by Nora Roberts
“Supposition, theorem, not conclusive.”
“You found it. I read all your notes, and you knew this was the way. It can adjust to the fever, but it takes time. The fever weakens it first. Both parts of me will be sick, all but helpless.”
He crouched in front of her. Her face was already flushed with fever, slick with sweat. Her eyes glassy from it, but still her eyes. “Tell me where you put the keys, Simone. Let me take care of you.”
“The second injection—” Her body shook, and the words scored her parched throat like acid. “Will destroy it, but only when it comes out, nearly out. Nearly out, Gabe. While it’s still fighting, still sick. And out of its natural cycle. It’s too strong with the moon. That was your conclusion, and it’s mine.”
“What’s in the second injection?” He gripped her arms, dug fingers in when she shook her head. “I won’t do this blind, Simone. I’ll sit right here and let it have me first.”
“This isn’t a damn O’Henry story. I cut my hair, you sell your watch.” Irritated humor flickered over her face. “Jesus. Wolfsbane. Wolfsbane’s the primary. It’s apt, isn’t it?”
“Poison.”
“Not enough to kill me, I promise. I want to live, and I can’t keep living this way. Wolfsbane. Legend says it repels the werewolf.” She managed a laugh. “Let’s make it true. Kill it, Gabe. Kill it for me. I swear I’m not going to let it be the last thing I ask of you.”
When she began to seize, he buffered her from the wall so she wouldn’t injure herself on the stone. For the longest sixty seconds of his life, he watched her convulse.
When her eyes cleared again, she groped for his hand. “Wrote you a letter.”
“Ssh. Let me check you out.”
“It’s almost Christmas. I want a tree this year. I never bother. December’s the hardest. Put up a tree. Lights.”
“Sure.” Her pulse was rapid, thready. “We’ll pick one out tomorrow.”
“You could be like me.” Her voice was hoarse, and under it, sly. “We’re strong. Amazing, powerful, free.”
Her eyes were changing, and the smile that peeled back her lips was feral.
“Fight it off, Simone. Stay with me.”
“Sooner or later, it wins.” She arched up, into the pain or away from it, he couldn’t tell. And when she went limp again, her eyes glittered—tears over the rage. “Don’t make me go back.” She gritted out the words. “Please, love me enough to do this. Help me.”
She fought. Her body stretched and retracted, her face narrowed and filled out again. Claws dug into the concrete floor, and left her lovely fingers bloody.
It was burning her up, he could see it. Sapping her. Killing her. But still, she battled, and he could hear panic and rage in the snarls when the wolf struggled to surface.
Gold fur sprang out of her skin. Long, vicious fangs gleamed. He could see her under it, the shadow of her in the eyes, in the painfully human expression as the snout began to form.
“I love you, more than enough.” He took the syringe, and with terror riding in his heart, plunged it through fur and hide.
It screamed. Or she did. He couldn’t tell any longer. What was chained to the wall began to roll and buck, a woman, a wolf, then a terrible combination of both. It snapped at him, vicious fangs spearing from its mouth. It wept, human tears spilling out of feral eyes.
Blood trickled from the wrists, the ankles as the violent jerks had steel biting into flesh. And this time when it howled, it was a cry of agony, and terror.
When it collapsed, there was only silence.
He could hear the dogs now, he realized. He’d forgotten about them. They whimpered outside the cage. But inside, there was only Simone, pale and still as death.
There was a pulse. The faint, quick beat nearly broke him, so that his body shook when he laid his lips on hers. He made himself get up, go to the cot for the blanket, the pillow. Finding the letter, he took it with him. He made her as comfortable as he could, checked her pulse again, her heart rate, then sat beside her to read.
WHEN she woke, it was in her own bed, with a low light burning. She ached, head and body, and only stirred to try to find comfort.
But the hand that laid on her brow had her opening her eyes. Seeing him.
“I found the keys. Here.” He lifted her head, held a glass to her lips. “Drink. It’s just water for now.”
It tasted like ambrosia. Weary, she let her head rest on his arm. “Forgive me.”
