“I don’t want your money,” she said. “I wasn’t running when you found me, Braden. I was coming back.”
For a moment hope was an aching knot in his chest. Coming back, to him, because she—
He turned to her, hardening his expression into indifference. “Don’t make the mistake of believing that I yearn for companionship because I have suffered so greatly. I am accustomed to being alone. You require a different kind of life—”
“What kind of life? The kind Quentin has? The kind Rowena wanted?” Her hair slapped at him as she shook her head. “No. I’m no fine lady, and I’m not a helpless child. I can take care of myself. I could live out here alone, if I had to, and not need anything else. You see, I’ve learned how to Change.”
At first he didn’t understand the full meaning of her words. But then he remembered lush fur brushing his, a sleek female shape and delicate muzzle…
“No,” he said sharply. “It was my madness—”
“It happened while I was running away from Greyburn,” she said. “I can Change, Braden. I’m loup-garou.”
All at once he felt the electric tingle of the Change—not his own, but hers. It hummed through the ground and up into his body, a palpable charge that raised the hair on the back of his neck.
And then he felt her press against his hand.
“Cassidy,” he said. His fingers closed to grasp the thick fur circling her neck, but she danced out of his reach. Another sizzling current, a few half-swallowed breaths, and she stood beside him, a woman once again.
She was loup-garou, and the full irony of it hit him like a blow in the belly. He himself that betrayed the Cause when it was the last thing he’d tried to preserve.
He sank to his knees in the mud. The greatest punishment of all was knowing how he’d deceived himself.
He heard her knees hit the ground beside him. “Now you know that I can be with you in every way,” she said. “Do you still want me to go?”
After all this, she still waited for his judgment, as if he had the right to make the decision for both of him. “Would you come back when the only thing that’s changed is the proof of your blood?” he asked, driven to test her and hating himself for it.
She was silent while returning rain blew in fitful gusts between them. “Some things have changed, Braden. But not everything. Not the most important thing.” She leaned so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek. “I made my choice long ago. I wanted to be with you. I wanted to marry you.”
“Duty,” he said bitterly. “I will not hold you to what you promised in ignorance. You owe me nothing.”
“If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t choose any differently. Maybe for a little while I hated you. I’d never felt that way before. But you were the one who made me feel all those things for the first time in my life, and… I found out that hate just isn’t much use.
“I love you, Braden. I know you don’t love me, but maybe in time…”
“Would you share me with the Cause, Cassidy?” he demanded mercilessly. “Would you take second place to something that’s caused so much pain?”
The crown of her head, wet with rain, came to rest against his shoulder. “I would never ask you to give it up, Braden. It’s too important, even if mistakes were made. Maybe neither one of us is perfect. Maybe it won’t be easy, but I want to try. Unless you send me away, I’m coming home. To Greyburn, with you.”
God help him. He could not fight it any longer. He could not help loving Cassidy any more than he could deny his blood. If he let her go, his soul and his strength would wither and die as surely as his vision.
She was his soul.
He bent to touch his forehead to hers. “Forgive me,” he whispered. “I want you to come home. I want you, Cassidy.” He framed her face with his hands, as if he might lose his courage if for a moment she slipped from his grasp. “I love you.”