The Passion (35 page)

If I could recount in perfect detail al the events of the night that fol owed, I should be the greatest historian who ever lived. I make no such claim. It was rather a blur of sight and sound and scent and taste, of emotion and sensation and passion; yes, passion. Muscles stretching, wind streaming through my fur, the smel of green, of night, of Elise.

The scent of game reached us across the night and Elise, master hunter, signal ed the kil . She went into the ambush crouch and as it happened, I was among the four swiftest to attend her. In perfect harmony we circled and when the buck broke to run, I was in the position to bring him down.

As I charged, a brown wolf cal ed Girare, anxious to prove himself my better or merely overexcited by the hunt, broke to my left and cut me off. The prey panicked, circling to bolt, and the fool Girare launched himself at the buck, catching him by the back leg and bringing him down.

Screaming with pain, his eyes rol ing wildly, the buck kicked and thrashed and almost succeeded in getting to his feet again. Elise sprang forward and snapped the neck of the poor beast between her jaws, ending its misery. At the same moment I got Girare by the scruff and tossed him aside like a pup.

He would never hunt with us again, nor would we be likely to do business with him on any matters of consequence in the daylight world. A werewolf who cannot discipline himself for the hunt is unlikely to be reliable in any situation where judgement, strategy and cooperation are cal ed for. Thus are fortunes gained and lost on the night of the pack run; thus are characters truly revealed.

With the smel of blood in the air and the fire of triumph coursing through our veins, we were al on the verge of abandoning discipline. The moment Elise sank her teeth into the throat of the beast the pack surged forward, snapping and growling, each fighting for the first taste of flesh stil warm from the bone. I pushed myself into the melee, skirmishing with one or two to demonstrate my determination, drawing blood when I had to. I reached the carcass and showed my teeth to an impudent youth who had ambitions to dine next to the queen. He backed off without argument or hesitation.

I dropped my head and tore open the chest cavity.

The rush of steam and the taste of salty blood made me dizzy with pleasure, infusing my senses like sweet summer wine. There is no moment like that moment, no taste like that taste. I could feel the others trembling with tension and growling with hunger around me; I could feel Elise watching me with narrow, cautious eyes. I dipped my head again and tore the heart from its ligaments. Oh, the sensation of teeth sinking into firm blood-fil ed muscle, the slick flesh upon my tongue, the sharp wild taste of it, and how I longed to flee just then with my prize in my mouth, to hide someplace and savor the delicacy to its last shred. The craving was so intense my stomach cramped, and blood-tinged saliva dripped from my mouth.

I took the heart and laid it at Elise's feet. She inclined her head in acknowledgement, then took my offering away from the carcass to enjoy it in peace.

I feasted with the rest of the pack, and we listened to the sounds of other groups making other kil s, we tasted triumph and ecstasy on the air. Afterward we rested for a time, grooming each other and playing at tumbling or wrestling matches in the glade. I must confess I acquitted myself quite wel for the sake of my queen, although it's true that, after I had established my dominance at the kil , few would chal enge me.

The moon was high and bril iant through the leafy foliage when Elise rose and gave the cal to attention. We were barely on our feet when, with a leap and a flash of her tail, she was off into the woods, long muscles propel ing her through the air so swiftly her paws barely seemed to touch the ground, blond fur streaming like moonlight. I was so struck by the beauty of her departure that I lost valuable seconds in merely admiring her, but perhaps it was just as wel . The chal enge in this kind of run is as much against oneself as against others in the pack, and when I began to run there was only me, and the night, and Elise.

I cannot say when I left the others behind.

Compel ed by her scent and the joy of my own strength, muscles stretching, wind whipping, leaping over hedges and dodging beneath branches, I caught up with her where the thick woods began to break for the course of a wide stream, just above where a waterfal splashed to quench the meadows below.

With an enormous exertion of effort I pushed myself to close the last ten meters between us, and tagged her on the shoulder. We tumbled together to the ground, mouthing each other's necks and muzzles, tasting sweet night-scented fur, burying our noses in the intoxicating scent of one another. Then, in a burst of joy and energy, we leapt together to run.

We took the Queen's Trail, a private course worn out by many generations of Devoncroix for the exclusive use of the royal family and invited guests.

The trail was straight and smooth and devoid of obstacles. Here a werewolf could let his eyes glaze over and his muscles go long and simply run; run until running felt like flying and no one could swear one was not the other, run until lungs could gasp no harder and heart could pound no louder, run until the dictates of his own body declared he could run no longer.

We might have mated that night, in our own private celebration of the unity we knew was inevitable. The night unfolded long and sweet before us and we were awash in our adoration of each other. The world was made for us and us alone; upon its palette we would paint the story of our love and the mural of our mastery. And so it was, euphoric from the exercise and deeply involved with nothing outside the presence of one another, that we paused to drink at the stream. We dipped our tongues into the water that seemed purified by moonlight, we fil ed our nostrils with the damp warm scent of each other and our gul ets with the clean cool water and could have asked for nothing more in the world. That was when the ground between us abruptly exploded.

It was a gunshot, and the bul et had missed Elise by mere centimeters.

We did not know that then, not at least with our conscious minds. By the time we recognized the sound and related it to a world we had almost forgotten—the world of daylight and humans and machines and cruelty—instinct had propel ed us far from the scene. We leapt the stream, we ran for cover, we put out the warning cry to the pack.

A gunshot, from the deepest woods of an eight-thousand-acre estate that was guarded day and night by werewolves. Only humans use weapons, and no human could have gotten that close to the queen without assistance. No human should have been able to get that close at al . Yet one most undeniably had.

The events of that night are shreds and blurs of ruined memory. In moments the pack was streaming in, ral ying around its leader. Guards surrounded her six thick to escort her to the Palais.

