Raven Crest breathed easier in its master's absence and so did I, yet I sensed this was the calm before the next storm. Pale rays of sunshine wavered on the horizon, casting an eerie light over the mist filling the mountains' chasms. As I stood by my window, I made my choice.
This was the day I would escape. I could stay here no longer, after last night's debacle.
Intuition told me, however, that walking out of my room, valise in hand, wasn't wise--and listening at the door confirmed it. I heard Subi's breathing, and the silken shift of her weight on the floorboards.With Ferral gone, she probably planned to frighten me out of this house.
With a flick of my finger, I closed the keyhole cover. Then I planned my strategy, while remaining at the ready for whatever Ferral's nefarious housekeeper might do next. She'd returned, so the horse she drove into town yesterday was in the stable; I could hitch it to my own wagon. If I could distract her...slip out onto the balcony of Ravenna's room and down those stairs she'd fallen from....
The doorknob revolved slowly, and I sat up straighter. The Geisha poked her head in, and then stepped inside with a breakfast tray I wouldn't touch if it held the last bacon and eggs on the planet--although the aroma of that bacon made my stomach rumble longingly.
"Doctor Graves go out to tend patients," she said in her exotic accent. "Tell me to keep Miss Caine in room until he return."
"Why? I've carried out my part of this bargain by--"
"He terribly upset!" she accused, letting the tray drop the last few inches to the floor. "What you do to him while Subi gone?"
"Had you stayed for the seance, you'd know--wouldn't you?" I asked pointedly. "Fine! If Ferral wants to hold me prisoner, just shut that door and leave me be!"
The white-faced servant crossed her arms, making the gold threads in her fuchsia kimono glimmer in the dimness. She appeared utterly in control--obsidian hair perfectly coifed with those daggers, and opaque white makeup masking her scars and emotions. Except for the twitch of her lower lip, the Geisha could've been an uninvolved party in the drama unfolding within these haunted walls.
"Subi make you sorry you ever come here," she muttered.
The Oriental pivoted, making those daggers shimmy in her blue-black topknot as she stalked away. I closed my door with a chuckle--but I'd only bought myself a few minutes to slip down the stairs without her catching me. I snatched up the two strips of bacon, closing my eyes over their salty warmth and chewiness, banking on the fact that if anything happened to me, Subi would answer to her possessive master. If only there was another stairway from this hall, so I didn't have to sneak through the main part of the house. If I could just find....
A surreptitious creak made me turn toward the fireplace--and who should be entering my room but Fu Manchu the cat! The smug feline arched his tail over his back, as though announcing his superiority--his mastery over a house Ferral Graves only thought he ruled. The bookcase rocked back into place alongside the tiled mantel, revealing how Subi's pet had crept in to ripple my draperies the other night, and now showing me a potential escape route. My heart fluttered as I tested the revolving panel: as I'd hoped, it was designed so a person could step into it as it began to turn, and then enter the adjacent room, which was Ravenna's.
I tightened the sash of my dressing gown, grabbed my valise, and swung again into the chamber I'd been forbidden to enter. Since Graves himself had carried me in here on his shoulders, to make me watch him hump Subi, I was beyond following his rules!
Onto the balcony I hurried, quiet as the cat who'd inspired me. Pausing at the point from whence I guessed Ravenna had breathed her last, I descended the narrow iron stairway that curved around the back of the mansion. Only a few tree trunks and boulders stood between me and the chasm that claimed Ravenna Graves, but I couldn't let that distract me. I was on my way out of Ferral Graves's estate--and out of his clutches forever!
About twenty minutes later, I was urging a broad-rumped bay mare down the brick drive, wishing my wagon's wheels didn't squeak so loudly. Between the bare trees we sped, and I didn't stop until those gates with the ravens and that spiked iron fence were out of sight. Free at last! I pulled to the side of the road, congratulating myself on being so clever and resourceful. It felt marvelous to don one of my own dresses, careworn though it was, and to wrap myself in my own cloak. I felt so smug I let Ravenna's gorgeous dressing gown drift away in a gust of wind. No more would I have anything to do with that poor woman or her husband's oppressive household!
