Soul of Fire (16 page)

Even now, remembering it, Peter groaned. From the back of the beast’s mind, Peter had dreamed of touching that spot with his lips, and seeing if her skin felt as silky soft as it looked.
And what good at all would that do, Peter Farewell, Lord St. Maur?
he asked himself.
She’s beautiful and young and foolish. And you are not human. Or not quite.

But here, for just a moment between the night and the morning, he sighed deeply and held on to an image, not quite a dream—he’d long ago given up on that dream—of a time when he could be a man like others, a man who loved and was loved in return. A man who could inherit his father’s paltry lands and his honor.

A sound like something scurrying at his feet made him sit up, alarmed. Images of snakes, or some animal dangerous enough not to fear him, slithered through his mind. But as he blinked, what he saw were two girls. Pretty girls, of the local type, perhaps all of twelve or thirteen, dressed in heavily embroidered clothes and arrayed in gold and sparkling stones. Their hair was braided in heavy plaits down their backs. They had circlets of pink corals about their heads, and they were blushing and pressing into each other, as if looking for protection or comfort. They’d been setting heavy brass trays at his feet. He looked at the trays in wonder, for they were full of what appeared to be fruit and roast meat.

He looked back up at the girls, who hadn’t moved and who, though they were blushing, didn’t seem to find anything strange about the fact that he was stark naked and sleeping outdoors. Without seeming to do so, he let his hand fall to rest on his lap, partially covering his privates, to protect his modesty if not theirs. And he tried to understand what was happening. They bowed to him. First one, then the other.

Why would mountain maidens—probably from some nearby village, since the city of Darjeeling proper was quite a bit away—come bearing trays of fruit this early in the morning? Was this some strange form of hospitality? And if it was, what did it mean? There were rumors about the tribes in these mountains. Some so different they did not seem to be part of the culture of India at all. It was said that there were even cannibals in this area. And thinking of that, Peter almost smiled. Let the cannibals come, and welcome. He hoped they liked dragon. But why would they send two barely nubile girls with food? To ensnare their prey by making him feel safe?

He cleared his throat, and with a ray of hope of being understood—because his countrymen had the bewildering ability of insinuating themselves into the strangest corners of the globe—he spoke. “Hullo. Good morning. What is this about?”

The girls exchanged a panicked glance. Seeing that look, he knew they didn’t understand him. Or at least he thought so, until the girl on the left—perhaps the prettier, and certainly the most developed of the two—stepped forward hesitantly and fell on her knees, giving him a full bow, forehead touching the grassy ground. He scooted backwards. She raised her head from the ground and spoke in a lilting accent, in hesitating cadences, “Sahib dragon.”

Oh. Well. That was something. They knew he was a dragon, then? He raised his eyebrows, not quite knowing whether to wonder at their calm acceptance of the fact or at their innocent offering of fruit to something like his other form.

The girl clearly took his expression for questioning, and she blushed and stammered, “Our father chieftain of village. He send food and greeting. He say ‘O Lord Dragon, leave our flocks and our children alone. Take instead this food.’ ” She gesticulated to the tray of fruit with its few slices of meat with a gesture that would not be out of place in amateur theatrics in an English girls’ school. “And . . . and . . .” She blushed even deeper, the red like a blotch on her cheeks, and glanced at her sister, who blushed in turn, but gave her a little determined nod. “ ‘And my daughters. They are . . . they are virgins. Take them as offering, O Dragon.’ ”

Peter felt his eyes widen in shock. He was not absolutely sure why he was being offered these barely grown maidens. And indeed, he had no idea if he was supposed to eat them or disport himself with them. And he was as likely to do one as the other, he thought, since neither was something a decent human being would do. They were beautiful in the way girls were beautiful when they’d not yet reached full adulthood. They excited his pity and his amusement, his tenderness and his desire to protect them. But they did not arouse him. And as for eating them—never while conscious had he allowed himself to eat human flesh. Much less young and innocent human flesh.

