When Passion Lies: A Shadow Keepers Novel (14 page)

“I will have you safe.”

He knew her well enough to recognize the fury in her eyes. She took a step toward him. “You won’t have me at all.”

“I don’t recall you being this infuriating when we were together.”

A tiny smile played at her mouth, and the tension between them lessened. “I’m a work in progress,” she said. “Dynamic.”

“You are indeed.”

“And I still don’t owe you anything, and you sure as hell owe me nothing.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“This conversation is over.”

“What did Reinholt know of Lihter’s plans?”

She took a step toward him, putting her hips into it as well as her smile. She looked sexy as hell and just as dangerous. “You can stop this interrogation now. Get used to the idea of not always getting what you want.”

She started to stalk past him, and he reached out and grabbed her arm. “Sorry. That’s not something I’ll ever get used to.”

She jerked away and looked up at him, eyes blazing, that fierceness he’d once admired now directed at him. “Why the hell should I help you? I’m out of here at sunset. In the meantime, get out of my room.”

“Stay. Caris, it’s important.”

She bristled, but held her ground. She was only inches
away, and even after so many years, the scent of her was achingly familiar. Everything, that is, except the wolf.

The wolf
.

Always, it was the goddamned wolf
.

He took a step backward. And then he looked away.

As if sensing weakness, she moved closer. “Gee. Thanks so much for the invitation. Your hospitality is overwhelming. How can I possibly refuse?” She casually pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket and held it up. “I should probably call Gunnolf. I told him I was coming. By now, he’s probably wondering if you slit my throat.” She said the words blandly, and the lack of humor chilled him.

He looked hard at her, the casual mention of Gunnolf erasing any lingering wisps of the woman he’d once loved and leaving only the warrior standing before him.
Good
. He didn’t want the woman in his head. Not now. Not anymore. “You wish for Gunnolf to have all of Scotland? It won’t happen. But the Highlands … If you help me—if we succeed—that I will consider.”

That he hadn’t soundly dismissed her suggestion that he abdicate all of Scotland was testament to his concern about Lihter’s activities and his need for solid intelligence. And, yes, to his desire to have Caris at his side again, even if only for a mission.

He had banished her because of politics. Because he was a ruler who had an obligation to protect his people no matter what the cost. He’d let her live because of love. And still, he’d lost her.

But now it was politics that could pull them together again. He’d be a fool not to exploit the opportunity.

Then again, perhaps he was a fool because he hoped to do that very thing.

Caris stepped sideways, her posture like a predator circling its prey. “Consider? It’s all about the politics, isn’t it? But with you, it always was. I should know that better than anyone.”

“You admired my commitment once. You even shared my ambition.”

“I’m a different woman now,” she countered. “I thought we’d already established that.”

“Different, but not foolish. You want something, I want something. Tit for tat.”

The tiniest smile touched her lips as one eyebrow lifted. “Tit for tat?” she repeated, her eyes dipping toward his crotch, the movement so quick he doubted she even realized she’d done it, and he forced himself not to react. The connection between them was still there, and he wasn’t the only one who felt it.

But under the circumstances, he wasn’t sure if that was good, or very bad.

She turned away. “The Highlands?”

“The offer is on the table.”

“And how do I earn such a precious reward?”

“Reinholt. I need to know what he’d learned of Lihter. What he came to Zermatt to tell me.”

“Gee, is that all?”

“Actually, no. His daughter has been kidnapped. By Lihter. I made a promise to find her. You will help me.”

“And all you’re offering is the Highlands?”

Tiberius said nothing.

“You’re operating under a misconception if you think I can just waltz into Paris and come away with the goods on Lihter. The weren don’t trust me. Even those who remain loyal to Gunnolf. To them I was just a vampire. Just Gunnolf’s whore.” Her voice was thick with outrage
as she said the last, and for the first time he was struck by the possibility that her transition from his world to Gunnolf’s had not been as clean as he had let himself believe.

She shook herself, as if tossing off memories. “I’m not the help you need.”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “But right now, you are the only help I have.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Caris realized that she could breathe again. Before, her body had seemed frozen. Tight. As if she were in someone else’s skin, unable to move the way she wanted to.

Now that tightness had vanished, but instead of the Caris she knew, the woman left standing in the room was broken somehow.

She’d told him she’d think about it, but she knew she’d accept. She told herself she didn’t want to. That she was only agreeing because of the girl. But that wasn’t true. Damn her, she was stepping in because she wanted to. Because she wanted to be near Tiberius, even if only on a mission.

She’d returned wanting to hate him—she
did
hate him. But she thought after coming here she’d hate him even more.

But she didn’t. She’d seen regret in his eyes. Just a hint, just a flicker, but it had ripped through her like a shard of glass. And that single look had said more to her than all the words they’d bandied about.

The Tiberius she’d once known would never have shown weakness to an enemy. And yet even after everything that had passed between them, he’d shown it to her.

She closed her eyes, willing her thoughts to calm. She was here, she was working with him. There was no changing that.

He was no longer her lover. There was no changing that, either.

