The Passion (41 page)

He peeled off his stockings; his trousers fel away in shreds. He stretched naked in the dusk, weak and scrawny, trembling and tight, aching like a newborn cub. He lifted his fists to the orange-streaked sky, he threw back his head. With a cry, he surrendered himself to the Passion.

Drunk with freedom, mad with hunger, he descended onto al fours and began to run.

Chapter Twenty-three

Tessa watched him. She hadn't meant to, but as she lay on the ground gasping through lungs that no longer seemed wil ing to draw in air, as she fought the roaring in her ears and the graying of her vision, she managed to get herself up onto one arm and then she saw him.

He stood naked perhaps two dozen steps away from her, his body starkly white against the darkening sky, the skin marred with bruises and red sores. There was little musculature left in the arms that he raised to the sky, only the shape of bones.

His bel y was sunken, his ribs and hipbones sharp beneath their frail covering of flesh. The straining tendons of his neck, the tight indentations in the muscles of his buttocks, the whipcord lashings of veins and tendons in his calves—these were the signs of a man near death from starvation, and Tessa was shocked.

But she had forgotten he was not a man.

He threw back his head and raised his fists, and his body began to tremble; she could see the twisting anguish on his face, and then she realized it was not anguish at al , but triumph. She felt it in the air, the tightening, the thinning; she saw it in the light, the shimmer and the pulse. She felt it in the seat of her soul as, with a cry that stabbed her ears and reverberated through the twilight, he drew the magic to him.

Tessa fel back, throwing up a hand to shield her eyes, for she did not want to see this thing, not here, not now; she could not bear to witness it. But it was too late; she could not look away. She watched helplessly as Denis Antonov, kil er, deceiver, mad powermonger, reached to the heavens and covered himself in a glory he did not deserve, returning to earth as the most magnificent creature which had ever walked upon it.

The wolf was fiery red against the sunset, rough and rangy with ice blue eyes. Tessa should have been in fear of her life, but at that moment al she could do was stare at him, consumed by wonder and by the bitter, bitter unfairness of it al . He barely seemed to notice her. He stretched his limbs and ran, defiant in his freedom, mocking her with his escape.

That was the moment when loneliness descended upon Tessa like a poison arrow that had been long in finding its mark; it pierced her heart and spread its icy agony inch by inch throughout her body. Not because Denis was gone. Not even because, when she struggled to her feet and looked around in slow, dread desperation, there remained no sign of the sailors or the mules that had brought her here or any indication of the direction in which they had gone. Nor was it the vast towering wilderness that surrounded her, the strangeness of it, the isolation.

It was because for an instant, just an instant as she watched Denis transform, she was taken back to the first time, and Alexander. She tasted again the magic; she was dizzied by the awe, humbled by her own awakening reverence. She had seen the miracle; she had believed anything was possible.

And she had been wrong.

That was what Denis had brought back to her.

There was no miracle. There was no great pattern of divine sorcery that fashioned these creatures, there was no form or reason. They were neither greater nor lesser than she, merely different. And she did not know them at al .

Yet for them, for the sake of the miracle and the love of one who possessed it, she would die a slow and horrible death here, alone. Until that moment she had not ful y comprehended the truth of it. It was over. No one was coming to save her.

Alexander would not see his mistake or change his mind, for he wasn't, after al , a magician, and he could not undo what had been done. He was gone.

She was alone. And she was afraid to die.

She started to weep then. She sank to her knees and turned her face to the sky and let the sobs come, crying out loud deep into the night where there was no one to hear.

The first night she spent on the ground, wrapped in the cloak Denis had left behind, too exhausted and numb from emotion to feel the cold or the discomfort. When she awoke, the grasses were brittle and there was a light dusting of snow on the cloak and in her hair. She had a cough. She tried not to think about the kinds of creatures that might have come upon her in the night, and she did not linger to make a fire. She did not even think about doing so. She tied the two bags of supplies across her shoulders and started moving into the sun, moving to stay warm and for no other reason.

The walk was hard and she was weak. She discarded the awkward splint, only to discover that the bones of her arm had knitted badly on the journey. Foreshortened ligaments had caused her wrist to twist awkwardly, drawing her thumb and fingers downward so that her hand was almost useless. Her arm ached al the time, and occasional y, when she carelessly moved it, a blinding sharp pain reminded her that some of the breaks were not entirely healed. It took her a long time to gather wood for a fire with only one hand, and when darkness came she had to shelter where she could, close to the pile of sticks and broken branches that would keep her warm.

She huddled near the fire throughout the night, shivering at the shadows it made and biting back cries with every new and terrifying sound that issued from the forest. These were sounds like none she had ever heard before: grunts and growls, the screams of cats, and when she heard the howl of a wolf she leapt to her feet, whirling around wildly and staring through the dark first in this direction and then in that, not certain whether she feared or hoped for what she would find. But no blue eyes glowed back at her from the dark, no shape was silhouetted in the moonlight, and if Denis had seen her fire, his cry had been a warning—or a mocking, triumphant greeting—not a threat.

If indeed it had been Denis's voice she had heard.

With that thought, a new terror lurched in her chest and she turned another twenty degrees, straining through the dark—and then she saw the most wonderful thing. Lamplights. Two, three, and, when the wind moved the branches of the trees below, perhaps even more. Lamplight, or firelight, or perhaps just the glow of candles by which the miners measured out their take at the end of the day; it made no difference. The tented encampment lay in the val ey below her, and now she knew in which direction she must travel.

