Wolf's Cross (31 page)

“No.” She wasn’t even certain what it was she wanted from Darien anymore. Or Josef. Or herself. She did know that she didn’t want more people hurt or killed, and that included Darien. In her confusion, she finally said to him, “If you lead them away from here, away from him, the killing will stop. I know it will.”

“Maria,” he said, lowering his voice, “does your family know what you’re doing?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“They don’t, do they?”

“I—”

“You gave your brother the dagger because you realize that they’re in danger.”

“No.” But he was right: for all she’d been drawn to Darien, she didn’t trust him. Couldn’t trust him. Especially with her family.

“You
know
that this beast is nothing that will be turned aside by an offering.” Josef released her shoulders. “Come back with me, make things right with God. Make them right with yourself. I see in your face—you know you’re on the wrong path.”

“I can’t go back.”

“Please. If Brother Heinrich discovers what you’ve done, he won’t be merciful. If you don’t come forward and seek sanctuary with the bishop of your countrymen, I don’t know if I can keep protecting you.”

“If he discovers—You haven’t told them?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t be here.”

Guilt compounded on guilt. She looked up at the darkened sky and felt as if the world were caving in on her. “No, you cannot sacrifice yourself for me, lie for me, when you have no idea what I’ve done.”

“What
have
you done?”

“I—” She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell him of the animal hunger, the lust that burned within her. Worse, even though she wanted more than anything to turn him away, she had sensed Darien watching, and she knew that if Josef walked the nighttime path back to Gród Narew, Darien would—

“I’ll go back with you,” she said. It would give her time to think. Perhaps the bishop
could
give her absolution. If not, once Josef was safe in the fortress, she could slip away during the night.
She knew the place intimately enough. Then she would find Darien, and if the Order would stay here, she would lead
Darien
away. They could go east, away from the frontiers of the monastic state, past the point the Germans would ever dare explore. “Just let me say good-bye to my family.”

D
arien returned to the clearing in the dark of night, his rage now cold and hard as a stone. He would mete out a grand vengeance—both to the Order and to the wretches who had imprisoned his mate, turning her against him and her kind. In the process he would show her the true face of the humans she lived with. She would have no choice but to reject them.

As distasteful as it was, he retreated into human skin and dressed in the clothing that allowed him to walk within the humans’ world. When he took her away from this place, they would shed these rags. Then they would both forget everything of the human world.

But only after he exacted his last payment of flesh and bone from the Order here, and only after he had proved the worthlessness of humanity to her.

Once his human mask was in place, he reached down into the leaves and dug up the cross Maria had left behind. “These chains were so important to you,” he said. “Fitting that they will finally free you.”

W
hen Maria stepped into her family’s cabin, her mother and three brothers were waiting for her. All of them looked at her, and she felt the weight of their stares.

“You’re no longer wearing your father’s cross.”

Her hand moved unconsciously to her heart to touch it, but it wasn’t there. “I lost it in the woods.”

She saw the pain in her stepmother’s face, and it was all the sign she needed that she had crossed a line that she couldn’t recross.

Władysław had stopped smiling, but it was clear that he didn’t yet understand. “We can go and look for it in the daylight.”

Maria shook her head. “I don’t need it anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Władysław said.

Her stepmother stood. “Your sister is leaving.”

Maria nodded. “I’m going with Josef. I’m not coming back.”

Shock froze her brothers’ faces, Władysław’s most of all. Her stepmother looked at her with a crooked smile and said, “It happens, doesn’t it? Children leave home.”

“It isn’t safe for me to stay,” Maria said.

“What danger are you in?” Władysław asked. “I’ll protect you.”

“Your sister doesn’t need your protection,” her stepmother said. “I don’t think she’s concerned for her own safety.”

“What?” Władysław looked confused.

Maria met his gaze. “I told you what I was.”

“No,” he said. “You were playing me for a fool. You still are. But that joke’s gone too far.” The silence that followed pained her, but Maria said nothing to break it. Władysław turned to her stepmother. “Mother, tell her to stop these lies.”

“Your sister is not a liar.” She walked up to Maria and said, “Your father knew that this would happen someday. There’s another one, isn’t there?”

“Someone like me,” she said.

“Someone like you?” Władysław echoed, his voice weak and distant.

“His name is Darien.”

“But,” her stepmother said, “you are leaving with Josef.”

“No,” Władysław said. “You’re saying that this Darien—he’s responsible for the killings? The Order, they’re hunting him, aren’t they?” He grabbed her arm. “You’re saying you’re this thing—but this other one, he’s the killer, the one with blood on his hands?”

“They would kill him otherwise.” Maria spoke the words, but they rang hollow in her own ears.

