He said, “Some things take more time than others.”
Her face showed that Tess was thinking that over. Worry lines had gathered on her brow.
“She’s not like you,” Tess pointed out.
“Or like you,” he said.
“But she is your sister.”
“She is.”
“So you intend to kick that Reaper’s backside because it wants her soul?”
“It wants her life, and that is unacceptable,” Jonas replied. “She might have been slated to die, but she didn’t die, so all bets are off. In my way of thinking, Death can’t have what he doesn’t deserve to have.”
He had not told Tess about what had happened to Gwen, and she didn’t ask about it now.
“And you know the secret for beating a Reaper?” she pressed.
“I found it tonight.”
He saw more worry lines gather above Tess’s calculating blue eyes.
“That thing didn’t see Gwen in the wolf,” she said. “It didn’t know Gwen was right there.”
Jonas nodded.
“So the longer she stays in wolf form, the longer you can avoid what’s coming?” she asked.
“Remaining a wolf also means the longer route to her full recovery,” he replied. “We maintain a human shape most of the time and must let that part heal.”
All of this was said in front of his sister, but most of it wouldn’t be news to her. Jonas had already considered the possibility that Gwen had already figured some of these things out for herself anyway. His sister was sharp-minded and incredibly tuned in to her surroundings.
Tess looked at Gwen. “Do you hurt?”
Jonas didn’t fail to notice the change in Tess’s beautiful face when she addressed his sister. Tess’s expression became softer. Her voice was lower, gentler. Among humans, this would have meant that she cared about the person that question had been addressed to. Was it so with a hunter? Could Tess change tack in two days? She was moving through her own transitions so quickly, Jonas had to think hard in order to keep up.
Gwen looked to him for permission to move. This time, Jonas nodded, needing to find out exactly what Tess might do.
Walking slowly, Gwen approached Tess without making a sound, almost as though her feet didn’t touch the ground. Taking several steps in her wake, Jonas followed his sister, ready for who-the-hell-knew what might happen next. It was easy to sniff out the knife in Tess’s hand. After promising to leave them alone, would Tess change her mind and use it?
He didn’t actually believe that any more than he believed Tess would refuse to look at her past with fresh eyes after all of this. And when Tess settled the knife in her belt, Gwen closed the remaining distance between them.
His sister was shorter than Tess, and though both females were small-boned, Gwen was frail by comparison. Tess’s hair fell loose over her shoulders, golden under the last remnants of starlight. Gwen’s hair was also loose, and much paler. Still, they were both she-wolves, and their courage to meet like this was just a sampling of the fortitude of the breed.
Gwen had to look up to peer into Tess’s face. What Jonas now saw in Tess was a wide-eyed expression of curiosity that he jealously wanted turned his way. He could love this hunter if given the chance. Part of him already did.
“Was it a hunter that hurt you?” Tess asked Gwen seriously.
When Gwen shook her head, Tess exhaled in relief.
Gwen inched closer to Tess. With her hands laced behind her back, his sister leaned forward to place her head against Tess’s shoulder. There was only that smallest of telling connections, and yet it said so much. His sister had recognized a kindred spirit in Tess before he had, and Gwen was finding solace in being close to the wolf hunter housing wolf particles in her blood.
No one moved for a long time. So long, the pink hue of the sun’s rebirth cast long shadows on the trees. It was Tess who eventually broke the spell. Easing herself back, waiting until Gwen was solid on her feet, Tess gave him one long last look of forlorn agony before she hustled off with a rustle of fallen leaves.
When Gwen turned to him, he put on a smile. Seeing Gwen smile in return made everything that was going on seem doable and not quite so hard. They truly were in accord about liking Tess, and Tess would give them room to face what was coming.
Now, they just had to survive another night in the fight with a Reaper who wouldn’t fail to recognize Gwen for long.
* * *
Tess’s mind was sluggish and on full system overload. Thinking was like wading through mud. Jonas, Gwen, Reapers... How much trouble could land within her borders on any given day?
She wasn’t sure what to do next. Jonas wanted space, but dealing with an entity like the one she had seen wasn’t going to be easy. Odds were against him having a positive outcome because Death was Death, right? And this version was incorporeal.
Could someone actually cheat Death and get away with it? After having witnessed the gentleness the girl carried inside her, the fierceness of the white wolf in action seemed distant. Also strange were Tess’s growing feelings for Jonas’s sister. Then again, maybe she was just a sucker for any show of tenderness.
Wondering what that Reaper would do to Gwen when he found her wasn’t going to help Tess assess the situation. And why did Death send a Reaper to collect the souls of the departed? Why not send an angel. Someone pretty, with wings?
Tess sat down on a rock with her head in her hands. Then she rolled up her sleeves to take a good look at her arms. Hardly any indication of the burn marks was visible. Rapid healing was also supposed to be part of the beauty of working with silver.
But Jonas had proposed a new idea, and that idea had spread through her mind like an insidious plague. Werewolves had the whole rapid healing thing down. So what were her markless arms an example of—the magic of silver or the possibility of having wolf in her DNA?
