“Da. Pants.” A wolf again, he dashed down the trail. I heard him stop, curse, and wrestle with some sort of plant. Then he returned, pants on, T-shirt in hand. “Sorry,” he said. “I drop things sometimes.”
“Mmhmm. Like clothes and girlfriends,” I alleged.
“What?”
There was no fooling me. Pietr’s hearing was remarkably keen. “You heard me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You need a new line,” I retorted. “That one’s old.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Say that the past was all a nightmare.”
“You know better. This is what I am,” he hissed.
“That’s not the past I want erased. That’s not what needs to change.”
“Then what?”
“Say that you’re breaking up with Sarah—cleanly—and choosing me. Say you never wanted her but you didn’t want to hurt her. For me. Tell me you know you’re not the boy I’ve been warned against.”
“I—” He looked away.
“Damn it, Pietr,” I said, unable to hide my disgust, “Why bother to run with us, to talk to me now, if you’re going to keep hurting me? It’s one thing to play guard dog at school, but I need more than that from a friend.”
“I can’t be your friend.”
“Liar.”
“You know I don’t lie … not like that.” He pawed at his eyes and groaned. “I mean it, Jess. I can’t be your friend.”
“Jackass.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Jess. I want you safe.”
I blinked at him.
“Why are you here tonight?”
“I lost something,” I muttered. “The night of your birthday. I wanted to find it again.”
“What was it?” he stepped closer.
His scent flooded my senses—all woodland and wild—and my world wobbled. “Shirt,” I whispered, too near his bare chest for clarity of thought.
“You lost your shirt?” His expression twisted. “I don’t remember that.”
“No. You. Put on your shirt.”
He nodded, raising his arms to pull the thin tee over his head. The move only accentuated his well-muscled stomach. “What did you lose?”
Oh, God. It was time for the truth. I’d lied so much recently, I wondered if I remembered how to tell it.
“What did you lose?” he repeated.
“My heart, Pietr. I lost my heart.”
He sighed. His forehead touched mine, searing the spot just above my nose, eyes blurring a shade of violet, hanging between sky blue and stop sign red.
“Have you seen it, Pietr?” I asked. “I gave it to someone to guard, but I’m not sure he wants to anymore.”
He sighed again, his body shuddering, his eyes screwed shut against my words. “Perhaps you’re right,” he whispered hoarsely. “He may not want to hurt you, but I don’t think he can help it.”
My jaw hung open, eyes wide.
“There are things—things beyond his control…”
Oh, God … What could I say? “Control is learned. It just takes time.”
He pulled back far enough to shake his head. “Some of us are short on time.” His hair brushed my forehead. “It’s beyond my control.”
My heart clenched and as much as I wanted to babble until I somehow stumbled across the right words to say, nothing came.
“You were right about him,” he confided. “He is a monster.”
“No.”
“Do you know why?” He didn’t wait, but plowed ahead: “Because he lost something that night, too.”
My lips quivered as I formed the single word. “What?”
“His soul.”
I slapped him. “Don’t you ever say that again, Pietr Andreiovich Rusakova! You may have thrown away my heart, but you have not—not—lost your soul.” I pounded on his chest with my fists. “That night … you did what you did to save my life.”
And then it hit me.
“Oh. God.” My vision wavered. “I thought you were trying to hurt me, or avoid me, but … You are trying to protect me … everything you’ve done…” I swallowed.
Stepping back, he sank into shadow like it was second nature.
“No. You stay right here. You talk to me. Who are you protecting me from, Pietr?” I thrust out my hand to tick off my current threats. “Sarah, who could snap at any second and go back to being a social nazi?”
He tensed, but that wasn’t it.
“The CIA? They still believe they need me to keep tabs on you. The closer we are, the safer I am.”
He shook his head, doubtful.
“Is it the Russian Mafia? Did you think by being separated they wouldn’t look for me? They found me at the Golden Jumper. If they want to they can find me again.”
Thick in shadow he stood even taller, lips open to show the tips of his teeth.
