The next night. An isolated manor farm outside Sheffield.
A tiny sound woke Hal from a nightmare. Grateful for the end of reliving his desperate pleas to the elves, he lifted his head from his nest of blankets before the fire. He’d slept in worse places than the hard flagstone floor of a farm kitchen. At least he was warm on this rainy March midnight.
The ease of the warmth had not soothed his troubled spirit. If only he had not protected himself with magic, the elvish spell would have released him from his curse. If only he had fought Yassimine to the end rather than succumbing to her femininity, he would have robbed The Master of his most powerful weapon.
If only...…
His nose worked when his eyes and ears failed him.
“Yassimine.”
“Yes,” she whispered in that slightly lisping accent. She spoke Spanish slightly better than English. Neither tongue came easily to her.
But Hal needed no language to understand her words. She spoke to the wolf within him and he comprehended more than mere words.
She padded into the large kitchen on bare feet, wearing only the thinnest of linen shifts. The faint musk underlying her perfume awakened his body.
“Leave me.” He flopped onto his side with his back to her. He knew what she wanted and hated himself for wanting it, too.
If only he had stolen the magical girdle from Dr. Dee, he could use this moment to reverse the curse. But the scholar had guarded the piece closely for many days after Hal took his leave of the man. As if he knew Hal intended to spirit the magical girdle away.
A new thought sprang to life fully blown. He rolled onto his back and stared at her.
The faintest of blushes flushed her bosom above the loose ties of her shift.
“We need to finish what we started, Hal,” she said. She slipped closer to him. The low flames from the fire played with the shadows beneath her shift.
His body stirred. He no longer fought the lust she aroused in him.
“And what would that be?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the crests of her breasts. Under his gaze they peaked into tight knots.
“This.” She shrugged out of the shift. The fine linen dropped to the floor in a shimmering puddle. Firelight turned her swarthy skin to rosy gold. Long legs enticed his gaze upward.
She stood before him, unashamed, bold, brazen, and eager.
He rose to his knees. The blankets fell away from his own nude body. He pressed his lips to her thighs and higher, tasting her need. His tongue flicked out across the dark triangle at the junction of her thighs.
She groaned. He cupped her bottom with his hands and drew her closer. His tongue probed deeper.
“Slower, my love,” Yassimine whispered. She dropped to her own knees and kissed him deeply, cradling his head with both her hands.
He explored her breasts with sensitive fingers.
They collapsed onto the blankets, mouths still locked together.
The burning itch at his groin grew and built. His entire body felt on fire. Every touch inflamed his skin, made his joints ache.
They tangled and rolled among the blankets.
He needed to transform.
As if he had spoken of his need, he felt fur sprout from her golden skin. She snarled and nipped at his shoulder. He let the wolf take him. One nip to her chest and she flipped over, tail tucked along her back.
No more time for play and preparation. She wanted him. Now. He needed to bind her to him.
Some small sense of humanity urged him to prolong the experience, drive her near to desperation.
He licked her back and ears while pressing one paw at her opening.
She snarled for him to get on with it.
He worried her ear with tongue and teeth.
She wiggled to press against him.
He raked his claws along her belly, felt her teats swell beneath his touch. Then he drew his tongue along the inside of her back legs.
She whimpered.
The need pressed against him. The last of his humanity faded as he plunged into her.
The moment he withdrew, sated and tired, yet eager for more, she pulled away from him. In one blurring motion she transformed, gathered her shift and ran back to the bedchambers above.
Hal fell back onto the blankets, in his human body once more, with a smile on his face. On the morrow he’d maneuver The Master to visit Dr. Dee. The first ritual had needed one girdle, one for the werewolf to give to the victim. To reverse the spell, Hal needed two. He and Yassimine must exchange them and then cast them off, symbolically rejecting their wolves.
He had not Deirdre’s fine touch with devising spells, but he knew the elements and the manner. The next time Yassimine came to him, he’d be prepared to reverse them both back to humanity.
o0o
March 1580, the night before the dark of the moon, north by northwest of London.
From London, Michael and I rode almost due north to Cambridge. With prime horseflesh between our knees, the miles dropped behind us with ease. A little compulsion touching the minds of our mounts kept them running happily far longer than most steeds. At Cambridge, we stopped for the night and rested our horses.
We spent the hours in each other’s arms, tender and companionable.
Then we turned northwest and rode cross-country toward Sheffield. Coffa ran ahead of us, sensing the way. She kept our course true with the single-minded obstinacy that only a wolfhound can demonstrate. She had our quarry in mind and nothing would deter her. Her resentment piled on top of me in layers of guilt whenever we paused to water the horses or stretch our cramped knees. We wasted time and daylight. The hunt was up.
“Why is it that your dog is the shiest and meekest of animals back home, but turn her loose and she becomes a mightier huntress than Diana?” Michael quipped with a broad smile.
We dared not stop in the tiny hamlet near the manor. Upper Snivelton, a few miles up the road, offered a larger, more comfortable inn and anonymity.
