Code of the Wolf

by Susan Krinard

  She rested her palm on his chest, fingers spread, as if she could capture his pounding heart in her hand. “You didn’t answer my question, Jacob,” she said. She pressed her face into his shoulder. “You can have me whenever you want me. Every night. All you have to do is help me.”

  Jacob jerked away. Her desperation didn’t make him think the less of her. It made him feel dirty that he’d driven her to this.

  “I don’t take advantage of innocent women,” he said.

  “Why do you think I’m innocent?” She dropped all pretense of seduction and met his gaze unflinchingly. “It’s a bargain, like any other. You’ll be risking your life. What I can give may not be worth that risk, but if you’re willing—”

  “Stop,” he commanded, holding up his hands. “You were right when you said I cared more about my own kind than any human.”

  Her expression went flat. “If you don’t care about anything else, then why have you been helping us? Why have you been acting as if I…we meant something to you?”

  Her new strategy left him dangling like a wolf pup in its mother’s jaws. There were a hundred meanings behind the word care, and he didn’t know which one Serenity meant. Was she talking about friendship, and that as a friend he should be willing to do as she asked? Or was she implying something stronger?

  He laughed inwardly at his own arrogance. Satan would sup at St. Michael’s table before she admitted to anything more than friendship. An unbreachable barrier stood between him and Serenity, a barrier that Ruth had ignored when she’d married him. It hadn’t made any difference to her that he wasn’t human.

  That was why he could never feel for any woman what he’d felt for Ruth. He could want Serenity and choose not to act on his lust. He could care about her, but the Code told him where that caring had to end. He could never be involved with a woman again.

  Serenity’s hatred of his kind would tell her the same thing, if she would ever let herself think of him as anything but a useful tool.

  “I didn’t lie,” he said. “I care enough to stay until the branding is over. That’s the only promise I can make.”

  Her hands fell loose at her sides. “I understand,” she said. “I’m grateful you’re willing to help us. You see, I do care about Avalon, Mr. Constantine, whatever you may believe.” She seemed to look right through him. “Thank you for hearing me out.”

  Just as she turned to leave, he saw her expression change. He had seen that same look on an outlaw’s face just before he rode straight over a cliff rather than be taken alive. It came from an emotion that went beyond desperation into the territory of blind determination, the kind that made people do hopeless things with no thought of survival.

  Whatever drove Serenity, it was too powerful for anyone to stop, least of all herself. She hadn’t given up because he’d turned her down. She would go on just as she’d threatened, and the price would mean nothing to her.

  “Serenity.”

  She was already halfway out the door, and he didn’t think she was going to stop. But she did, keeping her back to him and cocking her head as if she’d heard some noise she couldn’t identify.

  “There’s something I want you to see,” he said.

  “I have work to do.”

  “Please come back, Serenity.”

  The tone of his request must have surprised her, for she turned and started back for the stable. Jacob retreated into the shadows away from the lantern light and began to unbutton his shirt. He tossed it over the nearest partition, pulled off his boots and went to work on his trousers.

  Serenity moved farther into the room.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  He emerged from the shadows. Serenity went still. Her gaze swept over him with the same detachment she’d shown when he’d climbed naked out of the arroyo. After a moment she went back to the open door, swung it closed and undid the top button of her shirt.

  “No one will disturb us,” she said.

  “Serenity,” he snapped, cursing himself for a fool. “Look at me.”

  She paused, fingers poised on the second button, and met his gaze. He Changed. The process was swift, and to most human eyes it would have seemed like no more than a vague movement behind a veil of dark mist.

  To Serenity it must have been terrifying. But she held her ground, watching steadily, until he was fully in wolf shape. She looked over every part of him, from muzzle to tail-tip, with remarkable calm. Then she knelt in the straw, hands on her thighs, and met his gaze.

  “Is that all?” she asked.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE WORDS WERE brave. Serenity prayed that Jacob believed them.

  She schooled her face to display only the most dispassionate curiosity, the same expression her father used to show when he was studying one of the native plants he had collected in the open fields and oak woodlands beyond the pasture.

  She thought she was successful. She thought she kept herself from trembling too much, her heart from pounding so fast that he would hear it.

  But it took all her self-discipline to confront the huge black beast, so much bigger than any common prairie wolf, bigger even than the biggest of the Reniers. His eyes glowed with intelligence, like and unlike Jacob’s at the same time. He kept his teeth hidden and his ears low, deliberately unaggressive, but Serenity wasn’t deceived. He could kill her in an instant, break her back and tear out her throat with hardly any effort at all.

  And all the while he was watching her watching him, waiting for some sign of weakness. She’d already surrendered the last of her pride by offering herself to him, a proposal she wouldn’t have believed possible until just before she made it. The idea of giving herself to any man, let alone one like him, would have nauseated her only a week ago.

  But she hadn’t felt sick. When Jacob had kissed her, a very different thing had happened. She’d looked into his eyes and felt something extraordinary. It was the same powerful emotion she’d briefly experienced when he’d held her that morning, but she hadn’t let herself think too much about her feelings then.

