This was beginning to feel like déjà vu, only with the younger version of Eva. “She was driving a black SUV and I think she came here to talk to Grandmother Donceanu.”
The girl lifted one eyebrow and shook her head. “Outsiders don’t talk to grandmother.” Her tone was scornful. “And besides, Grandmother Donceanu isn’t here.” She started to walk away but David grabbed her arm and stopped her.
“Hey, let go!”
“Look, I just need to find—”
“Take your hands off her. Right now.” A big man with a broken nose walked closer and stood with his arms crossed, staring at David.
David let go and put his hands up slightly in the air. “Please, I just need to find my... My friend. I’m sure she must be with your grandmother.”
The girl looked around at the growing crowd. Her smile said she was enjoying the attention. “He means Grandmother Donceanu.”
The crowd stared at him, their faces grim. He wasn’t going to get anything from these people. They’d closed ranks and he was on his own. “Can you at least tell me where Ruv Danior is camped?”
Someone in the crowd laughed. “Sure, tell him where the ruva are. See if he likes what he finds there!”
The big man who had come first to the girl’s defense grinned and nodded. “Very well. You can find Danior at an old farm down the river about a mile from here.” He pointed south. “He and his friends camp there alone.”
Great. So, now he knew where the wolves were and if Helen hadn’t been able to find the grandmother, she would’ve gone looking for them. He climbed inside the old car and after a few minutes struggling to get it started, thanked God when it cranked over with a bang. At least he wasn’t going to have to walk, especially if he was taking the shotgun with him. Doubtless, if they had seen that, instead of laughing at him the Rom would have been calling the wolves for reinforcements.
Chapter 15
Grandmother Donceanu. Welcome to my work room. It’s so nice to see you taking an interest in the ruva.” Danior continued his work and gathered more pieces of metal together. He didn’t seem disturbed by the grandmother’s arrival. In fact, he seemed pleased by it. He set the scraps in a concrete-looking crucible and used long tongs to place it in the forge.
Helen watched closely at the interaction between the two. Danior clearly wanted to punish her more than she’d already been punished by the curse. Maybe he even wanted to kill her. She wasn’t sure what the grandmother wanted. She’d cursed her; something that Helen had initially thought was a terrible punishment. But from everything she’d learned about these people, they valued the wolves, they valued freedom, and they valued power. Had the curse been a punishment or an introduction to their world?
“I am always glad to visit, though sometimes it seems I am not wanted among you.” Donceanu strode closer until she stood over Helen. “What are you doing, Danior? What is this? Why is she here?”
“Why you’d have to ask her. She came here of her own free will. Even after we warned her not one but twice.”
Donceanu looked thoughtfully down at Helen. “Like calls to like, I suppose.”
“I didn’t come here my own free will.” Helen wiggled over enough to show the duct tape on her wrists. “Yes, I drove to the town, but it was to come and see you. When I stopped to rest, they objected me.”
Donceanu cocked her head and stared at Helen like she could see through her eyes and into her mind. “You came to see me. What did you want from me?”
A commotion at the door caught Helen’s attention but before she could really see what was happening Danior strode around the workbench and picked her up by her shirt. “No! There will be no more bargains,” he snarled at the grandmother. “When this woman warped our path you did nothing! Nothing to stop her from taking the land and making it unusable for us.” He shook Helen until her teeth clattered. “Oh, no, instead, you rewarded her! You gifted her with the ability to change and run the path on four feet instead of two. You gave her our gift.”
Donceanu stared calmly at him. “Indeed I did.”
David pointed the gun at the two men blocking his way. He could see Helen in the grip of a huge man standing beside a forge and another older woman standing beside them. The man was shouting and shaking Helen like a rag doll.
“Let me in, right now.”
The men grinned at him like idiots and one laughed out loud. “You have to be kidding. Just what do you think that little pop gun can do to us?”
“You get out of here now and don’t come back.”
Crap. He couldn’t actually bring himself to shoot them. They were young, barely out of their teens. And he had no idea if the shotgun would actually cause any damage to them or not. Were they wolves? Or just young, with the belief that came from that age that they were invincible?
“I need to talk to the grandmother.”
They shook their heads, grins intact.
“That’s my girl friend. I need in there, for God’s sake. Let me in!” His heart pounded and he grit his teeth. “Argh!” He twisted his grip on the shotgun, grabbed the barrel and swung it, slamming boy on the left in the head and then rammed the barrel into the gut of the boy on the right. He threw the gun to the floor and charged through them. Hands grabbed at him, but he’d played football in high school and knew how to dodge.
The gathered people at the workbench turned to stare at him. It seemed like he was running in slow motion, trying to get through those last few yards to reach Helen.
“Stop!” The command came from both the grandmother and the man holding Helen at the same time.
“I will handle this, Danior. Put her down.”
They locked gazes and David looked from one to the other. Clearly, he and Helen had walked in on a power struggle between the wolves and the woman who ran the Rom. Who held the power to free Helen? Who would they have to convince to let her go and remove the curse? Danior dropped Helen to the floor. At least he’d stopped shaking her.
