Turned: A werewolf love story
(Book 1 of the Regency Shifter Series)
By K. M. Carroll
Turned: Prologue
Chapter 1: The Marriage
Chapter 2: The Curse
Chapter 3: The Bite
Chapter 4: Shelter
Chapter 5: Empathy
Chapter 6: Bluff
Chapter 7: Discovery
Chapter 8: Capture
Chapter 9: Crushed Hopes
Chapter 10: Confrontation
Prologue: The Beast
The werewolf's stare sent Bernard fumbling for a weapon he did not carry.
Thunder rumbled overhead and echoed off the thirty-foot stone wall. It stretched for miles to the north and south, cutting the land of Grayton off from its neighbors, but protecting them from the monsters outside.
A pen of felled tree trunks was built against the wall, and it contained a single werewolf. It snarled at them all, but it stared at Bernard with particular loathing. The chains on its limbs did not reassure him.
Bernard cleared his throat. "Archmage, why are we here?"
Archmage Allard had summoned the Mage Guild to witness his magic demonstration. He was a tall gray-bearded mage, but moved with the energy of a man half his age. The other adepts clustered outside the wooden enclosure, and somehow Bernard was at the front. He'd never been so aware of his five-foot height and lack of muscle.
Allard opened a gate and entered the pen. The wolf lunged at him, struck the end of its chains and grunted. Allard pointed his staff at the beast and green light glowed at its tip. The wolf shuddered and sank to its haunches.
"See?" Allard beamed. "It's completely under my control."
The mages stared at Allard and his wolf, and exchanged wide-eyed glances. Bernard shook his head. If he neglected to question the plan's sanity, no one would. "It's amazing, Allard. And yet, how long do you expect to control it? It's fighting you."
The werewolf trembled and whined. Saliva dribbled from its lower jaw.
Allard shot Bernard a fierce look from under black eyebrows not yet gone gray. "No matter how much they fight, they can't reverse their nature. My spells control them through their own pack instincts. They can't resist the Alpha Staff."
Bernard turned to Kryn, the potion master. "What do you think, sir?"
Kryn was a dark-haired, dark-skinned man of Southern descent, with a build more becoming a wrestler than a potion master. "We have no choice. The goblins draw closer every day. I say we present the werewolves to King Grayton."
The other mages nodded assent.
Bernard bit his tongue, but warning screamed in his heart.
Allard pointed his staff at the ground. The werewolf lay on its belly, never taking its eyes off the humans. "Excellent! Once the king approves, I'll construct an army of obedient wolves. The goblins will fall like wheat before a scythe."
Bernard wished he'd not eaten that last mince pie at lunch. Fighting monsters with monsters--what did that make the humans controlling the beasts? The land of Grayton might be saved ... but at what cost to its humanity?
He hurried away from the meeting, another sort of dread settling over him. In a fortnight he'd be married to Lady Charlotte Brighton. Most likely, he'd only ever see the werewolves again in the newspapers.
Chapter 1. The Marriage
Bernard resisted the urge to loosen his collar. He and Lady Charlotte sat together on a sofa, a polite distance between them. Her hair and perfume should be intoxicating to him, since they were courting. Instead, he fought nausea. The pain of his twisting stomach made this more punishing than the rack.
Charlotte’s fine clothes and jewelry were befitting the Brighton family name. And when she came into her inheritance, luxurious Halfmoon Manor would become hers…and her husband's. The spacious grounds and pleasing view far outclassed Bernard’s Preston house. Any man would enjoy living here.
But what of the stranger he was marrying? He glanced at his aunt, who pretended to read in a chair across the room. She had reared him since his parents had fallen to a fever when he was six. Now his aunt sought to marry him off and see him beget an heir as quickly as possible.
It was a pity this was only the second time he'd laid eyes on Charlotte Brighton. She was taller than he, and her carefully arranged golden curls made her seem like a queen or a goddess, untouchable by mortal men.
Charlotte shot him a haughty smile, chin uplifted. "Tell me of yourself, Mr. Preston. What are your pursuits?"
