Isadore

Isadore

The full moon was high when Marrok caught her scent.  She was in danger.  He tried to avoid her, but she was too intoxicating. He was surprised and frightened to smell her-- surprised and frightened to see her, but he would never show fear, especially not in front of the Pack.  He could smell her fear though, like a subtle perfume.  She smelled delicious, and he wasn’t sure he could control his hunger.  After all, she was the wife and lover of his most hated enemy, Therron, the sorcerer who had hunted his kind to nearly extinction: the demon hunter. 

Therron was a bastion of goodness and light, and could not suffer such damned creatures as werewolves to live.  She was a sorceress in her own right, but above all, she was prey.  He told himself, he wouldn’t kill her.  He would hold off the wolf within himself as only the oldest among them could do, and yet, he had never had cause to restrain himself so.  The Pack demanded her blood. It was with a superhuman effort that he stayed the slathering jaws of his compatriots, promising them, that she was his by right. His own blood lust was another matter altogether.  He considered biting her right then.  She would have deserved it for her supreme stupidity, and yet a part of him was glad she had come.

She stared at him, lost in fear.  She had never seen him as a werewolf.  She had known, but she had not known.  She did not speak.  The sight of him in all his lupine glory seemed to have struck her dumb.

"What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice a rich baritone, a low rumbling in his throat as the Pack gathered around him.

“Looking for you.”  The simple dialogue held more meaning than he was willing to share with his Pack.  He watched her for a moment more, his amber eyes glowing in the darkness.  He could feel the change upon him.  She had no time for regrets now.  He had no time to save her.  There were so many things he should tell her, so many warnings he should give her, but he couldn’t, not now with the eyes of the Pack on him.

“You’ve decided then?” he said.

“Yes--I--“  But he cut her off, turning away, and ordering one of his underlings,  “Bring her.”  There would be time enough later for explanations.  Now the moon ruled them all.

He did not specify where to put her, but he knew the Pack would expect her to be chained in his dungeon.  She was the wife of the enemy.  He did not correct them.  He did not think of her again that night as the change gripped him and the Pack fed, but when he returned, calm and sated, he could not sleep remembering that she slept under the same roof. He had eaten his fill.  Dawn was near and his curse was more manageable. He was certain that he would not now compelled to kill and mutilate her; still the bite was painful.  He could not, would not, cause her undue pain. He took a potion from the dresser drawer to revive her.

Deep in thought, he walked down the long staircase to his dungeons. He never imagined that she would actually come to him.  He paused, thinking of what he would say to her.  Nonetheless, haste would be unseemly and would doubtless garner much speculation. Besides this, in his present state caution was necessary; he was always weak the morning after the full moon, and it was indeed in the wee hours of the morning, the super human strength waning somewhat with the moon.  He paused and rested against the torch lit wall, ostensibly studying a portrait of some long dead human ancestor. In truth, he took a deep and shuddering breath through his nostrils, hoping the oxygen would calm him. He slipped his free hand into his pocket and fingered the phial of potion he had brought with him to revive her.

He snorted softly as he removed his hand from his pocket, scorning himself for entertaining such a fancy: the illusion of love. As he continued down the stairs, though, the thought clung to him like the shadows clung to the cracks between the stones. The illusion of love, when love is absent--was that not what he was trying to achieve, beyond all else.  He shook his head in sharp denial, his lip curling into a sneer. This was business, vengeance even, but nothing more. This would strike an eternal blow to the sorcerer’s community, to turn her, to claim her as his bitch.  It would destroy Therron.

As he arrived at the plain wooden door that was his destination, however, a tiny voice in a distant corner of his mind cursed repeatedly in every language he had learned over the centuries.  He cursed the werewolf for destroying his body years ago, cursed her husband’s stupidity in allowing her to wander on the full moon.  He cursed his own body for the monstrosity it had become. Lastly, and vehemently, he cursed her for making him think such thoughts. He shook his head again in rejection of his own desires, in denial of her, and pushed the door open with rather more force than was necessary. He was the Alpha of the Pack and he would not feel regret.

Two long steps brought him into the room, and he paused to close the door behind himself before turning to survey his surroundings. The room itself was a simple, small cell consisting of gray stone walls, ceiling, and floor. A single candle illuminated the darkness.  The table it was attached to by thick clots of wax was the only furniture in the room, apart from a narrow bed. Windowless except for a tiny slit near the ceiling, the room stank of sweat, fear, food, and the natural results of eating and drinking.  The sensitive nose that he kept even after the moon had released its hold on him wrinkled fastidiously as he turned to the bed. It was a structure of rusted metal and sharp angles, the cheap sort used in hospitals and other institutions. A thin, stained mattress rested on the bedsprings; it was covered with a grayish piece of ripped cloth that looked as if it once might have been a blanket. The air in the room was cold but stale, and the faintly metallic stench of old blood hung over everything else.  He wrinkled his nose again, reminded of why he let the fawning underlings in the lupine Pack take care of the less pleasant aspects of his rule. He personally preferred an almost obsessive level of cleanliness, and it was a rare occurrence indeed for him to grace the lower levels of his stronghold with his presence. The upper floors of his ancestral home were filled with rich tapestries, thick carpets, and other niceties. The dungeons, this chamber, were incongruous. Incongruous, but then, so was she, this woman of his enemy.

