Chapter 10 #2
Lela looked around Julien at Willow, her eyes widening and glowing with realization and fury. She pivoted to face Julien. “Did you…did you…As-tu couché avec elle, Julien?”
Did you sleep with her?
“Non,” answered Willow, picking up the coffeepot and pouring herself a cup. She added suggestively, “On a pas beaucoup dormi.”
We didn’t do much sleeping.
Willow turned her back on Lela, slowly making her way to the table, but Jack kept his eyes on Lela, whose face turned crimson. Lela leaped at her, claws protracting as she lunged. Jack caught Lela around the waist and jerked her back.
Willow didn’t miss a beat as she pulled out a chair and sat down without even glancing at Lela, who writhed against Jack, trying to get to Willow.
“C’est assez, Lela! Rien Assez!” yelled Jack. Enough!
“Tell her it isn’t true, Willow,” said Julien, slapping his palms on the table.
“Don’t you mean…Belle Saule?” Willow purred, taking a sip of her coffee.
Lela lunged and growled, trying to spring forward but held firmly by Jack, swiping her claws at Willow from under Jack’s iron grasp.
Julien sat down at the table across from Willow, his face serious. “Please don’t play with her. I’m asking you to tell the truth.”
Willow took a deep breath and sighed, then turned languorously to face a furious, heaving, panting Lela with a catlike smile.
“Tu es tellement bébé. Rien ne s’est passé.” You’re such a baby. Nothing happened.
Then she turned back around, sipping her coffee before saying something else under her breath in a tight, dark whisper.
“Si jamais tu touches encore Amory, je te transforme en crapaud.”
That made Jack smile. Willow had essentially added that if Lela ever went near Amory again, she’d turn the young Roug into a toad. He had to hand it to Willow. She had style.
Lela fought to break free of Jack, but he hissed, “Downshift” in her ear and didn’t release her until her claws had fully retracted. She fell into Julien’s waiting arms.
“Promise you didn’t…?”
“Lela,” he said tenderly, stroking the hair out of her face. “I belong to you. Willow and I never—We never did anything more than chat.”
Jack recalled Julien’s original plan to make a move on Willow and made a mental note to cash in on his warning to stay away from her. Julien owed him one.
Lela returned to the stove, plating the smoking eggs and bacon that had sat too long. She put the plate on the table, and Willow glanced up at her.
“Pour moi? Merci!”
Jack gave Willow a look. Things would go a lot smoother if she’d stop baiting and heckling the hotheaded young Roug. Not that he necessarily blamed Willow after Lela’s behavior, but he wasn’t really in the mood to keep breaking up fights all morning.
Willow rolled her eyes and shrugged, mouthing Bien.
Jack and Julien took the seats on either side of Willow quickly so that Lela was left with the farthest one across from her. They scowled at one another across the table, passing the burned breakfast.
Finally, Julien spoke.
“So what did Darcy say about the re-binding? How’re you going to handle that?”
Three sets of eyes turned to Jack.
“You’ll have to turn her,” said Lela softly. “I’m sorry, Jacques.”
“I won’t turn her,” he responded through clenched teeth.
“What other option do you have?” asked Willow, her face a study in concern.
He shrugged. “I don’t have an answer yet. But I have fifty days to figure it out.”
“The Council will hunt you down. They’ll hunt her down,” said Julien quietly but firmly, his face grim. “But whatever you decide to do…” He reached over and covered Lela’s hand with his. “Lela and I will help you.”
“Me too,” whispered Willow.
“I’ll keep her safe,” Jack repeated.
“How?” demanded Willow.
“I don’t know yet,” said Jack, beads of sweat running down his neck as he felt the full, terrible impact of the situation. “They can take me, if it comes down to it. But they will never find out about her.”
“They will,” insisted Lela. “You were on the Council Enforcement. You know how they are. They’d never allow this. They will find out, and when they do—”
“I will not turn her!” Jack said, raising his voice to a growl and pounding his fists on the table.
“Turn who?”
Her voice was soft and heartbroken from the doorway of the room, and Jack bolted up out of his chair to see Darcy’s face, her chin high, her eyes devastated, her cheeks more flushed than they’d been as she slept peacefully.
“Turn who?” she asked again, steel in her voice this time, eyes holding his unmercifully.
“You,” he whispered. “We’re talking about you.”
“Why?”
Willow stood up from the table, gesturing to her vacant seat.
