He felt a tingle of anger next to him—he felt the anger, but it was not his own—and turned to see Myn, blue eyes glowing, growling in his throat. The growl was soft but menace-filled and von Hohenzahl blanched.
“Myn looks after Lady Anastasia,” Alexander said calmly. “No need to trouble yourself.”
Von Hohenzahl whitened, unable to look away from Myn.
“You will make an appointment with me tomorrow,” Alexander continued, “at which time you will outline whatever you were scheming with Metternich about Nvengaria. You will be watched.”
Julius and his men nodded avidly, smiling. The most bloodthirsty thugs in London would have backed down to Julius’s smile.
Von Hohenzahl swallowed. “Nvengarians,” he muttered.
Alexander bathed him in a cold stare. “You will get more mercy from Nvengarians than you would the Austrians. Unless of course you betray me.”
Von Hohenzahl removed a white handkerchief and dabbed his face. “Yes, yes, of course. I am pleased now that the man I hired to take your wife today was unsuccessful. She is too well-guarded. You are to be commended.”
Alexander’s cold shattered and fell like a broken shell. “To take my wife?”
“Today, as she ventured to the green in Berkeley Square. I heard reports that she was fishing in a puddle, but journalists often get things wrong. Or perhaps I did not understand their atrocious English.”
“You hired someone to kidnap my wife?”
Von Hohenzahl did not seem to hear the fury in Alexander’s voice. “I needed her, but it went wrong. My man was unable to get near her, and I dismissed him.”
The beast reared inside Alexander, blotting out reason and civility. His vision swam and darkness hit him like a wave. The last thing he heard was a hideous snarl coming from his own throat.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alexander was standing in another room, his coat torn and ruined, his breath coming fast, blood on his hands. Myn stood in front of him as calm as ever, Julius behind him with a dagger out.
“What happened?” Alexander demanded. “Did I kill him?”
“No.” Myn cocked his head and regarded Alexander with his odd-shaped blue eyes.
Julius shook his head. “No, but the Austrian man’s breeches are no longer dry. You would have killed him, but for Myn holding you back.” He tried to speak stoically, a bodyguard startled by nothing, but his knuckles on his knife were white. Nvengarians sometimes displayed berserker rage, which was clearly what Julius thought had happened.
“Did I change?” he asked Myn.
“No.”
“Stop being so damn cryptic. What did I do?”
“You almost changed,” Myn said. “You stopped yourself.”
“Not on purpose. I remember nothing.”
Myn shrugged.
Alexander clenched his hands, bloody and raw, trying to calm the tremors rushing through his body. “I cannot control it. I have to control it.” He looked up at Myn, who regarded him silently. “Teach me more. Teach me how to change and how to remember when I do.”
Myn regarded him a moment longer, then gave a nod.
Julius, who obviously did not understand what they were talking about, looked worried. “Your Grace? What do we do with Herr von Hohenzahl?”
“Watch him.” Alexander tried to snap back to his Grand Duke persona. “Put as many men on him as you can spare, but do not let one guard stray from the Grand Duchess. I will need a new coat, and then you return home and tell my wife I will be late.”
“Late,” Meagan repeated as Julius, Alexander’s bodyguard, stood stone-faced in the India sitting room, to which she and Egan had returned. “Did he say how late?”
“No, Your Grace. He is with the logosh, Myn.”
“I see.”
She did not, really, but Julius seemed to want an answer. Egan McDonald, lounging in his chair with the whisky, shot her a look of sympathy. “Looks like ye’ll have to put up with me company a little longer, lass.”
“Why aren’t you with him, Julius?” Meagan asked. “I thought you were his personal bodyguard.”
Julius looked uncomfortable, or as uncomfortable as a brick wall could look. “He sent me home, Your Grace.”
“Why? A rather curious thing for him to do—he is always going on about how dangerous it is to be Grand Duke.”
Julius said nothing, but Meagan read in his eyes that he did not like that Alexander had sent him away either.
