The Warlock's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

finality.
    “What does it matter?” he said. “You will still be gone.”
    “I prefer that you know it's not you I am denying.”
    “You cherish my immortal spirit, but not my mortal flesh. Is that what you're saying?”
    “Something of that sort.” Her face was colorless.
    “Then if we were mere disembodied vapor, we could make merry and passionate love until the cows wind their way homeward and trumpets play?”
    “I suppose. Yes.”
    His smile was wry. “You will forgive me, but it sounds as if something would be lacking.”
    “Very likely.”
    “But you have no means of being sure, never having sampled the alternative?” The tilt of his head was alert.
    A flush rose to mantle her cheekbones. “You mean— No, I've never made love to a man. Never.”
    “Then how in infernal blazes,” he said with compressed heat, “do you know it's lethal for your partner?”
    She made a gesture between anger and despair. “If it's evidence you want, go back and look at my mother's grave.”
    “What does her death, as tragic as it may have been, have to do with me?”   He braced his hands on his hips, a gesture that almost dislodged the cat on his shoulder. “Do I look frail? Do I seem at all likely to die of loving or being loved?”
    Her lips tightened. “You don't, no, but can you really want to put it to the test?”
    “There are many things I desire,” he said without hesitation, “but none more than this: that you would come to me willingly and seek pleasure in my arms.”
    Rising moisture glimmered in the darkness of her eyes. “I can't.”
    “Why?” he said with strain cracking his voice. “I cannot imagine even your mother died of a single night of passion.”
    Her eyes widened as her thoughts tumbled through her mind. Why had she never considered it? Because she thought of love in terms of forever, that was why. Yet, he was right. If forever was forbidden, what was wrong with one night, one chance, one brief plunge of the heart?
    “Listen to me, Carita , ma chère ,” he went on, his voice dropping to a new, richer register. “Love doesn't come with safeguards, nor does living. There is always risk, always the chance that this moment, this night will be the last. It's a part of the mystery, something you accept and forget. You do it, because otherwise you shut yourself into a cramped and miserable prison of your own making. And that, you may discover one day, is only another death, the death of everything that makes you unique and valuable.”
    “I'm not afraid for myself,” she answered steadily. “If it were only my own safety, I would take the risk and never look back.”
    “Commendable,” he said, “but also unbearably righteous. You cannot decide the fate of another person; you have no right. We each have to find our own joy, our own manner and time of loving. And dying.”
    “Yes, but what of the consequences?” she began.
    It was then that the shaft of light, dirty-yellow, sharp-edged, fell across the bars of the gate and onto the sidewalk. A querulous voice called out, “ Carita ? Is that you?”
    It was her aunt. Carita drew breath to answer. Before she could make a sound, Renfrey reached to place a finger across her lips. Taking her arm, he drew her deeper into the shadows. She went with him, unresisting, though her muscles were stiff and she could remember no decision to move.
    “ Carita ? Did you hear me? Come in, girl, and lock the gate behind you.”
    Close to her ear, Renfrey whispered, “She is afraid of you. Did you know it?”
    He was right; Carita could hear the wariness and the doubt that verged on distrust. How had she missed it before now?
    She could also hear, however, the age and the anger of unwanted dependence. It was sad beyond imagining.
    Now her aunt had discovered the dog. Her voice sharpened with anxiety even as it dropped to a croon. “What are you doing lying there like that, boy? What happened to my Bruno? Let me look at you.”
    The fear and concern in