The Passion (50 page)

She had not intended to go far from the fire, but she could not turn back when other discoveries, equal y as marvel ous, might await her in any of the rooms that branched off from that one. And so they did. As she moved through the labyrinth of chambers, some large, some smal , each opening off the other in a random pattern, it was like travel ing through time, tracing the culture of a people throughout history.

The cooking stones gave way to fireplaces with elevated hearths, huge and round so as to heat the entire room. There were carved niches on the wal s to hold torches and these soon gave way to candleholders, caked with wax from candles long since burned down and forgotten. There was primitive wooden furniture, most of which had long ago col apsed into piles of sticks and hewn logs, but she recognized a tabletop there, a bed frame here.

And as the centuries passed she discovered tools for skinning, for digging, for carving; cooking implements forged of iron, bowls and dishes of fired clay. Civilization.

But most amazing of al were the paintings. The wal s were covered with them, in bril iant colors which time had not faded, primitive at first but growing ever more recognizable until Tessa could even read the stories painted there: werewolves at hunt, bringing down the boar, werewolves at play in human and wolf form, werewolves with their cubs, werewolves in ceremony, werewolves in the Passion. The colors were bril iant blue and crimson red and rich ocher, and they seemed to glow with the phosphorescence of crushed stone, but stones unlike any Tessa had ever seen before. The murals themselves were so incredibly detailed, so beautiful y worked, that they took her breath away as no museum masterpieces ever had done—not even those in the queen's art gal ery. She could see the clouds in the sky and the high mountain peaks, the froth on the stream and werewolves at rest in their peaceful val ey. She could not help but be transported by it al , and she brought trembling fingers to her lips. "My God," she whispered.

Denis said quietly behind her, "Yes."

She turned and the torch flared wildly. He took it from her, his expression somber and ful of awe, and together they continued their exploration.

"Who were they?" Tessa asked wonderingly at one point. "Where did they come from… what became of them?"

And Denis replied in a subdued, questioning tone,

"We have no legends of such creatures. None."

And Tessa understood that he now had reason to question everything he had ever known about his own history.

He added softly, touching one of the smooth stone wal s, "This place is old… older than your race of people, Tessa. Older than I thought even was mine.

And they have been dead for thousands of years."

Tessa thought of al she had endured to get to this place, to know this wondrous mystery, but already the ordeal was fading into distant memory. She had strong stone wal s and materials with which to fashion a bed and an endless supply of firewood and real dishes to cook and eat with. She felt as though she were rediscovering the world.

But a miracle that made al the rest pale awaited them behind the stone door. It was hung upon a simple swivel post and when Denis pushed at the upper corner experimental y, it swung open with barely a scrape of protest. They crossed the threshold from prehistory to civilization.

They were at the bottom of a steep set of dusty stone stairs, and light filtered down on them from the area above. They shared a wondering look and began to ascend the stairs. At the top they stopped, their breath caught in their throats, and looked around.

The room was vast, huge, larger even than the gathering room at the Palais Devoncroix, with a high domed ceiling made of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of tiny blue tiles, and al around the perimeter were alternating rows of transparent tiles from which the light poured down in soft dusty beams. The floor beneath their feet was pink marble, grimy with disuse, but as smooth as silk beneath the layers of dust. There were carved stone benches and a central basin with a sculpture of wolves at play which had apparently been part of a fountain. Rotted fabrics hung in tatters from the wal s, suggesting the rich draperies they once had been, their glittering threads stil visible after al this time. There were enormous sconces on the wal s which held glass candles, and canvases celebrating the majesty of the surrounding landscape which made even nature seem humble in comparison.

Denis let the torch drop into the empty fountain.

Neither of them spoke as they moved around the room, gazing at first one wonder and then the other, slowly circling the room and then moving quickly from it into the adjacent chamber, and then, swept away by wonder, helpless to do anything but exclaim in disbelief and delight, they ran from room to room, to marvel after marvel.

