A Discovery of Witches (56 page)

“Shall we?” I motioned toward the paddock.

He made a sound of exasperation and shouted for Georges. Balthasar bellowed in response and caught the apple that I tossed in his direction. Mercifully, I didn’t need any help getting my boots on, though it did take me longer than it took Matthew. He watched carefully as I did up the vest’s fastenings and snapped the chin strap on the helmet.

“Take this,” he said, handing me a cropped whip.

“I don’t need it.”

“You’ll take the crop, Diana.”

I took it, resolved to ditch it in the brush at the first opportunity.

“And if you toss it aside when we enter the forest, we’re coming home.”

Did he really think I would use the crop on him? I shoved it into my boot, the handle sticking out by my knee, and stomped out into the paddock.

The horses skittered nervously when we came into view. Like Ysabeau, both knew that something was wrong. Rakasa took the apple I owed her, and I ran my fingers over her flesh and spoke to her softly in an effort to soothe her. Matthew didn’t bother with Dahr. He was all business, checking the horse’s tack with lightning speed. When I’d finished, Matthew tossed me onto Rakasa’s back. His hands were firm around my waist, but he didn’t hold on a moment longer than necessary. He didn’t want any more of my scent on him.

In the forest Matthew made sure the crop was still in my boot.

“Your right stirrup needs shortening,” he pointed out after we had the horses trotting. He wanted my tack in racing trim in case I needed to make a run for it. I pulled Rakasa in with a scowl and adjusted the stirrup leathers.

The now-familiar field opened up in front of me, and Matthew sniffed the air. He grabbed Rakasa’s reins and brought me to a halt. He was still black with anger.

“There’s a rabbit over there.” Matthew nodded to the western section of the field.

“I’ve done rabbit,” I said calmly. “And marmot, and goat, and a doe.”

Matthew swore. It was concise and comprehensive, and I hoped we were out of the range of Ysabeau’s keen ears.

“The phrase is ‘cut to the chase,’ is it not?”

“I don’t hunt deer like my mother does, by frightening it to death and pouncing on it. I can kill a rabbit for you, or even a goat. But I’m not stalking a deer while you’re with me.” Matthew’s jaw was set in an obstinate line.

“Stop pretending and trust me.” I gestured at my saddlebag. “I’m prepared for the wait.”

He shook his head. “Not with you at my side.”

“Since I’ve met you,” I said quietly, “you’ve shown me all the pleasant parts of being a vampire. You taste things I can’t even imagine. You remember events and people that I can only read about in books. You smell when I change my mind or want to kiss you. You’ve woken me to a world of sensory possibilities I never dreamed existed.”

I paused for a moment, hoping I was making progress. I wasn’t.

“At the same time, you’ve seen me throw up, set fire to your rug, and come completely unglued when I received something unexpected in the mail. You missed the waterworks, but they weren’t pretty. In return I’m asking you to let me watch you feed yourself. It’s a basic thing, Matthew. If you can’t bear it, then we can make the Congregation happy and call it off.”

“
Dieu.
Will you never stop surprising me?” Matthew’s head lifted, and he stared into the distance. His attention was caught by a young stag on the crest of the hill. The stag was cropping the grass, and the wind was blowing toward us, so he hadn’t yet picked up our scent.

Thank you,
I breathed silently. It was a gift from the gods for the stag to appear like that. Matthew’s eyes locked on his prey, and the anger left him to make room for a preternatural awareness of his environment. I fixed my eyes on the vampire, watching for slight changes that signaled what he was thinking or feeling, but there were precious few clues.

Don’t you dare move,
I warned when Rakasa tensed in preparation for a fidget. She rooted her hooves into the earth and stood at attention.

Matthew smelled the wind change and took Rakasa’s reins. He slowly moved both horses to the right, keeping them within the path of the downward breezes. The stag raised his head and looked down the hill, then resumed his quiet clipping of the grass. Matthew’s eyes darted over the terrain, lingering momentarily on a rabbit and widening when a fox stuck his head out of a hole. A falcon swooped overhead, riding the breezes like a surfer rides the waves, and he took that in as well. I began to appreciate how he’d managed the creatures in the Bodleian. There was not a living thing in this field that he had not located, identified, and been prepared to kill after only a few minutes of observation. Matthew inched the horses toward the trees, camouflaging my presence by putting me in the midst of other animal scents and sounds.

