“There is a part of me that blames you, Kira. There’s a part of me that blames Alexi, blames your entire family. Part of me blames my parents. I even blame myself. If I hadn’t wandered off it wouldn’t have happened. But regardless how I feel about any of this I promised to help, so I will.” His voice was bitter and angry. He didn’t really want to. He didn’t really want anything to do with any of them at the moment. He looked back at her and saw shock registered on her face and saw it melt into horror and finally a dreadful resignation.
“The giant oaf didn’t tell you, did he?” Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke, as if her mouth didn’t want to form the words.
“Tell me what?”
Her face was growing hotter by the second and she turned her back on him. Damn that meddling fool! Evan hadn’t known what he was agreeing to. Alexi hadn’t told him what his agreeing to help with the hunt meant. Alexi had let her proceed thinking Evan had made this choice, thinking he had made this decision about her, about them. Now she’d have to explain it and her misunderstanding and what she had believed would be out there for this man to see. Once more she’d be the one left to handle the emotional consequences of Alexi’s choices.
She drew in a shuddering breath and tried to square her shoulders. “Evan, if you stand with Alexi you are making a statement that you obviously didn’t realize you would be making. You would be saying something about your relationship to the family that you apparently didn’t mean to imply.”
He heard the edge in her voice. He was aware of her embarrassment, of an indefinable something that made him think she was deeply mortified. “I’m implying that Alexi is my friend. He told me my standing with him would tell the family that he trusts me and that you trust me.”
“Not exactly, Evan. By asking you to stand with him Alexi was placing his stamp of approval on you for something I see now you never intended to seek.” Her cheeks burned. There had been no mistaking the attraction they had felt for one another. That she was certain of. But Alexi had not explained this to him. He had never sought this of her.
“Kira, you aren’t making much sense. What are you trying to say?” The quiver in her voice, the scent of her unshed tears reached out to him.
She drew in a deep breath and let it out loudly. “Evan, only a man’s adult brother can stand with him at this time. Your standing with him would imply a relationship between you and me. A relationship that…” She had been about to say it was a relationship that she wanted but something in her caught her and kept her from what would only have been further humiliation.
Realization flooded through Evan like a storm surge. Alexi had been pushing him toward Kira for days now. “My standing with Alexi would tell the family that you and I were…” Leave it to Alexi. Irritation at the big man gnawed at him. He was so damn sure he was so damn right.
Something occurred to him at that moment. Something that made his eyes widen and his breath catch in his throat. She hadn’t known he didn’t know the implications. She believed he had accepted knowing the full statement he would be making. She had believed he was saying that they…
He stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. He was still not sure how he felt about what she had told him but realized it didn’t change, not on any basic level, what had gone before. She jumped slightly at his touch. He pressed his hand more firmly into the skin. “Kira?”
She didn’t answer.
“Kira did you… Well, did you want what this implied? Were you happy that I’d agreed to Alexi’s request?”
“Yes.” The word was clear and firm. No hesitation colored her voice, though standing this close to her, he could see her flushed skin, the trembling of her body. “I’d have thought that obvious, Evan.”
He hadn’t argued when she had pulled away from him and walked to the door. He let her lead him up the stairs. She left him at the landing two floors below his and walked away to her own rooms. Now, hours later he was still trying to sort it all out. He was sitting in his darkened room watching the almost full moon shining into the window.
He was angry at the direction his thoughts kept taking. As much as he tried to, he couldn’t keep focused on the fact that these people were responsible for making him a werewolf. He couldn’t maintain any anger at Alexi, at the dead Valeri or at Kira. His life had been the result of an accident. He had always believed it to have been a sad conclusion to a heroic feat performed by his father and his father had killed the werewolf. But the reality was that all he had suffered, all he had endured, was the result of an accident. Now it seemed so pointless, so meaningless. There was no great destiny at work, just the bad judgment and miscalculation of a man who had been trying to protect a small boy from harm. Alexi simply closed his jaws too tightly.
He gave a derisive snort. “So much for the tragic, long suffering act, Evan.” He spoke the words aloud. “Everything you are comes down to an oops.”
He had been aware of the muffled sound of voices coming from the direction of the window for a couple of minutes now. His chin jerked up sharply, however, when he heard a loud exclamation and thought he picked out his own name. He rose and walked to the window. He pressed his ear to it and heard a continuation of the voices. He slowly pushed it open and they became clear.
“God damn you, Alexi! How could you do that?” It was Kira. She was angry, very angry.
Alexi’s voice was softer and sounded as if he were trying to soothe her. “It wasn’t deliberate, Kira. Everyone knows what it means… I was only trying to…”
She cut him off. “You were only trying to meddle.”
“Kira come on, you can’t seriously believe I was completely wrong. You wouldn’t be so angry if I was completely wrong.”
“No, Alexi, you were right. You were just right enough to completely humiliate me. Whatever made you think this was okay?” Her voice was thick and somewhat hoarse.
“Please, Kira,” Alexi pleaded, “don’t cry. Please. I only wanted to stop you from ever crying again.”
