Chapter 2

Powerful hands drew him close. No chance to break free, the grip was like iron. The man leaned in and Nathaniel felt breath on his neck. Teeth...Biting. Pain flared out from his throat like a cold river of thorns. The shock of feeling the essence of his life being drawn away from him stunned him into submission. Nathaniel fell into the embrace of the powerful man. He felt himself slipping away...from everything. A darkness crept into the cold.

But then Nathaniel was falling. The feel of grass on his cheek. Breath came back to him. His mind returned. Sounds reached his ears. A voice.

"You are a foolish beast...how dare you approach me! It would have been better for you if you had acted in the same manner as your brothers and flown from my sight!"

Nathaniel rolled over to his side and looked toward the voice. His eyes could now make out the figure of the man advancing toward Fala. The wolf was standing his ground growling at Nathaniel's attacker. Nathaniel fumbled for his blunderbuss pistol as quickly as he could. Struggling to sit up, Nathaniel watched helplessly as the man grabbed Fala by the neck and lifted the growling animal off the ground.

"Stop!" the words rang out in Nathaniel's head...but his throat made only a whisper. The man nevertheless turned toward Nathaniel while holding the wolf aloft and smiled an evil smile.

"Oh...this is your pet...I see...that was his undoing...attempting to save you." With that he bent the wolf in half...snapping his spine like a twig. One small yelp of pain was all Fala could manage before the man dropped him into the grass in a heap of fur.

With impossible speed, the man was again upon Nathaniel and lifted him off the ground by his shirt. He grinned again. Only...this was not quite a grin. It was an unholy smile of death...revealing a row of deadly teeth. He pulled Nathaniel close.

A shot rang out. Nathaniel dropped to the ground again as the man staggered backward and clutched at his face. He screamed in rage. It was not the scream of a human. The unholy sound bored into Nathaniel's head and burned at the inside of his skull. Nathaniel managed to struggle to his feet holding the smoking blunderbuss as the dark man gurgled and staggered to and fro. It could just be made out in the dark that the man's face was torn open by the multiple shots from the pistol.

Nathaniel pulled his knife as the man actually seemed to recover a bit and stagger toward him.
"You won't see another sunrise, villain!"

Voices. Along the path. Coming toward them. The man seemed to stop for a moment to listen, then he turned and was gone. An empty spot marked where he stood. Nathaniel could only stand there while several workers rushed up behind him with guns at the ready. He looked once at his ruined friend lying by the path and collapsed.

Red. A river of red engulfed Nathaniel. He swam through it, trying hard to keep his head above water. But his feet were lead and dragged him below the surface again and again. He gasped for breath. He choked on something vile.

"The Algonquians have not returned. This was a cowardly attack." Gabriell said to his wife as he stood by his brother's bedside watching him thrash around and struggle to breathe. Nathaniel suddenly rolled over on his side and threw up.

"Has he been poisoned, Gabriell?" Hannah asked.
"Perhaps...the wound on his neck should not cause this fever and delirium. He has not emerged from his stupor since yesterday's assailment ."
"Why would they attack us? We have no quarrel with them."
"That is a question in need of an answer, my dear...and I will have it!"

Gabriell turned and strode from the room. Hannah looked after him for a moment before turning her attention back to Nathaniel. She looked at the wounded man with concern and sat beside his bed. She knew very well that her husband's brother still harbored feelings for her and could not help feeling sympathy for him. Back in England, he had proposed marriage to her before Gabriell had returned from his last stint aboard his naval ship in pursuit of pirates along the southern coast of the American colonies. Hannah had turned him down as politely as she could, but she knew he had taken a powerful emotional blow.

She had not even known for sure at the time that Gabriell would offer his own proposal upon his return, but he did just that during their first evening together. Hannah had happily accepted and Gabriell and she were wed immediately. Soon after he had announced that he had been rewarded for his service to his country with a section of land in Virginia and intended to immigrate there with his new bride. He also offered his brother the chance to share in the enterprise with his own share of the land. On the way over, during a calm day in the Atlantic Ocean, Hannah had broken the news to Gabriell that she was pregnant with their first child.

"No!"
Nathaniel's cry broke Hannah's reverie. She sat upright in her chair and leaned over her brother in law.
"Nathaniel? Are you now regaining yourself?"

Opening his eyes, the first sight Nathaniel saw was Hannah sitting beside his bed. Immediately emotion filled his mind. Much stronger emotion that he had ever felt toward her before. Almost...violent in its power. He reached for her and grasped her hand.
"Hannah...my dearest..."
Hannah tried to draw her hand back but his grip was surprisingly powerful. The look in his bloodshot eyes was almost that of a frightened animal. Her empathy won out and she placed her other hand on top of his.
"You are recovering your strength, Nathaniel. It is good...we worried much over your condition."
"My condition..."

Memories of the attack flooded back. "Hannah! I was attacked!"
"Yes...yes...we know of it. The workers heard your shot and came running. The Algonquians whom attacked you fled before they could be engaged."
Nathaniel paused.
"Hannah...it was not the Algonquians. It was a single man. He killed Fala with his bare hands as I watched...as easily as...one would fold a bed covering."

Hannah doubted that. The large pet wolf had been known to charge an entire pack of other wolves and had even repelled several Indians on one occasion. If there was a more fearsome creature in existence, it was unknown to her.
"You are fevered, Nathaniel. Fala protected you...there must have been many to have bested him."
"No! I tell you, there was but one. He was the most formidable man I've ever seen in action. If not for Fala..." Here he drifted off, remembering his companion. Then he turned his eyes back to Hannah.
"Was the man found? I unloaded my piston into his face."
Hannah shook her head. "No one was found. The men are out now scouting the hills."

Nathaniel somehow doubted they would find anyone. The man had seemed to disappear at the end. He released Hannah's hand, sat up in the bed, and pondered the events. He was feeling better by the second.

"Do you possess the strength to eat, Nathaniel? Do you hunger?"

Hunger. The word expanded in his head as she said it. He did feel hunger. He looked at Hannah again. The passion for her was overpowering. He had to fight the urge to grab hold of her, throw her onto the bed, and ravish her.

But no...that wasn't it at all. He wanted something else from her. A steady beating sound became audible to his ears. He realized suddenly it was Hannah's heart! He was indeed hungry...but it was a hunger not for her sex...but to feed on her. How could such a thought enter his mind? How...

Nathaniel sat bolt upright with fear in his eyes. Just like the man that attacked him! Terrible thoughts tried to invade his conscious mind, he kept them at bay with great effort.

"What is it, Nathaniel? Should I summon Gabriell?"

Nathaniel turned toward Hannah and snarled at the mention of his brother's name. He rose from the bed and advanced toward her as she backed away from him in surprise at his demeanor.

"You would think of him...nary a second may pass without you giving him your full attention I see!"

Hannah felt real fear at the sight of her brother in law. His face was twisted into a hateful visage and he approached nearer as if he were stalking her. He seized her by the arms with overpowering strength and pulled her close. She felt his breath on her neck.

She began to call out for help.