“Guard, guard, guard,” she chuckles, rubbing her hand along his chin.
Gabriel turns and heads toward where he’s stashed Jessie, motioning just once over his shoulder for Marlaena to follow.
When they finally descend the steps, he leads her to an area not far from the motel.
She glares at him, already tired of this wild goose chase. “What’s going on, Gabe? Why the secrecy?”
One last time he clears his throat and works up his courage. “You’re way more complicated than most of the girls I’ve dated,” he admits, scrubbing a fist across his forehead. He’s already bluffing. He hasn’t dated many girls at all, so most of what pours out of his mouth next is a mix of theories and hypotheses. “Some girls like candy; some are into flowers or jewelry—but you don’t care about any of that.”
Her hands settle on her hips, her fingers curling into tight fists. Cocking her head to watch him, he can tell she’s not sure where this is going, and she’s certain she doesn’t like it.
“But we’re not dating, are we?”
“We sure as hell aren’t,” she replies.
“And it seems there’s nothing I can do to change that…” He looks at her from out of the corner of his eye, weighing things, and shifts his weight from one foot to another.
Her mouth is working awkwardly before she even manages to get the two small words out. “I’m sorry?”
“Yeah. Well. I don’t even know when your birthday is—you realize that? No one does. That’s how distant you are. But I’ve run with you for more than a year, so I must’ve missed it. And I think that sucks: missing birthdays. We don’t get many. We should celebrate each one.”
“Gabriel.”
His head snaps up, hearing his name on her lips, but the spark lighting his eyes gutters when she says, “I don’t want anything from you.”
“I know. You’re amazingly self-sufficient. But, as you’ve pointed out, needing and wanting are different things. And I noticed something you need.”
She blinks.
“I’ll admit, I couldn’t get exactly what you need, but I’ve found the means to an end. This gift I’m about to give you—”
Her nostrils flare, pulling in the surrounding scents, and her eyes pop wide open in recognition.
The scents of horseflesh, hay, and a simple floral deodorant flood her nose.
“—will provide you with a way to get the thing you really need.” He jogs a few yards away and drags back Jessie. He grins at the look on Marlaena’s face.
Jessie growls, a bruise discoloring the side of her face where Gabe’s been rough, retaliating as he drags her before the girl he’s trying so desperately to impress.
He shoves her forward, but Marlaena steps back and lets her land on her knees, Jessie’s eyes rolling at the impact.
“So,” Gabriel asks, “do you like your present?”
Marlaena’s eyes shift from him to the writhing girl at her feet, wheels turning inside her head. She reaches down to ruffle Jessie’s hair, grinning at the way her captive fights against her touch. “It’s perrrfect. I don’t just like it—I love it. And I know exactly what to do with it.”
CHAPTER ONE
Alexi
I folded the morning’s newspaper and set it down on the kitchen table, the headline of the Big City section reading, “Stocks Soar for Wondermann Corp.” As intrigued as I was about what caused Mr. Wondermann’s decidedly dangerous business to quadruple stock values overnight, the antics of my siblings Max, Cat, and Pietr, and Max’s girlfriend, Amy, demanded my more immediate attention.
“So I said to him,” Max began, pointing at Pietr, “‘I thought she was with you.’ We had split up for a little and—”
Cat stepped in, still carrying a shopping bag from their recent outing to the mall. “And I said: ‘You mean to tell me you’ve lost Jessie?’” She gave Max a hard look before returning her gaze to me. “He manages to lose his sneakers and at least one sock out of most of his pairs—and do not get me started about how very remote the TV remote becomes once he’s used it—but to lose an entire person?”
“I didn’t lose her!” Max bellowed, glaring at Pietr instead.
I cleared my throat, and all eyes were on me, my position as eldest brother and previous alpha a help. “Are we quite certain Jessie has not just gone home?”
They all looked at one another.
“Seriously? You think I didn’t try calling her?” Amy asked me. “She’s not answering her cell.”
