The Cursed One (24 page)

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Authors: Ronda Thompson

BOOK: The Cursed One
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“I will trade her life to you for Amelia's,” he said. “Let her go. You can do what you want with me.”
“Gallant to the end,” Raef said, the usual sarcasm flavoring his voice. “That is something that cannot be taught, unfortunately. I'm glad few of your station possess the trait.”
“Raef,” Mora called softly. “Do as he says. Let Amelia go. I could not fool this man when I took her form; I therefore doubt if I could fool others who know her well. Killing her is senseless and barbaric. She has shown me compassion, and I must do the same.”
Mora's brother frowned. He did not lower the weapon. “They will tell others about us.”
“Will they?” Mora challenged. She tried to struggle to a sitting position, recalled her naked state, and stayed as she was. “Even if they do, whoever they tell will think she's mad, and his family is already rumored to be insane. Why would he tell? He's no better than us. It would be to his advantage if society remains ignorant.”
Raef didn't appear fully convinced. Gabriel pressed the knife to Mora's throat again to help convince him. If it were only one man he was dealing with, Gabriel would never use a woman as a bargaining tool, but for Amelia's safety he would. Raef seemed to sense Gabriel's dedication. Finally, he lowered the pistol.
“All right, Wulf. I will trade my sister's life for the life of your lady love. As for you, we have no use for a
man who does not share our goals. Move away from Mora. Both you and the woman are free to go now.”
Gabriel was still leery. These people had been pursuing them for days. They were dedicated to their cause. They had proven they would kill for it. He found it difficult to believe Mora's people would let him and Amelia walk away.
“He will keep his word,” Mora said, as if sensing Gabriel's hesitation. “My brother and I are honor bound to the Wargs, but we do not always agree with their ways. It is time for us to slink back into the shadows. To think about this experience and evaluate it. And it is time for you to go home.”
Home. Would it or could it be the same for Gabriel now? He was cursed. He had deceived the woman he loved. What was left for him? Survival alone? Was it enough anymore?
He felt Amelia's hand upon his shoulder again. “Let her go, Gabriel. It's over now.”
Slowly, he slid the knife away from Mora's throat. “I never want to see you again,” he said to her.
The smile that crossed her lips was both chilling and sad. “You will. But you won't know it's me.”
Raef came forward, the pistol now shoved into the waistband of his trousers. He threw Amelia's valise on the ground, then snapped his fingers. One of his men appeared with a set of coarse clothing and a large pair of boots. He placed the items on the ground next to the valise. While Gabriel hurried into the trousers, the man handed Raef a blanket. Mora's brother bent beside her. A moment later he rose, carrying Mora's blanket-clad body in his arms.
He paused before Gabriel. “I gave my sister my word this time,” Raef said. “If I cross paths with you again, I will not be so civil.”
“Neither will I,” Gabriel assured the man.
Their gazes held for a moment in silent challenge. Finally, Raef turned and walked away, his bearing that of a prince. Still wary, Gabriel watched Raef and his men move into the forest. A moment later, it swallowed them up, as if they had never been there. Gabriel stood staring, squinting into the shadows of the forest until he was certain they were truly gone. Then slowly he turned to face the woman he had deceived.
A barrage of emotions assaulted Amelia. Relief that
Raef and his men were gone, that she was safe, that the nightmare had ended; only it was not over. Before her stood the man she loved, yet he had deceived her. He had lied to her. He was not what she thought he was. How was she supposed to feel about him? How was she supposed to take her life back when nothing about her life was the same anymore?
He stared at her now, waiting for her to say something, but what could she say? How could she understand what he had never explained to her?
“You deceived me,” she finally said.
Gabriel could no longer hold her stare. He glanced away, bent his head, and studied the ground. “Yes,” he responded. “I did.”
“What is this curse that rests upon your family?” she asked. “Why didn't you tell me the truth from the beginning?”
He looked up at her with his forest green eyes. “In the beginning, if I'd told you the truth, you would have been afraid of me. You wouldn't have allowed me to help you. You wouldn't have trusted me.”
That was true. After what had happened to her at Collingsworth Manor, had Gabriel told her he was different, that he could change his shape like the others, she would have been terrified of him. Still …
“Later, you could have told me,” she said. “Later, you
should
have told me.”
He glanced away from her again. “I know,” was all he said.
She was tired of his secrets and wanted them exposed now. He owed her that much. “Tell me about your curse. Do your brothers suffer from it also? Do their wives know, or do they keep their secrets like you?”
