The Passion (17 page)

Everything within me was singing in tune to his passion; I could feel the heat in my cheeks and the glow in my eyes and I wanted to spring to my feet with upraised fist and cry, "Yes,
mon liege
, lead me into battle! Yours to command!" Such was his power. Such was the unarguable
tightness
of his logic.

Yet I knew my brother, I knew there was more. And it was for this reason, and with the utmost self-restraint, that I kept my own passions in check.

"History has proved it a difficult matter to ral y a people without a cause," I pointed out. "True, we've forgotten pack ties. We've even grown lazy, some of us, but are any of us suffering? Do our children lack for meat or shelter from the cold? Does any one of us want for anything he could not have if he is sufficiently motivated to obtain it? Perhaps," I argued—and in part because he expected me to

—"the time for the old pack ways, even our very definition of what the pack is, has passed. We reap the fruits of a peace wel earned because we
have
conquered. And without an enemy, it is difficult to raise an army."

Denis's eyes glittered in the long shadows cast by lamplight and wind-tossed firelight. "Wel spoken, my young friend. Yet you ignore one important and quite obvious fact. The enemy is here, al around us, and it is the same enemy it has always been, the only enemy who can pose a threat to us today: Humankind."

Although I had half expected it, the sheer absurdity of his statement left me for a moment flabbergasted.

"Humans? A threat to us?" I couldn't keep the incredulity and amusement from my tone. "Surely even you can't believe that—and if so, perhaps you'd best leave the wine aside for tonight. Maybe forever."

But Denis wasn't smiling. "Use your brain instead of your facile tongue and perhaps you won't be so quick to retort," he said. "Think about it and you wil see that yes, for the first time in history, humans
can
threaten us. They have a device that al ows them to hear across the miles, just as we can. They can keep their meat fresh without ice and heat their homes without wood and drink without going to the stream—al of these things we learned to do centuries ago. They've even learned how to keep themselves clean, or at least cleaner than is common, so they live longer and breed better, and more of their young survive to consume more of what is necessary for life on this earth. I shan't stand here and preach you a sermon. You have a mind to see the truth when it barks in your face.

Humans are gaining advantages they never before dreamed of, and only more can await them in the new century. There has never been a more dangerous time to be alive, or a more important one."

His words were sobering, and I could not scoff them away, much as I would have liked to. That humans, despite al their poor accomplishments, could ever grow to seriously threaten our position of dominance was, of course, unthinkable, absurd in the extreme.

But that they could give us considerable cause for worry… this was another matter. Denis was right, and there was a coldness in the pit of my stomach to admit as much. I, and al those like me who had blithely enjoyed our centuries-long summer in the sun without thought to the future, had been very short sighted indeed. Now, as we stood poised upon the brink of a grand new century, there were wages to be paid.

I sat at ease within an overstuffed chair a toasty distance from the fire, a half-drunk glass of wine in my hand. I noticed as though for the first time the remnants in the glass, lifted it to my lips, and drained it. Stil , my voice was a trifle thick as I said, struggling for a mocking tone, "What do you propose we do, then? Declare war?"

Only the faintest trace of a superior smile graced Denis's lips as he crossed the room with the decanter, and fil ed my glass to the brim, suffocating the bouquet. I drank deeply.

He said, "That would be premature. Eventual y, of course, the human parasite must be annihilated, for the sake of our species and every other on the globe. You know that; it doesn't bear discussion.

However, the first order of business is to unite the pack toward a common destiny, and as I believe I have just demonstrated, there is only one werewolf equal to that task."

"Yourself."

He nodded.

I felt as though I were going around in circles.

Perhaps it was the wine. "But if you overthrow the Devoncroix, you wil succeed in nothing but fragmenting the pack into a dozen warring factions.

We cannot survive so drastic a shift in power, not at this point in our history."

Denis nodded calmly. "Which is precisely why I intend to marry the queen."

The fire popped loudly. Outside a wind spirit screamed around the corners of the house, sending tendrils of cold drifting in through windowpanes and doors. Inside, the silence was so profound one almost could have scooped it up by the handful and used it to pack the cracks around the doors to keep out the wind. Even my heartbeat was stil , and I barely breathed. I know this, because Denis watched me with the intensity of a predator at a rabbit hole, and should anything about my physiognomy have changed, he would have registered the fact immediately with a savage, satisfied gleam.

But I was very stil .

I said at last, "How, precisely, do you intend to do that?"

It was a reasonable question. There have been very few political marriages in our history. The reason is simple. We are a people of great passion and deeply felt emotions. We love once, we love intensely, we love for al time. Although casual couplings such as the one I had shared with Alana are as common to us as dances are to humans, and although we happily engage in a variety of sexual pleasures with any number of partners throughout our lives, sex, for us, is an entirely separate thing from mating. While we can enjoy many sexual acts in human form, we can mate only in wolf form. We mate for life, for once we have chosen our mates through the act of sexual union which wil result in the conception of the young, an instant empathic and telepathic bond is formed between male and female which joins them to one another, for better or worse, until death.

I've often thought that this might be a design flaw our Maker might now regret, for one can't help but notice it's not often repeated elsewhere in nature.

Certainly we would be a more prolific species if there were no incentive to maintain the family unit; we would reproduce faster and bring more variety into the gene pool. But then one must wonder whether we might be as successful as we are—

intel ectual y and physical y—if we employed a less selective breeding method. If we, for example, were compel ed as humans are to couple indiscriminately and produce offspring in such a random and careless fashion—and in numbers wel beyond our ability to support—could we ever expect to rise in achievement much above the level of humans? It is a prospect that would make even the most liberal-minded among us recoil, and, al in al , I think I much prefer, our method of maintaining the species

—flawed though it may be.

