The Passion Read Free Page A

searching for his kil er?"
    "What's one dead human more or less to them?"
    Nicholas's voice reflected impatience and contempt.
    "Let them dare try to bring us to account. Are you suggesting the weakest of us couldn't handle a dozen or more blundering human policemen?"
    Alexander nodded. "So you would kil the policemen. Then you would kil those who came looking for the policemen. Then you would kil to protect those who kil ed before, and then because some human annoyed you and final y for the sake of kil ing itself. Where wil it stop?"
    Nicholas scowled fiercely and made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Your exercise in hyperbole is irrelevant. It would never come to that, and if it did, what does it matter? Haven't we been hiding our dead and keeping our secrets long enough?
    Haven't we turned a blind eye to human atrocities once too often? Maybe the Brothers of the Dark Moon are right. Maybe it's time to put the balance of power where it belongs."
    "And al for the sins of one human."
    Nicholas's eyes glittered. "One human who, one time, went one step too far. That's al it takes."
    The elder's face remained shadowed, and his silence, this time, went on too long. His voice was careful y devoid of accusation or judgement when he spoke, but nonetheless seemed weighted down with both. "A moral code, once broken, can't be repaired. Think careful y before you plunge us al into war."
    " He has started the war!" roared Nicholas. "It is done, can't you see that?"
    "I think," said Alexander quietly, "you let your passions overcome your judgement."
     
    Nicholas drew in a sharp breath and released it slowly. It was a moment before he spoke, although the beat of his heart was loud in the ears of the other werewolf. "You were a wise and compassionate ruler," he said stiffly. "I, perhaps, am neither. But I wil do, as you have done, what the times demand."
    He moved back into the room, footsteps crunching loudly on broken glass, and toward the door in long, control ed strides. As he passed him, Alexander said quietly, "It wasn't a human."
    Nicholas spun on him, his shoulders square and his nostrils flared. The fire in his eyes leapt brightly for a moment with shock and disbelief, then was ice again. "You are insane, old man." His voice was barely above a growl. "The human scent is everywhere. Even you cannot have failed to read it.
    You're trying to distract me from what you know I must do—"
    Alexander said harshly, "A human was here and three of our own are dead, so natural y it must have been the human who kil ed them? You are a fool and a pup, so certain in your notions you ignore the obvious." His voice took on a note of contempt as he chal enged his son. "Try again, O mighty werewolf, and this time use your senses, not your prejudices. You wil find you were wrong on two counts."
     
    Nicholas stared at him, but already, as the rage and grief began to release their paralyzing hold on his senses, he could catch the scent of the truth.
    Humiliation, mixed with an equal amount of horror, seeped into the empty spaces left by departing certainty.
    With his own pulses rushing like a sea in his ear, he moved out of the room and down the corridor, fol owing the olfactory trail of blood and violence that was as clear as tracks in the snow. The last corpse was crumpled in the shadows against a wal , the shattered lamp he had dragged with him when he fel toppled on its side a few feet away. Nicholas approached hesitantly, then knelt beside the werewolf.
    It was a male, unknown to him. His coat was rough and mottled, his muzzle sharp, his eyes, slitted open in death, yel ow. He had a feral scent upon him that spoke of rough wild habitats and a diet of living things. It caused Nicholas to catch his breath, for he knew of no such creature in the pack. The blood of al three victims was on his fur, embedded in his nails, staining his teeth. He himself had died of injuries sustained in the battle; blood from a ruptured spleen bloated his bel y and