The horse had other plans, however. She was a creature of habit, and with a strange driver and a noisy wagon rumbling behind her, the bay ignored my commands. We reached a fork in the road that would take me away from anywhere I'd traveled in this vicinity--precisely the way I wanted to go! But the mare surged onto the Gold Camp Road at a speed that would overturn the wagon if I dared defy her. I considered pulling her in at Katy DeShay's house, but she'd have none of that. On she thundered, hellbent on a destination she found familiar...which made my heart shrivel and pound when it came into sight.
Again there was no making her obey. I slapped the reins to keep her going, but she cantered up the overgrown path and halted beside the rough cabin with the wolf's head above its door. I swallowed hard, wondering if Ferral Graves possessed a power so omniscient that he'd willed his bay to bring me here.
And then I wondered what on earth I'd say. A distinct aura of restlessness held the house hostage, telling me the rogue I'd met here the other night was indeed inside. Probably expecting me.
He threw open the door before I could compose a likely story; stepped outside looking haggard and unkempt, like he hadn't shaved for days. Like a wary animal he approached, those predatory eyes willing mine to lower, which would be a big mistake--the only mistake I'd have to make, to become his victim rather than a visitor with some sense of rational thought.
"I had to see if you were all right," I hedged. "After last night--"
"Like Subi told you, I'm working. Undisturbed."
Ignoring the growl that undergirded that last word, I focused my own powers of persuasion on him. "I don't answer to Subi. I stopped to say goodbye."
A sly smile curved his lips. "Who says you're leaving?"
"I've carried out my part of our bargain," I insisted, hoping my protest didn't sound as skittish as my insides felt. He was only a few feet from my wagon now, looking ready to pounce. "I won't tolerate any more of Lovejoy's shenanigans! And if you believe that ghostly vision on the gallery was--"
"You can't leave me!" he pleaded, gripping my ankle with an expression of utter desperation. "Just when Ravenna would have spoken to me, that jackass had to mention some damn letter! As though his needs were more pressing than my own! She was my wife, dammit!"
I smoothed the coarse, silver-splayed waves around his face--more silver now than yesterday. Had the seance taken such a toll that Dr. Graves was aging before my eyes? His face appeared drawn and angular, as though he hadn't slept for days, even though his overall appearance remained frighteningly powerful. With one yank he could send me sprawling on the ground and be writhing on top of me...and I blinked at the surge of arousal that thought sent through my body. Dammit, just the sight of this desperado, and the wild loneliness resonating in his voice, once again shot down my defenses.
He believed Ravenna's spirit had come to us, and no amount of reason would convince him otherwise. It wasn't in my best interest to argue that I hadn't truly contacted her, was it? "What do you want me to do? I doubt she'll come--"
"We must summon her again, just you and I! She was ready to talk, Caressa! We can't stop trying until I have my say, and hear her truth."
Those crystalline eyes swirled slowly as I gazed into them, as though Graves were mesmerizing me. I sighed, for that was unnecessary. Just the heat of his hand and the set of his feathered jaw had rekindled the passion that simmered beneath my surface whenever I was in his presence. My temples throbbed as I contemplated the consequences of staying with this dangerous man...a man whose animal magnetism made me throb someplace else, as well.
"I'll stay, under one condition," I replied, wondering where this stray thought would lead, even as I spoke it.
"You're staying anyway, but I'll hear you out."
His arrogance stiffened my spine, but indeed, with his hand around my ankle I was going nowhere. The bay was pawing and sidestepping, her ears pinned back in a terror I found confusing...almost contagious. But I was too far gone, and too aroused, to flee before this second encounter at his cabin played itself out.
"I want to make your picture," I said in a burst of inspiration. "I want to capture your essence--here in your natural habitat. Look at those storm clouds in the distance! They'll make the perfect backdrop for--"
He was shaking with the effort not to laugh out loud. "Caressa, you're the piss-poorest liar I ever saw. You're only here because Nellie brought you--and I'm sending her home, where she knows she's safe."
Dumbfounded, I watched him unhitch the harness and then remove the bay's bridle and bit. "H-yah, Nellie-girl! Go on back now!"
