“And you didn’t try to persuade me otherwise.” Her face was hard and furious. “Do you think that because I was maenad I understand nothing about men? That’s not how they behave. They don’t get that close then take no for an answer—”
But now he was furious too. He raised his voice over hers. “Then you understand nothing about men like me. I’d travelled with you, Maya, I’d seen how afraid you were of being treated like that. I said, I said back then and you should damn well remember, I said if I took advantage of you when you weren’t sure you wanted it I’d be no better than the soldiers who take their pay in unwilling women. I wanted you, you know I did, but how could I say I loved you if I’d been willing to do that to you?”
“Oh for the gods’ sakes, I’m not talking about rape—”
“Yes you are.”
They stared at each other, and for an instant Philos was bizarrely grateful for how anger had wiped out pain.
“Maya. You’re remembering everything through a filter of believing I didn’t ever really love you. Don’t. It’s not true.”
Her voice rose over his. “Then don’t try to tell me it’s so different from what you felt for her. It’s the same, it’s all the same. It’s nothing but your power taking over, making you think things that aren’t real. Trying to tell me it’s not—it’s—it’s, oh it’s so stupid—it’s like me trying to make you believe that because I wanted to kill you when I was a maenad then I must want to kill you now.”
And then he had it. The one thing he’d known must be there if he could only think of it.
“When you were a maenad,” he said. “When you’d first changed, when I brought the volcano’s blood to you, when the madness took over, did you love me then?”
“No, of course not. That’s what I’m telling you—it’s just stupid to pretend what you think when your gift takes over is what—”
“But I loved you. You were lost in madness, you could hardly hear me, you didn’t have the same voice or body as the woman I fell in love with. And I still loved you.”
She went still, as if she’d stopped breathing. Her eyes came up to his. “That—that was just an echo of what you’d been feeling before—”
“It wasn’t. Maya, you remember the oath I gave you? Not to use my gift on you?”
She nodded, a tiny tremor of her head. She was holding herself again, holding herself as if braced against pain—or against a hope that she dared not yet have.
“I nearly broke it, because you were leaving me and I could think of no other way to get you back. And then I didn’t—couldn’t.”
“Well, of course you couldn’t. It was a sacred oath.”
“Not that sacred.”
“It was. Philos, I remember, you swore on your father’s life—”
“My father died fifteen years ago.”
She stared at him, blank and confused. “But then, why—”
He shrugged. “There are no other oaths, not in the fugitive camp. We can’t swear by the god we’ve forsaken. So people end up swearing only by their parents’ lives. It’s the only oath that sounds serious enough to carry any weight. And I meant it, Maya, I did. But if I’d needed to break it to save you, I would have.”
She sighed, an exhausted sound. “I don’t see why you’re telling me this as if it makes a difference, as if it proves something. You didn’t break it.”
“I didn’t break it for the same reason I made it in the first place. That’s what you fear, Maya. Control, invasion. It’s your worst thing. I considered breaking the oath because I loved you. And then I didn’t break it. Because—” he spread his hands, “—I loved you.”
She stared at him, unspeaking.
“When you were standing there with teeth and claws, wanting nothing more than to kill me. You didn’t love me, not then. But I still loved you. I swear it, Maya.”
“I…” Her teeth clenched on a trembling lip. “I don’t believe you. You said—you said you didn’t know. Said it was—was just—” Her voice shook, and what he heard in it was not disbelief, but fear.
“I did say that.” That sight, her lip quivering under her teeth—human teeth, straight and blunt—almost undid him. He wanted to reach for her, but he shouldn’t. Not yet. Not before he’d got her to believe him. “I was afraid. It was bad enough when I hurt Venli. But the idea that I’d done the same thing to you, that I’d hurt you—it frightened me enough I couldn’t think straight. If you hadn’t mattered so much, if I hadn’t cared so much, I’d never have got so confused.”
“But you’re—you’re not confused now? You’re sure?”
