The Cursed One (21 page)

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Authors: Ronda Thompson

BOOK: The Cursed One
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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.
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 motivated 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.”
“We must get moving,” he said. “They're still behind us. We're not that far from Wulfglen. They know they must stop us before we reach the estate.”
She wanted a moment longer in his arms. A moment
to simply feel him pressed against her. To know he was alive and there with her. She could face anything as long as he was beside her. Gently he pushed her away.
“We must go, Amelia,” he repeated. “Now.”
Her moment of heaven had ended. Hell waited for them and Amelia could face that, as well, as long as she wasn't alone. He took her hand in his and together they set off toward the east. They moved as quickly as his injury allowed, but he seemed better. Certainly he wasn't burning up with fever anymore. It must have broken at some point.
“Did Mora come to you?” Amelia asked. “Did she try to kill you?”
“Do you know what she is?”
“Yes,” Amelia answered. “She is one of them. She's the reason we weren't attacked sooner than we were. She wanted time with me, to study me. She plans to take my place among society.”
Gabriel frowned. “Well, she's not with us now, so they won't be holding back anymore. If we are confronted with them, I want you to run and not look back.”
She squeezed his hand. “I know I'm supposed to follow your orders when we are in the woods, but I'm not leaving you again. I shouldn't have left you last night. I would have died had something happened to you.”
He stopped, turning to face her. “You would have died had you not done exactly what you did. I know you have courage, Amelia. I also know you are smart. I don't want you to waste your life on me.”
What a thing to say to her. Amelia was momentarily stunned. “You would waste yours on me,” she said.
“My life is already wasted.”
What was he saying? Did he not have the same dreams and hopes that she had? That they would manage to reach safety and spend the rest of their lives together, wiser than most for all that had happened to them but also stronger? Stronger together.
“You don't love me,” she suddenly understood. Just because she loved him didn't mean he must love her in return. And that perhaps was what her mother had wished to spare her from. The pain that suddenly erupted inside of her heart.
“Now is not the time,” he clipped, pulling her along behind him.
Amelia drew up, tugging her hand from his. “When is the time, Gabriel? We don't even know if we will see tomorrow. When if not now?”
His gaze softened for a moment. He swallowed. Then he glanced away and set his jaw. “Come on. I'm hoping we can reach Wulfglen before nightfall.”
Amelia knew it would only prove how silly and spoiled she could still be to argue with him. She followed, not allowing him to hold her hand this time. What if they did manage to reach Wulfglen? Did he expect her to return to London, to society, and pretend they had never made love? They had never shared this adventure together? She couldn't return to that life. She wanted to stay with him. She wanted to wear men's trousers and boots and ride horses with him. She wanted to get to know him, and it suddenly struck her that she didn't know him, not really.
“Tell me your hopes and dreams,” she said, because if she was going to die, she wanted to die at least knowing that about him.
He sighed. “Amelia, we can make better time if we don't use the energy to speak to one another.”
“I need to know them,” she insisted. “It won't hurt you to—”
“I don't have any,” he interrupted. “Drop the matter, Amelia.”
She would not drop the matter. “Why don't you have any hopes or dreams? Everyone does.”
Gabriel stopped and turned to face her. “I don't. I don't because I have never allowed myself to have them. They are a foolish pastime for people who have nothing better to do. For those who cannot accept their lives as they are. For those who cannot accept themselves the way they are.”
His bleak words stunned her. “By all means be forthright,” she responded in the same dry tone he often used. “It isn't normal for you to feel this way,” she added. “You do realize that, don't you?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “There are a good many things about me that aren't normal. You do realize that, don't you?”
Yes, she did. Besides the fact that his family was shunned by society—that he chose to hide himself away at the country estate, which made him different from most men Amelia associated with, he also had strange abilities. She knew at times he could hear things that she could not. See things that she could not. Even smell things that she could not. He had that intoxicating scent about him that drew her … that would draw any woman, she supposed.
His eyes didn't always look quite right, especially in the evenings. Amelia didn't count any of those things a
reason not to love him. As a reason for him to set himself apart from the rest of society and give up having hopes and dreams.
“I told you that I like people who are not like everyone else,” she said. “But everyone should have dreams and hopes to see them through the hard times in their lives.”
Gabriel looked over his shoulder again and lifted a brow. “Have you had many hard times up until now, Amelia?”
He was being difficult today. She wondered if his leg was hurting again. They were moving at a brisk pace despite his limping. “Not many,” she admitted.
“And I suppose you married Robert because he was different.” He made a snorting noise. “He was as straight an arrow as you would ever find.”
That was true. There hadn't been anything unique or interesting about Robert. Still, it wasn't polite to speak ill of the dead, and he had been her husband … for a day. “Vincent killed him,” she said. “The creatures have a physician among them in London. He knew Robert's heart was weak. They left his body in the fields to go along with a story Mora planned to concoct when she showed up at Wulfglen upset about her missing husband. They have it all planned out, Gabriel.”
In front of her, he stopped again. He took a moment to run his hands through his hair before turning to face her. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I shouldn't have said that about him. He was a good man. At least he was once a good friend. I shouldn't have said what I did about you, either. You have been subjected to more than even most men could endure since your wedding night. You have
held up better than most could have, as well. You are truly unique, Amelia, and you shouldn't be here. You should be in a London drawing room charming all around you, as you charm me.”
He found her charming? Amelia supposed that was at least something. She would rather he love her, as she loved him. Maybe she had to finally resign herself to the fact that she could not always have exactly what she wanted. She certainly didn't want her current situation.
“We should get moving,” Gabriel said. He took her hand again. Amelia allowed the contact, the feel of her smaller hand in his larger, stronger one.
Perhaps there were things about Gabriel Wulf she should question, and lord knew she had more she wanted to discuss with him. Such as how he could be dying yesterday and walking through the woods with her today? Where had he been last night? Why were his clothes torn? How had he escaped from Mora? They were all questions Amelia would ask him, if they did reach Wulfglen.
For now, he was right. She barely had the energy to put one foot in front of the other and move as quickly as he pushed her. Trying to pry more information from Gabriel when his mind was set on one thing and one thing only would merely exhaust her further.
 