"Safe? But what about--? How will I get--?" I stammered. The mare galloped toward the road as though pursued by hounds from hell.
"You'll go where I take you, my dear," he crooned in a gravelly voice. "Didn't I warn you of the dangers of stopping at a stranger's cabin? Little Red Riding Hood could teach you a thing or two...if she'd lived to tell about it."
I told myself not to let my fears control me--just as I told myself Ferral Graves wasn't lifting me effortlessly from the seat of my wagon. When my gaze fell upon the wolf's head mounted above the door, I sensed it was more than a mere ornament. But what connection did it have to this man, who lowered me to the ground by rubbing my body suggestively down the length of his?
One look at those pale blue eyes--at the nostrils twitching as he inhaled me--gave an answer too ominous for words. My instincts cried out an alarm, but the force of his kiss drowned out that tiny siren, as well.
I gasped, grasping him to keep from collapsing. His lips roamed my face and the heat from his hands scorched me through my threadbare dress. Much as I'd wanted him previously--Lord knows I'd begged him outright to fuck me--I was now so afraid of him I tried desperately to jerk away.The sound of fabric tearing--the sudden rush of cold air on my bare breasts--made me cry out and slap him.
Ferral held me a few inches away from himself, laughing. "All right--one picture. I'm feeling generous, now that you've come to me. But you must tell me exactly what you're thinking, Caressa." He gave me the most ruthless, potent leer I had ever seen.
"My, what...big teeth you have," I breathed.
They flashed whiter in his swarthy face, framed by those sideburns that crept toward his lips, short and silvery, while his widow's peak cut deeper into his forehead. "The better to eat you with, my dear," he quipped. "And now that we're writing our own fairy tale, I'll warn you not to resist me--not to struggle and make me angry. Give me what I want--what we both want--and I'll try not to hurt you."
His last words came out as a pant, and my own breathing accelerated to match his. "What do you want?" I whispered, even as the wetness slithering down my legs gave the answer.
"I'm going to fuck you until we both fall over," he rasped. His eyes riveted mine as his hand stole into my gaping bodice. "And once you've received me, there'll be no going back, Caressa. But then, you've been mine from the moment we met. Haven't you?"
I swallowed so hard it hurt, nodding feebly.
"Make that likeness--quickly, before I lose what little control's left," he ordered, his voice becoming a snarl. "Then you'd better hang on for dear life. We're in for a helluva ride, Caressa. It's coming over me stronger than I've ever felt it."
As I quickly fetched the tripod and camera from the back of the wagon, my thoughts swirled like a hurricane. I knew the fairy tale, of course, and legends of men turning into wolves had haunted mankind since he first sat around a fire in front of his cave. I could not believe, however, that Dr. Ferral Graves was changing into the beast he'd mounted above his door. When my glance strayed that direction as I set up the awkward camera, however, my subject chuckled.
"Yes, that wolf attacked me," he rasped. "I shot him before he could bite anyone else, but my revenge has brought me no peace. I'm sorry about your horse, Caressa. Another innocent victim, I'm afraid."
I dropped my glass negative, stabbed by his admission and Katy DeShay's description of Belle's remains. Recalling how he'd tackled Aaron Lovejoy last night, I fumbled with a fresh plate--nearly dropped it before sliding it into place, beneath the black drop cloth. "Does...does it hurt, this transformation?" Anything to keep him talking, to keep the truth and its consequences from catching me.
"Hell, no--it feels good to be a wolf!" he cried, flexing until his white silk shirt nearly burst its seams. "It gives me absolute power, without guilt! I am feared and respected by everyone I touch! It brings me love without doubt...sex without question."
Those last words were breathed down my neck as I struggled with the rubber bulb and cord that controlled the shutter. "Please, I--"
"Too late to beg, Caressa. It's all a matter of Fate now." He gazed up at the low, swollen clouds of gunmetal gray rolling in from the west. "Capture me with a lightning bolt in the background. If this storm doesn't provide one, we'll make our own."