  Now she couldn’t help herself. This time, for a few precious moments, she hadn’t been afraid. She hadn’t wanted to shoot him, or run away. She’d felt safe, protected, warm. And hungry. Not only her body, but a part of her the Reniers had never touched. The last time she’d felt anything like it had been when she and Levi had walked hand in hand along the Guadalupe, speaking of their coming marriage and the quiet, peaceful life they would make together.

  Once she hadn’t thought beyond saving herself for Levi. She had loved him, and she had thought that kind of love, so pure and innocent, would be enough for her whole life. She would never have known any different if the beasts hadn’t taken her.

  They had destroyed that love and every gentle feeling in her heart. But when Jacob had kissed her, a world she had never had a chance to explore opened up for her, neither innocent and pure nor bitter with pain and hate.

  But then the old fear had returned. She had destroyed that miraculous world with a cruel proposition born of her fear and fed by desperation. She had made herself safe again. Safe from anything Jacob could do to her. Safe from anything he could make her feel.

  Except what she was feeling now.

  She caught herself and returned her attention to the reality in front of her. This was what Jacob was. Knowing he was a werewolf and seeing it were two very different things. She would never be able to forget what she had just witnessed, no more than she could forget what had happened seven years ago. Every moment she was around Jacob, she would think of this awful transformation. He could Change in an instant, at whim, like the Reniers, and in her mind one would blur into the other, until…

  Closing her eyes, Serenity deliberately relaxed every muscle in her body one by one. There was one thing she couldn’t forget. The very animal nature that made her recoil was inextricably linked with the part of him she had wanted only minutes ago. She couldn’t take one without the other. And she needed the wolf even more
than the man.

  I’m not afraid, she thought, then opened her eyes to meet the wolf’s dreadful stare. “I’m not afraid,” she said aloud.

  Silently the wolf inclined his beautiful head. The dark mist materialized again, wreathing his body in a kind of smoke that had no odor or substance. Something shifted behind the smoke, a figure casting off its fur and standing upright as the mist dispersed.

  Then he was human again, magnificently naked, his human body honed like the wolf’s to live and hunt under the most difficult conditions.

  He was beautiful.

  Shaking, Serenity averted her gaze as he retrieved his clothes and put them on again. “Miss Campbell?”

  She raised her head. Jacob was offering his hand to pull her up, his manner almost formal, his expression unreadable. She took his hand. It was strong; he could have crushed her fingers with no effort at all. But he applied only the slightest pressure as he raised her to her feet. He released her almost immediately, and she had to rub her palm on her trousers to get the tingle out of it.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “I am perfectly fine,” she said. “Did I pass your test?”

  “Only you can decide that, Miss Campbell.”

  At least he didn’t deny that was what he’d intended. “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I’ve decided to help you. Under three conditions.”

  His sudden capitulation left her speechless. She’d thought she would have to continue to work on him, wear him down over days, maybe weeks, as the branding progressed. But he had just done something she’d never expected, and she was cast adrift.

  “What…are these…conditions?” she stammered.

  “Assuming these men can be found, I’d be the one to bring them in. You wouldn’t have any part of it.”

  Familiar anger brought her safely to dry land again. “Out of the question,” she said.

  “I work alone,” he said harshly. “You’ll only get in the way, and I won’t risk your life.”

  “I can shoot. I know how to travel in the desert. I won’t get in your way.”

  “You’d try to kill them if you got anywhere near them. I won’t let what happened to Leroy happen again.”

  And that was the crux of it. He didn’t only want to prevent her from risking her life. He didn’t want her killing the outlaws. He’d shot Leroy rather than let her hang him.

  In spite of what he was, he hadn’t lied when he’d said he believed in justice. His kind of justice.

  “How will you do it alone?” she demanded. “How will you keep them from killing you if you don’t kill them first?”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll take them and see that they face the law.”

  “Human law? How will you stop them from using their werewolf abilities to escape?”

  His upper lip lifted, showing a flash of white teeth. “I’ll stick with them until they’re hanged.”

  Serenity couldn’t doubt his conviction, or the strength of his will. But he couldn’t promise the outlaws would face the hangman’s noose any more than he could have sworn the same for Leroy.

  “So you agree to the first condition?” he asked.

  The lie was even more difficult under the grim weight of his stare. “I’ll heed what you tell me,” she said. “What is the second condition?”

  He cocked his head, brooding over her answer, and then seemed to accept it. “The second condition,” he said, “is that you do everything I tell you without question. You’re used to giving orders, but now you’ll have to learn to take them.”

  That was easier to promise, though she knew she would break her word if she had to.

  “I agree,” she said. “The third?”

  He looked away. “You have to accept me for what I am. Completely, and without reservation. I’m not going to spend the trip to Texas hiding half of myself.”

  That was the biggest challenge of all, the one thing she couldn’t conceal.

  But she would have to. Every minute, every hour, every day. One slip and she would lose her chance. If she could keep remembering that he was still more human than wolf…

  But was he?

