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CHAPTER 14

A rmand

Antoine is practically vibrating with excitement as we enter my office. He is usually so restrained, with the boredom of life that sometimes comes to those who have lived a lot of it and ceased to be surprised. I have the feeling something has surprised Antoine.

“I have news, Ma?tre . I think the mystery of your mate’s origin has been resolved.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Maitre. Really. You might want to sit down. I’m afraid there’s strange news to be heard.”

I don’t sit down. I look at him, expecting him to make it quick. He does not make it quick.

“I found the director’s records. That’s the first bit of news, and the best. He secreted them away in a bank vault in Paris. There was quite a bit of information of various kinds in them. I’ve made copies, naturally, and added them to our archives.”

I try not to be overtly impatient. All I want to hear is what the deal with Beatrix is.

“Her family name was Rostova. She was orphaned because her parents both died in inter-pack aggression. The Russian packs were at war in the early two thousands, and that war was vicious, bitter, and violent. Females were not spared any more than males were. Her parents sent her away to safety, to family in Britain. But the family she was sent to were also killed, as were the people she was traveling with. She was found in a bloody crime scene, and taken to the orphanage, because she was judged to need a higher level of care than could be given in a foster home. They did not know her shifter heritage, but they knew she was not normal.”

It sounds like Beatrix’s trauma has always been clear. She wears it like armor. The Russian connection is also not entirely surprising, given that the director mentioned she had Siberian blood.

“Moreover, Ma?tre , I can allay your second concern. The one around her virginity. I did some research, and there’s an ancient shifter pack—or was. They were wiped out in the wars. They’re noted in the history books because they had a specific mutation. Females of most shifter packs these days don’t gain the ability to shift until they’re bred. Some don’t even have the ability to properly hunt and kill once they do shift. They’re practically domesticated, more like dogs than wolves. We’ve all heard the stories out of the States.”

“Yes. And?” I am growing increasingly impatient as he seems intent on saving the best for last.

“This is the part that I find concerning, Ma?tre . And so you know, I have not told anybody, nor will I, besides you.”

“Alright.”

“Females of this lost pack do not gain their ability to shift when they are mated by their fated mate for the first time. They gain their ability to shift when they first kill a man.”

He pauses to let that sink in. “She is not made wolf by merit of mating, of love. She is made wolf by merit of destruction, of committing an indelible sin that can never be forgiven.”

He is laying it on more than a little thick, but I get a sense of what he is implying.

“There have been killings in the village, Ma?tre . And your mate has been growing ever more powerful. It is said that every time she shifts she seems larger and more powerful…”

I ignore the observation about her getting bigger when she shifts. It is interesting that he mentions it, not because it is true, but because clearly the pack has been talking about her, communicating with Antoine behind my back. It could be the usual gossip, or it could be something else.

“So she hasn’t been with anyone before me. She’s not been mated before. I was her first?”

“ Ma?tre , all due respect, her virginity or lack thereof is hardly the largest problem we face. The bloodline she comes from does not bestow shifting with the shedding of blood as some cute little quirk. The gift requires blood to maintain. She is not herself if she does not kill. And, to make matters worse, there is a decent chance that she will pass this undesirable trait onto any offspring you have. It would be a violation of the bloodline.”

I nod and compose myself. He wants me to be concerned; I want to dance with joy. She is mine, all mine. She was never touched, and she never will be.

“I don’t think you’re understanding the full ramifications of this, Ma?tre .”

“Of course I understand. She is wired innately differently. We knew that already. But she has not caused any problems in the pack, has she? Throwing a bread roll at a man at dinner isn’t exactly a vicious, bloody attack. The only people she has killed has been in one form of defense or another, and all outside the pack.”

“She can’t be trusted. At any time, she could become entirely uncontrollable. We are all unsafe in her presence.”

I can tell that he is afraid, but the conclusions he is drawing seem hysterical even to me. I can quite literally smell his fear. He’s been whipping himself up into a frenzy the entire time he’s been researching.

“You are to keep this to yourself,” I tell him. “Nothing will be done hastily, and you made it very clear nobody else knows this but you. So, if this were to become a more public matter, I’d know where to go.”

“She’s been killing for a year at least. I cross-referenced unsolved mysteries with her time at the orphanage. There was a spate of them. All able-bodied men. All succumbing to vicious injuries attributed to animal attacks. She is no innocent. She has a body count higher than anybody in the pack. More than anybody you have ever met.”

He expects me to be shocked, but after having seen her in action, I am not surprised at all. This is all entirely coherent information given what I’ve seen. Antoine’s horror would only be increased if he knew that the pack cemetery holds two more bodies now than it did when he left.

“Do those packs still exist? Does she have living relatives?”

“If she does, it is best she never meets them, and they never know she is alive. The horrors I uncovered while studying the acts of her ancestry were shocking. I have to say, it might be best to reconsider procreating with this one. There are some packs in which an alpha has more than one mate. I fear for the fate of the pack if her genetic material were to become established.”

“The idea that we are afraid of who she is to the extent she cannot be bred is cowardice.”

Antoine’s expression closes, like the file. He puts the brief on my desk. “This is the information I accumulated, Ma?tre . I would advise you to read it and come to your own conclusions. I am available to discuss anything you wish to. And I will, of course, maintain complete confidence. Nobody will hear any of this from me.”

“Thank you, Antoine.”

At that moment, when he was probably about to start begging me to abandon my mate, Beatrix runs in and slides onto my lap, claiming me with her butt and legs in a way I find entirely adorable.

If she noticed the way Antoine pulled away from her as they passed at the doorway, she doesn’t say anything about it. I will need to speak to him about looking less entirely terrified when she is in his presence.

“I told Volkov that I’d kill him if he hurt you again.”

“Beatrix. He didn’t hurt me. I hurt myself attempting to hurt him.”

She flashes her teeth in a feral little grin. “Next time you punch him, his face better not be so hard, that’s all I’m saying.”

She is absolutely incorrigible. I don’t know how to respond, especially given Antoine’s breathless revelations as to her background.

“So what now? We sit around feeling bad about who we are while some dickhead you found online has free rein of the chateau? You know all he does is fuck around with our heads. I think he likes it.”

She really doesn’t like Volkov. I wonder if I shouldn’t put a security detail on him, given her predilection for dealing with people like him with absolute brutality.

“Well, now I’d like to talk to you about intimacy,” I say. “I want to be intimate with you emotionally as well as physically. And that means sharing our backgrounds.”

“Ughhhh,” she grunts. “I hate that part. I don’t want to talk about the past. It was bad, and I didn’t like it, and besides nothing really ever happened. Any time a man tried to touch me, I hurt him. You’re the first one I didn’t severely maim for beating me.”

“And I appreciate that, sweetheart, I really do. The fact that you and I can be together without me losing any body parts is deeply romantic.”

“Now you sound sarcastic.”

I rub her back in a reassuring way. “I’m not being sarcastic. It’s just difficult to say these things without sounding crazy because they’re insane.”

That makes her laugh.

* * *

Beatrix

There’s a file on Armand’s desk with a little skull embossed in gold on it. I am trying not to look at it too directly, but my gut is telling me I should really look inside.

Can’t do it now. Will have to come back later. Sneak in late at night, see what it is. Or maybe tomorrow. Whatever’s inside is calling to me.

I could just ask him what it is, but the same instinct that tells me it is important tells me he won’t tell me.

I nibble Armand’s neck, and I pretend not to pay it any mind, but that folder just became the center of my world.