He did not sound too disapproving. Dared she hope? “Yes,” she said carefully. She lowered her eyes to him, as manners required.

“How can you bear the smell?” His tone slapped her. He was as contemptuous of her as the rest.

She tried not to reveal her disappointment. But she raised her eyes. Damned if she would show respect to a man who had contempt for her. “What is that glow,” she asked. It was getting distinctly brighter, so much so that she could now see the walls of this tunnel clearly, and even Henri’s narrow, solemn face.

“It’s trivial.”

She dropped the manners and looked directly at him. Martin Soule had been in such terrible condition that he had presented no appeal. Henri, by contrast, was not hideous. He was dirty and poorly dressed, but his body was gorgeous. She could sense his strength, and the thought of being held in his arms was not without appeal.

He seemed indifferent to the light. “It’s getting brighter.”

He was looking at her with the attention a jeweler might pay a gem. “It’s true, then,” he said.

“What is true?”

“Your beauty is the greatest in the world.” He reached toward her, a tentative, caressing touch. As his fingers shivered along the edge of her lips, she tasted of their flat salt. Desire flamed in her. She imagined herself lying beneath him, absolutely, wonderfully helpless as he came roaring into her like an inflamed lion. She would receive him, an open flower, an open wound. She would be a slave to him then, hold his cup and kneel before him. She would let herself be possessed, and in turn she would possess him.

The glow flared, and now she heard a steady tread of—she listened—twelve feet. They sounded to her like human feet. “That light—it’s the humans, isn’t it?”

“It’s nothing. Ignore it.”

“Is it human?”

He gazed at her. “You are a forward creature, just as they say.”

“Humans are dangerous.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“You knew Martin Soule, of course.”

He nodded. “He went to live in that house your mother so foolishly built.”

“He died there.”

“Did he?” His voice took on a note of question. “Why would he elect to do that?”

“They burned him! As they intend to burn us all!”

“I remember your mother’s misfortune. But that should not—”

The lights appeared like ghostly eyes, six of them, all glaring straight down this tunnel. Henri was trapped in the purple glow. He turned to face it, smiling slightly. “Stop,” he said in flawless modern French, “you have no business here.”

Paul’s breath whooshed out of him when he saw it. He’d never laid eyes on one like this, so large, so strong looking. In Asia, they’d been smaller, and they’d hidden at the back of their lairs.

“There are two,” Bocage said laconically.