“Go home, get some sleep,” he said in a low voice.
She frowned up at him. “You can’t compel me, Lucien.”
He sighed. “I’m not trying to compel you, Natalie. I just want you to get some rest.”
She grimaced. “Right. So I can be back here, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to help you search for something we don’t even think exists.”
“No, because I actually care about you, and you’re exhausted.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them and he frowned. Vulnerability never sat well with him. He hated it, but he couldn’t stop his next words, either. “Will you be here tomorrow night?” She’d said she would, but he needed her to promise—she kept her promises. Or, she had, long ago.
Her eyelids flickered, as though she sensed his vulnerability and was as equally uncomfortable with it as he. “Yeah, I’ll be here. We made a deal, remember? I’ll keep my end of the bargain as long as you keep yours.”
Thoughts of her packed car and that guy who’d offered his truck as a replacement haunted him.
Natalie sighed. She lifted her fist and extended her pinkie finger, encased in the soft leather glove.
“Pinkie swear, I’ll be here,” she murmured and then narrowed her eyes. “Pinkie swear my friends are safe.”
He gaped at the gesture. She was the only one who’d ever pulled this with him. Good God, if any of his business opponents ever found out, he’d lose his dangerous edge in negotiations. All those years ago when they’d shared secrets by her bedside, she’d always held him to account. He knew how gravely she viewed a pinkie swear. He lifted his pinkie and curled it around hers.
“Pinkie swear,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ll keep you and your friends safe.”
Her brow dipped at his words, but only for a moment before another yawn surprised her. She pulled her hand away from him to cover her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Right, I’m off to crash for a couple of hours, and then I’ll get back to this.” She started to walk around him but he grabbed her arm gently to halt her.
She was so close, he could smell her, that sweet scent edged with spice. “Wait,” he said. Her eyes met his in surprise, a flash of wariness tinged with curiosity and something a little warmer glinted as she returned his gaze before dropping briefly to look at his lips. He smiled and her stare returned to his. He raised both hands to the top of her head and removed her spectacles, folding them carefully before handing them back to her. “Don’t forget your glasses,” he whispered. He tilted his head forward.
A book flew off the shelf, hit him in the cheek, and he reeled back. “What the hell?” he growled in shocked surprise.
Natalie gasped, her hand covering her mouth.
“I’ll defend your honor,” Rupert said smugly, dusting off his hands.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered as Lucien rubbed his cheek and bent to pick up the book. Shakespeare’s Macbeth. “It must have fallen off the shelf,” she offered with a wince.
He eyed the bookshelf that stood three feet away. “Yeah, it fell,” he said, not buying it one bit. He handed her the book, but held on to it briefly as she clasped it. She was still wearing her gloves, he noticed.
“I’m trusting you,” he said softly.
She nodded solemnly. “That goes both ways, Lucien.”
He dipped his head and strode out of the room.
He shut the door behind him then turned back to look at the plaque bearing the lettering Professor N. Segova. His brows pulled together. She used to call him Luc, once upon a time. He sighed as he walked away. Well, at least now he had her cooperation.
Chapter 5
Natalie glared at Rupert. “Macbeth, Rupert? Seriously?” She shook her head as she placed the book back on the shelf. “That was rude.” Rupert had been a ghost for nearly a century and had picked up some tricks through his research at the institute.
“You’re welcome,” Rupert responded before shuffling over to his chair. “Now, why don’t you tell me exactly what’s going on?”
Natalie took the seat next to him and told him everything. Well, nearly everything. She left out the part about the kiss. Rupert was like the grandfather she’d never known and there were some things she just didn’t share with him.
“However did you meet Lucien Marchetta? Even I knew of him—and his family. You two don’t look like you’d move in the same circles.”
She laughed for a moment. “No, we did not. I met him when I was nine years old, in the hospital. I was going through a round of chemotherapy and dialysis, and he’d occasionally come and visit.” She didn’t go into the detail of their first meeting, or how she, a sickly nine-year-old, had negotiated unlimited visits from whom she’d later learned was a savvy business tycoon.
“Well, now I’ve heard everything. A philanthropic Marchetta,” Rupert quipped.
Natalie smiled. “Well, we met there, but he continued to visit me, even after I left the hospital.” She shook her head. “He’d wake me up in the middle of the night, and we’d chat for hours. Sometimes I’d read to him, sometimes he’d read to me...” She tapped a gloved finger on her jean-clad thigh. “He never treated me like some sick invalid. He’d take me on excursions and always had me back home before sunrise, and before my parents woke up.”
Rupert tipped his head to the side. “I’m not sure if that’s sweet or a tad creepy.”
“Oh, sweet. Definitely sweet. He was always the perfect gentleman.”
