by Jacey Conrad
Without warning, Viktor’s face sprang to her mind, his smell, the way his hands felt on her body. She tried to imagine kissing Andrey, or Andrey’s face hovering over hers while he made her body sing. And she wanted to gag. This was so unfair. She’d just found Viktor. She was just learning his moods, his sense of humor, the way he liked his coffee. She hadn’t even slept with him. She knew there was no future for them, but she thought they’d have more time before the insanity of their lives separated them permanently.
An overwhelming, heavy blanket of despair settled on Irina’s shoulders. This was her life. And she could feel her choices slipping through her fingers like sand.
“You do not seem happy about this development,” Mama Yaga observed, sipping her tea.
“It just seems soon after losing Sergei, that’s all,” Irina demurred.
“Yes, well, I know exactly how much you’re going to miss your husband,” Mama Yaga told her. From nowhere, she pulled a small brown jar of ointment. “For the wounds on your arms. Claw marks heal differently than bites.”
Irina eyed her long sleeves. She had learned long ago not to question how Mama Yaga knew these things. It was better just to accept and adapt.
“I will certainly not miss your visits,” Mama Yaga mumbled into her teacup.
“I can always come by for tea,” Irina suggested.
Mama Yaga shrugged, as if she didn’t care either way, but Irina saw the little smile playing on the old woman’s lips. “That choice is yours.”
“Well, I hate to rush off, but I’m heading for my first day back at work,” Irina said.
“The young widow must return to the real world.”
“Any advice for me?” Irina asked.
“You’re asking much for a few films and some snacks.”
“Did you notice the Irish bacon in the center of the basket? Five pounds of it.”
Mama Yaga chugged the rest of her tea and tilted the empty cup back and forth, peering down at the patterns in the bits of tea leaf. She frowned at the large clumps clinging to the sides of the porcelain. “Trouble is coming, as inevitable as the full moon. Trust in what you know, but remain open to what you don’t. What you see is not necessarily what is true, but what you don’t see can be just as important.”
“That was not your best advice in terms of specifics,” Irina told her.
“You want specifics, consult the Farmer’s Almanac.”
After the emotional and organizational confusion of Mama Yaga’s shop, it was nice to return to the relative normalcy of Red Crown Jewels. She sighed in relief as she walked into the cool, carefully lit interior of the shop. With very little overhead and more-than-respectable sales, Red Crown was one of the more profitable arms of the Sudenko empire. She’d used that as a talking point for taking over more control of the shop, but Papa had merely smiled and asked her to make him some special cufflinks for his birthday.
The shop was tucked away in a warren of one-way streets and dead ends far east of the trendier, shinier corridors of the downtown waterfront. While most of the customers were members of the local criminal werewolf community, Irina had taken care to make sure the store was comfortable for even the most naïve, misled window shopper. Like Stiverson’s, Irina had chosen light gold and ivory tones, so the shop’s furnishings didn’t compete with the jewelry for the eye’s focus. The only exception was the occasional splash of red in the thick, plush carpet and the chairs where young prospective grooms sat while they nervously perused the selection of engagement rings.
Irina’s custom-designed pieces and original designs were stored in a private viewing room at the back of the shop, reserved for special customers. Irina trailed her fingers along the cold, reinforced glass display cases, their ultra-bright LEDs showcasing the diamonds’ explosions of facets. Viktor and Yuri were lagging behind her, probably wondering why she was fondling a display of tennis bracelets. But who cared? She was back where she belonged.
Dressed in an understated blue suit, Ivan swept through the employee lounge door and crossed the spacious showroom in a few strides. “Irina, thank God,” he sighed, throwing his arms around her. “You’re back to rescue us. Vlad was talking about sorting the Krenski shipment himself.”
Irina shuddered, remembering an incident in which Vlad dropped five pounds of “misappropriated,” perfectly round star sapphires in the breakroom, causing a Three Stooges-style pratfall catastrophe as Vlad, Irina and Ivan tried to clean them up.
