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Egg Moon: April 19, 1810
Gareth had never been the athletic sort, even in his schooldays, but he came up the lane to Tench House at full pelt. He barely managed to slow down and avoid slamming through the front door, conscious of Catherine and Cecy sleeping upstairs. Nevertheless, Catherine appeared on the stairs within moments of his arrival.
“Gareth? What’s going on?” she asked. Her brow was creased with concern.
Gareth shook his head, still sucking in air, and gestured for her to follow him into the study.
She lit a few candles for light as Gareth settled himself at the desk, then sat across from him and watched him patiently.
When he finally had breath to speak, he rasped out, “I - I saw something on the Marsh, Catherine. I don’t know how it’s possible, but -” he broke off, at a loss for how to explain what he’d just witnessed.
“Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened, from the beginning,” she said gently.
He took a deep breath, and nodded. “I was out walking on the Marsh,” he said, even though she knew that already. “Along one of the dykes, when I saw something in the distance. A grayish shape, large, low to the ground. I thought at first that it might be a wayward sheep, but the way it moved was all wrong. I was - unsettled - ” An understatement; the hairs on his arms were rising again just at the memory. “So I hid behind a tree, hoping that whatever it was would move along. But it stopped and looked around. I think it must have smelled me on the wind. Then it started to walk toward me, very slowly. As though it were stalking me.” He swallowed. “By then it was close enough that I could recognize it by moonlight. It was… a wolf.”
Catherine gave a sharp inhale. “But how is that possible? I thought wolves had been gone from England for generations!”
“Three centuries, at least,” Gareth confirmed.
“Could it have been a dog, perhaps?”
He shook his head. “It was larger than any dog I’ve ever seen. And I’ve read about wolves, seen drawings. The features were identical: shaggy gray hair, pricked ears, narrow snout. Besides, there were two of them - ”
“Two?”
“A second wolf appeared from the brush, jumped across the dike, and got between me and the first one. It was slightly smaller - a juvenile, perhaps - but I’m certain they were the same species. They stood staring at each other for I don’t know how long.” It had felt like a hundred years to Gareth, who’d been expecting them to turn on him at any moment. “Then the first wolf just… walked off. The second wolf followed it. When I’d judged that they were well away, I returned here as quickly and quietly as I could.”
“My God, Gareth,” Catherine murmured. “what a terrifying ordeal. I’m so glad you’re all right.”
He felt far from all right. “I’m worried for you and Cecy, Catherine. For everyone on Romney Marsh, come to that. It’s not safe to walk around outside with wolves roaming loose.”
Catherine bit her lip. “You’re right, of course. But what’s to be done?”
“I don’t know. This is a bit outside my experience, as a city dweller.” Gareth had an alarming vision of packs of bounty hunters stalking the lanes with rifles on their shoulders. Then he realized he knew of at least one group who was armed, trustworthy, and interested in strange happenings on the Marsh. “Isn’t Lieutenant Bovey coming for tea tomorrow? I’ll speak to him about it.”
“Very well.” As Catherine rose from her chair, she laid a comforting hand over Gareth’s on the desk. “For now, I hope you’ll try to get some rest.”
Gareth gave her a weak smile, grateful for the motherly concern that still caught him off-guard at times. But with all of his senses reeling from his bizarre near-death experience, he had a feeling that rest would be a long time coming.
***
Milk Moon: May 19, 1810
Gareth hung limply in his bonds. The icy waves had sapped the energy from his body as they rose, washing away his feeble hopes as well. Joss wasn’t coming to save him. He’d told Gareth that he would be away on Doomsday business; moreover, he’d made Gareth swear that tonight, of all nights, he wouldn’t go out walking on the Marsh. A pity Bill Sweetwater had forced him to break that promise.
The water was up to Gareth’s chest now. Soon it would cover him entirely, and he would drown.
As he waited to die, a sudden volley of shouts broke out from beyond the Wall. Was someone confronting Bowring? The tiny spark of hope turned back to ice as the shouting died away and a piercing howl cut through the night. Gareth raised his head to see a hulking, four-legged shape hurtle down the Wall, so close that its impact with the water sprayed him with droplets. It quickly got its bearings and swam toward the Wall - toward Gareth. Its gaze bore into his own with predatory fervor, and Gareth saw that its face and neck were drenched in gore. It was a wolf - and not one of the two he’d seen on the Marsh.
Gareth choked around his gag as he tried to scream, thrashing until the ropes dug painfully into his flesh. Instead of lunging in for the kill, the animal shrank back in the water. A high-pitched, almost plaintive sound escaped its throat. After a moment, its gaze flickered and it ducked its head under the waves. Resurfacing, it scrabbled its forepaws against the jumble of rocks and branches that supported the Wall, until it found purchase and could stand up on its hind legs in the water, face-to-face with Gareth.
Instinctively, Gareth stopped his futile struggles: a sighted hare freezing under the eyes of a predator. He could feel the heat of the wolf’s panting breaths on his face. The creature still stank of death, even if the worst of the blood had now been rinsed from its fur.
As moments passed and the wolf simply watched him, Gareth couldn’t help making another attempt to speak. His pointless pleas for the animal to spare his life came out as garbled moans, which turned to sobs as tears of terror ran down his cheeks.
The wolf made that plaintive, whimpering noise again, then began to make it continuously. It was an incongruously gentle sound from such a fearsome creature. Lowering its broad head, so that it was gazing upward into Gareth’s face like a beseeching dog, it leaned forward and gently licked a teardrop from his cheek.
The sheer shock of the gesture temporarily overrode Gareth’s panic, and he met the wolf’s eyes in confusion. Up close, lit by the full moon, their color was visible: a warm, familiar golden-brown.
In an instant, the many strange events since Gareth had arrived on Romney Marsh flashed through his mind: the eerie howls that disturbed his sleep and the tales of full-moon madness that he’d dismissed as rural superstition, until the night he’d spotted two wolves roaming the Marsh. Then, Joss’s threats of blackmail when Gareth had attempted to report the beasts to the local authorities, which had left Gareth furious, hurt, and bewildered. Finally, the past few weeks of fragile reconnection, marked by Joss’s hints that the Doomsday clan and the wolves were linked, as well as his insistence that the animals were harmless and that Gareth’s glimpse of them had been a fluke.
Gareth would hardly describe the bloodstreaked creature before him as “harmless.” In any other situation, the idea that this was Joss in another shape would have been absurd and terrifying. But at this moment, it was Gareth’s only hope for survival.
“Joss? Please, is it you?” Gareth begged through the gag. Though the words were unintelligible, his questioning tone must have come through, because the wolf gave an uncanny nod of its head. Then it cautiously fastened its teeth into the fabric of the gag, tugging it from Gareth’s mouth.
“Joss,” Gareth sobbed through chattering teeth, “Joss!” The wolf - could it really, truly, be his lover? - licked Gareth’s cheeks clean of tears, whimpering all the while. He adjusted the position of his forelegs until he was nearly embracing Gareth. His soaking bulk pressed into Gareth from chest to belly; though it did nothing to warm him up, the physical contact alone was a profound relief. Gareth tried instinctively to raise his arms toward Joss, and gasped in pain as the ropes jarred his aching muscles.
“The tide, Joss - my arms - what can we do?” he asked helplessly.
Joss tilted his head toward the top of the Wall, then pointed his muzzle at the sky and repeated that piercing howl. Gareth heard an answering howl from inland. To his relief, it had the quality of a human voice - the Doomsday signal. It sounded close… but was it close enough to save him?
“So - cold -” he stammered. Joss gave a low whine and heaved himself up to balance precariously along the Wall on all fours. Gareth’s hands, nearly numb, barely registered the press of Joss’s wet snout as he examined the ropes binding Gareth to the spar. All at once, there was a grinding sound as Joss applied his powerful jaws to the thick cord.
It seemed to take an age, but at last, Gareth’s arms were free. He collapsed forward onto Joss, now able to wrap his arms across the powerful shoulders and anchor his hands in the shaggy coat. Joss scrambled backward, wordlessly encouraging Gareth to keep hold of him, until Gareth was completely out of the water. It was as much as they could manage for now.
“You came,” he whispered into Joss’s fur. “You told me - I’d never see another wolf on the Marsh. Being caught… too dangerous. But you came anyway, and you saved me.”
Joss whined softly once more, and nuzzled deeper into the crook of Gareth’s neck, while they waited for rescue.
***
Wolf Moon: January 9, 1811
The glow of the full moon cast strange shadows across Gareth’s baronet bedroom, but that made no matter to Joss, whose eyes were contentedly closed. All that existed in his world was Gareth, sprawled out naked across the mattress; and Joss atop him, blanketing every inch of Gareth’s skin in living, breathing fur.
Furs in winter, with nothing under, Joss had told Gareth last spring. But he’d never dared to imagine it this way. He’d never thought that nervous, vulnerable Gareth could learn to embrace Joss’s wolf side without revulsion or fear.
That had been damned short-sighted on Joss’s part. Gareth was one of the bravest men he’d ever known, all the moreso for his vulnerability - and especially for the sake of those he loved.
Being with Gareth was always heaven, but this was another level. Joss’s whole body was awash with comforting sensations: Gareth’s strong fingers stroking through his coat, his heart beating steadily against Joss’s chest, his skin smelling of their mingled sweat and spend.
Time passed like the slow, sweet drip of honey from a dipper. Gareth’s murmur in his ear made it even sweeter. “That’s right, love. You’ve worked so hard, done so well, and tonight, you rest.”
His lovely Gareth, his mate. Joss yearned to tell him how wonderful he was, although Gareth had teased him many times that he enjoyed the novelty of “getting in a compliment edgewise” when Joss was in this form. And Joss had admitted that, though he was no dog, simple words of praise struck at his wolf’s heart in a way they didn’t when he was a man.
Beneath him, Gareth shifted. Joss tensed at once - did Gareth need something? Was Joss crushing him with his bulk?
But Gareth just dug his hands more firmly into Joss’s fur. “Easy, love. All is well on the Marsh. There’s no need for Mr. Joss Doomsday now. Only for a merciful lovely wolf to stay right here and keep me warm.”
Turning his head on the pillow, he pressed tender kisses to Joss’s muzzle, his cheek, the tip of his ear, which flickered reflexively.
Joss huffed a sigh of contentment. In the morning, and every other night of the month, he would sing his lover’s praises. For this one night, just being with Gareth was enough.