“Does she always answer her cell?”
“I had Pietr call with his,” Amy said, as if that was all the answer I needed. It was. Jessie would always pick up a call from Pietr.
“Who was responsible for Jessie last?” I asked.
“Don’t ever let her hear you talk like that,” Amy said. “She’ll kick your ass.”
“Language,” Cat warned with a sniff.
I shrugged. “She has a gift for getting into trouble.”
Amy leveled her gaze at me. “Pietr’s in charge of stating the obvious. And just because a thing is true, it doesn’t mean we say it out loud,” she scolded.
Max chuckled. “We were at the mall. Pietr and I hit the Game Shop. The girls were trying on clothes. Is it any surprise they lost track of her when Cat was distracted by what color makes her boobs look better?”
“It’s green, you oaf. And they don’t need to look better, but it does somehow make them appear bigger.” She paused, blinking at him in frustration. “And that was most certainly not the issue,” she added with a hrumph. “Jessie said she was going to catch up to you two and talk with Pietr.”
“Well, it seems obvious she did not succeed.” Unease unfolded in the pit of my stomach. “It is very unlike Jessie to simply…”
“Pick up and leave?” Amy asked.
“Da. Unless…” Turning to Pietr, I asked, “Were you somehow a jerk to her?”
“Nyet,” he said, defensive. “I barely paid her any attention at all—”
Cat and Max groaned in unison.
“Jerk,” I confirmed, nodding my head.
“You’ve been kind of aloof since you got cured,” Amy stated more gently, reaching for Pietr’s arm.
He looked down, shoulders slumping. “I never intended for that to happen. We searched the mall.…”
“This may all be quite simple,” I assured him. “Call the Gillmansen household.”
They blinked at me.
“Use the landline,” I clarified. “Her father may be home. Or Annabelle Lee. Either might have answers.”
Pietr nodded and pulled out his cell, punching the proper button. “Mr. Gillmansen? Da. Is Jess around? Nyet. She is not with us.” He looked at us, worry etching a crease between his brows. “He is yelling for her now.”
We heard.
Pietr’s focus returned to the phone. “She is? Nyet. Da. I understand. We will be there immediately.” He headed straight for the door.
“Hold up,” Amy said, grabbing his arm. “You said ‘she is.’ She’s there?”
“Nyet,” Pietr returned, paler than his normal pallor since taking the cure. “Rio is loose in the paddock. Spooked. Her stall door is hanging open.”
Amy pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and groaned. “This is bad.” So fast he jumped in surprise, she grabbed Max’s arm, saying, “We need a tracker.”
Max did not need encouragement. He nearly beat us to the front door.
We piled into the convertible, Pietr, Amy, and Cat buckling into the back while Max took the driver’s seat and I, as the girls said, rode shotgun. It was a very American phrase, sounding far more dominant than it was in reality.
The Gillmansen farm was not a long drive in good weather, but peering up through the windshield I realized we were not entering optimal driving conditions. Snow fluttered down from fattening clouds.
Travel might take significantly longer, and if Jessie’s horse, Rio, was spooked, Jessie was most certainly in trouble. Time was, again, not on our
side.
Marlaena
Leaning forward, I peeked out through the thin sliver of space between the door and doorjamb and looked down the motel’s second-story breezeway toward Gareth’s room. He’d be napping now, his shift guarding us recently over.
I didn’t get it. What did Pietr see in Jessica Gillmansen? Why’d I even care? She was like anyone else in the world: brown hair, brown eyes, a medium athletic build … freckles spotted her nose and cheeks like any country girl who’d stood in the sun for a few minutes. She was a simple human being living in small-town America.
Absolutely unremarkable in every way.
But Pietr, who seemed every inch the alpha, saw something in her. Not that I cared. I didn’t want to see any redeeming quality in her. For some weird reason she felt like competition.
Kyanne stalked along the breezeway, watching the parking lot below, keeping an eye out for trouble.