He met her eyes. “I’m sure, Maya.” He got to his feet and went towards where she stood, arms rigid around herself, biting down on her lip to stop it trembling. “I’m so sorry—” his voice cracked, “—I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
“Mm.” It was hardly a sound. Her shoulders came up, as rigid as her arms, an automatically defensive movement.
“Can I—” He hesitated. It had seemed as if she believed him, but if she was too hurt to forgive him, to let him try again… “Maya, can I touch you?”
This time she didn’t say anything, but she didn’t pull away, either. He took the risk and put his arms around her.
She was so tense it was like holding a bundle of twigs. But as he drew her closer, his upper arm brushed her cheek, and she made a little noise and turned her face into his body.
“Maya—”
Her hands uncurled, opened against the fabric of his tunic. When he bent his head he caught the scent of her hair, felt the tremor that ran through her.
“She told you it was different?” It was a mutter, scarcely audible against his body.
“Yes.”
“I still don’t like her.” Her voice was stubborn, but it was her voice again, neither insane with anger nor weakened by grief, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Philos felt his mouth twitch into a smile.
“You don’t need to like her.”
“I don’t like that she was first.”
“Maya. Gods.” He put his hand under her chin so she had to lift her face to his. “You were first in everything that mattered. Venli—she was a friend, and she should never have been anything more. It was over a long time before I met you.”
“And if it hadn’t been?” At least she was looking at him, and in his arm her body was losing its tension.
“If it hadn’t been over?”
“Yes. When you met me, if it hadn’t already ended…?”
“Then you would have ended it.” He looked into her eyes, relief making his smile quiver. “You don’t leave room for anyone else, Maya.”
And now, at last, she smiled back at him. Her smile, too, was shaky, and it caught at his chest, turning his heart over. He bent his head and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty
That last dose of volcano’s blood had used up the amount Philos had stolen days before. So the next morning he and Maya left the temple early, with Leos to guard them while Maya remained in her vulnerable human state, and climbed the slope of the volcano to the crater at its summit.
It rumbled beneath their feet, and as they neared the top, Maya began to see puddles of lava glowing as they cooled on the volcano’s lumpy grey and black sides. Far behind where they walked lay the entrance to the shaft at the centre of the labyrinth, where Aera had once stood, bereft of her god and her lover, her life declared forfeit, trying to work out how to use her power in a way the priests had never taught her.
She regained it all. But so many of the refugees have been left with much less than I. I have no reason to mourn.
And it was getting easier, the idea of living without her power. If sometimes, still, the loss took her by the throat…
Philos, climbing the ridge just in front of her, looked back and his eyes met hers. Her throat caught, but not in loss. He loved her. He’d loved her in her maenad form, and in her weakened human state. She still couldn’t quite believe it, was still half-afraid it wou
ld be snatched away…but then he looked at her like that and everything—fear, loss, the memory of pain—was wiped momentarily away.
If he would touch her, kiss her the way he had that one night they’d had together, she thought that would wipe the fear away for good. The fear, and the memory it hurt too much to look at. But although he’d kissed her last night, and stayed with her, holding her while they slept in the antechamber off Aera’s rooms, his touch had been gentle, hesitant, and they’d done no more than sleep.
She could not ask him. She’d done that once—twice, if she counted the time that hadn’t happened at all—but she couldn’t do it again. Not with that memory haunting her, that moment when she’d said, “You said you loved me” and looked into his face as he replied, “I don’t know.” This time she needed him to ask her, needed him to be the vulnerable one, the one asking, the one who had to fear the rebuff.
But he wasn’t asking. And neither was she. And even if she could bring herself to do it now, they had Leos nursemaiding them, and she was damned if she was going to betray herself in front of Venli’s new lover.
“Maya, don’t come any farther.” Philos had stopped a little way ahead, before the next ridge, and was holding his hand out to halt her. “The volcano’s blood—we don’t know what it’ll do to you if you breathe unlimited amounts. Let me collect some, bring it down to you.”
