The Passion (40 page)

"Push your bowl through the opening," he urged her persuasively. "Then slide it across the floor as far as you can. I can reach it from there."

He heard her rustling movement in the dark, saw her turn to look at him. She said distinctly, "I would see you rot in hel first."

"My dear, we wil both have that pleasure soon enough," he replied patiently. "In the meantime, have you none of that compassion for which humans are so—unjustifiably in my opinion—

renowned?"

"No."

For the first time since being caged here, he was distracted enough from his own misery to be almost amused. He settled his back against the bars again, abandoning the quest for the moment.

He said, "You hate the wrong man, you know. It is your beloved Alexander's fault that you're here, not mine. I only acted true to my nature. He's the one who betrayed you."

She was silent for a moment. Then she said, "You are the betrayer, and you turned against your own brother. He loved you. He was in awe of you. And you returned his affection with a plot for murder."

"I am the traitor? I am the betrayer? I don't see my brother chained in an iron cage in the middle of a cold sea!" He was abruptly angry with himself for al owing her to provoke him, and he deliberately brought his tone to neutral. "You're a fool for defending him after what he's done to you."

She said nothing. She knew it was true.

But he could not bear the silence fil ed with lies; it angered him almost as much as her words had done. "I loved Alexander, in a way you could never understand. Everything I did, I did for love of him.

That's why his betrayal hurt so much."

Tessa said, "You wanted the queen. She loved him instead. That's why you hate him."

He made a sound that was an inarticulate expression of contempt. "Things are so simple in your narrow human world! I care nothing for that snivel ing female and would have kil ed her if I could. More important matters were at stake than the love of a girl-queen."

She stirred in her cage, interested and alert. He took pleasure in having said the words, for the truth tasted al the more sweet in its power to hurt her.

"You were right about me the first time. I
do
want to see al humans exterminated, or at the very least to cul their population by nine-tenths, for I suppose we would need some of them to serve us. If I had succeeded in taking over the pack that would have been my only agenda, and it wil be again when I escape from this place."

"When you told Alexander you meant to present yourself as the queen's mate—"

"A lie, to test his loyalty."

"You intended al along to kil her."

"Of course."

"And Alexander?"

"He made his choice. He knew the chances he took when he set himself against me, and I would have shown no more mercy to him than he has done to me."

She said in a low quiet voice, "Then you are as evil as I thought."

His eyes narrowed in the dark to better make out her face. "I am werewolf," he said. "No more, no less. You would do wel to remember that."

He added, "And I think you wil also now agree I was right. Your kind and mine deal best when we deal apart. If you hadn't crossed that boundary between our world and yours, this entire tragedy could have been avoided."

In a voice that was muffled and less energetic than it had been a moment ago, she replied, "Tragedy
was
avoided."

This was unexpected. "What?"

"You wanted me to kil my friend and your queen.

You wanted me to betray Alexander, whom I loved.

If I had done so, it would have been a tragedy. But I didn't."

"Don't ennoble yourself! You were mad with jealousy. You al but begged me to help you plot your revenge. Your only failing was poor marksmanship. That was the tragedy!"

But he remembered her standing on the riverbank with that odd, proud tilt to her chin, saying,
What
makes you think I missed
? He felt the coldness gather in his bel y. Could it be that simple? Could
that
have been his mistake?

You know nothing about us…

He said, "I'm curious. Why did you cal the guards?

Amuse me by tel ing me. Were you so foolish as to think they would spare you for helping them to capture me?"

She moved in the dark, lying down in her cage and cradling her head on her elbow. He thought she wouldn't answer. He found himself straining in the silence, waiting for her reply.

Then she said softly, "No. That's not why I did it."

"Why, then?"

"Because I knew you wouldn't let Alexander live. It wasn't in your plan. If you escaped, Alexander would die. So I couldn't let you escape."

"You say whatever eases your conscience now. But when you took the weapon in your hands, your passions were in control and you meant to kil ."

Tessa's voice was growing tired, weakening with effort. "I went to the palace to warn them. Your spies should have told you that. I pretended to go along with your mad scheme because I couldn't think of another way to keep you from kil ing them. I knew if I fired the gun the whole pack would be alerted and you would be stopped."

He stared at her incredulously through the darkness. "You did this? You did this for a man who broke your arm into a hundred little bones and then set you adrift in the middle of an ocean?"

She began to shiver, drawing herself up tight in the cage, and her voice was muffled with fear and repressed tears. "He didn't understand. He didn't know. Elise wil tel him and he wil come for me."

Denis found her blind, unquestioning loyalty outrageous and infuriating. "No one is coming for you, stupid girl!" he shouted at her. "You are on a ship a thousand miles from home and no one is coming for you! The queen was glad to be rid of you, don't you know that? You have sacrificed your life for nothing!" She did not reply, and the misery he could smel on her gave him no comfort at al .

He had his answer, and he hated it. To lose a battle was bad. But to be defeated by one's own ignorance of the enemy… that was unconscionable.

He had been wrong about the human girl. He had misjudged her.
That
was the flaw in his plan.

He found the whole issue more disturbing than he could consider, and he did not engage her in conversation again, lest he learn even more that he did not want to know. She never relented on the food issue, and in fact seemed to force herself to eat more as he grew weaker, almost as though to defy him. Thus was the myth of human compassion once again disproved.

On that, at least, he had not misjudged her.