But she’d been wrong about one thing. All these years she’d assumed he was no longer protecting her. That the promise he’d made to her ancestor Horatius meant nothing to him anymore—not after what she’d done to Giorgio.

He’d banished her, and that had cut like a knife. But when he’d let her live, she’d assumed it had been the last concession to his promise. She believed that he’d washed his hands of her, of his promise, of all the De Soranzo family.

But that wasn’t true at all. He’d created this task force to protect her. Even after everything, he was looking out for her.

She reached out to steady herself, not liking the way that reality was shifting beneath her feet. She’d shaped and polished her hate over the years, but now she was finding it cracked, its layers beginning to peel away.

That wasn’t a reality she wanted to examine. Because hating Tiberius was easy. If that hate chipped away, she wasn’t sure if she could stand the pain.

She curled her fingers around her phone, craving Gunnolf’s voice. Hard to believe she’d come to rely so much on his friendship. When she’d first gone to him, she’d half expected that he would kill her. She was a vampire, after all. At least as far as he was concerned. She was Tiberius’s mate, and Tiberius hadn’t made life easy for the werens, or Gunnolf in particular.

But he’d granted her a private audience, something she’d hoped for but hadn’t really been expecting.

“If this is a trap, lass, you’ll no walk out of here alive.” He’d looked at her harshly, his eyes narrowed, his hair a
fiery mane. She remembered that she hadn’t been scared. Why should she be? She’d already been made a hybrid; she’d already killed a man. She’d already lost Tiberius. Nothing could be worse than that.

“It’s not a trap,” she said. “And trust me when I say that between the two of us, you would not come out the victor.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It is. And once you hear my story, you’ll understand why.”

To his credit, he’d sat and listened as she’d talked, speaking of her plan to prove to Tiberius that she could be an asset in the field. Telling him of how she had tracked the traitor—and how her plan had gone so completely wrong.

When she finished, he stood and walked slowly around her.

“You don’t believe me?”

“There is the scent of the wolf on you. What you say may be true.”

She crossed her arms and cocked her head. “Want me to prove it to you? Trust me, it’s a lot easier to let the wolf out than to keep it in. Even when it’s not a full moon, the effort just about kills me.”

“And if you succumb, you kill many others.”

“Not you,” she said.

“No, not me. Nor my kind.” He was silent for a moment, watching her. “You say that he banished you.”

She tensed, her hands tight at her side as she fought both anger and the wolf. “He did.”

He met her eyes. “Were you one of mine, I would have done the same. And he was a great fool to let you live.”

She looked back at him, just as hard. “He was,” she
agreed. “And I think I hate him for it.” That was the crux of it. Of her anger with Tiberius. He let her live because he loved her or because he owed her. But that life came with horrible memories of Giorgio. Memories she didn’t want and couldn’t escape.

She might hate Tiberius, but she hated herself more.

For a moment he said nothing, and she feared he was going to send her away. But then he nodded and stood. “I will help you. But not here.”

He told her where to meet him—a secluded cave, far from the city. It was a location he used when his own kind were punished, and it was already complete with chains and shackles and other devices to ensure that she would not escape. She’d hesitated at first—how easy it would have been for him to assassinate her.

Of course that was why she’d complied, because a part of her wanted death.

She’d craved an end to a life in which she no longer belonged, either to the world or to Tiberius, and so she’d allowed him to shackle her, and then she’d let go with what she’d been holding in for so long. The wolf. The beast. It burst from her, hard and fast and oh, so painful.

She could remember nothing of that change, but when she’d regained her senses, Gunnolf was smiling down at her, mopping her forehead with a damp rag.

“No one must know,” he said. “You cannot kill my kind, but you can scare them. More than that, though, there are some among my people who would provoke you.”

“Provoke me? To what end?”

“To this end,” he said, indicating the room. “To making you change. To making you dangerous.”

“And to killing the vampires.” She nodded slowly, understanding. “And you?”

“I would not hesitate to kill a vampire if he stood in my way, personally or politically. But I would not risk human lives to do it. And I would not use an innocent as a weapon.”

She thought of Giorgio. “I’m not innocent.”

“Perhaps. But in this matter, you are.” He looked at her hard. “You don’t see that. Perhaps you never will. But I can make the pain lessen. And I can teach you to control the change.”

He grinned. “You say that Tiberius wouldn’t let you go into battle with him? I say you’ll be my strongest warrior. You will come live with me. And after a month on the field you’ll have control. And the guilt you feel will have faded to regret.”

“But you just said we can’t tell your people the truth. What possible explanation could we have for me moving into the château?”

“Not the château, lass. My bed. I think my people would see the intelligence benefits of having Tiberius’s former woman at my side.”

She’d shaken her head slowly. “I—No. You’ve been very kind, but I don’t—”

His hearty laugh had cut off her stammering words. “Nor I, lass. There is another who holds my heart.”

“But then why?”

“She has no love of France, no need of Alliance politics. My Moira stays in the Highlands. It is where she belongs. And for now, I belong here.”

“But you’ve been in France for centuries.”

His shoulders rose and fell. “A blink of an eye for creatures such as ourselves. We will find each other
again, Moira and I. Until then, I do my duty for my people.”