He’d never once acted as though there was anything more—not even when she’d gotten drunk on her sixteenth birthday and demanded a kiss as a gift. He’d given her a very chaste peck on her forehead. Then, when she was nineteen...well, that still belonged in the too-humiliating-to-remember file. Today? Well, today was a revelation, on so many levels. Natalie’s cheeks warmed. Just remembering his lips on hers, his body against hers—phew. She pulled off her gloves. She always made sure she wore them at work—she never knew what she might encounter with some of these books and artifacts. Her hands were uncomfortably warm. She was uncomfortably warm. She swallowed, conscious that Rupert was watching her intently.
“In fact, he was like a big brother to me—you know, like the program they used to run through hospitals and schools? I tried to apply for that, but got rejected on account of my terminal illness, but that didn’t seem to bother him.”
“He sounds like quite a friend.”
“He was. My best friend—my only friend. At least, that’s what I thought. He said he’d always be there for me, and I believed him. Until he wasn’t.”
“Natalie,” Rupert chided. “What happened to you—that was unforeseeable. Surely you can’t blame him—”
“I do,” she interrupted. “He was in town, Rupert. I was out, because I wanted to see him. My parents were out with me, because I wanted to go see him. And then we were killed.” She shrugged. “Never trust a vampire, Rupert. They’ll say anything, do anything, to get what they want.”
“But you told him you trusted him tonight,” Rupert pointed out.
“No, I didn’t. I told him trust works both ways.” She did not, could not, trust that particular vampire. If the vampire and werewolf hadn’t killed her, her broken heart would have.
“Relax, Rupert. I might be working with Lucien, but I don’t trust him.” She yawned noisily and Rupert grimaced.
“Well, he’s right about something. You need some sleep. Off you go, and I’ll keep going through the library.”
Natalie smiled gratefully. “Thanks, Rupert.”
“Yes, well, he’s caught my interest. A cure for lycanthropulism.” Rupert was still chuckling when Natalie left.
* * *
“I wasn’t sure I’d see you back here,” Lucien admitted as he stepped into Natalie’s office. He made sure to keep his relief out of his expression. She glanced up a
t him in surprise, her glasses resting on the top of her head. Did she actually ever wear them?
Today she wore a pale pink tailored shirt. It suited her. With her blond hair tied back in a ponytail and minimal makeup, she could have passed as one of her students. He eyed the opening of her shirt. And again, he was reminded that she was old enough where it counted. Her top two shirt buttons were undone and the shirt was parted enough to show a hint of shadow between her breasts. He remembered how those breasts felt in his hands, all warm and soft, with just the right amount of shape and weight.
And then he noticed she was wearing gloves. Again. He frowned. It was chilly, admittedly, but not that chilly. Winter wasn’t due for a few weeks yet.
“I’m not the one who has a problem with keeping promises,” she pointed out tartly. She nodded at the pile of books by his chair. “You can start with those.”
He shot her a dark look as he took his seat. He wondered if she’d ever get past that. He hoped she would. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of tobacco in the room. “Do you smoke? Like, cigars or something?”
“Nope.” She didn’t look up but kept reading.
“You can’t smell that?”
“Nope.”
He shrugged and pulled forward the first book on the pile. There was a faint scent of something in the air, but it didn’t make sense. Natalie didn’t strike him as the type to hide and smoke behind closed doors...
He opened the book and frowned. “Fairy tales?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
Why not, indeed. He wasn’t sure if the answer to his problem could be found in this book, or any other, but he’d keep searching, just in case. Natalie seemed to think the books held some answers.
They’d been reading for about an hour, and every now and then Natalie would look up something up on her computer, the sound of her fingers tapping on the keys so loud in the quiet of her office. She leaned back in her chair. “I need to go to the library.” She rose, holding a book.
“Is it open?” It was Sunday night and he hadn’t seen or heard anyone other than them at the institute all evening.
“It is for me,” she murmured, swooping up her keys and walking toward her door, hugging the book to her chest. Pushing her breasts up... She passed him, and he eyed her denim-clad butt. She’d certainly filled out—
The book that rested on his lap snapped shut, trapping his fingers painfully between the pages.
“Ow!” he yelled and flung the book to the floor.
Natalie turned in surprise. “What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he muttered, glaring at the book. He stood. “I’ll come with you.” The books in here were being mean to him, damn it.
He followed her through the empty halls toward the library. It was on the other side of the administration block and Natalie’s sneakers squeaked softly on the linoleum floors. Just him, and her, and squeak, squeak, squeak. Moonlight spilled through the glass that formed the wall to an atrium within the building, bathing everything in a silver glow.
“Do you really like working here?” he asked suddenly. He was innately curious about her. She’d been a bookish kid, with a keen interest in romantic literature and spectacles that had seemed too big for her face. Now he’d seen that her collection included journals from explorers—some he’d heard of and some he hadn’t. He’d seen historical texts, government records and works of fiction in several different languages... He’d seen medical studies, religious references... There were all sorts of jars and vials of stuff that looked kind of gross, and old bowls and artefacts that looked like they belonged in a museum. Or a dump. Or a museum of a dump. He should have known little Nina would soak up knowledge like a starving sponge. No, not Nina. Natalie. She wasn’t that little girl he’d first encountered in the renal ward at Irondell Memorial Hospital.