“Egan…”
Egan quickly held up his hands. “Doona ask me, lassie. Doona ask me to trot about dark and rainy London to find your husband.”
Meagan blinked. “I know you are not dearest friends with him, but…”
“What I think of him isna the point. He instructed me to look after ye. If I run after him and God help me, find him, he’ll peel the skin from me bones for leaving ye alone.”
Meagan glanced at Julius, who nodded grimly. “You are to be guarded at all costs,” Julius said. “You and His Grace’s son. The logosh is with His Grace, and he’s stronger than anything I’ve ever seen.”
“True,” Meagan said. “But is Alexander safe from Myn?”
The worry in Julius’s eyes grew, meaning he had no idea. Meagan rubbed her knuckles, not liking the chill in the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong.
“And doona get that look,” Egan said. He pointed a broad finger at her. “You willna trot around London looking for Alexander under every bush. I imagine our dear Grand Duke sent home his guards not only to protect ye but to keep ye home.” He got to his feet, his kilt swaying as he steadied himself against the whisky he’d consumed. His gaze lit on the chessboard in the corner. “Stay here and play chess with me. See if ye can trounce a drunk Scotsman.”
“I will,” Meagan promised darkly. “My father taught me to play.”
“Well, then.”
He glided unsteadily to the table with the chessboard and pieces and sat down. Meagan closed her mouth on hot words as she went to join him, to Julius and Dominic’s immense relief.
She’d have things to say to Alexander later, she decided. Many, many things.
“Where are we?” Alexander asked.
Myn shrugged. “Woods.”
They were a long way from London. He could tell by the tang in the air and the absence of the fetid scent of the city. Myn had brought him here, the logosh able to move through distances like a bird flew through air. Alexander remembered none of the journey and didn’t know if he’d become a logosh during the transition. He did not think so, because his clothes were firmly on him, his spare coat unripped.
Nikolai always sent a spare suit and several shirts with Alexander wherever he went. One never knew if some clumsy servant would spill wine or candle wax on the Grand Duke, who must appear pristine at all times. Alexander admitted that Nikolai’s preparedness didn’t hurt Alexander’s reputation for perfection.
Of course, the only person in London who’d spilled wine on him since he arrived was Meagan.
His body craved her. He remembered making love to her before they readied themselves for the ball, how satisfying it was to bury himself in her. Not just in the technical sense, but surrendering to the taste and scent and feel of her. As inconvenient as the love spell was, it had given him something he’d never had—complete happiness in being with a woman.
He’d never, ever been able to lose himself in someone else, never been able to trust that the woman he was with wouldn’t somehow betray him. His affairs had been casual in the extreme with widows or courtesans, never innocents and never lasting more than a night. He always made sure that some enemy would not and could not use the ladies he chose, either before or after their liaison with Alexander.
A few of the women had written books about their encounters with him that sold very well. Alexander always combed the manuscripts beforehand and expurgated anything dangerous, and no one had dared stop him. His reputation as a lover had risen, and the ladies gained prestige of a sort and were str
angely grateful to him. Being singled out by the Grand Duke could make a lady’s career.
The moment Meagan Tavistock looked at him had changed everything.
Which was why he’d asked Myn to help him. He wanted to go to Meagan without hurting her, and he couldn’t trust himself not to. He needed control. He didn’t mind that he’d attacked von Hohenzahl and scared the piss out of the man, but he did not want to risk his lack of control with Meagan. He wanted her with such intensity that the frenzy could trigger his change.
Myn gazed pointedly at Alexander’s suit before starting to remove his own clothes, unembarrassed.
Alexander toed off his boots, then unhooked the cords of his coat. “Nikolai will never forgive me for hanging my clothes on a tree,” he said dryly.
Myn either did not comprehend or did not care. Without a word, the logosh stripped off his breeches and shirt, tossed them into a pile and walked away into shadows.
