Dark Wolf (Spirit Wild) - By Kate Douglas Page 0,63

of a drinker. “I used a spell I found among my father’s papers.”

“Blood magic?”

He nodded, not totally surprised that a wizard as powerful as Cheval would know.

“That requires a sacrifice. What did you kill and how?”

He shook his head. “No. Never. I won’t kill to empower my spells. I used my own blood.” He sighed, still slowly shaking his head. “I won’t do that again. The blood tainted the spell. It felt wrong the minute the drops hit the flame.”

Cheval merely nodded. “Do your father’s spells, the ones he casts, require the death of living creatures?”

Sebastian stared at the granite bar, grounding himself in the natural patterns running through the stone. “I believe so, though I’ve not witnessed any sacrifice. My father is very secretive with his magic.” He should have felt like a traitor, divulging his father’s methods, but something about Cheval made Sebastian comfortable trusting the man. There was a sense of honor here that was sorely lacking in his father.

“Possibly the deaths of young women?”

Sebastian raised his head and once again looked directly into the man’s eyes. He consciously dropped his shields, should Cheval want to see his innermost thoughts. “I hope not. I wish I knew for certain, but I’ve a growing suspicion they might be his source of power.”

Again, there was no reaction. Cheval turned as he took a sip of his cognac and stared at the big window. From the position of the house, Sebastian imagined that during daylight it would look out on a huge meadow with the granite peaks of the Rocky Mountains rising majestically behind. Tonight, with the lights shining inside, Sebastian saw only the reflections of two men, lost in thought while searching carefully for answers.

He wondered what Lily’s father saw.

Anton glanced over his shoulder. “I just reached Lily. She’ll be here in about half an hour.”

Seb’s gaze flashed from the window to the man. So calm, and yet so very powerful. It wasn’t common knowledge that Chanku were telepathic, but from what he’d learned, most of them were limited to a fairly short distance. Cheval appeared to have no limits.

Was it the magic, or merely his personal set of Chanku genetics ? Did Chanku gain power with age? Anton Cheval was no kid. Sebastian had done his research, knew he’d been born in the twentieth century, in 1955. That meant he was eighty-four years old, and yet in both appearance and action, he was a man in the prime of his life. Chanku were said to be nearly immortal. Seeing him, Sebastian had no doubts the rumors were true.

By appearance alone, Anton Cheval could be one of Sebastian’s contemporaries. It was unnerving, knowing Cheval was older than his own father and yet looked half Aldo’s age.

Almost as unnerving to feel the power that was so much a part of him. At least Cheval’s aura had settled. It no longer spiked and flamed, though it continued to glow with bursts of red and magenta.

When he spoke of Lily, though, soft pale pink wove in among the red. He truly loved his daughter with a pure and enduring love that Sebastian couldn’t even begin to imagine. What would it be like, to be loved so completely?

His mother had loved him, but she’d also lied to him. He’d grown up believing his father was dead.

Maybe he’d have been better off if Aldo had died. Or, at the very least, if he’d never learned his father lived. In hindsight, it had been a rash decision to search for Aldo after discovering his name on the birth certificate. Even more foolish to take that name as his own, but it had pleased the old man.

In the beginning.

Cheval stepped out from behind the bar and faced the big window. He glanced over his shoulder at Sebastian. “What makes you think your father is involved with the murders?”

Sebastian slipped off the stool and walked across the room to stand next to Lily’s father. They were of equal height, and seeing their reflections together like this, Sebastian realized he’d been right—they appeared the same age.

Standing here beside the man, it was easier to think of Cheval as a peer, not as the father of the woman he might be falling in love with. He shoved his fingers through his hair in frustration and looked at Cheval’s reflection in the glass.

“Please realize, I don’t know Aldo Xenakis very well. I only discovered he was my father a couple of years ago, when my mother was dying and I