Wolf's Cross (29 page)

S
he ran from him, leading him through the woods. She panted, intoxicated by the speed, the power, all the sensations running though this body of hers. Half in despair, the human Maria had stepped aside in favor of something unthinking, wild, free.

When she looked back at Darien’s excitement, she saw his erection without embarrassment or shame, but with something akin to satisfaction. She yipped at him to hurry up as she ran back the way they had come.

She stopped in the clearing where the remains of the old burnt trees clawed gray fingers up at the sky. She heard him approaching, crashing through the woods like an old pagan god come for his maiden sacrifice.

In the stillness, as he approached, the human Maria regained some of herself—enough to ask herself if this was what she wanted. Did she want to give her virginity, here, now, without so much as a promise of betrothal? The doubt was strange in her
head, dissonant with the animal she had become, the animal she had been reveling in.

But she wasn’t an animal.

And she wasn’t human either …

She looked at the sky and opened her mouth to ask silently of God,
What am I?
And of herself,
What am I becoming?

She smelled his scent before he emerged from the woods at the edge of the clearing. She tensed, expecting to be trampled. But, instead, she felt him brush up against her side, and felt him lick the blood off her muzzle. She turned her head at the surprisingly gentle gesture, and he climbed upon her back.

She gasped as she felt the size of him pushing aside her tail, brushing the tip against her maidenhead. Again she felt his jaws clamp down on her neck, but she barely noticed as he thrust inside her. She spasmed and her forelegs collapsed as he filled her with the same agonizing pleasure she had felt when she had changed. She screamed at the sky—screamed for the pain, for the pleasure, for what she felt filling her body.

She howled until her voice was little more than a hoarse, exhausted groan.

A
bove her, the sky darkened toward evening. Maria lay on her back in the grass, with Darien’s head resting on her stomach. As she stroked the fur on his neck, she realized that sometime after Darien had spent himself, she had shrunk back into her human skin. She looked at his muzzle against her naked belly and realized how massive a wolf he made. His jaws could easily snap someone her size in half.

Her hand was tiny against his skull, and she realized that she had allowed this beast to mate with her. She had torn the leg off an elk and had eaten it. She rubbed her face and found that there
were still traces of dried elk blood on her. The whole day was some horrible nightmare—more horrible because of how attracted she was to it. To what she was.

At least she hadn’t fallen into the trap Lucina had, trying for a human husband when she wasn’t human. Darien might be a killer, but he had reason. If she could get the Order to go away, to hunt other lands for their wolves, they could have Lucina’s woods for their own. There would be an endless supply of game to feed them and their children.

I just have to give up everything …

She needed to do what she could about that, while she had time. She also needed to say good-bye to her family, tell her mother that she had found one of her own to be with. She glanced up at the darkening sky and sighed. She slipped out from under his head and stood up. Darien opened one groggy eye at her and half-growled, “You’re mine now.”

She crouched before him and said, “I know.”

Shouldn’t I be happier?

He made a contented grumble and closed his eye again.

“You sleep,” she said. “I’ll be back.”

I have nowhere else to go
.

She walked over to where they had left their clothes. She stared at hers for a long time. This morning she had been consumed with embarrassment just watching Darien disrobe. Now her own clothes seemed alien to her, so divorced from her experience that for a moment she couldn’t clearly envision their purpose.

She bit her lip and shook, hugging herself.

It would be so easy to let it all slip away—everything she was, the person she had been. But even if it had been a lie, it was who she was. She didn’t
want
to lose that.

But what choice did she have when such an animal lived inside her?

She dressed hurriedly, afraid that she would lose the will to go back and do right by her human family. They deserved better than to be abandoned without a word of explanation. But all the while, she had to wipe tears and blood off her face.

When she glanced back at Darien, his golden fur had become red-tinged in the evening light.

What else did she have?

S
he came within sight of her cottage just as the sky faded from red to purple. She had spent the walk back rehearsing what she would say to her family, how she would explain shedding her human identity to be with someone who was the same as her.

She just wished she could stop crying.

She didn’t understand what she felt. It made no sense. Darien had to be right that it was fate, some special providence by God that had brought her to him. How else would she ever have found another like her? How else could she avoid her mother’s fate?

But why did it weigh on her heart as if something tragic had happened? She was mourning the loss of things she had never had in the first place. Crying over the loss of her old life made no more sense than crying over not being raised in one of the families of the szlachta, or not being born a man, or being too tall.

She was what she was. What was done was done. Pray as she might, neither would ever change.

