Hunter's Moon (22 page)

Of course I went after her. I didn't even think about it. I knew that if Verakina was reacting like that, it could only mean one thing: that the Prince we both loved, each in our own way, was in the gravest danger. And Verakina's keen nose, so much keener in her animal than her human shape, had smelt where the threat was. Dalmatin Mansion, my family home. Lucian must have been captured, most likely trying to save Master Kinberg, who Belladonna had told me would be tortured.

It didn't matter to me that I, too, was in the gravest danger. It didn't matter that the whole of Lepmest might see a dishevelled girl, with a face that looked strangely familiar, running like a hare not from a wolf, but towards one. The time for hiding and secrecy was over. No more plans. Just action.

We reached Moonlight Boulevard. Our house was halfway down. I ran up the steps and pounded on the door with all my might, while Verakina stayed close by me.

The door opened. And there stood Drago. Our eyes met. He went white, as white as the bandage around his head, as white as the pillars at the door.

‘Yes, it is me, returned from the dead, from the two deaths your mistress sought for me,' I said, bitterly, pushing past him, as he seemed incapable of movement or speech. ‘You will take me to where they have Lucian. Now.'

He was still staring at me, not moving.

‘I'm not afraid of her anymore. I have powerful allies now. Verakina!'

She growled, deep in her throat, her eyes glowing like emeralds. Her fur was on end, and she looked somehow bigger than she had only minutes before. Drago took an involuntary step backwards.

‘She will rip you to shreds in an instant,' I warned. ‘I only have to say one word.' I did not know if Verakina would really do that but she looked mightily impressive and Drago clearly did not look as if he was about to question what I had claimed. There was something different about him, I thought, something shrunken, something that I might have said was fear. I guessed that Belladonna would not have forgiven his betrayal, but may have continued using him because it suited her. He must know that he was living on borrowed time.

‘If you bring me in, think how grateful she'll be,' I added.

He gave me a strange look then. Was it pity? Or relief? I did not know. ‘As you wish,' he said, tonelessly. ‘Follow me.'

How strange it was, to be back in my own home, yet to feel as though I was in enemy territory! But I did not waste much time on these feelings, for all I could think of was how I was going to save Lucian. It was all very well to
declare that I wasn't afraid of Belladonna. But that wasn't the same as knowing what to do.

We came to the room that had once been my father's study. The door was closed, but now that we were closer, I could hear confused noises going on behind it. A murmur of eager voices and a low snarl of pain. Drago looked at me.

‘Take me in. At once.'

He shrugged. Knocked. No answer. He knocked again.

‘What is it?' Belladonna called angrily. ‘I said we were not to be disturbed!'

‘My lady,' Drago began, ‘this is urgent. Most urgent …'

‘Tell her,' I hissed. ‘Tell her it's me!'

‘Lady … Your stepdaughter, my lady. She is here. With a … with a creature.'

The door was flung open. Belladonna stood there. I could not help recoiling, for she looked terrifying, her beautiful face twisted into a mask of fury and, dear God, a splash of blood on her cheek and a thin-bladed dagger in her hands.

‘Why, it really
is
you. You little fool,' she said, and smiled. She looked down at Verakina. ‘And I see you've brought a little friend,' she added. ‘Quite a party. Do come in and join us.' When Drago made as if to leave, she hissed, ‘And you too, my dear loyal servant. You come in, too.' She stepped aside, ushering us in, and then closed the door behind us.

For an instant, I could see hardly anything. The heavy curtains were drawn and the room was very dark, except for a faint light burning in a corner. I could just make out vague shapes – including the only one that mattered to me, the twisted shape of a man lying very still, huddled on the floor, face down. Beside me, Verakina howled, and tried
to make straight for him; but Belladonna moved swiftly, touching her just briefly, and Verakina froze, turning as still as a statue. I knew that if I made one step towards the Prince, Belladonna would do the same to me. And I knew already what that meant. So instead, I stayed by the door.

Trying to keep my voice steady, I said, ‘Let him go.'

