But Tiberius would not kill the carrier of the very blood he was fighting to preserve. At least not the body. But there were other things to lose…
Abruptly Grandfather took Braden’s arm in a hard grip and dragged him into the house. The Russian count stood waiting at the foot of the grand staircase, his eyes silvery slits. Grandfather stopped before him, and some silent communication passed between lord and lord, the kind that Braden was only beginning to comprehend. Wills clashed, and it was the count who broke away first.
“Go to my rooms,” Tiberius ordered his grandson, and Braden didn’t hesitate to obey. He could buy Quentin more time, and Grandfather would lose the first edge of his anger. He started up the stairs that led to the landing and corridors that ran the length of the first floor through the family and guest wings. A small group of the delegates and their mates stood watching with wary curiosity from the guest wing, but they melted aside as Grandfather reached the landing. Human servants retreated with equal discretion.
Grandfather’s suite was a place for which Braden had never borne much affection. Here punishments were meted out, lectures given. And here the weight of the Cause was overwhelming.
Ancient armor stood against the wall, shields and weapons surviving from a more savage age. The Forster blood went much further back than this house had existed, though the names Braden’s ancestors carried had changed with the centuries. There was nothing of gentleness in the room. It was icy, for Tiberius denied anything .that hinted of a human weakness. The loups-garous did not suffer from mere cold.
Grandfather sat down in his hard-backed chair. “Stand where you are, and listen,” he said. “I had believed you were old enough to understand. I was mistaken. I shall make it clear to you again. Quentin is only worth to me whatever children he can sire. Rowena is the same. But you—of you I expect far more.”
Braden lifted his chin. “I know my duty.”
“No.” Tiberius pounded his fist on the carved arm of the chair. “But you will, before I am done with you. Your father was worse than useless, but your blood is strong. You will not betray me in the end.” He stood up and walked to the old mullioned window that looked over the park. His voice dropped to a rasping whisper. “I’ve been betrayed twice before. My dear sister eloped with a human before her marriage to the man I had chosen for her could take place. She rejected the ways of our people. And “William’s daughter Edith ran off with some American peasant, a human named Holt. William and Fenella have been dead these five years, and Edith and Holt and their two offspring have taken up residence in some forsaken wilderness to the far west of America.”
“But if you know where they are—” Braden began. “As of a year ago, yes. If they survive, they will be found and brought back. That shall be your charge when you come of age. Bring them back and force them to—” He stopped, breathing hard. “There will be no more betrayals.”
The passion and anguish in Tiberius’s voice was very real and utterly unexpected, and it struck at Braden’s heart as nothing else might have done. Grandfather had spent his life trying to save a race, and his own siblings had turned their backs on him. Only his innate power had kept the other werewolves cooperative when they had cause to doubt his strength and authority, even over his own family.
The loups-garous respected strength. But loyalty to family was burned into their very souls, and so a brother’s and sister’s rebellions were wounds that would not heal. Braden could not imagine Quentin and Rowena doing that to him. Never.
He crept across the worn carpet to his grandfather’s side. “I won’t do what they did,” he promised. “I won’t let the Cause die.”
Grandfather looked at him, and it was as if he’d never slipped to reveal a single moment of vulnerability. “When I’m finished with you, you will have no other purpose. You will live for the Cause, as I have. Nothing else will matter to you. Do you understand?”