“Oh. Pietr.” I reached out to him.
He stepped back again, going even deeper into the darkness.
“It’s all that and you. You’re afraid you can’t protect me from you.” I grabbed his arms and held on.
He tried to twist away, but it was a half-hearted effort. “You don’t understand the danger, Jess,” he insisted, words grinding out like gravel lined his throat. “I—I’m not myself.”
“You are, Pietr. You are absolutely who you’re supposed to be. And you’re perfect,” I swore, stepping so near that when he inhaled his chest brushed against me. “Don’t fight who you are.”
“Ugh.” Pop. He stepped back again.
“What?”
Voice deeper, he rasped a confession. “You’re killing me.”
“What? How?”
“Every time we touch … whenever I catch your scent … or see or hear you flirting … I just want…”
“What?”
He looked away.
“What do you want, Pietr?”
“I want you.”
“Wha—? Ohhh.” I stepped backward. Stumbling, I tried to reason it out. “It’s because of your bizarre metabolism, isn’t it? Like—your biological clock is ticking or something. You guys mature at a different rate, right, so it’s your normal…”
He barked out a laugh. A very nervous laugh. “Da. My normal.” He rubbed his eyes, clearing the red. “Alexi says I’m running hot—my system’s not synched up yet with the changes.”
“This—was this…?”
“My secret. I want you,” he grated out. “And I can’t … I need to be focused to find a way to get Mother out. I can’t be thinking about you every seven minutes.…”
“Every seven minutes?” Wasn’t that how often my Health Ed book postulated guys thought about sex? Why did I remember that and still struggle with the order of planets in our galaxy?
Pietr’s burgundy blush confirmed my hypothesis.
I fumbled for my worry stone, trying to get a handle on a lot more than just it.
“Wait. Sarah can hug and kiss you and…?”
His mouth turned up in a cruel smile. “Nothing.”
“But…” I stepped forward, resting my hands on his chest.
Tenderly he took my wrists and stepped away. Again. “Let’s not test my self-control.” He shivered, letting me see his human form quake and his eyes glow, the wolf dancing just beneath his skin, begging to run free.
“What would happen if you did lose control? Oh.” I drew back. “It’s not like in those vampire books, is it?”
This time, he laughed in earnest. “No. We may not be Romeo and Juliet or Lorenzo and his Jessica, but we certainly aren’t them, either. I have no desire to drink your blood.”
“But what you do want to do—”
“Neither of us is ready for. It doesn’t matter. The wolf’s winning most of the time—confusing my impulses and reactions. When I’ve tamed him, we’ll have … other issues,” he said like a promise, no threat at all.
“Huh.” Issues I had plenty of.
“Being away from you hasn’t helped,” he admi
tted. “I’ve used Sarah’s scent as a shield too often. I’ve built a tolerance.”
I tugged at my hair. “Pietr, Sarah’s…” I couldn’t say it. Didn’t want to think it.
“Da. I know. Every guy’s already congratulated me for nothing. She must have really been—”
“Popular,” I concluded. “Ugh!” I hopped from foot to foot in frustration. “This sucks. So I’m not allowed to hug or kiss you … until when?”
“Until my self-control comes back.”
“Do you have an ETA on that self-control?”
He snorted. “I’ve been working on it,” he groaned. “Believe me, Jess. I’m struggling. You—you’re my Vassilissa—”
From the illustration he’d given me for my birthday—the illustration that now hung above my bed.
“My light in this darkness.”
I sighed. “Just to review—you lose control and—”
“Change.”
“And—what? Hump my leg?”
“Nyet.” He chuckled. “But it’d be bad if a wolf ran loose between classes.”
“Point taken. Wait. How come after you tried to change your service learning assignment and I kissed you, you didn’t—?”
“I fought like hell,” he groaned, scrubbing at his hair with his hands. “And then I did a few laps around the track. My personal best, by the way. I beat you to class by moments.”
