The Passion (31 page)

she demanded suddenly. "Face your brother, tel him he was wrong about you. Apologize to the queen for your plot against her, ask her mercy.

Instead of skulking about here like a common—"

"Criminal?" He chuckled. "That's what I am. An outlaw, a renegade, banished forever from polite society and the Devoncroix reign. And I have no intention of apologizing to the queen, since I am not at al sorry and continue to plot against her."

Her heartbeat speeded up with that, and alarm tainted her breath. "They can smel you," she said,

"or hear you, the werewolves on the estate, and they'll want to know why you're here."

"Actual y, no," he replied, and with a note of apology in his tone so as not to make her seem too stupid.

"They have al departed for the Palais, and no one is left but humans. I shouldn't take such a chance otherwise. This is something I made certain of before I came to you."

"Why did you come to me?"

"Ah, a woman who knows how to keep to the point.

Not a common trait among your species."

They had reached a division in the rows and he glanced over at her. A gust of warm wind blew the brim of Tessa's hat back again and tossed the ruffle of her skirt. She squinted in the sun and straightened her hat brim, but when she started to take a step forward her skirt was caught on a supporting timber. She bent to release it, but Denis was swifter.

She jerked her hand back when her fingers brushed his and her eyes flashed surprise and quick fear.

Denis smiled, amused, and cocking his head a little as though requesting permission, he careful y lifted the little bit of lace from the splinter that had snared it.

But he did not straighten immediately. Holding the bit of petticoat between his fingers, he let the backs of his knuckles brush her cotton-stockinged ankle, then travel upward along the path of her Achil es tendon. He heard every muscle in her body contract with stiff shock, her heart lurch into motion, her breath catch with a stifled mewling sound. He let the skirt fal over his hand and encircled her calf with his fingers, stroking the trembling muscle and its flimsy cotton covering, smel ing her fear and her musk.

Thril and terror were one for her, and like a rabbit in the jaws of a predator, she was paralyzed by the thral of power.

Yet she whispered, heart pounding, blood surging, in a voice so smal it barely moved her lips: "Don't."

He stretched his fingers to the back of her knee, felt the heat and the faint dampness there, and stroked slowly downward between the two tendons. He heard the sound of her teeth pressing together, suppressing a gasp or a cry. He moved his hand farther upward until he touched the bare flesh of her thigh. He smel ed her sex, felt the muscles tremble.

Desire and terror. It was an intoxicating mix.

He removed his hand and her skirt fluttered out one last breath of sexual sweat and fear before settling around her ankles again. He straightened to stand beside her, his face close to hers.

"Frightened, little Tessa?" he murmured. He made his breath engulf her, his gaze hold on to hers.

"What did you think I might do, I wonder?"

Blood was pulsing in the vein of her throat, giving off heat in her face. Her lips were flushed but dry, and she swal owed before she spoke. "Go away from me," she said hoarsely. "Leave me alone."

He smiled. "You go away from me, Tessa LeGuerre.

No one is holding you here."

But she did not move. She simply stood there, her breath light and quick, her eyes searching. "What do you want? What are you trying to do?"

"I am trying merely to prove a point," he said. He stepped away from her, releasing her from the snare of his presence, and began walking again.

With a smal , unconsciously imperial gesture of his hand, he indicated she should join him. Almost without hesitation she fel into step beside him.

"You see, Tessa, I wil not force myself upon you in the middle of the night. I wil not snap your neck the moment your back is turned or carve you up to boil in my stew. I have the power to do so if I wish and you couldn't stop me. The point is that I do not wish."

She was stil trembling, her heart beating in jerky contractions and releases. He could hear it. Yet he felt a fleeting admiration—liberal y mixed with amusement—for the effort she made to control her voice and pretend disdain.

"And this is supposed to put me at my ease with you?" she asked. "For this I should be persuaded to help you?"

"Have I said I needed your help?"

"Why else would you come to me?"

"I rather thought we might help each other."

"You have nothing that I want."

"You want him to be your lover, don't you?" Denis returned quietly, easily, and without breaking stride.

"You want him to lie naked between your legs and put his organ inside you and spil the fluid of his magic into your womb so that you might hold him beside you forever and in that way be a part of what he is. And he's told you that's not possible, that such as we cannot consort with those of your kind." He shrugged. "Another lie, or perhaps a mere exaggeration. While it's not something to be encouraged, or even to be discussed in polite company, there are those who find quite some pleasure in carnal activities with humans—much in the same way they enjoy dining with humans and working with humans and even inviting humans into their homes."

She turned on him, her cheeks white and her eyes ablaze. "You are a beast masquerading in the form of a man. How can you know these things? How dare you speak them aloud to me?"

He ignored her, maintaining his easy stride and his conversational tone. She was forced to either keep up or be left behind, never to know what he had to say.

"Alexander has ambitions," Denis continued, "as he should. But it's the queen Elise who is the most ambitious of al , and she is the reason your own ambitions wil never be fulfil ed."

"Do you think I don't know why you're saying these things? You who hate humans and would like to see us al exterminated?" Her voice shook with rage and distress, but it was anxiety he smel ed on her skin—

anxiety that he might be speaking the truth, and a guilty acknowledgement that somewhere deep inside she had had these suspicions before. "You want to overthrow the queen and put your evil plan into practice and—"

He couldn't help laughing. "An evil plan, have I?