Bending, Gabriel lifted the shirt left for him from the ground and slipped it over his head. “All who share our bloodline share our curse,” he answered. “One of our ancestors was cursed by a witch long ago. But the curse must be set into motion. I have no idea if Armond suffers as I now suffer, or Jackson, although I had suspicions about him before he went missing.”
Curious, Amelia stepped closer to him. “It must be set into motion? By what?”
He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled on the boots sitting next to her valise and adjusted his clothing.
“By what, Gabriel?” she repeated.
Finally, he glanced back up at her. “By a man's weaknesses.”
His answer confused her. “Do you mean by sickness? Did it happen because your leg became infected?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean weakness. A character flaw—being unable to resist things a stronger man could resist. I lowered my defenses against the curse, and now it has taken me.”
If the curse was simply tied to a man's weaknesses, Amelia wondered how it hadn't affected him before now. All men surely had weaknesses. “Did the curse just now come upon you? Or have you had the ability to shift your shape from the beginning?”
Gabriel walked to a fallen log and sat. He was still limping a little, she noted. “No, it just came upon me this full moon, and I do not have the ability to shift. I do not have a choice. But I have known about the curse for a long time. I have known I am different from other men.”
She'd known he was different, too. But with the other threats aimed at her, she had never considered him one, as well. And she shouldn't have, Amelia realized. He'd never been a threat to her, not even when the moon changed him. He had still been her protector.
“What happens now?” she asked him.
Rising from the log, he walked over and picked up her valise. “Now I take you to Wulfglen. You go on with your life and I figure out how to go on with mine.”
His words fell flat in the air around her. Was she supposed to forget what had happened to her? What had happened to him? That she loved him? Or did she? He wasn't her prince, he was a man cursed. A man who had deceived her, no matter how just he felt in doing so at the time. And still she wanted to believe in the dreams she once had about her life and his. In spite of all that had happened, she still had hope. Suddenly she understood why he did not have hopes and dreams.
“This is what happened to your father, isn't it?” she asked.
He kept walking. “Yes. He was weak, my mother as well. The curse destroyed them.”
And, Amelia imagined, it destroyed their children in a way. Coddled and spoiled all of her life, she supposed she wasn't one to judge what Gabriel's father's suicide had done to him. Or his mother's quick passing upon the heels of what must have been a shock to him. Then the sons had been left with the fear embedded in them that their lives might end in a similar tragedy.
“You don't have to follow in their footsteps,” she said. “You don't have to let this destroy you.”
Drawing up, he turned to her again. “If you think I'm planning on fetching a pistol and blowing my brains out, you're wrong,” he said. “If you think I can carry on a normal life like a normal man now, you're wrong in that, too. Come, Amelia,” he added impatiently. “I'd think you'd be anxious to return to the life you've been forced to leave behind these many days. In two weeks' time you'll forget this even happened.”
She was stunned he would say that to her. She did not fall into step behind him. “Do you still think so little of me?” she demanded. “That I am so shallow? That I will ever forget what happened to me, to us?”
He stopped ahead of her. For a moment he bowed his head, as if her questions shamed him. It was in that moment that Amelia realized that he did not trust her—that Gabriel Wulf had never trusted anyone. Perhaps not even himself.
“You won't hurt me,” she said, “while in your wolf form. You protected me last night from Mora.”
“I don't know that,” he bit out, his voice bitter. “I cannot remember my thoughts or what happens to me while the night and the moon take control of my life. I
can't know for certain that I would not hurt you. I could not live with myself if I did.”
Her heart softened, and she knew then that she still loved him. She once thought she was too shallow to love, or too afraid, but now she knew that was not the case. She'd been given the greatest test of her love. Gabriel had been tested, too.
“You must learn to trust, Gabriel,” she said. “If not in anyone else, at least in yourself. What you consider weaknesses are perhaps only human emotions.”
His eyes bored into hers and he took a step toward her. “Do I disgust you now? Are you afraid of me? Are you wishing you had never given yourself to me?”
She was not disgusted by him. Nor was she afraid of him. And no, she would not take back the love she shared with him. The love they made to each other. But would words convince a man so mistrustful of the world and seemingly everyone in it?
Amelia closed the distance between them. Once she stood before him, she reached up, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him.