“We’ll get to that, believe me. How do you feel?”
“My head aches. Everything hurts. My . . .” She lifted her arm, frowned at the bandage over her wrist.
“You cut yourself up some.” His voice was very strange to her ears, a tremor under the calm. “It’s not serious, but it’s bound to be sore.”
“It is. How long was I out?”
“Three hours, twenty-three minutes. I’m vague on the seconds.”
“Nearly three and a half hours? It’s still sore.” She started to tear at the bandage, but he gripped her hand.
“Don’t. You’ll have it bleeding again.”
“It hasn’t healed.”
“The human body’s a miracle,” he said lightly. “But you’ve got to give it a little time to mend after an insult.”
“Human.” Her lips trembled. “It’s gone. I can feel it.” She pressed her hand to her heart, to her belly. “Or more accurately, I can’t feel it. We have to run tests, be sure, but—”
“I did, with blood samples you so obligingly provided. You have very pretty blood cells, Simone. Very pretty, normal blood cells. Healthy cells.”
Her breath caught on a sob, then she let it free, let him gather her close while she wept.
“Next time I come home to find you shackled to the wall, I expect it to be an invitation for a little friendly bondage.”
She managed a watery laugh. “You got it.”
“I read your letter.” He drew her back to kiss her cheeks, her lips. “You’ve got tonight off, to rest and recoup, but tomorrow, we’re going to get started on that life.”
“Okay.” She shifted so he could brace his back against the headboard, and she could settle into the curve of his shoulder. “Who’s going to watch the dogs when we go to Vegas?”
WHEN the December moon, the Full Cold Moon, rose icy white in the black sky, Simone stood in snow up to mid-calf and breathed in the night.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen it,” she said and linked her fingers with Gabe’s. “I put pictures and paintings of it in the house, but they’re nothing compared to the real thing. I could stand here and look at it for hours.”
He reached over to pull her watch cap fully over her ears. “Except it’s freezing out here.”
“Except for that.” She laughed and swung around to lock her arms around his neck.
Behind them her house—their house, she corrected—was brilliant with festive lights. And the tree they’d decorated stood framed in the window, sparkling.
She laid her head on his shoulder and watched their dogs plow through the snow. All they needed, she decided, was that picket fence.
“I’ve got something for you.”
She could stay like this, she thought, wrapped around him in moonlight, forever. Just a woman, held and being held, by the man she loved. “What might that be?”
He took the ring out of his pocket, then drew her hand down so they both watched him slide it onto her finger. “Elvis is next. This seals the deal.”
“It’s beautiful.” The joy of it closed her throat, burned her eyes. The silver band—he’d have known she’d want silver—was ornately carved with stars and half-moons. And the stone, round and full as the moon, was a delicate blue-white.
“I ditched the diamond route, too traditional. This is moonstone,” he told her. “It seemed the right thing for us, for me to give it, for you to wear it while we’re making that life together.”
“You asked me once if I believed in fate.” She spoke careful
ly and still tears thickened her voice. “Now more than ever. And I wouldn’t change anything that happened to me, not a moment of it.” Laughing, she threw her arms out, spun in a circle. “You gave me the moon.”
He caught her, spun them both. “I’ll work on the sun and the stars.”
“We’ll work on them.” She lifted her hands, the moonstone sheening on her finger, and laid them on his cheeks. “I’ve really wanted to do this.”
She crushed her lips to his, warmed them with hers while the beams of that full cold moon turned the snow a glowing blue-white.
WINTER ROSE
For the three roses,
Ruth, Marianne and Jan,
who’ve made this so much fun
Chapter 1
“PRINCESS Gwynna, come quick!”
Else, the serving girl, burst into Gwynna’s bedchamber as luminous pink dawn broke over the rolling hills of Callemore. Tears streamed down her face and her voice was frantic with terror.
“It’s the queen,” the girl sobbed. “She’s . . . she’s . . .”
“What? What is wrong with my sister?” Gwynna popped up in bed, her rose velvet pillows scattering around her. She stared at the white-faced servant who was shaking from head to toe.