The pack mil ed in confusion and anger. When I was sure she was safe, I broke away and ran back to the spot by the stream.

I do not claim to be a tracker, but I have a passably good nose. I found the bul et in short order, and traced it back to the tree in which the assailant had hidden in the branches high above our heads, waiting for us to drink at the stream. I think I knew, though, even before I went through this ritual of tracking, finding, scenting. I must have known.

The weapon, an ugly metal rifle, was in the weeds a few dozen feet from the site. Her scent was everywhere, sharp with fear, acid with desperation, sickeningly familiar. Tessa. My Tessa had done this thing.

I wished for the night to swal ow me up and take my soul, for nothing short of that would ever ease my pain.

Chapter Nineteen

Ah, the betrayal, the horror, the fury. Tessa, my Tessa, whom I had loved as a sister, a child, a friend.
Tessa
, who knew my secrets and my weaknesses, who had my trust and my love, whom I had taken into my home and nurtured as one of my own… it was worse than a knife through the heart and for a time I almost wished she had not missed the mark on that first attempt, for to live with this kind of pain was more than anyone should be required to bear.

I had brought her here. I, in my arrogance and stupid confidence, had brought her onto this sacred ground where no human had ever trod before. I had let her seduce the affection and the faith of my queen—no, I had encouraged her to do so, swel ing with pride at the charmer she had become and the tricks I had taught her. I had done this thing, and for it, the woman I loved with al my soul had almost died.

Then there was the anger. And the anger, though it had the great virtue of swal owing up the black pit of hurt, was a huge and dangerous thing, far beyond my control. I stood there near the tree that was filthy with the scent I once had loved, bathed in the moonlight that only moments ago had seemed so beneficent, and I shook with rage. I roared deep in my throat with boiling, blinding fury. If I had lifted my head and given out the cal , Tessa would have been torn to scraps and bone by a hundred sets of teeth before she could turn to run. I didn't cal , not because I was concerned for her safety, but because I wanted to reach her first.

I fol owed her trail rapidly, effortlessly, for it led back toward the Palais, not away from it. If I had thought about that I might have found it odd, but at the time I was too ful of rage and fear for Elise's safety to think clearly about anything at al .

I had little need to worry about Elise. The grounds of the Palais were flooded with light and surging with angry, alarmed werewolves. Some had changed into human form, some had not; al were looking to someone else to explain how this could have happened and why and what was to become of them now. In seconds the queen's hunters would discover what I had already, and al their questions would be answered.

I tore up the Palais steps past the guards, who did not chal enge me—any more than they would have chal enged Tessa. And why should they? Had they not been told only today that Tessa LeGuerre should be al owed to come and go unmolested just as she had always done, and hadn't that order come from the queen herself? Oh, what a clever, viperous human she was. How diabolical y she had planned this.

At some point. in the chaos of the inner hal way I changed into my human form. This I did instinctively and without thinking of it, perhaps because I feared what I might do to her if I confronted her now with the weapons of my natural form, which were even more powerful than her human-made ones; perhaps it was simply because I knew I would need my voice more than my teeth and claws.

I pul ed on trousers and a shirt but did not know whether they were my own. Barefoot, shirt undone, my hair tangled with briars and brambles, I burst into Tessa's bedchamber. The heavy door exploded off its hinges with the force of my entry and I lifted it and flung it into a corner, where it toppled a corner cabinet and sent numerous bottles and porcelains crashing to the floor. Tessa cried out and sprang away from the impact; she backed up against a wal when she saw me.

"You!" I roared at her. "This is the way you return my love? This is the way you reward my trust? With a
gun
?"

Upon speaking these words, upon seeing her face, which held no denial, and hearing her silence in the wake of my accusations, I was for a moment inarticulate with rage. Tremors of helpless anger shook me and I clenched my fists and fought back the involuntary Change that threatened to consume me.

"You brought a weapon to this place." I had to say it out loud, enunciating every syllable, watching her face, reading her eyes. "You knew you would not be turned away. You learned of the Queen's Trail—and why shouldn't you? No secrets were ever kept from you here—and you went there where none but she would run, safe from the dangers of the pack, and you hid yourself in a tree where the wind would carry away your scent, hid there like a common filthy human huntsman." My voice was shaking. I didn't care. "You knew my wolf form, and you knew Elise's, for you had seen her in the garden that night before she changed. When we stopped, when we were directly below you and unaware so that you could have taken either of us through the head, you fired your weapon."

I wanted her to deny it. In my heart I pleaded with her to say something, anything that would convince me to disbelieve the evidence of my senses.
One
more clever lie, Tessa, you who are so adept at
lying, one more facile deception. Make me believe
you one last time; try, I beg you
…

But she said nothing. She simply crouched there, quaking in terror of my rage, her big eyes fil ed not with remorse for her actions but with fear of the consequences. What was I to do? What was I to feel?

"Speak, curse you!" I shouted at her. "Deny it if you wil ! We have your scent, we have your footprints!

The guards are coming for you now and they wil shred you into fodder if you do not confess your crime! Talk to me, damn you!"

And when she remained silent—whether she was too frightened to speak or too stubborn or whether I simply did not give her a chance—I grabbed her arm and pul ed her toward me roughly, meaning to shake some sense into her. There was a cracking sound and she screamed—a horrible sound of wretched pain—as I felt the bones of her arm snap like twigs between my fingers. She sank to her knees with the agony, her arm twisted at a bizarre angle in my grip, and it was another moment before I thought to let go. She col apsed onto the floor, whimpering and gasping and cradling her poor crushed arm to her chest. I watched her without sympathy, almost without comprehension.