“You should go back,” Caradon said. “Mrs. Felis-Ackert was quite willing to put you up until the authorities drop the search.”
“Oh, you’re not putting me off that easily, Caradon. You’ve tagged along on enough of my excursions. I’m just repaying the favor.”
“It will be quite uninteresting for you…”
“Do you think I could fall for that? If your Captain’s message doesn’t seem suspicious to you, it does to me. Besides, I am curious as to what did happen with that attack on him and the monk at the port.”
He smiled humorlessly. “You do know what they say about curiosity, don’t you?”
They were sitting in another hackney, heading towards Old Amanthus after a brief meeting with Caradon’s solicitor to borrow some funds. Caradon looked like a voluminous black ghost with a pair of sharp eyes as he sat, across from Zan, wrapped up in Del’s enormous greatcoat and hat with a wide brim. Outside, the sky was a deep pink salmon interspersed with lavender clouds. It was close to dusk, and the hour at which the Captain had told Caradon that the meeting would take place.
He had the driver drop them off at the intersection of South Bishop and Orpine in the old city. When Zan stepped off the hackney, a strong gust of wind came up, almost blowing the hat off her head. The wind tugged at Caradon’s coat. In the sky, clouds raced hard, from west to east. The streets, odorous and dank, were shadowed. What few working lampposts in Old Amanthus had not been lit quite yet. Zan tucked her coat closer to her body as she walked with Caradon down South Bishop. She thought she saw something scuttling past her peripheral vision. Was it a beggar or a rat?
After a moment’s consideration, she took off her gloves and tucked them into a pocket. She flexed her fingers and felt the change humming just beneath her skin. How easy it was to let the change just come over her, she mused as she walked down the street. It wasn’t so long ago that she had believed that she had to have complete control over that part of her nature. Exactly when did she finally have the courage to accept that the animal part of her was indeed part of her and not something separate and grotesque? She had been frightened of the change—she admitted that now. The change really was no more a malignant tumor than one of her toes. There were still moments when she automatically tried to suppress its urges, but she was learning to go with its ebbs and flows.
“He said he would be at the intersection with Maudlin.” Caradon’s voice was almost lost with the wind. “It should be the next street.”
Zan looked ahead and saw the intersection. South Bishop was a larger road—big enough to let two carriages pass side by side. Maudlin was far smaller, a brief gash across South Bishop, that looked more like a crevasse that could barely fit even a vegetable cart. The corner was surrounded by narrow, three-story buildings built of brick that was already crumbling under the influence of the old city’s strange malaise. She thought she saw a figure leaning against the wall of one of the buildings. “Is that the Captain?” she said, pointing.
“It must be him.” Caradon quickened his steps and Zan almost had to jog to keep up with him. “Captain Ramon,” he called. Once at the building at the intersection, he reached out to touch the man’s shoulder.
There was something strange about his stance.
“Captain!” Caradon shook the man’s shoulder, but his body slumped against the wall and then fell over. Her patron took a step back and she heard his quick intake of breath.
She looked down. The hat had fallen off the body and she saw the pale face of a man. She recognized him as the Captain who had come to her residence to speak with Caradon on the day that her laboratory had been ransacked. The Captain’s eyes were open, seeing nothing. Her patron crouched down and tugged at the man’s collar. His skin was broken by a black-purple line. Zan suddenly raised a hand to cover her nose and mouth. The poor man had been strangled.
“So it wasn’t his note after all,” Caradon murmured. “So who…”
She felt the hair at the back of her neck raise. In a split second, she whirled around with fists raised. Someone attempted to grab at her wrists. She twisted again and for a brief second, she saw Caradon grappling with another man.
“Look miss,” growled the man in front of her. “Just surrender and no one will be hurt.”
“I just bet,” she replied as she swung her hand across to rake the man’s face with her claws. But he was faster as he finally caught her wrist.
The man laughed and backhanded her, sending her hat flying off into the street. She replied to the slap with a punch in the face with her free hand. She wrung out her fingers as the man momentarily released her and staggered back. Zan darted forward and swung as far as the dress would allow her leg to go and sent him toppling to the ground with a cry.
Her attacker immediately rolled onto his side and curled up as if in a fetal position, but she spotted one of his hands reaching into his coat pocket. She sent another kick, this time into his stomach, and the man howled. A revolver tumbled onto the street. She stomped onto his wrist as he struggled to reach his weapon and picked it up herself.
