Shadow of the Wolf (2 page)

    
Serenitee let him take her purchases.  “Thanks.”  She led him up the steps of the porch and he waited until she walked in before following.  She smiled inwardly at his chivalry, glad to see it wasn’t completely dead. 

    
Her mouth watered at his backside.  She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from the natural sway of his hips or his thick, toned thighs, which looked to be at the point of exploding out of his worn jeans.

    
“Where do you want these?”  He turned to find her staring at him.  He didn’t know whether to be uncomfortable or aroused.  Maybe a little of both if the truth be told.

    
Serenitee pointed to the kitchen table as she stumbled over her words.  “T-there would be fine.”  As he turned to place her packages on the table, she took the small opportunity to take a breath to steady her nerves and to study her new neighbor for a moment.  He was a large framed, brooding type of man.  He was ruggedly handsome with a few crows’ feet at his eyes.  He had about half a day’s worth of a beard on his strong jaws.  Serenitee liked a man with a little ‘scruff’ to him. His brown hair, a few locks here and there having been kissed by the sun, was unkempt, nearly touching the collar of his black shirt, but it suited his look rather well.  When he turned around, she could see a fine sprinkling of chest hair peeking where he’d left a few buttons open. Serenitee could see an almost feral look in his light green eyes.  Her heart skipped a beat when his tongue licked at his lips.  And what beautiful, kissable lips they were.  They were sinfully plump and pink. She wondered how many women would line up for a taste of them.  He canted to one side, resting the majority of his weight on one leg.  He hooked a thumb in one pocket of his jeans and Serenitee felt like she’d eaten a spoonful of sand. 

    
Oh, he should come with a warning label.
‘Being near this man could cause heart palpitations, clammy hands and wet dreams.  Proceed with caution.’

    
“Serenitee?”  He cocked his head at the name.  “Unique name.  I’m Trevor Van Holden.”  He shook her hand.  He noted how his hand engulfed hers.  She was small boned and fragile looking to him.  Then again, most women were small compared to his large muscular build.

    
She shrugged.  “My mom loved poetry.”  She hoped that didn’t sound like a lame excuse.

    
“Ah.  I see.”  He looked around the old place as if recalling memories of his youth.  She caught a wistful look in his eyes.  He turned his focus back on her.  “I came over to offer my help and to apologize.”

    
“Apologize?”

    
“Yeah,” he smiled sheepishly.  “For my behavior earlier.  I should’ve introduced myself then.  It wasn’t very neighborly to just nod and leave.”

    
Serenitee shrugged it off.  “Oh, don’t worry about it.  I lived in New York.  Your greeting was more than some do up there.”

    
Trevor knitted his dark brows.  “That’s not nice.  And neither was I.”

    
Serenitee smiled.  “Well, then, apology accepted.”

     The corners of his mouth upturned graciously.  “Thanks.”

     Serenitee gave him a slight shrug.  “Hey, maybe you weren’t feeling like yourself earlier.  We’ve all been there at one time or another, you know?”

     She didn’t know the half of it.
  He certainly wasn’t going to fill her in on any of the grim details.  She’d run screaming from this house, not caring what she had paid for it.  He wouldn’t blame her if she did.  He knew he could be a little intimidating at times.  Lord knows, he didn’t go out of his way to be a jerk.  It kind of crept up on him when he least expected it.

     And now,
this beautiful woman was living a few hundred feet from his home. The thought made him more than a little nervous.  He just prayed she slept like the dead.

     He cleared his throat.  “Well, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.  I know you have a lot of work ahead of you, fixing up the place.
  But feel free to ask me for any help for any of the heavy lifting or anything else you might need.”

     Serenitee
smiled gratefully.  “Will do.  I’m no stranger to hard work, though.  I could use it, to tell you the truth.”

     Trevor raked his hand through his hair.  He couldn’t tell her that her shape looked more than all right to his eyes.  He said instead
, “Good luck.  Just make sure to ask for my help if you need it.  I’ll see you around then?”

    
Serenitee tilted her head up to meet his eyes.  “That would be great.  You can come over for dinner one night as soon as I get the kitchen in order.  How’s that sound?”

     “Sounds fine to me.  As long as I don’t have to eat my own cooking, I’m game,” he said with a lopsided grin.

     A few hours into her work scrubbing the hallway, Serenitee wiped the sweat from her stinging eyes.  As a result, she tripped over a loose floor board and yelped as she landed on her hands and knees. 

     She sat up and clapped the dust off her palms and rubbed her smarting knees.

     “Crap
,” she muttered through clenched teeth.  She examined the board and pulled at it.  Surprisingly, it offered little resistance and came away without much effort on her part. 

     Serenitee looked inside the darkness and swept away a couple of ancient looking cobwebs.  She felt around blindly until her hand brushed across what seemed to be old leather
.  She grabbed the rectangular object and pulled out an old leather bound book……journal?  Maybe a diary?  All she saw was an imprint reading ‘1865’ in gold.

     “Why would someone hide such a beautiful old book like this?”

     She examined it more closely.

    
What if this was Trevor’s?

     It
was
hidden for a reason.

     Her fingers itched to open it.  If curiosity killed the cat, she would’ve been dead years ago.  So, she might as well take a small look.

     She knew she really shouldn’t, she was a nosy person, but something stronger than she compelled her to do just that. 

    
Just a peek,
she reasoned to herself.

     She opened to the first page and let out a surprised gasp. 

     The title read: 
Shadow of the Wolf.  The Real Truth about Werewolves.

