4.0 - Howl Of The Fettered Wolf

by Krista Walsh

  What choice did she have? Gaining time would have to be her decision. For now.

  “Fine,” she said, and her voice came out steely. “I agree to go with you. But I won’t leave without my dogs.”

  ***

  Vera stalked between her closet and her bed, where her suitcase lay open on top. She wasn’t packing much — she didn’t intend to be gone long — but each item she folded and placed added another strain to her thoughts.

  Despite the resolution she’d made in the living room, now that she was alone and taking action, her mind was assailed by doubts. Leaving couldn’t be the right decision. The shop would be vulnerable in her absence. What if the thieves ransacked the place and discovered the book wasn’t here? They wouldn’t be satisfied to throw up their hands and call it a loss. They would search for her. And if magic had guided them to where she’d hidden the book the first time, what would stop them from finding her at Gabe’s?

  How much time would leaving actually buy her?

  Vera had to believe that Ara would be safe for a little while. She was good at hiding; all she needed was an oak tree and she could slip inside and wait for any threat to pass. That didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a risk for her. What if the men watching the store followed her back to her oak? What if they grabbed her or threatened to burn down her home?

  Vera clenched her jaw and shoved another sweater into her bag.

  She had to assume that Gabe knew what he was talking about. That he wasn’t suggesting she run in some misguided effort to make himself look like he was doing something. He’d mentioned resources. If he had ways of finding out who these people were, maybe she wouldn’t need to stay away for long. Just a day or two to plan her own attack, and then she would be ready to return and face both threats as they came.

  If she could figure out the players, she could find a way to smoke them out. Use the book as bait to lure them into the cellar, a nice isolated space where no one else would get hurt, and then spring a trap they wouldn’t be able to escape. She could prevent whatever they planned to do with the book, even if she had to destroy them.

  Anticipation rushed through her at the thought of putting an end to this mess. Her adversaries had gotten the better of her so far, but now she was ready to regain the advantage. The Fettered Wolf had been in her family for seven hundred years. She refused to be the generation to break the vow of protecting it.

  She heard a sharp snap and looked down to find that she had squeezed the handle of her suitcase so hard it had cracked.

  At least she wasn’t working alone anymore. Ara was already by her side, and now Gabe was here as well. The fact that he had come for her raised her confidence, not only in her situation, but in him. She had overreacted in his office, and in spite of her rudeness, he had come to her aid, even taking accountability for his own behavior. Maybe she could use the time to make up for what she’d done. Maybe they could even find a way to be friends in the middle of this madness.

  Besides, she thought. She looked around her room at the wrought-iron bed covered with her mother’s handmade quilt, her father’s paintings on the walls, the view into the coffee shop across her backyard. Everything in her apartment had been especially selected to add some joy or meaning to her otherwise sparse life. It’s been a while since I took a break. Maybe Ara’s right and this is the best thing for me.

  The thought didn’t stop a spear of anxiety from spiking through her. She reflexively put her hand on the planner in her sweater pocket, thinking of all the to-do items on her list that would go ignored while she was away.

  Priorities, she told herself, and let her hand fall. She knelt down to pick up Baxter’s favorite toy and tucked it in the suitcase beside her sweater.

  Yes, she would be leaving her shop behind — one of the mainstays of her life — but the important parts, the lives she cared most about, were going to be protected. She would make sure of that.

  Vera released a breath and zipped her suitcase shut. She was ready.

  6

  As Vera watched Gabe draw a line through the air, she was reminded of their time in Jermaine’s locked room, when he had made that motion without success. Although she’d read about Fae abilities in her reference book, part of her expected the result to be the same this time, that his supposed ability to walk through space by cutting portals in the sky would turn out to be a delusion.

  But at his touch, a golden glow lit up the dimness of her living room, lining the edges of a tear between places. Vera’s thoughts numbed at the beauty of it, even as Baxter started barking and Vidar growled and tugged at her grip on his collar. It took a minute for her to convince them that no threat was about to jump out of the shimmering doorway.

  “Amazing,” Ara whispered. The fearless explorer poked her head through the rift, then pulled herself back into the apartment with a chuckle. “It tickles.”

  Vera stared through the golden-edged gap to the room beyond — an empty kitchen with dust on the counters and sheets over the furniture. “How does it work?” she asked.

  Gabe rubbed the back of his neck and cast a glance through the rift to the other side. Vera wondered if he was figuring out how to make his escape.

  “It’s all right if you’re not supposed to give away secrets,” Ara said with a smile.

  He laughed. “No, it’s not that. I usually take the ‘how’ for granted and just step through. It’s a passage through the Fae dimension. We don’t actually enter the world itself, but sort of bypass it, like skirting the city limits. Getting to the Fae world is a bit more of a challenge, and one I don’t take advantage of very often. I’m Fae enough to use their gifts, but not enough to be welcome for an extended visit.”

  Vera continued to eye the rift uncertainly. She didn’t like jumping into new experiences without knowing what the full consequences would be.

