Chapter 8
THREE WEEKS LATER
“Tom?” she asked, looking up at him with a grin. “Did I do that right?”
“Like a pro, Darcy,” he answered, nodding proudly and smiling at her in a way that made muscles deep inside her body tighten with hope. “Best stalking I ever saw from a newbie.”
He had no idea the impact his words had on her heart. It leaped joyfully at his praise.
For three weeks, Darcy Turner had been learning how to be a Roug. She’d also been falling in love with Tombeur Lesauvage.
He was her maker, her touchstone—a mentor, a best friend, a father figure even, and yet, his body, so hard and toned and bronze kept her awake at night, her eyes burning with jealousy as she heard the grunts and moans of his lovemaking with Tallis emanating from his adjacent bedroom.
She wanted him fiercely, but uncertainly, like she didn’t really have a right to him, but couldn’t help the deep longing that made her heart ache and eyes burn with every moment she spent with him.
“Always room for improvement, petite,” added Tallis Beauloup dryly. She reached forward, taking the antlers in her hands and twisting effortlessly. The sound of a cracking neck rent the air, and the buck’s pathetic cries tapered off.
Darcy looked down at her claws, still deeply embedded in the jugular of the beast, and withdrew them, running her tongue up the side of one while she held Tallis’s eyes provocatively. Tallis chuckled lightly and turned away from Darcy, rubbing against Tombeur as she passed him.
Darcy’s eyes narrowed. The ever-present fly in Darcy’s ointment, Tallis never gave her a moment alone with her maker.
For three weeks, Tallis had been there every time Darcy turned around.
She said she was helping Tom to mentor Darcy, but Darcy felt certain that Tallis was keeping an eye on Darcy’s increasing infatuation with Tombeur.
Either that, or she was keeping an eye on Darcy for her son, Jack.
Tombeur had followed Tallis in the direction of the cabin, leaving Darcy alone in the woods with her kill.
She dropped her fangs, leaning down to let them sink into the hot, wet fur of the creature’s neck and then sucking strongly.
The blood ran in a gushing stream from the jugular artery into Darcy’s mouth, and her eyes rolled back in her head with bliss.
Of all the things she liked about being Roug—her increased sense of hearing and smell, the freedom of Roug running in the dark woods, night sight, rejuvenation, strength and vigor—what she liked best was how she felt when a torrent of fresh blood flooded her mouth and poured down her throat in greedy gulps.
It was like she could feel her body revitalizing with every swallow, invigorated with every lick.
She imagined it was what an orgasm would feel like.
Someday. With her bound mate. With Tombeur, if she had any say in the matter.
Sated, she stood up, sheathing her fangs and closing her eyes. She focused on Tallis and Tombeur, specks in the distance now, moving steadily away from Darcy with every step. Concentrating hard, she listened for their voices.
“She’s in love with you,” said Tallis.
“I have a responsibility to her, and you know it.”
“Yes. But be careful you don’t encourage her. Remember Jacques and Lela. These young Rougs are hotheaded.”
“She knows you’re my woman, Tallis.”
“I still don’t like it,” came the sharp crack of Tallis’s voice. “Her eyes burn for you.”
“Well, mine burn for you.” Tombeur paused. “Anyway, she’s not mine.”
“Nor am I,” said Tallis.
“But you will be,” said Tombeur, and Darcy heard the steel in his voice, the strength, any option for refusal eliminated by the searing certainty of his intent.
“Make certain she doesn’t kiss you, mon coeur,” warned Tallis, and Darcy’s eyes widened.
Why would it matter if I kissed Tombeur?
she wondered, stepping around the carcass to follow behind them.
Thus far, aside from assuring Darcy that she was once bound to Tallis’s son and would be bound to him again one day, Tom hadn’t really talked to her about bindings, except to tell her they were an almost-divine, unbreakable force.
Except in my case, she thought with annoyance, pushing Jack Beauloup’s broken, desperate eyes from her mind.
She knew very little about her forgotten binding to Jack.
No one would tell her much about it, and when she asked, Tombeur and Tallis reprimanded her that she should concentrate her efforts and attentions on hunting and shifting.
But Darcy saw the heavy, loaded looks they gave each other every time she asked about Jack.
There was a story there, and they were keeping it from her.
Darcy leaned against a tree, deciding to give Tombeur and Tallis a few minutes before she returned. She stopped concentrating on their footfalls and voices. She didn’t want another front-row seat to their passion.
