Chapter 4
The rest of the afternoon had been melancholy.
For all that they wished they could just be a normal human couple for a few hours, they both knew it was impossible.
Pleine Lune loomed over them, and the equinox sat dark and mean on the horizon.
Around three o’clock, they started back to the lodge, but Jack had stopped about half a mile from the house.
Holding her hand, he pulled her against his chest, looking down into her eyes. “I’ll meet you at home, okay?”
She searched his face. “You aren’t coming back with me?”
“I have to hunt, Darcy. Just in case your potion doesn’t work, I’m going to need fresh dead.”
Darcy winced, her stomach turning over. “You’re going to sit in a vault for three days with a dead animal?”
He shrugged. “If I shift, I have to feed.”
She swallowed, dropping his eyes to hide her feelings of revulsion. “Just trust me, it’s going to work.”
“I do trust you. Until Amory got hurt, I wouldn’t even allow wolfsbane in my house. Tonight, I’m going to drink it. I trust you with everything I am, baby. But not even you know what’s going to happen tonight. I have to be ready…for anything.”
For failure, she thought, doubts encroaching.
He dropped her hand and tilted her chin up so she was looking up at him. “I trust you, Darcy. With everything I am.”
She forced a weak smile for him, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Okay. I’ll head back. Meet you at the house?”
Jack glanced at the waning sun, then back at Darcy, shaking his head. “Better not chance it. I’ll go straight to the vault.”
Tears welled in Darcy’s eyes as she stared at him. She had hoped to lie in his bed for one more hour, to make love to him, to feel his arms around her before they were separated for the next three difficult days.
“So this is all we have? Right now? This is it?”
She’d gone without Jack’s presence in her life for twenty years. She hated it that three days suddenly felt so terrible.
He set the empty picnic basket on the ground and reached out to cup her face in his large, warm hands. Searching her eyes, he swallowed like there was a lump in his throat too, before dropping his lips to hers.
No matter how many times he kissed her, no matter how many different ways, Darcy would never get used to his kisses.
She would never get used to the feeling of his strong, hot lips moving against hers, the way his hands caressed her face like she was his living, breathing treasure.
She would never grow tired of the way he poured his love for her into every stroke of his tongue, every gasp, every groan, every tightening grasp of his fingers on her flesh.
Her knees weakened, and as she swayed into him, he lowered his hands to her waist, then banded them around her, clutching her to his chest fiercely.
His lips strayed from her mouth, over the skin of her cheeks like a brand, sliding effortlessly to her ear, which he bit gently before whispering, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she murmured, unable to keep a tear from sliding down her cheek.
He drew back from her, reaching up to wipe the trail of moisture away. It’s going to be all right, baby.
I know, she told him. I hope, her heart whispered.
Giving her a small grin, he reached down for the picnic basket and handed it to her. See you in a little bit.
She nodded, then turned and walked away, listening to his retreating footsteps pounding faster and faster into the wilds of the woods.
As his feet thundered across the forest floor, Jack turned his thoughts to the evening ahead. He hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to the physical pain that awaited his immediate future for two reasons.
First of all, it did no good to dwell on an inevitability. It was a waste of time. He had promised Darcy he would try out the suppressor, and once he’d made that promise, he was locked into the experience. He knew it was going to be extremely unpleasant, so he hadn’t wasted time thinking about it.
Second of all, the idea of completely suppressing his Pleine Lune shift, while something he’d always dreamed of, suddenly felt extreme.
It felt like an emasculation, a castration of sorts.
In a strange way, he realized that he liked exercising control over his urges without eliminating them.
Even now, as he ran effortlessly through the rambles, he felt alive, vibrant, exciting, on the very cusp of whole.
He loved Darcy with all his heart, but his heart, his very nature, was Roug.
And now, faced with the prospect of eliminating that part of himself, for however long, he felt conflicted.
It was impossible for Darcy to live in his world as a human, so if they wanted to be together, he must live in hers. But did it necessarily follow that all traces of his nature should be subjugated?
