LeBlanc jiggled the knife, as if contemplating throwing it. Then he stopped.
"Smart man," Marsten said. "What do you say we save ourselves some bloodshed and make a deal? An even split. I get Clayton. You get Elena. We go our separate ways from here."
When LeBlanc didn't respond, Marsten continued, "That's what you want, isn't it? That's why you killed Daniel, because Elena humiliated you and you want revenge."
From the look that flashed across LeBlanc's face, I knew he hadn't killed Daniel to get me. He hadn't killed him to get anything at all. LeBlanc had joined this battle because he liked to kill. Now as a cease-fire had been nearing, he'd turned on his comrades, not out of anger or greed, but simply because they were there, more lives to take before the fun came to an end. Now he was weighing his options. Should he take me and be satisfied? Or could he get Marsten and Clay in the bargain?
"You don't want her?" LeBlanc asked. "I thought all you guys wanted her."
"I've never been one for following the crowd," Marsten said. "While Elena certainly has her attractions, she wouldn't suit my lifestyle. I want territory. Clayton is the better bargaining chip. And I'm sure you'll have more fun with Elena."
"You son-of-a-bitch," I snarled.
I whipped around, yanking my arms free from Marsten's grasp. I aimed a fist at his stomach, but he twisted at the last moment and my knuckles only grazed his abs. His foot shot out and hooked mine, flipping me to the floor. My head struck the corner of an empty gun rack. I blacked out for a moment. When I came to, Marsten's gray eyes were boring into mine. I blinked and tried to get up, but he held me down. He pushed my chin forward so I faced the wall.
"She's unconscious," he said, getting to his knees. "All the better. We're getting low on sedatives."
Unconscious? I blinked again, slowly, feeling my eyes close, then reopen. I was staring at a line of mouse turds along the bottom of the wall. I was definitely awake. Hadn't Marsten seen me open my eyes? I began to lift my head, then thought better of it and lay still. Let them think I was unconscious. I needed all the advantages I could get.
Marsten stood. I heard him move a few feet away.
"What are you doing?" LeBlanc asked sharply.
"Taking my booty and getting the hell out of here, which is what I suggest you do as well. If Elena isn't enough of a reward, you're more than welcome to take any money you can find in Daniel's and Vic's belongings."
"Stop untying him," LeBlanc said.
Marsten sighed. "Don't tell me Daniel made you paranoid, too. Clayton is barely breathing. He wouldn't be a threat to a Chihuahua. I'm in a hurry. If he can walk, I want him walking."
"I haven't agreed to the deal yet."
Eyes closed, I inched my chin down, then peeked. Marsten was bent over Clay. He'd pulled him onto his knees. Clay swayed. Only a hint of blue showed from narrowed eyes. The gun lay ten feet away, abandoned. I doubted Marsten would know how to use it anyway.
"I said, stop untying him," LeBlanc said.
"Oh, for Christ's sake," Marsten muttered. "Fine."
He straightened up. Then, before Marsten was even fully standing, he lunged at LeBlanc. Marsten and LeBlanc fell to the floor. While the two fought, I got to my hands and knees and crept toward Clay. As I took hold of his handcuffs, his head jolted up. He looked over his shoulder at me.
"Go," he rasped.
I grabbed the two cuffs and yanked hard on the chain. The links stretched, but didn't break.
"No time," he said, trying to twist toward me. "Go."
As I met his eyes, I knew how wrong I'd been. I didn't come here to get him back for Jeremy or the Pack. I came to get him back for me. Because I loved him, loved him so much I'd risk everything for the faintest hope of saving him. Even now, as I realized he was right, that there wasn't time to get him out, I knew I wouldn't leave him here. I'd rather die.
I looked around wildly for a weapon, then suddenly stopped. Weapon? I was looking for a weapon? Had I lost my mind? I already had the best possible weapon. If only I had time to get it ready.
I dropped to my hands and knees and concentrated. Dimly, I heard Clay growl my name. I moved away. The Change started at its normal pace. Not good enough. Not enough time! My thoughts flitted in panic for a moment. I started trying to rein them in, then realized my Change was gaining speed. Throwing control aside, I let my fears run wild. If I failed, I was dead. If I failed, Clay was dead. I'd screwed up so badly, so completely. Fear and pain twisted through me. I doubled over and surrendered to it. A blinding flash of agony. Then victory.