“I’ll get to it today,” she promised, giving Ivan a little cheek kiss. “And I’ll get the intake reports updated for my father, so he’ll get off your back.”
“I will buy your lunch for the rest of the month,” Ivan swore. “Which also guarantees you’ll actually eat lunch this month instead of working through all of your breaks. See how I did that? I call it ‘covert caring.’ Very sneaky.”
Viktor snorted behind them, drawing Ivan’s eye. “And you brought more people! Great! Maybe they can wrestle the sharp objects away from your protégé.”
“Vlad’s not that—” Irina began, just as a loud crash sounded from the back of the shop, near Irina’s office. “Okay, yeah, he’s that bad. I’m going to go see what he broke.”
“Welcome back, doll!” Ivan called after her.
She snorted. “Good to be back.”
Ivan had done his best to keep the shop in good order while she was gone, but it still took her most of the day to get the books (both sets) back to normal (and sweep up the lamp that Vlad had knocked off of her work table). When she emerged from her office, drained but happy, and feeling useful, Viktor was nowhere to be found. Yuri, was sitting on a stool by the front door, reading a magazine. Vlad had been banished to the showroom, bending his reed-thin and ridiculously tall frame over the display cases. Ivan was helping a customer, a young woman in a long black cardigan over worn jeans and ballet flats. Brunette, with a petite, athletic frame, the woman wasn’t the typical Red Crown customer. Hell, the store was lodged so deep in the Russian section of Seattle’s inner landscape that they rarely got walk-in customers. But there she was, inspecting a selection of small-carat diamond earrings and nervously glancing around the store.
Irina emerged into the showroom and the woman turned toward the sound of her footsteps. Her wide black eyes flashed yellow as she scanned Irina from the red-gold hair coiled on top of her head to the tell-tale red soles on her shoes. The young she-wolf frowned. Irina’s brows rose, but she pasted on her best “customer service” smile. The customer turned her back on her, spoke softly to Ivan and walked out of the store.
“What was that about?” Irina asked as the woman hurried past the shop window, her shoulders hunched against the cool spring breeze.
Ivan shrugged. “One minute, she was interested in the earrings and the next, she decided to look somewhere else.”
Irina sighed. “Well, despite chasing off a customer, I am leaving for the day. I have had enough fun.”
“Well, thank you for getting everything back in order, hon,” Ivan said, helping her into her jacket. “We were lost without you.”
“You did fine,” Irina assured him. “Yuri, I’m going to need to you drive me to my father’s house.”
“Absolutely, Mrs. Volkov.” Yuri nodded sharply and bolted out of the door to the fetch the car.
Irina turned to Ivan. “I swear to you, that is the first time someone on my security detail has agreed to anything I’ve asked for. If Viktor’s not telling me that I can’t sit out on the front porch, Yuri is telling me I can’t go out and check my own mail. Where is Viktor, anyway?”
“He said something about an errand and left Yuri in charge of you.”
“Insulting,” she muttered.
“Well, I doubt he’s going to be happy when he comes back and finds you missing.”
“I’m sure Yuri is texting him right now,” Irina said, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Vlad, what is the new rule?”
Vlad’s thin, angular
face flushed red and he sighed, “If I go into Irina’s office, she reserves the right to keep my kneecaps.”
“Yep,” Irina said, opening the shop door. “And I will turn them in to big tacky earrings.”
Vlad shuddered and said under his breath, “It was just one stupid lamp.”
Yuri pulled the town car up to the huge black iron gate of her father’s estate. A burly guard in a black suit emerged from the gatehouse, and checked the car. When he recognized Irina sitting in the back seat, he immediately waved them through the gate.
The car rolled along the cobblestone drive and the enormous house came into view, a Gothic jewel set in the velvety green expanse of lawn. When he rose to prominence in the seventies, Papa had built this mansion for Mama Katrina, in the style of lavish homes that once stood in their home country, all sweeping eaves and curving lines of gold-hued granite, with a traditional onion-shaped dome topping a turret of guest rooms. Dozens of windows glinted in the low sunlight, as blank and perfect as doll’s eyes.