“Damn it Alexi, you can’t do that. You can’t just decide for people what you think is best. You manipulated him into something that you had no right to. It should have been something he decided freely.”
Evan leaned forward and he could see two shadows on a balcony just below his window. The moon illuminated enough of the scene to define clearly the two even if he had had not been able to pick out their voices. She must have been preparing for bed when her brother arrived, as she was beautifully wrapped in a long white gown covered with a similar robe. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and Evan felt his heart and body react to this sight of her. He knew he had never seen anything so truly beautiful.
“Kira,” Alexi moved forward and brushed his hands across her face. “Can you doubt what you know he was feeling? What you were feeling?” Evan watched her shake her head. “Then you know I was simply pushing him down the road he wanted to walk anyway. How is that so wrong?”
“Because you don’t get to make that choice, Alexi. You don’t get to decide. It was his place. God, Alexi don’t you realize? I thought he understood what he was doing. I thought he had made a choice to help you knowing what it meant.” She turned away from her brother. “I thought it meant he felt for me what I was feeling for him. But it didn’t. And in telling him… Now he knows I thought…”
“Do you think he’d have chosen differently had he known?” Alexi reasoned. “Do you really believe he’d have chosen differently?”
“I do now.” Her voice almost didn’t carry to his ears.
“Kira, I’m sorry. I’m sorry what I did has hurt you but I swear I believed then and I believe now I’m right. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it from him. I was only giving him the nudge he needed to get moving. He’s a slow starter, Kira. He listens to that damned mage blood of his too much.” Alexi sighed, “But then so do you. Both of you need someone to give you a good shove now and then.”
“Go, Alexi. I think I’d really rather you left right now. I’m
not sure I have much more to say to you that will be anything but hurtful.” She turned back to him. “But understand, Alexi. He does not help with this hunt. I’m not sure he understands even now it is more than a matter of simply keeping his word.”
Evan watched Alexi disappear from view. Hidden in the shadows of his room, he leaned so that he could watch her. He saw her stand staring out at the countryside. The moonlight was on her face and he saw the reflection of the tears as they slid over the smooth cheeks. Her face turned up to the moon, she stared at it for minutes. He couldn’t move away from the sight. He wanted to go to her, to brush those tears away. He wanted to turn, pack his things and leave these people this instant. But all he could do was watch her.
“Why?” she seemed to whisper to the silver orb. “Why is it always like this?”
It was suddenly all too clear to him that he was eavesdropping on something more private than a talk between siblings, more private than even a talk between lovers. He was overhearing a prayer. She was talking to whatever force she believed controlled her universe, her destiny.
“First Val, now Evan. Why am I always to be left alone? Is it so terrible to be what I am?”
He closed his eyes. Her soft voice was a plaintive moan as she continued her prayer. “I should know better. I should know better than to try.” He pulled back from the window and leaned against the wall. “It only ever ends in disaster.”
The indecision in him snapped and disappeared like a puff of smoke. Evan’s hand was on the door handle and was yanking it open when he found himself face to face with Alexi. The man opened his mouth to speak and Evan cut him off, “Not now.”
He pushed past him and headed in a direction he had been forbidden to take. He crossed the hall and took the steps that led to the family’s quarters. Alexi watched as Evan disappeared from sight down the stairs. He leaned back against the now closed door and smiled. He was right. One day both of them would thank him.
She heard a sound behind her and sighed. Alexi was relentless at times but this was not the time for him to be acting this way. It was more than she could manage. She wasn’t sure she could stop herself from lashing out at him if he kept pushing her.
She turned around and saw the figure standing in the light of the open French doors. Her heart caught in her chest. He was dressed as he had been earlier down to the borrowed sweater.
“Evan?”
“Shh,” he whispered and stepped toward her.
“Evan, what…”
His hand rose and pressed his fingers against her lips. “Shh.” He pointed up with his other hand. She looked up and didn’t understand at first. Then she saw the curtain billow out of the open window and her heart sank. He had heard them, he had heard Alexi and her. How stupid she was. She had all but forgotten his room sat two floors above. He had heard the conversation with Alexi. The next thought horrified her and brought the deep red blush to her face. He would have heard everything she said. Everything.
She turned her face away from his hand and opened her mouth to speak again but was interrupted by his gentle chuckle. “As there seems to be no other way to silence you, woman…” His face was moving closer to hers. One hand slid around her waist while he pressed his other palm to her neck, his thumb stroking her jaw.
He kissed her with soft, quick kisses that fluttered across her lips and made her heart skip. He raised his head slightly and brushed his kiss across her forehead, cheeks, chin and even the tip of her nose reveling in the softness of her skin. He deepened the kiss, pressing his lips harder into the yielding flesh. Her mouth tasted so sweet. He opened his lips slightly and allowed the tip of his tongue to flicker out tentatively to touch her lips. They parted in response. He stroked his tongue over the soft skin of her inner lip and felt the sharpness of the small white teeth as he slipped inside her mouth. Her tongue met his and he moaned softly into her throat. Holding her to him, he explored the mouth beneath him and allowed her equal passage to his own. He tightened his arms and found that she molded to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair and urged his mouth down harder onto her own. Whatever else there might be in the world at this moment he didn’t care.
