I had little feelings for my best friend’s sister.
Gwaniella Wells was a certainly a beautiful woman, one with a lovely figure and an exceptional elegance in her way of dressing, walking, talking, and so on.
In addition, she was from a moneyed family, so one could never accuse her of gold-digging. Her wealth matched mine—unlike the family resources of Adara Huntington, however appealing I might find her.
Gwaniella’s family lineage was old and illustrious, reaching back to royalty.
But to her everlasting embarrassment, they’d fallen on hard times in recent generations.
Indeed, a hundred years ago, her ancestors were what people referred to in those days as the “genteel poor.” To literally keep themselves and their families from starving, the daughters were doomed to work as governesses, and the men entered the military at best, or at worst became tutors or scriveners or clerks.
However, fortunately for the
The beautiful woman in green, Gwaniella, was introduced to us. She was initially cordial, but after a few pleasantries she alienated us with her ill-mannered remarks, sarcastically suggesting that Fawna and I get ourselves scratched or bitten so we might remain on Vukasin Island during full moon week with our parents.It was an incredible breech of good etiquette, suggesting such an awful thing. And it embarrassed everyone present. A chill came over the room, Dane blanched, being a Lupine himself, and his friend’s face turned bright red. Everyone was mortified by the remark.Everyone except Gwaniella, of course, who couldn’t understand her own faux pas.Her brother Edin came to everyone’s rescue, breaking the wall of ice that had formed, by suggesting we all take a walk along the shore to his house next door, for lunch.As soon as we got outside and descended the steps from Dane’s veranda to the beach, Gwaniella stepped forward and
I entered my friend’s house with his sister Gwaniella literally clinging to me. She held, by turns, my hand, my wrist, my arm, my shoulder. I wanted to cry out, “Do stop touching me.” But of course, in deference to my friend, Edin, her brother, I kept silent. To bear her displays of affection, I steeled my mind and pretended it was Adara who was pawing me. With that in mind, it didn’t feel like pawing at all. It felt like a pleasant kind of foreplay, a precursor to intercourse. I imagined the different ways I might have her: both of us standing, her sitting on my lap facing me, her sitting on my lap turned away from me, in bed in missionary position, in bed in wolf position, not to mention the feeling of her sweet mouth on my cock and my tongue inside her. These thoughts, these lusty fantasies, aroused me, of course, and I casually put my hands in my pockets, but stayed close to Gwaniella. No doubt her eyes were frequently on my crotch, but by staying close I
As Edin led us through the salon and into his luxurious dining room, I noticed, with great disappointment, that Gwaniella was clutching Dane’s arm. I had hoped to be seated beside him at lunch and perhaps overcome his reluctance to engage in conversation. Perhaps his behavior wasn’t arrogance, but shyness? I wanted to find out. But Gwaniella spoiled that plan. She managed to be seated beside him. He didn’t seem to resist her affections, and I assumed there was something between them.That was fine with me. Dane Wiltshire had shown himself to be rude, arrogant, and condescending. So what did I want with him? Yes, he was handsome, but, how does the saying go? “Handsome is as handsome does.” I think the word in the saying is “pretty” and that it’s applied to women, but no matter. I applied it here. Let Dane have Gwaniella or vice versa. The two of them were nothing to me.Meanwhile, Edin sat at the head of the table with his
I watched as Adara so sweetly sought to soothe her sister.“Fawna, you’ll be fine.” She crooned repeatedly, in a voice as smooth as honey.I longed to hear that voice whisper in my ear as I kissed and licked and sucked at her nipples and my hand moved between her legs.But sex was not my concern at the time. My concern was that the poor girl on the sofa had poisoned herself on a plant from my garden. My plant.As Edin sat beside her pressing a cool cloth to Fawna’s forehead, inwardly I cursed myself for keeping my eyes focused only on Adara and not being more vigilant over her sister when we were in my garden.Women are always attracted to beautiful flowers, and perhaps nothing growing on Vukasin Island was more beautiful than aconite: wolf’s bane, the Queen of Poison. Perhaps because of the nature of Vukasin—perhaps for another reason, I don’t know—the aconite that grows here was not only the most de
We were just about to have the servants carry my sister into the bathroom, to submerge her in the tub of frozen water. I hoped this would at least bring down her fever, for even though unconscious, she was still perspiring profusely, and her forehead was almost scalding hot.Suddenly there was a knock at the door. And not just a knock, but a hard and loud and insistent pounding that sounded threatening and seemed almost to portend danger.But instead of danger, it brought the promise of potential cure for my dying sister.The servant opened the front door, which was visible from the salon where my sister lay unconscious on the sofa. On the front step stood a short, fat, balding little man with a black bag in one hand and a bottle of wine in another. Behind him stood the servant Edin had sent to fetch the doctor.The little man rushed in, not waiting to be invited or announced by the servant. “It’s aconite poisoning, yes?”“Y
The doctor had finally arrived.It was he who was banging so insistently upon the door.Having been on Vukasin Island for quite some time, I recognized him, of course. He’d once treated my sister for the flu when she’d been visiting from the mainland.But I was so agitated, and so caught up in my efforts to control my distress and so avoid Lupinization, that I couldn’t remember his name. Thus, rather rudely, I didn’t introduce Doctor Hendricks to Edin and Adara when he entered.As he entered, I noticed he was carrying his doctor’s bag in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. I knew—every permanent resident of Vukasin did—that he was an alcoholic. But he’s a most effective doctor who, in spite of his drinking, takes his work seriously. And he never drinks on the job. Therefore, his act of carrying about the wine so openly rather surprised me.His manner was gruff, as always, which was no surprise
The next hours were torture.After pronouncing that he’d done all he could, Doctor Hendricks asked Edin to show him to a bedroom where he could lie down and rest. Edin obliged and led the doctor up the long winding staircase in the foyer, with a servant trailing behind.That left Dane and me together, alone with my sister.A servant came in, bearing a tray with the chamomile tea the doctor had ordered.I thought, Has so little time passed? It has seemed like an eternity.I could tell by Dane’s rather startled expression, upon seeing the servant with the tea, that he was thinking the same thing.He invited me to come into the dining room, to sit at the table and partake of the tea, as well as the sandwiches the servant had brought us.Instead, now that the doctor was gone, I resumed my place on the carpet beside the sofa, by my sister’s side, holding her limp and deathly pale hand.“You should ea
I brought over the tea tray, set it on the chair the doctor had occupied, and took a seat on the floor beside Adara. It was rather strange, sitting on the floor, and I don’t think I’d ever done it—except perhaps when in Lupine state, for there was no furniture in my cell. Lupine state. Would it be fair to ask any human young woman to endure that? To put up with someone who was one-quarter beast. To undergo one week per month of separation from me, her spouse? No doubt she’d spend her time on the mainland fraught with anxiety, worrying every minute that I might escape my cage, be caught, and be mistreated—perhaps even killed—by patrolling Enforcement Officers. In my younger days, before becoming a Lupine, I’d had many dalliances, of course. At university, Edin and I had even gotten drunk together and visited brothels. But since I was turned to a werewolf—with the exception of a brief, unfortunate, and forgettable brief fling wi