How very high-blown and dramatic it sounds, but a bit much even for me. And if Alexander has told you I want only to exterminate humans, then I am very disappointed in him indeed. Yes, I aspire to the throne, but only because I believe it to be the best thing for our people. And despite what you've heard or think about the Dark Brothers, we do not intend to eliminate any species from the earth. We want balance, equanimity and a restoration of the proper hierarchy of power. We believe we should be al owed to indulge our true nature, not be forced to hide it. We would have a separation of our two species, a division of territory, and freedom to conduct our affairs in the way we see fit. We ask only to be acknowledged for what we are and to be left in peace. Is that, after al , such an evil plan?"

She was silent as she marched beside him, her fists clenched, her jaw set. He could hear the swish of her breath through her nostrils, the thud, thud of her heart.

"But you're stil angry with me. Nothing I tel you wil gain your sympathies even though you know, deep inside, my plan for our people is a sound one. I should abandon my case and leave you for now, and return when I can be more charming. But I won't do that, Tessa. I wil give you more credit than to believe you would refuse to hear the truth just because it's told to you badly."

"What truth have you to tel me?"

"Elise Devoncroix has used you for her own purpose. She has pretended to be your friend, but she is bred from centuries of royalty and you could never be more to her than a fine horse or a hunting dog is to your own queen.
She is a species apart
.

You know that. She feels no loyalty to you, she has no thought for your feelings or your needs—why should she? You are of no consequence to her except as how you further her ends."

He knew his words had struck a secret truth when she said sharply, "The point."

"The point, my dear Tessa LeGuerre, human, is that Elise Devoncroix intends to use Alexander just as she has used you, as a symbol to ral y the pack behind her when she puts into motion her plan to turn us al into a pack of human-lovers."

Tessa said impatiently, "I doubt Alexander would consider himself badly used, any more than I did."

Now Denis stopped, and moved before her, looking down upon her gravely. "You thought my plan was diabolical. What you failed to understand is that, where the welfare of the pack is concerned, there is no boundary a devoted leader would not cross.

Elise plans to use Alexander by taking him as her mate, and once that is done he wil never return to you."

He felt the change of temperature that was the blood leaving the surface of her skin, heard the scrape of nails against flesh as her hands contracted involuntarily into fists. He smel ed the sickness of strong emotion that wept like a cold sweat from her pores. And he saw the dul shock and pain in her eyes.

She said hoarsely, "How do you know this?"

"Because that's what I would do," he replied simply.

And when he saw the parchmentlike stiffness start to relax in her face he added, "And because it is impossible to keep secrets from those whose ears can hear whispers across the miles and who know what to listen for. I told you, Tessa, I have done nothing but watch and listen since I came to France.

My purpose is too important to do otherwise."

She never took her eyes off him as she said, "Your purpose?"

He did not answer immediately. Instead he turned away from her casual y and plucked an embryonic grape from a cluster on a nearby vine. "This vineyard is over a thousand years old, did you know that? Long before the Romans came to Gaul, we were making wine here. Long after they departed, we are making wine here. We wil continue to make wine from vines that are the very descendants of those among which you strol today, long after your people have disappeared from the face of the earth, and we shal barely notice your passing. A matter upon which to ponder, wouldn't you agree?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Denis crushed the smal grape between his fingers.

"Of course you don't," he replied patiently. "And that is the point. Alexander is a species apart. The finest humans who ever made wine are hundreds of years away from approaching the wines that he creates in his spare time. They lack the capacity to even wonder
why
he is so much their superior. And that is why it is so difficult for me to make you understand what must be done now.

"But first I must ask you something. Why, when you made your plan to kil Alexander, didn't you use a gun? It's so much neater and more reliable, and seems to be the weapon of choice among humans."

She blinked, disoriented by the question. "I—I didn't have one."

He looked at her careful y. "I thought perhaps you didn't know how to use one."

"Al Englishwomen know how to shoot," she replied with a brusque impatience and a touch of disdain.

"Why are you asking this? What difference can it make?"

"But are you a good shot?" he persisted.

Caution leveled her voice, narrowed her eyes.

"What do you mean by good?"

"At a hundred paces, are you good enough to hit, say, a wolf?"

She drew in a single breath sharply, the darks of her eyes dilating. She whispered, "What are you saying?"

"You know the answer to that, Tessa." He said it quietly, holding her gaze.

And she did. She darted her gaze away, but not before he saw understanding there, and guilt and horror and yes, in a flash quicker than a half-stammered heartbeat, affirmation.

"You want me to kil the queen." She had to say it out loud.

"I want to save my brother—and the pack."

She gaped at him, her eyes big with incredulity and denial. "You're mad!"

"To think you would do it," he pressed mildly, "or to ask it of you?"

"Both!" she cried.

And he smiled. "Perhaps neither. She must die, Tessa, you know that, for both our sakes. The only question is whether Alexander wil die with her."

Her heart was beating hard, fast and furious, a frantic rabbit racing through the brush. She didn't speak; she didn't have to. Everything he needed to know he smel ed on her skin, heard in her breath and her pulse and the swel ing of her blood.

"Leave this place," she said hoarsely. "Don't ever bother me again."

"I shal not leave," he replied. "Not until I've accomplished my purpose. But if you wish me to leave you alone…" He shrugged. "I'll oblige. I thought we shared a mutual concern for Alexander, that's al ."

"You just threatened to kil him!"

"Not unless I have to. The queen is in my way, Alexander is not. You can save him. You can save him—and you can keep him. Al you have to do is this one little thing, this thing that comes so easily to your kind."

She said flatly, with a dul note of disbelief in her voice, "Commit a murder."