He struck a pose, one forearm against a tree while the other hand slid beneath his chin, so his white cuff accentuated the shadows of his face. I stood breathless, awed by the sheer majesty of his masculinity, by the artless yet aggressive arrogance of his stance as he leveled his stare at the camera. A peek through the lens--minor adjustments in aperture to take best advantage of the eerie, shifting shapes in the clouds--and I knew I was taking the photograph of a lifetime. Indeed, it was the likeness that would define my life from this day forward.
"Don't move, and don't breathe! Stand absolutely--" I stepped from beneath the light-proof veil, shutter bulb in hand. "I want to adjust your collar, so it falls more open across your--"
At the merest touch of my fingertips, Ferral snatched me into his embrace. It was I who couldn't move or breathe as his kiss claimed me, damning me even as I dreamed of being consumed by his primal fire, by the secret I'd discovered at my own peril. I squeezed the shutter bulb, a vain attempt to hold on to my sanity, while above us the thunder rumbled and lightning scarred the sky. Desire roared in my veins like the animal that called within my captor. I was lost.
Without preamble, Ferral shoved my cloak over my shoulders and I couldn't be free of it fast enough. Whatever madness possessed this man had caught me, as well, for why else would I shuck my clothes as a snowstorm approached? The temperature was plunging, yet I burned for the beast who freed me of my dress with one last yank upon the bodice he'd already torn. He devoured me with his eyes for a moment, his hands roaming feverishly over my exposed skin.
"God, but you're lovely," he breathed, tugging his shirt from his trousers. "Take down your hair. I want to watch it play around your naked body."
There was no denying him, as there was no refusing the wind's fingers, which plucked the pins as quickly as I did. Some mystical force was at work here, some power far greater than I employed at a seance table. And as I stood before him, naked, my hair writhed with a life of its own.
"Like golden flames dancing around your face," he murmured, freeing himself from his pants. His erection sprang up and pointed at me, prouder and taller than I'd ever seen it. "I know a bit about building a fire, Caressa, but you branded me with your own heat that first night you sprawled on the floor beneath me. No niceties this time, my tidbit. No time for the niceties."
I yelped as he tossed me above his head, as a father would play with a small child. But Ferral had nothing of the daddy in him now. With a grunt, he caught me by the hips and lowered me onto his face, shoving his tongue up my cunt. I clutched his head for balance, which drove him on as he held me suspended, completely at his mercy, with my legs flailing.
He didn't seem to notice. Ferral lapped like a ravenous wolf, his groans vibrating against my sensitive, wet flesh. In and out he drove his tongue, opening and closing his mouth around my nether lips in a kiss that singed me with Satan's evil heat. My cries disappeared in the wind as I clenched, finding purchase on his bare shoulders with my feet. I rocked against him then, pleading with a pussy that had never ached so fiercely, rubbing against the short, coarse hair that now surrounded his mouth. The coils inside me tightened, ready to implode--and at that moment he pulled out. Wiggled the very tip of his rough tongue against my clit.
I screamed, spearing my fingers through his hair. Juice shot out of me, which he drank like an animal dying of thirst. He lowered me with a growl, lapping at my belly and then at my breasts, feasting upon soft flesh I knew would be bruised come tomorrow. Not that I cared--I couldn't get enough of his lust as my wet thighs slid down alongside his chest. Lower I slipped, desperate for contact with that magnificent cock--the member I'd watched him plunge into Subi, but which I could only wish for before now.
Ferral seemed too caught up in burrowing against my breasts, so I let out a yell and impaled myself. His cock was solid and hot, prodding at my entryway until, with a guttural howl, he shoved it in. His eyes flashed blue lightning as he claimed me, thrusting upward until I swore he struck my stomach. He held me hard against his hips, kneading my pliant flesh.
"Mine," he breathed, flashing his teeth. "More now."
He turned, to flatten me against the side of the wagon. The painted wood slapped me with its cold hand but when Ferral began to move in and out, I could feel nothing but the intense pressure inside my pussy, the stretching of its sheath around his throbbing girth, the wet slickness that made a slippery slapping sound as it oozed with his movement.
"Put your feet on my shoulders," he ordered, letting my bottom hang looser. Still he moved within me, rutting and pumping. "What are you thinking now, Caressa?"
I closed my eyes, anticipating the wave of heat that would soon incinerate me. "Oh, what...a big cock you have," I panted.