While we moved, Matthew noted when the falcon was joined by another bird or when one rabbit disappeared down a hole and another popped up to take its place. We startled a spotted animal that looked like a cat, with a long striped tail. From the pitch of Matthew’s body, it was clear he wanted to chase it, and had he been alone he would have hunted it down before turning to the stag. With difficulty he drew his eyes away from the animal’s leaping form.

It took us almost an hour to make our way from the bottom of the field around the forest’s edge. When we were near the top, Matthew performed his face-forward dismount. He smacked Dahr on the rump, and the horse obediently turned and headed for home.

Matthew hadn’t let go of Rakasa’s reins during these maneuvers, and he didn’t release them now. He led her to the edge of the forest and drew in a deep breath, taking in every trace of scent. Without a sound he put us inside a small thicket of low-growing birch.

The vampire crouched, both knees bent in a position that would have been excruciating to a human after about four minutes. Matthew held it for nearly two hours. My feet fell asleep, and I woke them up by flexing my ankles in the stirrups.

Matthew had not exaggerated the difference between his way of hunting and his mother’s. For Ysabeau it was primarily about filling a biological need. She needed blood, the animals had it, and she took it from them as efficiently as possible without feeling remorse that her survival required the death of another creature. For her son, however, it was clearly more complicated. He, too, needed the physical nourishment that their blood provided. But Matthew felt a kinship with his prey that reminded me of the tone of respect I’d detected in his articles about the wolves. For Matthew, hunting was primarily about strategy, about pitting his feral intelligence against something that thought and sensed the world as he did.

Remembering our play in bed that morning, my eyes closed against a sudden jolt of desire. I wanted him as badly here in the forest when he was about to kill something as I had this morning, and I began to understand what worried Matthew about hunting with me. Survival and sexuality were linked in ways I’d never appreciated until now.

He exhaled softly and left my side without warning, his body prowling through the edges of the forest. When Matthew loped across the ridge, the stag raised his head, curious to see what this strange creature was.

It took the stag only a few seconds to assess Matthew as a threat, which was longer than it would have taken me. My hair was standing on end, and I felt the same pull of concern for the stag that I had for Ysabeau’s deer. The stag sprang into action, leaping down the hillside. But Matthew was faster, and he cut the animal off before it could get too close to where I was hiding. He chased it up the hill and back across the ridge. With every step, Matthew drew closer and the stag became more anxious.

I know that you’re afraid,
I said silently, hoping the stag could hear me.
He needs to do this. He doesn’t do this for sport, or to harm you. He does it to stay alive.

Rakasa’s head swung around, and she eyed me nervously. I reached down to reassure her and kept my hand on her neck.

Be still,
I urged the stag.
Stop running. Not even you are fast enough to outrun this creature.
The stag slowed, stumbling over a hole in the ground. He was running straight for me, as if he could hear my voice and was following it to its source.

Matthew reached and grabbed the stag’s horns, twisting his head to one side. The stag fell on his back, his sides heaving with exertion. Matthew sank to his knees, holding its head securely, about twenty feet from the thicket. The stag tried to kick his way to his feet.

Let go,
I said sadly.
It’s time. This is the creature who will end your life.

The stag gave a final kick of frustration and fear and then quieted. Matthew stared deep into the eyes of his prey, as if waiting for permission to finish the job, then moved so swiftly that there was nothing more than a blur of black and white as he battened onto the stag’s neck.

As he fed, the stag’s life seeped away and a surge of energy entered Matthew. There was a clean tang of iron in the air, though no drops of blood fell. When the stag’s life force was gone, Matthew remained still, kneeling quietly next to the carcass with his head bowed.

