He laughed but without much mirth. “I left for many reasons including to get away from Henry but the main one was that I could not fool my family forever. I knew that when the years passed and I didn’t age, they would notice and there would be no valid explanation. They had remarked on it by the time I left, many times, and that was only a few years after I became what I am. I left to avoid contact with Henry who would not leave me alone. And yes, love, my true surname is Wolfe. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Her voice came out as no more than a whisper. “So, you will be twenty-seven forever?”
Darien nodded. “Unless my circumstances ever change, yes, I shall.”
She was twenty-three so he was either four years older or seven generations her senior. Her mind could not compute that for a moment and Darien, seeing her consternation, said,
“Werewolves are immortal, my dear. And though I love you, my Stella, more than any woman I have ever known or wanted, we must part.”
That sank into her brain. “No, we cannot! I won’t!”
“Think about it, my sweet star. For now, we are of an age and generation. In twenty years, will people think you are my mother, will they not, my lady? I fear that they will. Moreover, in forty, will you enjoy passing as my grandmother? That is unthinkable. I cannot bear to watch you age, to see that lovely hair turn gray, that smooth skin wrinkle while I remain the same. There is no future for us together and that grieves me. You are my perfect soul mate.”
If she could deal with his disability, the fact that he was a werewolf under the full moon, she could handle a little aging issue.
“I don’t mind.”
Darien sighed. “You will in time. I know it all too well from my own life. In my early years in America, I met and loved a young lady. I thought then that we could adjust to it all but it didn’t work that way. After time passed, just a few short years, she could not bear the fact that she would age and I would not. So she left me, saying goodbye in a letter, telling me all that she couldn’t say to my face.”
Jealousy squirmed like a snake in her belly, another turbulent emotion added to the already volatile mix.
“What was her name?” It didn’t matter but Stella had to know.
“Anna,” Darien said, in a flat voice. “You have no need to be jealous. Although I loved her at the time, what I felt for her was but a patch of what I feel for you. Watching her, however, draw away from me in slow steps, a little more each year, hurt. When we met, we were both twenty-seven. Five years later, I still was – I always will be – the same but she had aged in little ways. She noted it and it would have become more obvious as time passed so we parted.”
“Oh.”
Darien continued. “Beyond the age difference, there is more.
How long will you enjoy dreading the full moon each month, waiting for the horrible night to arrive?”
Instead of answering the question, she asked another,
“Do you change just when the moon is full?”
“Yes. It is an excruciating process and afterward, although I seldom remember any of what I did as a wolf, I am exhausted and ill.
Transforming leaves me feeling as if I have influenza.”
“I’m sorry, Darien. What can I do to make you feel better?”
He shook his head from side to side. “Nothing, darling. Just leave me in my misery.”
“No.” That was one thing Stella could not do. There must be another option, she thought, and searched for some scrap of folklore that might provide some way to reconcile their impossible situation.
“You know that I studied folklore and superstitions during the Dark Ages. Aren’t there ways to reverse your condition or a cure? I seem to remember some old tales and methods. Did you ever try any of them?”
He raised his arm to put around her shoulders, wincing as he did.
“There are stories but I doubt any of them are valid. I tried a few of the simple ones, fasting and kneeling in prayer for days. That offers nothing but slow starvation. That almost killed me in 1860. I returned home, weak and suffering from malnutrition. Another time, soon after I became a werewolf, I asked my brother for his help and we tried something else you may have heard about. He spoke my baptismal name aloud three times and then he struck me on the forehead with the butt of a knife. Nothing happened except that I got a beastly headache. If he had hit me much harder, I might have suffered a concussion.”
“What about rolling in the dew where the wolfsbane grows?”
Stella asked. It sounded more than a little lame and much too simple but it was one of the ideas she dredged up from Medieval folklore.
Darien gave her a rueful smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “That one does not work, either, my dear. I caught a chill from the damp and cold morning air. I am immortal but I can get sick and I did.”
“Isn’t there anything else?” Stella asked. Something from the pages of an old book, so fragile that she had to study it in the library reference room, came to mind. “I remember reading that if a werewolf that has never tasted human blood plunges into free flowing water on the eve of the full moon, he can become human again. Did you ever try that?”
“No, not since that would involve facing both my phobias.”
Darien said. “I would be afraid to try and if it failed anyway, I would be very disappointed.”
Although he sounded hopeless, Stella found a tiny sparkle of hope. If there were a way, then they could find it. Love might be the power that prevailed and if it meant they could find a happy ending to this story, she could help him face his fears.
“It could be worth a try, Darien.”
“Stella, leave it alone, please." His voice thickened with fear and something more.
“I can’t do that. It might be the one way that we could be together. Please, Darien.”
His reluctance suggested more than fear at stake and she wondered. As she reviewed the requirements for that method, she realized she had no idea if he drank blood or killed in wolf form.