When the kiss broke, he held her to him as he drew in a shuddering breath. “Kira.” He closed his eyes and nuzzled his face in the softness of her hair. “I’m going to help Alexi with that hunt.”
She said nothing for a long moment, then whispered into his neck, “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“I’m sure. I shouldn’t be. I should be so confused my head is spinning. In fact it is, about some things. But not about this. I’m certain about this, Kira. I’m going to help him.” He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “If you do still want me to help him. You do, don’t you?”
“Yes, Evan. I do. I want that very much.”
Circle of Wolves
Chapter Twelve
His True Potential
The light from the moon fell across her face as she lay curled on her side, eyes closed and face clear of worry. She slept soundly, peacefully making occasional soft sighing noises as she shifted. He watched her from where he sat on the settee across the room. The sheer white bed curtains, tied back with white and silver cords, fluttered in the breeze. The room was warm despite the central air. They had distractedly left the doors open and the August heat was stirred only by that gentle wind.
He sat hunched over in thought, elbows on his thighs with long fingered hands hanging between his knees. Absently he would clasp them and then release them. His head hung down, staring at the white carpet, or lifted slightly to watch her dreaming. He wished he could be there with her curled in sleep and leave all the sorting and understanding until tomorrow. But he couldn’t. He’d never been able to do that. Even as a boy he’d had to know why. It had made him wiser than his years in some ways and had served to keep him naïve in others. He had understood early, before he was thirteen that any type of family life would be impossible for him. His father had gently but firmly made that clear. He had little to offer any girl and it would be unfair of him to start something he couldn’t finish, to trap anyone in this loneliness with him.
He smiled as the figure on the bed drew in a deep breath and twisted its head on the pillow, a faint smile gracing the lips. He had kissed her until she had made him stop. Stopped him because, as she insisted, “There will be no more secrets or misunderstandings between us.” He had sat with her curled against him on this spot as she told him about the dark mage who had been her grandfather. Vadim Wyton was the most hated name in the gifted world. She spoke with revulsion and disgust of the man and with relief at his having finally been killed.
“Father has seen your Master. He watched him kill his father. We’ve all guessed that is why he did not approach us himself. Little did he know he did Father a big favor. He kept him from having to challenge the man and from having to commit patricide.” She told him some of the history involved and how the family had decided he had to be exterminated. “He was experimenting on humans, Evan. And it didn’t stop once he discovered the secret he was looking for. It went on for centuries afterward. To your world and to your kind he simply disappeared and would emerge later claiming to be the son or grandson of his predecessor. He even changed his name. It was as Vadim Wyton that he finally took his last breath. Through it all he continued his ‘experiments’. He had to be stopped. It would have fallen to her father, the newly established Alpha, to do the job.”
This revelation about the death of that dark mage had been only the more minor detail. It was his life, his magic and his transition that she felt he needed to know. “He found a way with the dark magic to, in a way, transition Evan. To almost become one of us. To take on the traits of a blood Wolf.”
“Evan,” she told him, “you are in a similar situation. You were bitten by a blood Wolf. You have mage blood in your veins. That alone is dangerous, that alone is forbidden by the Council. But with you the sin is magnified. You don’t carry t
he blood of just any mage but the blood of the Ancient Ones.”
Evan knew of whom she spoke. In the time before time, when the first of the shifters had crossed over through the portals they had not come alone. Once the doors were open to this world, many dark creatures came as well. The shifters, the Weres, had long claimed they came in peace. But it was hard to believe because they were followed to the human realm by the Ancient Ones. To protect the humans, the Ancient Ones crossed over, not to stay but to create those among the humans who could fight the dark creatures. They gave the gift of magic and power over the elementals to these humans. They became the first of those called gifted.
Kira insisted that his soul was that of one of the original gifted, living lifetime after lifetime in this world. Because of this he too could transition. “What you are is rare, Evan. We don’t know how many gifted humans the Ancient Ones created and we have no way of knowing how many of those souls are still bound to this realm. But we do know that some of their souls still live among the mages. That’s why we are so careful. If one of us has to attack, especially a mage, we do it to kill. We do not leave any like you behind. We have always believed it to be too dangerous to risk. Your kind could not be trusted. They see the power but not the responsibility. Not since Radu Dracul has there been another like you.”
“Then why didn’t Alexi kill me? He knew he had bitten me,” Evan had asked, his arms wrapped around her as she leaned into him.
“He couldn’t. He didn’t tell me he had bitten you until later, until you were gone. He just couldn’t kill a child.” She had leaned back and looked up at him. “He was almost culled, Evan. Father almost removed him from the family, what he did was that serious.”
“But you stopped him,” Evan guessed.
She nodded. “I told him if he culled Alexi, he’d have to cull me as well. I was equally guilty.”
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