Fateful (27 page)

“It’s the sea that’s changed.” Alec’s voice is uneven. Courageous as he is, he cannot disguise his emotions in the face of death. “I remember, when we traveled to Europe, the whole ocean was studded with ice. The ship had to stop half a dozen times. It seemed to take forever, and I was so afraid of what I’d become, so impatient to get where we were going—” He falls silent, and I know what he’s thinking: He would give anything for those days back again in this moment when he may have only minutes left.

Overhead the sky is deepening its shades—still bright blue close to the setting sun, but beyond that periwinkle, and above that, sweeping around us and down to the east, a deeper navy that will soon darken to black.

I look at the point of the knife. It gleams in the dim light, and it feels so heavy in my hand. Alec’s unbuttoned shirt lets me angle the blade against his bare skin. How hard will I have to push to break through skin and bone and heart?

“How do you feel?” Desperation chokes my voice. “Can you feel it coming on? Or not coming on?”

“I hardly know. My heart is beating fast, and I’m sweating—that’s what happens before the change—”

Oh, God.

“—but I’m nervous. It could be only that.” Alec is obviously struggling hard for control. “I can’t tell the difference anymore.”

He’s so scared. My heart goes out to him, and in that moment I feel his pain more sharply than my own.

“It’s all right,” I say, keeping my voice even. “I won’t let you change. You won’t hurt me. You won’t hurt anyone else. I’ve got you.” It’s as if I were holding on to him above an abyss, instead of being the one who might hurl him into it.

Our eyes meet again. The rosy sunset light paints our faces. I grip the knife harder, my heartbeat quickening.

The sun goes lower, and lower—only a thin line of light now—

—and then it’s gone. It’s night.

And Alec remains human.

My body seems to go limp. I let the knife fall from my hand as I stagger backward; Alec catches me and holds me in his strong arms, though he is almost as undone as I am. “Tess,” he whispers into my hair. “I’m free.”

“You’re free forever,” I repeat. “You have a chance, Alec. You have to have hope.”

“My brave Tess.” His mouth brushes against my cheekbone, the corner of my mouth. I pull him close and kiss him, then harder, until his lips open and his tongue brushes against mine.

The wind whips around us, colder and harsher than ever, and Alec pulls me inside, away from the coming chill. We stumble against the heavy carved chair in the sitting room—perhaps this is why I sink to my knees, pulling Alec down with me. Why he slides his arms around my waist as he leans me back onto the carpet in front of the fire.

Though I know better, and so does he.

“I can say it at last,” he murmurs as we embrace, our bodies close together. “I love you.”

“And I love you.” It doesn’t feel like a revelation. It feels like something I’ve known since the moment I met him.

“Tess.” Alec’s breath is warm against my throat. We’re tangled up in each other now. I pull his shirt open, baring his broad shoulders. His body covers mine. “I can’t offer you anything.”

Marriage, he means. A future. Everything his bondage to the Brotherhood denies us. All those things that seem so important in the bright light of day but are so meaningless now.

“You can offer me tonight.” I arch my body under his until he groans. In the last moment before his mouth covers mine again, I whisper, “That’s enough.”

Hours later, I lie in Alec’s bed, clad only in soft white sheets. Alec lies next to me, still tracing the lines of my body with his fingers, his expression one of wonder. “You’re so beautiful. More beautiful than I ever imagined.”

“I could say the same to you.” I can’t resist an impish smile. “If I hadn’t already seen how beautiful you were in the Turkish bath.”

He grins and kisses me, and we fall back on the bed giggling, as if this were only our first night together instead of our last. This is how I always imagined a girl would feel on her honeymoon: cherished, loved, womanly, and fulfilled. I don’t know what all those old ladies were whispering about, claiming that it hurts the first time. Didn’t hurt me a bit, not even at first, and after that first—oh, I understand so much more now. Why people make mistakes for this. Why people risk everything.

We risked little; I know how to be careful. Alec does too, and he took care of me without my having to ask. Neither of us wants a baby. That’s for the best, I know, and yet I wish somehow I could carry something of him with me always.

What I’m really wishing is that I didn’t have to tell him good-bye.

The smile fades from my face, and his too, as he watches. We’ve hidden from the hard truth as long as possible. Time to face reality.