It reminded Irina of a fairy tale, the castle in the woods where the monsters lived. Her father’s big black Mercedes with its distinctive silver wolf’s head hood ornament was parked in the circular drive.
Yuri parked the car near the garage and carried Irina’s gym bag to the kitchen entrance. Inside, they found Magda, the family’s plump head housekeeper and cook, hunched over the stove, stirring a pan of kotlety, a smaller, Russian version of Salisbury steak. Magda’s careworn face lit up at the sight of Irina walking through the door and she wiped her hands on her starched apron and toddled to her.
“Sweetheart, come here! Give Magda a kiss!” she cried, holding her arms out to sweep Irina into a floury hug that smelled a little like gravy. “You should not worry. You will make it through whatever this life throws at you.”
“Thank you, Magda.”
The older woman reached out to pinch Irina’s cheeks. “But you’re still too skinny, nothing but bones! Sit, sit, I make you plate.”
This was a common reaction from Magda. When Irina returned from her first semester of college, a victim of the freshman fifteen, Magda had grabbed a hold of her collarbone and insisted that she was wasting away to nothing. If the old she-wolf wasn’t feeding someone, she got a little twitchy.
“Actually, Magda, I came to take advantage of the nice weather, use the trail,” Irina said. “Time to get back into old healthy habits.”
Magda scoffed. “Well, when you are done running for no reason, you come back here. I will feed you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Irina said, taking her bag from Yuri and moving toward a powder room just outside the kitchen door.
Magda pointed her spoon at Yuri. “And you, you will sit and eat now, because even though I can’t boss her around, you are the fair game.”
Yuri cleared his throat as if he were about to protest, then changed his mind and sank into a chair near the huge old oak kitchen table. Irina stripped out of her work clothes and slipped into a pair of black running pants and a red hoodie. She pulled her hair out of its complicated coil and pulled it into a tight ponytail.
When she emerged, Yuri was face-deep in a bowl of kotlety. He stood when Irina entered the room, but instead of wiping his face with his napkin, he used his tie. Irina’s lips twitched, but she held in the laugh that bubbled up in her throat.
“I’ll be outside for the next hour or so,” she told him.
“Yes, miss. I’ll let your father know you’re here.”
“Oh, no, that’s not necessary,” she protested. If Papa found out she was here, he would insist on her coming into his office for a long “check-in” chat, which would wrap up with a heavy Salisbury-steak-based meal, and she wouldn’t have time (or the will) for her run.
“Your father would be very upset if you went into the woods alone.”
“I’ll be running on a paved trailed on my father’s fenced in property. I might as well be running in a hamster habitat. I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said as she exited the kitchen, stretching her arms over her head as she walked briskly over the cobblestones toward the woods.
“But Mrs. Volkov…”
“Really, Yuri. Trust me, it will be fine.”
“Please, just let me—”
“Yuri!” she cried, pulling her foot up against her butt to stretch her quads. “Go to the house!”
A low, gravelly voice rumbled behind her. “It’s not fair to snap at Yuri for trying to do his job.”
She turned to see Viktor walking toward them. He jerked his head toward the house. “Go on in, Yuri.”
Yuri nodded and made tracks for the kitchen door, where it was safe and there were readily available meatballs.
Irina wondered what sort of “errand” would require Viktor to go to her father’s house? Was he reporting to Ilya about her? For some reason, the very idea irritated her, like he was tattling on her. Then again, she imagined there were significant portions of her “activities” that he had omitted.
“I wasn’t snapping at Yuri, I just don’t need people hovering over me,” she said.
“You did snap. You were noticeably snappish,” he said, nodding toward the narrow paved trail that lead into the woods. “What is this?”
“I wanted to try out for track when we were in school. But Papa didn’t want us participating in sports—Galina and the boys because there was too much of a risk that they would expose their nature. And me, well, he was afraid I would get hurt. But he had this path put in so I’d have some sort of outlet. The others used it for runs, too, on four feet. It was good for getting rid of some of that excess adolescent wolf energy. And because I think I need to get back into some healthy habits, I’m going for a run. I’ll be out an hour tops.”
