Page 66 of Purchased

“There have been killings in the village,Maître. 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?”

“Maître, 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,Maître.”

“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,Maître. 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.”

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