Page 27 of Ashes To Ashes
He struggled, kicked out, and batted the wolf-like chest with his fists. He tried to shove off the paws, but they were too tight, the grip too strong. His throat felt like it was being crushed. Blackness rimmed his vision. He felt himself slipping away into oblivion, a pair of yellow inhuman eyes watching as the last breath left his body.
Chapter 6
Eyes. Gouge the eyes.
The thought flittered through Lincoln's mind. He reached up and dug his fingers into the creature's face.
It let him go and stepped back, out of reach. He should have gone after it, but all he could manage was great gasps of air. Every breath burned his raw throat, but the first swallow hurt more. It felt like he was trying to get a football down.
"You!" The voice was Lady Gillingham's feminine one. He glanced up to see her standing rigid before him, hands on hips, her nightgown barely covering womanly curves. She was pretty, young, and the only visible hair was that on her head, tied into a neat braid that drooped over her shoulder. "What are you doing here, Mr. Fitzroy?" She sounded outraged, appalled, and not at all scared. An ordinary woman would be terrified to wake up to a man in her room. "Well? Answer me."
He swallowed again. A little better this time. The ball had shrunk to cricket size. "I came to see what you are." There was no point pretending otherwise. Civility wasn't in his nature, and they were beyond that anyway. "You're not human."
Her hands slipped off her hips to her sides, but he couldn't see her expression in the dark. "You already know what I am."
"No, I do not."
"I don't understand. Gilly told me all about the ministry when he discovered me in…that form. He said that I have been recorded along with other supernaturals in your files. I assume he was trying to intimidate me, but I didn't mind. I think what you do is a fine thing, and quite necessary."
He indicated a candlestick on her bedside table. "May I?"
"Oh, yes, of course. You cannot see me too well." She handed him a box of matches and he lit the candle.
"You can see me?" he asked.
"My vision is excellent, even in the dark."
"As is your hearing." He held up the candle. Light flickered across the smooth skin of her face, and showed her to be frowning. "Or was it another sense by which you detected me?"
"Hearing at first, and then smell." The frown deepened. "Didn't Gilly give you all the details?"
"He has told me nothing about you. Your…alternate form has come as a surprise to me." More like a shock. He must have hidden it well if she couldn't see it.
She sat on the bed suddenly and folded her hands in her lap. She hadn't reached for a wrap or other garment to cover her thin nightgown. As with earlier on the balcony, it appeared the cold didn't affect her. "I don't understand. Why would Gilly tell me he told you when he hadn't?"
Shame. Pride. Lincoln could think of a number of reasons, but he wasn't sure which would be the driving force behind Gillingham's lie. Nor did he care. "You will have to ask him."
She snorted softly. "He won't tell me." Her shoulders slumped and she studied her hands in her lap. "He rarely talks to me at all, these days."
He didn't come near her for intimacy, either, it seemed. "What are you, madam?"
She glanced up. "You don't know? Even with all your experience?"
"I've never come across anyone like you before."
"Oh. I was hoping you could tell me. I have no name for what I am. My father never told me, you see, and now he's gone."
"Did you inherit this…magic from him?"
She nodded. "My father could change form too. When I was young, he told me to always use my human shape and not tell a soul about the other. Apparently he never told my mother, but I don't know how she reacted when first saw me change. She died when I was quite young, so I'll never know. Lately, I've wondered if seeing me become a monster killed her."
"You're not a monster."
Her head snapped up. Her eyes filled with tears. What had he said? Why did she want to cry? "You don't think so?" she whispered.
"As soon as you recognized me, you let me go. A monster would have killed me, especially after I witnessed you in that form. You haven't killed your husband either." Although she must have wanted to, on occasion. God knew Lincoln wanted to—frequently.
"I suppose."
