Chapter 8 #2
Darcy closed her eyes as she leaned back against the side of the cabin silently, a sudden image of Jack Beauloup’s lips filling her mind.
They descended with certainty toward hers in the darkness, an old smell of velvet suddenly filling her nostrils like a dead memory.
Her fingers fluttered to her mouth, and she kissed the tips, whimpering softly as bumps rose on her skin, making her eyes burn.
A strange swirling started, like a vortex in her belly, making her feel nauseous and wobbly, like she was physically being pulled somewhere, not just in her head, but her whole self.
What was this strangeness? she wondered, panic making her feel cold and confused.
Her eyes flew open, and she pressed her palms against the rough logs of the cabin, pushing away with all her might and dropping her fingers from her lips.
It’s you, a phantom voice whispered as she lurched forward.
Shaking her head to clear it, she focused on the tree line in front of the cabin, pulling away from whatever force had been drawing her…
where? She took a deep breath as the swirling ebbed away, and she looked down at the fingers that had just caressed her lips.
This had happened one other time when she overheard Tallis and Tom talking about Jack, and Darcy didn’t like it.
It made her feel out of control, weak, and unstable.
She didn’t understand it, and it frightened her.
Distracted by the sound of Tallis and Tombeur’s farewells, she leaned back against the side of the cabin to listen.
“I’m leaving, mon coeur,” said Tallis, and the soft sound of bodies clasped together followed. “I will see you tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow you’ll be mine, Tallis. Forever.”
“à demain, Tombeur. Je serez à toi, toujours.”
“Je t’aime, femme,” he whispered, his voice husky and emotional as he told his woman that he loved her.
“Je t’aime aussi,” she replied softly, assuring him of the same.
Darcy’s stomach flipped over, and her fear ratcheted up a little higher. Her only focal point, her only source of comfort in this new world, was Tombeur, and Darcy couldn’t bear the thought of Tallis taking him away from her.
The door opened suddenly, and Tallis exited the cabin, looking immediately to her right and spying Darcy.
“Ecoute, petit,” she said, reaching forward with uncharacteristic tenderness to cup Darcy’s cheek. “I won’t see you again until…after.”
“After what?”
“The Gathering,” said Tallis.
Darcy shrugged, wishing Tallis would drop her hand and leave so that Darcy could finally have some time alone with Tom.
“I am grateful to you. I know you don’t understand everything that’s happened to you, but when you came to me, I was…
It doesn’t matter. Whatever happens, thank you, Darcy Lesauvage, turned not blooded.
” Tallis leaned forward and pressed her lips to Darcy’s forehead, then dropped her hand and walked the short distance to her car, looking back once to lock eyes with Tombeur, who stood in the doorway to the cabin.
Darcy watched her drive away, puzzling over her words and actions.
“I thought she didn’t like me,” said Darcy, turning to Tom, feeling her face and body soften as she took in the hard, masculine lines of his body behind a T-shirt and jeans.
“She doesn’t,” he said softly. “But she’s still grateful.”
“For what?”
“You don’t remember,” he said, turning back into the cabin. “But I guess it’s time for me to tell you.”
“About Jack Beauloup.”
Tom nodded, sitting down in front of the cold fireplace and gesturing for her to sit across from him. His fiery brown eyes were tinged with moss, but didn’t burn as he gazed at her, and Darcy’s fingers curled into themselves with frustration. She didn’t want to hear about Jack. She wanted Tom.
“I don’t want to hear about—”
His voice was hard. “I don’t care. It’s time.”
Instantly chastised by the sharpness of her mentor’s voice, she sat back in her chair and looked up at him through lashes lowered in submission. “Of course.”
“Jack was your bound mate.”
“So I’ve heard, but—”
“Shut up and listen.” He paused, clenching the muscle in his jaw as he stared at her.
“I know you remember him from high school. You were in a play together. What you don’t remember is that one night, he kissed you, and for the first time in the history of our race, a Roux-ga-roux was bound to a human.
This was no half-binding or imagining. This was a full, legitimate binding of one heart to another. Yours to his. His to yours. Forever.”
Darcy looked down at her lap. It wasn’t that she had any memory of her binding to Jack, but her body reacted to his words, leaning into them, her heart and belly fluttering as though on the precipice of something huge she didn’t quite understand.
“Being with you, loving you, his longing for you, put Jack in jeopardy. So he left you for twenty years, and he learned control. He loved you every moment you were apart. His only goal, the only purpose of his life, was to return to you.”
Tombeur breathed heavily, wincing before continuing.
“He built a lodge on the Southern Bloodlands and found you three months ago. When you found out what he was, you were horrified. He left you again because you were frightened of him, but his half sister, Lela, made matters worse. Convinced she was in love with Jack, she demanded a forced binding, and when it didn’t work, she demanded a re-binding. ”
“Between me and Jack.”
Tombeur nodded. “But there was no way.”
“No way?”
