The Passion (16 page)

It had been years since I'd had so much fun.

We let her outrun us, which was only polite, then stretched our muscles in the ful force of a male competitive run. We leapt streams and high deadfal s; we dodged fal en trees and plowed through undergrowth. Our breath trailed foggy streams behind us and our bodies steamed. It was marvel ous.

We circled around to pick up the scent of the female again, which led us to the summerhouse—a thick-wal ed stone structure built around a hot spring.

Denis stopped outside it and the air crackled as, with a subtle mastery I had always envied, he spun, shook himself and resumed his human form.

"Come," he cal ed to me, laughing as he tossed back his hair. "Let's swim."

I fol owed him inside and changed in the doorway, moving immediately across the stone floor to slide into the steaming water. Denis was already in the pool with the female, who was a lithe, golden-eyed brunette with firm upturned breasts, and pale pink nipples. Their bodies were slick with water and steam as they caressed each other; she, with her back to Denis while he stroked her torso and her breasts, stretching her arms overhead to caress his neck and shoulders, turning a smal pink tongue to lick droplets of water from his arm.

I took pleasure in watching them for a moment, those two strong and beautiful werewolves in their silent dance of lazy sensuality. Then I dropped down into the water until it reached my neck, drawing the moist, heated air deep into my lungs. I was stil tingling and throbbing from the Change, senses heightened, muscles aching. The heavy warmth of the pool seeped into my pores and fil ed my blood with a rich sluggish heat. I stretched forward, parting the water like an otter, and took the female by the waist, teasing her breasts with my tongue. She laughed with pleasure and reached under the water, taking my penis, which was stil ful and firm from the power of the Change, in her hands. This was a marvel ous sensation, to be stroked and caressed by lingering, skil ful fingers while the eddies of steamy water swirled about me, to taste her soft salty flesh against my tongue.

"I smel no mate on you," I teased her, licking the water from the inside of her elbow.

"That's because I have none," she replied. Her eyes sparkled with pleasure when I parted her thighs with my hand, and stroked the delicate flesh between.

"Careful, Alana," Denis said, "he is a careless reprobate who wil only break your heart.

Besides…" His eyes glinted at me as he bent to kiss her shoulder. "I don't think he cares for our climate."

"It's beginning to grow on me," I murmured, and, when Denis left us to submerse himself in the water, I lifted her legs around my waist and pushed myself inside her. She linked her arms around my neck and I sank down deep into the water so that we both were covered by it, arms and chests and necks, heat outside and heat inside. I threw back my head and arched my back to feel even more of her. I caressed her buttocks and she massaged my chest with her palms. Slippery flesh against slippery flesh.

It was exquisite. We stayed that way, kissing and caressing and stroking each other, until every nuance of sensation was extracted from the moment, until our bodies were so saturated with contentment that they separated natural y. In human form, the penis wil remain engorged for only a short time after the Change, and then only if we wil it. But during that time the sensation is intense.

Our tongues mated lazily, leaving the imprint of our tastes within each other's mouths, and I said, smiling into her eyes, "It was a genuine pleasure to meet you, Alana."

"You are very nicely formed," she returned to me, and ran her hands over my form one more time before leaving the pool.

I thanked her for the compliment and watched her bend to kiss Denis, then wrap herself in a cloak before hurrying from the building and back toward the main house. I released a sigh of utter contentment and lay back in the water, submersing myself from head to toe. I stayed under until I could hold my breath no longer and then rose with a great thunder and splash, gasping for breath and shaking out my hair. I left the water reluctantly and joined Denis upon the heated rocks that baked in the glow of a central pit of coals.

"You do," I admitted as I stretched out beside him on a warm slate slab, "have a passably fine life here."

He smiled lazily and cracked one eye to look at me.

"Tel me, Alex. What thought have you given to a mate?"

"Not much at al ."

"The selection must be choice in Paris."

"It is. That's my problem. The selection is so delicious it quite makes my head spin and I find I can't decide anything at al ." I glanced at him. "What about you? You're older than I am, and your selection doesn't precisely seem to be impoverished, if I may say so."

He smiled again and closed his eyes. "True enough.

But it's difficult, in a closed environment like this. I fear I may have to search abroad."

That piqued my curiosity for a moment, and I thought what an odd spectacle that would make, to see Denis out and about again among regular society, courting a mate. But the heat was seeping into my bones and it was hard to hold a thought.

Denis was asleep, and in a moment so was I.

By the time he raised the subject again, I had completely forgotten it.

In the way of Siberian winters, the magnificent morning gave way to a ferocious storm by midafternoon. Stil , I recal that as one of the most enjoyable days I had ever spent under my brother's roof. We played chess, we consumed an excel ent supper of lamb stew and winter apples, and afterward we sat by the fire, listening to the wind howl outside our thick stone wal s and sipping an exquisite Bordeaux. It was then that he put to me his final and—had I but known it—most important question, the one to which al others had been leading: "What do you know of the Devoncroix queen?"

I knew, in fact, quite a lot, but little I felt comfortable sharing with him. I kept my tone negligent and my posture at ease as I sipped my wine. "Elise? She's a strong werewolf, runs a tight household and a sturdy company. She's young and wants seasoning—and a proper mate—but I think she'll do."

Denis asked casual y, "Any prospects in that area?"

"What? A mate?" I shook my head. "Not that I've heard. Of course, until now she hasn't been seriously considering qualifications, but I imagine she'll start narrowing the field this season."

"Can she defend her position until then?"

"She's a strong werewolf."