"The better to break you in with, my dear," he quipped in a higher-pitched pant. "The better to fuck you senseless with, so you'll catch my madness and become too crazy to care."
The way my head was spinning, it seemed Graves had once again read my muddled mind. My insides convulsed, gripping him with muscles I never knew I had--until he pulled out, chuckling.
"You bastard! Give it to me--now! I was just ready to--"
"You don't know what you're asking, little girl," he grunted, leering at my stiff nipples and skin pinkened by his grinding. "Get out of here! Run while you can, Caressa!"
I stood befuddled, staring at the huge, purple-headed pecker he pointed at me.It shone with the same ooze that dripped down my legs, chilling as the wind hit it.I held my hair back from my eyes to study his expression. "You can't mean--"
"Don't argue! You can't win!" he snarled. Even covered with short, silvery hair, he was a man to inspire wonder--an awesome, muscular beast indulging his whims while refusing to be tamed. "Go now, before you forever regret what you've done with me. If Ravenna had listened, she might be alive."
I set off at a lope, but where was I to go? The clouds were dipping low, pregnant with a snow foretold by icy crystals sifted in the wind. The cabin was bracketed by evergreens and flanked with tall, dead reeds that rustled my name--no place for a barefoot woman running naked. I headed for the road, hoping to spot a passing wagon yet praying to be spared such embarrassment. Was that heavy breathing I heard my own? Or was I being pursued by--
Furred arms caught me around the hips and I pitched forward, screaming. My predator was playing games, as evidenced by the laughter that reverberated against my back. Ferral held me against his hot, hairy body, his cock prodding for the wet opening he'd abandoned moments ago. He drove it inside me with such force we both cried out. I landed on my forearms and we eased down to his knees. My pulse was pounding so hard, fueled by my fear, that I struggled against his grasp even as my pussy sucked his prick deeper inside me.
"Beg me," he ordered against my ear, humping like a crazed dog. "I can go on like this for hours...we'll both go insane. Caressa, God, squeeze it out of me! I want to fuck myself senseless and fill you with my hot wad...pump your pussy so full you'll gush with my cum...stuff your cunt with this staff until you scream my name and--"
"Ferral! Oh, Ferral, please--now!" I cried, carried away by his torrent of forbidden whisperings. His breath wet my ear, and then he drove his tongue inside it, making me squirm even harder. The spasms began, tightening inside, clenching around the cock that had taken control--and then he ruffled through my muff, lifting it with one hand so he could finger my desperate clit with the other.
I pumped against his rutting, catapulting crazily into a climax that mingled my initial pain with a pleasure so intense I reared up, thrusting out my breasts as I arched backward to better receive him. Ferral shot like a geyser, squirting and squirming as his howl carried me away. I lost my sight, and then my hearing and all sense of temperature and time--got stranded beyond reality, afloat in the cosmos and hoping never to come down.
I awoke to the smoky aroma of a wood fire, and the whistling of the wind outside, and a warmth that curled around me as I nestled in soft, clean sheets. A moan escaped me when I felt my aching muscles--and the burning soreness between my legs. A hand reached around to cup my breast from behind...a hand entirely human, with a tenderness that made me swell into his caress, wanting him again.
"Is it morning?" I yawned.
"Probably. Hard to tell, with the snow drifted over the windows."
His voice was that hypnotic baritone again, soothing the pang of anxiety I had about not being able to leave. After all, what awaited me away from this cabin? I'd cast my fate to the late-spring wind and this man had caught it...made it his own in ways I couldn't change if I wanted to.
"Are you sore, sweetheart?"
"Like somebody rammed me with a log that still had the bark on it, and then sprinkled pepper on the raw spots."
He groaned in apology--what a contrast to the man and the animal I'd known before! When he delicately fingered my back, however, I flinched into reality--into a past I'd managed to hide from prying eyes. "Please don't touch--"
"These are scars," he whispered, his words edged in anger. "How on God's earth did you get circular burns back here, Caressa?"
I bit my lip against tears, my euphoria shattered. Ferral sounded genuinely concerned, more than just a physician examining a patient. "I think you'll find they match the opening of a pipe's bowl," I muttered, mortified that he should pity me now, rather than saying how beautiful and luminous I was.