Nausea twisted her stomach but she had to frame the question and know the answer, no matter what it might be.
“I cannot visualize that you would do such things, Darien, but I will ask – do you drink human blood or kill when you are in wolf form?”
His topaz eyes, golden in the morning sunshine, widened until they dominated his face and his frown vanished, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he wanted to smile.
“Your faith in me, Stella, is gratifying and it is correct. I have not nor do I ever wish to drink blood or eat human flesh. I would never do to another person what Henry did to me, not attack or bite or taste. He intended to kill, something I just will not and would not do.
I manage with protein as you have observed. If I kill as a wolf, it has never been either other humans or wolves. I don’t know if I kill at all but I don’t think that I do. If I did, the knowledge of mutilated bodies, human or animal in the area would be common and there are none.”
Joy renewed as she decided it was possible.
“Then you can do it!”
“Stella—”
“That is, if you want to. Do you?”
He seized her hand in his bruised, battered ones.
“I do more than anything.”
“Then why not try?”
His grin was wry and his laugh mocking.
“You know the two reasons why—I cannot swim and I am terrified of heights.”
Stella’s grin was bright.
“You can face your fears one time, can’t you? Then we can be together.”
Darien closed his eyes, his breathing ragged and his hand in hers trembling.
“There is another thing and it’s not one that I want to do.
Your love would be vital if the cure were to work but something more would be needed— your blood.”
“My blood?” Her voice soared to soprano level. “What do you mean? If I have to die for it to work, then I’ll try to remember some other way.”
&nbs
p; His eyes blazed. “I would never accept your life in sacrifice for any reason and that is not what legends require. I would have to cut your finger or some other part of your dear body to get a few drops of blood to purify the water.”
Until she drew breath, Stella didn’t realize she had not been breathing. A few drops of blood from a small cut seemed little and she had no doubt she could do that. A quick search of all the lore she learned yielded a faint memory of such a ceremony.
“That’s fine. I don’t mind, Darien. I will do that for you.”
He stared at her with those topaz eyes for a long moment and then shut them, as if in prayer or searching his soul.
After several minutes passed, he opened his eyes and met her gaze.
“I can try for you, Stella. If it fails, then you will know how much I love you.”
“What happens if it fails?”
He quirked one eyebrow at her. “If the attempt fails, then the one sure cure might work.”
“What is it?”
“Death. If I become mortal long enough to drown, I would call it either a final cure or simple failure. So, it is possible that I could become human again only to drown. Will you take the chance?”
Stella gulped. If that happened, she would want to die too but it wouldn’t because she could not bear it.
“If you will, I will. So, when are we going to do this?”
“It must be done on the evening before the full moon; that is the sole way to determine if the effort succeeds.”
“We do it next month.”
“If that is what you wish, we shall, my darling Stella.”
He sealed the promise with a kiss, one that scorched all the way to her toes. That combustion fueled to an inferno as Stella, hands gentle as if he were fragile, made love to his damaged body until they both forgot all pain and all obstacles.
Chapter Seven
The next full moon, the full Harvest Moon in late September, would rise on a Sunday evening. In that month, Stella helped Darien find a place that would work for their attempt. She also made an effort to teach him to swim or failing that, to at least get over his fear of water and heights. First, she coaxed him to climb to the top of the bluffs at the park in town and though his knees trembled, he made it to the top with her where he managed to look over the view below without total panic. Then they climbed, at her insistence, out onto the roof of the high school which he managed with great difficulty.
After that, she drove him out to one of the few remaining forestry fire towers, an old wooden structure that stretched high into the sky.
Rangers once used the towers to watch for fires but they hadn’t been used in decades. She hoped to talk Darien into mounting all the steps to the top but he would go no further than the first three flights. Even that height made him pale and perspire. Stella doubted he would ever banish his fear of heights but she hoped that her efforts tempered it.
After heights, she addressed his inability to swim. She tried to coax him into some adult swimming lessons at the local health club but he refused. However, after heavy persuasion, he did get into the pool with her. She taught him how to hold his breath under water and tried to give him pointers on staying afloat. In their pool sessions, his fear threatened to bloom into a full-blown panic attack but she thought that a little preparation was better than none at all. At least, by the time that the full moon was almost at hand, he could put his face down into the water without flinching.
Just five days before full moon, as the orb waxed, they discovered the perfect location. Grand Falls, the state’s largest natural and free flowing waterfall, was about fifteen miles north of Riverville. In an isolated location, the falls descended twenty-five feet when the river ran high.
Although Grand Falls and the river below attracted swimmers, anglers, picnickers, and nature lovers, they both thought that on a Sunday evening, the visitors would be few.
“Are you ready to do this?” Stella asked, as they sat outside in the late afternoon, admiring the remaining blooms in his garden and the first hints of autumn color in the foliage.
Darien, relaxed in a dark blue shirt, unbuttoned at his throat and jeans, grinned.