She pointed the revolver at her attacker’s head. He whimpered.
Zan turned her head to see Caradon make his way toward her, dark gray eyes gleaming with approval. She saw his attacker slouched against the building—unconscious or dead, she could not tell. Her patron reached down to retrieve her hat, dusted it off, and then put it back on her head.
Her attacker was pale and muttering pathetic excuses and apologies. Blood trickled from the man’s nose, staining his chin bright red. For some reason, that made her feel inordinately pleased. Caradon crouched until he was eye to eye with the man. He grinned, showing inhumanly sharp teeth, and her attacker wailed.
“This was a trap, wasn’t it?” Caradon asked in a low, dark tone.
“Y-y-yes,” the man babbled. His eyes darted from Caradon’s face to the end of the revolver’s barrel and then back again. “The note was forged. The Captain was killed. He was a l-l-liability.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t want you around.” His eyes darted back to Zan. “We didn’t count on her being here.”
“Never mind that. Who didn’t want me around? Who’s behind all of this?”
“Don’t know! We just get paid to do the job!”
Instead of yelling at him, Caradon merely raised an eyebrow.
The man swallowed nervously and then blurted out. “It was just some man we met on the street, all right? Southport or Southworth or something like that. He was real religious cause he was all decked out with all that expensive religious jewelry, you know?”
“Hm? And how do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I am telling the truth! Really, I am! He hangs out with the cultie crowd, you know. You might even run into him tonight. The culties are meeting at the Temple around midnight for some big celebration or festival or something.” He paused for a moment to catch his breath and then he said in a small voice. “Are you going to kill me?”
Caradon grinned again. “I’m thinking about it.” Then he punched him and her attacker fell back, unconscious.
When her patron stood back up, Zan tucked the revolver into her pocket with the gloves. “Should we contact someone about these ruffians and the Captain’s body?”
He shook his head. “We’re wanted by the authorities, remember? We’ll let someone else make the discovery. Besides, these goons will wake up soon enough. In the meantime, we should be off. I need to take you back home. This is far too much excitement for a lady.”
“It was invigorating exercise,” she said instead as they turned onto Maudlin and walked south, heading out of the old city. “And we must see what Southmore is up to. Why on earth would he involve himself with the old pagan cults at the Temple?”
“I have no idea. But you are definitely not going up to the Temple tonight to see what Southmore is doing. It is far too dangerous.”
“No it isn’t. Not as long as I have my new friend here,” she replied, patting her pocket.
He gave a rueful chuckle. “I don’t suppose you would give it to me for safe keeping if I asked nicely?”
“Not a chance.”
After a few blocks, the road began to widen and various businesses began to appear as they approached the intersection of Maudlin and South Moule which was only a block away from Market Row—the demarcation between the old city and the rest of Amanthus. The shops were small and the windows dark, indicating that they were already closed. She noticed a shoe shop and a tiny grocery. A pawn shop was still open—a faint glow emitting from windows covered in iron bars. At the intersection, before the other side of Moule, was a tavern named the Black Lion. Patrons were slowly trickling out of the place, stumbling back into the depths of the old city. Across from the tavern was an inn with a sign depicting a sleeping owl. From the sign post, a wind chime glittered and clanked in the stiff wind.
Zan quickened her pace, but Caradon reached the curb a half pace before her. She heard the air sizzle as he took another step and there were sparks that shot out from nowhere to fizzle on the dark ground. He jumped back from the contact, shaken, but apparently unharmed.
“What on earth was that?” she asked.
He looked at the smoking air and shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
She reached out with her hand and the skin on her palm tingled. Energy swirled densely and vertically. She moved her hand side to side, finding no break in the invisible wall. She poked one finger into it and the invisible wall erupted into another shower of sparks. She pulled her hand back to look at her finger, but there were no burns. She put her hand near the barrier again, but she felt no indication that there had been any disturbance.
“What a run of luck,” Caradon sighed. “We might as well be netted in by the authorities.”
She looked up at the sky—clouds moved quickly over a thinning moon and a few stars were already out in the deepening velvet space, revealing a hard shine. “Mr. Long.”
“Long?”
“It’s the conjunction he talked about,” she said. “He said something about the planets lining up and the disruption of the energy in Old Amanthus. He never mentioned how all of this really worked, but I suppose it doesn’t matter if he knows or not, because we’re trapped in the old city until tomorrow.”
