LITMIR.BIZ

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was always a risk in using violence against a fellow werewolf. Alese might escape again.

      No, Hugo thought as he walked toward the saloon door, he would take the somewhat lesser risk of offering Renier a substantial reward for the girl’s return.

      One way or another, Alese would become his bride, the bride of Duke Gunther di Reinardus. The weakling cousin who now held the Carantian throne, ruling at the whim of the noble houses, would be far more easily deposed than Alese’s parents had been. And those who would change the ancient Carantian way of life, the human-lovers and rebel egalitarians who wished Carantia to become part of the corrupt modern world, would suffer the fate they deserved.

      IT COULDN’T BE.

      Cold logic told Yuri that the girl in the other room couldn’t possibly be the one she so vividly resembled. It had, after all, been eight years since the duke had stolen her from New Orleans, and there was no guarantee that a woman grown would resemble the child of twelve she had been then. Especially a woman who had so clearly suffered since her abduction from a pampered, aristocratic life.

      He paced the narrow boarding-house hallway, shaking his head with every step. What were the odds that she could have escaped Duke Gunther di Reinardus, the ruthless traitor, the very man responsible for the deaths of her parents, and ended up in San Francisco at the very same time he and Cort were here? And she must have escaped, because the Gunther he had known eight years ago would never have let her go.

      Yuri sat down on the steps and fiddled nervously with the unlit cigarette dangling from his fingers. It must be the same woman. He had seen the birthmark below her shoulder blade when her blanket had slipped. As fantastic as the whole thing seemed, he had never been one to doubt his senses. That very pragmatism had originally allowed him to accept the existence of werewolves and join the duke in his scheme to claim the Carantian throne.

      A scheme that, apparently, had failed at some point in the years since he had left the duke’s service. Given the way di Reinardus had abandoned him in New Orleans once he’d taken the girl, Yuri couldn’t help but take a great deal of satisfaction in that fact.

      He pushed the cigarette between his lips and tried to strike a match. His fingers trembled too much to keep it steady.

      Think. If this girl had in fact lost her memory, it might explain why she hadn’t gone straight back to New Orleans. Perhaps she’d been on the run ever since.

      But when had she left Gunther? Weeks ago? Years? Gunther would have begun grooming her for the throne as soon as he took her, and that would not have been a difficult task, given her upbringing among the New Orleans Reniers. Raised to be accomplished and cultivated, accustomed to every luxury due a girl of breeding, she would have needed little refining.

      Where had that refinement gone? The way this girl had eaten, spoken, behaved … none of that suggested an aristocratic background. What had Alese di Reinardus, also known as Lucienne Renier, become?

      And where in God’s name was Gunther?

      Casting an uneasy glance toward the door, Yuri finally managed to light the match and nearly burned his fingers. He threw the blackened stick to the floor. Unless Gunther’s death or complete incapacitation had set Alese free—and Yuri didn’t believe anything short of the wrath of God himself could kill the bastard—the duke must be looking for her. Perhaps the girl’s amnesia was merely an embellishment to a desperate masquerade.

      Gunther would certainly never rest until he found her. But if he had tracked her here to San Francisco, Yuri would soon know. The duke would quickly have learned the name of the man who had taken possession of his missing prize.

      He would be on this doorstep momentarily, if he were not here already.

      Sucking in a deep lungful of smoke, Yuri closed his eyes. Perhaps, for once, the duke had failed. Perhaps Alese had well and truly eluded him. And that left a whole wealth of opportunities for Yuri and Cort. Dangerous ones, perhaps, but if they acted quickly.

      Without even knowing who she was, Cort was fully prepared to find her people and restore her to them for a price. Once he knew the girl was Lucienne Renier, he would see the beauty of Yuri’s scheme. There was little the New Orleans Reniers wouldn’t pay to get their lost “cousin” back.

      And if or when Gunther discovered what had become of her, Yuri and Cort would be long gone.

      Yuri dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the toe of his boot. Timing was everything. They needed to get the girl out of the city, just in case Gunther tracked her to San Francisco. And there were other things that would have to be done. It wouldn’t be necessary for Cort to know all the details to play his part in the plan.

      Especially now that they had a princess on their hands.

      Knees creaking, Yuri got to his feet, painfully reminded that he was no longer young. Soon he would need the money he had as yet failed to acquire and keep. This might be his final chance, and he was determined to take it. And if he got his revenge on Duke Gunther di Reinardus in the meantime, so much the better.

      CORT WAS JUST APPROACHING the door to the rooms he and Yuri shared, precariously balancing several boxes in his arms, when the Russian walked into the hallway.

      A jolt of alarm shuddered through Cort like an unexpected earthquake. “Where is she?” he demanded.

      “Inside, asleep.”

      Cort relaxed. “She’s well?” he asked.

      “The devochka has many questions, but she shows no signs of distress.” He grabbed Cort’s arm and pulled him back along the narrow hall. His eyes were bright and calculating.

      “What are you up to, Yuri?” Cort asked, recognizing that look all too well.

      The Russian lowered his voice to a whisper. “Do you not recognize her?”

      Cort set the boxes down. “What are you talking about?”

      “The girl!” Yuri shook his head impatiently. “She resembles Lucienne Renier in every detail, even given the difference in age from the time she was abducted.”

      Lucienne Renier. The name startled Cort, and it took another moment before he remembered the story. He hadn’t known the child stolen away from the grand manor of the New Orleans Reniers eight years ago. He had courted Madeleine in secret and had never visited her openly at Belle Lune until the last time he had seen her. If he had ever glimpsed Lucienne Renier, it had been briefly and at a distance.

      Yuri, however, had been for a time a guest at the Renier plantation just outside New Orleans—an exotic but impoverished nobleman who, despite his human nature, was of interest to the Reniers because of his aristocratic bloodline. Though the Reniers had not widely advertised the abduction, Yuri would likely have heard about it firsthand.

      It was his connection to the Reniers that had brought the two of them together at a French Quarter tavern shortly after Cort had won enough money to leave Louisiana. The Russian had taken Cort’s side in an after-game brawl, and once Cort learned that Yuri had recently parted ways with the Reniers himself, they had fallen into earnest conversation.

      That, in turn, had led to a mutually beneficial agreement: Yuri would teach Cort to be a gentleman equal in every way to the Reniers of New Orleans, and Cort would support them both with his gambling skills. But if Yuri had spoken of the abduction when they’d met, Cort hadn’t been listening. He’d had far more personal things on his mind at the time.

      “They never learned who took her?” he asked.

      The Russian snorted. “Obviously they did not.” He rubbed his hands like the disciple of Midas he was. “Eight years. It is a long time. But I swear it is the same girl. No other could have such eyes.”

      Cort sat heavily on the stairs that faced the building entrance. It seemed too incredible to be believed, and the implications were staggering.

      Lucienne Renier. A girl who bore the same surname he did, but only the most distant connection by blood. Like Madeleine.

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