Lair of the Lion

mother running for her life, her mouth open wide as she screamed for mercy. Her hair had been loosened from its long braid, and the wind whipped it behind her. He had seen his father, shimmering one moment as a man, the next a massive lion, easily running her down as if she were no more than a deer in the forest or a rabbit shaking before him.
    Nicolai always ran toward them in the dream, in a desperate attempt to stop the inevitable, just as he had in real life. A boy with tears streaming down his face—his parents, his life, already lost to him, a small knife gripped in his hand. It had been a pathetic weapon against such an enormous beast. But each time he closed his eyes, it happened again. He always did the same thing, always carried the same knife and always watched the lion leap upon his mother and kill her with one savage bite.
    His eyes burned, and his gut clenched in revulsion. Tonight he had stalked Isabella. At the last moment he had come to himself, hearing her call his name. Hearing her voice whisper words of love to him. Of forgiveness. Of understanding. He had allowed the beast in him to rise fully, to consume him as he fought off the wolves. That had never happened before. More and more, as his emotions deepened, intensified, his control slipped, and the beast ate away at the man. As it had consumed his father. A single sound of horror escaped his throat.
    "Don't, Nicolai," she pleaded softly. "Don't do this to yourself."
    It had taken years for his father to be seen by the people as the beast, but once that happened, it had quickly devoured him. The people had seen Nicolai as the beast since that terrible day in the courtyard when his father killed his mother and attempted to destroy him.
    "I nearly killed you." The admission was low, harsh, the truth. "It will happen, Isabella, if I don't send you away. I have no choice. It's for your own protection. You know that."
    "I know the lions refused to let me leave through the pass. I know I'm supposed to be with you." Isabella wrapped her arms around herself to keep from shaking. "It is the only thing I know for certain, Nicolai." She looked up at him with her big, innocent eyes.
    "You're the breath in my body, the warmth and joy in my heart. Wherever you sent me, I would wither and die. If not my body, at least my spirit. Better to have joy burning hot and bright, if only for a short time, than to die a long, endless death."
    His expression hardened, his eyes blazing with such intensity it seemed to pierce her heart until she felt actual pain. "The one thing I know with a certainty, Isabella, is that if you stay in this place with me, I will be the one to kill you."
    The words hung in the air between them, shimmering with a life of their own. Isabella felt ice-cold terror, even though she was submerged in hot water. She lifted her chin. "So be it." She said it softly, aching for him, wanting to comfort him, wanting the solace of his arms even as the certainty of her inevitable death terrified her.
    He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, leaving her in the water, in the darkness, in an unfamiliar room with nothing to guide her. Isabella put her head down on the pool's tiled edge and wept for both of them.
    Sarina immediately appeared and found Isabella with tears trailing down her cheeks.
    Appalled to hear that the young woman had gone out unescorted with Nicolai, clad only in her robe in the dead of night, Sarina clucked disapprovingly. Even so, her hands were gentle as she examined Isabella for bruises. She was silent, not asking a single question, as she attended the puncture wounds on Isabella's shoulders.
    "Did you see to Nicolai's wounds?" Isabella asked, catching the housekeeper's hand. "He fought off a pack of wolves." The hot water had taken the chill away, but she shivered all the same, remembering the terror of fleeing the hunting pack. Remembering the lion stalking her.
    "He refused to allow me to aid him." Sarina hung her head. "It is uncomfortable for both of us. He prefers to be alone." She dried Isabella and slipped her nightgown over her head.
    She then held out a fresh robe.

    "No one prefers to be alone, Sarina. I'll go with you, and we'll see to his wounds. He may need stitching." Isabella had to see him tonight. If she didn't, she feared for him, feared for herself. He broke her heart with his sad words.
    Sarina began to comb the tangles from Isabella's long hair. "He's in a foul mood. I didn't dare take him to task for