Worlds Apart (34 page)

She would have dashed right off,
but she didn’t know where her car was, and Will insisted on an
examination before she started running around. Tina protested that
Shandari would examine her, but Will only shrugged and said it
wasn’t his fault she had two doctors.

Tina slipped through the next hour
in a daze, focused on her injured lover in Kaarmanesh. She was
relieved when Will pronounced the baby in good condition. Sheriff
Ringstrom dropped by with her car, which he said had not been easy
to find even though the invisibility spell had broken when Damien
died. A few of Kasia’s ravens had come across it sometime
yesterday.

Feeling as if she was watching
herself from a distance, Tina drove to her house to shower and
change. As she pulled into her garage, the daze vanished with
dizzying suddenness, leaving her cold and terrified. She’d been
hiding in the daze, she realized, in a subconscious attempt to
separate herself from all that had happened.

When she closed the garage door,
she felt as if she was cutting off an escape path. Shaking, she
walked through the side door into her kitchen, her glance darting
in frantic fear to see everything at once. Why was she afraid?
Nothing had happened to her here. Had it?

She remembered that Damien had
been here, sharing that meal. Then she remembered Beowulf, and sank
to the floor, staring with bleak despair at his water dish in the
corner.

Her life had changed. Tina stared
at Beowulf’s dish and understood that she would discover more every
day, all the many ways in which her life had changed.

Her terror began to ease. Damien
was dead. Flashbacks were common in trauma victims; she needed to
stay aware of that. She would let Shandari know it was happening.
Her gaze moved to her arms and the healing cuts. The scars glared
back at her, half-healed and not quite painless. Her leg ached, as
if to chide her for walking around.

There was a downside to magical
healing, she realized. The half-healed wounds lulled her into
thinking the trauma had happened weeks ago. They made her think
that she should be further along in her emotional
recovery.

It had been just two days since
her rescue. She was still a wreck of fresh and violent emotions.
She very much wanted to feel Clive’s arms around her.

In the end, that’s what got her
moving. She hurried—a quick shower, fresh clothes. Pride forced her
to apply a touch of makeup, but she settled for just removing the
tangles from her hair and tucking it behind her ears. Unsure of how
long she would be in Kaarmanesh, she threw a few things into a bag.
She left her home without a single backward glance.

~~

As promised, Riff met Tina at
Sebastian Ruth’s house. In the forest, she learned of another way
she had changed.

She could see the
portal.

It rose from the forest floor,
appearing as ripples in the air. Tina narrowed her eyes at it, but
it didn’t change or disappear, so she shrugged and went through,
her hand on Riff’s arm. It didn’t feel any different.

Once in Kaarmanesh, her vision
seemed out of sorts, as if she was looking through polarized
lenses. She decided to ask Shandari about it, but when Riff brought
her to the Healing Center in Farendale, she didn’t
remember.

“Clive is in the garden,” Shandari
told her. “I insisted he walk around a bit, but he can’t wait to
see you.”

“
I can’t wait to see him.” Tina’s
heart beat faster.

“Take the left corridor through
there.” Shandari gestured to a set of glass double doors. “The
entrance to the garden is at the end of that corridor.”

Through the doors, Tina saw
sunlight brightening the corridor. She lifted a hand to shade her
eyes. Her shoes made no sound on the soft floor, making her feel as
if she was drifting through the glow. At the doorway, she paused
and let her eyes adjust.

The garden was lovely. She had no
doubt of that, although she did not even glance at it. She saw
nothing except the man sitting on a bench about thirty feet in
front of her. Clive’s back was to her. In front of him, a fountain
splashed and sent cascades of water through the air. With the sun
in her eyes, Clive appeared as a silhouette against the water. A
dark shimmer surrounded him, pulsing with the threatening yellow,
black, and blue colors of a bruise. She could just make out a
lighter blue that outlined the shimmering bruise.

This was something else to ask
Shandari about, but it could wait. She stepped into the garden and
walked silently toward Clive. As she neared, the bruise around him
faded, and she breathed out in relief, glad to see him free of the
ugly thing.

He heard her sigh, and stood,
balancing on a cane. He turned to face her, and all her medical
training did her no good at all. Like her, his injuries were being
healed in stages, and every visible part of him displayed bruises
or patched-up torn skin. She could see a slight indentation in his
throat where the silver wolf had crushed his windpipe. He didn’t
say anything, but his eyes were filled with love, desire, and
relief.

She couldn’t force any words past
the ache in her own throat, so she just reached for him. He dropped
the cane and pulled her to him. She slid her arms around his back,
and rested against him, complete at last.

That was something else that had
changed.

Tina felt Clive tremble with the
effort to stay upright, so she sank onto the bench with him, their
arms still around each other. She brushed a soft kiss on his lips,
wary of his injuries. He deepened the kiss, his tongue encouraging
her lips to open for him. Heat engulfed her and she lost track of
everything but his mouth, his heartbeat, his arms. And his hands,
which were not at all staying on her back.

She moaned, desperate with need.
He broke the kiss and sighed into her hair.

“Ah Tina, I’m so glad you’re
here.” His voice was low and hoarse, but his words were
clear.

She pulled back enough to see his
face, and traced a finger along a sealed, jagged cut on his cheek.
“Help me, Clive,” she said, and felt his hands tighten on her
shoulders.

“Anything,” he said.

“I want to be with you. But how do
I leave my whole life behind?” She remembered the terror at home
and her gaze drifted from Clive’s face as she turned inward to
consider it. “But I don’t know if I can live at home anymore. So
much has happened. I don’t think I’m the same person …”

She blinked as Clive cupped her
face in his hands and turned her gaze to him. The shimmering
darkness was back, but she stared into his eyes, seeing his love
for her in the golden depths.

