But none of that mattered until she had May safely back.
“I’m very glad that things have turned out so well for you,” she said, despising herself.
“Of course.” Mrs. Ingram clasped her hand again. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Johanna averted her gaze and waited until the other woman had gone up to her room. Only then did she register, leave her bag in her room, and hail a conveyance that would take her to Fenris’s rendezvous.
“The Barbary Coast?” the hackney driver said, shaking his head. “Bad place for a decent woman at any time of day. At night—”
“It is where I must go,” she said. “Please take me there quickly.”
“As you say, ma’am. On your own head be it.” He clucked his tongue, helped her into the coach, and climbed up to the driver’s seat. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Johanna sank back into the seat and closed her eyes. The warning came too late.
All he could see was fog.
Quentin woke into his body with a sense of disorientation and icy metal against his fingers. He unclenched his fists from the ironwork bars forming a high, decorative fence that marked the boundaries of a landscaped garden. The garden of a large, handsome Second Empire house, with a slated mansard roof and lights burning in a pair of gabled windows on the second floor.
His vision cleared further, and he saw that the fog was not so thick as he’d imagined. It swirled between buildings much like this one, the dwellings of rich and prosperous folk perched atop a hill overlooking the city.
The city of San Francisco. Nob Hill, in fact; he recognized the neighborhood, though it was one he’d seldom frequented during his previous residence. He had no idea how he had come to be here—in the city, or at this particular place. He didn’t know whose house this was, or why he’d been bent on trespass.
The last memory he could summon to mind was one of Changing from wolf to man in the woods near the Haven, May gazing at him in shock while her erstwhile kidnapper scuttled away. He remembered surrendering to instinct. Raw emotion. Despair. Anger.
He’d left the door open—
To Fenris.
He slumped to the ground at the foot of the ironwork fence and squeezed his eyes shut. How much time had passed? Hours, or days? What had this body done while it lay in another’s control?
He opened his eyes and stared at his hands. They looked the same. There was no blood on them. His clothing was unfamiliar, not what he would have chosen. But when he’d Changed, he hadn’t been wearing anything.
Fenris had dressed this body to suit himself. And come to San Francisco.
But Quentin had control again, for no reason that he could fathom. If anger and irrational emotion gave Fenris the edge, what had made him flee? Why had he brought Quentin to this place? To what had Fenris come?
And why?
Quentin pushed his palms against his temples. Think. His own intention had been to leave Johanna and the others and seek out some distant, isolated place where he could wrestle with his own demons—with Fenris—free of the fear of harming innocents. He’d delayed his departure long enough to scare off the mob and rescue May. He’d known that Bolkonsky or Ingram must be responsible for her abduction, but he hadn’t thought beyond seeing her returned safely to Johanna.
Fenris had taken his mind before he faced an impossible decision. But what Fenris wanted was more a mystery to him than it had been to Johanna.
Johanna. She’d begged him not to go, to trust her to help him. Cure him. He couldn’t think of her without an agony of desire and sorrow and love.
Fenris didn’t love Johanna…
But he’d wanted her.
Yes. Quentin slammed his head against the iron bars. That was what Fenris was after—he felt it in his gut like the dregs of a nightmare. Johanna had come to his bed because of Fenris.
Because Fenris had threatened her, and she wanted to give Quentin willingly what Fenris desired to take by force.