‘How touching,' said Belladonna. ‘A life for a life, is that it? Let him go and I can have your life instead? The classic bargain. Always works in stories. You think that this is just a story? Is that what you think?'

‘I'm not here to duel in words,' I said, ‘and I'm not offering you my life, either. I'm offering you
yours
. I'm offering this to you, once and once only: leave this room, leave this house, leave this city, right now, and never return. That is the only way you can save yourself.'

I heard an indrawn breath. Drago's? But it might as well have been mine, for I'd stunned myself as well – I had no idea where these rash words had come from.

Belladonna was silent for a heartbeat, then she laughed softly and said, ‘Well, you have courage, I'll give you that. And if I don't accept this bargain of yours?'

‘Then you will die,' I said.

‘Really? Is that so?' She came closer to me, and I smelt the strange, sweetish odour of her breath. The smell of cruel magic. It came off her in waves, and I felt as though it were seeking me out, curling into my mind, my body, my whole being like tendrils of evil smoke.

‘It is,' I said, trying to stay calm. ‘Let Lucian go. Leave this place and never return, or you will die.'

She laughed again. ‘Poor little fool,' she whispered. ‘I think it's time to end this charade.' And then, quite
suddenly, she turned up the lamp, so that soon the room was bright as day.

For a moment I was too dazzled to take anything in. Then, as my vision returned, my attention was drawn away from the huddled shape lying on the ground and to across the room, when I saw a man fling his arms up to shield his face against the bright light. It made no sense, no sense at all …

‘Lucian,' I whispered. ‘Lucian, I don't understand. Why are you …'

But I could not finish. I looked from the handsome face of Lucian Montresor to the unconscious man huddled on the floor, and the dreadful beginning of knowledge plonked down in my belly like a stone. I had been wrong. So wrong. So terribly, stupidly, horribly wrong, and the pain of it seared through me.

‘Surprised, Bianca?' said Belladonna. ‘I thought you might be. You are such a trusting fool. A handsome face, a sad story, and you fall for it hook, line and sinker. Lucian's been working for me for quite some time now. Even before the ball. How would he have been able to come to the ball, when it was the time of hunter's moon, if someone had not given him a powerful spell to suppress his wolf side?'

With a shock, I remembered seeing Belladonna talking to Lucian the night of the ball. In my innocence, I'd thought she'd been warning him off. Instead, she'd been briefing her spy …

‘I had no choice,' he burst out, his eyes not on her but on me. ‘No choice! You must understand.'

‘Oh, she won't, Lucian,' said my stepmother, with a mocking smile. ‘That kind never does.'

‘I was forced to do it, Bianca,' he burst out. ‘I tried to warn you. I didn't want you to be hurt. I tried to tell you to leave Lepmest, but you wouldn't listen …'

‘Touching. But I don't think her heart will be touched, Lucian. Because she doesn't care what you say. The scales have dropped from her eyes.'

She was right. Oh, so right. I saw him for what he was, now. A coward, an informer. It was Lucian who had warned Belladonna that her underground house of horrors had been discovered. Lucian who had told her who Master Kinberg was. Lucian who had betrayed me at every step. And worse: for he had most likely actively participated in Belladonna's crimes, I thought, remembering the beggars' tale of the brown-haired, brown-eyed man who had lured them into the trap. Once again I had been fooled. Once again I had thought I had loved someone – only to turn back around and realise that the person I loved had never been there.

He whispered, ‘If you only knew what it's like – being cursed … Living with that thing gnawing inside you … When somebody offers you a cure – when you learn that it is possible and that you can be made whole again – then you will do anything –
anything
– to keep that blessed state safe. You would. Anyone would.'

So that was how she'd done it. That was how she'd bound him to her. A cure. The curse lifted. He had paid for his cure with the lives of others. He would always be in her debt, because he would always want to stay human, always want to keep the curse at bay. And he would be her most faithful servant, because he wanted what only she could give him. It was pitiful. It was disgusting.

‘It must have been very annoying for you that I didn't do as I was told,' I said. ‘That I didn't stay put, that you had to chase me all over town.' The voice that left me sounded strong and spiteful, but inside my heart was breaking at having found that my trust was once again misplaced.