He scrambled for something to say. "I enjoy a bit of gardening. And I'm a fair shot with a fowling-piece. But I'm sure a lady has far more refined tastes."
At their first meeting she had talked about herself while he had sat in terrified silence. Certainly it was her favorite topic. "Why yes," she said, smiling in a cold way that reminded him of polished silver knives. "I spend my time among people of society. The Lyedyn Duchesses invited me to join their exclusive embroidery group. It's lovely to work among such accomplished women."
Her tone mocked him.
His collar grew tighter with each of her words. "Certainly, my lady. You shall have to educate me in such things. I confess I have kept to myself these last few years." Why did she make him so nervous?
Charlotte arched a perfect eyebrow. "I had heard you spent much time in the company of the Mage Guild. Are you a magic worker?"
Despite her condescension, he sensed real interest behind the question. "Ah, no." He ran a finger along the inside of his collar. "I have been studying alchemy and I grow many of the necessary herbs for basic potions and remedies. But it is a solitary pursuit, sad to say."
"Alchemy." Charlotte's fingers drummed in her lap. "Why dabble in such things if you have no magic?"
"Because it's as close as I shall ever get, my lady." He must not grow angry, not on a courting visit. Perhaps it was merely the blasted collar. "I have misgivings about Allard's werewolves, and I am seeking knowledge to combat his arts."
She smiled a white, perfect smile. "The werewolves are preferable to goblins overrunning the city. Everyone knows this."
"Yes, my lady. But a curse is a slippery snake that tends to turn on the caster. It makes me nervous, is all." Lovely, a woman schooled in political thought opposite his own. Possibly she applauded the construction of the Grayton Wall, too.
"Excuse me, miss. I must speak to my manservant in the hall." Bernard escaped the sitting room with the speed of a ball fired from a cannon. Once he gained the safety of the hall, he unbuttoned his collar and drew deep breaths.
Dread and gloom settled over him. He was to wed a woman who shared none of his interests and who already despised him. Why must he be forced into this? No fortune was worth the unhappiness that lay before him.
His aunt stepped into the hall and scowled at him. "Bernard, you return to her at once."
"Yes, ma'am," he said. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper. "Of all the women in Grayton, why must you choose her?"
His aunt leaned close, eyes burning. "She is the third richest woman in the country, and she is the only one near your age. Be grateful she is not a dowager!"
"Perhaps I would have had more in common with an older woman," he retorted.
Then he lifted his head, buttoned his collar, and returned to his visit with his future wife.
***
"He was pleasant enough, I suppose," said Charlotte. It was the following day, and she was drinking tea with her mother, Mrs. Brighton. The afternoon sun gilded the curtains with light, highlighting dust motes in the air.
"Did he seem interested in you?" asked her mother.
Charlotte considered. "He was quite nervous. I had the impression he has not conversed with many women. Study seems his main preference."
Mrs. Brighton gazed out the window and sipped her tea. "
He may not be the most fascinating man, but such a match will provide you with immense wealth!"
But not love. Charlotte kept that thought to herself. She could, perhaps, bring herself to love the small, rotund man and his shining pate. But would he ever return her affection? Or would he spend the years oblivious to her presence, buried in his studies?
"Mother, they say that love is possible in arranged marriages, yes?"
Her mother waved a dismissive hand. "Love is not necessary when both parties possess fortunes."
Charlotte bowed her head and gazed into the dark tea. It seemed to foretell her future--dark with loneliness and devoid of sweetness. She added another sugar lump, but it did no good.
"Why must I wed him?" she burst out. "Surely there is someone else!"
"Your father and I have had our eye on Bernard Preston for years," said her mother. "His aunt is one of my friends. I'm frankly surprised you don't know him better."
Charlotte sighed. How could she know him when he attended an exclusive school, never visited neighbors or attended balls? He was absent from her social circle. She did not doubt his intelligence, but what sort of heart beat within his pudgy frame? Until now, he was the sort of man she habitually snubbed. Had she snubbed him at their meeting? She couldn't recall.