The dawn was quiet. Only a few bugs and early birds sang. There was no scent of wolf in the air. No coyotes yipped in the distance. A cool breeze rippled through the pine needles in the trees beside her. Two rabbits scurried near her feet. All of that would have been normal if it hadn’t been for the fact that somewhere out there, a Reaper roamed, searching for its next victim. Gwen.
Tess raised her hand, sniffed her wrist, just to make doubly sure that Jonas had been wrong about her. But that wasn’t a good test. Jonas’s scent still saturated her skin, a stubborn reminder that no kind of soap or shampoo was going to erase him.
The main problem here was that she no longer wanted to be rid of the handsome Lycan. Things had changed, big-time. So where did that leave her?
And what was she going to do about it?
Chapter 28
Jonas couldn’t shake the feeling that darkness hovered over the breaking dawn of a new day. At his post in the open doorway of the cabin, he searched with tired eyes for any sign of a Reaper being able to move around in the light.
Gwen had fallen asleep on the rug after eating the biscuit and some of the chicken he had warmed up for her. He hadn’t been able to swallow a morsel. The countdown was on. In his mind, he heard the clock ticking.
He didn’t like the way he had left things with Tess, but there was no changing that now. She would either believe the things he had told her or not. In her place, he’d have been laughing at his theories. It was too bad for the wolf hunter that those theories were true, and yet maybe not so bad for him.
Gwen had demonstrated her approval of his unlikely choice for a mate and was as smitten with Tess as he was. None of this would amount to anything if he couldn’t find a way to trick this Reaper a second time.
How could he face a Reaper and tell it to back off?
Did Reapers have reasoning skills?
Could he negotiate with this one?
This round was on him. Gwen’s life was in his hands.
Each sentence she spoke brought him to a peak where lust and blistering heat reigned. He would have given anything for a replay of having her long legs wrapped around him and her sweet breath on his face. He wanted to make her moan. He wanted to hear her growl.
Was he destined to experience those things only once?
His right eye twitched. He rolled his shoulders to ease the buildup of muscular tension that came from standing up all night and spat out the last of his thoughts.
“Damn Reaper.”
At two o’clock in the afternoon, he finally sat down in a chair. Gwen hadn’t stirred. He sipped coffee and thought his mind would explode before presenting him with a way to deal with Death’s servant.
At five o’clock, he got up again and began to pace. For the hundredth time, he thought about going to see Tess and nixed that idea equally as quickly.
If he were to die tonight, their imprinting would be null and void. With Weres, “Until death do us part” actually meant what it sounded like. There was no way to undo an imprint. Tess would be free of the bonds tying her to him only if he died. After that, if she preferred to go on believing herself to be human, no one would be there to argue with her. Tess would again be alone. Tess and her silver-tipped arrows.
Jonas looked up suddenly, struck by an idea exposed in that last thought. If he were to die...
He was so lost in thought that he bumped into the doorframe. He closed his eyes. The way to deal with this Reaper had just presented itself to him. The answer to his dilemma was wrapped in the word sacrifice. All he had to do was offer himself up to this Reaper in Gwen’s place, trading one life for another.
Christ! He couldn’t open his eyes, but he could do this. He could save his sister, and along with Gwen, the future of their breed.
Then what?
What would happen to Gwen if the Reaper took him up on this offer? She also would be alone, without her protector and so very far from home.
He felt his eyes blink open as a new idea floated in that centered on Tess.
He’d have to convince Tess to take over the guardianship of his sister until Gwen was fully healed. At that time, Tess would have to take Gwen home to Miami, where the rest of the pack and his sister’s future waited.
A wolf hunter wouldn’t be able to comprehend such a thing, but Tess was so much more than a hunter. The Miami pack would have to allow Tess’s help in getting his precious sister there because Tess was one of them. Maybe she never had been human.
How to break this idea to Tess was the next obstacle. She had to listen. She had to care. He wouldn’t have to tell her everything, only part of it. The ifs. If anything were to happen to him... If Tess felt anything for the white wolf that so openly felt something for her.
He had a good handle on Tess’s mind and what was in her heart. He’d had her breath in his lungs and her tongue in his mouth. He heard her thoughts and he had been inside her in both body and spirit.
He wouldn’t only be sacrificing his life, he’d be cutting Tess loose from his wolfish tethers. Both she-wolves would go on without him. Tess would do this, if not for him, for Gwen. He would have to ask Tess to do this when she owed him nothing, when he had dramatically complicated her life. But if Tess agreed...then Gwen would at last find peace.
Hell, the answer to this problem was as brilliant as it was horrifying. It made his heart sink.
Opening up a channel to Tess, he sent her a message.
“Tess. One last thing. I’ll only ask one more thing of you, I swear, if you will hear me out.”
Her reply was swift, as though she had been waiting for him to reach out to her.
* * *
“You’d dare to ask me anything, wolf?”
“Not for me, Tess. This isn’t about me.”
Tess sensed a change in Jonas’s voice and thoughts. A storm system surrounded those thoughts, protecting the images that usually accompanied his messages. He was in a hurry to speak his mind and was truly in need of help.
