Wolf Hunter

by Jane Godman

  She shivered slightly at the thought. “No. I meant, why not Samson’s place? Or Wilder and Jenny’s house?”

  “Because I’m hoping Lowell will be able to answer a few questions about what was going on with those wolves.” His voice was determined. “And Lowell has the biggest house. I need to call everyone together to discuss this.”

  Cindy smiled. “Time for another brotherhood get-together around the Lowell family kitchen table?”

  “That’s right.” She could feel the tension coming off him in waves, see it in the set of his shoulders and the clenched line of his jaw. “Only this time, it won’t be for dinner and drinks.”

  She angled her head in an attempt to get a look at his face. “Do you know what this is about? The watcher . . . those wolves . . . ?”

  Sebastian shook his head. “I just have a bad feeling. The sort of feeling that usually leads in one direction. That’s why I want the others with me.”

  “Will you tell them what I told you?” There was a pause and she thought he might not have understood the question. “About me not being a werewolf?”

  “Only if not telling them puts you in danger.” He risked taking his eyes off the road to look her way. “But that’s one of the things you and I need to talk about.”

  * * *

  Lowell lived in a gracious Georgian-style mansion set in its own country estate. With two wings extending out to either side and a grand porch with high marble colonnades flanking the vast double doors, it was an imposing structure. Beyond the house itself, the colorful formal gardens led to woods with the sparkling curve of a river wending its way in the distance. It was an idyllic location.

  Lowell came from human money and werewolf nobility. His wife, Odessa, was a Siberian werewolf. Once the leader of the Siberian pack, she had relinquished that position when she married Lowell. Now, their two sons, Luka and Gregor, were the first known hybrid Arctic-Siberian werewolves. Lowell and Odessa hoped that their birth would signal the end of the centuries of feuding between the two packs.

  Sebastian and Cindy were both regular visitors to the sprawling house. There had been a time, before Lowell met Odessa, when this had been a lonely place. Every room had been filled with Lowell’s antique books. They had been piled on every surface, stacked in boxes, placed where he left them. It had felt dark, dusty, and unloved.

  Now it was a bright family home, filled with the sounds of laughter and children’s voices. Lowell’s books were relegated to his study and, although Odessa joked that she fought a constant battle to keep them there, Sebastian knew his friend was happier now than he had ever been.

  Although the brotherhood members socialized regularly, and got together in each other’s houses, this was their favorite meeting place. Maybe the reason was the kitchen that ran the entire length of the rear of the house with its huge windows looking out over elegant gardens leading down to a private lake. Or possibly it was the huge refrigerator that Odessa kept stocked with raw meat and beer. It could have been the land that extended beyond the formal gardens, joining the forest and following the river . . . ideal for anyone wanting privacy in which to shift and run free. Or it may simply have been the warm welcome and the family atmosphere.

  Although Lowell answered the door with a smile, there was a distracted look on his face. He didn’t question Sebastian’s lack of clothing, merely waving a hand toward the sweeping staircase.

  “You know where to find spare clothes.” It was a hazard of being a werewolf. Shifting and losing your clothes happened on a regular basis. A good friend was one who didn’t ask questions. In the brotherhood, the best friend was one who kept a supply of garments in your size.

  Cindy followed Lowell through to the kitchen while Sebastian made his way upstairs to one of the many spare bedrooms. After showering quickly, he found a complete change of clothing, including boots, in his size in the huge closet.

  When he joined Cindy and Lowell in the kitchen, the reason for his friend’s distracted look became clear. Odessa, who had taken the baby to visit her mother, was due back in a few hours and Luka, who was eighteen months old, had trashed the kitchen. When they had arrived, Lowell had been attempting to clear up the mess while preventing his son from doing any more damage.

  “He’s like a tornado.” Lowell handed Luka, who was covered in ice cream, to Cindy as he spoke. “Actually, strike that. He’s more dangerous, because there’s no warning about where he’s going to hit next.”

  “I’ll take Luka upstairs and clean him up and change him while you two get started on the mess down here.” Cindy marched the squirming little boy out of the room.

  “It’s like you and Cindy are my guardian angels.” Lowell threw Sebastian a cloth and a spray bottle of cleaning product. “Watching over me from on high.”

  “I need to talk to you about watching people.” Sebastian got to work cleaning smeared fingerprints from the front of the fridge door.

  “You want to be my guardian angel for real?” Lowell regarded him thoughtfully. “It’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure Odessa would approve.”

  “Let’s finish this, then we’ll talk.”

  Sebastian continued cleaning, while Lowell picked up the toys that were strewn from one end of the room to the other. By the time Cindy returned, normality had been restored.

  “Luka fell asleep,” she explained. “I switched the baby monitor on.”

  “He fell asleep?” Lowell looked stunned. “Why the hell couldn’t he do that last night?”

  “Something to do with being a baby, I think,” Cindy said.

  Lowell nodded, running a hand through his white-blond hair until it stood up on end. “This is the first time Odessa has gone away. Sorry, let me rephrase that. This is the only time Odessa is ever going away.” He moved to the fridge. “I need a beer. You?”

