And all his life he had manufactured reasons and excuses why he had to go, leave another identity behind. With the need to leave came a strong sense of emotional detachment that would manifest in his inability to fully trust any intimate relationship. He became adept at suppressing his feelings, discarding them as useless, another part of his keen talent for compartmentalizing his life, keeping each disjointed fragment away from the others.
Such coldness came from the self-protecting method he created as a young boy to deal with his mother's suicide and his father's abuse.
This time, however, there was no walking away. Through his whole life, something had been missing, the vital desire to live, really live. Before, he had not cared. Now, he wanted to survive.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As if swimming through an ocean of dark molasses, Julienne came to consciousness, clammy with sweat. An unrecalled nightmare floated just beyond sight like a wraith.
Aware of the cold stone beneath her body, of the chill permeating the air, she struggled to sit up. She felt bruised, limp, a little weak; but there was no pain. None.
Drawing a deep breath, she became aware there was also no longer a heavy weight between her lungs. She pressed her palm between her breasts. No injury. Her skin was smooth. Unblemished. She surveyed her arm, her stomach and legs. The black tendrils were no more, sunken to merge with her bone structure. My God, is it really gone?
No, not gone. It was a part of her now, living deep inside. She and it were one. One…what?
Mind reeling with questions, she swung her legs over the edge of the altar and tried to stand. Her bare feet scraped against the stone floor; and she stumbled, falling heavily and bruising her hip.
"Ouch, damn it! That hurt!"
Needing to cover her nudity, she snagged the remnants of her caftan. Getting back to her feet, she wrapped the silken material around her body, cursing Morgan for ripping it in half. She was unsteady, but she was upright.
The chamber was veiled in shadows. The candles on the altar guttered, down to stubs. No other fires burned, the twin hearths holding only gray, cold ashes. In a few more minutes the candles would extinguish, leaving her in darkness.
The place was eerie; she didn't want to be alone here. Where was Morgan, anyway? She frowned. Why had he left her alone?
Steps. Uncounted. Interminable. Odd--she didn't remember the tunnel being this long. Had she taken a wrong turn somewhere? Impossible. The tunnel was straight, with no twists or turns.
The soft padding of her feet followed as she made her way back up the long passage, the gloom curling around her like a cloak. The echo of her breath, creeping after her, seemed to whisper in her ears. She forced herself forward, one hand trailing along the wall her only guide in the darkness. She shivered with a fear not altogether born of the unknown world she had entered. Once again she had the feeling she was escaping from something that would devour her.
More steps. Bony fingers clutched at her throat. Had something gone wrong? Her nerves were taut, screaming at her to run, hurry, get out of this place. But she refused to hurry, refused to let her fear get the better of her.
Abruptly, the tunnel came to its end.
Julienne advanced with timid steps back into the den. It was empty. Abandoned. She hurried up the stairs, pausing to peer down briefly. She shook her head in a dismissive gesture and exited.
The foyer was lit with candles burning from recesses chiseled high into the stone walls. The mural of lions had been shattered. Pieces of glass showered the floor. The main door now hung wide open.
Her breath froze in her chest. What happened?
Drawing the folds of her torn caftan close, she crept around the glass and hurried up the stairs. As she stepped outside, a gust of wind rocked her back.
She looked around, seeing only a blur of stark rock. Veiled in evening shadows, it was an uncanny, beautiful place. Remote. Inhospitable. The sky was low and gray, and the scent and promise of rain permeated the air. The breeze was cool, harsh, but not unpleasant, the stones smooth under her bare feet. She caught sight of the lone figure in the distance, standing near the edge of cliffs. Within the fog, he seemed unreal, ghostly.
Morgan, she mouthed.
She hurried down a flight of stone steps and out into the dead lands, halting when she saw how dangerously close he stood to the edge. Stifling shock behind her hand, she stood rooted in place.
Her concentration on him was so complete and intense their minds came together, flooding her in emotions so focused they were bone-chilling, stomach-churning ice in her bloodstream.
Morgan's guard was down, his mind occupied with an assortment of thoughts, dwelling on past hurts, past hates. The rush of extrasensory images that impacted her brain with a resounding clarity stunned her. As though in a hall of mirrors, her inner eyes were inundated with hundreds of stark images. Instead of seeing her own reflection, though, she saw Morgan's.
The nameless horrors within his memories were too many to count. Everywhere she turned revealed another facet of his past…his mother's body hanging, swaying gently…Celeon taking the young boy from behind, slowly strangling the child with a cord tied around his neck, a reverse form of auto-eroticism, the throes of death the ultimate orgasm for the sadist…Megwyn lying atop that accursed altar, her small, pale body covered in strange symbols drawn onto her skin in blood…
Suicide.
Sexual torture.
Incest.
The deviant twisting of magic.
Horrified, Julienne covered her hands with her eyes. Her hands were cold, her mouth dry. She was repulsed, but curiosity overcame it. She wanted to know more, to understand why he was the way he was. Guided by an intuitive and inborn knowledge, she pressed past the terrifying images to encounter a chilling area deep within his psyche. Where fear should have rested, that whispering voice of wisdom and self-preservation, there was only weary resignation to the inevitable fate awaiting him. Whisper, whisper--little mouths with soft voices filled his brain.