  “I passed your test, didn’t I?” she asked.

  He breathed out sharply and nodded. “All right.” He walked back to the front of the stable, reached for the polishing rag, then let his hand fall. “You have any notion of where we can start looking for these rogue werewolves?”

  All the blood in Serenity’s body seemed to pool in her feet. “I can take you to the town where I…” She stopped herself. She’d been about to tell him how she’d escaped, but she wasn’t going to so much as hint at what had really happened to her unless she had no other choice.

  “The town?” Jacob prompted.

  “Yes. The town where the outlaws were seen not long before they…attacked our farm.”

  “Where might that be?” he asked gently.

  “A place called Bethel.”

  “I’ve heard of it. How did you happen to find out they’d been there, if you didn’t know their names?”

  She had to be much more careful. To even hint that she knew the identities of the killers would arouse too many other questions. “After…for a little while, I asked if anyone had ever seen men like them. I heard rumors that led me west. Months later, by the time I got to Bethel, they were long gone.”

  “Where was your farm?”

  Something made her hesitate to tell him the real location. “In Gillespie County,” she said. “A few miles from Fredericksburg.”

  “You can describe these men to me?”

  For so long she had deliberately driven their faces from her mind. They had become a blur of viciousness and cruelty, more wolf than human.

  “I think I can sketch them for you,” she said thickly.

  He turned and caught her gaze. “You did get close to them.”

  “Sometimes, when something bad happens, you see things you couldn’t otherwise.” She swallowed. “Terrible things…”

  “Are burned into your mind,” he finished.

  For a few seconds his expression was full of vulnerability, as if he had been stricken with bad memories of his own. Memories of his family, perhaps. She still knew nothing at all of his past, except for his time in the Texas Rangers. Had he lost someone, as she had? Had he lived with grief for years, as she had?

  He must have felt her stare, for abruptly his expression relaxed and he was all business again.

  “How many were there?” he asked.

  Somehow she kept her voice from shaking. “Five.”

  “Did they seem close, as if they were related, or—”

  A bell rang outside. Serenity offered up a little prayer of thanks.

  “Helene must have supper ready,” she said. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

  “I think I’ll skip it,” he said. “I’m not hungry.”

  Neither was she. All at once she was remembering Leroy’s face just as she had been about to kick the stool out from under him.

  “At least you should get something to drink,” she said. “We have a little brandy.”

  He hesitated, but when she left, he went with her. All the women but Zora were gathered in the dining hall. Helene was serving a simple stew and freshly baked bread. Everyone looked up when Serenity and Jacob walked in, and every face was solemn. If the others had discussed Leroy’s death and Jacob’s part in it, they were unwilling to broach the subject now.

  Jacob stood close to the door while the women ate, most of them picking at their food. Caridad was one of the few who devoured her supper with obvious relish. Serenity offered Jacob a flask of brandy, but he refused. Changying cast several surreptitious glances from Jacob to Serenity and back again. Frances stared at him with open admiration.

  Jacob slipped out before the meal was finished. Serenity sat staring at her nearly full plate, wishing she dared drink some of the brandy.

  But that would mean giving in to her fears again. The time of r
unning away was past. Now she could only go forward.

  Frances, still a little pale from her illness, slid onto the bench next to Serenity.

  “What’s wrong with Mr. Constantine?” she whispered. “Is it because he shot that evil man?”

  Serenity was eager to avoid the subject. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think he enjoys having to kill anyone.”

  “That man deserved what he got,” Frances said passionately.

  Serenity speared a piece of cold beef with her fork and chewed it slowly. It tasted like dried cow dung.

  Frances continued to stare at her.

  “You were with Mr. Constantine a long time in the stable,” she said.

  No doubt many of the women had noticed. “We had much to discuss,” Serenity said.

  “What, in particular?”

  Sometimes, in spite of her young age, Frances seemed all too perceptive.

  “I’m going away for a little while, as soon as the branding is finished.”

  Frances sat bolt upright. “Going away? But you can’t leave! How can we get along without you?”

  “I’m not indispensable, Frances. There are others perfectly capable of running things while I’m gone. It is—”

  “But where are you going?” Frances glanced toward the empty doorway. “You’re going with Jacob, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew it,” Frances said, scowling fiercely at the table. “You want to take him away from me—from us. You’re in love with him.”

  Serenity dropped her fork. It clattered loudly, drawing the attention of the women lingering in the dining hall. Caridad frowned in her direction, and Victoria paused on her way to the door. Helene shot her a look of concern.

  Serenity’s face grew hot. “I am not in love with him,” she said. “He is going to help me find someone.”

  Frances’s obvious jealousy was not appeased. “Who?”

  “I’m going to explain tonight,” Serenity said. “You can help by letting everyone know that I’d like to speak to them in an hour.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll clarify everything then, Frances.” Serenity winced inwardly at the lie. “Mr. Constantine will be there, as well. He and I have already come to an agreement. Promise you won’t tell anyone else what I’ve said to you.”