Patricia Briggs: Wolfsbane

“And how did your Darranian take that?” asked Wolf.

“Not very well,” admitted Aralorn, smiling wryly. “Obviously, I wasn’t there for the initial shock, but when I came in to dinner, Nevyn left the table. Freya apologized to me for his behavior—all of it. From what she said, I understand that he confessed all to her, which is admirable. He also claimed that it was my evil nature that caused his ‘anomalous’ behavior. She didn’t believe that—although Nevyn probably did—but Freya wasn’t too happy with me anyway.” She smiled wryly. “But Freya wasn’t why I left. I’d seen Nevyn’s face when he saw me: He was afraid of me.”

Wolf walked around the screen. He wore his human form, but the mask was gone, and his scars with it. It could have been illusion—human magic—but Aralorn sometimes thought that it was the green magic that he drew upon when he chose to look as he had before he’d burned himself. Surely a mere illusion would not seem so real; but then, maybe she was prejudiced in favor of green magic.

The unscarred face he wore was almost too beautiful for a man, without being unmasculine in the least. High cheekbones, square jaw, night-dark hair: His father had left his mark upon his son’s face as surely as he had his soul.

She would never let him see the touch of revulsion that she felt for that face, so close to the one his father wore. She knew that he wore it now in an attempt to be vulnerable before her, so that she could read his emotions better, for the scars that usually covered his face were too extensive to allow for much expression.

“It hurt you,” he said. “I am sorry.”

Aralorn shook her head. “I’ve grown up since then and learned a thing or two along the way. I’ve stayed away from Lambshold for my sister’s sake, and, I think, for my father’s as well. He loves—loved—Nevyn like another son. My presence could only have divided this family. And Nevyn . . . Nevyn came to us broken. One of us had to leave, and it was easier for me.” She thought a moment. “Actually, looking back, it’s rather amusing to think that someone thought I was an evil seductress. It’s not a role often taken by folks who look like I do.”

Although his lips never moved, his smile warmed his habitually cold eyes. “Evil, no,” he commented, his gaze drifting from her face.

“Are you implying something?” she asked archly, not at all displeased. She knew she was plain, and her feminine attractions were not enhanced by the muscles and scars of mercenary life—but it didn’t seem to bother Wolf.

“Who, me?” he murmured, kneeling beside the bath. He pressed a soft kiss on her forehead, then allowed his lips to trail a path along her eyebrow and over her cheekbone. Pausing at the corner of her mouth, he nibbled gently.

“You could seduce a glacier,” commented Aralorn, somewhat unsteadily. She shivered when the puff of air released by his hushed laugh brushed her passion-sensitive lips.

“Why, thank you,” he replied. “But I’ve never tried that.”

“I missed you,” she said softly.

He touched her forehead with his own and closed his eyes. Under her hand, his neck knotted with tension that had nothing, she thought, to do with the passion of a moment before.

“Help me here, love,” she said, scooting up in the tub until she was sitting upright. “What’s wrong?”

He pulled back, his eyes twin golden jewels that sparkled with the lights of the candles that lit the room. She couldn’t read the emotion that roiled behind the glittering amber, and she doubted Wolf could tell her what it was if he wanted to. He reacted to the unknown the same way a wild animal would—safety lay in knowledge and control; the unknown held only destruction. Falling in love had been much harder on him than it had been on her.

“I wasn’t going to ask you again,” she said. “But I think I had better. Why did you leave?”

Wolf drew in a breath and looked at the privacy screen as if it were a detailed work of art rather than the mundane piece of furniture it was. One of his hands was still on Aralorn’s shoulder, but he seemed to have forgotten about it.

“It’s all right,” said Aralorn finally, sitting up and pulling her legs until she could link her arms around them. “You don’t—”

“It is not all right ,” he bit out hoarsely, tightening his grip on her shoulder with bruising force. He twisted back to face her, and his kneeling posture became the crouch of a cornered beast. “I . . . Plague it! ”

Aralorn scarcely had time to realize that her cooling bathwater had become scalding hot before Wolf pulled her out dripping like a fish onto the cold stone floor. She took the time to snatch the bath sheet and wrap it around her twice before joining Wolf near the tub, watching as the water erupted into clouds of billowing steam. After a moment, she opened the window shutters to disperse the fog in the room.

“I could have burned you,” he said, looking away from the empty tub, his voice too quiet.

“So you could have.” Aralorn pursed her lips, and wondered how to handle this new twist in their relationship.

She knew him well enough to know that heating the water hadn’t been a bizarre practical joke: He had a sense of humor, but it didn’t lend itself to endangering people. It meant that his magic was acting without his knowledge—sternly, she repressed the tingle of fear that trickled over her. Unlike Aralorn, his magic, human or green, was much better than the average hedgewitch’s: But her fear would hurt him more surely than a knife in his throat.

“I should have told you before,” he said without looking at her. “I thought it was just my imagination when things first started happening around me. They were little things. A vase falling off a table or a candle lighting itself.” He stopped speaking and drew in his breath.

When he spoke again, his ruined voice crackled with the effort of his suppressed emotion. “I wish I had never discovered I could work green magic as well as the human variety. It was bad enough before, when I was some sort of freak who couldn’t control the power of the magic I could summon. At least then it only came when I called. Ever since I started using green magic, I’ve been losing control. It tugs me around as if I were a dog, and it held my leash. It would be better for you if I left and never came back.”

As he spoke the last words, he made a swift gesture, and the steam clouds disappeared from the room. Aralorn stepped in front of him, so he had to look at her.

Smiling sweetly, she reached up to touch his face with both hands. “You leave, and I’ll follow you to Deathsgate and back,” she said pleasantly. “Don’t think I can’t.”

His hands covered hers rather fiercely.

“Gods,” he said, closing his eyes. Aralorn couldn’t tell if it was a curse or a prayer.

“Green magic has a personality of its own,” she said softly. “One of the elders who taught me likened it to a willful child. It responds better to coaxing than force.”

Yellow eyes slitted open. “Do you not have to call your magic? Just as any human mage would do?”

“Yes,” agreed Aralorn, though reluctantly. She hated it when he shot down her attempts to make him feel better.

Wolf grunted. “A human mage is limited by the amount of pure, unformed magic he can summon and the time he can hold it to his spell. The magic you call is already a part of the pattern of the world, so you have to respect that limit. I tell you that this magic ”—he spat the word out—“comes when it wills. If you are not frightened by that, you should be. Remember that my magic is not limited except by my will. This does not heed my will at all. I cannot control it, I cannot stop it.”