“For good reason,” Boroskov said. “We are superior, and yet we live like whipped curs, hiding in our dens. And that is why, decades ago, your grandfather and my father developed the great Cause of attaining dominance over humanity.
Quentin’s muscles seized up. Grandfather. The presence seething below the surface of his thoughts took strength from his instinctive reaction. “That may have been your Cause,” he said with an effort, “but it was never my brother’s. He wished only to save our kind from extinction.”
“Your brother turned from the path set by those stronger and wiser than he,” Boroskov said. “He perverted the Cause into something paltry and wretched.”
“He defeated you.”
“Temporarily, yes. But his lack of ruthlessness is one of his weaknesses, and the reason why I am here now.”
“Why are you here, Boroskov? What do you want with me, and Johanna?”
Boroskov tilted his gun toward the floor. “You may well wonder. In these past few years of following your progress, you’ve never shown any sign of remembering.”
“Following me?”
“Oh, not personally. Not until the past six months. I had trusted human servants, aware of our secrets, tracking your movements and sending back their observations. You were so caught up in your own miseries that you were oblivious to their presence.”
Quentin recalled a hundred times when he had ignored the sense of being watched. It was a pathetic werewolf indeed who could not detect a human follower. But he had little self-respect to lose.
“You are about to ask why I had you followed,” Boroskov prompted.
“The question had occurred to me.” Quentin glanced at Johanna and subtly pushed her behind him. May was quiet as a mouse. “You said I showed no signs of remembering. Remembering what?”
“That is part of my story. Patience.” He waved Johanna and May toward the dilapidated sofa. “Sit down, dear doctor, and take the child with you.”
Johanna looked to Quentin. He nodded, and she led May to the couch. She did not sit.
“Your brother, Braden, inherited the Cause without understanding its true purpose,” Boroskov said. “We shall never know how much your grandfather, the previous earl, told him. Perhaps he died before he could reveal all his plans.” He shook his head. “The arranged marriages between our scattered families, to restore our blood to its former strength and numbers, was only a small part of his Cause. In time, your grandfather and my father intended that our people should take their rightful places as rulers of the world.”
Quentin laughed until his belly knotted in pain, and laughed harder still at Boroskov’s expression. “World conquest? When most of us can’t even meet every five years without squabbling like infants?”
“Because Braden cannot rule as a leader must. But the former earl and my father made a pact, to develop a means of ensuring that the true Cause would not be subverted. And that is where you come in, Quentin.”
“Of course,” Quentin said, catching his breath. “You want to use me to take revenge on Braden, or force him to step down. Surely you can’t believe I would cooperate.”
“I am disappointed in you, my boy,” Boroskov said. “Nothing nearly so obvious.” He met Quentin’s eyes in a direct stare, werewolf to werewolf. “You were to play a very special role in our future plans. And from my observations, you may be what we had hoped for.”
“Me?” Quentin’s throat was too raw for laughing, but he managed a rasping chuckle. “I was never good for much of anything—certainly not for your Cause. I got away before Braden could pin me to some female of his choosing.” He wiped at his eyes. “Did you want me to take Braden’s place?”
“Hardly. That role is mine. But you will be at my right hand.”
“You have a very strange sense of humor, Boroskov.”
“I am not laughing.” He adjusted the fit of his glove, dangling his gun from one finger. “I told you that your grandfather and my father made a separate, secret pact. They knew that our goal of conquest would not be an easy one, or swift. It would take many generations to achieve. And over those generations, we would require soldiers who would be trained and willing to commit whatever acts we might deem necessary in pursuit of our goals.”