“I am glad that you’re back. More than glad. Without you—Oh, Braden—” She touched his arm, and he shook her off.
“Since it seems so urgent that you speak to me, please do so. I’m certain that we both have more important matters awaiting our attention.”
He didn’t require visual clues to recognize her frustration—or her deep unease.
Something was wrong. Something bad enough that she couldn’t bear to greet him with the love she had professed so eagerly before.
But she didn’t want to displease him. She was a new bride in a world still strange to her. Doubtless she’d committed some minor faux pas with the servants or a similar transgression that would seem far worse to her than to him. She was awkward and gauche by English standards, young and brash by any.
He curved his mouth into a smile and held out his hand. “Forgive me, Cassidy. I’m merely tired from the journey. Where is Quentin?”
“Quentin… hasn’t been here in a month,” she said. “I don’t know where he is.”
A hum of alarm moved along Braden’s nerves. He hadn’t been present to keep Quentin’s excesses in check; the boy could be anywhere, in any sort of trouble. But he’d be damned before he let Quentin’s absence mar his homecoming.
“Don’t be concerned,” he told Cassidy. “I’ll track him down soon enough. I trust Rowena is well—I shall speak to her shortly. I have a surprise for you—”
“Braden… Rowena is gone.”
Cassidy’s voice was soft and serious, but she might as well have shouted. Braden snapped erect, head up, testing the air.
Rowena’s scent was stale, days old. Braden strode for the staircase and took the stairs two at a time, ignoring his occasional stumbles. He reached Rowena’s room and found the door unlocked.
The room was vacant. Rowena had been gone long enough that even her scent was fading.
Cassidy came up behind him, moving with steps light and hesitant. “She left two weeks ago.”
He swung on her. “How? How did she get away?”
His heart counted out nearly a score of beats before she answered. “I helped her,” she said.
The declaration hung between them like a dying cry. Braden found himself unable to breathe.
“I had to,” Cassidy said. “She was hurting too much. She would have let herself die before…” She lifted her chin. “It was something I had to do, Braden. Please understand.”
Numbness sapped all sensation from his body before he could feel or react. He simply stood where he was, absorbing her confession.
He imagined Rowena in her room, driving herself to hysteria in her hatred for what she was. Convincing herself that death was the only escape.
Pity came unwanted out of nowhere—pity and regret and sorrow for the sister who’d once loved him. Another sacrifice to the Cause. But the sacrifice was necessary. No one life could outweigh the survival of a race.
Rowena knew that. And so did Cassidy, yet she had betrayed him in deliberate defiance of the basic requirements he’d laid down for their marriage—her absolute loyalty to and acceptance of the Cause and its necessities.
Betrayed. His stomach and throat twisted as if a torturer had bound him in bands of iron. He struggled to find any explanation that might absolve her.
“Quentin,” he said hoarsely. “Quentin was behind this—”
“Rowena hasn’t heard from Quentin.”
Not Quentin. But Rowena was his twin. She hid cunning behind propriety, feral instinct beneath a veneer of human normality. If shed been desperate enough…
“How did Rowena convince you?” he demanded. “She must have tricked you. Taken advantage of your natural kindness—”
“She didn’t take advantage of me, Braden.”
“Rowena has the werewolf powers,” he said. “She could have used them—”
“I helped her of my own free will,” Cassidy said. She moved toward him, stopped again. “I know how you feel about the Cause. I know what you told me, and I never wanted to disobey you.” He heard her suck in air as if she, too, found it difficult to breathe. “But it was wrong, Braden. Wrong to keep her prisoner. If only there’d been some other way—”
He ignored her attempt at explanation. It was all his heart could do to keep beating when the claws of despair had torn it from his chest.