In truth, that was a concern. Any newly ascended werewolf, male or female, is vulnerable to being overthrown in that crucial period between the death of the old ruler and the taking of a mate. It had been centuries since an unmated werewolf had ascended the throne, and al of us were a little anxious over whether or not she could hold it.

Denis said, "Do you know her?"

"Of course. Only slightly. We know the same people, go to the same places. Of course."

"Do you dine with her?"

"Occasional y." I was becoming uneasy and couldn't say exactly why.

"Run with her?"

I scowled. "Great gods, no! Of course not! I told you, I barely know her."

Denis regarded me with eyes that were amused and speculative, the peculiar curve of a half smile on his lips. "Odd. I had heard differently."

My cheeks were heating, and that made me even more annoyed than I already was. "Then you heard wrong. What the bloody hel could you be expected to hear from this place anyway?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised. I heard, for instance, that you two cut quite a figure on the dance floor at Sancerre's grand bal some seasons back."

I scowled into my wine. "She was a pup and I was being kind."

He chuckled. "Come along, Alexander, no need to pose with me. You've been enchanted with the creature since your first Change, admit it."

I glared at him. "What is this al about?"

Denis did not answer immediately. Instead he rose to refil my glass, and his own. He resumed his seat and he regarded me gravely. "It is about," he said,

"the future of the pack."

Denis leaned forward a little in his chair, the low fire of intensity burning dark in his eyes. "Look at us, Alex, look at the pack—or what passes for a pack—

as we are today. What has this queen inherited? A scattered band of werewolves al dressed up in human clothes, going about their human pursuits, growing old and indolent on meat they don't have to kil , squabbling amongst each other but lacking the wil for a real fight… each of them confined to their own petty concerns and circumscribed by their own petty boundaries for al of their miserable little lives.

Where
is
this pack of hers? Where is the grandeur, the magnificence, the
power
of what we are? We are invisible, Alex, that's what we are, faded and impotent and lost amongst a planet teeming with parasites.

"Tel me this," he insisted, barely pausing to draw breath. "If she put out the cal , this Devoncroix queen, would the pack ral y? Would anyone hear her, would anyone come?
Would she know if they
did not
? Who are we, that is al I ask! And why aren't we now al that we could be—al that once we were?"

He drew a breath; the power of his gaze held me.

He said, "We must be reunited again, little brother.

And it wil take a strong leader to do it."

This must be understood about my brother: he was a compel ing, even mesmeric, orator. The personal magnetism that radiated from him like an ether and could persuade large crowds to madness or valor was never more apparent than in his speech, for when he was passionate on a subject he would not rest until everyone around him shared that passion; this was his majesty.

I felt that majesty, and even though I knew his argument and its fal acies, I
wanted
to be persuaded by it. And in truth he was right. As the century drew to a close we had wandered far from our origins.

The term "pack" was an anachronism, the pack leader a figurehead.

I said, "Are you suggesting, then, that the queen is not the leader to bring together the pack?"

He sat back and smiled. "Since it was the Devoncroix who al owed the pack to deteriorate to its present state, I should think not."

And this, then, was what I had feared, almost from the very beginning. Denis had decided it was time for the Antonovs to reclaim the pack. And he, as head of the family, would assert the mission of the Brotherhood.

Now that the moment was upon me, I felt calm, very much in control. My voice was steady, as was my gaze, and I said clearly, "Denis, if you attempt to overthrow the queen you may succeed, but you wil not live to enjoy the taste of your victory. The pack is Devoncroix now; the Antonovs are despised in principle. Furthermore, you're an outlaw, a symbol of everything we've struggled to put behind us. If you assume power you wil never be accepted, and you'll only succeed in destroying the pack you'd hoped to unite."

There was a flicker of something unpleasant in his eyes—perhaps he had not expected me to be quite so blunt—but it was gone in an instant, and replaced with an approving smile. "Precisely," he agreed, sipping his wine. "And that's only one of the reasons I would not consider overthrowing the queen by force. The other, of course, is that I might lose."

I simply stared at him.

He chuckled, and though it was a pleasant enough sound, there was contempt mixed with something oddly like disappointment in his eyes. "What a fool you must take me for, brother, if you think a traditional chal enge is the best my imagination can do. Have you ever known me to be so lacking in subtlety?"

I
was the fool, for al owing myself to be lul ed into a sense of confidence by considering only the obvious, for thinking for one moment that anything Denis planned would be in any way crude or unrefined—or lacking in originality. The sharpening of my curiosity was acrid on the air, and my humility genuine as I said, "I apologize for misjudging you."

Denis's gaze was steady and perceptive. "We have grown apart over the years, you and I, if ever we were the same. I can hardly fail to notice that the convictions that drive my life's force are but a matter of passing amusement for you—and no, don't try to hide your eyes, I've seen it there already, years ago.

Our differences in philosophy are not at issue here, because we have something much more important in common, and we always wil have. We are Antonovs," he said, and he leaned forward a little, once again capturing the room with the fire in his eyes, the low urgent timbre of his voice. "The blood of kings runs through our veins. A mil ennium past we blazed the way through the wilderness. We fought off wild animals and savage humans; we fed the pack with the strength of our muscles and the cunning of our minds. We were the ones, Alexander;
we
brought the pack out of the dark night into this brash bright day, and whatever glories are now enjoyed exist only because we made them possible! Great gods, Alexander, can you not see that the pack has never needed us more than it does today?"

He lunged to his feet, crossing the room in two great strides to the decanter of wine, fil ing his glass. "We stand on the threshold of a new century," he said,

"and who can tel what it might hold? How are we to survive it, much less conquer it, without a leader who wil cal the pack to unite?"