“Are you all right, mon chaton féroce?” he asked, brushing a kiss along the top of her head. “You don’t have to come with me for this meeting. I know anything to do with Xaviero distresses you.”
“I’m just holding you, Zev. Keeping you close, gathering strength from you. You never seem to get upset, not even in the worst crisis. You just feel calm inside. I want to be like that.”
He laughed softly. “Branka, do you know what mon chaton féroce means?”
She nodded, puzzled. “My fierce kitten.”
“Exactly. You are fierce and passionate and fiery and I love all those things about you. In a fight, I can count on you to keep your head and get the job done, even if you’re afraid. There’s no need to be anything other than who you are, who you’re meant to be.”
Branislava gave him her radiant smile. “You always know the right thing to say.” She took a deep breath. “I’m ready to help you figure all this out. I hope we aren’t the ones who have to try to hunt Xaviero down. I know that’s what’s coming next and believe me, Zev, when I tell you he is extremely dangerous.”
“I am well aware of that, Branka,” he reassured her.
“Have you ever met him? The one they call Rannalufr?”
He nodded his head. “I work for the council. I protect them, and when they issue orders to settle disputes among packs or within packs that aren’t being resolved by the alpha, I go. Council members are guarded at all times. I have to know where they are and who they’re with. The short answer is yes, I’ve met Rannalufr. He seemed a kind older man to me, one who speaks in a low, gentle voice and seemed always to give thought before he answered. I liked him. I think most people who meet him like him.”
“Does he belong to the Sacred Circle? Is he one of the leaders?” Branislava asked.
Zev slipped his arm around her waist and once again began walking toward Mikhail’s home. It was up the mountain and just on the edge of the forest. “Yes. Many Lycans belong. Those belonging revere the old ways and hold the lost elders up as examples of how Lycans should be.”
“Did you ever belong?” she asked curiously.
“I’ve gone to the meetings, of course. The speakers are usually amazing, Arno in particular, and yes, before you ask, Rannalufr as well. Both are charismatic, but I tend to have problems with anything that narrows my thinking or borders on fanaticism. Things have to be logical to me and living by old rules that no longer make sense is not in the least logical.” He sighed. “I don’t get the progression.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she said.
They followed a narrow deer path that wound through the trees, moving deeper into the forest as they climbed uphill.
“Modern times are moving fast. Technology has changed everything, and it keeps changing at an alarming rate. If the Sacred Circle merely preached morals and how to treat one another with kindness, I might go for it, but they don’t stop there. They have a political agenda and that agenda doesn’t follow the dictates of the countries Lycans live in.”
Branislava leaned down to smell a night flower. Walking beside him always gave her a secret thrill. He was tall and strong and he made her feel feminine—which she was—and delicate—which she wasn’t. The sound of his voice mesmerized her. Zev never spoke in a booming or loud voice. He was soft-spoken, and yet his tone rang with authority. Everything about him spoke of absolute confidence, and she loved that in him.
“I still don’t understand.”
“We have integrated into modern society,” Zev explained. “Each pack, no matter the country, serves in the military for that country and hold jobs just as humans do. We live side by side with them. It isn’t logical to think we can go back to a code that was written long before technology came into being. Our women were once fierce warriors. Look at Daciana. She’s every bit as good as—or better than—the male elite hunters and yet, because many centuries ago the first Sange rau nearly wiped us out by decimating our ranks, the sacred code decreed that all women stay home.”
“But the council overturned that,” Branislava pointed out.
“Against much opposition. The leaders of the Sacred Circle were furious and some even talked of forming their own council.” His voice had dropped another octave and he shook his head.
The moon had risen, beginning to look quite full, although not yet at its peak. A yellow halo surrounded it. Branislava made out his face by the light of the moon shining through the branches overhead. Lines were etched there. Scars. Yet he looked a true example of masculine beauty to her.