Still, there was the possibility of happiness, even if it consisted only of material things. She had no inclination to learn about alchemy--or werewolves. Such things were beyond her ken. Besides, money could buy a consort, if she went about it quietly.
But she turned from that thought with a sigh. What was the point of marriage if she was already destroying it in her heart? She would try to love Bernard. And only if nothing came of it would she consider alternatives.
***
The wedding was a glorious affair of flowers, silk and feasting. Yet afterward, Charlotte went to her quarters, and Bernard went to his. There was no intimacy that night, or any other night. Charlotte shed many bitter tears over it.
Bernard seemed uncomfortable around her, hardly daring the occasional clasp of her hand. He spent most of his time in the cottage behind the house, where he worked long hours on alchemical mysteries.
The days became weeks, then months. Charlotte gave up hopes of romance, and focused her energies on managing their estates, and climbing the social ladder.
It was not until shortly after their third anniversary that everything changed.
Chapter 2: The Curse
The matter came up one evening at supper. They sat at opposite ends of a vast dining table, amid islands of silver and glimmering candles. Bernard had acquired a habit of reading while he ate, and was engrossed in a small tome as he sipped his soup.
"Bernard," said Charlotte. "I wish to ask you something."
He looked up in surprise, his glasses slipping off the end of his nose. He caught them before they landed in his soup. "Yes, my lady?"
"What is it that you do all day in your shop?"
Her attention flattered him. However, three years of his wife's presence, however distant, had taught him that the only time she noticed anyone was when they'd prove useful. "I am conducting various alchemical experiments."
Charlotte frowned. "Are they of ... any monetary significance?"
"Perhaps," said Bernard. "I am not brewing eternal youth potions, if that's what you mean. Some of us distrust Allard's means of defending the city of Lyedyn ..."
"Oh, magic," said Charlotte with a tinkling laugh. "I'm trying to climb the ladder of society, and you're brewing potions! You must create useful things if we are to attract notice and add to our fortune."
Bernard replaced his glasses and reopened his book.
"Well?" snapped Charlotte. "Didn't you hear a word I said?"
"Yes, my lady," said Bernard without looking up. "I have no intention of 'adding to our fortune', as you put it."
Charlotte snorted.
Bernard excused himself soon afterward. He left the manor and strode across the grounds to a small cottage near the stables. He'd turned it into a satisfactory laboratory the year he'd married Charlotte. Producing a key, he let himself in, and locked the door behind him.
Tables filled the main room, loaded with alchemical instruments, heated by a cunning iron furnace with many pipes extending to each table. Bernard moved between them, observing the infusions, but his mind was not in it. Instead he fretted over Charlotte. What a silly, empty-headed woman. There was more to life than the opinions of selfish rich people. What of the welfare of the people of Lyedyn?
Yet he could not suppress a wistful attraction. Charlotte was as distant and untouchable as a sunset, an overwhelming beauty that appeared in his life and vanished before he could comprehend it. Someday he'd woo her and win her heart. If only he knew how such a thing was accomplished! The elixirs bubbling in their vials were less mysterious than his wife.
Late that night, a knock sounded at the lab's door. Bernard opened it, and admitted a dark-skinned man in a blue robe. "Hello Kryn, come in, come in." It was raining outside, as usual in Lyedyn, but Kryn's robes were dry. He pushed back his hood, and the sparkles of a weather-warding spell trickled off him.
Kryn examined Bernard's instruments. "How is the new batch coming?"
"I haven't tested it yet," said Bernard. "Did you test my other sample?"
"Yes, unfortunately." Kryn pulled a burlap sack out of one voluminous pocket and tossed it on a nearby chair. "It reversed the transformation, but the man died afterward."
Bernard donned a pair of leather gloves, opened the bag, and withdrew a strand of hair with silver tweezers. "Pity. I'm beginning to think I'm approaching the problem wrong."
"What do you mean?" Kryn helped himself to a pot of tea kept warm over the tiny furnace.
"Maybe there is no cure for the transformation," said Bernard. "But perhaps I could insulate the mind from its effects."