“You know you have to go,” he says. “For your good, not mine.”

“I know. Mikhail and the Brotherhood won’t allow a woman in your life. Least of all one who knows their secrets.”

“And there’s still no saying whether or not they can control my will. Despite the silver, the initiation worked enough to make me free to change or not, on any night except the full moon. It may have worked enough to make them control me. And if they commanded me to hurt you—”

“You would.” I sit up, holding the sheet to my chest. “I know we have to part, Alec. You made that clear before I ever came here.”

Alec hesitates. “This is a hell of a thing to say after we—don’t misunderstand why I’m asking—Tess, if you need money to start over in New York, we can give it to you.”

He’s worried that he’ll make me feel like a whore, as though I couldn’t tell the difference between that and what happened between us tonight. It’s for his sake that I’m glad to tell him, “I don’t need it. Irene gave me two years’ salary as leaving pay; Lady Regina will be furious when she finds out. I’m well set.”

Alec nods, though he looks uncertain. Two years’ salary to me is probably less than the cost of one of his polo ponies. But it will suit me fine. “Is there nothing I can do for you?”

“Your father offered me a letter of recommendation. I wouldn’t mind that. Would you have him send it to my cabin before we make dock? I expect he’ll do it in any case, but—a lot has happened. So remind him, maybe.” I don’t know, now, whether I will return to service in America, or whether I’ll look for some other line of work. Irene’s generosity gives me time to consider the possibilities. The letter serves as insurance, though, that I will always have that option open to me.

“Of course.” Alec speaks so quietly. For the first time, I let myself wonder what things might have been like for us if he were free—if the Brotherhood hadn’t sunk their claws so deeply into him. Would he have wanted to see me in the United States? Courted me like a proper young lady? Even asked me to marry him?

Those romantic notions don’t burn very brightly in my commonsense mind. Millionaires don’t marry ladies’ maids. And if Alec were not a werewolf, and suffering under that curse, we’d hardly have met. I would have known him only as a young man Lady Regina thought suitable for her daughter.

And yet I can’t dismiss the idea entirely. I want him so badly. It feels so unfair that this can never come to pass for either of us.

Now that sadness has crept into our time together, I know the time has come to leave. We’ve had a joyful night, and I don’t want to be the one to ruin it with tears. “I have to go.”

Alec opens his mouth to protest, but he says nothing. He knows why I have to leave—knows my thoughts almost as soon as I think them. I put my red dress back on, plait my hair back into some semblance of propriety. Behind me, I hear Alec pulling on his robe. When we face each other again, we are no longer joyful young lovers. We are people being parted forever.

He kisses me even more passionately than he did when we made love. Again and again our lips meet, until I am almost unable to catch my breath. All this and yet I know we are saying good-bye.

When at last we pull apart, Alec reaches into the pocket of the robe. From there he pulls out his fine linen handkerchief; sparkling within the folds of linen is his mother’s locket. He still can’t touch it.

“I want you to have this,” Alec says. “Whatever my mother could do for me is done. The protection she wanted to give me—the love this holds—it belongs to you now, Tess.”

Blinking fast, I take the locket from him and fold it in my palm. “I’ll keep it forever,” I promise.

“If you ever need help, you know how to find my father. And my father will know how to find me.”

“If I ever need help.” Though I mean to need no one’s help. I don’t want to become a burden to Alec, convincing myself I must rely on him as a subterfuge to bring us together over and over. That will only cause us pain. “Now you have to be the one to make me a promise.”

“Anything,” Alec says.

“Watch the sunrise this morning. You can finally see that again too, and that will remind you to—to have hope. No matter what you’ve lost, no matter what you’ve been through, there’s hope.”

We kiss again, but now tears are swimming in my eyes and neither of us can bear it. I break away from him and walk out of the cabin without saying good-bye.

Alec doesn’t make me hear his farewell. He just shuts the door behind me, one barrier that stands for all the others that keep us apart.

I head back down into the belly of the ship, only half paying attention to where I’m going. By now I know the path well. Maybe I should look around a bit more, as I’ll have no other reason to return to first class and its grandeur. No doubt a steward has already gone to my cabin, hoping to collect the precious key between first and third class; now that I’m no longer in the Lisles’ service, I have no excuse to keep it. But my awareness is drawn inward, as though my entire world were outlined by my skin.

