"Them being the windows to the soul and all that."
"Yes." He paused. "Has anyone ever said you've got extremely expressive eyes?"
"No, and I'm not interested in hearing it from you, either."
He smiled. It reminded me of a cat watching a mouse he knew he was about to eat.
"So, the man sent to seduce me three or so years ago wasn't wearing his true form?" Which meant remembering him wasn't going to help anyway.
"No."
I drank some more beer, then asked, "What did he claim to do as a job?"
"I believe he said he was military."
Military? I'd only ever danced with one military man, and had ended up losing part of my heart to him. But it couldn't be Jaskin. He'd been checked and silently approved by the Directorate—there couldn't have been anything remotely dodgy about his past.
And there'd been no other military lovers—had there? I frowned, remembering back to when I'd first met Jaskin. Remembered then the man before him—the man who had introduced us.
He'd come from the same carrier, but had somehow gotten separated from his shipmates and had ended up at the Blue Moon alone. Or so he'd told me. The moon had been two nights from full bloom and the fever had been riding me hard. Though I was with a couple of regular mates at the time, there'd been something about him that attracted me—a dangerous edge that spoke to the wildness. We danced the rest of the evening, and had agreed to meet the following night.
Only, he didn't come back alone. Jaskin and several others had been with him. They, too, had that edge, but something else had just clicked between me and Jaskin, and it was him rather than the first man I danced with all night long.
God, what was the first man's name?
Ben. No, something stranger. Benito. Benito Verdi.
Finally, I had a lead I could follow. It might be a total dead end, but at least it was something.
"Was that blue eyed man the first plant?"
"The first attempt at a plant, yes."
"Why?"
He raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, what did I do or say at that particular time that tipped you and your lab-mates off to the fact that I was something more than an ordinary wolf?"
"It was actually Gautier who suggested it. He said you were extraordinarily fast for a wolf, and could be a good donor for our labs or other experiments. He also said it was obvious you knew he was about, even when he was shadowed."
Something no wolf could do. But then, why hadn't Gautier also noticed those same facts when it came to Rhoan? Why mention me, and not my brother?
And then it hit me. Rhoan drank blood. That was why they'd never questioned his speed, his reflexes. They all thought he was a wolf who'd performed the ritual ceremony and blood-sharing to become a vampire.
After all, he worked at night, came home at dawn. Well, when he did come home, that is. The Jensen red wolf pack might be a small one in Australia, but our pack had a long history over in England and Ireland, so the fact that he was a Jensen was no clue in itself of his age. No one at the Directorate knew we were brother and sister—no one except Jack and the Director herself—and it certainly wasn't in our files. Hell, even his birth date on file was fake. But then, a lot of vampires did the exact same thing. Fake records was how many of the older vampires had gotten through the centuries undiscovered.
It was very possible to think him a vampire—and a vampire old enough to stand a little daylight.
Which was good for him. Not so good for me. After all, the bastards were still after me.
"So," I said, "you began to watch me?"
He nodded and sipped his beer. His gaze slipped leisurely down my body, his hunger beginning to roll across my flesh in ever-warming waves. Obviously, I'd yet to finish payment for the night. "I even lived in a building across from you for over a year. Believe me, I loved the fact none of your windows had blinds."
I raised an eyebrow. "You played Peeping Tom? And here I was thinking you were at least above that."
"It's in the nature of a male to look." His smile grew. "As it is in the nature of a female to flaunt."
"Flaunting and looking are perfectly fine. Spying is an entirely different matter." I hesitated. "So why you, anyway? Especially seeing it was Talon who was then placed in the position to be my mate?"
He shrugged. "You knew Gautier, and seemed to be too aware of his presence. Talon considered himself beyond a watching brief, and our other clone brother had already failed."
So that blue-eyed man was another clone, like the woman playing Mrs. Hunt? Why then say they were Helki—unless he was counting them as Helki because that was the source of their DNA? "But why not have one of your underlings do it?"
"The man I work for has no trust of underlings. I was ordered to do it, so I did."
I frowned. "You don't look the type to stand back and take orders easily."
"I'm not, but when it comes to this man, I have no choice. There is no real hiding from him, because the five of us are locked in telepathic contact. He is far stronger than the rest of us, and would kill any of us the minute he sensed betrayal. I have no wish to die before my time is truly up."
"So you skirmish from the edges, and send in others to do your dirty work." Like me.
He nodded.
"Then why aren't you dead right now? You're plotting his demise via the Directorate, are you not?"
His smile sent a shiver up my spine. "Yes, I am. But he cannot monitor every thought, every wish, and as long as I avoid certain key words, I can slip under the radar, so to speak."
So the reason he wasn't telling me certain things wasn't so much that he couldn't, more the fact that those words would attract unwanted mental attention.
"Then why try and place a mate on me? Why not simply snatch me?"
"Because of the Directorate, and your friendship with Rhoan. We did not wish to chance discovery, and weren't about to risk it by taking you. Not until we were sure you were worth the effort."
That raised my eyebrows. "Yet by snatching Rhoan, you ensured Directorate notice anyway."
He snorted. "That was Talon's arrogance coming into play. He never would believe the Directorate weren't all fools, or that they would notice his activities if he wasn't more circumspect. Of course, he didn't actually realize the lab had snatched Rhoan—not until after your raid to get him back." Amusement touched his lips. "That was very well done, by the way."
"Thanks."
He nodded. I took another drink of beer, then asked, "Why not kill Talon once we had him?"
"What was the point? Talon can tell you nothing."
Because the knowledge had been burned away. "So, originally, the plan was for Talon to keep an eye on me?"
He nodded again. "Of course, we didn't actually witness any of the abilities Gautier mentioned until recently."
"You mean the wolf who shot me with silver and recorded the whole event?"
"Yes. Seeing you shadow like that confirmed what Gautier had been saying all along."
"So why then? Why not try something like that earlier?"
"Because the day before, Gautier witnessed you taking out two vamps. No wolf, no matter how fast they are or how young the vampires are, should be able to do that. He demanded we do a test. This time, he was listened to."
So Gautier was the reason my life had headed down the toilet of late. Or, at least, he was partially responsible. If I'd walked away from the nightclub that night, ignored curiosity and the scent of blood on the wind, then maybe my life would have been normal. Or as normal as it could have been given Talon had decided I'd make the perfect incubator for his "perfect" child.