Maintaining a guard at all times was one thing I insisted on even though the motel seemed safe. I seemed like just an average college-age girl, but that was far from reality.
Gabriel teased me about not trusting anyone. He was very nearly right. I didn’t trust anyone but Gareth. And he was the main reason I didn’t trust myself.
Not far away, another reason I didn’t trust myself—Jessica Gillmansen—was stashed in a forgotten storage shed. Her very existence made me undeniably insane. It had only been an hour since Gabe had delivered her as a belated birthday gift and I needed to decide how everything was going to play out. And decide what—or how—to tell Gareth.
God. I rested my forehead on the door. Where I was raised, kids wore those WWJD bracelets to ask themselves what Jesus would do. My guardians, Phil and Margie, pushed religion on me so hard I rejected it. I was more worried about what Gareth would do.
A door clicked open at my other side and Gabriel came into view, his eyes popping wide when I opened the door before he raised a fist to knock.
“Hello.”
His eyes raked over me, taking in my thin cotton pajamas and pausing so long in his examination of my low-cut top that I thought he had to be memorizing the statement scrawled across my front. “It says, ‘Sleep Is for Quitters.’”
He blinked up at me, his mouth opening. I stopped him before words—or drool—came. “If you’re done staring at my tits, say whatever you came to say.”
He pursed his lips and dropped his line of sight again to piss me off. I smacked him, my fingers tingling in the aftermath of the sudden strike.
He touched his face, my palm hitting the same spot just starting to heal from Jessica’s defensive strike. He worked his jaw, testing it. “You can’t think you’re sleeping tonight … not with her here.…”
I shrugged. “This doesn’t have to go down tonight.” I needed time to think.
He cocked his head, his naturally narrow eyes becoming sparkling slits. “I’m not sure.”
“Not tonight, honey.” The only thing I wanted to think about was getting rid of Jessica without Gareth knowing.
I began to close the door on him, but he wedged his shoe between my door and its frame. “Are you going to screw this up?”
“I don’t screw things up. I make things happen.”
A smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “I hope so. This could make big things happen for us. You just have to be ready.”
“I’m ready. I just need…”
“What? What do you still need?”
“Time.”
He snorted. “How much do you think you’ll have before they get here? It won’t take them long to realize she’s missing and then connect us to her disappearance.”
“I need time,” I insisted, shoving him back so I could slam the door shut. Silent and seething, I waited there until I heard him walk away, muttering.
Dread lodged in my gut, I knew I needed to talk to Gareth. Always on my mind and nudging his way into my heart, Gareth was the one I trusted. He’d help me see things clearly, although it seemed whenever I was near him all I could see was him.
Until recently. Now being around him made me think of Pietr Rusakova. And that made me as queasy as knowing that I had Jessica in the shed made me happy.
Alexi
Rio was still racing around the paddock when we arrived at the Gillmansens’ farm. Leon and his youngest daughter, Annabelle Lee, edged toward the horse with soft words and slow gestures.
I caught Leon’s eye, and he nodded toward the barn. He had noticed something inside and wanted us to see it, too.
Max’s nostrils flared when we stepped into the richly scented interior of the barn. I coughed at the hay and the dust motes swirling in the air.
“You might not want to be here,” Max said to Amy, resting a heavy hand on her shoulder.
“Why?” Her eyes widened, and her mouth drew into a little “o” of fear. “Why, Max?” She started to move around him, but he looped his arm around her waist and pulled her close.
“There’s blood ahead,” he said, his eyes searching hers.
“Whose blood?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” she whispered. “For you to smell it over here.”
“It is a significant quantity,” he confirmed.
“I want to know whose it is,” she said, determination setting her jaw. “Now.”
“Then stay here and let me work.” He gently pushed her back so she stood at arm’s length from him.
She eyed him a moment and, as he turned toward what must have been the site of the fight, she burst past him with her best runner’s sprint.
