Chapter 10
The dying light on the horizon told him that the Gathering was beginning soon, but the constant influx of cars, trucks, and motorcycles all afternoon would have been just as reliable a cue. Rougs were coming from near and far to witness Jack’s re-binding.
A re-binding that probably wasn’t going to happen.
Jack knew that appearing without Darcy by his side meant a possible Inquisition into the terms of his original binding.
It meant pain and imprisonment. It meant the possibility of torture or death, and yet after Darcy’s loss, it seemed trivial somehow.
If he left the Gathering Hall tonight without her in his arms, he didn’t care if he was in chains.
His heart would be dead. What they did to his body simply wouldn’t matter.
He took a deep breath, heading back into the settlement from the woods where he’d spent the night after leaving Darcy.
Her feelings for Tombeur had cut him deeply, and he had shifted outside the door of Tombeur’s cabin, running through the woods with helpless, hopeless abandon.
Happening upon the campsite of a human family, his mouth had watered.
Watching them through the branches, he had considered—just for a moment—slaughtering them like meat, the part of himself so closely bound to humanity wanting payback, wanting to hurt humans for the way he was hurting.
And the blood of their children, so sweet and hot, called to him, beguiling him, teasing him.
She didn’t love him. She didn’t want him.
It would be so easy to revert to wild Roug ways, kill them, drain them, feel their souls, the essence of their beings coursing through his veins like fire.
He’d be stronger than ever. He’d stride into the Gathering Hall, compel her, force her to kiss him, and then…
The human child lifted her chubby arms to her mother, and a redheaded, green-eyed woman gathered the baby against her breast.
Jack stared at them, mesmerized, and hadn’t realized that he was downshifting until he was in human form once again.
He watched the family settle into their RV for the night, guarding them until the lights were dark and the campfire was cold.
It was their very humanity that had shattered the madness of his thoughts.
They were so vulnerable. So trusting of the world around them. So ignorant of the dangers that lurked nearby, the horror that they’d so narrowly avoided.
For Jack’s entire adult life, he had protected humans.
And in a blinding flash of understanding, he realized that it was his searing love for Darcy Turner that made it impossible for him to hunt them now.
In his heart, he knew that even Pleine Lune was no longer a risk to Jack’s control.
He had fully evolved into a new creature. A creature that might even have a soul.
Pressing his hand to his chest, he felt the heaviness, the too-lateness of such a revelation. He would always need blood to fuel his Roug side, but it needn’t be human, and for the rest of his life, he wouldn’t be a danger to those Darcy so loved.
His mastery of control complete, the danger to them now, he grimaced, was her.
Except that Jack, among all Rougs, was in the unique position of understanding what it was to love so hard, so deep, so irrevocably, that he could change his very matter, his nature, his desires.
And though he couldn’t explain it, it gave him the strength to put one foot in front of the other in the direction of the Gathering.
An hour later, he walked into the Gathering Hall, flanked by Julien, Lela, and Delphine on one side, Tombeur on the other. With Tallis handling Council business, it was Tombeur who had been waiting for Jack when he arrived home from his walk in the woods.
“Why are you here?” Jack demanded. “Why aren’t you with Darcy?”
“I left her yesterday. She was talking crazy. She knows how to get here. Hell, just follow her nose. Too many of us to miss.”
Jack nodded. He was grateful to Tombeur for staying away from her, for not risking a single moment when she could have pressed her lips to his. Jack brushed past Tombeur and headed into the cabin, changing into fresh jeans and a clean shirt for the Gathering.
“Jacques,” said Tombeur, his neck bent and eyes sorry as he leaned against the doorway of Jack’s bedroom. “She gave us no choice. She wanted to be turned.”
“There is always a choice,” said Jack.
Tombeur nodded halfheartedly. “If anyone was going to mentor her, well…I’m glad it was me.”
“You don’t get it. She didn’t ask for this life.”
“Son, nobody asks for the life they get. It’s good luck or shit luck. It’s accidents and mistakes, trying your best, and hedging your bets. She didn’t want this life? Did you?”
Jack fastened two buttons on a plaid flannel shirt and left the rest open.
“I was born into it.”
“Argument could be made that she was too.” Tombeur sighed, shrugging as he shook his head. “You didn’t choose her. The world tilted on its axis for a moment and revealed her to you. You had no say in the matter.”