She glanced at him, surprised by his inquiry. “Yes, I do like working here. Very much, actually. I get to read the old stories, explore and test the beliefs, look into the science, and generally let my imagination go wild. And then I get to talk about it every other day with my students. What’s not to like?”
His lips quirked. She’d found her ideal job. For a moment he envied her. He’d spent so many years working for his father, of trying to regain his trust, his forgiveness, he’d assumed similar aspirations to the extent that here, seeing Natalie doing what she loved, he had to wonder if his life was what he wanted it to be...or what he deserved.
Natalie unlocked the door and in moments had switched on lights and a computer at one of the student consoles. He raised an eyebrow as she went to a set of drawers and started riffling through the catalog. It wasn’t long before she strode down one of the aisles. He followed her. She wasn’t looking at books, though, but a selection of long, round canisters.
“What are these?”
“Maps, mainly. I want to check them against some satellite imagery we have stored on file for a certain area.”
He frowned. How did that have anything to do with a werewolf cure? “Why?”
She pulled out a container and walked to a long table at the end of the aisle, twisting open the lid as she went. “I just found an alpha prime’s letter to one of his guardians from before The Troubles. From what I can tell, this is a pack that didn’t survive the wars.”
Lucien took a deep breath for patience. Getting information out of Natalie was proving a challenging process. “And?”
“He wanted his guardian to go look for his missing scion.”
“And that’s peculiar because...?” It didn’t surprise him that a father was searching for his son or daughter. Of course, he couldn’t really see his father searching for him if he went missing. But his family wasn’t the normal bonded unit. Not since his mother’s death.
“Because he mentions his son went missing in an area where there are no recorded shadow breeds.”
“Null territory?” Some people called nulls the neutralizing agent of Mother Nature against everything non-natural. He preferred to call them freaks. A human breed that nullified anything supernatural or magical within their bounds, just by being. No effort required. Freaks.
“No, not to my knowledge. I’ve checked the old territorial outlines. There was no null activity anywhere near this place.”
“There could be any number of reasons why a scion would leave a pack. Maybe he was taking a break? Maybe he was running away... Maybe he didn’t like his father and was setting out on his own?” Lucien shrugged. He could relate to all options so far.
“In this letter, the father states that he wants his son found, to prevent WTH.”
Lucien frowned. “What the hell?”
Natalie shook her head. “WTH is an old acronym that is no longer in use. Werewolf-to-human. In other words, the kid was trying to transition from shadow breed to human.”
“What? Is that possible? Is that a thing? How did I know not about this?”
“It’s not a thing. There are some people out there who strongly believe they should be something other than what they’re born to be. I think this scion was looking for a way to transition, and I think maybe he found it. There are no further records of him anywhere, and teenage boys don’t just disappear—not without press articles, missing persons reports, etc.”
“Where are we talking?”
“The Aerion Mountains. Mount Solitude.”
Okay, so now she had his attention. The Aerion Mountains were fabled for being shrouded in mystery, with a large number of indiscriminate disappearances—vampire, shifter, witch, human. It had once been the Great Trail Junction, where several picturesque mountain trails met in an axis. It was also close to the horrific incident that had triggered The Troubles.
Now, though, not many people ventured into the area. He remembered hearing about a similar place in the North Atlantic, the Bermuda Triangle
, where ships and planes had disappeared. Vampires avoided the Triangle like lycan toxin. The very idea of being trapped, surrounded by salt water, was the stuff of even the toughest vampire’s nightmares. The Great Trail Junction was no different. Vehicles, planes—anything that crashed seemed to be swallowed up by the surrounds. There was a rumor that the minerals in the earth messed with magnetic fields and that’s why people got lost. Still, these were old myths, stories told by firelight by drunken teens or by grandparents to scare some sense into the young.
“This is just one lycan. A rebellious, flighty little lycan,” he pointed out. He didn’t understand how this could have anything to do with finding the cure for his sister. He sighed. “This is from before The Troubles, right? They wouldn’t be recording shadow breeds as such. We were still thought of as humans back then.”
“And the closest town to the base of the Mount Solitude kept meticulous records of everyone who ‘disappeared.’ They had to mount the search parties. This scion wasn’t listed—as dead, missing, medical miracle, whatever. We know he was in the area. We know he was actively trying to transition from werewolf to human. Maybe he figured it out. Maybe there are others...”
“Or maybe daddy alpha got it wrong and the kid ran off in another direction.”
“Maybe... But what else do we have to work on?”
“Good point.”
His frown deepened. There was very little in that area. The terrain was rough and inhospitable, with some remote outposts that offered nothing more than an opportunity for a person to change their mind from venturing further. He leaned forward as Natalie flattened the map and placed his hands on two corners to keep it rolled out. Natalie glanced at the book in her hand, then down at the map, tracing along the legend of the map then peering down at areas. She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?”
“There is nothing in this area. It’s so remote, yet the closest town reported more deaths and disappearances than the entire population.”
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