  “There’s nothing to it,” Gabe assured her, and stepped through. One moment he stood in her living room, and the next, he was leaning against the kitchen counter in a place nowhere close to her.

  She decided it was best not to think too hard about how it had happened.

  “I brought over a few things from my apartment while you were packing,” he said, sounding no farther away than if he were standing right beside her. “We have food, and I gathered up some firewood. I even have…” He maneuvered around the counter, bent down, and came back up with a bag of dog treats. “Ara gave me these from your kitchen. In case we have trouble getting the pups across.”

  Vera doubted that would be an issue. At the sight of their favorite snacks, Vidar and Baxter gave up any fear of the glowing circle and bounded through, showing only a momentary hesitation when the surface beneath them changed from thin rug to hardwood floor.

  As Gabe told them to sit and bribed them with treats, Ara shook her head, then turned to Vera with a knowing look. Keeping her voice low, she said, “I think this will be good for you. Try to enjoy it a little.”

  Vera frowned and held out her hand. While she was packing, Ara had gone to the staff room to fetch The Fettered Wolf, and now she handed it over wrapped in its oilcloth.

  “Don’t worry about things here,” she said. “I’ve got everything under control. You just keep this safe.” She offered an encouraging smile and leaned in closer. “It’s not every day you get to spend some alone time with one of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever laid eyes on. And even rarer that it’s a man you’ve spent the last few months name-dropping and thinking I wouldn’t notice.”

  She winked, and Vera’s cheeks flushed as she turned toward the rift. This was definitely a bad idea.

  With a pang of regret over all the work she was leaving behind, Vera took a step over the doorway and gasped at the warmth that brushed over her skin. Although the sensation only lasted a few seconds, her body came alive at the energy running in currents through her veins.

  “Amazing,” she whispered as she planted her feet on the other side. The hardwood planks were similar to the ones in her apartment, though
more scuffed with age and dusty with disuse.

  “Certainly makes going on holiday that much easier, doesn’t it?” Gabe said with a grin.

  He waited until Vera was out of range, then waved to Ara and closed the rift, cutting Vera off from everything that made her life tick. A bubble of relief formed around her heart that she’d insisted on bringing her dogs along. It prevented her from feeling too lost.

  With her miraculous travel out of the way, she clutched the book to her chest and turned her attention to the fact that she was now hours away from home in a farmhouse outside Boston.

  Amazing. No other word seemed to fit.

  She turned in a slow circle, taking in the open-concept kitchen, the back and side wall lined with cupboards, the counter space that stretched between the kitchen and living room. Small appliances — most of them out of date — lined the counter, and she wondered how many of them still worked.

  A long maple dining table took up the empty space beside the kitchen. Only the legs were visible beneath the white sheet, but they revealed intricate handcrafted designs of Celtic knots wrapped around the base, tapering off halfway up. The four chairs sitting around the table matched the style, each chair carrying a slightly different design. The quality of the craftsmanship brought her own rocking chair to mind, with all the small details her grandfather had thought to add while he’d made it. The signs of someone truly dedicated to his art.

  The vaulted ceiling over the kitchen and half of the living room showed the exposed beams, their sturdiness veiled by spider webs and dust. To Vera’s right, beside the front door, an enclosed staircase climbed up to the second floor. The upstairs only spread halfway over the house, stopping a few feet beyond the front door and likely extending over a porch out front.

  The living room was divided in two: against the back of the house, on Vera’s left, was a fireplace, with a tall bookshelf in the corner and a sheet-covered couch facing the hearth; across from it, to her far right, was a sort of cubby with a television and two armchairs angled in front of it, the lowered ceiling from the second floor creating a cozy effect. A perfect set up for a family with children. Kids and parents could share a room without obstructing each other’s pleasures.

  “Sorry for the state of the place,” Gabe said. He cupped the back of his neck as he followed her gaze, pink touching his cheeks as though he’d only become aware of the mustiness when he saw it through her eyes. “I haven’t been here in a few years, so it’s had time to accumulate all kinds of things. But —”

  He stepped away from her and reached for a light switch on the wall, puffing out a breath when the light in the kitchen turned on.

  “Good. I never stopped paying the electrical bills — just in case, you know? So we should be able to get the heat going soon. Come on, I’ll give you a quick tour.”

  He pulled the sheets off the furniture as he went. The dining table and chairs were even more breathtaking than the glimpses she’d already had, the knot design expertly etched along the edges of the table top and carved into the backs of the chairs.

  The couch turned out to be an old rough-upholstered burgundy-and-cream affair with a walnut frame and matching throw pillows. End tables with simple, squat lamps sat on either side, and Vera could see herself curled up on the couch cushions with a cup of tea and a book.

  When Gabe opened a side door into a fenced-in field, Vidar and Baxter tore past Vera to run outside. It was dark, with no hint of moonlight or stars to cast any glow on the grass, but she was sure her dogs could take care of themselves.

  Gabe gestured for her to lead the way upstairs and followed behind her.

  “One bathroom is here. Linen closet if you need more blankets. And I guess you can use this bedroom. It was my parents’, but I don’t think they’d mind. Mom’d probably be happy to have someone use it. My room is down the hall.”