I stood. Ahead, I saw LeBlanc bent over Marsten's prone form. He lifted his hand. The switchblade flashed. I growled. LeBlanc stopped in mid-strike and looked back at me. I flew at him. He dropped the knife and rolled out of the way. I'd put too much into the leap and hit the floor crooked, somersaulting into the wall. By the time I recovered, LeBlanc was gone.
I heard a voice and jerked my head toward it. Marsten was sitting up, wheezing. He pointed to the open back door and coughed blood. More blood trickled from slashes on his arms and chest. I glanced at the rear door. I couldn't let LeBlanc escape. A woman had made him turn tail and run. He wouldn't rest until he'd had his revenge. Marsten said something, but I couldn't understand him. Blood pounded in my ears, urging me to go after LeBlanc. I started for the door. Behind me, Clay grunted and I heard scuffling as he tried to stand. Remembering him, I turned back to Marsten. I wasn't leaving him with Clay. Lowering my head between my shoulder blades, I snarled. Marsten froze. His lips moved. Only a jumble of meaningless sound reached my ears. I crouched.
"Elena!" Clay said.
I could understand him. I stopped. Clay was on his feet now.
"Don't. Waste. Time," he said.
I looked at Marsten. He said one word. I still couldn't understand him, but I could read his lips. Territory. It was all he wanted. All he cared about. He'd known perfectly well that I was conscious on that floor. I'd played right into his plans. He was a single-minded, treacherous bastard, but he wouldn't hurt Clay. Killing Clay wouldn't get Marsten his territory. Keeping him alive and safe would.
I growled once more at Marsten, then tore out the door after LeBlanc.
LeBlanc's trail was easy to find. I didn't even have to track his scent. I could hear him thundering through the thick brush. Fool. I dove into the forest and started to run. Branches snagged in my fur and whipped against my face. I closed my eyes to slits to protect them and kept running. LeBlanc had trampled a path through the undergrowth. I stuck to it. Minutes later, the woods turned silent. LeBlanc had stopped. He must have realized that his only hope was to Change. I lifted my nose and sampled the breezes. The east wind held traces of his scent, but when a draft from the southeast hit me, it was full of him. I lifted one forepaw and brought it down on a pile of dead undergrowth. It was damp with the morning dew and barely whispered under my weight. Good. I turned southeast and crept forward.
Night had passed. Dawn lightened the thick blanket of trees overhead, sending shards of sun through to the forest floor. As I stepped in one pool of light, I could feel it warm my back with the promise of a sultry late spring day. Mist rose from the long grass and shrubs, the cool night earth rising to meet the warm morning. I inhaled the fog, closing my eyes to enjoy the clean nothingness of the smell. An eastern bluebird started singing somewhere to my left. A beautiful morning. I inhaled again, drinking it in, feeling the fear of the night give way to the anticipation of the hunt. It would end here. It would all end here, on this most beautiful of mornings.
When I heard LeBlanc's breathing, I stopped. I tilted my head and listened. He was crouching behind a thicket, breathing hard as he worked at his Change. I inched forward until I was outside the edge of his thicket and peeked through a fringe of fern. As I'd guessed by the height of his breathing sounds, he was crouching. But I'd been wrong about one thing. He wasn't Changing. He hadn't even undressed. A tremor of excitement raced through me. He was afraid, but instead of giving into the fear, he
was fighting the Change. I pushed my muzzle through the fern and drank in the mead of his fear. It warmed me, fanning the spark of excitement into near-lust. LeBlanc might have scared me in the airport parking lot, but this was my arena.
LeBlanc shifted his weight and leaned forward to peer from the thicket. Use your nose, I thought. One sniff and you'd know the truth. But he didn't. He eased one leg back. His knee cracked and he froze, breath coming in shallow spurts. His head moved from side to side, listening and looking. Lifting the switchblade, he snapped it open, then waited for the sound to bring me to him. Something padded through the undergrowth beyond, a cat or a fox or something equally small and silent. LeBlanc tensed, raising the knife. Fool, fool, fool. I was growing tired of this. I wanted to run. I wanted to chase. I crept backward a dozen feet. Then I lifted my muzzle to the trees and howled. LeBlanc broke from the thicket and ran. I pursued.