“Oh.” It was an ego trip of huge proportions. I could make a guy crazy and not in the set-a-fire-in-the-shape-of-my-name crazy sort of way. And I was making the right guy crazy. Okay, probably poor Smith, too. But he was collateral damage. Pietr was my target.
And I was right on.
“You can’t be my friend?”
“Nyet. I want so much more than just friendship from you.”
“Huh.” That I could deal with. “We’re not between classes now,” I murmured.
I grabbed him so fast he didn’t have a chance to dodge. Lips crushing his, I moved my mouth with a fervor I’d never felt before, and he reciprocated with unmatched heat and hunger: my kiss full of all the confusion, pain, and hope I’d been feeling since he first changed—his kiss strong as our mutual need for reunion. And in a moment my human Pietr fell back, blurred, and the wolf burst free of his clothing and raced away.
I pushed the shredded outfit with the toe of my boot. He wouldn’t wear that again. I’d have to correct Cat about wolves exploding out of their clothing.
I laughed my first real laugh in weeks.
My cell phone rang. “Yeah, Dad. We’re on our way. Rio did great. Yeah—I didn’t do half bad, either.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The autumn breeze snatched at my hair and nipped at my neck as I stepped off the bus. Glad the school doors were only a few quick steps away, I was surprised to find Sarah waiting for me. More than surprised. Frightened, actually.
She let out a long sigh and raced over. Before I could think to defend myself she grabbed me in a fierce embrace. I struggled to mask my shock, peering over her head full of soft, angelic blond curls and searching for a clue about her behavior up until the moment she released me.
“What’s going on?” I asked, trying to keep the apprehension from edging into my voice.
She pouted, her lips perfect for the expression. “It’s Pietr,” she said.
“Oh. What happened?” I hoped the question sounded better to her ears than it did to mine.
“He broke up with me.”
“Oh.” What could I say? Not I’m sorry you broke up, because I wasn’t. I couldn’t lie about that. “I’m sorry you’re hurt, Sarah,” I managed.
As the morning continued, I started believing Pietr wasn’t coming to school at all. Although Sarah was hanging around, Derek, her current cohort, was seldom seen. Of course, Max was constantly throwing Amy and myself in shadow, totally on guard.
Even playing the gruff guardian there was a new light in Max’s eyes everytime he looked at Amy.
I became comfortable with Sarah not knowing Pietr’d broken up with her for me. But when Sarah announced, “He broke up with me over the phone,” I thought almost exactly what Amy said.
“That gutless wonder!” Hands on her hips, Amy became the enraged female representing all females. “How could he do that? How dare they expect us to invest our time and emotional energy and then, when we really feel something for them, we get the call.” She shook her head, auburn hair tossing. “Just because the guy’s good looking doesn’t mean he shouldn’t step up and say it’s over to your face.”
“You broke up with Marvin by calling,” Sarah pointed out.
“Totally different circumstances,” I assured, wincing.
“Besides, I don’t think it’s over,” Sarah confided. “I think he just has roaming eyes. In Russia, some married men keep a mistress or two—a paramour. Did you know that?”
I glanced at Max for confirmation.
He shrugged. “It happens everywhere.”
Sarah ignored him. “He just needs to know things are different here,” she continued. “When he realizes what he’s missing out on, he’ll—”
“What?” Amy asked. “Come trotting back?”
“Galloping back,” Sarah corrected. “Fast as quicksilver.”
I swallowed, patting her shoulder. “Sometimes things don’t work out like we want. Maybe it’s better this way. I mean, I’m sure there’s someone just waiting for you. What about—” I gulped, thinking of Sarah and Derek getting back together. Officially. What if he’d been part of the reason she’d been so horrible before? Sophie wasn’t the only girl who shared a past with Derek. “What about Derek?”
She shrugged. “Derek’s okay as a friend, but we’re just not that way anymore. You know?”
Amy tried to help by adding, “Well, you’re young, attractive, bright … I’m sure the right guy’s out there.”