“Who are you?” There was still beauty in the old woman’s face; in the high cheek bones and tall forehead, and her long wavy gray hair.
“Are you Bianca Donceanu? The lawyer?”
She nodded. “And grandmother to all the eastern bands. I will ask again, who are you?”
“I’m with her.” He pointed to Helen and was glad to see that she seemed to be recovering from Danior’s vicious shaking. “My name is David Sherman and I guess you could say I’m her boyfriend. I’m here to negotiate her release from your magic.”
A small smile tilted the corners of the grandmother’s lips. “So, you love the woman who took away our path?”
A collective growl sounded from the men in the corners of the barn. David scanned the room but his attention was quickly drawn back to Danior who charged toward him but was stopped by the grandmother’s outstretched hand. The wolf glared at him. So, now he knew who was in charge. A vital fact for a negotiator. This was his job and he was good at it.
“I… I love the woman who developed a hospital where there was only marshland. Who didn’t know about your people or what that land meant to you.”
“But you do love her?”
David’s mouth went dry and his heartbeat picked up and rattled in his chest like the old car’s engine that had barely gotten him here. He licked his lips and ran a hand over the hair on the back of his neck. Helen stared at him and her mouth hung open. News to her, then. He thought he’d made it clearer than that, although he hadn’t said the words. Wonderful. Just the way he’d like her to find out.
“I love her.”
“If you love her, then I will ask you this: what will you sacrifice for her? Would you take the gift in her place? And the anger of these men?”
“No!” Helen struggled to get up on one knee and finally managed to stand. This could not happen. Her mind swam with the revelation of the last few moments. He loved her. And they were going to convince him, Mr. Boy Scout, to take on the curse to save her. The Rom’s gift would really be a curse
for him. She was growing used to it; the pain and the strangeness and the freedom, and admittedly the power. But she had seen his face when he watched her change. He’d been revolted and pitied her. If he took the curse he would hate her. He couldn’t take it and she had to be rid of it. The only choice was for her to be free of it so they could be together.
She scrambled to think of something to stop this. “Don’t do that to him. You can’t. He is innocent of all of this.”
“He might have been innocent once, but now this man has tied himself to you. Your fate is his.”
“This is ridiculous.” Danior threw up his hands in the air. “What are you even offering, Grandmother? Would you spread our magic so thin? You’ve already given the gift away to one outsider. Is this how you hope to protect the bands and strengthen the path? Perhaps, it is time you stepped down.”
“Perhaps it is time for you to remember who channels the magic of the path and the moon. Go back to your puttering, Danior. I will handle this.”
The wolf growled and Helen spotted the tell-tale shift in his stance that said the big man might be thinking of becoming the Big Bad Wolf and eating the grandmother, just like in Red Riding Hood. But Grandmother Donceanu turned her back on him and Helen couldn’t smell any fear from her. Danior hesitated, and then stepped back.
“You haven’t answered my question. Will you take her place?”
David staggered closer. “Yes.”
Helen jumped between him and the old woman. “No! I’ll do anything. I’ll find you a new campground! You know I work with land development, I can do it!”
Donceanu ignored her. “If you take the way of the path, you must remain a wolf until the next moon. If you return walk the path on two before the next full moon passes, feet you will lose your ability to change and the ruva may have their way with you and with her.”
“No, no!” Helen made a grab for the Rom leader but the wolf behind her, Danior, pounced and threw her back to the ground. He grinned at her, amused either by the opportunity to hurt her or the possibility he would get to kill them both, she wasn’t sure.
The choice was his. Take the curse and live as a wolf for a month. That didn’t sound so bad, except he knew how hard Helen fought to remain human, and he’d seen for himself the pain she endured to shift forms. A month was a long time to live as an animal. What if they didn’t let him shift back? What if he remained a wolf forever?
“I don’t think the gadjo loves you.” Danior picked up a long metal rod from the workbench and stood over Helen. The wolf seemed to be enjoying the chaos in the barn. “Or maybe he isn’t as brave as you. How brave are you, Helen Mathews?” He touched her cheek with the metal quickly on one side, then dragged it slower across her other cheek. Helen screamed.
Silver. Burn marks rose quickly on Helen’s skin at even this light touch. And she was already hurt; he’d seen her limping, so Danior had already tortured her some time earlier. “Stop, I accept!” He couldn’t let her suffer at the hands of that asshole, even if he really needed more time to think about the bargain he’d just made and what it meant.
The Grandmother held up her hands. “Very well.” She chanted quickly and withdrew a small vial from her skirt pocket. David grimaced. They’d been played and she’d been expecting them, expecting all this. No way would she go around hanging onto werewolf potion in her pocket. No, she’d used the situation she knew was coming to make Danior submit to her, and she was getting exactly what she planned, an opportunity to change David. Why had she thought this would be the way to go, what revenge did she have on her mind?
Helen would at least be safe for a while. He’d hold his end of the bargain. And maybe she could figure out what to do while he took her place and solve the issue between them and the Rom. A quick idea dawned on him, half formed but he needed to blurt it out while he could. “Helen, use the retreat land.”
