My breath caught. So this was what Montgomery had been so afraid of. The guns, the worried glances into the jungle. He and Father were frightened of these creatures.
The blond man looked directly toward my hiding spot. His companion snorted and began to speak, but the small one silenced him with a paw on his arm. He stared at me like a hunter, nose flaring, eyes narrowed. And then he grabbed the black-haired man’s jacket and pulled him sharply away into the trees. In a second, all trace of them had vanished.
It was some time before I could think clearly again. Dusk had fallen and the forest was shrouded with haze. The men might have looped back and be stalking me even now. If they were there, watching, waiting, there wasn’t anything I could do about it but keep moving. Shakily, I made my way to the stream. Finding a safe place to spend the night seemed impossible.
As I followed the stream deeper into the island, I heard the sound of falling water. A clearing opened ahead. Moonlight reflected on a waterfall tumbling into a deep pool. After I’d spent so long in the dark tunnel of the trees, the moonlight shone with a silver tint that made everything dreamlike. There was something odd about the waterfall, something extra luminous, as though it glowed from within. A rocky bank hugged the falls, and I carefully climbed it, feet slipping on the slick rocks. The roar of the water was deafening. I made it to an outcropping, balancing unsteadily on the pitched rock.
There was a gap behind the falls, just wide enough for a person to slip through. I peered inside. The red glow of flames met me.
“Is that . . . fire?” I muttered. But two hands thrust from behind the waterfall, grabbed my shoulders, and pulled me through the screen of water.
Twenty-one
SPUTTERING, I FOUGHT MY attacker, but the rush of water blinded me. Then the water was gone, and I was in a shallow cave lit by a small fire.
“Edward!” I said. A gash ran up the side of his shirt and blood stained the knees of his trousers, but, even weary and spent, I threw my arms around him, not thinking, just needing to feel that he was real.
“I was afraid it had gotten you,” I said.
“I’m faster than that.”
My fingers curled around his dirty shirt, pulling at the fabric. I wished I could express how relieved I was to feel his arms around me.
His fingers found my waist, inching me closer, and for a moment I didn’t think about impropriety. The rules of society couldn’t reach us here beyond the falls. I pulled back to ask if he was all right, but the breathless desire written on his face stole my words. Before I could put together a coherent thought, he kissed me.
His lips were cold like in my dream. I was stunned, barely able to think as his hands pulled tighter on my waist. And then as quick as he’d kissed me, I pushed away and stumbled to the other side of the cave.
I’d felt a shiver from the touch of his lips that I hadn’t expected. A surprisingly welcome one.
“Juliet—” he said, half filled with apology, half with lingering desire. “I’m sorry. I thought—”
“Don’t say anything else,” I said. The rushing water was deafening. “Just forget it happened.”
He paced, somewhat frantically, as though he wanted to come closer but knew he shouldn’t. “I don’t want to forget.”
“Edward, please . . .” I slumped against the cold stone, eyes closed. Water had seeped into the inner layers of my clothes, giving me a rash of gooseflesh.
He stopped pacing. “It’s Montgomery, isn’t it? You like him.” The fire sent sparks dancing in his gold-flecked eyes as he waited for me to deny it, but I didn’t. I didn’t know how I felt about any of this. I needed time to think, to analyze. . . .
“You said he used to be your servant,” Edward interrupted my thoughts. “That there was nothing between you.”
“There isn’t. Not yet. God, I don’t know.”
Edward raised his voice above the roaring water. “He was in the laboratory, wasn’t he? Helping create those aberrations. He’s as bad as your father, Juliet! How can you love him?”
“I never said I loved him!”
My pulse quickened with all the boiling arguments forming in my head, but then I paused. Something Edward said didn’t settle right. “How do you know what they were doing in the laboratory? You said you didn’t see.”
A wave of guilt washed over his face and I knew, in that look, he’d been lying. Embers from the fire littered the ground, disturbed by my struggling. He knelt to rebuild it, avoiding my gaze.
I watched him sweep the embers together, jerking his hands back to keep from being burned. “How long have you known?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.
He stood slowly, brushing his hands against his trousers. Firelight danced in his eyes. For a moment, we just looked at each other. He was gauging my reaction. Trying to decide how much to tell me.
“Since the Curitiba,” he said. “Since the first time Montgomery said the name Moreau.” He flexed his scarred knuckles nervously, starting to pace again. “My uncle was acquainted with one of the detectives at Scotland Yard who worked on that case. The King’s College Butchery, they called it. They kept it quiet, but they suspected your father was trying to stitch together animals to create something human—more or less. It used to give me nightmares as a boy. And when I saw Balthasar and the other islanders, I knew.” His eyes flashed. He was not just the naive young man everyone had first taken him for—but I’d known there was more to him. “Scotland Yard’s theory was right.”