At any rate, though they are not unheard of, marriages of convenience are extremely rare in our society, and what may begin as a social agreement never remains that way. There are no spousal abandonments, cruelties or murders among mated couples, either, and betrayal within a marriage is physical y impossible. A male and female who realize that they wil be mental y and emotional y bonded to the other for the entirety of their lives are likely to be reluctant to take such a step for reasons of anything other than the greatest affection.

It hardly bears stating that no one can be forced into a mating; both parties must come of their own free wil . That is why Denis's plan was so outrageous, so daring and fraught with risk—and so unparal eled in its bril iance.

He answered my question in the only possible fashion. "Do you think I lack the necessary persuasion?"

And that was what was so truly terrifying. My brother, powerful, charismatic, commanding… could any female, once he had determined to woo her, resist his fatal charm? And the Devoncroix queen—

how could she fail to see the advantages of the match, the uniting of Antonov and Devoncroix after centuries of divisiveness… for that reason alone she might consider him, and, once under his powerful sexual and intel ectual spel , could she real y be trusted to rely upon her own judgement?

Perhaps I underestimated her. But that was the course my thoughts took.

My gaze fel to the glass in my hand. I took a long sip. I said, flatly, what was only the truth. "She wil not receive you at court. Her bodyguards won't let you near."

Denis just smiled. "Ah, but they wil let
you
near.

You, in fact, my most charming and cosmopolitan sibling, wil be welcomed with open arms as a favorite at court. You wil be urbane and witty and entertaining, sympathetic and supportive and reliable. You wil make yourself indispensable in her trust. And then, when you bring your outcast but repentant brother into her grace, she cannot help but look upon him with favor." He lifted his glass to his lips; he drank. His eyes, and his voice, were as flat as a fast-frozen lake. "I wil do the rest."

My throat was very dry, but I could not make myself drink. I just looked at him, this werewolf, my brother, the most powerful visionary I had ever known.

Never had anyone been as right as he was; never had anyone been as wrong.

He was born to lead. He should have been leader, he would have been leader. But he was born several centuries too late.

I leaned forward, and placed my wineglass upon the smal table adjacent to my chair. I got to my feet. I met Denis's eyes.

I said, "That is an elegant plan, stunning in its simplicity, powerful in its logic. I'm humbled to have been included in it." I meant every word. And it was no effort for me at al to add, "But I wil not help you."

Denis showed no reaction at first. He waited, as though expecting more. When he saw I was finished, he inquired mildly, "Did I mistake you?

Didn't I hear you say you barely knew the queen and danced with her just to be kind? Can it be you have not yet quite recovered from your puppish infatuation?"

I said firmly, "This isn't personal."

"I assure you, it is very personal to me. Why won't you help me?"

My heart was beginning to knot in my throat. I could smel the anger on Denis, like hot tar burning, and my own reactions from now on would be visceral and impossible to disguise. Fortunately, I was through with dissembling. I knew only the truth, and that was al I spoke.

"Because," I said, "it would be a betrayal of myself, my queen, and the pack. You would try to manipulate your mate to your own ends, Denis, and that is not only dangerous but despicable. You would come to her under false pretenses, and you would use me to do it. But most essential of al is the simple fact that you are wrong. You're wrong about humans, you're wrong about the pack, you're wrong about the queen. And you're wrong about me. I'm sorry."

His eyes flared. "You know I have no chance of success without you."

I said nothing. The silence pounded against my ears, and his.

"And so." His voice fil ed the room with ice. Even the fire shrank and sputtered before it. "This is my due from my brother."

It is a very difficult thing for one werewolf to meet the gaze of another, more dominant one. The effort of holding my brother's eyes, of not shrinking beneath the force of his fiery glare, made my head throb and sparks of pain dance in the air between us.

I said evenly, "This is your due from a loyal member of the pack, and your brother."

The look that came into his eyes was cold enough to freeze the blood in my veins, hot enough to combust paper. It was an unforgiving look, a kil ing look. And then it was gone.

He said softly, "No. I was not wrong about you."

And then, almost casual y, he dropped his gaze to his glass. Immediately the throbbing in my head ceased, and I was briefly dizzy with relief.

He said, "I cannot pretend I'm not disappointed. But neither can I pretend I'm surprised." He looked at me then, and the grimace that strained his features might have been intended to be a smile. "You are a strong werewolf, Alexander. I underestimated you.

But I can't fault you for that."

Then he lifted his arm, dropped it around my tight shoulders in an embrace. The joviality in his voice was forced, but the smile on his face came more natural y now. "So we'll talk again, you'll give me a chance to convince you. Shal we run tomorrow?

The storm is dying down and the caribou wil be out to feed."

I forced a smile of my own, and said I would like that very much. But I could smel the hatred in his pores, bubbling to the surface with a stench as sweet as burning flesh, and I knew I would be a fool to spend another night in my brother's house.

I have often thought how history might have been different had I made another choice that night. From the distance of years it is far too easy to look back, to assume more blame—or credit—than one is due for what might or might not have been. The simple fact is that at that time I made the only choice possible for me to make. I lost my brother and my friend, and I set off from that place with a lump of ice in my chest where my heart should have been.

It was not a propitious night for travel. Six inches of snow had already fal en over an icy crust and more was blowing thickly through the air. The wind roared and piled thick drifts against wal s and riverbanks; sturdy branches snapped with the sound of cannons beneath the weight of ice and hard wind. The cold was indescribable. In human form my fingers and toes would have frozen in moments and snapped off at the roots. Even though I was in wolf form, the wind cut through to my skin and froze the breath in my lungs. It was a dangerous night to be about, in more ways than one.