Read Online Fateful by Claudia Gray - Free Book Online Page B

wearing only my thin vest and slip. That’s a little better.
    I pull my knees up so that I can lie down on the small bench inside this booth, and crumple my uniform into a ball beneath my head. The wooden slats are hard against my side, but I don’t care.
    Outside, the wolf lies down outside my door. I can see nothing except his red fur. He’s waiting for me. He doesn’t mean to let me get away, even when he sleeps.
    The thought is horrifying, and it keeps me awake for hours as I tremble and cough. But eventually sleep wins, and I drift into dreamless oblivion.
    April 11, 1912
    I awake knowing only that I am stiff and uncomfortable, and that I want more sleep. Then I open my eyes, and my strange surroundings—and the unbelievable memories that explain them—jolt me to alertness. I sit upright and push my hands against the door almost before I remember that I’m doing it to keep the wolf back.
    There’s light now—thin and gray. Dawn, then. There must be portholes to let the sunlight in. I look down, but the wolf isn’t lying in front of the door any longer. I can’t hear him panting, either, nor any claws against the tile. Might it have left? Died in the night? Or is it at least far enough away that I could run to the door and pound against it? Someone might be closer now.
    With a shaking hand, I pull the door open, so slowly that it seems to take forever. No movement. No sound. So I dart out, thinking to run for the door that leads to the hallway and do whatever I can for myself—
    —and I jerk to a halt within two steps.
    Lying on the floor, entirely naked, perfectly formed, and dazed nearly to the point of unconsciousness, is Alec Marlowe.
    The red wolf.

Chapter 7
     
    FOR A MOMENT I CAN’T MOVE; I CAN ONLY STARE. Last night, as I drifted between waking and sleep, I had realized the red wolf must be another version of Mikhail—another transformed human being. But with all his talk about his “friend” and his “compatriot,” I believed it had to be one of the men he’d been walking with that night in Southampton. Never did I suspect Alec Marlowe.
    Alec comes to enough to recognize me standing over him, and he rolls onto his side, slightly away from me—maybe to show me that he doesn’t want to hurt me, maybe just because he’s embarrassed to be naked in front of a girl he hardly knows.
    Maybe I should run. But seeing how he moves—slowly, still confused—it seems too cruel to leave him like this.
    He says, “What are you doing here?”
    “You—you don’t remember?”
    “It’s all a blur.” Alec tries to push himself up, but he can’t. His muscled arms shake too much to bear his weight yet. “What happened?”
    “Your friend, Mikhail—he dragged me in here. He . . . ” How do I say this? “He changed. The two of you fought, and I couldn’t get out until—until you changed back.”
    Now that it’s light, and the steam has finally run out, I take a good look around the Turkish bath. There’s a cabinet I’d bet anything is for linens, and sure enough, when I open the door, there are towels and plush robes folded inside. I take a robe to Alec and kneel by his side. The tiles are cool against my bare knees. “Here,” I say gently. “Are you all right?”
    He snatches it from me, though he’s apparently still too weak to put it on. He just drapes it over his lap. “There’s no need to worry, Tess. Nothing’s happened here. Just leave me. And tell no one.”
    I almost want to laugh. “Are you really going to pretend I don’t know?”
    Alec turns his head toward the corner; his firm jaw clenches, as he struggles against some deeper emotion: shame, I realize. He’s ashamed to be seen as what he is.
    “Most people . . . prefer to forget, instead of admit what they’ve seen,” he says roughly. His voice sounds terrible—as though he had been screaming for hours. I remember how he growled and snarled. “You should go.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Because you want to stare at