Sunset thundered down the path to the cliffs, covering in minutes what it would take someone afoot a half hour to cross. His vision was narrowed to the path ahead, and filmed with scarlet. Sunset was tiring, slowing, but it didn't matter, for he saw du Mond ahead of him now, dragging Rose. Her clothing was torn and her face scratched, but she was kicking and fighting and screaming at the top of her lungs.
He might have been able to control himself, if it had not been for the sheer terror in her screams.
That sent him over the edge-and over Sunset's neck as the horse pulled up in startlement. He leapt upon du Mond like a wolf leaping for a rabbit, claws extended, and nothing in his mind or his soul but the need to destroy.
He caught a glimpse of du Mond's face as they both went down-which did not even show that the man registered his presence. Then they were grappling together.
Du Mond's strength was prodigious, far greater than the man should ever have commanded on his own. He managed to hold the wolf off for a few moments; long enough for him to realize, in whatever drug-fogged world he was in, that he was in trouble. He wrenched briefly away, and stumbled over Rose as she lay prone, stunned, where he had dropped her.
He still might have been able to save himself, if he had simply fallen flat and unresisting. Instead, he drew a knife, and tried to grab for Rose again, perhaps with the vague notion of using her as a shield.
He never got any farther than the motion.
With a growl that clawed its way out of his throat, Jason leapt for him again, swatting the knife out of his hands-
At that point, everything faded into a scarlet haze.?
He came to himself a moment later, with a strange, sweet, warm, metallic taste in his mouth. His claws held du Mond's shoulders to the ground; beneath him, the body quivered as the last vestige of life passed from it. Du Mond's head was flung back, and in his eyes was a look of sheer horror. Du Mond's throat was a red ruin.
With a shock, Jason recognized the taste in his mouth as blood. Fresh blood.
Du Mond's blood.
He had ripped out du Mond's throat with his bare fangs.
With an inarticulate cry, he shoved himself to his feet, and staggered back clumsily a pace or two.
A sound that was part sob, part wail of fear, and part gasp made him lurch about-
-meeting the horrified gaze of Rose.
The beast had won-and she had witnessed it all.
No-no!
He gave a howl of anguish, and ran, not knowing where he was going, and not caring, so long as it took him away, far away, from those fearful, accusing eyes.
Rose didn't remember how she came to be halfway up the path to the house, with the rags of her blouse gathered about her in one hand, the reins of Sunset's bridle in the other, and her hair straggling about her face. She only knew that at one moment she was staring into the eyes of a creature she had thought she knew-a creature with the blood of a man on its hands and fangs, which stared back at her with no sign of recognition in its face. She had been fighting for her life at one moment, and at the next had watched the man she loved tearing out the throat of her attacker.
Literally.
I'm in shock, she thought, dimly. I must get back to the house-
But he had run off, howling, in that same direction. What if he was lying in wait for her, his blood-lust unappeased by his first victim?
This is Jason you're thinking about!
But it had not been Jason who had looked at her with the uncomprehending eyes of a beast. It had been the werewolf, the loup-garou, and she did not know it at all.
Sunset walked along beside her in utter exhaustion, head down, sides heaving, streaming sweat. She dimly
