Born to Bite by Lynsay Sands

as quickly as I could; still it was nearly two weeks before I rode back into the bailey. She had been dead a week by then.”
    Armand’s expression was stark for a moment as he recalled the painful loss, and Eshe waited patiently. His expression convinced her he had loved his Susanna. She didn’t begrudge him that. She had loved her Orion too and grieved his passing. It didn’t mean they both didn’t have enough love to welcome and embrace a new life mate.
    Armand cleared his throat, the grief easing from his expression as he forced himself to continue more clinically. “It seems a fire started in the stable a week after I left. Susanna must have run in to try to save her mare. She loved that beast. It was a gift from me when we married. But the roof must have caved in while she was inside and a beam must have trapped her or…something,” he finished wearily.
    “Another accident,” Eshe murmured.
    “Yes,” he said grimly.
    “And then there’s Annie,” she pointed out.
    Armand glanced at her with a start. “Annie?”
    “Nicholas’s wife. She was decapitated and then burned up in her car,” Eshe pointed out.
    “Yes, but that was an accident,” Armand said at once.
    Eshe raised an eyebrow. “So were your wives’ deaths…weren’t they?”

Six
    Armand frowned briefly and then glanced to the side and sat back, drawing her attention to the fact that their food had arrived. She sat back as well to make room for the waiter to set it down, but kept her gaze on Armand as the food was placed before them. Her bringing up Annie had obviously disturbed him. As if he had assumed all this time that her death had been an accident, but Eshe’s question had raised some doubt in him. His startled “That was an accident” was interesting, though. It could mean that he knew or suspected that his wives’ deaths weren’t the accidents they appeared to be, which would explain the way he had withdrawn from society and his family. Perhaps he was trying to shelter them and keep them safe and away from the danger that appeared to plague those who loved him.
    Before Armand had told her how the women had died, Eshe might have suspected those words had been a slip and that he knew the deaths of his wives weren’t accidents because he’d caused them, but he hadn’t even been around when two of them had died. He’d been several days’ ride away at court when Susanna died in that fire, and Althea had been hours away in Toronto with her parents when she died in the hotel fire.
    The knowledge made Eshe shake her head with bewilderment. She had no idea why Lucian had worried for even a moment that Armand might have been behind the deaths of his wives. She suspected it had to do with his twin brother, Jean Claude. The man had treated his family abominably and even broken their laws in taking the lives of mortals. Eshe knew Lucian suffered a great deal of guilt over his not having seen and put a stop to his brother’s bad behavior and supposed he was now determined not to repeat that mistake with Armand. She would be glad to be able to tell him that his brother couldn’t have been behind the deaths. However, this meant she now had to look elsewhere for answers.
    Eshe tried to think where she should next look as she picked up her fork and knife and cut into the rare steak she’d ordered, but forgot the question and nearly moaned aloud at the burst of flavor in her mouth as she popped the first bite in. Damn, she’d forgotten how good food could be. Actually, Eshe acknowledged, it wasn’t that she’d forgotten, but that the food had begun to lose its flavor after Orion’s death, as if her taste buds had slowly died and left everything bland and uninteresting. She was definitely glad to have them back and working again, Eshe decided as she next tried a bite of the stuffed baked potato.
    They ate in silence at first, Armand appearing slightly distracted, and Eshe herself busily trying to think where she should turn her attention