“Maybe some other time.”
“I just need some time alone, Viktor. You can go tell Papa that, if you’d like. And that I’ll talk to him after I’ve finished running.”
Viktor frowned. “I don’t tell your father anything he doesn’t need to know.”
“Well, that answer is vague and self-serving,” Irina shot back as Viktor shrugged out of his jacket and shirt, skimming down to his wife-beater and jeans. He toed off his shoes and left the lot sitting on a stone bench near the entrance to the woods.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Well, I’m not letting you run alone. What if you trip or something? You’ll be left alone, injured in the middle of nowhere. And since I don’t have any gear here, I’m just going to have run barefoot. I’ve done it before.”
“It this some sort of weird ploy to make me feel guilty?” she asked.
“I’m a werewolf. I think I can handle running on bare feet.”
“We’ll see,” she said, smiling at him, determined not to ogle the way his chest stretched his tank top. To keep inappropriate impulses in check, she took off running. She was a little stiff, but was pleased that she dashed away so easily. She heard Viktor’s startled huff behind her and picked up her pace to a full sprint.
When they were children, Papa had always reminded them of the old Russian proverb, “The feet feed the wolf;” meaning the fastest, the strongest, were the ones to survive. Irina had taken it quite literally, and since she wasn’t a wolf, she’d made it her business to learn to run as quickly as she could. Of course, she was still slower than her siblings, but over the years, her mile time had become more than respectable.
The woods were indeed lovely, dark and deep, with their verdant, overgrown limbs stretching over the trail blocking out even the dim late afternoon sunlight. It was like running through a big green cave, the astringent scent of pine tickling her nose as she pumped her legs. The only sign that she wasn’t alone was the slap of bare soles against the pavement behind her.
Irina knew that if he really wanted to catch her, there would be no outrunning Viktor, but he was keeping a respectable distance. She appreciated it, but she didn’t want to be patronized. She wanted him to have to work. She pumped her legs harder, lengthening h
er stride.
The footsteps behind her quickened. She glanced over her shoulder. He was grinning at her, his stance hunched. She laughed, taking a few deep breaths before exploding into her top speed. She glanced back again and saw that his fangs were growing longer and his claws extended. She shrieked, laughing as she overshot a curve in the trail, leaving the pavement and jumping over a log. She took off into the woods, raising her arms to keep the branches away from her face.
Viktor growled, leaping over the fallen trees after her. He landed on four feet, having shifted into a huge sandy wolf. She could hear his paws, rustling through the fallen pine needles, and she ducked left, baseball sliding through some brush and rolling to her feet. Viktor burst through the same bushes with no trouble, his teeth almost catching Irina’s pant leg. She dodged around the tree, doubling back toward the trail around a huge oak.
Viktor’s tongue lolled happily out of his mouth as he gamboled after her, making her laugh. He was chasing her, playing with her. When was the last time that she’d had fun with man or wolf who was not related her? How had she gone from being so damn cranky with him, resenting the potential privacy violations from her father, to playing tag with wolf-Viktor in the woods? She had some serious stuff working itself out upstairs. At least, she hoped it was working itself out.
And sometime, during this little mental vacation, she stopped hearing Viktor’s paws on the ground. She slowed, stopping near pines so big they could have been a Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, and turned around, looking for any sign of caramel-colored fur.
Nothing.
The only sounds she could hear were creaking tree limbs and the chirping of birds. She turned in a circle, breathing hard, craning her neck to search for Viktor.
Suddenly, a blur of tan fur burst out of the trees, knocking her to the ground under the pines. As she fell, the tree limbs sprang back into place over them, creating a sort of pungent, piney canopy. Irina cackled as Viktor licked a long line up her face and nuzzled his nose against her neck. Viktor the Wolf’s intelligent blue eyes bored into her as she ran her hands through his thick fur, stroking it back from between his ears. She glanced down and saw that his jeans and shirt were tied together and looped over his back, like a seatbelt protecting him against nudity in the woods.