He blinked as spatters from the grandmother’s vial hit his face. And then the pain began. His heart pounded and he cried out as his flesh seemed to catch fire. His hands burned and the bones began to break, or elongate. Categorizing the many points of agony quickly became impossible as his whole body was broken and remade. He hadn’t thought to pull off his clothes and they strangled at cut at him as they ripped and he changed.
The worst were his legs, the way they ground inside him. Or at least he thought that until his skull crushed inward and back, leaving him gasping in agony. And then the tail… He howled, baying in pain as the bone and flesh built for his tail and burst forth, and then thousands of prickles rippled through his skin as fur burst forth.
Done. The wolf was free. He took in the scene around him: triumph radiating from the grandmother, anger from the wolves in human form, and horror from Helen. It was that—her expression and body language and scent screamed denial of what he now was—that forced him to turn and run; to answer the call of the night and run and run.
Chapter 16
Oh, God.” Helen fell to her knees and wept. This was what she had looked like as she changed. She already knew too well what it felt like, but now she knew exactly what David has seen when she changed in front of him. And now he’d been forced to go through it himself. How would he ever forgive her?
His newly golden eyes met hers and then he was gone. She hung her head. The urge to run was so hard to fight, especially the first times she’d changed. Hopefully, he’d come back, alive and unhurt. There were dangers out there, and like she had been, he was alone.
Now he would know exactly what she’d gone through. And how seductive the power to change could be. How fantastic it was to experience the world through the wolf. He’d learn what she’d begun to learn, that the wolf was no beast but, maybe, as the Rom believed, a gift. Would he reject her for not wanting it or for learning to enjoy it? Considering how he’d pitied her, either way they were done. If he had loved her, it was over.
Danior threw the metal down on the workbench with a clang. “Bo and Hanzi, go after him. Give him a chase and then bring him back. He will learn our ways or the locals will be wolf hunting before the month is over.”
Helen looked up through her tears. “You won’t hurt him?”
Danior snorted. “I do not promise such a thing. But he will learn and he will live.”
Helen stood slowly. She turned on Donceanu. “Why did you do this? Why change him? He didn’t take your land. Hell, I didn’t take it. I understand now what it meant to you, but it wasn’t yours.”
Donceanu raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t listen to me when I argued with you as a lawyer about the cultural importance of our migration. But you listen now. And understanding your man’s feelings for you, you will listen even closer.”
Tears rolled down Helen’s cheeks. “I can’t get you permission to camp there again. The hospital has already begun construction.”
“We know this, child. But the grandmothers have seen a shift in the path coming. Even before you considered building a hospital. Since you began this shift, it will be up to you to find the way. You may come and stay with me tonight if you wish. But within this month we will need a campground to replace the one we lost, something better than the temporary one we are using now.”
Helen shook her head slowly. “No. I don’t think David will want to see me again while he lives like this. I… I can’t look at him, either. I’ll go back to work. And I’ll find you what you need.”
“When you do, we will release him. You have one month. And after that, the gift will return to you.”
Helen’s head snapped up. A feeling about the same as an electrical current ran through her. Good or bad, she couldn’t tell what the sensation was trying to tell her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you have a month to find us land or your man will be returned to human form and you will receive the gift. Both of you will be hunted down by the ruva, and there your story will end.” Donceanu’s voice sent a chill down Helen’s back. The woman was cold, her focus purely on her people with nothing left for outs
iders.
Helen glanced at Danior and shuddered at his grin. “And if I find a place that makes you happy?”
Danior answered. “We need a place that can accommodate the bands, both single bands and larger gatherings. A place where we can be free to run in both forms.”
Donceanu added her bit. “We need a place where the people will not be disturbed, but where we can create and sell our wares to nearby towns. It must have water and power. It must be clean. And if you find us this place, we will release you both safely, with only one condition.”
A catch. No surprise. What development didn’t have a near impossible catch? “What condition?”
“At least once in the course of every year, you must become the wolf for the time of the moon. This will remind you of the lessons you have learned. To respect the path. To take the people seriously, and remember our ways.”
“I have to become the wolf once a year,” she repeated, her heart racing. This was unexpected and…good? Bad?
Danior began to laugh. “You want it. I see it in you.” He stepped closer. I smell it. You long to run in the night as much as any ruv.”
“No. No, I don’t. You’re crazy. Who wants to be an animal?”
“We do. And so do you.” He ginned at her, practically leering, and she took a step back. “You want the wildness inside you to be out and free. Well, we have been free for hundreds of years. We understand being wild, the draw of it. How very ironic that you, who cared so little for us, who refused to listen to us, share the same desire.”
“Danior, leave her. She will find her own way to the truth. Maybe she will enjoy a run now and then. Or maybe she will fail and the next run will be her last.”
The words echoed dully. None of this was important to her without David. She’d follow the rules though, and make sure the Rom released him from his curse. It was the least she could do after all the times he’d done nothing but try and help her, even after she’d tried to push him away. He might come out of his wolf form hating her for everything she’d exposed him to, but she’d make sure he could come back.
20 Shades of Shifters_A Paranormal Romance Collection Page 180