Kryn froze with the teacup halfway to his mouth. He set it down. "You may have something there. The Society knows about the magic manipulation of minds. For instance." He cast a small spell. Bernard's hands and feet became hooves, and he dropped to all fours as a man-sized sheep. He looked at Kryn reproachfully.
Kryn changed him back. Bernard straightened up. "I wish you'd warned me."
"Sorry," said Kryn. "I was making a point. Shapeshift doesn't affect your mind. Only your body."
"You'd better dissect the spell for me," said Bernard. "How could I duplicate such effects with herbs?"
"We'd better hurry," Kryn said. "It's only a matter of time until the wolves escape."
"How many are there?"
"At least four hundred."
Bernard fell silent, but from the look on Kryn's face, they were thinking of the same incident. Several wolves had escaped into the countryside earlier in the year. The mages had tracked them by the trail of mangled bodies, and finally found them in the midst of slaughtering a family. The mages dispatched the wolves, but the surviving family members fell under the curse, and were placed with the other wolves upon their transformation.
Four hundred monsters running wild? It was too horrible to speak aloud.
Instead they fell to discussing the technicalities of their crafts, and worked until sunup. Then they parted ways, and Bernard went to bed until noon. It was one way to avoid Charlotte.
***
Charlotte took no notice of the alarming rumors. Spring had arrived, as well as the annual Spring Ball. She pulled every string she could to ensure that the ball took place at Halfmoon Manor. She kept the servants hard at work cleaning the whole house from top to bottom, and drove several maids to tears by making them re-polish the ballroom floor.
Charlotte bustled around the manor, overseeing the stocking of pantries, the arrangement of chandeliers, tables, chairs, and a myriad other things necessary for a successful ball. It was bliss and stress at once. It also kept her mind off her failure of a husband.
It wasn't that he was a failure, she amended as she sat at her writing desk with eight differen
t lists in front of her. Fifty thousand gold a year was anything but failure. But as the years had passed, she'd grown to despise him. The man was scarcely into his thirties! And no ambition. Always content to tinker with potions and leaving the hard work to her.
She added an item to a list and glared at it, as if it had offered her a personal affront. At least he might show interest in the ball! Showing interest in her projects was showing interest in herself. Yet he never listened, never attempted to bridge the gulf between them.
Gazing at her lists, Charlotte was suddenly, desperately lonely. Married three years and no children. People were beginning to talk. Dame Hepburn had been married a year and already had produced a son. What had Charlotte to show for her marriage? Fabulous wealth and nothing else. The romantic in her craved the love and devotion of a man--yet her husband had all the affection of a corpse.
Wilson Matthews, the lawyer, had made advances, but she had rebuffed him until now. But perhaps--perhaps after the ball, she might accept him. Charlotte deserved love, too, didn't she?
***
Bernard read books at dinner, and tuned out Charlotte's chatter about Mrs. So and So and Mr. Such and Such who had accepted her invitations. He also missed the subtle note of unhappiness in her voice. The only thing he listened to was the menu she had planned. He interrupted her in mid-sentence. "Agreed! I shall certainly attend."
She gaped at him, surprised into silence.
The day of the ball crept closer. Bernard paid it no attention. He was nearing a breakthrough on his werewolf curse treatment, and spared little thought for anything else. Many other alchemists and mages ran their own, parallel experiments, and all kept in close contact.
The morning of the ball, Bernard distilled his elixir into a pint bottle. The liquid shimmered pale blue. He poured a single dose into a small vial and planned to carry it on his person at all times. Then he looked at it again. There was enough elixir for two doses. He filled a second vial and tucked them both into an inner coat pocket.
Then he pulled out a piece of parchment, loaded a quill with ink, and wrote, "Kryn, I have finished the elixir. I have not yet tested it, but I have high hopes of its success. We must test it tomorrow." He signed it, blotted the ink, rolled it up, and placed it on a square carved stone on a pedestal. The scroll vanished, sent to a matching stone in the Mage Tower.