He didn't catch food very often. Every time he drank it reminded him of what he was.
He was starving when he finally came to the Three Rivers.
He didn't see the little girl out picking spring greens until he was on top of her. He burst out of a pile of brush, panting with thirst like a wounded deer-and there she was, looking up at him. And then everything went dark for a while.
When he came to himself, he stopped drinking. He needed the food, he would die in terrible agony without it-but he dropped the girl and ran. Hana's people found him a little while later.
And they did exactly what he'd expected any tribe to do-they saw that he was an abomination and brandished spears at him. He expected them to kill him at any minute. He didn't realize yet-and neither did they-that a creature like him took some killing.
And then he saw Hana.
Chapter 10
The first sight of her broke through his animal state and gave him enough mind to stand up like a man.
She reminded him of Hellewise. She had that same look of tender courage, that same ageless wisdom in her eyes. Any woman could be pretty by virtue of regular features. But Hana was beautiful because her soul showed in her face.
Seeing her made him ashamed. Seeing her defend him, intercede on his behalf as she was so obviously doing, made him angry.
He resisted when she sneaked him out of the cave and tried to send him back into the world. Didn't she understand? It was best for him to die. As long as he was loose, no child, no woman, no man was safe.
Even as he stood there in the moonlight with her, he was trembling with need. The bloodlust was trying to unbalance his mind, and it was all he could do not to grab her and bite into her soft throat.
When she offered him her throat, he almost cried. It wasn't a sacrifice to turn her down and walk away.
It was the only right thing to do, the only thing he could do.
And then the hunters came.
His mind was unbalanced by the torture. It was that simple. Not that it was an excuse, there was no excuse for what followed. But during the endless time while Hana's clan burned and stabbed and beat him, he lost all contact with the person he thought of as himself. He became an animal, as mindless as the mob that was trying to kill him.
As an animal, he wanted two things: to survive and to strike out at the people who were hurting him.
And there was a way to do both.
Throats. White throats, spurting dark blood. The image came to him slowly in his haze of pain. He didn't have to lie here and take this. He was wounded, but there was still a granite core of strength inside him.
He could fight back, and his enemies would give him life.
The next time a spear jabbed at him, he grabbed it and pulled.
It belonged to the broad-shouldered hunter, the one who'd led the others to him. Thierry grabbed the man as he stumbled forward, wrestling him to the ground. And then, before anyone in the crowd had time to react, he darted for the hunter's throat, for the big vein that pulsed just under the skin.
It was all over in a minute. He was drinking deep, deep, and gaining strength with every swallow. The dam of the Three Rivers was staring at him in paralyzed shock.
It felt good.
He tossed the dead man aside and reached for another.
When several hunters came at him at once, he knocked them apart and killed them, one, two, three. He was a very efficient killer. The blood made him supernaturally strong and fast, and the bloodlust gave him motivation. He was like a wolf set loose in a herd of antelope-except that for a long time nobody in the clan had the sense to run. They kept coming at him, trying to stop him, and he kept killing.
It was a slaughter. He killed them all.
He was drunk with blood and he gloried in it, in the animal simplicity of it, the power it gave him. Killing was glory. Killing to eat, killing for revenge. Destroying the people who hurt him. He didn't ever want to stop.
He was drinking the last drops from the veins of a young girl when he looked down and saw it was Hana.
Her clear gray eyes were wide open, but the light in them was beginning to go dark.
He'd killed her.
In one blinding instant he wasn't an animal anymore. He was a person. And he was looking down at the one person who had tried to help him, who had offered him her blood to keep him alive.
He raised his eyes and saw the devastation he'd left in the cave. It wasn't just this girl. He'd murdered 'most of her tribe.
That was when he knew the truth. He was damned. Worse than Maya. He'd committed a crime so monstrous that he could never be forgiven, never be redeemed. He had joined evil in the end, just as Maya had promised he would.
No punishment could be too great for him-but then, no punishment would make the slightest difference anyway, not to these people or to the dying girl in his arms.
For just an instant some part of him pushed away at the feelings of guilt and horror. All right, you're evil, it said. You might as well go ahead and be evil. Enjoy it. Have no regrets. It's your nature, now. Give in.
Then the girl in his arms stirred.
She was still conscious, although barely. Her eyes were still open. She was looking up at him....
In that moment, Thierry felt a shock that was different from anything he'd ever felt before.
In those large gray eyes, in the pupils which were hugely dilated as if to catch every last ray of light before death, he saw... himself.
Himself and the girl, walking together, hand in hand through the ages. Joined. Shifting scenes behind them, different places, different times. But always the two of them, tied with an invisible bond.
He recognized her. It was almost as if all those different ages had already happened, as if he were only remembering them. But he knew they were in the future. He was looking down the corridor of time, seeing what should have been.