"Ludlow Pratt punished you this way?"
"For not providing the peep shows he offered the miners, after I conducted my seances," I sighed. "Just one of the things I don't really miss about him."
"Jesus. No wonder you tensed when I smoked after dinner. Lie still, darling. Dr. Graves has just the thing."
Had I not heard his gentle endearments with my own ears, I couldn't have believed this was the same Ferral Graves who'd laughed while pouring whiskey on Lovejoy's wounds...and then bitten him there again. I buried my face in the pillow, following the padding of his bare feet across the wood floor to his laboratory...seeing again those grossly disfigured faces arranged on his wall.
I was now reduced to being a patient rather than his lover, which dulled the rebellious glory I felt from losing my innocence to him yesterday. No less than ten times--that I could recall--we'd made madly passionate love, outside, and under my wagon, and upon his kitchen table. We'd only stopped for the time it took to place my camera in the wagon, out of the falling snow. It was only a matter of time before he discovered my disfigurement, of course, but in the throes of lust I'd forgotten I was forever marked.
He nudged me onto my stomach, then straddled my back. "This lotion won't erase your scars, but it'll restore your skin's elasticity--so you won't feel it pull back here when you stretch, for instance."
Languid as a cat, I hugged a pillow and let his hands work their magic. Once again this man had absolute control over me, but in a way I could never have imagined. He applied the lotion with his fingertips, following each damning circle...each reminder of Uncle Ludlow's insidious retaliation when I'd rebelled against public display of my privates. His touch was loving, and worked into a thorough massage of my stiff muscles...my shoulders, where he kissed beneath the curtain of my hair...my spine, which curved and stretched beneath his expert attentions ...my ass, which already pillowed his stiffening cock.
With a sigh, he slid back toward my thighs. "Part your legs, sweetheart. This oil can ease you someplace else, as well--a spot that endured a rugged initiation, I fear. I'm sorry if I hurt you, Caressa. I wish I could take it all back and start again, right now, while I'm fully sane. You deserved a nicer first time."
I glanced over my shoulder, arching an eyebrow. "Don't you dare apologize, Ferral," I challenged. "While I appreciate your concern, I'll be sorely disappointed if you regret what we've done. It wasn't like I hadn't begged you for it, like some whore coming in from the road--"
"No." He shushed me with a finger. "Women who fulfill their bodies' desires are no different from the men who take them. They're simply victims of societal standards that have always given the advantage to the males who set them."
My eyes widened at his unexpectedly liberal discourse--and then I gasped as his oiled finger circled the outer rim of my slit. "Why are you being so nice to me?" I quizzed, giggling as the finger insinuated itself farther inside.
Ferral's grin subsided. "I haven't felt this alive since I last made love to Ravenna. And I fear I've brought the same curse upon you."
I considered this, even as my own wetness joined the ointment that soothed my sore puss. "Seems to me it's you that carries the curse, Ferral. It's not something you asked for, or deserve."
"It's not that simple." He extended his finger its full length inside me and held it still, against a very sensitive, fleshy pad that made me want to buck against the hand that held me flat beneath him. "You see, Caressa, I've always worried that my wife grew distraught as her pregnancy advanced, knowing the child she carried could well inherit my...condition. Perhaps she felt it was better to die than to perpetuate the cycle."
"Suicide? I don't want to believe that, because it's Lovejoy's theory," I replied quietly. "And while in Ravenna's home--in her private quarters--I didn't pick up on any auras of tragedy from her belongings, either."
Ferral's crystalline eyes glowed with a fear I'd never expected to see there. "That leaves me with the other possibility, then. More ghastly, because I...I might have pushed her from that balcony myself. I don't always remember what I do when the change comes over me, Caressa. All these months, I've been driven by the possibility that I murdered my wife, and our child."
"So I'm your last resort."
He nodded gravely. "Katy swears I visited her that afternoon, but she'd save my sanity the way she covers for the highly-visible men who can't be seen there. Only Ravenna knows what really happened."
I pondered this--at least as well as I could, with a finger circling deep inside me. "So your wife was aware of the changes a full moon brings you?"