“I could’ve left her alone,” Jack lamented.
“No more’n I could’ve left your mama alone once my own mate died. Didn’t even matter that Dubois was alive. All I could see was Tallis.”
“The difference being,” said Jack, with steel in his voice. “Your woman will belong to you by tonight.”
“So will yours,” said Tombeur.
“No guarantee for me.”
“Jacques,” said Tombeur, wincing as he shook his head.
“You gotta have more faith than that. The day I told you that you couldn’t lay eyes on her for ten years, you looked up at me, all furious and young, and told me I wasn’t going to be able to brainwash her out of your head.
And I didn’t. I couldn’t. Ain’t never in my life seen anything as strong as your binding to that girl. ”
Jack clenched his jaw, unable to speak.
“Tallis told me you felt her. Yesterday.”
Jack nodded, looking down.
“But you won’t force it?”
Jack shook his head, staring at Tombeur with flat, resigned eyes.
Tombeur sighed. “Never been a Roug like you. A Roug-human binding? That was a first. But Dansmatête? With someone you’re not bound to? Never heard of that, either.”
“Maman said it was just electrical impulses.”
“Aw, son, you know as well as I do, whether she shows up tonight or not, what you got with Darcy ain’t even close to over.”
Then Tombeur had slapped him on the back and walked out the door. Jack followed, finding his brother, Lela, and Delphine waiting just outside, and they headed, in a solemn mass, to the Gathering Hall together.
As they entered, Tombeur locked eyes with Tallis, who had saved him an empty seat beside her at the Council table. He turned to Jack. “Darcy’s not here yet. I’ll buy you some time, though. We’ll see if she shows.”
Jack nodded gravely, and Tombeur pulled him into a quick, hard embrace.
“I love you like you’re mine,” he whispered in a gravelly voice. “Whatever happens, Jack, you stay alive. We’ll do whatever we can for you.”
Tombeur pulled away, then, looking at Jack with his eyes on fire and nodded before turning away.
Jack followed his brother to the set of bleachers designated for the Portes de l’Enfer pack, taking a seat in the front row, which had been roped off and marked “Beauloup.”
Casting his glance around the room, he realized that it was a standing-room-only Gathering, the bleachers full to bursting, and Rougs of all packs still flooding the massive room.
All eyes were drawn to Jack, but he kept his head mostly down, breathing deeply, seeking Darcy’s scent and unable to find it in the sea of strong smells that surrounded him.
“Uncle Jacques,” asked Delphine from beside him. “Is Darcy from the Southern Bloodlands coming?”
He gave her a small smile. “I hope so, louveteau. I sure hope so.”
Looking over Delphine’s head, Jack’s eyes smashed into Lela’s, and she winced, her usually tough eyes flooding with tears.
“Je suis désolé,” she mouthed softly, looking miserable.
Jack grimaced, shaking his head gently and looking to the center of the Council ring where Tallis and Tombeur were in deep conversation.
Jack knew that they hoped to dissuade the Council from an Inquisition should Darcy fail to attend.
He didn’t think they’d be successful. Jack’s binding, if left a mystery, would be a troubling chapter in the history of the packs.
Saint Germain had been vocal in his quest-for-truth campaign, and should Jack’s binding still be unexplainable after tonight, an Inquisition would surely follow.
He took a deep breath, shoving the image of the Inquisition cellar out of his head. He’d know it intimately soon enough.
In his heart, he felt certain she wasn’t coming.
He knew that Willow had visited her and had planned to bring a memory potion, but it must not have worked, after all.
If Darcy had remembered who they were to one another, surely she would have run to Jack straight away and re-bound herself to him with haste.
In the best-case scenario, they’d be sitting side by side tonight, holding hands, ready to share their bound status with the Bloodlands. But Jack was alone.
The roar of the crowd took a sharp dive as Marcus Saint Germain, the First Wolf, followed by his cadre of Council Enforcers, swept into the hall, wearing a full-length coat decorated garishly with the scalps of his many victims: blond hair, bright red, dull browns, some white and gray mixed together for a tapestry of horror.
Jack felt his stomach turn over, further evidence that he’d lost his lust for human blood.
The chatter in the hall dwindled to the barest hush, every Roug waiting on the edge of his and her seat to see what would happen next, and then Saint Germain exploded with a greeting.
“Bienvenue!”
And the packs went wild, stomping, howling, growling with glee.