Beauty in Spring (Beauty #1)(17)

A sob breaks from me. “But I have nowhere to go. This is my only home.”

Pain slashes across his face. “Then run to the village,” he tells me hoarsely. “I don’t care, as long as you’re anywhere but here. Because I never want you to step foot on this estate again—not as long as I live.”

Each word shatters my heart. With my hands flying to my mouth to muffle my agonized cry, I flee from him, blinded by tears. But this is my home, and every step so familiar that I make my way to my bedchamber in the northwest wing without any memory of getting there. With sobs ripping from my chest, I begin throwing clothes into my suitcase, but don’t even get it half full before I crumple to the floor, bawling helplessly.

Gideon gave me my freedom…then threw me away before I could make my choice. But I would have stayed. I would have stayed.

And he never gave me a chance to tell him.

I cry until I’m spent, then lie there shuddering on the floor, all of my strength gone and my body as limp as a rag doll’s.

I don’t know where I find the will to get up again. But it must be from the same place where I find the resolve to unpack all of the clothes in my suitcase and put them away in my wardrobe again. And it must be where I find the steel that stiffens my spine and lifts my chin, and sends me in search of Gideon.

Because I am staying.

And if he doesn’t believe it today, then he will fifty years from now, when I’m still right here.

In bare feet, I cross the grand hall and climb the stairs to the southeast tower. He’s not there. Wishing I had a golden chain to follow, I head back downstairs and slip through the corridor to the family wing. In the parlor, everything is quiet.

Except for the low groan that faintly sounds from farther within the wing—from the direction of Gideon’s bedchamber.

Heart pounding, I make my way to that room. The lamps are off and the curtains pulled, but orange light spills through the broken doorway to the solarium. Beyond those glass walls, the setting sun is but a sliver of light leaving behind a blood-red sky.

“Cora? God, no. Cora.” So guttural and thick, Gideon’s voice is almost unrecognizable. “Run.”

I did that last time. This time I go to him, to where he’s crouched beside his bed, his shoulders hunched and his bare skin bathed in the sunset’s flaming light.

“Gideon? What are you—” I stop dead, shock rooting me to the spot. He’s been chained to the bed, but not with a thin golden chain. Instead it appears as if the heavy rusted chain from the manor’s main gate has been padlocked around his waist. “Oh my god. Let me get you out! Who did this?”

“I did this.” A warning growl rumbles from him, and he catches my frantic hands, stopping me from pulling at the chain wound around the solid oak frame. His intense green eyes demand my full attention. “I knew you must still be here, because I was not… You have to run, Cora. Through the solarium and outside, as fast as you can. You have to make it past the gates before the sun sets, because that’s when the full moon will rise.”

Determinedly I shake my head. I have no idea what’s happening here, but I am not abandoning him to this, whatever it is. Because suddenly I remember his terrible gift, the one where he left Blackwood Manor to me…because something might happen to him. “I’m not leaving you behind. So tell me where the padlock key is.”

“Cora. My beautiful Cora.” Stark agony draws his features into a bleak wasteland. “This chain will not hold me. It might slow me but a minute.”

“But—”

His gaze darts toward the solarium. Anguish whitens his lips, rasps through his voice. “It’s setting. Swear to me you’ll run and you won’t look back. Swear to me.”

“I won’t swear.” Despair trembles through my voice. Whatever is about to happen, I can’t leave him here alone. He’s been alone for too long. “Where’s the key to the padlock? Please come with me. Please.”

Abruptly he curls forward, every muscle in his body straining. “Run,” he growls again. “RUN!”

That…was not his voice. That was not any man’s voice.

Fear suddenly pushes me back a step. I whisper uncertainly, “Gideon?”

“GO.” It seems ripped from him, torn from his chest with jagged claws. “DON’T…WATCH…”

But I do. God help me, I do.

Stumbling back, I trip over my own feet and crash to the floor, but don’t take my horrified gaze from the battle that seems to be taking place within Gideon’s powerful body, muscles bulging outward as if caught in an explosion barely contained by his skin. I scream as his bones crack, reaching for him—then scrambling back when his head jerks up, his attention drawn by the sound of my cry. Sharp teeth gleam from a distending jaw, thick fur sprouting over smooth tanned skin.

Ohmygod, ohmygod. I know what this is. And it can’t be real. Can’t be.

But the full moon is rising. And somehow this is really happening.

So I better do what he says and run as if my life depends on it.

Lurching to my feet, I race for the solarium—and stop, turning back for a last look. But it’s not Gideon in that bedchamber anymore. Instead the werewolf is slowly rising onto his hind feet…rising and rising, taller than Gideon, at least a foot and a half taller than anyone I’ve ever seen, gray fur stretched taut over a body thick with muscle. Too strong to be stopped by that chain.