Gabriel knew Amelia had questions. He didn't have an
swers. None that he wanted to share with her. All he could concentrate on at the moment was getting her closer to Wulfglen. Getting her to safety. Then he would have to deal with his own problems. The leg was
surprisingly better. His fever must have broken at some point, maybe when the change came upon him.
He'd battled the pain while he followed Amelia through the woods; then things became hazy. He didn't remember anything else until he woke this morning, again naked and shivering. He'd backtracked and found his clothing, ripped and luckily not too far off the path he knew Amelia had taken.
Once he'd dressed and his head began to clear, he realized he could have hurt her. Gabriel feared nothing as much as he had feared what he might have done to Amelia while he was in wolf form. And yet he would hurt her emotionally. He must, for her own good. He had nothing to offer her before the curse had come crashing down upon him. He certainly had nothing now. Searching his heart, he had to admit that what had happened to him embarrassed him more than anything.
He'd worked hard all of his life to make himself strong. He'd shut off his emotions; he'd kept his distance from society. And still, he was not strong enough to resist love, to fight down the beast inside of him. Both had defeated him. He wasn't angry at Amelia. She was simply irresistible to him. He was angry at himself.
And he was bracing himself for their inevitable separation should they reach Wulfglen alive. He didn't want her to know the truth. She loved him, or so she said. Why she would was beyond his understanding. He was nothing like the dandies who no doubt had chased after her in London. He was nothing like anyone she knew. Except for Mora, and now Amelia despised
the girl she had once taken beneath her wing. Just as she would despise Gabriel if she learned the truth about him.
“Wait.” Amelia suddenly halted.
“What is it?” he asked her.
“I thought I saw something from the corner of my eye,” she whispered. “Shadows moving from tree to tree.”
Gabriel pulled her behind him. He'd been lost in the turmoil of his thoughts and had lowered his guard. Again, not like him. He listened. The forest was quiet. Too quiet. His gaze scanned the surrounding area. Nothing moved, which was strange in itself. He closed his eyes and sniffed the air. At first he smelled nothing unusual; then a scent drifted to him on the slight breeze. Amelia's perfume.
Gabriel opened his eyes, turned to Amelia, and said, “Run!”
He didn't wait for her to react. Gabriel grabbed her hand and took off, pulling her behind him. She might not have been able to keep up, but although his leg was better, he wasn't completely healed. They heard the crush of boots behind them now. The shouts of one man to another. For whatever reason, the others did not come after them in the form of wolves but as men. Gabriel wondered if they were controlled by the night, the moon, as he was.
He didn't see the trap until it was too late: men in the trees above them. Two large nets dropped from the sky. Gabriel was forced to let go of Amelia's hand, hoping to keep the net from entangling him, but it was
heavy and well-knit. Beside him, Amelia struggled with her own net. Her face was ashen, her eyes large with fear. Damn, he had failed her again. They were captives.

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