“The right guy,” Sarah said, “is Pietr.”
As if he’d heard his name, Pietr appeared, taking my hand and smiling as if we were the only two people in school.
Crap.
“Pietr.” Sarah looked at him, then at me, and her wistful gaze settled on our hands. Together. “Oh.”
She shot a look at Amy. “How bizarre,” she hissed, eyes narrowing. “You were actually trying to make me feel better.”
Amy shrugged. “I like to try everything once.”
Max rumbled, hopeful. Bad boy.
“So, is there anyone here that didn’t know about this little development—other than me?” Sarah raised her hand in mock encouragement.
No other hands went up. Not even Sophia’s, although I’d never told her any part of it.
“Great,” Sarah said. “Everyone knew except me. So how long have you been…” She paused, the word she wanted suddenly gone. “How long have you been—plotting—this?”
“I never planned—”
“No,” she snapped, and I saw the old fire, the old danger, rising in her eyes. “You had to plan. Not one of my boyfriends ever left me without some”—she paused, grappling with words—“some conniving girl laying plans or getting laid.”
Pietr bristled at the implication.
“Look, Sarah, I’m sorry.” I remembered how pitiful the words sounded coming from Pietr, but hoped they seemed more authentic from me. They were still just words. Ugly little syllables that meant so little.
“Oh. Well, then it’s okay. As long as you’re sorry.”
I watched her like I’d watch a copperhead.
“Pietr.” She slid up to him, boldly pressing herself against him and sliding her hand between ours to shake his free. She raised her face to him so he could easily read the heat and promise in her eyes. “I know what you know. We’re not over. I understand temptation,” she confided. “And maybe if I haven’t found someone else by the time you get tired of Jessica—I mean, how long can that really take?—maybe I’ll take you back. If you’re lucky.”
Max and Pietr both stiffened as Derek slid up behind Sarah
and settled his hands on her shoulders.
“Come,” he whispered, looking at me as he took her hand.
I trembled at his tone.
Together they stalked off, Sarah adding a little wiggle to her walk for Pietr’s benefit.
Pietr’s arms wrapped around me like a shield and he held me so tight I knew he tested his resistance. I slipped out of his grasp. He was being bold. Trying so hard to give me what I wanted and what he struggled with.
“Yee-aaah. Psycho,” Amy said, giving a long, low whistle.
“Super Freak psycho,” Max confirmed, humming the old song.
“Okay.” I gave Pietr’s hand a quick squeeze. “That could have definitely gone better. I mean, wasn’t this what we were trying to avoid?”
“Eezvehneetyeh. Sorry, Jess. We broke up last night.”
“Yeah, over the phone,” I reprimanded.
Amy socked him in the arm. “That’s for women everywhere,” she added. “Psycho and sane.”
Sophia’s mouth tilted into a little smile. “I don’t know how you get into so much trouble, Jessie,” she said in her soft voice. “But you’re always entertaining.”
“Niiice.” I let go of Pietr long enough to brush my fingers through my hair. “I think we’d better cool things for a while.”
“What do you mean?”
“No huggy-kissy. Hold hands occasionally, but nothing Sarah could misinterpret as rubbing it in that we’re together. Not in public. I don’t want this to be harder on her than it already is.”
Max grumbled on Pietr’s behalf. “Eventually, Jessie, you’ll need to throw the dog a bone.”
* * *
My cell phone buzzed, vibrating across my bedside table, and I snatched it up to stare bleary eyed at the name. Wanda. Why couldn’t she leave it be? Ever since our first visit to see Pietr’s mother, Wanda had been vehement about me not seeing Pietr. She always dressed her messages up in the guise of being worried about me—my health, my heart … But I knew there was some other motivation—some hidden agenda—she was keeping.
And her interference was botching her relationship with Dad because he was finally trying things my way. Dad had insisted Pietr show him his grades and luckily they earned Pietr a reputation as worthy of tutoring me. So Pietr helped me with school and I helped him with life. And acceptance.
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