"Sometimes it doesn't require the moon. Sometimes a fit of rage or intense desire brings out my wolf."
"Which means she not only saw you in your animal form...she might have inspired it?" I was treading very thin, private ice here. Yet, if my line of reasoning could help this desperate man, who'd made himself emotionally naked to me, it seemed worth the risk.
"Ravenna only had to wag her ass and my blood howled in my veins," he said ruefully. "I sometimes wondered if she provoked me into changing, because her response was every bit as uninhibited as yours. Primal."
The change in his manner and voice had me smiling back at him, thrusting lightly against that finger...silently pleading for penetration by the magnificent cock that vibrated against the crack of my backside. "Case closed, then," I murmured. "If she feared your wolf, she'd have played the prude for her own safety. Wouldn't have conceived your child."
"But I could have pushed her backwards--"
"I don't think so." I studied his lean features; the face that bespoke passion for things other than pleasure; and the body so powerful yet now stroking me so lightly I quivered, in awe of him. "You've called yourself a beast--inherently evil--yet a man who cures the sick and the disfigured, and who reclaims those doomed to poverty by providing them with a worthwhile life, doesn't make the grade as one of Satan's minions."
"If I'm not evil, why can't I shake this horrible condition?" he pleaded. "Endless nights I've spent stirring up elixirs and antidotes, but nothing helps!"
"Could Subi--or anyone else--avoid smallpox? Or cure their consumption?" I countered.
"You can be rude and arrogant, Ferral, but you don't have it in you to mortally wound another human being," I breathed. "Which means only evil people become evil werewolves. You, sir, are merely wicked."
He flashed me a grin then, sliding a second finger inside me. "And you prefer me that way, don't you, little minx? Raise your ass to take me, and then lie flat, with your legs tight together. I'm going to show you wicked, Caressa. I'm going to spend the rest of the day driving you absolutely insane."
I did as he instructed, my eyes widening at the sensations of his hard, hot cock entering me inch by tormenting inch. He stretched out on top of my back, his weight balanced on his forearms, kissing my neck with teasing pecks as he slowly pulled himself all the way out and then penetrated again with the same leisurely pace. My God, I felt every vein along his cock...the ridge of its head as it came and left; the pressure of his balls against my quivering slit when he was all the way inside me.
And each time he moved, in and out...in and out...I thought I'd expire from the sheer intensity of this purposeful pleasure. How totally different from our wild cavortings outside as the storm raged. How exhilarating, to be brought to a shimmering state of longing that went on and on, wishing to climax yet not wanting this exquisite pleasure to end.
Ferral was a man of his word: we made love for the rest of the day and well into the night. As the evening progressed, he changed before my eyes into that creature he feared, that panting, rutting, elemental animal enslaved by his passions. Yet this time he remained calmer, less intent on staking his claim and able to curl around me afterwards, for a few hours' sleep, as though he'd found his mate and felt content.
I was sorry to see the dry snow blown away from the windows the next morning. We had feathered a nest, created a haven where we could just be Ferral and Caressa, away from the forces lurking within those dark walls at Raven Crest. When we walked through the evergreens in their lacy gowns of snow, on a well-worn path, I was quite surprised that I'd been on the estate the whole time--and that the house on the mountain's precipice was much closer this way than by road.
"We'll take Nellie to fetch your wagon after we check on Subi," Ferral said, pulling me against him at the edge of the woods. He kissed me then, barely keeping his hunger in check; letting me know he cared for me more than he would say.
My lips were still pulsing--my mind imagining secret trysts we could arrange in the nooks and crannies of this shadowy mansion--when we stepped through the heavy front doors. There the euphoria ended, however. All around us were strewn pieces of Ferral's glass collection, and the contents of desk drawers left hanging open, and the artwork off the walls, as though a hurricane had struck. Subi came rushing toward us, her jade and gold kimono flapping about her taut body.
"Where you been? Where you been, Mister Ferral? The Devil himself, he ransack house last night!" she cried hysterically. Then the Geisha's white face narrowed and she pointed at me. "And it all Seance Lady's fault, for inviting the evil spirits here!"