Huffing softly, she furrowed her brows as she tuned into the sounds of the forest, thinking about Proctor Woods at home, about how much she’d like to return home someday to see her woods through her Roug eyes.
Darcy had explained to her mother and Amory that she was on a research expedition in Canada for the next couple of months as she lived with Tombeur, learning the ways of the Roux-ga-roux.
As a turned Roug who still had strong ties to and feelings for the human world, Darcy had opted not to break the seal between the blood of animals and the blood of humans and decided that she would fuel her body with animal blood only.
Tombeur had approved of this decision and helped her learn how to hunt, warning her that her bloodlust for a human kill would need to be carefully managed during Pleine Lune.
Ironically, he had also helped Jack Beauloup learn the same kind of control many years ago, so he was well-positioned to help her.
With Pleine Lune still a week away, Darcy was confident in her animal hunting skills now.
Tomorrow, Tombeur had informed her, something called a Gathering was taking place in the settlement where Tallis lived, and Darcy would be introduced to the packs of the Northern Bloodlands for the first time.
Make certain she doesn’t kiss you.
As she picked her way through the woods slowly, Darcy wondered if there was any correlation between this Gathering and the kiss that Tallis so feared.
For no good reason, this made her mind turn to Tallis’s son, Jack.
She hadn’t seen him since the day of her turning, but his handsome, worried face lingered in her mind, haunting her at odd moments.
Stronger than his desperate words, his burning eyes had raked up and down Darcy’s body like she belonged to him.
The strength in his naked body had touched something inside of her, even though she tried to deny it.
Sometimes, when she overheard Tombeur and Tallis making love, Jack’s face would unexpectedly dominate her mind as her fingers slid down her body, rubbing her secret valleys, trying to find relief, coming frustratingly close, but never quite able to pitch herself over the edge into bliss.
Angry and confused by the way her brain would turn to Jack at such moments, she’d force his face from her mind and concentrate on Tombeur instead—his strength and speed and wisdom, the way he taught her and cared for her, and a different ache would begin, one that still couldn’t be assuaged as she petted herself into an almost-frantic frustration.
Approaching the cabin, Darcy tuned into the voices again, relieved to position them inside by the fireplace and not in the bedroom. She leaned quietly against the side of the cabin, listening to them talk.
“Another text from Willow,” said Tallis. “She’ll be here tomorrow morning. I told her she must leave well before sundown. Even an Enchanteresse won’t be safe during a Gathering.”
Willow is coming up tomorrow? Darcy self-consciously ran the back of her hand across her lips that still dripped with warm blood. She hadn’t seen Willow since the day she turned and desperately missed her friend. This was good news.
“Before Darcy comes back, I have to ask. How is he?”
Darcy held her breath as she listened for the answer.
“How do you think?” asked Tallis, her voice dark and soft.
“Bad.”
“Very bad,” confirmed Tallis.
“He understands, though? Why we did it? That she wanted it?”
“He understands, but he doesn’t agree. He worshipped her. He would have gladly died for her. So it’s a terrible blasphemy that we—”
“Is he angry with you, chérie?”
“No,” said Tallis. “But he rages about you. Your…betrayal.”
“I knew he’d want to kill whoever did it. Better me than you.”
“You didn’t think I could hold my own?”
“Tallis, you’re strong, but he’s full grown and male.” Tom paused before asking, “Is he drinking?”
Darcy imagined Tallis nodding her head as she answered, “Oui. Too much.”
“Shifting?”
“Often.”
“Feeding?”
Tallis sighed. “Des animaux.”
“Good. Then he’s still under control. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he…”
“He wouldn’t do that. He sees humans differently. And he still—he still believes that she belongs to him.”
“Can you clean him up by tomorrow?”
“It won’t be a problem. He wants to go to the Gathering. He hopes for it and fears it at once. He knows, in his heart, that it’s the last chance.”
“Will he force her?”
“Non,” said Tallis, her strong voice breaking. “He will not. He wants her to be willing. He wants her to remember.”
“And Willow is bringing the—”
“Oui. But there are no guarantees. It’s an untested potion meant for humans, not us.”
“She’s a smart little Enchanteresse. My money’s on her,” said Tom.
“Oh god, Tombeur. What if he loses her? What if—”
“Shhh. Calme-toi, chérie. It will happen. When they kiss, it will happen,” Tom insisted. “Just like it will for us.”