She should have thought of that herself. Her stomach cramped as she pictured what it could do to her if she breathed in the vapour that must be smoking up from the puddles of volcano’s blood inside the crater, how the madness would rise and rise to blot out everything she was, leaving nothing but the killer. And Philos here with her, with only Leos to protect him.
She nodded. “You go. I’ll wait.”
“Leos, you wait with her, all right?”
“I’m waiting,” came Leos’s deep voice from behind Maya, and Philos disappeared over the ridge.
Maya crossed her arms over her body against the chill early-morning air. The pain was back, the fear that despite what he said it still wasn’t real, he still wasn’t truly sure. The volcano’s blood would bring the blur of the maenad change, would blot out the pain for a while. It would blot out the wanting him too, free her from the ache deep in her body, the way her skin came alive whenever he went near her. There was some mercy in what the priests did to us, after all…
“He asked me to leave you alone together up here,” said Leos, behind her.
Maya turned to look at him. “What?”
The big man, arms folded, was looking out over the temple. “Said he needed time with you, and he’d never get it once you’d changed, once you were guarding Aera. Asked me to guard from a distance.” He glanced at her. “But then he changed his mind, of course. Said he must be mad, what was he thinking risking your safety like that.”
Even in Leos’s deep tones, the phrasing was unmistakable. Philos, agonising yet again over what was right. Maya smiled, unable to help herself.
Leos’s eyes met hers. “So I’m asking you. Shall I stay here, or shall I guard from a distance? I can go over that ridge.” He pointed back where they’d come. “Out of sight. Out of…earshot.” One corner of his mouth lifted slightly, and Maya felt a wave of colour rush from her neck to her forehead.
“But I have to be back at the temple. Aera will be waiting for me.”
“You think Aera hasn’t been telling me just the same thing?” Leos unfolded his arms to stretch. “Everyone’s been telling me. Give them some time, Leos. They need to talk when she’s not exhausted from changing back. Believe me, girl, the world won’t fall apart if you absent yourself from it for an hour.”
“An hour?”
“That’s what I can give you. I’ll watch that no one comes up. And down in the temple, Coram will guard Aera.” He glanced at the ridge beyond which Philos had disappeared. “So what’s it to be? Stay with you or keep guard from a distance?”
Maya’s face burned again. “From a distance,” she said.
“Where the hell is Leos?” Philos, holding the water bottle, came fast down the volcano slope, his voice sharp.
“Doing what you asked,” said Maya from her seat on a smooth outcrop of rock.
“What?” He threw her an exasperated look. “He knows I told him no, it was too dangerous for you—”
He sounded so like Leos’s imitation of him that she had to bite back a smile. “It’s all right. He said he’d keep watch from farther down the slope. And Aera agreed.”
“Everyone’s so damned wise. Oh, I know what they’re doing, and if things were different I’d be grateful. But this isn’t safe for you—”
“What are they doing?”
He glanced at her, and a dull flush coloured his cheeks. “They’re giving me time alone with you. And I’d be grateful, I would be, but every moment you’re not in your maenad form you’re in danger, and I can’t— Did Leos not even ask you before he went?”
“He did ask me. I said yes.”
“Oh, Maya.” He came down the rest of the slope to her, tucking the bottle absent-mindedly in his belt, his hands going out to her. “I want to be alone with you, believe me. Last night—you were still so shaken, I didn’t dare— But this is enemy ground, and I’m afraid for your safety—”
She put her hands out to hold his, feeling light as a blown feather. The warring desire and fear in his face, his voice, had done more than anything else could to take away the memory of the pain.
“Let me worry about my own safety for once.”
The look she knew must be showing in her face reflected in Philos’s eyes. He said her name, softly, and let go of her hands to thread his fingers through her hair, imprison her so he could kiss her. “Maya, love…” But he pulled away after a minute, his gaze flickering to the bottle in his belt. “Listen, can’t you take the volcano’s blood now? If you change you’ll be safe.”