She thanked God that she hadn’t broken down like this in front of Darien. Wolf he might be, but she had known men like him. Men who demanded submission, but who also despised weakness. Her doubt, her tears would enrage him, and he was volatile enough without any encouragement.

And why did that make her think of Lukasz?

“What did you do to him, Darien?” she whispered to herself as she reached the open front gate. Her thoughts were prepared to descend a very dark path when her brother’s voice called to her.

“Maria!” She looked up to the doorway and saw Władysław running toward her. He scooped her up and hugged her. “We were so frightened for you, with this beast roaming the woods.”

“I’m fine.” She patted her brother’s back and looked up at the doorway to the cottage. Her stepmother stood there, and next to her—

“No,” she whispered. “Why is
he
here?”

Josef took a few steps forward, still slowed by his injury. Władysław let her go and said, “He came to me while I waited to escort you home. He told me that you had left when the victims were brought in. We’ve been searching for you.”

She turned to Josef and spoke in German: “The Order is confined to Gród Narew.”

“Not anymore,” Josef replied. “The Wojewoda’s death and his nephew’s pleas were enough to convince the Duke to allow Brother Heinrich’s Wolfjägers to search the countryside fully armed, as long as they are accompanied by Telek’s men or the Duke’s own officers.”

Maria backed up a step and glanced nervously from her mother to Josef. Her family had kept her safe for so long. They wouldn’t now turn her over to the Germans, would they? Could Władysław have told Josef what she had said? He hadn’t believed her, so would he keep such a ridiculous secret? Her stepmother had raised Maria as her own, but did that mean she would defend her if her own blood’s children were at stake?

And what had she said to Josef this morning? What inane things had she told him a century ago, before what she was had become so real—more real than what she pretended to be now?

“Why did you come here?” she asked him, her body tensing for flight.

“We were concerned for your safety. This beast is abroad in the woods here—and I wished to talk with you.”

“Talk with me?”

He turned back toward the cottage and spoke in tortured Polish: “Your daughter, may I speak with her?” Maria was suddenly touched by the gesture, the idea that Josef had tried to learn her language. She wondered if he knew that her stepmother spoke the German tongue as well as he.

Her stepmother waved at her brother and said, “Come, Władysław.”

Władysław hugged her again and whispered in her ear, “I saw him kiss you.”

She and Josef were left alone in front of the cottage.

He stepped up to her.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“You have mud on your face.” He reached up and wiped her cheek gently with his thumb. “And you’ve been crying.”

It’s not mud
, she thought, turning away from his touch. “I’m fine.” She sucked in a breath and told herself that it was a good thing he was here. He was the one member of the Order she could talk to, and her best chance to convince them to leave, to take their hunt elsewhere.

But she didn’t know how to do that. Not when they had dead men to account for.

They were out to kill him
, she thought.
Darien just defended himself
.

“What did you want to talk about?” she snapped, more harshly than she’d intended.

He placed his hands on her shoulders. “I am going to leave the Order.”

“What?” She spun around. “You can’t!”

“Maria?”

“T-this … it’s your
vocation
. You chose to serve God. How can you—”

“The whole purpose of probationary membership is to determine the initiate’s devotion to this service. I have found myself wanting.”

Maria stared at him, unable to form a fully coherent thought. This man had given up a title and an estate to serve the Order, and now he wanted to give that up as well? All she managed to say was “Why?”

“Service in the Order means that I am asked to ignore my own conscience, my own heart, in obedience to my master and the pope. There was a time when I thought I could.”

Maria caught her breath when she realized how he was looking at her. “Your heart?”

“I have already disobeyed my master directly, beyond what you know. But I wanted to protect you.”

No. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be leading such a man away from God. She couldn’t bear that on her conscience after everything else. “Please, reconsider what you’re doing. Don’t throw it away.”

He smiled at her. “You have a generous heart.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You have no idea how selfish I am.”

“You’ve occupied my thoughts ever since I first saw you—and nothing you’ve done or said has led me to think less of you.”

“Don’t say this—”

“I care for you, Maria. More than is proper for a monk.”

“Please—”

“If God wished me to serve Him in the Order, He would not have placed you in my path.”

She backed away, clenching her fists. “No! Stop it!”

“I love you, Maria.”

The words were a slap in her face. Her thoughts screamed for him not to say such a thing, not to think it. “Stop talking!” she yelled at him. She shook her head again, and could feel the anger, the frustration—every confused emotion trying to let loose the beast inside her. In the back of her skull she heard her bones creak, and she felt the first knives of pain stabbing her joints. She clutched at her heart …