What would the London newspapers make of Grand Duke Alexander nude in the woods with one of his entourage? Alexander smiled a little as he undressed, imagining what joy they’d get from such a story. He’d simply have to make damn certain no one saw him.
He hesitated a moment, his skin bare to the night, before collecting his clothes and following Myn. Walking barefoot in the woods in the dark was a risky practice, but somehow his body knew how to avoid the rocks and sharp twigs that littered the forest floor.
He could see, too. The moonlight was faint, riding in and out of thin clouds, but even when the silver orb obscured itself, Alexander’s heightened senses could make out the outline of every tree and leaf, the gleam of animal eyes in the shadows, and the outline of Myn walking ahead of him to a small clearing.
He laid down his clothes on a dry spot, then put his hands on his hips and scanned the clearing, sensing the heartbeat and rapid breathing of each rabbit and mouse and shrew in the underbrush. Did animals feel like this? Did wolves know every breath their prey took?
“How do I control the change?” he asked. “I want to do it at will, not wake up wondering what the hell happened to me.”
“You cannot.”
“What?”
Myn was staring across the clearing as though he too sensed the small lives in the underbrush. “You cannot control your logosh side. It controls you.”
“I have been controlling it for thirty-two years. Even in the worst times of my life, it has not risen up to plague me. Not until now.”
“Because of the love spell.”
“The love spell triggered it.” Alexander flexed his arms, wanting to run for some reason, not in panic, but for the pure joy of it. To run, to hunt. “I thought so.”
“The love spell tore down the walls you had built between yourself and what you are. You did not control the logosh in you; you pushed it aside. Once the man you hated and feared most in your life was dead and Nvengaria was safe, the walls you built started to break. And then the love spell destroyed them.”
“That is the longest speech I have ever heard you make. But you are wrong. I did control it.”
“No.” Myn’s eyes grew still more blue. “The beast inside will kill you if you do not surrender to it. Logosh is what you are.”
“I am only half logosh.”
“Then it will be harder for you.”
Alexander balled his fists. “I do not want to hurt Meagan. Do you understand that? I cannot hurt her.”
“Then surrender.”
The air around Myn shimmered, and his form changed. He became a demon, one of the dark, hideously strong beings who had invaded the throne room the day Prince Damien and Penelope returned from Nvengaria. They had nearly killed Alexander, and Penelope herself had brought Alexander back from the dead.
Since that day the logosh had devoted themselves to Princess Penelope, following an old tale that told of a princess who had befriended a logosh and so won the devotion of his tribe. Alexander understood that devotion, knowing he owed Penelope his life.
Alexander’s heart beat faster, dark tingling beginning in his spine. “I never wanted to be a demon.”
It is what you are. Myn did not speak words, and Alexander was not reading his mind. He simply knew what Myn meant.
Myn shimmered again and his form flowed into that of the wolf he’d been at the ball. You are the demon, but you may show what form you wish to the world.
But first, Alexander thought, he must become the demon.
Surrender was not a word with which Alexander was comfortable. He’d surrendered to Prince Damien, but only conditionally, because he believed that Penelope could keep Damien under control. He hadn’t really surrendered to the love spell. It had simply taken him over.
He remembered Myn’s teachings on meditation. Stretching out his hands, he studied his fists, marking each sinew and hair that curved over his fingers. His hands were brown, darker than an Englishman’s, his ancestry showing in the burnish of his skin. The Magyars, warriors of Eastern Europe, had come from the Russian Steppes in ancient times to settle in the Danube Valley, spilling north into Nvengaria and intermarrying with a few Turkish tribes that had migrated there. The Nvengarians’ darker skin and wild ways came from them.
He loved to look at Meagan’s hand on his, her pale fingers stroking his as though she found every part of him fascinating.
For Meagan, for her safety, he surrendered.
The world did not look much different for a moment, and then everything changed. Shadows sharpened as though the moon had come out, but it had not. He saw colors he never knew existed, exact shades between green and blue, a color beyond purple he could not identify.