He must have looked truly bewildered, because the girl went from looking scared to looking puzzled and then, by degrees, looking faintly disdainful. “You dragon,” she said.

He nodded. Admittedly, him dragon. There hinged just about all his problems.

She sighed, and suddenly assuming an expression that reminded Peter very much of his nursemaid when he was five and being particularly dense about learning his first letters, said, “You dragon. We virgins. You take us. Both. You make babies.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He coughed instead, and for just a moment hid his face in his hands, not trusting his expression not to offend them mortally. “It . . . it is very good of you to offer,” he said at last, looking up. “Kindly thank your father, and tell him I wouldn’t hurt his flocks nor his people, but, you see, I travel with my own virgin.” And on those words, his lips quirking with the repressed urge to laugh out loud, he looked over his shoulder at where he fully expected Sofie to stand.

But she wasn’t there. He got up, panicking, and looked all around the clearing. Her bag and clothes were where she had left them last night, where she’d lain down for the night, with her head on the carpetbag. But no Sofie.

“Sofie,” he said. Then more loudly. “Sofie?” He turned back to the girls. “Where is she? Where did she go? Did your men take her?”

He felt the beast writhe within him, struggling to emerge. But he couldn’t allow it, not now. Rage surged like a black tide within him, and he was barely holding it at bay. He could not allow the beast to take over. He’d lay waste to this whole area. Then he would be a true danger to these two maidens, who stood staring at him with wild, scared eyes, shaking their heads ever so slightly.

Turning his back on them, he called into the tall trees and the enclosing greenness. “Sofie! For the love of heaven, Sofie, if you’re there, answer me!”

From very far off, it seemed to him, a faint call came. Not quite an answer as much as a surprised “Oh!”

And in that direction he plunged, naked, through the woods, feeling bushes and trees introduce themselves to his acquaintance quite forcefully, bruising and scraping him as he ran barefoot on the uneven ground. “Sofie,” he called.

And this time more definite, there came an answer, in a tone of great surprise. “Milord?”

She’d called him milord or Lord St. Maur in the very few words they’d exchanged yesterday, something he would have to change. It didn’t matter if it was his true title. It wasn’t real. He’d never live in his domains on his father’s land. So he didn’t feel right being addressed by his title. Certainly not by lovely Sofie Warington. But he called back, “Sofie?”

Through the trees, he caught a glimmer of pale skin and dark hair, and he ran forward . . . and stopped, abruptly. Sofie Warington stood before him, her abundant hair loose down her back, framing her face in lush black curls.

“Sofie,” he said, and he felt himself blush. “I woke and you weren’t there. I thought . . .”

She looked sleepy, confused, like a child woken from a deep sleep who has not got his bearings yet. “I just woke,” she said. “Back there.” She pointed. “When I heard you calling.”

His hand went up to his hair and clutched there. “You just woke . . . but how?”

She shook her head, as though the answer she was about to give didn’t particularly satisfy even her. “I used to sleepwalk in London,” she said. “A few times I found myself outside the school at night. It is part of the reason my parents said I should come back to India, where I could be with them. They thought it was the stress of living so far away from them. Or at least they said so. It’s possible . . . no, it is certain, they just wanted to marry me to . . . that thing.”

Her mouth set in something between a pout and an expression of grief, and Peter wanted to kiss the pain away from those lips, but it was not possible. Was this what being in love felt like? If so, it was a very foolish thing, and it had come on him as suddenly as a fever. He was a man of the world. He’d seen many, many women, several of whom would have made Miss Sofie Warington pale in comparison. He’d met them beautiful and he’d met them witty and he’d met them wealthy. But never till now had he come so near to losing his head over a woman.