I kicked Rakasa into a walk. Matthew’s back stiffened at my approach. He looked up, his eyes pale gray-green and bright with satisfaction. Taking the crop out of my boot, I threw it as far as I could in the opposite direction. It sailed into the underbrush and became hopelessly entangled in the gorse. Matthew watched with interest, but the danger that he might mistake me for a doe had clearly passed.

Deliberately I took off my helmet and dismounted with my back turned. Even now I trusted him, though he didn’t trust himself. Resting my hand lightly on his shoulder, I dropped to my knees and put the helmet down near the stag’s staring eyes.

“I like the way you hunt better than the way Ysabeau does it. So does the deer, I think.”

“How does my mother kill, that it is so different from me?” Matthew’s French accent was stronger, and his voice sounded even more fluid and hypnotic than usual. He smelled different, too.

“She hunts out of biological need,” I said simply. “You hunt because it makes you feel wholly alive. And you two reached an agreement.” I motioned at the stag. “He was at peace, I think, in the end.”

Matthew looked at me intently, snow turning to ice on my skin as he stared. “Were you talking to this stag as you talk to Balthasar and Rakasa?”

“I didn’t interfere, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said hastily. “The kill was yours.” Maybe such things mattered to vampires.

Matthew shuddered. “I don’t keep score.” He dragged his eyes from the stag and rose to his feet in one of those smooth movements that marked him unmistakably as a vampire. A long, slender hand reached down. “Come. You’re cold kneeling on the ground.”

I placed my hand in his and stood, wondering who would get rid of the stag’s carcass. Some combination of Georges and Marthe would be involved. Rakasa was contentedly eating grass, unconcerned by the dead animal lying so close. Unaccountably, I was ravenous.

Rakasa,
I called silently. She looked up and walked over.

“Do you mind if I eat?” I asked hesitantly, unsure what Matthew’s reaction would be.

His mouth twitched. “No. Given what you’ve seen today, the least I can do is watch you have a sandwich.”

“There’s no difference, Matthew.” I undid the buckle on Rakasa’s saddlebag and said a silent word of thanks. Marthe, bless her, had packed cheese sandwiches. The worst of my hunger checked, I brushed the crumbs from my hands.

Matthew was watching me like a hawk. “Do you mind?” he asked quietly.

“Mind what?” I’d already told him I didn’t mind about the deer.

“Blanca and Lucas. That I was married and had a child once, so long ago.”

I was jealous of Blanca, but Matthew wouldn’t understand how or why. I gathered my thoughts and emotions and tried to sort them into something that was both true and would make sense to him.

“I don’t mind one moment of love that you’ve shared with any creature, living or dead,” I said emphatically, “so long as you want to be with me right at this moment.”

“Just at this moment?” he asked, his eyebrow arching up into a question mark.

“This is the only moment that matters.” It all seemed so simple. “No one who has lived as long as you have comes without a past, Matthew. You weren’t a monk, and I don’t expect you to have no regrets about who you’ve lost along the way. How could you not have been loved before, when I love you so much?”

Matthew gathered me to his heart. I went eagerly, glad that the day’s hunting had not ended in disaster and that his anger was fading. It still smoldered—it was evident in a lingering tightness in his face and shoulders—but it no longer threatened to engulf us. He cupped my chin in his long fingers and tilted my face up to his.

“Would you mind very much if I kissed you?” Matthew glanced away for a moment when he asked.

“Of course not.” I stood on tiptoes so that my mouth was closer to his. Still, he hesitated, so I reached up and clasped my hands behind his neck. “Don’t be idiotic. Kiss me.”

He did, briefly but firmly. The final traces of blood were still on his lips, but it was neither frightening nor unpleasant. It was just Matthew.

“You know there won’t be any children between us,” he said while he held me close, our faces nearly touching. “Vampires can’t father children the traditional way. Do you mind that?”

“There’s more than one way to make a child.” Children were not something I’d thought about before. “Ysabeau made you, and you belong to her no less than Lucas belonged to you and Blanca. And there are a lot of children in the world who don’t have parents.” I remembered the moment when Sarah and Em told me mine were gone and never coming back. “We could take them in—a whole coven of them, if we wanted to.”