She remembered the look of distrust and fear in Uncle Jonas’s eyes even when he was trying to be kind, and bad times with Aunt Harriet when he was away from the ranch. They never said what they were afraid of, never spoke other mother, but they didn’t let her forget that she was different, an unwelcome burden on their charity. A few of the vaqueros crossed themselves when she walked by, and she was sent out to the farthest ranges when guests came to the hacienda.
But there had been generosity, too. Mercedes the cook had always seen that she had enough to eat. Old Juan had praised her skill at finding lost cattle and helped order her precious books of poetry from the store in town.
And her father had been human. She hardly remembered him, but she had loved him. And he loved her. Had Braden forgotten that?
“Not everyone is the same,” she said. “Some people are kind—”
“Most humans would hate and fear us, Cassidy, if we revealed ourselves. In times past, they often hunted us like animals. That is why so few know what we are.”
“But Isabelle isn’t afraid. She knows—”
“I allowed her to come here for your sake. She won’t speak of what she’s seen.”
His certainty was ominous, like a great black thunder-head foretelling a summer storm. “The servants—they live here with you,” she said.
“And they also know. But they are loyal to the family. They will never betray us.”
She thought of the mute, anxious deference of the servants—all but Aynsley, who wrapped himself in a kind of stately detachment, and Braden’s valet, whom she’d met on the stairs in London.
She frowned at her clenched hands on the table. “If we’re so different from humans,” she said, “then why do we live like them? Why did the werewolves marry them, and have children?”
If he knew she was speaking of her own parents, her own birth, he didn’t show it. “We did it to survive,” he said. “We thought that being like them would protect us. And there were less and less of our people to find each other. But now such ways have become a threat to our existence.” His blind gaze was vehement, obsessed. “You are not like them, Cassidy. Your senses are keener, your reflexes faster. You can run tirelessly for a day, go without food for a week. You can hear sounds a human is deaf to, or locate a man by his scent over half a city. You are oblivious to cold and resistant to illness and pain. You are loup-garou.”
She had never counted up her gifts the way he did now—not in so many words—but he was right. She was all those things, just as her mother had been. She should have felt glad, knowing how completely Braden accepted her.
But he spoke as if she were a collection of abilities, not a person. And she remembered the card game with Quentin, how she’d wondered what Braden would say when he learned she didn’t know how to Change.
“Our duty,” Braden said, “is to restore our blood to what it was in ancient days. It is the Cause to which I’ve devoted my life. You, too, are part of it.”
Part of a cause that Braden cared about fervently, profoundly, that made his harsh, handsome face take on a radiant light of its own. He was finally giving her a chance to help him.
“How?” she asked. “How can I help?”
“Believe in the Cause, as I do.” He spread his hands wide to encompass the room. “For more than fifty years, the last true loup-garou families of the world have met here, working to save our people. The next Convocation is in less than two weeks. You will be presented to the delegates, and take your place among us.”
She tried to imagine this hall filled with men and women like Braden, all looking at her. Judging her, debating her worthiness. Braden was so sure she was worthy.
But she had to be what he wanted. She had to forget that part of her was human, or that she had human friends. That was the price she must pay to be one of them.