  He turned the light on in the bedroom, and Vera was left speechless at the simple elegance of the décor. Patterned lace curtains were pulled closed over a large window that sat above the wooden bedframe, its finely stitched cream-and-green quilt and matching pillows as tidy as if someone had straightened up that morning. A maple wardrobe sat across from the door, and an antique secretary desk rested to Vera’s right, with more lace curtains covering a second window above it.

  The roof was slanted, but tall enough that neither she nor Gabe needed to worry about bumping their heads.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, running her fingers over the carvings in the bedpost. “And no one lives here now?”

  He smiled, but she noted the tightness around his mouth. “I’m the only one in my family left, and it’s a bit big for just me. So I let it sit and do my best to keep up the basic maintenance, figuring one day I’ll come back. I don’t have the stomach to sell it.”

  His answer stole some of Vera’s sense of the hominess of the place. The muscles in her back tensed as she hugged the book closer to her, and she scanned the room again in a new light. It must be difficult for Gabe to visit here. Now she was stealing his mother’s bed, and she knew he had to feel uncomfortable with the idea.

  She thought about offering to sleep on the couch instead, somewhere where she wouldn’t disrupt the energy of the space, or even suggesting she go to a hotel, but Gabe turned his back on her before she had the chance.

  He opened a door to their left that led to a second bathroom. “There are towels in the cupboard here, and the water should still be up and running, though you might want to wait a while for the hot water tank to fill up.”

  His smile when he turned around banished the chill of Vera’s uncertainty. Heat consumed her down to her toes, and she cursed herself for being so vulnerable to his charm.

  He’s being kind, she told herself. Making up for letting me down this afternoon.

  “I figure after all you’ve been through tonight, you’ll want to wash the fight out of your hair,” he said.

  Vera shifted on her feet. “We should probably talk about our plans at some point. See how we want to move forward.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Gabe. “Tonight, you need to relax and get some rest. Take your time, and while you wash up, I’ll make sure the heat goes on.”

  Although his eyes were covered by the black sunglasses, she sensed him staring at her, and she wished she could see him more clearly to know what he was thinking. Considering it was just the two of them in the house, she wondered why he bothered to keep them on at all.

  He stepped closer, and Vera caught a whiff of his woodsy smell, like cedar and pine. It clung to his green sweater and seeped from his tanned skin, gliding over her taste buds and wakening the quiet voice of desire deep within her. Her breath caught, unsure of what he was doing. Then he rested his hand on her shoulder and eased her out of the way.

  Vera glanced behind her and realized she’d been standing in front of the door.

  Of course. Idiot.

  She forced a smile and stepped clear of his path. He began to close the door, and she sputtered out, “I don’t suppose you have anywhere secure I can put my book?”

  He offered her an apologetic grimace. “Unfortunately we don’t have anything like a safe here. This house was built in the middle of nowhere specifically so we could avoid trouble, so dad never thought to put in any other security measures.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll figure something out. Thank you.”

  Gabe closed the door behind him, and she buried her face in her hand.

  One charming smile and you go all googly-eyed. Smarten up, Vera. Your entire world is at stake and you’re fawning!

  She shook herself off and squared her shoulders. After a quick look around, she went to the wardrobe and opened the doors. A few outfits remained hanging within — a tuxedo and what appeared to be a wedding dress in a sealed plastic bag. Vera unzipped the edge of the bag and slipped the book inside, hoping the darkness of the wardrobe would prevent the oilcloth from being obvious in a quick search. As soon as she closed the doors, he
r knees wobbled, and she bowed her head against the wood. Although she knew better, having the book out of sight again removed some of her worry.

  She returned to the bathroom and ran the shower, jumping away from the freezing water that splashed against the walls.

  While the water warmed up, she grabbed a towel from the closet and undressed, then assessed the full-length mirror on the wall. For a while, she focused only on the intricate wooden frame that held the glass, the details depicting Greek mythology stories in miniature. Dryads, satyrs, Hercules against the hydra, Perseus freezing Medusa in the mirror with her own stare.

  She wondered what Gabe would have thought of that last one growing up, if he would have considered it a strike against his nature. But she doubted his family would have kept the frame if they knew it bothered him. From the tone of his voice when he spoke of them, his memories of growing up were happy ones.

  She shifted her attention from the mirror to the reflection in it and winced at the black and purple hues that had formed on her cheekbone. Never before had her skin been blemished so severely, and she didn’t think the colors did much for her complexion. She leaned in close, brushing her straight red hair out of the way, and appreciated the depth of the injury where it lined her left eye. Her gaze drifted over her narrow chin to the bruises around her throat where the thief had tried to squeeze the life out of her. His fingers had left defined impressions, as though he’d wanted her to remember who had caused the damage.

  A shudder of resignation ran through her that she would have to face Rega again at some point. That these might not be the only injuries she received at his hand.

  Drawing back her shoulders, emphasizing the thinness of her frame, she met her gray gaze in the reflection. Next time, you will beat him. Next time, it will be him gasping for breath.