“No way a human could attend a Gathering, a re-binding. You’d be torn apart. But if you didn’t attend—”
“Jack would be punished.”
“Oui.”
It wasn’t exactly a memory, but suddenly Darcy had a sharp sensation of déjà vu or intuition. She didn’t remember driving to Portes de l’Enfer and asking to be turned from human to Roug, but she somehow knew it had happened. She had asked for this.
“I asked you to turn me…to save him.”
Tombeur nodded once, holding her eyes. “Do you remember?”
“Not really,” she said. “But I still know.”
Tombeur tilted his head to the side. “Does anything I’ve been saying sound…familiar?”
Darcy shrugged. It was like hearing a fairy tale she hadn’t heard since her childhood. It wasn’t exactly familiar to the being she was now. It was like something from another time, another plane, through a fog. Another person’s memories even, like a totally separate consciousness.
“I don’t know,” she said helplessly.
“At the Gathering, you will kiss him.”
Her heart seized with panic, and she exclaimed, “No!”
“Yes,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “I beg you.”
She could imagine refusing him nothing but this. The thought of being separated from her maker, her mentor, the only comfort in an unfamiliar world—it was too unbearable. She appreciated that Jack had been part of her past, but she wanted Tombeur to headline her future.
“Tom,” murmured Darcy, falling forward to her knees on the floor and crawling to the older man. She placed her hands on his knees, locking her eyes with his for a moment before flicking her glance to his lips. “Why can’t I kiss you?”
Tombeur stared at her with sympathy, his eyes flat. “Because I love Tallis. Because I have always loved Tallis.”
“If we were bound, you’d love me, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “But I believe that I am meant for her.”
Darcy slid her palms up his thighs, slowly, gently, higher and higher. “You could be wrong.”
“I’m not,” he said, but she saw it in his eyes, the faint hint of heat, the tiny crackle of flame that urged her to pursue him.
“If you’re so sure,” she said, leaning forward to brush her breasts against his knees. “What do you have to lose from kissing me? It won’t work, right?”
He swallowed, staring at her, his eyes growing brighter as his glance darted to her lips. Her fingertips touched the hardness at the apex of his thighs with satisfaction. He was growing inside the tight denim of his jeans. She was affecting him.
“Tom,” she gasped softly, leaning forward, her lips a breath away from his as she closed her eyes. “I don’t want Jack. I want you.”
“No!” he growled, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders and pushing her away, her arms swinging back just in time to brace her body from falling.
“Tom, please,” she whimpered, frustrated by his refusal, frightened by his anger, hurt by his rejection.
“Didn’t you hear me? I love Tallis. Jack loves you. You—”
“Love no one!” she bellowed, jumping up from the floor to stand before him with her fists clenched by her sides. “And I won’t be forced into a binding!”
“Darcy, you don’t know our rules. Gatherings are the only times when a binding kiss may be forced. You’re one of us now, which means if Jack compels you, you’ll be required to comply…or fight.”
“Then I’ll fight,” she vowed through clenched teeth. “You and Tallis, and even Willow, think he should mean something to me, but he doesn’t. I don’t know him. I don’t love him.”
Tombeur stood up, his gaze flat but searing as he looked deeply into her eyes. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I love you! I do!”
“Why are you fighting this so hard?” He tilted his head to the side, still searching her face. “You’re frightened of the feelings that draw you to Jack. You don’t understand them. Maybe you don’t even want them. But I can see it in your eyes, Darcy. He does mean something to you.”
“He won’t force me,” she sobbed in a broken voice, uncertain of where the words came from, or why they felt true.
Darcy’s muscles went slack, and she fell back into the chair behind her in defeat, tears flooding her eyes as her head and heart tangled in confusion.
He was right. She couldn’t deny this strange pull to Jack.
But Jack was, really and truly, a stranger to her.
She didn’t want to be drawn to a stranger, and she certainly didn’t want to be intimate with him.
So much of her existence was strange now.
She wanted familiarity. She wanted comfort. She wanted Tombeur.
His hand was heavy and warm on her shoulder, and it made her heart twist with a raw yearning for him.
“Maybe he won’t,” said Tombeur gently. “But consider what I’ve said. How much he loves you. He’d be a good mate to you, Darcy, I promise. Submit to him.”
“I don’t want—”
Tombeur continued, undeterred. “Willow will be here tomorrow. She’s bringing a serum.”
Darcy’s breath hitched, but she didn’t move.
“Its purpose is to help you remember.”
“I don’t want to remember,” she sobbed.
“Jack would do anything for you,” he said quietly, withdrawing his hand. “Whether you know him or not, whether you want him or not, whether you love him or not. That’s got to be worth something.”
“How can it be worth anything when I know and want and love…you?”
He shook his head at her sadly and sighed, then turned away, heading for the door. Tears streamed down Darcy’s face as he left her alone in the cabin, letting the wooden door slam softly shut behind him.