It did not occur to Tessa to question what she would do when she got there, what al ies she could expect to find in those rough men or how, in her present circumstances, she could hope to bargain her way on board a ship in the unlikely event that one should make harbor there. Her spirit was battered and her body was weak and reason had no place in this savage land. Like al lost creatures, she had no plan or purpose except to seek her own kind.

She spent the night tending the fire to ward away the beasts, and at sunrise she forced herself to consume some of the tasteless squares of protein the sailors had left in her pack. She noted that it was to her advantage that they seemed to have no idea how much a human would eat in two days; they had left her with much, much more than was required.

Though the morning was damp and bitter cold, there was no snow, and her cough was a little better. She put out the fire and started down the slope in the direction from which she had seen the lights.

It did not take her long to realize she was fol owing a streambed toward the camp and, beyond, the sea.

Later, she would understand that was the reason her path had brought her so close to Denis's, for even though he had the ability to hunt a far range, the water source would keep him close. Tessa thought little about water other than to consider leaving behind the heavy pouches that made her shoulders ache and slowed down her progress.

Surely she would be at the camp by sunset. Surely.

But because she was no longer certain of anything, least of al her own judgement, she continued to carry the water.

She had been walking perhaps an hour, for the mist was barely above the stream, when she heard the cry. It stopped her steps dead; it went through to her bones, and for one moment—one heart-stopping, incredible moment, she thought the scream was human.

She turned toward the sound, heart pounding, skin cold, and then it came again—only this time more clear, more piercing, easily identifiable as the cry of an animal in pain. It was close, close enough to raise gooseflesh on her skin; it chil ed her blood.

She resumed her pace, even quickened it, and then the cry came again, more helpless now, more desperate. It was so close. Just beyond the stand of spruce to her left. If she walked on straight she would pass it. If she veered to her left…

There was just enough that was human inside her, just enough curiosity, to make her plow through the high grass to her left, past the shadowed spruce with the low mist rising, cautiously parting the undergrowth near the stream.

He was there, the big red wolf, sleeker and more wel fed than when she had last seen him, but in obvious agony. His chest was heaving with rapid harsh breaths. His fierce blue eyes showed their whites when he rol ed them toward her. His back right leg was caught in a steel trap.

There was a great deal of blood. The sounds that came from him were high and sharp. She stood and looked at him for a long time.

"And so, mighty loup-garou," she said softly at last,

"the grandest of al your kind, brought down in the end by a bit of steel and spring fashioned by a human."

She felt she should have smiled; Alexander would have smiled. So would Denis. But she could not quite manage it. She looked at him for a moment longer, and then she turned and walked away.

The sun had almost cleared the trees when she found her way back. He was weaker. The blood had clotted around the wound and soaked into the ground. His breathing was quicker, shal ower, and his eyes were closed. Tessa moved close, and closer stil . When he made no move, nor even a sign of noticing her presence, she felt safe in kneeling beside him. She stayed there, with her hands clenched on her knees, until his eyes opened a slit and he looked at her.

"You'll want to know why I'm doing this," she said.

She made her voice clear and distinct. "The answer is because you would
not
do it for me."

That was not the whole truth. The rest of it she was not ready to admit even to herself. She took hold of the top jaw of the trap with her good hand and used her foot to steady the bottom. Slowly, laboriously, she began to pul the trap apart.

A low growl emanated from his throat and he showed his teeth. Beads of sweat popped out on Tessa's brow and her thigh muscle quivered from the awkward position. When the sharp teeth of the trap left his flesh, the wound reopened and he made a vicious snarling, snapping sound; she almost lost her grip. Final y she managed to lift the top hinge of the trap a few inches above the leg and she gasped,

"Do it! You have to free yourself—I can't hold this much longer!"

He gave a mighty lurch and scrambled away, dragging his broken leg behind him. Tessa was barely able to get her foot out of the way before the muscles in her arm col apsed and the jaws of the trap snapped shut. She fel to the ground on top of it, exhausted, and when she looked up again, Denis had disappeared into the undergrowth.

She scanned the brush for him, but made no further effort to find him. After she had regained her breath she wiped the perspiration from her face with an aching, unsteady hand and said, "You're welcome."

She picked up her packs and resumed her course.

She didn't make very good progress. She kept looking over her shoulder uneasily, and she was no longer certain she was going in the right direction.

The grass was high and sometimes the

undergrowth was impassable; then she had to backtrack and go around. Once she heard the predatory cry of a wild animal and it sent chil s down her spine.

She did not know how long she had been walking when she saw the big-winged carrion-eaters circling overhead. She knew she had not gone far. She stood and watched them, shivering in the sun, for some time.

It took her most of the day to retrace her steps and to find where Denis had hidden himself. Stil in wolf form, he had crawled beneath the low-hanging branches of a thick, prickly-leafed bush where, presumably, he would be safe from predators. His breathing was hard and fast and his eyes, though slitted open, were glazed. Flies buzzed around the clotted blood on his leg. If he noticed Tessa he gave no indication, and she backed away quietly.

She brought him water in a piece of curved bark and set it near, with some of the protein squares the sailors had left her beside it. When the shadows lengthened and she could see his breath steaming on the air and his body shivering convulsively, she crawled as close as she dared and tossed his cloak over him.

She spent hours gathering broken branches and dead limbs and by nightfal had the fuel to build a fire big enough to keep the wild things away and warm enough to al ow her to sleep, now and then in snatches, even without the warmth of his cloak.

When she awoke he was crouched across from her, feeding sticks into the dying fire. She caught a cry in her throat and scrambled away from him on al fours until she tripped on her skirt and sat down hard, gasping. He didn't glance up.