The Passion by Donna Boyd Read Free Book Online Page A

living warmth, of hard pale ash wood beneath her fingers.
     
    She raised it high— not a man —and plunged it deep.
    There . Splitting skin, crackling bone, tearing muscle.
    She felt the impact jar her shoulder muscles as her mark struck home— yes! the heart, surely the heart!
    — and she staggered backward, shocked by the force of it, as at almost the same moment his blue eyes flew open and his howl of rage and pain fil ed the room.
    Oh, it was a thing of horror, that cry; it seemed to pierce the very fabric of the sky and, spiraling downward, suck in al the coldness of space, echoing al the agony of misspent souls, breaking upon the confines of the suddenly smal chamber like shards of glass upon a marble floor. It chil ed Tessa's blood. It stopped the beat of her heart. And when she saw his eyes, sharp clear blue in the moonlight, dilated with pain, blurred with confusion, her breath stopped, too. Not a man, not a man …
    She took one more step backward, and then she was against the wal .
    He lunged naked from the bed into an upright position and, swaying a little on his feet, he grasped the handle of the knife that protruded from his chest and pul ed it out with a howl of pain. Blood sprayed in an arc with the movement, spattering Tessa's hair and face and white nightdress.
    She didn't blink. She didn't breathe. She knew she was going to die.
    He cursed at her and flung the bloody blade away.
    He tried to grab for her, missed, staggered. Half turning, as though to reach for the bel pul , he stumbled into a marble table and overturned it, sending pin-dishes, porcelains and candlesticks crashing down. He tried to catch himself against the curtains and brought them, bil owing and blood-splattered, to the floor.
    By this time there were distant sounds of alarm from belowstairs, as his first great roar of pain had been enough to wake the dead. He flung himself toward the door, a red wet fist pressed against the seeping wound in his chest and his face twisted with agony.
    He reached it, slamming home the bolt with the weight of al of his body just as a pounding began on the panel and the voice of his valet could be heard crying, "Monsieur! Monsieur, are you quite wel ?"
    "Leave me!" he commanded hoarsely. His mouth was close to the door, but the effort required to shout those two words was visible. He pushed away from the door, leaving a bloody streak upon the pale silk that covered it, and his eyes, dark with rage and pain, found her again.
    There was nothing beautiful about him now. His magnificent hair was tangled and damp with blood and sweat, his lips colorless, his fine features distorted. In his nakedness, smeared with blood and sheened with perspiration, he looked like a demon fresh-risen from hel . No vestiges of the Renaissance angel to which she had at first compared him remained, and she was glad—and she was terrified.
    "You cursed human trol op!" he swore through teeth clenched with pain. "You should die for this, you treacherous female viper. I should slice up your liver and serve it to dogs. I should—"
    He sucked in his breath against a spasm of pain. He pressed his fist tighter against the bleeding wound, squeezing his eyes closed, and caught himself against the wal as his knees began to buckle.
    Die, die, please die . She knew she hadn't the courage to even whisper the words, though they sounded so loud in her head she was afraid at first she had shouted them. But she had not spoken aloud, and he did not die.
    He lifted his head, eyes stil tightly closed, and parted his lips as though to better get his breath.
    The hand that was splayed against the wal for support tightened, then lost its strength and Tessa thought, Yes, die, please … But instead of him col apsing on the floor as she had expected the pain that twisted his face seemed to transform into an intense concentration, and then—yes, there was no mistake—to relax into one long, slow inhalation of quiet pleasure.
    The anguish that tightened