Page 8 of Gates of Rapture
He breathed hard.
During the past few months, he’d tried everything under the sun to get over this condition, including weeks of therapy with Alison and even a blood transfusion.
When the shaking built so that he felt like every joint in his body would come apart, he let go of any hope that he could stop the process.In the hopelessness, however, came a kind of release, and he gave himself over to the change.
The shakes diminished as he pushed himself to his feet.He stripped off his clothes.They would be no good to him anyway in the next few minutes.They wouldn’t fit.He’d learned that much—to get rid of his clothes before the change ripped them to shreds.
He bent over slightly and felt the inordinate swelling of his shoulders and arms, as though in an instant he’d packed on forty pounds of muscle.His thighs expanded and he grew from six-six to a powerful six-eight.Even his cheekbones spread slightly, giving him the look of a predator.
He tore thecadroenfrom his long black hair.His hair moved around his head in powerful emotional waves, settling at last to hang beside his face.
He was something greater, more powerful, yet more animal than he’d ever been.He hated this man-beast.He was a demonic version of the warrior he’d been and the opposite of the vampire he’d cultivated in himself for millennia.Warrior he might have been, but like Antony Medichi he considered himself a gentleman, with fairly refined tastes, a preference for an excellent port, long games of chess, and discussions of philosophy and religion.
That his centuries of service had led him here, to this beast-state, humiliated and infuriated him.
The next stage began, a vibration in his chest and throat, a new round of humiliation ready to come forth.
He chuffed.He even tried to restrain himself.But an image of Grace, folding away with Casimir and disappearing from his life all those months ago, streaked through his mind like a bolt of lightning.She was his woman, and she had left with that bastard, Casimir.
The ensuing roar came from so deep in his chest that he felt the sensation into his testicles.With his knees bent, he roared at the low basement ceiling, over and over, but this time the sound was different, full of a kind of resonance that had never been there before.
He felt as though he were calling from the distance of tens of thousands of years ago, when humans were swamp-creatures and battled in small territorial tribes.Was this what he was, a throwback to ancient times?Was this the result of the slavery to dying blood that Greaves had forced on him as a sign of his loyalty?
That he could form coherent thoughts was a complete mystery and an equal punishment, since he couldn’t always act on those thoughts.And once he was well into the process, he wouldn’t be able to fold.
His brain seemed to be split so that while he observed his conduct as if at a distance, the rest of him was locked into this barbarous state and equally barbarous feelings.
His right hand flexed, longing for his sword.He wanted to kill, but not in a general sense.His desire was more specific.He wanted to kill Casimir, to slay him for having taken his woman, having lured her with his scent and his power, having stolen her from him.
He moved in an oval in the small, dark basement.There was one ground-level window at ceiling height with steel mullions.He couldn’t fit through the window, though God knew he’d tried to escape his self-imposed prison more than once during his episodes.
The healing of all the bruises and cuts had taken a couple of days.He’d even tried to tear through the stone and mortared walls so that his fingers were bleeding and torn down to the bone.
He was a beast.
Throwing his head back, he roared long and loud, sending shudders through his house and a trembling through the earth.
The beauty of the world
Is only appreciated
With arms opened wide.
—Collected Proverbs,Beatrice of Fourth
CHAPTER 2
The painfully slow, meditative walk to the pools took at least fifteen minutes, but just as Grace came within sight of Casimir, a terrible roar reached her ears and stopped her feet.She couldn’t move.She could hardly think.
She’d heard Leto’s roars before, even across three dimensions, but none of them had sounded like this one, like an animal with a leg caught in a trap, the metal teeth grinding against bone.
Beatrice continued on, the silk of her skirts rippling as she floated.
Grace knew Casimir needed her; she could feel his pain.But Leto’s agony had been calling to her for months.So she paused where she was, unable to make her feet move.
Another roar reached her, full of anguish, a call of the wild that drove inside her chest and pummeled her.At the same time, the resonant sounds descended into the well of all that was female until she was weak with need.
What was she to do now?