“Damn.”
“But look on the bright side, Caradon. This will give us an opportunity to go to the Temple tonight.”
He roughly hooked his arm around hers and dragged her away from the intersection. “You never let up, do you?”
“You’re angry.”
“I’m exasperated,” he corrected her.
He finally stopped in front of the door to the inn. Before he pushed open the door, she noticed that not only did it have a wind chime on the sign post but also a pendant of amber. The doorway itself was carved in an odd geometric pattern. She touched it, feeling a current of sleepy energy coursing through the wood. There was a slightly different quality to it than the energy at the barrier erected on the intersection, though. Like wine, it felt smoother, mellower, aged. The energy at the barrier had a bitter tang like that of raw, unfiltered cider.
She followed her patron into a tiny lobby where an old heavy set woman in a plain woolen dress swept the floor in slow, circling motions. The old woman looked up when then entered. Caradon asked her about a room and dinner. The woman replied with the answers and then money changed hands before she ambled to a back room and returned with a slim iron key. As Caradon urged her ahead to a flight of wooden stairs leading to the upper floors, she noticed a small white cat with a torn ear and a missing eye sitting at the head of the banister with his paws tucked underneath him. At her pause, her patron placed a hand at the small of her back and gave an insistent push. The cat blinked his remaining eye lazily and his whiskers quivered in a feline laugh.
Who are you laughing at, cat?
Trapped is as trapped does, the cat replied enigmatically. But what will you do about it?
“Talking to animals?” Caradon inquired as she continued up the stairs and turned on the landing.
“That cat was making fun of me,” she replied. “Or at least I think he was.”
The key was to the room at the end of the hall. The room itself was somewhat sparse—there was a lamp on a table beside a brass bed covered in a thick rose-colored comforter and another on a table accompanied by two chairs. A large worn rug covered the wood-planed floor and a dresser was pushed against the corner. The window at the end of the room was draped with deep green curtains. Caradon immediately made for the window to peek outside. She took her coat off and draped it over a chair.
Someone knocked on the room door. Zan opened it and found the old woman standing outside with a tray in her hands. She took it and closed the door with an elbow. She placed the tray on the table and looked at the bowls of soup and thick slices of bread. There was one bottle of wine. Caradon moved away from the window and took his greatcoat off. He reached for the wine. Zan took a spoonful of soup even though she wasn’t feeling hungry.
As Caradon poured out two glasses of dark red wine, she asked, “So we have dinner. And then we change and go to the Temple to see what’s going on.” She took her glass of wine and sipped. She grimaced and put the glass down. The wine was warm and slightly sour.
“No, we don’t go anywhere. You’re going to stay here where you won’t get into any trouble.”
“Now tell me who’s stubborn,” she replied. “You can talk about me staying here all you want, but I’m going.”
He had been about to put the wine glass to his lips, but his gaze hardened and he put the glass back down on the table, firmly. “Get up,” he said softly.
She cocked her head. “Excuse me?”
“Get up.”
Zan narrowed her eyes and got up from her chair. “All right. I’m up. Are you happy now?”
“Hm.” His eyes burned, but she refused to look away. “Take off your dress.”
“What!”
“I have a burning curiosity about women’s undergarments,” he replied. “Surely you would oblige to indulge me?”
“As you said, there is this saying about curiosity,” she shot back at him. But she found her hand straying up to the buttons. Her fingers twisted, and they came undone one by one. The top part of the dress slid down her body and she caught it in her arms. She stepped out of the dress and folded it across the chair over her coat. Caradon sat back in his chair in deceptive ease, but she knew his eyes missed nothing.
“White, white, and more white,” he murmured. “Take down your hair, Zan.”
She bit her lip, half of her wanting to say no, half of her eager to fling herself into this new, dark avenue.
Something subtle flickered in his expression. “Are you frightened?”
“Well, not of you.”
“Perhaps you should be. Take down your hair. And then remove your stockings. And your drawers.”
Her fingers trembled as she pulled the pins out of her hair and put them one by one on the table. And then she sat back down in her chair to pull off the stockings and to wiggle out of her drawers, giving him no chance to glimpse anything else. She placed these articles of clothing on top of her dress.
“Did I say you could sit down?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.