Here was a castle on a par with anything they had left behind, with vast, endless rooms and fireplaces big enough to burn whole trees, bathing chambers and toilet facilities and floors inset with polished tiles and semiprecious stones. There were grand chandeliers and panels of stained glass through which patterns of rainbow light flowed. Denis examined a mechanism by which a spark was designed to travel through a smal metal tube and instantaneously ignite a gaseous substance inside every lamp in the room, flooding the room with light.

Marvel after marvel was uncovered as they brushed away the film of age and lifted rotting fabrics to reveal basins molded of gold, bed frames carved of marble, jewel ed mirrors and goblets and stunningly beautiful painted porcelains.

"There was water in these pipes," Denis said, amazed, as he placed his hand against a wal , "and I think it can be made to flow again. Have you noticed how much warmer it is in here? I think…"

Suddenly his face was transformed into an expression of purest joy; he laughed out loud with it and, catching her hand, began to run. "Tessa, yes!"

He pul ed her down a set of steps and through a corridor and she, gasping and stumbling to keep up, could do nothing but fol ow as they burst into another chamber. There she stood, her hand pressed to her throat, and looked out over what he had found. The room was not as ornate as some of the others. The floor was polished stone, the il umination was from a skylight far overhead, and the murals on the wal s were playful, hedonistic, even erotic. There was a sound—musical, tinkling, inviting, and yet so foreign that for a moment Tessa did not even recognize it. And then she saw a shimmer, and realized that water was cascading from high above one of the wal s. It splashed onto the sloped floor and drained away toward a enormous pool of foggy water.

Again Denis laughed out loud. "I knew it! Hot springs! What sensible werewolf would build a palace in such a place without access to hot springs?"

He moved toward the water that poured from the wal and reached out his hand experimental y. The exclamation he gave was of absolute, unadulterated pleasure as the water splashed through his fingers.

"It's warm! Warmer than a summer rain!" He dropped his tattered cloak and stood ful beneath the splashing water, his face upturned to catch the spray, arms upraised to indulge it. "Tessa, you have to feel this!"

She came forward a little uncertainly and extended her hand. A half-caught laugh escaped her as the warm water splashed off her hand and wet her sleeve. She started to withdraw, but Denis clasped her hand and pul ed her toward him and then she was sputtering and gasping as sheets of water poured through her hair and ran off her face and soaked her clothes. Denis caught her to him as she stumbled, pushing her wet hair from her face, and then he held up a hand for attention, an alert expression coming into his eyes. "Wait. What is that sound?"

Tessa held her breath, listening. She heard only the splash of the water, the rhythm of the stream.

And then he smiled. "It was your laugh," he said. "I don't think I've ever heard it before."

That made her smile, too, and then laugh, shyly at first and then more genuinely as Denis wiped his hands over her face, clearing streams of water.

His eyes held a deep rich light that was so powerful it seemed to generate heat; it went through to Tessa's bones and fil ed her with energy from the inside out. Abruptly he threw back his head and opened his mouth to the water, letting it cascade over his face and his shoulders, shaking his hair in a glorious spray that made Tessa squeal out loud in sheer childlike delight.

"Ah, Tessa, do you know what this means?" he exclaimed, seizing her arms. "This is ours, al of it, to do with what we wil ." He moved his hands up over her shoulders, beneath her sodden hair, strong against the back of her neck. His eyes were alive with the intensity of hope, of relief, of promise. "I can take care of you here. I can keep you warm. I can feed us both for years, for centuries… you wil
live
, little human." With a short, indrawn breath he tightened his fingers upon her neck, and the fire in his eyes deepened. "You wil live."

She lifted her hands to his face and, on tiptoe, she sought his mouth with her parted lips. She kissed him sweetly, lingeringly, and it was a gesture that astonished him, for he had never known a kiss like that before, a human kiss upon the lips, warm and gentle and fil ed with affection; it took his breath away.