“I am as ready as I can be. I look forward to a successful outcome but—"
“But what?” she asked, his fear spreading to her like an epidemic.
“I hope that I don’t die. If I survive the fall, the water at the bottom is dangerous with strong undercurrents.”
She stroked the back of his hand. “I won’t let you drown.”
Stella would not; she had a plan. Just before he jumped, she would dial 911 on her cell phone, summoning help to fish him from the rolling waters before he could get into trouble.
“I shall count on that. Shall we go, then?”
At Grand Falls, the sheer beauty of the falls filled her with awe each time she saw them. Rugged rock formations lined the riverbank on this side and made walking more difficult. There was just one other vehicle, a beat-up old pickup truck, when they arrived and as they walked along the rocks, hand in hand, the driver left.
They were alone in the wild place and so, without discussing it, they made their way with care up the rocks toward the falls. On the bank, Darien turned and gathered her into his arms. He held her so close that she could feel his rapid heartbeat and the fine quiver that shot through his body.
“You’re really scared.”
His mouth moved against her hair, speaking into her ear.
“I am, Stella. This will be the most difficult thing I have ever done.”
She snuggled against him, hoping her embrace would give both comfort and courage.
“Will it be harder than becoming a werewolf?”
“Yes.” Darien said, without any doubt at all. “That was difficult enough and I had no idea what would happen. With my fears, jumping into the water will be harder. The hardest of all, though, is now, Stella.”
He pulled out a knife and the blade caught the remaining light so that it shimmered between them. She held out her hand to him, palm up and waited. As they had discussed and decided, he slashed the knife across her open palm so that a cut, about two inches long, opened. Although it stung, Stella held her hand over the water and let the blood drip from her cut into the water.
“Let my love and my blood restore you,” she said.
Then she staunched the blood and let him stick a large adhesive bandage over it. He brushed it, light as a breath, with his lips.
“I will be waiting for you, Darien,” Stella said. “Help will be on the way and will be here by the time you hit the water.”
He eyed the rushing waters and shivered. The noise of the falls was very loud.
“It is time, then. I will do it or die, my lady. Kiss me.”
Stella pulled him closer, her hands clutching his shirt and brought the full force of her lips against his, pouring all the love that she could muster into his body by that conduit. He responded, his body answering her call and returning it in kind, pouring powerful emotion and potent desire into her veins until she felt almost drunk with love. Every atom in her body craved more, ached for full release, but Darien pulled away.
“If I survive, we shall have world enough and time for that later. Stella, I love you.”
Without another word or look, Darien removed his shoes and waded into the water. He gasped when he entered the cool river then continued out, walking with care and some apparent difficulty. Stella watched him, even as she dug her cell phone from her jeans pocket and punched in 911.
“911. What is your emergency?” A bland, professional voice answered the distress call.
“My boyfriend just fell into the river at Grand Falls and I think he’s going over! He can’t swim! Can you please send help?” Stella cried, the panic real, not feigned.
As she watched, the current knocked Darien from his feet and propelled him toward the falls with speed. He struggled to stand, reaching a half-crouch when he realized he was at the brink. With arms spread wide, he
shouted,
“Geronimo!”
He leaped or fell over the brink, plummeting down over the high falls as she watched, one hand clutching her throat with fear.
Stella then ran as fast as she could over the rocks, hurrying to the bottom of the falls to see if he surfaced in the choppy waters. In the distance, over the noise of the falls, she could hear the approaching wail of sirens. His sleek, dark head surfaced for a moment and she cupped her hands together to yell.
“Darien! Hang on! They're coming!”
If he heard her voice, he did not respond but floundered, then vanishing beneath the waters again. Two minutes, long, awful spans of time, later, the paramedics rushed up with stretchers and gear.
“He’s out there!” Stella screamed. “Help him, please help him!”
Everything happened quickly after that and she could never remember just how they pulled Darien from the waters. When they did, however, she was there, pushing through the emergency workers and a few bystanders who had arrived on the heels of the ambulance.
Darien lay on his back on the rocks, his chest not moving, and Stella fell to her knees at his side.
“Do something!”
His skin had a bluish cast and he lay with such stillness that she was very afraid. Stella wringed her hands together, anxious, and worried as the ambulance crew performed CPR. When Darien gasped and began to cough, she began to cry but she put her face down beside his.
“Darien. Darien.”
He choked and spewed water but his lips moved in the shape of her name, Stella.
Within seconds, he was on a gurney with an oxygen mask over his face. His color was returning but when they asked if she wanted to come along, she climbed into the back of the ambulance without hesitation.
“Is he going to be all right?” she asked, through her tears.
“He should be if he didn’t break his neck or suffer a spinal cord injury,” one of the EMT’s told her. “We got to him quick; he should be fine.”
Darien stirred and when she touched his hand, his fingers curled around hers. Then he reached with his other hand to lift the oxygen mask so that he could talk.
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