almost seemed joined to the gray. Cora no longer felt secure on the gray wolf’s back, and she threw her arms around his thick neck and clung with all her strength, her face buried in the thick mane of black-tipped silver fur. It smelled clean, of the crisp, cold North Country air . . . and of
him
—of Joss. They
were
one and the same. How could she bear it?