Bisclavret

Chapter 7

The first time I wake, the marquise sits beside my bed, holding my right hand firmly in her own. She looks relieved when I turn my head toward her, but it's obvious she's been crying. I hear only a few words before sleep pulls me back under.

"...must live, my brave, beautiful girl..."

Live? Am I close to death?

My dreams are strange, feverish, filled with half-formed shapes and shadows. Wolves prowl through them, and I feel like I'm trapped in one of the baron's macabre paintings.

The next time I open my eyes, Livy is there. I try to speak to her, ask her why she looks so upset, but before I can, I'm dragged back beneath the tide of dreams.

When I blink my eyes open again, it's dark. Sweat slicks my skin, and I kick at the thin sheets to get them off me. My left arm is bound, bent at a ninety-degree angle, and swaddled in so many bandages that I can't move it. I'm wearing nothing but a thin cotton nightgown tangled up to my thighs. My legs look long and gangly against the sheets. I groan and stop moving when my arm begins to throb.

Well, I'm alive. That's something. And this time, I don't feel like I'm going to drop back into sleep immediately. Or was I actually fainting over and over again? How long have I been in and out of consciousness?

Soft light filters through the room, and I turn toward it. A wide bank of windows takes up most of the wall, revealing a nearly full moon rising over the clouds. It's beautiful. I study its pocked surface, trying to separate my mind from the heat and the pain like Lord Giroux taught me. At least I'm not in agony anymore. This is more like an inescapable, throbbing ache.

I might not be able to do anything about the pain, but a soft breeze rattles the windows, and if I could open them, I might be able to do something about the heat.

Get up, I tell myself, but it's easier said than done. My body doesn't seem to want to obey me, and I'm so weak that it takes me several minutes before I can sit up. Spots dance across my eyes, and my head swims. I have to pause at the edge of the bed, clutching at my injured arm while I pant.

Finally, I push to my feet, the dressing gown sliding down into place as I shuffle to the windows through the fog clouding my mind. I stand there staring at the latch like an idiot for a few moments.

Lift your good arm and open it, Belle. It's not that hard.

But it's not easy, either. I fumble at it for a solid minute in the dim light before I succeed, and the window swings open. The breeze rushes over me, and I lean into the cool night air, breathing deeply the smell of pine. The forest spreads out beyond my window, the trees painted black and silver by the moonlight. Somewhere far away, I think I hear a wolf howl.

I know I've had enough when one of my knees nearly gives out. Carefully, I turn back to the room. And freeze. There's a chair pulled up on the other side of my bed. How did I not notice it was there? That it isn't empty? A pair of eyes flash amber in the moonlight, and I suck in a breath through clenched teeth.

"I apologize," the figure says, his voice deep and cultured and completely unfamiliar.

I take a step back and nearly fall. The voice isn't the one I expected after seeing those orbs reflect. It isn't Lord Giroux.

The man sits forward. "I only woke when you opened the windows. Please, return to your bed."

His shadowy form unfolds from the chair like some great bird of prey taking to wing. I can just make out that he's turned away, giving me privacy, and I hastily stumble back to the bed in the night-washed world of grays, wishing I had my pistols on me. The adrenaline that floods my veins threatens to undo me, and I just make it to the mattress before I collapse. A groan slips through my parched lips as my injured arm is tweaked.