He knew the answer.
Yes. It was necessary that his urge to kill and feed be eliminated during Pleine Lune. He knew it would be for the best and give them the best possible chance at a future together. Even as he acquiesced to this reality, however, it bothered him.
Catching the scent of a young buck, he turned sharply to the left. Six hundred yards. Maybe less. He slowed his pace a little so that he didn’t announce himself.
If you turned her, you could hunt in the Northern Bloodlands together. She’d be like you. She’d be one of you, whispered that soft, persistent, insidious voice in his head.
His eyes ignited in protest. Jack knew that Darcy would be angry about his choice, but he had come to a final decision last night after watching her at her mother’s house.
He would never turn her. He would leave her the day before the equinox and appear alone at the re-binding.
He would take any punishment meted out and maintain his silence.
One day, with the help of Tombeur and his mother, he would be released, and he would return to Darcy.
They’d been separated before, he reasoned.
It would be painful, but they could stand it again.
He imagined himself shackled in a cell underneath the Council hall.
He knew these cells well. He’d guarded them often enough.
They would torture him, but he was strong and would withstand their punitive measures.
At night, he would pull Darcy into his dreams. She would comfort him, remind him of everything he was fighting for, holding on for, living for.
And when the Council understood that there was no information forthcoming, they’d tire of Jack.
When they thought they’d broken his spirit, they would release him.
And he and Darcy would be free.
Distracted by the steady, even heartbeat of the unaware deer, he slowed his steps even further.
It was asleep. Something in him grumbled about missing out on the thrill of the chase, even though it would be an easier kill.
Letting his claws drop silently, he found it resting against a log and quickly slit its neck.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the comforting, metallic smell of its blood before hefting it up on his shoulders and turning back toward home.
Once Jack returned for her, they could live a normal life together. As long as he was a Roug and she a human, they’d never have children, of course, but they’d have each other. They’d live out their days in well-earned peace and comfort and love.
Taking out her medical journal, Darcy listed the date and time on the top line of the first page.
September 3, 4:20 p.m.
Swallowing, she stared at the blank page, wondering where to begin.
Like any good scientist, she needed to keep a detailed record of the potion’s efficacy and Jack’s reaction to it and tolerance of it.
But looking at the page was like looking down a shotgun barrel, suddenly, and her nerves made her hand shake as she raised her coffee cup to her lips.
God, please don’t let this hurt him.
Please let it work.
Please let him see that turning me is the only way.
She heard the upstairs door open and stood up from the desk in the small office adjacent to the vault entrance. She looked up the stairs to see him descending.
“Turn away if it’s going to gross you out,” he warned when he was about halfway down.
Darcy turned away from him, looking back into the office that contained two grainy TV monitors mounted over the desk, a metal file cabinet, a coffeemaker, and one uncomfortable guest chair.
As he passed by her, she could feel his heat and smell the musty pungency of his kill.
Her stomach threatened to revolt, so she concentrated on the desk, littered with her notes, and focused on the jar of liquid standing conspicuously in the middle of them.
Glancing up at the monitor, she saw Jack relax his shoulders, and the large deer slid down his back, crumpling into the corner of the room.
With horror and fascination, she watched as he looked down at his blood-covered hands, suddenly lifting them to his lips and licking.
The sound in the vault was turned off, but even from here, on the other side of the massive, cracked-open door, she could hear his groan of relief and pleasure.
It’s almost time, she told herself.
“Do you…do you need anything else? Before we get started?” she called to him, picking up a pencil to write up his kill and arrival time, then dropping it again when she felt his hands on her shoulders.
She turned to face him, and even though sunset wasn’t for another two and a half hours, she could see the bristly black hairs poking out on his face and arms. His fingers twitched with eagerness to let claws drop for the hunt, and reaching up to take his pulse, she felt the racing rhythm throbbing beneath his touch.
She darted her eyes to his face, where his eyes burned like liquid gold.
I’m not turning yet, he told her. But soon.
Then it’s time.