My heartbeat is still quick, and underneath my clothes I imagine I can still feel Alec’s touch, his kiss. I close my hand around the silver locket that belonged to his mother, then put it in my pocket for safekeeping. This is the one thing I can keep forever.

Tonight I know I’ll cry myself to sleep. Then there will be one more day of the voyage to endure. I’ll ask Myriam to walk with me on deck. Go to a dance in the third-class hall. Maybe talk a bit more with Ned and say a better farewell to him, when he’s off duty in the evenings. It won’t be so bad.

Back on F deck, I walk past the squash court—empty now—down the silent hallway. It must be quite late now. What does it matter? Tomorrow I can sleep late if I like—something I haven’t been able to do once in all the years I’ve worked for the Lisles. I unlock and step through the door between first and third class almost absentmindedly. Just as I start to shut it behind me, a hand slips through and grabs me about the waist, pulling me backward. Too startled even to scream, I look behind me and see Mikhail.

His smile is a scimitar blade within his dark beard. “You can’t have thought I was done with you.”

Chapter 24

THE DOOR TO THIRD CLASS SWINGS SHUT, TRAPPING me alone with Mikhail. I twist out of his grip, and for a moment I feel relief—but then I realize that he let me go. He has me cornered, and he enjoys it.

“You told Mr. Marlowe you would leave me alone,” I say.

He holds up one finger, close to my lips, as though he would silence me, or kiss me, whichever I’d hate more. “I made one solemn promise—for your sister’s safety, not yours. I owe Mr. Marlowe nothing. Only the Brotherhood holds my loyalty; only the Brotherhood deserves it. Alexander Marlowe will understand this, given time.”

I want to tell Mikhail what he can do with the Brotherhood, that they will never own Alec, but I hold my tongue. They mustn’t guess what he did with the silver, that he has a chance to obey his own will instead of theirs.

He studies my face, clearly liking what he sees. “Tearstains. How poignant. Has Alec already finished with you?” I turn my head from him. Mikhail chuckles. “It’s already begun, then. His understanding that mere humans—especially women—are beneath the notice of gods.”

It stings. Though I know in my heart the truth between me and Alec, Mikhail’s version of events is too close to Daisy’s story and to my own worst fears: that rich men use poor girls and throw them away. Even if that’s not what happened to me, I hate that Mikhail can even think such a thing—and that I have to let him believe it.

That doesn’t mean I have to play along with everything that man says.

“You’re no god,” I retort. “You walk on all fours and you smell like a dog. That’s not what I worship in church.”

“You’re so ignorant that you don’t even know what a god is.” Mikhail steps closer to me, his heavily muscled frame making him like another kind of wall I can’t get through. I glance from side to side, hoping someone will emerge and force him to back off, but this area of first class has no cabins, only luxuries like the squash court. “You only see the form of the wolf. You don’t know the reality of it. The agony of the change, and the glory of knowing that your body and your mind are capable of becoming other than human. More than human. We defy death. We defy the prisons of our mortal bodies. We defy everything that governs pathetic humanity like you.”

“But you’ve got nothing better to do with your time than harass us, do you?” I fold my arms. Though I’m terrified of him, I’ll be damned if I’ll let him see it. “Go back to ruling the universe from Mount Olympus or whatever else it is you mongrels do. You’ve got nothing to gain from hurting me and everything to lose.”

I feel very good about this defiance until Mikhail coolly replies, “I have one very important thing to gain. The other Initiation Blade.”

“Alec—he threw it overboard—”

“I’m not surprised a stupid little girl like you thinks I would believe such a ridiculous tale. Now, Alec should have known better.”

Damn. He knows. What leverage the Blade can give me has to be used now. “I gave the Blade to Alec. That’s all I know, beyond what he’s said. But if he’s still got it, and you kill me—he’ll toss it overboard for sure.”

Mikhail doesn’t back off. He doesn’t even stop smiling. “No doubt young Mr. Marlowe would react poorly if I were to kill you. But I don’t mean to kill you. I mean to hurt you. That can last so much longer.”