He roared, but as fast as she had run past him, that fast again she came to a stop.
“Oh. God.”
It was a substantial amount of blood. It marked the wall, spraying and dripping down its length and leaving sloppy drops at close and regular intervals from there to the barn door. I was on the scene in a moment, searching for clues as Max pressed toward the wall.
“Oh. Look.” Amy pointed to the floor and I squinted to see what she had discovered. My stomach turned on itself. Fingers.
Amy and Max reached a conclusion at the same time. “Not hers.”
We breathed a collective sigh.
“Those are some guy’s fingers,” Amy said. “So who…?” She looked at Max and me for an answer.
“Gabe,” he muttered. “His oily scent is thick here.”
Pietr stiffened. “Gabe’s Marlaena’s second in command. Why would he take Jess?”
Max shrugged. “You piss him off?”
Pietr shook his head.
“Not everything is about Pietr, as much as he might believe the world revolves around him,” I reminded. “Now think. What motivation does Gabriel have? What does Gabriel want?”
“Marlaena?” Max asked with a shrug. “She’s a hot little number.”
“Standing right here, Tiger,” Amy snapped, hands clenching into fists on her hips.
“Not that I noticed,” Max backpedaled. “But what male in a pack wouldn’t want to be the alpha’s partner?”
“Is that what it’s always about?” Amy muttered. “Control?”
“Nyet,” I said. “Not for all of us. But”—I hesitated before grinding out the most difficult combination of words to make sense of in any language—“I think Max is right.”
“If Gabe wants to be alpha, why take Jess?” Pietr wondered aloud.
“As an offering to Marlaena?”
I countered Max’s question with my own. “But why Jess?”
“Because Marlaena wants…” Amy paused. “Wait. Because Gabe wants you—”
Pietr’s eyebrows shot up.
“Not like that,” Amy said with a snort. “Let me finish. He wants you—all of you—to go after Jessie. Maybe he wants a fight,” she concluded.
I nodded. “He wants to be alpha, but he does not have a chance of winning Marlaena. So he is uniting the pack beneath him through a foreign war strategy.”
“A what?”
“Come,” I said, leading them back toward the modest house. “It is a traditional strategy among governments that when things are going poorly at home—domestically—the way to get people’s minds off the failure of their own leadership is to make someone else appear to be a bigger enemy than they are. Start a foreign war and people unite beneath whoever declares it.”
“That’s insane,” Amy muttered.
“Study your history and you will see it may seem insane, but it works time and time again.”
“So we go with the ‘start a foreign war’ theory,” Pietr muttered. “Fine. He wants a fight, he’ll get a fight. Let them unite under Gabriel. We can worry about the fallout later. Our priority needs to be getting Jess back safely.”
“Agreed,” I said. “Let us do so. Now.”
Mr. Gillmansen followed us to the house, and unfortunately now was minutes from my designated now as we explained the situation and told him why he should not come along and why we were the best solution.
I found myself being creative about the last bit.
We, of course, were also the problem.
Without us in Jessie’s life, she never would have become entangled in such strange and dangerous situations. In the end, Mr. Gillmansen offered his truck, saying, “Four-wheel drive.”
Annabelle Lee dashed inside and back out of the house again, and held out three flashlights to me. “You may need these.”
“Maglites,” I said.
Annabelle Lee nodded. “Jessie’s favorite type,” she said with a shrug.
I reached out and gave her a quick hug.
We took the flashlights and squeezed into the cab. Pulling the truck out of their gravel drive and onto the country road I allowed myself a moment to speculate while Max, Cat, and Pietr argued what we should do next and Amy punched holes in their plans.
If we had never come to Junction, Jessie would have never known us—although she was doing significant research on the Phantom Wolves of Farthington. Perhaps she still would have crossed our path.
I shook my head. What were the odds that a chance meeting regarding her research would have sparked such a mutual interest as had developed between Pietr and her? Love at first sight? That was not how things truly worked.
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