“It sometimes fails,” Quentin said. “My brother is careful about the servants he approves, but mistakes can be made. There are those who can resist. Others… unfortunately, some human minds can’t tolerate the intrusion, or the knowledge of what we are. Such men can go quite mad.”
“Then that’s why he attacked me—”
“No,” Braden said. “The Russians turned him. They got to him before the ceremony.” Dodd choked as Braden twisted his collar. “They created a human weapon to use against us. He attacked you and betrayed me. He can never again be trusted. I will wipe his mind of any knowledge of Greyburn and what we are.”
“But it’s wrong.” He heard Cassidy pull free of Quentin. He snatched Dodd away. “It’s wrong to do that to anyone. How do you know he didn’t go crazy because you and the Russians hurt his mind? He was loco… he talked about devils. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“It makes no difference.”
“If you hurt him again, aren’t you the same as the Russians?”
Dodd gasped for breath, and Braden loosened his stranglehold. “It is for our survival. If the world learned what we are—”
“Isabelle knows,” she said. “My father knew. They didn’t betray my mother.” Her voice took on the fierce ring of absolute conviction. “You don’t even try to trust people. I can’t believe your way is the only way. I won’t.”
Braden stood very still. How was it possible that her disapproval tore at him like the teeth and claws of an unexpected enemy? When had she transformed herself from a child who would serve a specific purpose in the Cause to a woman whose only certain role was to shatter his peace and drive him to acts of madness?
If Tiberius were here, he’d cut her down to size with a single word.
Yet even as Braden burned with anger and incongruous shame, his body was alert to her nearness, her scent, the tiniest of her movements. He wanted to touch her again. She distracted him from duty and necessity and the vow he’d made to himself since Milena’s death.
He let Dodd fall limp to the floor and swung around to face her. “Would you have me release him, to attack you again? To kill you?”
“I’m not afraid. He needs—”
“Enough. Either you are one of us, Cassidy Holt, or you are not.” Lost in despair and bitter regret, Braden turned his will on her. “Leave me,” he growled. “Go.”
It was as if he slammed into an unseen wall. Her natural defenses were so high that he was repelled instantly.
She made a low sound of shock. “What did you do?”
Appalled, he couldn’t answer. He had done the unpardonable. Contemptible. Forbidden by unwritten loup-garou law.
“You tried to… go into my mind,” Cassidy whispered.
The denial came instantly to his lips and stopped there. He could see Cassidy in his mind more clearly than ever before: her stubborn face, her bold stance, the mutinous flash other eyes. He could not only see her, but he could feel her. Feel her… power, her will.
How could she be half-human? She was unconscious of whatever power she possessed, but the knowledge, the aptitude, was there, waiting for release.
Had she come close to that release in the woods, before he left her? Her words, her little gasps of excitement, had awakened a desire in him that overcame his restraint. She was like a young virgin in her marriage bed, eager and frightened at once—a girl whose inexperience masked embers that would burst into flame at the right man’s touch.
The Change was like the act of love between a man and a woman. The consummation, the completion, the ecstasy. Had she trembled on the brink, awaiting the final cue from him?
“I think I understand,” Cassidy said, her words unsteady. “You blamed Isabelle for giving in to Lord Leebrook, but he’s part of your family. A werewolf, even though he doesn’t live like one. He could have forced Isabelle to… be with him, the way you make the servants obey you. The way you just tried to—” She backed away. “If becoming a werewolf means hurting people, I don’t want to be one.”