“Tell me!” Gwynna ordered. She sprang from the bed, her heart hammering with a terrible foreboding. She felt it now, the heaviness, the darkness. Fear crackled through her.
“What has happened?” she demanded again, even as she snatched her blue silk dressing gown from its hook and flung it over her bedgown. Else chased after her as Gwynna raced into the hall.
“Devils and demons are afoot, Princess. The queen . . . oh, it’s too terrible for words. What is to become of us?”
Even as she darted down the chilly hall toward her sister’s apartments Gwynna felt a piercing spear of dread. There had been no hint, no sign or premonition of this, of whatever had befallen Lise. Not even a quiver in the air, a chill upon her flesh.
What manner of evil had come—and how could it have struck so suddenly?
She ran faster, finally reaching the queen’s quarters. She burst into the bedchamber past the servants and guards who stood in frozen shock.
A figure lay in the high bed, Lise’s lovely high bed with its gold and white silk hangings and green-tasselled pillows. Gwynna’s steps faltered.
She approached slowly, the shadow of fear deepening in her eyes.
“Lise?” she whispered.
And then she saw.
It was a . . . thing. Not Lise, not her wise, beautiful, raven-haired sister with eyes like blue stars and creamy skin. The figure in the bed was a shriveled, ugly thing. Its strawlike hair and sunken colorless eyes stared blindly, its bones poked through the pale lavender gown her sister had worn to bed.
It was alive . . . but only just. The thing—her sister?—was breathing ever so slowly, each breath rattling in its spindly chest, and the wrinkled layers in its ancient crone’s neck fluttered with each labored gulp of air.
On the sticklike finger of the figure’s right hand shone the Royal Ring of Callemore, a half-moon of rubies surrounded by a circle of gold.
For a full moment Gwynna could do nothing but stare in horror at the grotesque figure on the bed, the figure in her sister’s clothes, wearing her sister’s ring.
She tried to breathe, to think, to understand, but finally she could only whisper, “Get me Antwa at once. She will know . . . what has happened to the queen.”
The chamber emptied and Gwynna knew the servants and guards were only too eager to escape the room where some great evil had come and still lurked.
She herself trembled as she turned slowly away from the figure in the bed and began to pace around the corners of the room, pausing at the window, staring at the heavy draperies.
Here. It had clung to the shadows here, she realized. Hiding, waiting for the castle to grow still. For the life and light and voices to fade.
Waiting for the night.
But what manner of creature had it been? What had it done to Lise? And why?
In answer to her silent questions, a rich soft voice behind her spoke.
“I know what has happened, Gwynna. I wish I did not. The legends tell of this, but I have seen it only once in my time here. I never wanted to see such a thing again.”
As the princess turned slowly to gaze at the elderly woman wrapped in a shawl the color of autumn leaves, Antwa shook her head sadly. “I particularly never wanted to see it happen to as fine a woman as your sister.”
A chill rushed through Gwynna. Antwa sounded so hopeless.
“Tell me what it is and how we can fix it. How do we bring Lise back to us?”
Antwa’s somber brown eyes rested upon her. “We cannot, my child. You do not understand.”
“Then explain it to me,” Gwynna snapped and was immediately shocked by her own tone. She had never spoken sharply to Antwa, not once. Antwa was her nurse, her teacher, her friend—the closest thing to a mother or a grandmother she’d had since her parents had passed.
She had learned so much from Antwa, for Antwa was wise, far wiser even than Lise. She knew of things that Gwynna, a seer since childhood, was only beginning to understand. Antwa could cast spells, concoct charms, use magic as easily as most women could spin upon a loom, and Gwynna shared many of the same gifts with her.
But she had nowhere near Antwa’s expertise and would not for many years, decades even, if ever. So why now did she feel this burning impatience and anger because Antwa told her there was nothing to be done?
Because my heart tells me otherwise, Gwynna thought in surprise. Even despite the expression of sorrow and sympathy she saw upon her mentor’s face.
She straightened her shoulders. “I will banish this evil, I will bring Lise back,” she said. “Once you tell me what this all means and how it came about I will find a way to fix it.”
