Chapter 9 #2
He smiled, reassured and pleased by the unexpected sweetness of her words. Her lips brushed across his hot skin. He had to admit the bathtub had its benefits, but he was anxious to have her writhing under him again.
“Jack?”
“Mmm?” he murmured, eyes closed, head leaning back against her.
“What if I could synthesize different…” She paused, clearing her throat. “What if I could synthesize a cure? For the Pleine Lune shifting? So you wouldn’t have to. So you could control it. All the time.”
“I don’t think it’s possible, baby.”
“I think it might be,” said Darcy quietly. “I have an idea, but I need to talk to Willow.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to put pressure on her by answering in a voice that would be infused with hope. His heart beat with yearning, with the fervent wish that what she was saying could possibly be true.
“Have I offended you?” she whispered, and he heard her worry.
He sat up and swiveled, jostling the water around them, and turned to face her, cupping her cheeks in his hands, searching her face. He didn’t trust his voice, so he captured her eyes.
It would be a miracle.
She exhaled, looking relieved.
No promises, Jack.
He leaned forward to press his lips against hers, his tongue breaking through the barrier of her lips to mate with hers.
He stroked it gently, lovingly, taking his time to cherish her, to let her know how much he loved her.
Finally, he pulled back. Her eyes were closed, and he kissed each lid tenderly before turning back around and settling once more between her legs.
“Hey,” she protested, wanting more, and he chuckled.
“We’re relaxing. Remember?”
She took a deep breath, which pushed her breasts into his back, and he gritted his teeth. Tease.
Finally, she put her arms around his neck again, her fingers trailing softly along his collarbone in a hypnotic movement, and he knew she was thinking.
After a few moments, she spoke again. “Remember tonight when you yelled at Lela?”
“Which time?” asked Jack, running his hands up and down her smooth legs again.
“When you saw Amory. You asked, ‘Did you,’ but you didn’t finish your question.”
“Uh-huh,” he muttered, knowing where this was going.
“And then later you said that because she didn’t lick him or bite him, she didn’t directly transfer her venom.”
“Right,” he said, waiting for it.
“What if she had?”
“She didn’t,” he hedged.
“Jack…”
“It would have been too late. Amory would have already started turning.”
Darcy was silent, and he reached up to take her hands, lacing his fingers through hers, and tightening them into double fists, resting on his chest.
“Into a Roux-ga-roux,” she said.
“Yes,” he answered.
“You’ve licked me. I mean, we’ve—”
“Not when I’ve been shifted.”
“Oh.”
“Things would be different if I was shifted. But, Darcy, I would never, ever—”
“Have you met any? Um, turned Rougs?”
He squeezed her hands. She sounded curious, not frightened. “Some.”
“How are they different from you?”
“They’re not, in essentials. But I’ve been Roug since birth.
I have a blooded family, I’ve grown up in the customs, I know the rules.
Turned Rougs tend to be rogues, especially if they were turned unintentionally or out of spite and left without a mentor.
No family. No understanding of our culture.
Turning is strenuously discouraged. It can be a pretty messy business. ”
Jack suppressed his memories of the many turned Rougs he’d had to hunt down while he served as a Council Enforcer, the fear in their confused eyes. But a turned Roug without a proper, responsible mentor was a danger to the entire Roug community.
“If Amory had been turned—”
“He wasn’t.”
“I know. But if he was…”
“Lela, as his maker, would have mentored him. And probably Julien, by proxy as well.”
“What about you?”
“It’s possible to foster a turned Roug. But there’s a bond between a turned Roug and its maker. The only thing stronger is a binding. Its maker is the organic guide.”
“And right now, if Amory had been turned—”
“Darce.”
“Please, I’m just trying to understand.”
“Fine. You want to know what would have happened? It’s not pretty.
His fever wouldn’t be getting better. It would be getting worse.
Hotter. Until he started with seizures. They go on for a while.
If he survived the fever and the seizures, his fangs and claws would start to drop.
He’d be so out of it, he wouldn’t know he was biting and swiping, but he wouldn’t be able to help it.
By about then, his eyes would start burning with fever, and his body would be expanding.
In another hour or so, his beard would grow out and his hair would fill in.
About eight hours from now, he’d be fully turned. ”
“What else?” she asked, her voice low and insistent.
“He’d need blood. He’d want it.”
“So what would you have done?”