Probably just lust, he thought. And it made sense, of course. Among Mr. Farewell’s many exploits, the one he couldn’t brag of was carnal love. He’d discovered he was a dragon just before becoming a man and it hadn’t taken him long to realize that the same dizzying tension that women quickened in his body could cause him to change shapes and become the beast—and a particularly uncontrolled beast, at that. The thought of what might happen should he actually attempt to complete the act that made humans and beasts the same—the idea of some poor woman caught, charred and half eaten in his bed—had kept Peter from bedding even the most beguiling courtesan or the most abandoned of loose skirts. And he was now close to thirty. Most men his age were married, or at least had found
bibis,
or mistresses. The body would demand its dues. This Peter had discovered in both forms. He knew vaguely that papist clergymen and monks stayed celibate, but he supposed religious faith helped with that.
I know nothing of her, or next to nothing. I just want to touch her and hold her. Lust, definite lust. If only there were women who could—
And with that, the thought intruded of the two girls back in the clearing, who had been expecting him to do who knew what to them, and whom he’d left standing by the trays of fruit. He wondered what they’d done.

And he felt a sudden fear for his luggage and Sofie’s, and for what the girls might tell their father, too. After all, he did not want to have to fight the local tribe. Not when he was with Sofie, who was vulnerable.

Aloud, he said, “Oh, Lord, the virgins,” and, to Sofie’s look of surprise, he explained, “Two girls from a local village. They woke me with trays of fruit, which I fancy will do very well for our breakfast, if you will follow me back to our suitcases—which I hope are still there.”

“Fruit?” she asked.

“It appears their father is a local chieftain.” He led her through the trees, back the way he’d come—quite easy to discern, the way he’d broken the branches and torn the leaves in his rushed panic to find her. Now that he was calmer, he realized he must have stepped on a thorn somewhere along the line. He felt the pain every time he rested his foot fully on the ground, and he started favoring his foot as he walked.
Perhaps if she removes the thorn from the dragon’s paw, the dragon will follow her to the end of the world.
“Apparently he thought it prudent to ply me with fruit, which would keep me, of course, from eating his herds and his children.”

Immediately after saying those words, he repented them, because she had seen him feed yesterday—eviscerating a buffalo, eating pretty much everything save some bones and the horns. That gory, blood-splattered spectacle—on which she’d turned her back, but which had nonetheless rendered her very pale by the time she’d got ready to climb on his back again—would be present in her mind. He’d thought it funny they tried to feed the dragon with fruit, but perhaps it was not so funny for someone of more delicate sensibilities?

But from behind him, he heard only a little gasp, like a sigh. “And they’re virgins?”

“I presume,” he said. “At least they told me so.”

“They told you . . .”

“I don’t understand it, any more than you do. It appears their father had some odd idea I should mate with them. But I assure you, they look far too young to appear to me in that light.”

“I see,” she said. And he wondered if, in fact, she did. He very much suspected not. But he could not ask, as at that moment he and Sofie emerged from the trees and were back at the clearing, where the two girls stood, staring at them.

He reached over, instinctively, and grabbed Sofie Warington’s hand.
As if she will protect me from the unbridled lust of virgins.

She gave him her hand readily enough. It felt warm and fluttery in his hand. Once, when he was very young, he’d picked up a little baby bird—not yet full-fledged—who had fallen from its nest. With infinite care, he’d held it in his hand as he climbed the tree and replaced it.

Now as an adult, he understood that the bird had probably not survived. Birds would kill their own young that had the smell of a predator about them. Wise creatures, birds.

But at the time, he’d felt he was doing what he must, returning the bird to a place of safety. And he remembered the bird’s warmth upon his hand, the softness of it, and its little flutters. Sofie Warington’s hand felt just like that as she stepped forward to take her place beside him.

The two girls looked . . . not surprised, he decided. Relieved. Clearly the idea of mating with a dragon alarmed them as much as it alarmed the dragon. He bowed to them slightly.

They bowed back. The older one smiled at him and said, grandly, in the tone of a queen granting a boon, “You keep the fruit.”

And then they turned and ran, swift and assured like mountain goats on uneven terrain, down the slope and toward the trees, in what he presumed was the direction of their village.