Antwa shook her head and pity shone from her gentle eyes. “This is Ondrea’s doing,” she whispered in a hopeless tone.
Ondrea the Terrible? The legendary sorceress?
Gwynna had heard the name and she knew that some great evil was associated with it. Ondrea the Terrible was a name used to strike fear into common folk and children, but Gwynna had thought the sorceress’s time had long passed.
“What makes you think Ondrea did this to Lise?” she asked, flinging a glance over her shoulder at the shriveled thing in Lise’s bed.
“Because this is what Ondrea does. What it is whispered she has done since the days of Merlin and Arthyr. She has sent the elf demons who do her bidding to steal your sister’s beauty.”
“Steal her . . . beauty? But . . . how . . . and where is Lise?”
“Lise is there.” Antwa pointed solemnly at the motionless figure wearing the Royal Ring of Callemore. “She is somewhere within that poor creature, but she’s scarcely alive. Ondrea has taken everything—her youth, health, beauty and even her spirit. She feeds upon them to restore herself. Lise, as she lies there, will soon die. She will wither like a leaf in the waning days of autumn, and Ondrea will live for years on the beauty and youth that were once your sister’s.”
“She will not.” Gwynna clenched her fists, her amethyst eyes darkening. “I won’t let her.”
“Child, you don’t know the powers of Ondrea.” Antwa pulled the shawl more tightly around her shoulders, her mouth twisting sorrowfully. “For you, she is merely a name out of legend, but I have heard tales, tales told to me by the high-sorceress Mervana, who taught me in the ways of magic when I was even younger than you.”
Gwynna’s chin jutted out. “I don’t care who Ondrea is, or what powers she possesses. She will pay for what she’s done to Lise and she will return my sister to me—with every drop of her beauty, health and youth intact.”
“Listen, my child,” Antwa went on, shaking her head. “According to the legends, once every hundred years, Ondrea chooses a young woman of extrordinary beauty and strength—and sends her elf demons to steal them from her
. She is a powerful sorceress, Gwynna, who long ago should have passed on from this earthly life, but she has preserved herself in this way, at the expense of others. She takes goodness and beauty and turns them into evil and ugliness. She is allied with all the demons that walk the earth and she takes delight in the pain of others.”
“Then it’s time she was stopped—and destroyed.”
“Do you know where legend says that Ondrea lives?” Antwa asked, her sad, gentle gaze fixed upon Gwynna’s pale, set face.
The princess shook her head, but the resolve in her slender frame seemed to tighten.
“She lives in the Valley of Org, beyond the Wild Sea. A land where your magical powers for good will not serve you.”
Antwa watched Gwynna’s eyes widen at the words and knew that the intense young princess whose fey powers were not yet entirely developed was shaken by the knowledge that Ondrea could live in such a place. The Valley of Org was the home of all evil creatures, the cruelest dragons and the most hideous demons. Ghosts and vampires prowled amidst outlaws of the most vile sort, and it was said that nothing good or beautiful could long survive in the foulness of that dark, fetid land, where even the moon was lost in the shadows.
“But . . . they say no one has ever returned alive from that place, except one man,” Gwynna whispered. Her heart had fallen into her stomach.
“Isn’t it true that Keir of Blackthorne went to Org and came out alive?”
“That is what some say.” Antwa shrugged her shoulders beneath the heavy wool shawl. “No one knows for certain if it is true, my child. And even if it were, the Duke of Blackthorne is unlikely to be of help to you. They say he has no use for anyone west of his own lands, and that since his brothers and father were killed he trusts no one—man or woman. And he particularly will have no love for a princess of Callemore,” she added. “If you remember, he offered for Lise’s hand when she held court and chose a husband. She rejected him in place of William, you recall.”
“She rejected everyone in place of William!” Gwynna burst out. Lise had fallen instantly in love with the golden-haired prince of Merfeld. For her, there had been no other man in the crowded hall once she had set eyes on William, once he had bowed over her hand, knelt upon one knee and gazed at her with those glorious brown eyes that were as warm and rich as tilled earth.