“Take it now? But I’ll be— You don’t want to—” She couldn’t think how to say it. She looked at him, appalled.
“Make love to a maenad? I don’t care what form you’re in, as long as it’s you, as long as I know I’m not putting you in danger. That is—” he hesitated, “—you don’t really have teeth up there?”
At that she laughed until tears came to her eyes, leaning against him, her arms around his waist and her head on his chest. She felt his chest move as he laughed too, felt his breath warm on her hair and his arms tightening around her. When she raised her head, he was looking at her the way he hadn’t since that night, his eyes dark and intent on hers.
It didn’t take any more words. He let the bottle lie where it fell as he stripped off his belt and tunic, then reached for her. Early-morning sunlight slid over his skin, showing the play of muscles on his arms and shoulders, making her breathless.
Her skin tingled with his nearness. As he touched her the tingle spread into heat pouring through every vein, every nerve. It rose into her head like smoke, like incense.
She moved astride him and slid her hands over his chest, feeling the wiry-soft dark hair tickle her palms, licked down his neck and bit where it curved into his shoulder, hearing the helpless sound he made, smiling against his skin.
His hands locked tight in the small of her back, pulling her closer. “Maya, don’t wait.”
“But it’s so dangerous,” she murmured, easing back a little, just a little, to look down into his eyes. “This is enemy ground. Don’t you think it’s dangerous?”
He gave a breathless laugh, half-amused, half-irritated. “I think I don’t care.”
She could have teased him more, but now she couldn’t wait, either. She moved down, skin sliding against skin, and felt him thrust up into her, slowly at first then hard, with an urgent, jerky movement as if he could never get deep enough.
“Maya. Ah—” His head went back, his fingers dug into her hips. The feeling shot through her, the sensation of him inside her, filling her everywhere. She moved against him, hearing him groan, seeing lights spark
against the dark inside her eyelids as her eyes fell shut. The last memories of pain burned away as she felt him helpless beneath her, straining up into her, wanting more, more of her. He was hers now. There’d never been anything else, nothing that mattered.
His hands came up, pulled her down to him so they were joined everywhere. The sparks flared silver. Fire struck through her body, heat and light fused into a white flood of lightning.
Then the heat took them both, the smoke rose, blinding them, and as she shook against him, caught in ecstasy so intense it was almost pain, as she felt him shudder beneath her, inside her, she heard, once more, the faintest echo of chimes.
“Maya, your nails.”
Still half-lost in the aftermath of pleasure, Maya raised her head from Philos’s chest and looked down at her hands. For a moment, stupid and drowsy, she didn’t know what he meant. Then she saw. Her nails were twice the length they’d been, hard edged, curling like slight claws. And her skin… Her skin gleamed as if with a sheen of sweat, except it wasn’t sweat, it was the skin itself, changed to become harder, more bronze than brown.
Her gaze flew to Philos. “What’s happening to me? My face—is it my face too?”
He was still holding her, but now tension stiffened his arms, his body where it lay under hers. “Your eyes have changed. And your teeth—”
“They’re sharper, I can feel. Did we— What happened, did the bottle spill?”
But the bottle of volcano’s blood lay untouched beside them. The crater was far above her—no rising vapour could possibly have reached her down here. And yet she was more than half-changed into her maenad form. Changed while she was lying with Philos, while he didn’t even know—
“Oh gods.” She jerked out of his arms, pushed herself away. “I—oh gods, Philos, I could have hurt you. I don’t know how it happened, I never meant it to do this.”
“It’s all right. It’s all right.” He sat up, his arms going out to her. “Maya, you didn’t hurt me.”
“But I could have. The madness coming on me like that, without warning, without me doing anything—” She stopped. No rage or bloodlust rose to blur her thoughts and confuse who she was, what she really wanted. She’d been learning to control it over the last few days, but this was different, this time there was nothing to control. Her maenad form had returned, but her madness had not.
Blood of the Volcano: Sequal to Heart of the Volcano Page 23