“You are still the person you are,
Tina,” he said, his voice serious and gentle. “Don’t think that you
have to make these big decisions immediately. You are right about
so much happening to you.” His thumbs caressed her cheeks. “I am so
sorry to be the cause of it. I will help you through it, if you’ll
let me. I won’t make any demands of you. I only want you to know
that I love you. That I want you to be with me, that I want us to
raise our son together. But you must take whatever time you
need.”

“It will be some time before I can
learn to think clearly around you.” She stroked his back and leaned
forward to bring her lips close to his. “I lose all my good sense
when you’re near.”

His answering kiss brought her to
trembling surrender as fire coursed along her spine. She breathed
him in with the kiss, dizzy with the comforting scent of him. He
still touched her face, but now he moved one hand down to her
breast, lifting it with a firm squeeze.

She spoke without moving her lips
away from his. “When can you go home? I want to be alone with
you.”

He smiled and rested his forehead
against hers while he fondled her breast. “I don’t know. Maybe
they’ll let me go earlier, knowing a doctor will be with
me.”

She drew back and laughed with
him, relieved that her desire sank to a controllable notch. She
noticed the swirling darkness around him again, although the pretty
blue outline looked brighter. She squinted at it.

“Clive, what is that?”

“What?”

“This thing around you.” She
traced it with her finger. “It’s dark, and it pulses a
little.”

He took her hand and held it
against his chest. “You can see that? Have you always seen
it?”

Tina shook her head, bewildered.
“No. I never saw it until I came into this garden.”

“It’s my aura.” He let the words
fall between them, as if a death knell sounded.

She saw fear in his eyes, and she
turned a horrified gaze upon the darkness as understanding
dawned.

“That
…
thing
is the aura of a werewolf? It’s what everyone here
sees when they look at you?”

Clive nodded and loosened his grip
on her hand. He dropped his gaze to his lap, a mask of shame hiding
the joy of a moment ago.

This time it was she who cupped
hands around his face. She pulled upward, forcing him to look at
her. The emptiness in his eyes broke her heart. It also made her
angry.

“You expect me to walk away, don’t
you? Because for some reason, now I can see you for what you really
are?”

His head jerked in her hands as he
nodded. He closed his eyes.

“Bullshit,” she said, and he
opened his eyes to stare at her. “That’s not you, Clive. Maybe it
represents the werewolf, but it doesn’t represent you. You’ve
fought it all your life because you know it’s not what you are.”
Now that she had his attention, she let go of his face and pointed
at it, her finger tracing the outline. “The blue that surrounds it
is you, isn’t it, the you that existed before you were infected?
It’s still there because that’s who you are, Clive. It looks very
strong.”

“You don’t understand how it
works, Tina.” He shook his head. “What it means.”

“I suspect a lot of what you
people believe is based on centuries of prejudice.” She raised her
chin, her jaw tight. “I know you’re not a bad person, Clive. I’ve
seen how Kasia and Shandari feel about you. I saw all those people
in the forest who were determined to save you, people who know you
and like you. More than that, they respect you.”

He clenched his hands into fists
on his lap. “Yes, I believe you’re right about that. But Tina, you
have to understand what it will be like for you here, if you are
with me. You’ll be living under the weight of those centuries of
prejudice, just as I do, every day of my life. All those people
respect me, Tina. But none of them socialize with me in
public.”

“Not even Shandari? Or
Kasia?”

He shook his head.

“I will,” she said, lifting her
chin.

His laugh sounded bitter. “You
will be just as ostracized. Do you understand that there are many
places we can’t even go? Restaurants, theaters, certain
neighborhoods… werewolves are not welcome. We are restricted to our
own areas.”

“Even you, as a law
officer?”

“While on duty, I have access to
any place in Kaarmanesh, if it is necessary. Often, another officer
is sent rather than me. It makes things easier. And most of my work
is done in the Flatlands, where no one knows what I am. Although,”
his lips tightened as he glanced away from her, his face bleak,
“even that has been taken away in a recent ruling. The search for
Fontaine was the last time I was allowed in the Flatlands. I’m
restricted to desk duty from now on.”

“What? But what about me? What
about the baby?”

He touched the back of her hand,
tentative. She turned it and gripped his hand.

“Any involvement I have must be in
Kaarmanesh.”

Tina found it hard to breathe and
she stood with haste, to pace a few steps, gasping until her lungs
filled with air. When she turned back to Clive, he was holding his
cane as if ready to stand, concern etched on his face. She swiped
at the tears that covered her cheeks and sat to face him again,
taking his hand in hers. She had to touch him. She longed to give
him all the human love he’d been denied.

“We are trying to cure this
thing,” she said. “I think we’ll be successful, although I don’t
know how much time it will take.”

“If you do, perhaps things will
change. I don’t know.” He lifted her hand to his lips, then held it
against his cheek.

She put her arms around him and
rested her head on his shoulder, relieved when he returned her
embrace.

“I will be with you here,” she
said. “If that is the only way we can be together. But I can’t just
leave Green Roads. I have patients there.” She felt better thinking
of practical things. “I’ll probably spend a few days a week here,
working with Shandari. But I’ll need to spend time at home too.
Will and I may need to advertise for another doctor.”

A lump in her throat forced her
stop talking. Was she really thinking of never returning to Green
Roads?

“That is a decision for many weeks
from now, perhaps even months from now.” Clive rubbed her back. He
managed to sound soothing despite the rasp in his voice. “Don’t
think it about yet. Your plan sounds plausible. It will give you
time to adjust.”