They made port in Alaska where Norton Sound formed a smooth arm of the Bering Sea, near a place cal ed Anvil City. The city was little more than a mining camp which consisted mostly of mud paths, canvas tents and eager miners who were sifting out enough gold from the beaches and the streambeds to keep them searching for more. Word spread quickly of the ship's arrival. Anticipating this, the mariners had stocked up on essentials and within hours a lively negotiation was in progress for flour, beans and coffee, al of which happily sold for ten to twenty times their purchase price. In the midst of the furor the two prisoners were quietly taken off the ship and into the wilderness.

This is not to say no one noticed their passage. The fierce-eyed man with his long, tangled red hair, naked shoulders hunched and covered with sores, his gait pained and lurching and every rib of his torso individual y prominent, would have been cause for gossip even if his hands had not been chained behind his back. The woman, except for her torn and soiled skirt, could hardly be identified as a female. Her hair was matted, her eyes sunken, her mouth drawn tight about her teeth like that of a corpse. She held one splinted arm at an odd angle, and stumbled when she walked.

The miners heard many stories about the couple: that he had started a mutiny and she, his lover, was the captain's wife. That they were murderers in exile from the States. That they were simple stowaways.

The talk was lively for a couple of days after the pair was loaded onto mules and led toward the mountains by four thick-necked, long-haired sailors.

Campfire speculation became even more intense the next day when the mules and the sailors returned, but the couple did not. Within an hour the ship left port.

Most of the men figured the two had been taken out and shot, or—if their executioners were feeling less merciful—simply abandoned. Some noted they hadn't taken any supplies worth mentioning with them. Others expressed regret over the loss of the woman. No one suggested intervention of any kind, nor did they question the sailors in anything more than a perfunctory way. This was Alaska, the farthermost end of the world, and not a place where men came to answer questions. Besides, no one wanted to spend any more time than was strictly necessary in the company of that crew. There was something distinctly disturbing about them al .

A mining camp by its very nature was not a close-knit community, and within days the excitement of the ship's cal was forgotten with the rumor of a new strike. So, then, were the two prisoners.

The terms of exile had stipulated that they be taken a day's walk from any human population, and that was precisely how far they were taken—the distance a werewolf in human form could walk, leading a mule, between sunup and sundown on a late-summer day in northwestern Alaska. With every breath of clean, green-scented air that Denis took, he felt himself growing stronger, clearer in head and straighter in body. Could he have survived another day caged on board the ship? He didn't know. But he knew without a doubt he was going to survive now.

He used the muscles of his legs to steady himself astride the mule as he looked around, drinking in the sweeping vista that surrounded him as if it were life-giving broth. The blue of the sky dizzied him, the sharp bristling green of towering firs hurt his eyes.

He could smel water, pools and rivers and tumbling fal s of it, and the hot blood of moose and elk and deer. Rabbits burrowed in their holes like ants in a nest, his for the plucking, and ducks and geese waited to be swept from their clumsy lairs. He was so hungry he could have flung himself to the ground, fil ed his bel y with grass and loved it like nectar. But he had discipline, he could wait. For the promise he could smel on the air with every breath he took, he could endure whatever was required.

The torment was at an end. This was not exile. This was Paradise.

When he happened to glance over at Tessa, clinging to the back of the plodding little mule, he saw the terror in her eyes and the dread that pinched her face as she gazed at the hugeness of the sky, the wildness of the spaces, the emptiness of nature in its newborn state. Denis wanted to laugh out loud at the irony of it, at the exquisite joke fate had played upon his brother and the Devoncroix queen. Alexander had thought exile to be a fate worse than death for Denis, but for Tessa he no doubt thought it a mercy to spare her life.

Truth had proved him wrong. The human girl would be lucky to survive a night in this wilderness, while a werewolf could live forever on the bounty of the land. Yes, it was amusing. It was delightful. Denis grinned ful -toothed at the girl who would not give him her gruel, and he thought she understood why.

She quickly slid her glance away.

When the sky took on a purple tone the sailors consulted with one another briefly and, with evident relief, stopped walking. They pul ed Tessa off her mule. Denis sprang down lightly and, despite his weakened state and bound hands, kept his balance perfectly.

One of the sailors unlocked his chains. Denis flexed his arms and gently rubbed the bruises on his wrists. The sailors showed no fear of him, and why should they? He was too weak to do much harm against the four of them, and too smart to expend energy trying.

One of the sailors took a thick wool cloak lined with sheepskin from the saddlebag of his mule. "The werewolf is to be given a cloak to cover himself," he recited, and handed Denis the garment.

Denis took it politely. He held the other werewolf's gaze. "You might have worshipped me," he said.

And then he smiled. "You may one day stil ."

The sailor broke his gaze with difficulty, then turned quickly and unpacked the remaining items from the bag. "The human is to be given two days' supply of food and water, matches, and clothing suitable to the climate, which she is wearing."

They dropped two canteens and an oilcloth-wrapped package of protein squares on the ground at Tessa's feet.

Taking the reins of the mules in hand, they started back the way they had come.

"Wait!" Tessa cried. She ran after them. "Don't leave me here! Take me back to the coast, a ship wil come, don't leave me! I can't find my way back by myself! Wait!"

One of the sailors turned and pushed her hard, throwing her off her feet and flat onto the ground.

Whether she lost consciousness or merely her breath, she was silent, and the sailors began to laugh and talk as they resumed their trail back.

Al of this Denis noticed with only the smal est part of his mind, and cared about not at al . It had taken al his self-restraint to keep from disgracing himself in the presence of the sailors, from sinking into his natural form helplessly and ful y clothed. The moment their backs were turned he let the cloak drop to the ground and he ran a few steps away, tearing at the fastenings of his trousers.