She suddenly stood up, feeling dizzy and flushed. “No. But I could very well sit down if I wanted to.”
“Some would say that is far too independent of you. Now turn around.”
She turned. And then she heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back and then footsteps. Hands came to rest on her waist. They moved up her ribcage and then stopped short of her bust. Then he pulled her hair over her shoulder and his mouth lightly brushed the nape of her neck. She shivered.
“Walk to the end of the bed and put your hand on that bedpost.”
In other contexts, the entire situation would have seemed surreal, but in the moment, she could sense everything—every sound, every touch, every smell, was as acute as a slash of a sharp knife against the back of a hand. She was hypersensitive to her own movements and to his behind her. The sluggish energy hinted at the entrance of the inn began to move slightly faster underneath the floorboards, in response to the pounding of the blood in her ears.
She bent over and placed her fingers on the bed knob and it was cool to the touch. Then she heard him shrug out of his jacket and take off his waistcoat. There was the whisper of linen and then she felt him leaning over her, not quite touching. The length of linen dangled into her sight. His tie. He looped it around her wrists and secured her to the bedpost before her overwhelmed mind could process what he was doing.
“Caradon…”
Her voice faded into a hoarse rasp as his hands rested on her back. The ties to the corset were being loosened. Every time he eased a finger into the lacing and pulled, she felt her body being tugged back, toward him. Eventually, he reached the last one the corset fell away. Then he began work on the buttons on the back of her chemise and he gently peeled it away until it only remained, dangling at her tied wrists like a limpid white cloud. He leaned over her. For a split second, she felt his warm breath on her skin. And then his mouth. When his kisses reached her spine, he moved back up and his fingers followed suit along her torso, tracing the curve of her breast, pinching her nipples. She bit down on her bottom lip, trying to tamp down on any sound, any movement, any whimper that may give him any indication that he was winning.
His lips traced the nape of her neck, then the back of her ear. Softly, he said, “Haven’t I told you before that I wish to please you?”
“What sort of games are you playing, Caradon?” she managed to say in an even voice.
One of his hands on her breasts decided to trail downward again, past her belly, down to the place between her legs where it teased at her inner folds and delved deep.
A gasp burst out of her.
“Games? Oh no, Zan. This is the real thing.”
His hand teased and coerced and she breathed hard, attempting to keep her mind on control. The thought came, as his tongue flickered out to taste her skin, that there were different types of control. One was that of the change. And then there were other kinds. If she had thought she had conquered her fear of loosing control by making peace with her shifter nature, she had been sadly mistaken.
She cried out suddenly, feeling pure sensation rip through her. After that one, pure, electrifying moment, she slumped over, breathing hard.
He removed his hand and then the tie was removed from her wrist. He pulled down the covers and half led, half carried her to the bed. She lay on the sheets feeling as if she had been infused with energy and sensitized. She turned on her side and watched him remove his own clothing, observing the play of muscle beneath skin, the exquisite bluntness of his arousal. When he finally got onto the bed and rolled her over to her back, she felt herself tense again as his hands trailed down her sides to her hips. He leaned down and kissed her as thrust himself inside of her. Pain mingled with pleasure and she shrieked—but it was muffled by his mouth.
Caradon paused and raised his head when he ended the kiss. She opened her eyes to look up at him. His own gaze was narrow, concentrated, and sweat shone on his brow. It had been more surprising than painful and the pain itself seemed to ease just a bit every second that went by. Experimentally, she shifted her hips and she saw a lopsided smile shape his mouth before he took over the movement.
She watched him, noting how his nostrils flared, how sinew strained. Was losing control in this way a bad thing? He had wanted to please her. And at the moment, she couldn’t seem to muster any reasons to object to it. Instead, she looked up at him yet not seeing him at all. It was only sensation and then that electrifying moment that she had thought was so singular, seized her again and she was dimly aware that he was gasping in her ear, spilling inside of her.
An eternity seemed to go by until her senses returned. He had rolled over and pulled her to him so that she was now sprawled on top of him. She could smell his scent of sweat and dark forest and feel his heart beating beneath her hand.
Zan, I didn’t mean…
If I didn’t want it, I would have stopped you, she interrupted. She lightly raked her claws on his chest to emphasize her point and then she willed her paw to become a hand again. Her fingers traced the path her claws left. Then she yawned. It was a lesson I needed to learn in control, my Moon.