“I’ll get you some coffee, kid,” she murmured.
Darcy still looked at Jack. She could see it on his face. Whatever was going on, it was bad. It was really bad. And everyone in this room, including Julien and Lela, knew more about it than she did. She seized his eyes.
The garden. Now.
Ignoring the cup of coffee Willow offered, Darcy walked through the swinging door to the dining room.
Opening the French doors that led onto the garden patio, she stepped outside into the bright sunshine, breathing deeply, unable to enjoy the smells of herbs and flowers.
She waited for him with her arms crossed over her chest and her back to the house, bare feet warmed by the sun-soaked brick patio.
So many things were bothering her right this minute.
They were talking about turning her, and Jack was insisting that he wouldn’t.
She had caught the end of Lela saying something about them “never allowing it.” What did it mean?
And why had she seen such concern and fury in Jack’s eyes?
And how come Julien, Lela, and Willow seemed to know more than she did?
She was so sick and tired of Jack keeping things from her.
When he placed his hands on her shoulders, she flinched, stepping away and pivoting to face him.
“What’s going on?” she asked quietly, her heart heavy.
“Come sit with me,” he murmured, holding out his hand.
Her days of refusing to touch him and pushing him away were over as of yesterday, but she was angry and confused. And frightened. She placed her hand in his and allowed him to pull her to the stone bench under the crab apple tree.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he started, putting his arms around her shoulders and pulling her close to his side. “I wanted to figure out what to do first. I wanted you to have a day or two of just being happy, not worried.”
“Do I have something to be worried about?” she asked, letting her head drop to his shoulder.
“No.”
“The truth, Jack.”
“Immediately, no.”
She leaned back to look at him. “Tell it to me straight, or I’ll go back inside and ask one of them.”
“Okay.” Jack took a deep breath. “You and me. It’s an aberration. Not like an oddity. It’s totally singular. A Roux-ga-roux has never been bound to a human before. Never in the history of my kind.
“When I left you that night, after our binding, I went home to my pack to have it acknowledged. That’s an important thing.
It means that the pack recognizes me as an adult male who can’t be re-bound.
It was recorded but never announced. I sort of flew under the radar.
I worked on the Council Enforcement and spent a lot of time away from home on business.
Tombeur, he’s my mentor, kept an eye on me.
My parents were well-respected. My mother, at least. When asked, we said that you were from one of the northern packs and refused to relocate south.
That was pretty unconventional, but I was traveling so much for the Council that no one really bothered me about it.
“After the first decade had passed, I needed to figure out how to be with you. So I found a job working for a private security company in Boston. My experience with the CE meant I knew more than most about keeping order and protection, and it wasn’t long until they promoted me to a high-level bodyguard position.
I learned how to live among the humans. I made a lot of money.
All I thought about for those ten years was how to make it back to you. How to have you in my life.
“I had learned how to control my Roug impulses when I was in the CE with Tombeur, and even more so in Boston. I barely returned home. Just occasionally for a Gathering. By that point, I only hunted big game. I’d go to Vermont or New Hampshire during Pleine Lune, hole up, and stay away from humans.
After ten years, I had enough money. I was even ready to try living in a small town.
It had been long enough. It was time to come back to you.
“I renovated this lodge and had it decorated by a woman I knew in Boston. Amory handled the garage. He did a good job, really, but I only hired him to get to you. I found out about your cousin’s wedding and asked Amory if I could join him. He fixed it with your cousin. You know the rest.
“Last weekend was the Gathering of the Northern Bloodlands. It’s an annual thing when the packmasters, Council leaders, and some other Rougs show up to discuss the rules.
About two hundred turn out for it, and they also read the names of the dead and the names of the bound.
And anyone who wants to be bound to someone unwilling can demand a sparking. ”
“Lela,” whispered Darcy.
Jack nodded. “Lela demanded a sparking with me. Tombeur and my mother tried to stop it. They had acknowledged my binding to you, but because I couldn’t produce you, and indeed had never produced you, they were overruled. I kissed Lela, but I didn’t spark to her because I’m bound to you.”
“Then…it’s okay,” Darcy whispered, turning to look at his eyes and hating that they were so heavy and worried.
“Well, she was angry and embarrassed. So she demanded a re-binding.”
“A what?”
“A re-binding. That’s when bound mates kiss in front of the assembly at the Gathering so that their binding can be felt.”
“Like I felt Lela and Julien’s last night.”