She was lying on the bed in a drugged slumber, as he had ordered her prepared for him. Even in his wolf state, he couldn’t bear to frighten her.  She lay still as death, and  in sleep she looked as though she should be resting upon the finest silks and velvets. She was regal despite her stained clothes, torn stockings, and the smudge of dirt high on one cheekbone; this room and the filthy bed were beneath her. He took a step closer to the bed, transfixed by the way the tight, orderly coil of her hair contrasted with the angry cut running haphazardly across her knuckles, the way the dark smudges beneath her eyes belied the graceful sweep of dark lashes against the pale curve of her cheek. He admired her posture in sleep: straight and regal with her arms folded over the chaste neckline of her gown when an indelicate sprawl would have suited her accommodations so much better. She was a fascinating study in contradictions, and he drank her in as though she were life’s blood. With another sharp jerk of his head, He chastised himself yet again for allowing her to affect him so. He was the most powerful werewolf on earth, and he would not allow her to pull him in like the tide.

He withdrew the potion from his robes with a scowl and uncorked the phial, trying not to stiffen as the red liquid gave off a strong odor of blood. Ignoring the fumes, he crossed to the bed and roughly forced her mouth open with his fingers. He then tilted her head up, poured the potion into her mouth, and massaged her throat to make her swallow. He seated himself on the edge of the bed and gingerly took one of her hands in his.

Several moments passed in silence before he spoke, and when he did it was in a more compassionate voice than any of his Pack had ever heard. "Oh,Isadora... I told you not to come until after the full moon."  With infinite gentleness he raised her up  and kissed her first on the forehead and then on the lips. She stirred slightly as he tasted her, opening her mouth for his kiss. 

“Marrok--”

“Why did you come?”

“Because he is mad.  He will not rest until you are dead.” 

“I’m not easy to kill,” he reminded her, smoothing back the whisps of silky blonde hair that had escaped her coif.  .

“I know, but he’s crafted a new weapon.”

“Some new alchemy?” he asked, but she shook her head.

“No.  He doesn’t have to get close to you.  It flings projectiles from a lead barrel,” she paused raising her startled blue eyes to his.  “Silver projectiles.”

He sucked in his breath, and began firing questions.  “Explain this new device to me,” he demanded. “How big is it?  How does it work?  Where does he keep it?”

“I don’t have to tell you,” she said as she drew the leaden weapon from the folds of her dress.  “I brought it with me.”

He didn’t move.  He didn’t speak. He just looked at the device in wonder.  He looked at her in wonder.

She was still speaking, the words tumbling over themselves to get out of her mouth.  “You know what this means, don’t you?  It means I can never go back.  He’ll kill me.  Beat me.  Shut me up in some convent.” She paused, tears filling her eyes.  “I’ll never see you again,” she whispered.  He took her hand and brought it to his lips in a gesture of thanks, but she flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around him like a limpet.  Tears streamed down her face and he thought she looked like a siren all red lips and blue eyes. 

“Isadore,” he began, but she kissed him. No one knew exactly how the lycanthropic curse was spread.  Perhaps it was a simple as a kiss, but the wolf inside of him would not let it stop there. He tasted the salt of her tears on her cheeks and he wanted to taste her blood.  He had waited so long, because he couldn’t bear to tear her life apart with his curse even though she belonged to the hunter.

With care, he mastered his cravings, but she did not.  She continued to bite and lick as she murmured.  “Don’t leave me.”

He pushed her to arms length and looked at her haunted eyes.  “Are you sure?” he asked.

“She nodded. “I’m sure.”

That was all the encouragement he needed. He chose the spot just above her shoulder where the scar of his bite would not show.  Finally tearing the lace away from her skin, he let the bloodlust take him and sunk his teeth into her soft flesh.

She opened her eyes wide in shock, but her arms tightened around him as she realized where she was what he had done.  Her voice was content, almost relaxed as she whispered, the words he thought he would never hear:  “I love you.”

His grip tightened on her.  Dare he answer with his own profession of love?

“You don’t have to answer,” she said, “But I wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that I have loved you…forever.”