“Julien and I would have locked him in the vault, and I’d have made Lela go kill a deer and haul it back here.
Then I’d have thrown her and it in there with him.
After he consumed it, he’d sleep and likely shift back to human.
When he woke up, he’d see Lela. He’d still have his human memories, but he’d definitely perceive the changes in his hearing and sight, his lust for blood.
In his confusion, he’d still know her as his maker, so Lela’s presence would be his only real comfort. ”
“And then?”
“And then she’d teach him our ways over the next several weeks and months. He’d live with her and learn how to hunt, how to behave, the rules, the history, the culture. And hopefully, he’d be able to make a life for himself with us. But he’d be Roug, not human.”
“Forever?”
“Forever. Turned, not blooded.”
She took a deep, shaky breath.
“If she’d licked him,” said Darcy. “Oh, I don’t want to think about it.”
He heard the fear and sadness that had crept into her voice, and he hated it, and he hated Lela for initiating it.
“Then don’t, mon ame. It didn’t happen. Amory’s going to be fine by morning. He’ll be pretty tired for a day or two, and he’ll have a mean scar someday. But he’s fine, Darcy. I promise.”
“Have you ever turned anyone, Jack?”
“Never,” he replied absolutely, unlacing his hands from hers gently. He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I’d never want this for someone else.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a hard life. It’s not—”
“Not that.” She flattened her hands across his chest, pulling him back against her breasts, leaning forward to kiss his shoulder. “What you called me…mon ame.”
He leaned forward and stood up, then turned, offering her his hand. She took it, and he pulled her up. Once she was standing naked and glistening before him, he cupped her face in his hands, gazing into her eyes with all the love in his heart and whispered, “My soul.”
My soul.
“Am I?”
The wince that swept across his face was elusive even as it imprinted on her heart in the small second that she saw it.
“You’re the closest thing I have.”
She reached up and took his hands in hers, stepping out of the tub.
She held his eyes as he stepped out after her, then she backed out of the bathroom, pulling him into his bedroom.
In front of the golden glow of the fireplace, she stopped, her heavy eyes momentarily mesmerized by the drops of water shining like diamonds on his shoulders in the firelight.
“You have a soul, Jack,” she murmured.
He shook his head, but it was only the slightest gesture. She released his hands and raised her fingers to his face, tracing the contours, finally touching her fingers to his lips.
“You have a soul,” she murmured again.
His lips pursed softly, kissing her fingers.
One finger rubbed his lower lip, and he took it into his mouth, sucking on it gently.
The wet heat of his tongue teased her fingertip as his teeth bit down, the softest pressure on her skin.
His lips tightened over the digit, sucking it with increasing pressure, and she felt the lovely, familiar warmth start to pool in her belly.
She withdrew her finger, and he watched as it sailed between them, into her own mouth where she sucked on it, tasting him, tasting the heat of his mouth.
Jack’s eyes caught fire. He saw them, fiery copper, reflected in hers. He knew that he didn’t have a soul. Not as she did, as a human being who lived in the light of life. He was a dark thing, a creature of the night, suddenly unworthy of her goodness, her trust in him.
“I don’t,” he breathed, looking down.
He felt her hands on his face, one damp finger near his eye, which looked at her, sorry from the depths of his soulless being that he had ever bound himself to someone so gloriously luminous when he was so dark and obscured.
“Then we’ll share mine,” she said and smiled at him with so much love, it hurt to look at her. It knocked the wind out of him and made his chest ache with the force of his gratitude, the force of his love.
He was a fool to ignore the equinox.
He didn’t know how to protect her. To protect them.
She offered him her body, her heart, her head, and now her soul.
He offered her nothing.
“Darcy,” he whispered, his voice raw with the power of his feelings, the wholeness of his love for her, the desperation to have her, the imminent danger to both of them.
“Let your claws drop,” she breathed.
It was the very last thing he expected to hear.
“What?”
“I want…” She swallowed, looking unsure for a moment before meeting his eyes again. “I want you to know that I trust you, that I love you. Every part of you. I don’t want you to hide yourself from me.”
Any other thought in his head was lost, gone, suddenly far away, and he felt an insane heat unfurl in his gut that hardened his cock like concrete so fast it made him feel dizzy.
I offer you nothing.
You offer me you, she answered. And that’s all I want.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I know. I want to. I want you.”