LeBlanc had a head start. I let him keep it. We wove through the bushes and trees, jumping logs, trampling wild-flowers, and sending two pheasants into the sky. He kept going deeper and deeper into the forest. Finally, he stopped running. As I realized I couldn't hear him any longer, I was bursting through into a clearing. Something slashed across my hind leg. I tumbled forward into the long grass. As I fell, I twisted around to see LeBlanc standing behind me, legs apart, switchblade raised, poised like a fighter waiting for the next round. He sneered and said something. I didn't need to hear the words to know what he said. Come and get me. A shudder of pleasure ran through me. He really was a fool.
I crouched and leapt at him. I didn't bother trying to figure out how to avoid the switchblade. It didn't matter. I felt the blade nick the side of my neck and slide across my shoulder. Blood welled up, hot against my skin. But there was no gushing, no pain worse than an irritating tingle. My fur was too thick. The knife had only scratched me. LeBlanc's arm went back to stab again, but it was too late. I was already on him. He flew backward, the blade arcing from his hand and vanishing in the trees. As my face came down to his, his eyes widened. Shock. Disbelief. Fear. I allowed myself one long moment to drink in his defeat. Then I ripped out his throat.
CHAPTER 34
READY
Jeremy, Antonio, and Nick did eventually show up at the cabin. They came through the door as I was using Clay's bindings to tie up Marsten. Naturally, Jeremy was incredibly impressed by how well I'd handled things on my own and vowed never to shut me out of anything ever again. Yeah, right. His first words were nonrepeatable. Then he said that if I ever, ever did anything so stupid again, he'd--well, that part was unrepeatable, too, though Clay, Antonio, and Nick were quick to repeat it, each adding their own threats. So, the brave soul who saved the day was forced to slink from her victory site and ride home in the backseat of her own car. It could have been worse. They could have put me in the trunk. Actually, Nick suggested that, but he was kidding ... I think.
Jeremy gave Marsten his territory. Wyoming, to be exact. When Marsten complained, Jeremy offered to switch it to Utah. Marsten left muttering something about ten-gallon hats and rhinestone pants. Of course, he wouldn't settle for retiring on a dude ranch. He'd be back in search of territory more amenable to his lifestyle, but for now he knew when to shut his mouth and take what was offered.
Clay took a while to heal. A long while, actually. He had a broken leg, four broken ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. He was so bruised and battered that he was in pain lying down, sitting, standing--basically every moment he was awake. He was exhausted, starved, dehydrated, and pumped full of enough drugs to fell a rhino for days. I spent a week living in a chair by his bed before I was convinced he was going to make it. Even then, I only left his room to make meals and only because I decided Jeremy's cooking was doing Clay more harm than good.
I had to go back to Toronto. I'd known it since that day in the cabin, but I postponed it, telling myself Clay was too sick, Jeremy needed my help around the house, the Camaro was low on gas, pretty much any excuse I could come up with. But I had to go back. Philip was waiting. I had to confront him with what he'd seen, find out how he planned to handle it. Once that was done, I'd come back to Stonehaven. There was no longer any question of which home I'd choose. Maybe there never had been.
I belonged at Stonehaven. The idea still rankled. Maybe I'd never be entirely at peace with this life because I hadn't chosen it and I was too stubborn to ever completely accept something that had been forced on me. But Clay was right. I was happy here. There would always be a human part of me that would see fault with this way of living, a human morality appalled by the violence of it, vestiges of Puritanism that rebelled at such total immersion in satisfying primal needs. Yet even when Stonehaven didn't make me happy, when I was raging at Jeremy or at Clay or at myself, I was in a perverse way still happy, content at least, content and fulfilled.
Everything I'd chased in the human world was here. I wanted stability? I had it in a place and people who would always welcome me, no matter what I did. I wanted family? I had it in my Pack, loyalty and love beyond the simple labels of mother, father, sister, brother. So, realizing that everything I ever wanted was here, was I prepared to cast aside my human aspirations and bury myself in Stonehaven forever? Of course not. I'd always have the need to fit into the larger world. No amount of therapy or self-analysis would change that. I'd still hold down a job in the human world, maybe escape there for vacations when the insulated life of the Pack overwhelmed me. But Stonehaven was my home. I wouldn't run from it anymore.
