Dark Peril Page 0,74

there in his words. She wished she could give him reassurance, but she wouldn't lie to him. "I will find a way to commit suicide before that happens."

You know that is unacceptable.

She snorted and slowly stretched, the languorous stretch of a lazy cat. "You should know. Your plan is equally stupid." You are very brave when I cannot move.

She found herself smiling. This was what she was most familiar with. In the dark, she could pretend he was a dream man rather than a real flesh and blood one. She had no inhibitions with this man. They could play their verbal chess match long into the night and she was absolutely safe. She shifted into her jaguar form and the cat curled around him, guarding him, daring anyone or anything to try to harm him.

Absolutely, she agreed, safe in the large cat's form. But it doesn't make anything I say less reasonable. You plan to go into the camp of the enemy, hear their plans, relay them to Zacarias and go out fighting. Isn't that the same thing?

He was silent for a moment, and deep inside the jaguar's body, Solange smirked. She felt just fine now. He had kept her off balance with his absolute masculinity and his blatant sexuality, but now she was back on her game. Equals.

It is not the same thing. I did not know you were in this world when I ingested the vampire blood. You, however, know I exist.

That brought her up short. Are you planning to die because of the vampire blood? Is that why you aren't going to try to leave the camp without them suspecting you of spying? She hadn't considered that. She should have. Of course he would think the blood would eventually turn him into the very thing he was fighting against.

No healer will be able to remove all the parasites from my body. There was a young woman who lived with them for years, but they were not mutated into this form as they are now. They are strong and multiply fast.

She couldn't hear regret in his voice, and that was one of the things she admired most about him. He didn't waste time on regret. He'd stepped onto a path and intended to see it through in spite of the circumstances that had changed everything.

She took a breath and revealed the truth, safe inside the body of her cat. Her most terrible and wonderful secret. The secret she knew would bring every vampire down upon her, as well as every member of the Carpathian race.

My blood kills the parasites.

She gave him the truth as a gift. Only Dominic would realize the enormity of the cost that admission was to her. She had never trusted anyone, not even Juliette, with that accidental knowledge she'd discovered. Her blood resisted the vampire's lure, their hypnotic suggestions. She knew there was something about it that drew mages as well. It wasn't about being a pureblood jaguar; it was her royal lineage, the lineage her father had managed to destroy. She knew if anyone found out about her, they would lock her in a laboratory and she'd never get out. Brodrick hadn't yet realized the significance of what the mages, vampires and even the humans were looking for. He was very single-minded in his quest to destroy all those of his species who couldn't shift, who he deemed impure.

How could you know this?

Even within the jaguar's body her heart pounded in alarm. There was no difference in his voice, but something . . .

I gather information all the time. I sit in the trees outside the laboratory and I listen to the guards, to the jaguar-men, the mages, even to the vampires. They are never aware of my presence. I noticed they rarely were aware of Brodrick until he showed himself, yet the vampires and most mages always seemed to know when the other jaguar-men were close. So something had to be different about Brodrick and me.

Dominic stirred in her mind, flooding her with warmth as he often did in their exchanges when she found it difficult to tell him something. A small nudge of encouragement. But this--this was monumental and she knew it.

A few weeks ago, I broke into their laboratory. I heard Annabelle had been taken and they often bring prisoners there now. They have tight security and few prisoners ever manage to escape. I needed to know the layout of the building. And I wanted to take a look at