Insanity.
By now Morgan was aware of her. Without turning, he closed one hand into a fist. He regained absolute control and shoved her out. Away. She'd overstepped a personal boundary.
Please don't push me out, she begged in a wordless plea.
No answer came other than his anger, a black, violent rush. It lasted less than five minutes, but in that time she felt she had been to hell and back. Their tentative connection severed, her head felt tight, like her skull was in a vise. She drew a shaky breath, lifted a hand to her forehead. She swayed with the wind, feeling faint.
"Morgan?" she ventured, just loud enough to be heard over the wind. "Are you all right?"
With those horrible things in his head? her mind filled in. No, no, he's not all right. He's far from all right. His soul and sanity to have been torn to pieces.
For the longest time he did not respond. When he did, it was to glance over his shoulder. His face, starkly austere in the pallid light, brooded with a distant, inhuman calm. She could see the bluish highlights in the rich black of his hair, the shine of the silver salting his bangs and temples. He was more stunning that ever; but his face was pale and his gaze remote.
"Be careful with your abilities," he warned in a brisk voice, inclining his head in curt acknowledgement. There was a fierceness behind his tone, one that said his old fires of wrath could burn strong and bright. "Some things I will not share with you."
She allowed the barest of smiles to touch her lips. He did not smile back, and she didn't think his voice could get any chillier. It contained the warmth of an arctic snowstorm. I can't have any illusions...or delusions...about him.
"I can't control it. It just came. I didn't mean to."
He turned back to the void below; she felt his inner wall go up. His cynical, irreverent mask had slipped a little but, as always, went back into place. She could tell he was restless, uneasy. Concerned, she went closer and placed her hand on his shoulder.
He immediatel
y tensed, muscles coiling. He always seemed uncomfortable when she initiated touch. A momentary hardness locked his jaw before he whirled and freed himself from her, not with revulsion but with a coldness that filled her with apprehension. He was slipping away. She could feel him growing more distant.
Her heart missed a beat. A coppery tinge of fear welled in her mouth. Hate and contempt warred on his features, his jaw line so taut the muscles cording his neck stood out. But far worse than that--his irises were an icy, fathomless crystal-blue.
Like his sister…his father…
Julienne, troubled and a little dazed, closed her eyes and counted a fast ten. No! That's impossible. Eyes don't change color.
When she looked again, they were their normal obsidian, and remote. His gaze was bright with a strange frustration and a simmering, potent resentment. She held her breath and waited for him to speak. She needed to speak herself, tell him about her fears, her doubts. But he said nothing, and she could not find any words at all.
A pained hesitation. "How you survived…" she started to say, but what she thought to say died in her throat; and her composure dissolved. His hard scowl ought to have warned her to leave him alone. It didn't.
"Forget what happened. It is easier that way." Morgan's expression was blank. He did not look indifferent. He looked guarded. He turned back to the cliffs, his meaning ringing loud and clear.
He didn't want this, she thought miserably. He wasn't ready to go back to what he was, much less drag me over with him.
There was a long and terrible silence.
Stung by his rebuff coming so soon on the heels of their newfound intimacy, she gazed over the cliffs for some minutes. For the first time, Julienne realized why he was able to survive as long as he had. He never really committed himself to anything. There were times when he did not speak at all. And when he did talk, you could not gauge his feelings. He was a closed-in, isolated man and it was his most serious flaw.
"Come away from here. This is not where you need to be."
"You think I plan to throw myself off the damn ledge?" He gave his head a toss that brought his hair tumbling down.
Julienne studied him. His was a rugged and untamed soul, and she sensed a strange energy boiling beneath the surface of his calm, an incredible force just waiting to detonate. He tried to deny it, keep it bottled up; but inevitably stressful forces would overwhelm him, often with devastating results.
He's close to that now, she thought.
Without a word, without any warning or provocation, Morgan unexpectedly grabbed her arm. She didn't see him move, but she drew back when he touched her. He was faster, his grip unyielding as he pulled her in front of him. Roughly five feet separated her from the edge.
It was happening again, that strange shifting of mental gears from morbid depression to quiet menace. There was no predicting how he would act or react. She had not meant to prod his self-destructive side. Like a snake, it was coiled and ready to strike at any time.
Is he insane? The question bounced off the walls of her skull. No, but neither was he wholly sane. He was dangerous. Very dangerous. His entire life has been built on lies. Strip them away, and you would find almost nothing of left of him.
She thought about the lash marks across his back, his father's way of beating the human out of him. She did not want to think of the other things Celeon had exposed his son to. She'd had a glimpse, and that was enough to tighten her guts. It was not, however, the mutant causing this sickness inside her. It was revulsion. Not at him, but at those who had wounded him. The man standing behind her was once a child who had been subjected to unimaginable emotional and physical abuse.
She should have been afraid. It had been a very disturbing day, and now this. Yet, though she held her breath, she wasn't panicky. If he wanted to kill her it would be easy. She was fairly light. It would take no real effort. All he had to do was push.
