Prince of Shadows by Susan Krinard

Luke stood over them with his companions, silent and still. She knew what he was, what he had to be. He and the wolves at his side.

“Alexandra,” Kieran said. He reached for her blindly, brushed her arm and cheek with a fleeting touch. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, swallowing hard. “We’re both all right now.”

“He was going to kill you.” His voice shook, the rage muted to a smothered flame as if all the fuel that fed it had been burned away.

“But he didn’t.” She rested her hand on his shoulder, almost expecting him to flinch away. “It’s over, Kieran.”

His gaze held hers dearly for an instant and then turned inward. “He killed his own parents. He couldn’t… accept what he was.”

That was the terrible tragedy that had twisted Arnoux’s life, and Kieran’s, and even her own. But her suffering was nothing to theirs. She could pity Arnoux at last, but he was beyond any need for it.

Kieran had his memories to live with. Memories he would have to work through and integrate into himself.

“My parents,” he said. “I remember them now.” His eyes saw something far beyond her vision. “They loved me.”

As I love you. She wanted desperately to hold him, to be held by him, but he was so remote. She couldn’t expect so much of him. She had no right to.

She stood up slowly, her body stiff and heavy with more than mere pain.

“Alexandra Warrington.”

Luke Gévaudan’s voice. She remembered it from their brief meeting in Merritt. He and the two men who sup ported him had moved off a little, as if to grant Kieran privacy. Alex joined them.

“Luke,” she acknowledged wearily. “We meet again.” She glanced at his leg. “Arnoux shot you.”

Luke smiled with one side of his mouth. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to intervene in a more timely manner.”

“You should see a doctor.”

“In time. We heal quickly.”

We. She nodded without surprise. “I heard a howl aftter the gunshot. You… called the others, didn’t you?” She hugged herself. “Kieran was right all along. He believed there were others like him.”

“Yes. We are Kieran’s people. We call ourselves loup-garou.” He bent his head toward the man on his right. “My cousin, Philippe. And Gaston.” He followed her gaze to the wolves who had gathered around Kieran. “Kinfolk. There are many others.”

Many others. Kieran had never truly been alone. Just I as he wasn’t now. “Kieran was driven to come this way,” she said. “He could never explain it.”

“It’s not easily explained. It’s a call that wakes in our kind and draws them here—to Val Cache, the village our people founded a hundred years ago. As it woke in Kieran.”

“But when you were in Merritt—”

“I knew that he was one of us,” Luke said. “That was why I offered my help. And why I told your friend Julie to send you to Lovell. It’s the closest human town to our village.”

Alex remembered the way Julie had avoided explaining why she urged them to make for this particular town in British Columbia. “Then Julie knew what you were, just as she knew about Kieran.”

“Only after you left Merritt,” he said. “We had an understanding.” He shifted his weight with a grimace. “Very few humans know about us, and we prefer to keep it that way. We choose carefully.”

Alex shivered from more than the cold that so easily penetrated her flannel shirt and sweater. “There’s still a lot I don’t understand, and I don’t think I know how to begin asking.” She looked at Arnoux’s body, and beyond. Kieran was standing now, gazing off into the forest. “Did you know about all this? About Arnoux and what he was?”

“No.” Luke’s expression grew bleak. “I knew about the killings in Merritt. Our people are not murderers, Alexandra. I had no choice but to suspect Kieran of aberrant behavior. I believed only his kind could help him, and I knew he would come to us. But I never suspected Arnoux, even when you arrived here with him.” He shook his head. “We can usually recognize one of our own, but Arnoux had denied what he was so powerfully that he blocked himself from my senses. And Kieran didn’t know how to recognize me.”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *