Page 26 of An Unending Claim

“She snuck out first thing in the morning to come and tell me what happened. Even though there wasn’t much to be done until Louis made a move, she’d still taken a chance and come to warn me. She didn’t want me to be blindsided, so with no more information than to advise me to watch my back with even more vigilance, and keep a closer eye on Louis, she’d shown up at my hotel room. Mindful of the fact that she’d just stuck her neck out for me”—I didn’t mention the irony in my phrasing to Peyton. She’d see it for herself soon enough—“I asked her to allow me to provide her with safe passage out of France and enough money to set her up comfortably wherever she settled. She agreed and I went to my desk to pen a letter to Benoît and one to my banker in London. I’d barely started Benoît’s when a commotion broke out in the hallway.

“As I told you before, Adrienne liked to make a splash, to stir up drama if it shed a better light on her. She’d also been a bit of a loose cannon, jealous and possessive, and always asking me to reassure her that I still found her beautiful. So I’d been very mindful of my actions around her, careful not to give her any reason to doubt my faithfulness or imagine my ‘love’ fading.” I used air quotes because that word had been nothing but a means to an end. “And after so many years of soldiering and spying, playing a part came naturally to me. However, running off like I had the night before had been necessary at times. No more than a handful in the several months we’d been together, but for some fucking reason”—I rubbed my temples and grunted—“she chose that night to be extra paranoid.”

“Oh, fuck,” Peyton whispered.

“My words exactly,” I agreed. “She burst into my room in the early morning to find me alone with a young woman, wearing nothing but breeches that were practically hanging off my hips and were indecently high on my legs—for that day, anyway. Honestly, the whole scene would have been comical if I hadn’t known that the situation wouldn’t end happily for anyone.”

CHAPTERELEVEN

NATHAN

Nathan

“Adrienne lunged at Violette, who’d jumped to her feet, and when I intervened, it only enraged Adrienne more. I tried to calm her down and reassure her that nothing untoward had occurred. On the fly, I told her that Violette’s father was the person I’d gone to help the previous night and he’d sent his daughter to relay an offer to provide the fare for our wedding at a discount as a thank you. That mollified Adrienne somewhat. She continued to glare daggers at the girl, but she’d stopping shouting and attacking.

“I distracted her with my undivided attention, speaking in a soft and sultry tone, telling her I couldn’t wait to be alone and promising to prove my devotion in bed. Then I encouraged her to let Violette leave so I could give in to my need for her. Predictably, my tactics worked and she yelled for Violette to get out, which she did as quickly as possible. When Adrienne left a few hours later, she seemed to have put the whole thing behind her and I thought that was the end of it.

“Then, two days later, another visitor arrived unexpectedly, a man named André. When I sensed the falcon in him, I immediately knew he was Violette’s brother. Before I could invite him in, he blurted out that Violette had been arrested.”

Running my hands through my hair, I exhaled a slow, controlled breath. Even after all the years, it still made me furious when I remembered what happened next. “I knew… I fuckingknewAdrienne was behind it. André said they wouldn’t give him any answers as to why she’d been detained other than she’d been accused of working in opposition to the revolutionary government.”

“How did you save her?” Peyton asked, leaning forward in her seat as if I were about to divulge a secret.

Rather than answer her question without context, I continued on with the story. “The atmosphere in Paris in those days was similar to the Red Scare during the Cold War. People were tainted by association, condemned just by being seen with or related to someone determined to be guilty of treason. When I heard about Violette’s imprisonment, I reached out to contacts and discovered that there were claims she’d conspired with a group who’d also been rounded up the day before. They’d been planning to stage a half-assed counter-revolution, but one of them ran their mouth, and they all ended up losing their heads. However, with the exception of her quick trip to my hotel room, I knew Violette had been home during the time she’d been accused of working with the group. So I went to Louis and told him he needed to go speak on Violette’s behalf. Clear up the misunderstanding.”

Peyton’s eyes had narrowed, angry flames leapt in her green orbs, and her lips were pinched together. She already knew what that bastard had done. Or hadn’t done.

Still, I confirmed it. “He wouldn’t. He was afraid that even if he managed to convince them to free her, he would be under suspicion. As it was, when she was convicted, he was going to have to prove himself uninvolved with the actions of his daughter. I argued with him for hours, threatened, bribed. The son of a bitch was more scared of being labeled a traitor than he was of me.” I smiled, but it was icy and malicious. “He was lucky I didn’t allow my wolf to tear his throat out right then and there. Believe me, he was foaming at the mouth to lock his jaws around that weasel. Eventually, though, Louis learned that I was the one he should have been terrified of all along.”

Feeling restless, I stood and walked over to the fireplace, then talked as I stacked logs and set them ablaze. “I only let him go that night because he finally agreed to do something. But it wasn’t what I’d expected. Rather than stand up for her innocence, he tried to shift blame.”

Turning around, I leaned my elbow on the mantel and crossed one ankle of the other. “Adrienne came to me the next morning, laughing over Violette’s crazy father and the ridiculous story he’d been spewing. It seemed he was accusing me of being ‘of the devil,’ a shapeshifter who’d seduced his daughter into doing what she’d been accused of.”

“He didn’t,” Peyton breathed.

“I still don’t know if he realized that he’d condemned her or if he thought they’d give her leniency for being hoodwinked by an evil man. Either way, it backfired. My connection to Adrienne, and particularly my relationship with Bernard, put me above suspicion, just as I’d intended when I entered this deception. They actually threw Louis out, calling him insane and forgetting about him altogether.”

I shook my head and stared at a spot on the wall across the room as the memories of that afternoon swam in front of my eyes. “I couldn’t believe he’d skated by, yet again. That man was slipperier than a damn eel. André and I worked to find something, anything, that would at least delay Violette’s execution. But without exposing ourselves as shifters, validating Louis’s story, we came up empty.”

“But… André…” Peyton trailed off, shaking her head as if to clear it.

“There was nothing he could do that wouldn’t result in danger for his mate. Without that, I never would have talked him off the ledge and he’d have lost his head, too. I did manage to bribe someone into giving André a few minutes with his sister, to say goodbye. I wanted to see her to explain, but it would have been too suspicious, and if word reached Adrienne, there was no telling what would have happened. As it was, I risked trouble when I attended Violette’s execution, but after Adrienne witnessed her parents’ beheading, she didn’t attend them anymore.”

I dropped my gaze to meet Peyton’s wide eyes when I told her the rest. “If I made any overt moves to protect Violette, it would have damaged the relationships I’d built, leaving a gaping blind spot in the operation Benoît and the Brit were running, endangering so many more lives. Violette would not be the first martyr for the cause, nor would she be the last.”

Peyton’s face contorted with a myriad of emotions as she tried to figure out how to react to what I’d told her.

I uncrossed my feet and braced them shoulder-width apart, then I ran my hands through my hair before folding my arms over my chest. My story wasn’t quite done, and the next part was perhaps the most pivotal.

“Peyton.”

She passed a hand over her face before meeting my eyes.

“You need to know, I don’t regret my actions. Violette’s death was not something I took lightly, and it hurt to watch her give her life for a cause she had almost no knowledge of. I wish there had been another way, but I feel no remorse for my choice because I know, without a doubt, that it was the right one. All options were exhausted to save Violette, and I didn’t give up to save my own hide. Sacrificing the one to save the many takes on real meaning when you’ve fought for a cause so many times. If it wouldn’t have endangered so many…”

“What happened to Louis?”

My wolf had been relatively quiet during our story, but at Peyton’s question, hot rage flashed inside us. If I could have killed that coward multiple times, it might have helped to alleviate the anger I still carried toward him. My wolf snarled, in complete agreement.

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