He heard her pulse, quick in her throat, and the soft expansion and contraction of her lungs. He heard his own heartbeat, low and heavy. The fog of scent that rose from her body was a plethora of sensation and it penetrated his every pore, al of it familiar, al of it good. With his thumb he eased a drop of water from the corner of her eye—perhaps a tear, perhaps a spray from the fountain overhead.

He dropped his hands to her shoulders, and then to the top buttons of her dress. He watched her eyes, but she did not object. He undid the buttons and pushed the sodden garments aside, over her arms, down her waist, over her buttocks, lifting her free of the pool of tattered skirts and stained petticoats, pressing her close to him, turning beneath the waterfal , holding her. Her body was weightless, molding itself to him, and they turned round and round in the cleansing fountain, lost in surrender, clinging to one another.

He licked the droplets from her shoulder, tasted the flesh of her throat. She pushed her fingers into his wet hair and touched his face and the corners of his eyes and her breath was slow and deep and reverent; his was fast and hot. Such joy fil ed him, such wonder.

He held her face gently, looking into her eyes, memorizing her, devouring her. Ecstasy took shape within him; a knot of fire that burned in his soul, a fist of longing that spread its fingers through every cel and fiber of his being, reaching for her. The rhythm of her breath was in his chest, the flow of her blood was his pulse. He felt the Passion begin to swirl about him, fil ing his veins, engorging his loins.

His flesh stung, ached, tightened to bursting; he wanted to move away but he was captured in her eyes, her scent, the singing surge of her stuttering, leaping heartbeat. He felt her smal hot breasts against his chest, her thighs pressed to his. He felt himself growing hard and strong against her bel y and she did not flinch away, there was no fear in her eyes.

He wished her to be werewolf, almost as much as she herself wished it. But he knew she was not. He couldn't let her go, but he knew he had to.

His breath trembled as he moved his face closer to her, drinking in her fragrance, wet and hot and human, fragile and sweet. "Tessa," he whispered, "I must…" But he couldn't finish. Already his voice was thick and hoarse, the words hard to form. The Passion cal ed to him, and his soul was inside her eyes. How could he let her go? How could he let her go?

She clung to him, she pressed her mouth against his chest and his throat. Her hunger consumed him; it was his own. She lifted her face to his, and it was flushed and breathless and desperate with pleading, and she whispered, "Don't leave me…"

And there it was, a moment unplanned and unexpected, outrageous beyond imagining and yet somehow inevitable. A moment when he looked into her eyes and was consumed by fire, wrapped in possibilities, transported by rapture. There was no logic to it, for either of them, no dread and no anticipation, no demons or angels whispering in their ears. They acted in the moment. They felt the passion, they surrendered to it; they gave themselves in joy and absolute innocence, as guilelessly as the first lovers who had ever walked the earth.

He opened his mouth over hers and tasted deeply of her; he let the taste of her, the soft sweet sound she made as she pressed herself into him, drive him to the edge of tremors. He lifted her off the floor and her legs went around his waist and he saw the triumph in her eyes, the glory and the exultation, and life fil ed him, swel ed and throbbed and burst inside him; her life, and his own.

His engorged flesh was poised against her and she was soft and yielding and it seemed such an easy thing, such a simple and
necessary
thing, to obey the instinct that compel ed them both. A simple movement, a surrender of wil , and al the mystery of that dark secret would unfold before them, al the magic would be theirs. The roar of need fil ed his ears, his need and hers. The hot sweet scent of human musk, the dread and the promise, the fear and the expectation. There was no choice for either of them, real y. None at al .

She gave a wild, high, fierce cry as he pushed inside her and he knew he should not but then thrust deeper, and he saw triumph and wonder in her eyes and then he was being swal owed up by her, melting and blending and merging into her, cel and fiber and corpuscle and neuron, being consumed by her. It was too late. He couldn't stop it.