“And what would the Order do with you? This Darien draws their wrath. Is he that much to you that you wish to draw it as well?” Władysław’s grip on her arm was hard, bruising, as he shook her. “Is he more kin to you than your own family? I won’t allow you to go. You aren’t going to indulge in these madwoman’s tales before men who would take you seriously enough to set you to fire.”

She wanted to scream, but Josef was outside, and she didn’t want him to hear the words, even in a language he couldn’t understand. Instead, her voice came out in a harsh whisper that
took on the growling aspect of the wolf: “My brother, I am
not
human. And you
will
let me go.”

His eyes widened and his grip loosened.

“Release me.” The words came out in a snarl, and he snatched his hand away as if she had burned him. “Mother is right. I am no liar. And if I remain here, you are all in danger—if not from the Order, then from Darien.”

“Maria?” Her stepmother was in tears. “You don’t have to choose this path. We’re your family.”

“You said Father knew this day would come.”

“But like this? Your brother is right. If this Darien has taken so many lives, do you want to join him?”

“There’s no choice left for me, Mother. All I can do now is keep myself from Lucina’s fate.” Maria felt her own tears, and she touched her stepmother’s cheek. “I won’t hurt anyone just to be with those I love.”

Then she turned away and left her home.

S
he walked with Josef in silence. She watched the dark shadows of the woods around them. The shadows beyond the reach of Josef’s lantern seemed more ominous than they had ever been to her before. She should flee into the dark, she thought, disappear. If Josef weren’t here, she would. If she were certain that he would be safe.

Is that why she was here?

She didn’t know anymore. She didn’t know who she was, or what she was. She only knew that she was afraid. Afraid for herself, afraid for Josef, and afraid for her family.

She was afraid for Darien, too—even as she listened for his footfall, sniffed the wind for his scent, and scanned the few
columns of moonlight that broke the shadows for any hint of yellow fur or the glint of a pale blue eye.

Josef himself seemed lost in thought.

She kept thinking of the woman she had been, how she might have received Josef’s declarations. It seemed some sign of how far she had fallen that she couldn’t imagine how she would have reacted before tonight, before meeting Darien.

It began to dawn on her how pale he looked.

“Josef, are you well?”

“I am fine.” But she heard an edge to his voice that made him a liar. She placed a hand on his shoulder and realized that she smelled blood.

“Josef, your wounds—”

“They are no matter.”

She spun him around to face her.

“Maria—”

She pulled up his surcote and placed her hand against his shirt. He gasped, and she felt a dampness through his shirt. “You’re bleeding.”

“I can make it.”

“You’re a fool if you think that. And I’m a fool for not noticing sooner. You’re going to lie down here, now.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

She grabbed his hand and pressed it against his shirt. His eyes widened, and he gasped again in pain. “Do you feel that? You’ve pulled your scar open. You need to stop moving and put pressure on it, now.”

Josef nodded and swayed a little. She helped him to a clear spot by the side of the road, and by the time he rested the lantern on the ground and lay down, she was bearing most of his weight. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said.

She pulled his surcote and his shirt up, exposing the dressing
on his stomach. “God help us,” Maria whispered. The dressing glistened moist and black in the moonlight.

She undid the dressing and looked at the wound.

Josef groaned.

“Please, don’t move. The top of the scar has pulled apart. The blood’s flowing freely, but not fast. If we stanch the flow, you’ll be all right.” She grabbed the bottom of his surcote and started tearing strips from it. The thick fabric tore easily in her urgency, but the only comment from Josef was “I won’t be needing that anyway.”

She bound him up and kept her blood-soaked hands pressing on his stomach. Her only comfort was the fact that this was only as bad as it seemed because Josef had been bullheaded enough not to stop when he must have felt his wound tear.

“So,” he said after some time had passed, “when do we resume our journey?”

“When you stop bleeding, or a cart rolls by on the way to Gród Narew.”

After another long pause, he said, “You have a good heart.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Don’t I? I’m dragging you to testify against yourself. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to let me bleed?”

“Be quiet. Save your strength.” She was astounded that he had any left. How much of a search had he gone on with her brother? How long had he been bleeding before he’d even looked ill?

“Josef,” she asked, “if I hadn’t been hiding something, if I wasn’t what I am, would you have come for me?”

His eyes had closed, but he whispered, “I love you, Maria.”

Her heart ached. “Josef, you shouldn’t say that. You don’t know what I am. I don’t even think you know Darien.”

When he didn’t answer, she looked down and saw that he was asleep.

D
arien spent much of the night observing the comings and goings of the watch on the walls of Gród Narew. There were more men on the walls than he remembered from his prior journeys to this place. Watching for him, he suspected. Still, they were men, and relied too much on their eyes.