 
Gabriel had expected excuses, perhaps lies to spare his
feelings; he didn't expect Amelia to kiss him. He breathed in her fresh scent, savored the feel of her soft lips pressed against his. Why didn't he disgust her? Why wasn't she afraid of him? Why hadn't she reacted to him as he had thought she would were she to learn the truth? Was she pretending? Did she fear if she let her true feelings toward him be known, he might not help her reach Wulfglen safely? And how far would she go with her pretense?
Gabriel cupped the back of her head and slanted his mouth against hers. She opened willingly to him and he tasted her, explored her for fear he would never be allowed the opportunity again. Her body melted against his, her ripe curves pressed against his hard muscles. He was on fire for her in a heartbeat. Perhaps the beast inside of him ruled him even when the sky was not dark, the moon was not full, or maybe it was just the man who couldn't resist her. The man who loved her but could not offer her a future, even if she was willing to share his cursed life.
With great effort, Gabriel ended the kiss, released her, and stepped away. “No need to whore yourself to me,” he said. “I will make certain you reach Wulfglen safely. The beast only rules me at night.”
Amelia did something else that surprised him. She slapped him. Her face suffused with color. “I'm not so sure of that,” she snapped. “You're acting like one right now.” She marched ahead of him. “Perhaps it has not occurred to you that I do not need your help to reach Wulfglen. Any idiot can figure out which way is east.”
He stood staring after her, too stunned to respond for a moment; then he found himself laughing. She turned to him, placed her hands on her hips, and asked, “What do you find so funny?”
“You,” he answered honestly. “You should be shaking in those god-awful boots you're wearing; instead you kiss me, then you slap me and put me in my place. It's no wonder I love you. There's no one like you.”
Gabriel realized what he had just admitted to her when her cross expression faded and her eyes welled with tears. He wanted to take the words back, and yet
he was glad to finally speak them. To finally admit them, even to himself.
She returned to him and reached up to touch his cheek softly. “Why is it so hard for you to say the words?” she asked. “Why do you consider your feelings for me to be a weakness?”
“Love is the curse,” he answered without thought.
She blinked up at him. “What?”
He'd told her more than he intended. “Never mind; let's go.”
Amelia grabbed his arm when he thought to forge ahead. “What do you mean, ‘love is the curse'?”
He knew by her set expression she wouldn't budge without some type of explanation. And maybe she deserved the truth for once. “‘Love is the curse that binds you, but 'tis also the key.' It's a quote from the poem written by the first Wulf cursed.” He had never understood that particular phrase of the riddle. How could love be both a curse and a key? A key to what?
“I am the reason you are now cursed by the moon. Is that what you're telling me?”
Gabriel didn't want her to feel guilt. He certainly didn't want her to feel beholden to him. Or, heaven forbid, pity. He could take nearly anything but that. Touching her cheek softly, as she had done to him, he said, “It is not your fault, Amelia.” He assured her, “It is my own fault. I knew the consequences, and still, I allowed myself to be weak. To give my heart when I knew I should not. I traded everything for a chance to be only a man in your eyes. Even if only for one night.”
As a tear slipped down her cheek, he brushed it away with his thumb. “I don't want you to cry,” he said,
her tears washing him in more guilt. “I want you to be happy. I want you to leave all this behind you and—”
“I told you once that I did not believe in love,” she interrupted, her voice emotional. “I thought it was just a gentler word for lust, or duty. What I feel for you is beyond lust. I have no duty toward you. That is when I knew I did believe in love, and that I loved you. I need to know that I am more than a consequence to you, Gabriel. You need to understand that loving takes a stronger person than someone who hides their heart from the world. You need to understand compassion is not the same as pity. When you do learn these things, come and find me.”
With that, she stepped away from him, picked up the valise he had dropped, and walked away from him. Gabriel started to go after her. To stop her, pull her around into his arms, and kiss her until she could not think straight. But he couldn't. She didn't understand the whole of what she would be forced to endure if she stayed with him. A solitary life for Amelia Sinclair Collingsworth? He could not imagine it, and did not want to.
There could be no children for them. He would have to take himself off when the curse visited him. He would have to leave her alone. In time, she might hate him. In time, she might leave him. Better to let her go now, although it tore at his insides to do so. He knew he would love her more with each day and the pain of losing her would be unbearable. Like the pain of losing his parents. The pain of realizing his life was cursed. The pain of letting all his hopes and dreams die on that
night ten years ago when his father had turned into a wolf at the dinner table.
But for her he could sacrifice. Couldn't he? Gabriel watched her move ahead of him. He would not stop her. He would dog her heels all the way to Wulfglen to make certain she reached the estate safely; then he would stay in the woods until she was gone.

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