Or so we thought. Milord the Earl of Oxford had the same plan, along with his coconspirator Robert Parsons.
The two arrived within half an hour of us. Coffa’s fur bristled along her spine and she pushed the shutters open in the tiny window of our attic room. She growled to alert me. I dragged myself off the bed, half-clad, to see what alarmed her. One glance into the forecourt and I knew we must walk warily. Oxford might dismiss us as beneath his concern, but Parsons had observed Michael and me at close hand. Jesuit trained, he would remember everything and everyone he encountered in fine detail.
The landlord escorted them to the large parlor room on the first floor above the taproom. The moment they closed the door, Michael and I scuttled down the creaking staircase to the kitchen. We ordered journey food instead of our supper and departed quickly.
By sundown we dismounted in the shadow of the isolated castle. Lights glinted beneath the shutters of the tower rooms. A fine drizzle masked our presence.
“Do we wait for the attack?” Michael asked. He scanned the landscape with a soldier’s eye to tactics. “Oxford will use his title to gain entry for himself and a small troop. Then he’ll lower the drawbridge for the rest of his men.”
“I would rather divert the small army before they arrive.” I still had not told my husband that the leader of the army was my own uncle.
“How? They have a quest fueled by fanaticism.”
“I’ll think of something.” I’d use magic to put them to sleep, no matter the consequences.
We tied the horses and struck out on foot. Michael wanted to go south and then east because the path was gentler. I tried to explain that he chose to walk widdershins. Unlucky. Counter to any magic I might need to work.
Reluctantly, he followed me on the deasil path; north and then east. We stumbled through heavy brush, making so much noise our quarry must hear us from a mile away.
The rain came heavier, soaking through our coats and turning our path into sticky mud.
“We should have gone the other way,” Michael grumbled. He tripped on something and grabbed an overhanging branch to keep his balance. His grip sent a shower of collected drops down on his head. He cursed in three languages.
I glared at him.
Coffa ran back to lick his face. I felt her mirth at Michael’s discomfiture. He only cursed more.
Then Coffa pricked her ears and looked into the near distance. She lifted her lip in a silent snarl.
I shushed Michael with a gesture.
He cut off his stream of invective in mid-word.
Instinctively, I tapped into Coffa’s greater sense of smell and hearing. Horses. Many horses. Barely one hundred yards ahead and to our right. Between us and the manor.
Michael had come up beside me and touched my lips with his fingertips. I placed my own finger on his mouth “Many horses. Too many,” I mouthed the words. He would understand. We had communicated like this many times in our travels. We had tried telepathy. But he could not read my mind as I did his.
So we read with fingertips the silent words formed by our lips.
“An army,” he replied silently.
“Why so many?”
“Escape or rebellion?”
“Escape.” I prayed I was right.
I did not believe Uncle Donovan so desperate to be with Mary that he would sacrifice all that he held dear, and betray his queen and his birthright. If my uncle had been so inclined, he would have done so years ago when Mary was held closer to Kirkenwood and the border of Scotland.
“We need to separate the troops from their leader.” Without waiting for my husband’s agreement, I crept forward. Coffa’s nose guided me to the fringes of the armed escort.
We had expected twenty men—two dozen at the most. Nearly one hundred awaited orders. They stood at attention beside their horses waiting for orders to mount. Stern Northmen one and all. They wore steel breastplates and helms. They carried broadswords in utilitarian leather sheaths, not the ornamental toys worn by courtiers. The horses still carried the shaggy coats of harsh northern winters.
Many of the men openly wore crosses on thongs around their necks or painted on their armor. Catholics.
A casual observer would assume these men were Scots ready to restore Mary to her throne or conquer England in the name of their church.
One hundred men could protect a queen as she fled to some safe haven. They had not enough numbers to mount a revolution.
Frantically, I sought their leader. Uncle Donovan must truly be desperate. Or deluded by Oxford’s pretty promises.
None of the men in the deep ranks stood out as a leader. Coffa had never met my uncle, could not pick out his scent among so many strangers. Daunted by their numbers, my familiar cowered behind me. She’d been trained for spying, not warfare.
The Kirkenwood dogs were all bred and trained for hunting and war. I could not imagine Uncle Donovan marching with an army without dogs. One dog for each ten men. We trained them that way.
But the lieutenants, Uncle Donovan’s closest aides might have dogs as well.
I set Coffa to searching for a concentration of dogs. She found three toward the back of the ranks where the land rose slightly.
Following her line of scent, I cast out my own senses sniffing for the presence of magic. There! Very faint, but definitely my uncle working a scrying spell. I presumed he looked for Mary within the rambling manor. He needed to locate her before he stormed the walls.
Michael followed me without question as I worked my way around the army. I had to stop or divert my uncle before Oxford arrived. Before he committed himself to treason.
I sent out a mental probe. Uncle Donovan should have had enough magical talent to receive.
Instead, I hooked Hal.