It seemed impossible, ludicrous, that anything could be left within her to stir at his touch. The rage was gone, but there was still something that could respond to the feel of him, to his gentle caresses. The utter contradictions that were Luke Gévaudan, and that comprised her own feelings about him, had no more significance than a single fallen pine needle on the forest floor. Her trembling returned, and with it a rush of sheer sensuality.
Perhaps it was the sudden sense of helplessness that broke the spell between them, that cut through the pure sensation to strike at the forgotten core of logic. Joey stiffened suddenly, released her hold, and pushed Luke away, using her body to repel him as she had accepted him only a moment before. He did not struggle to hold her. As he fell back with a single graceless step, his face was as stunned as if he had been struck. Joey looked away.
Luke said nothing. He stood motionless as Joey felt her way to the door, blinded by confusion and wanting only one thing, one solution to the almost unendurable chaos of her emotions. Her hand found the doorknob and twisted it, she stumbled through the tiny room that served as an entryway and opened the door to freedom. Sunlight dazzled her eyes. She reached up instinctively to shield them, staring with incomprehension at the arch of blue sky, the brown and green edge of forest. Her feet carried her from the cabin. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know the fastest and most certain way home, all that mattered was to get away, away from Luke Gévaudan and her own madness.
She had nearly reached the lake shore before Luke caught up with her. Knowing he was there without benefit of sight or sound, Joey froze; he came up beside her silently and handed her a small rucksack. She took it as if she had no will of her own, numbly assessing the contents through the canvas. Clothing—her jacket, perhaps—and smaller objects that might have been food items. Joey hardly cared, she did not meet his eyes, nor did he force contact. When she shrugged into the light pack, he backed away, face turned aside, and melted into the trees like a ghost.
Joey did not waste time on thinking or analysis or questions. Giving herself to the sane reality of physical action, she let her feet find the way to the path skirting the lake and followed it with steady strides.
Only one thought broke through the blankness of her self-imposed indifference. There was still one unassailable reality in her life that hadn’t changed. She would find her parents, and no one—not even Luke Gévaudan—was going to stop her.
Drifting among the trees beside the path, Luke trailed Joey as she worked her way across his land. He sensed that she was lost to herself, much as he was, she did not notice when he used his subtle influence to turn her when she left the sometimes imperceptible trail. Always he watched to see that she came to no harm, though the mere sight of her was a pain almost too terrible to bear.
Before long the wolves came to join him, so silent in the forest that even he almost missed their coming. They flowed about him, weaving the patterns of their kind, keeping even greater quiet than was their wont because they sensed the presence of an outsider. They watched with him when Joey stopped to rest, dragged the food Luke had assembled for her out of the rucksack, and ate it with a listlessness that struck him to the heart. When she pulled herself to her feet and almost stumbled, only the wolves kept him from going to her.
It was late afternoon when Joey reached the outskirts of town. The wolves stopped before he did, wary of the haunts of man in daylight. Luke trailed farther on, until he saw Joey reach the manicured lawn of the lodge; even the people Joey passed did not see him. She seemed equally unaware of them as she took the steps up to the broad porch, leaning in utter weariness against the door before pushing it open and disappearing within.