He went red. ‘No! You don't understand! I hoped that you might … that you might become properly afraid. That you might run. Far away. Yes, I was working for Lady Dalmatin, but I tried to keep you out of danger! I came to the station because I heard the City Police had spotted you! I told them about Master Kinberg but not about the safe house! And at my apartment … Don't you remember? I told you to leave, but you wouldn't! I couldn't understand why you wouldn't!'

‘Because she's got what you've never had, my dear Lucian,' said Belladonna. ‘She has courage. Not that it will do her any good, of course.'

I turned away from them. I did not care anymore what either of them said. I had trusted them both, once. And they had both betrayed me. But the worst of it was that it was I who had been the real traitor. The real destroyer. The stupid fool whose selfish arrogance and prejudice had blinded her to the truth. The truth about my real protector, the real Prince, who had paid the ultimate price for my blind folly.

Dropping to my knees beside the still figure on the floor, I touched his shoulder, gently, through the thick black serge of his Secret Police uniform. He did not move. I whispered, ‘I'm sorry … I'm so sorry …' The stone in my belly was turning to molten lead now, but my head was spinning so much I thought I might faint. ‘Oh, Prince of Outlaws, I'm so sorry …'

Belladonna sneered. ‘Prince of Outlaws, indeed! Did your so-called Prince ever tell you the truth? He has been one of the Special Police's most zealous hunters, an obedient, unquestioning, ruthless servant of the State, delivering scores of people to their deaths – even one or two who later turned out to be innocent.' She saw my expression, and smiled. ‘No, I didn't think so. He wouldn't tell you that. He'd want you to think he was a shining hero when all along, that ridiculous crusade to save the dregs of society was just a feeble attempt to salve his pathetic conscience.'

At the haven, when I'd asked him how he'd found those documents, he'd told me that he knew how to find things. And he'd said that if I ever knew the truth about him, I would recoil from him. I'd imagined his secret to be something quite other than this, but now I knew what it was, I could not stop the feeling that I'd had since the moment I met him in the haven. I realised with sharp relief that I had never loved Lucian. At the ball, I had
wanted
to love Lucian; I had liked the idea of being in love. When I saw him back in Lepmest, I had never felt love for him. It had been the Prince who I had loved. He was kind. He was courageous. I didn't care about what he had done in another life. I loved the man he had become.

‘It doesn't matter,' I said, very softly, those words only for him. ‘It doesn't alter what I feel.' My heart clenched with the terrible pain of knowing it was all too late. ‘You might have served the State,' I whispered, ‘but you never sold your soul. Never.'

Belladonna laughed. ‘A soul! What is it but a shield for the weak. A miserable consolation for the defeated. A thing that can be used and twisted at will.'

‘Of course you would think that,' I said to her. ‘Mock as you will, but I know the truth. I know about the crimes you have committed and the people you have murdered. I know about your boundless corruption and your treasonous plans to overthrow the Duke.' I saw Lucian's face clench in shock at those last words, but Drago's stayed expressionless. He knew all those things; Lucian must have only blindly followed. ‘And I also know that you are not even human, but –'

‘You are tiresome, and this has gone on quite long enough,' said Belladonna, and she touched me on the shoulder. At once I felt my throat begin to seize up and my limbs clench, but this time I knew what was to come, and I pitted all the desperate strength of my mind, all the fury of my grief and determination, against the force of her magic. I fought hard but was losing the fight – when all at once I saw the Prince's right hand fluttering, very slightly. Reaching over, I clasped his hand, and this time I
felt
the movement, slight, but there, most definitely there. He was still alive! An astonishing feeling flooded through my whole being, rushing through my veins, my heart and my mind, dissolving Belladonna's paralysing spell like the sun's rays on ice.

I knelt there, triumphant that I had the strength to fight Belladonna's spell, but my triumph was short-lived for a moment later, something hard and heavy came down on the back of my neck.

A shattering pain exploded in my skull and I fell into darkness.