Every blade of grass, every leaf, every grain of earth was sharp and whole. He definitely heard the heartbeats of animals now, heard their quick fear as they sensed a predator among them. He heard the steady beat of Myn’s heart, the heat of the other logosh’s blood, and could pinpoint with precision where Myn was.
Alexander’s hands changed. Hard with muscle, demon skin covered them, but it was not unpleasant as he had feared. It looked right, as though Alexander had finally broken through.
But Meagan would fear this shape. He knew how the boy logosh, Wulf, had come to England in pursuit of Penelope and how he’d terrorized the household, including Meagan. He did not want Meagan to look at him in fear.
Another shape, then—Myn had said he could present any face to the world he wanted. He already knew the Alexander shape, but when he needed to change he would choose something less frightening to the average Englishwoman, less frightening to Meagan.
He had it. He’d always admired the creatures, and a few of them inhabited the high mountains north of Nvengaria.
Alexander concentrated. He studied his hands again, nearly jumping when they began to be covered with smooth, silky black hair. His fingers grew shorter and rounded into claws, and then he felt the compulsion to drop to all fours.
When he landed, the look of the world changed again, going black and white but sharper still, with shadows convex and concave rather than in straight lines. He rumbled in his throat, a growl emerging that sent the more sensible rabbits dashing for safer hiding places.
Alexander put one paw in front of the other, feeling the strength in sleek sinews, shoulders bearing the weight of his long back. He licked his mouth, tongue tasting sharp whiskers and the strange sensation of fur.
He broke into a trot without realizing it, following the scent pattern of Myn’s wolf form, the trail of smells sharper than that of sight. The moon came out as he moved into the woods, highlighting the empty clearing where he’d been, the breeze stirring his abandoned clothes and the sash of the Grand Duke of Nvengaria.
Alexander did not return home until dawn. Egan McDonald, with Scots stubbornness, refused to leave, no matter how many times Meagan won at chess.
“I have taken a hundred guineas from you,” she said as he laid down his king yet again. Early light brushed the edges of the curtains, sliding between cracks to touch the near-guttered c
andles.
“A glutton for punishment I am.” Egan retrieved the chess pieces and set them up. “Again?”
“Good heavens, no.” Meagan rose, impatiently shaking out her apricot skirts, tired of the lovely dress. “Haven’t you things to do? Mad Highlander things?”
He looked up at her, holding the white queen between broad fingers. “If I go off to do Mad Highlander things, will ye go to bed?”
“No.”
“Then I stay. And anyway, Alexander—”
“I know, ordered you to look after me. Blast him.”
“Meagan, he is a—”
She held up her hand. “If you say he is a very important man, I believe I shall scream.”
“Let me finish a sentence, woman. I was going to say he is an unpredictable man. Ye can never be sure what he’s going to do. When I arrived in Nvengaria with Damien and Penelope last summer, Alexander was calm as anything, ushering us into the throne room and behaving like a caring host. And of course he meant to execute Damien as soon as he possibly could, and me too perhaps. Whatever Alexander’s gone off to do, unless he wants us to know what it is, ye never will.”
“I intend to ask him.”
“Good luck, love. I admire the man, and he’s proved a boon to Damien and Penelope, but no man holds his cards closer to his chest than Alexander of Nvengaria. He’s got the new king trembling in his Bath chair every time he comes near.”
“Are you afraid of him?” Meagan asked.
“I haven’t decided. I’m happy he’s found a sweet thing like ye to be his bride, but sometimes I feel that cold stare on me—”
He broke off and swung around. Meagan looked up and started to see Alexander leaning on the doorframe, bathing Egan in a good example of his cold stare. How long he’d been there she had no idea.
Her heart missed a beat in relief. She dropped the chess piece she’d been righting and skimmed across the room to him. His coat was unbuttoned, his sash of office held in his hands, his shirt unlaced to show a brown V of throat and chest.
The Mad, Bad Duke Page 20