She sat up on the bed that had offered no comfort for the last couple of hours she had spent on it. “Is Gwen all right?”
The next message rode on the tail of her question.
“Do you want her to be well, Tess?”
She’d be damned if she answered that question, and damned if she didn’t, so Tess decided to be truthful. “Yes. Okay. I care.”
“Will you help her if I can’t?” he sent.
“Are you asking me to speak to her?”
“No. I’m asking a hell of a lot more than that from you.”
“Then spit it out, Jonas.”
“I’d like you to help her. Watch over her and eventually take her home to Miami.”
Tess’s insides stirred uncomfortably. Underscoring these messages was a dark ulterior motive that required Jonas to bring up such a thing, and she didn’t have time to ponder that.
She said, “Where will you be when I do those things?”
When he didn’t answer the question, Tess’s nerves began to dance the way they always did when trouble was brewing.
“Jonas?”
His reply was slow in coming. “I have to face this Reaper and find a way to get it off Gwen’s back. There’s no way to predict the outcome of a meeting like that. You do see this?”
Tess felt a sickness rise to her throat that would have made it impossible to speak out loud.
“It’s what we do, you once told me, Jonas. We fight and hope to win.”
That was true, and yet it wasn’t the full picture here, Tess realized with the suddenness of her well-honed insight. Jonas wasn’t planning on coming back from his appointment with the Reaper. Because of that, he was asking her to take over the guardianship of his sister.
She got to her feet and reached for her sweatshirt. She hadn’t stripped for her useless session with sleep, somehow understanding that she had to be ready for the next stage of this story to happen and whatever the finale would be.
“You won’t face this beast alone,” she sent to Jonas.
He had a protest ready for that statement. “Someone has to be here for my sister in case this goes wrong. You’ve seen her and what Gwen can and will try to do, Tess. She can’t be there tonight. You have to make sure she isn’t. Can you do that? Will you do that, if not for me...” He let that sentence dangle and started over. “Not for me. For Gwen, and for the life that’s ahead of her.”
Secrets were tied up in knots inside of Jonas’s plea. He wasn’t telling her everything. He wasn’t telling her anything, actually, hoping she wouldn’t demand those secrets in order to do as he asked.
Did those unspoken reasons center on Gwen and her unique abilities? How special was Gwen, aside from being a full-blooded Lycan’s younger sister?
Tess wished there really was a rule book that she could consult. The Owenses had been simple people who didn’t believe in computers and other modern gadgets and didn’t believe in polluting the mind with unnecessary bites of information irrelevant to their vows. She wasn’t sure what she could have looked up here anyway when her gut was telling her that Jonas was going to do everything he could to make sure Gwen survived tonight.
The werewolf was asking her for help.
She fought the desire to run to Jonas. Fear had raised its ugly head and wasn’t to be dismissed. She had to admit to herself how much she wanted him to stay and how greatly she wanted to be with him in spite of their differences. And if it turned out that she was...
She closed her eyes before completing the thought.
If it turned out that Jonas was telling the truth and she was like him, then she did owe h
im something, didn’t she? She owed him her own enlightened future.
“What do you want me to do, Jonas?”
“Come and get her. Stay here or take Gwen to your place...whichever is easier for you. Let me do what I have to do to ensure not only my sister’s safety, but yours as well.”
“I can take care of myself, wolf.”
“This isn’t your problem.”
“You have made it my problem.”
“Then consider the pledge I’ll make you now, Tess. It goes like this—in watching over Gwen and taking her back to Miami, you will never be alone again. And you will, I promise, find happiness among your own kind.”
Tess’s thoughts were tangled. Her own kind? Weres was what Jonas meant. She would find other Weres in Miami.
It was important not to concentrate on that now. Mentally, she rasped, “All right. I’ll be there before nightfall.”
His relief washed over her as if it were her own and could fly through the air.
“Thank you,” he sent to her as the direct channel between them closed.
When his voice had gone, Tess felt more alone that ever. The great emptiness carved out inside her pulsed with the need to reconnect and to hear more of Jonas’s words. Her body reacted in kind, aching for him, hungering for Jonas and longing to be touched by his hand.
Only his hand.
But her feelings for him didn’t have to be the result of being like him. She would probably have been attracted to his looks, his power and the kindness he showed his sibling anyway.
And when he was gone? If he was killed by this Reaper while trying to protect his sibling...what would be left to fill the emptiness inside her the way his lovemaking had?
Sunlight streamed in from the window in her room, sending dust motes twirling. She pulled on her sweatshirt and knotted her long hair at the nape of her neck. There were several hours to kill before she’d work up the courage to see Jonas again, and she planned to use those hours wisely.
Courage is what she would need, having agreed to Jonas’s request. Courage to further defy her vows where he was concerned. Courage to let him go when the time came for that. But she didn’t plan to take any of this lightly. She had agreed to help him without fully committing herself to what he’d need her to do. She hadn’t lied, exactly. She just hadn’t spelled things out.
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