Nor could I keep running from myself. I don't mean the werewolf part of me. I think I accepted that years ago, maybe even embraced it because it gave me an excuse for so many things in my life. If I was aggressive and snappish, it was the wolf blood. If I lashed out at others, wolf blood again. Ditto for any violent tendencies. Moody? Angry? Hot-tempered? Hell, I had a reason to be that way, didn't I? I was a monster. Not exactly a condition to invoke peace and inner harmony in the best of people. Yet I had to admit the truth. Being a werewolf didn't make me that way. Look at Jeremy, Antonio, Nick, Logan, Peter. Each one might have shared some of my less attractive characteristics, but so would almost any stranger pulled off the street. Being a werewolf made me more capable of acting on my anger, and living with the Pack made such behavior more acceptable, but everything that I was, I'd been before Clay bit me. Of course, knowing that and accepting it were two different things. I'd have to work on the accepting part.
It took almost a month from that day in Toronto for me to realize what Clay had meant when he'd said he knew why I picked Philip and why it couldn't work. The first two weeks after we recovered Clay were hell, some days not knowing if he'd make it to the next. At least, it seemed that way to me. I'd watch him lying unconscious in bed and be sure his chest had stopped rising. I'd call for Jeremy. No, strike that.
I'd scream for Jeremy and he'd come running. Of course, Clay was breathing fine, but Jeremy never made me feel I'd overreacted. He'd murmur something about a temporary shortness of breath, maybe minor sleep apnea, and he'd examine Clay thoroughly before settling into the bedside chair to watch for a "relapse." By the third week, Clay was regaining consciousness for longer periods and even I had to admit the danger finally seemed past. That wasn't to say I stopped camping out at his bedside. I didn't. I couldn't. And as long as I insisted on being there, Jeremy insisted taking over bedside watch while I slept or went for a run, even though we both knew such constant vigilance was necessary only for my peace of mind.
Near the end of the third week, I came back from my shower to find Jeremy in my post by Clay's bed, in the exact same vigilant pose I'd left him in twenty minutes before. I stood in the door, watching him, taking in the circles under his eyes, the gaunt prominence of his cheekbones. I knew then that I had to stop, get a grip, and admit to myself that Clay was doing fine and would continue to do fine--if not better--without constant surveillance. If I didn't, I'd run myself into the ground and Jeremy would follow without a word of protest.
"Feeling be
tter?" he asked without turning.
"Much."
He reached back as I approached, took my hand, and squeezed it. "He'll be awake soon. His stomach's growling."
"God forbid he should miss dinner."
"Speaking of which, we're going out tonight. You and I. Someplace requiring a suit and tie and a shave--at least for me. Antonio is driving in with Nick. They'll look after Clay."
"That's not nec--"
"It's very necessary. You need to get out, get your mind off this. Clay will be fine. We'll take your cell phone in case anything happens."
As I nodded and sat in the chair beside Jeremy, the answer to Clay's puzzle hit me with such force I had to gasp. Then I had to beat myself over the head for not having seen it earlier. Why had I chosen Philip? The answer had been staring me in the face since I'd returned to Stonehaven. Who did he remind me of? Jeremy, of course.
In my defense, Jeremy and Philip did not, outwardly at least, have much in common. They looked nothing alike. They didn't share the same gestures. They didn't even act the same way. Philip didn't have Jeremy's emotional control, his authoritarianism, his quiet reserve. But these weren't the qualities I most admired in Jeremy. What I saw in Philip was a shallower reflection of what I valued in Jeremy, his endless patience, his consideration, his innate goodness. Why did I subconsciously seek out someone who reminded me of Jeremy? Because in Jeremy I saw some girlish vision of Prince Charming, someone who would bring me flowers and care for me no matter how badly I screwed up. The problem with this fantasy was that I had absolutely no romantic feelings for Jeremy. I loved him as a friend, a leader, and a father figure. Nothing more. So in finding a human version of my ideal, I'd found a man I was certain to love, but never with the passion I'd feel for a lover.
Did that make me feel better? Of course not. In excusing my inability to fall in love with Philip, I wanted to be able to say that it was because of some problem in him, something he lacked. The truth was that the fault was entirely mine. I'd made a mistake and, as good and as decent as Philip was, he had to suffer for it.
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