    
Serenitee crinkled her brows tightly.  Surely, this was someone’s work of fiction?  There wasn’t any ‘real truth’ in werewolves.  They were merely a myth concocted by someone’s weird, albeit entertaining, imagination. 

     She shook her head and decided it was best to close the book for now.  She had more pressing matters and they
didn’t involve old fables of the four legged kind.  But she couldn’t bring herself to put the lovely book back into the cavity of the floor.  Instead, she replaced the board and took the old book upstairs and put it in her nightstand. 

     Right now, she needed to finish dusting the living room book shelves before
it got dark.

     Serenitee stepped into the shower and let the warm water sluice over her sweat drenched and sore body.  She managed to make a lot of headway today.  At least the kitchen was spotless.  She was starved and wanted to make herself a sandwich before retiring to bed----and to that peculiar book.

     She scrubbed herself until
her skin shone and then washed her hair.  She wrapped a small towel around her head and wrapped a terry cloth robe around her body and padded her way to the kitchen. 

     She opened her now full refrigerator and got out the ingredients for a grilled c
heese.  As she began putting the butter in her brand new, but seasoned iron skillet, she heard a terrible howl.  She looked out the kitchen window but saw nothing unusual.  

     It might be a hungry stray dog somewhere in the wooded area
where she couldn’t see.  She would have to wait until morning to find out.  If it turned out to be a hungry dog, she would, at least, go pick up a bag of dog food at the store.

     After she finished eating and cleaning up her mess, she was eager to get into bed and take another look at that mysterious book.

     Around ten-thirty, she settled in and opened up the leather book and starting reading the first entry.

    
“’February 4, 1865:

     “’I
have finally accumulated enough wealth, selling quite a number of my slaves as I don’t see the point of having them anymore.  They have made up almost half of the population here since 1860.  I was always uncomfortable owning another human being but they were handed down to me by my father, James.  I can’t free them as by law.  I’m still waiting to see what else President Lincoln has to say on the matter as is the entire North and South.  But we’re still in this terrible Civil War and we have been for almost four years now. I don’t know how many lives will be lost for such a petty thing on whether owning slaves should still be allowed. I don’t understand why the South wants to expand their hold on these people.  I have no problem doing the work with my own two capable hands.

     “’I am p
urchasing the entire town of Point Clearing with my earnings and renaming it Holden.

     “’This town will be handed d
own to the men of my blood. My son, Elijah, is next in line.  I hope all the men in the Van Holden family make this town into a prosperous one.  It is a beautiful place here and worthy of a passionate owner.

     “’I just pray that
the town of Holden is the only thing I pass down.  Every night, I beg and plead for no one to live with such a curse as the one I’m doomed to carry until death.

     “’Unfortunately, the tincture’s powers have worn down.  The resistance in my body has grown stronger.  I fear I cannot ingest more than is required for it wou
ld prove to be fatal.  Taking my own life with a large dose does not sit well with me.  I am sure it would also be a most painful death.  But, taking someone’s life disturbs me greatly.  Either way, the outcome is a gruesome one.

     “’Now, I must wait in agony of the rising moon
and pray the tincture and ropes are enough to calm me.

     “’Signed:  Joseph Van Holden.’”

     Serenitee sniffed.  What a sad story.  But, she realized it wasn’t a work of fiction but an actual journal of the Van Holden family.

     What was the curse he was talking about?  Wh
at was this talk of moons, ropes and tinctures of……something to help him? 

  
  And what did this entire journal have to do with the title of it?  What did werewolves have to do with the Van Holden family?  Werewolves were myths told and re-told in different ways from every part of the world.  Every continent practically had their version of the werewolf.  Sure, in Africa, it was hyenas, but the stories were similar in that a human changed into an animal. 

     Perhaps it was some kind of mental illness that Joseph was afraid of passing to his descendants.
  Wasn’t lycanthropy considered a mental illness at one time? 

     Surely, that’
s all it was.

     Trevor awoke in a naked heap on his kitchen floor a little after three in the morning.  He got to his knees and looked at the blood on his trembling hands.

     “No.”  His voice was raw.  No doubt from what he put his vocal cords through.
 

    
He got up and went to the sink and began scrubbing away the blood from his hands.  He wished he could wash away the guilt and watch it run down the drain as easily as the blood did.  Like
Lady Macbeth,
water wasn’t going to wash away those guilty feelings.  Time couldn’t heal a repressed conscience.  It only gnawed at you until there was nothing left.

     He caught a glimpse of himself in the kitchen window.  He saw
only a stranger looking back at him, smears of blood on his face.  He quickly cupped some cold water and scrubbed until it hurt; until his face was raw and his skin prickled.

     He wondered what
poor innocent animal he killed this time. 

   
A chilling thought sliced through him like an icy dagger to his heart. “Please, not a human being.  Dear Lord, I couldn’t live with myself if I took a human life.”  He fell to his knees, still gripping the edge of the sink, sobs racking his body.  “Why can it just be over?” His raggedly plea echoed through the kitchen.  The sound of his own hollow voice haunted him, mocked him.  His dreams were no longer his.  The nightmares belonged to the beast.  It wouldn’t be long before it eroded his mind completely.

     How much longer was he going to have to live with this wretched curse?  How many full moons would he bay at before it all stopped? 

     He hated to think that, like the men in his family before him, only in death, could the curse be lifted.  He was only thirty-two.  He couldn’t take another twenty years of this hell.  If he had twenty years left to him, that is.