"Frightening, is it not, being so near the ledge."
Hands at the small of her back, he urged her forward another step. Closer. She chanced a look over the edge and nearly fainted from vertigo. She'd always been afraid of heights. In such an exhausted state, her nausea and dizziness were amplified tenfold.
Fighting the urge to break away and run, Julienne clenched her arms around her body, fighting to hold on to her scraps of clothes. The wind whipped at the long folds of her torn caftan; the idiot notion it would pick her up and send her sailing into the air like a kite popped into her head. It seemed she could not speak, that her tongue had been cut out and she doomed to be silent until the end of eternity.
At last, her lips parted; and her voice was clear.
"If you want me dead, push."
She closed her eyes, swallowing against the sensations rocketing through her. She was determined not to let him scare her.
But it isn't just Morgan living inside his head now. There's something else there. It was as though something had moved into an empty place in his skull; and whatever it was, it wasn't Morgan and it wasn't human. That's the thing I don't trust.
And that thing might have different ideas about being mated to her.
He laughed, low in his throat. Another push. Four steps separated her from the ledge.
"Cha daink rieau yn baase gyn leshtal," he said, then translated, "Death never comes without an excuse."
For one split second, she was sure he would shove her. She wanted to move away from the edge, but Morgan refused to let her go. She closed her eyes and gasped for breath. Mouth dry, heart pumping, she said, "How'd you kill her, Morgan? Tell me how you killed Nisidia."
"I strangled her," he breathed in a voice that sent chills down her spine. "I took the sash of her gown, wrapped it around her neck and drew it tight."
Morbid curiosity filled her. "Was she beautiful?"
"Very."
She gulped. "Did you love her?"
"No." A layer of distaste.
"Do you…?" The question hung, but she could not force herself to finish it. Do you love me? Perhaps because she was afraid of what his answer might be. No. She didn't want to hear it then. She didn't want to know.
He lifted his hands and pushed her hair away from her neck, exposing bare skin. He began massaging her nape, her shoulders. She wanted to say something in response, to snap back at him or move away from him like a sensible person would. She stood motionless instead, lulled by the sensual, powerful feel of his hands on her skin. He was so close behind her.
She fought against the sudden fierce tightening in her body. He was near enough to ignite any number of erotic fantasies, every one of which came to her with a clarity that made her cheeks flame and sent molten lava though her veins. The intensity of his touch seemed to fuse his skin to hers, settling in her core as if she were completely naked.
Leaning close, he whispered in her ear. His voice was steady, the cadence more sustained now and in perfect rhythm with the pounding of her heart. It was achingly compelling.
"They say what does not kill you makes you stronger," he said. "I cannot help but think that, in bringing you across, I am killing you."
It was strange how quickly reality could chase away fantasy. Gathering her wits, she managed to stammer, "I don't understand."
His fingers stopped moving. She could not see his face, but she could sense his grimace. She could imagine his fingers pressing into her flesh, crushing her windpipe, cutting off her air.
"Not your body. Your spirit, your very soul."
Troubled and more than a little disturbed, Julienne bit her lip and asked, "Why do you say that?"
His hands tightened on her shoulders. His fingers were cool against her too-hot skin. "Think about it. From now on, you will be living behind secrets and lies. Soon, you will become a thief of lives, because to feed the creature's hunger you will have to steal what is not yours, kill if you have to protect what you are."
She balked, aware he had grown even tenser.
"I–I don't know if I could…kill…another human being,"
she stammered. The thought of murder was repugnant. Her brain was filling with thoughts she never would have dreamed thinkable less than two months ago.
It dawned on her that the time she needed for soul searching had long since passed. She shook her head, amazed, disgusted and confused. Had she really considered the consequences?
No, she had not.
She'd chosen on impulse, and now she was paying for that impulse. In blood. Spiritual currency.
His hands clasped her shoulders more tightly. "You still have a chance to turn away. You are not complete."
She realized his meaning. Was there envy in his voice that she still had an escape and he did not? He was silent, waiting for a response. She refused to give him one. Then she felt his hands moving again, along her neck, her shoulders. He continued with quiet patience.
"If you want to survive, you are going to have to learn this is a damned existence. There is little mercy."
She thought of his earlier confession about his lover, about the awful things she had just seen in his mind. "Hard lesson."
"Only the strong survive."
With a tremulous breath, she finished, "The weak succumb."
Morgan's voice, with its strangely shaded undertones, rumbled in her ears. "Which are you, Julienne? Strong? Or weak? How close to the edge are you willing to go?"
"What if I'm not ready?" she gulped. She didn't like the reactions he was provoking in her. Her pulse had quickened, and her palms were damp.
"Is fearr lúbadh ná briseadh. It is better to bend than to break." He unexpectedly gave her another push, closer to the brink. "I would not have come this far with you if I did not believe you were ready."
She knew what he was doing. In a not-so-subtle way, he was testing her mettle. Her merit. How easily did she become frightened and back off? Would she fold, or would she face the challenge head-on? If she weren't resilient she would be a liability. Such was a luxury he could not afford. In a way, she could not afford it, either.
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