  Sebastian nodded gratefully.

  “Water for me, please.” Cindy rarely drank. Sebastian guessed this didn’t feel like a good time to start.

  They moved to the large table in the center of the room, scene of so many brotherhood gatherings. Lowell, drained half his beer in one appreciative gulp.

  “I’m going to take a look at Cindy’s ankle before we talk any more.” Sebastian lifted her foot onto his knee and carefully removed her boot and sock before rolling up the hem of her jeans. Although the wolf’s teeth had left puncture marks, they weren’t deep enough to need stitches. Lowell fetched a large first-aid kit and Sebastian carefully cleaned the wounds with antiseptic wipes.

  “You are going to need rabies shots,” Sebastian said.

  Cindy groaned. “You mean I have to go and see a doctor tonight?”

  “No.” Lowell indicated a sealed pack inside the first-aid kit. “This contains five injections that you’ll need over the next four weeks. That dose is sufficient to provide the immunity you need.” He smiled at the wary look on her face. “Don’t worry. I’ve been trained to do this.”

  Cindy submitted as Lowell swabbed her arm and delivered the rabies shot. Once he had covered the injection site with a dressing, Cindy sat back in her seat and the earlier conversation resumed.

  “Okay. Watching people. What was that all about?” Lowell asked.

  “Cindy is being watched. We can’t say by what or by whom, for sure, because the watcher is invisible.” Sebastian went on to tell Lowell about the events of the day. How he had felt the watcher’s eyes upon him in the restaurant, and what had happened with the wolves at the cabin.

  “You haven’t felt this before?” Lowell turned to Cindy as he asked the question.

  She shook her head. “Never. It started in the last few weeks, and the feeling has gradually been getting stronger.”

  “Can you pinpoint when it started? The first time?” Lowell asked. “I’m trying to establish if there was a trigger.”

  Had something sparked the feeling? She tried to remember the first time she had felt those invisible eyes watching her. What had happened that day?

  “I don’t think t
here was anything unusual about the day.” She wrinkled her nose in an effort to recall. “I do remember it because it was the day the police returned Hendrik’s car, and it felt strange seeing it there on the drive after all that time. And also . . .” She paused, clearly struggling with the emotion the image provoked. “It was that car he was driving when he met his killer.”

  Sebastian moved closer to her, covering her hand with his and she smiled gratefully at him before continuing. “The officer who drove it, and his colleague, who followed behind him in a police cruiser so he could take him back to the station, came into the house for coffee. They talked about Hendrik.” She looked from Lowell to Sebastian. “I don’t need to tell you how much respect he earned throughout the community.”

  “And you’re sure it was the same day?” Lowell probed.

  “Yes.” Cindy seemed certain. “After they left, nothing else out of the ordinary happened. I cleaned the house, cleared some weeds in the garden, and went to the store. When I got back, one of the police officers stopped by again. He said he thought he’d left his cell phone in the kitchen where we’d been drinking coffee, but he hadn’t. It was in his pocket the whole time.” She blushed. “He asked me if I’d like to go for a drink sometime.”

  Sebastian’s inner wolf attempted to leap into action at those words. There was nothing he wanted more than to find that nameless cop and rip his throat out. And for what? Having the good taste to want to date Cindy? It took a strenuous effort to keep his inner wolf under control.

  Reminding himself that he had no right to these feelings of jealousy, he managed to casually ask the question that was trying to burn a hole in his chest. “And did you meet him for coffee?”

  “No.” Cindy’s curls bounced as she shook her head. The blush deepened. “He was nice, but . . . well, I didn’t want to get to know him any better. Anyway, it was straight after he left that I first got the feeling that I was being watched. That’s how I can place it. The cop left. I walked back inside, and that’s when I felt it.”

  “Did you get the names of these cops?” Sebastian’s eyes met Lowell’s over Cindy’s head. He didn’t want to alarm her, but it was all very neat. Two cops—or guys who said they were cops—came to the house, and got talking to her about Hendrik. What did they discover during that conversation? That she lived alone? That she rarely had visitors? Then one of them came back. When she didn’t agree to a date, who knew what his response was? Assuming he was the human cop he claimed to be, he shrugged his shoulders and walked away. But what if he wasn’t?

  “They gave me a card. I may have kept if back at Hendrik’s house.”

  “Did they tell you why it took so long to return Hendrik’s car?” Lowell seemed to be finally overcoming his tiredness and Sebastian could see his keen mind analyzing the information they had. He, too, appeared to find these two cops suspicious.

  Cindy had started to chew on her lip, a sure sign she was feeling nervous. “They said it was standard procedure when a vehicle had been involved in a homicide.”

  And that was the problem. Hendrik’s car hadn’t been involved in a homicide. He had been tricked into meeting his killer and he had driven his car to the rendezvous. But Hendrik had gotten into the killer’s vehicle and been driven away from that meeting by his murderer. The killer had never been in Hendrik’s car. Forensics had established that early in the inquiry. So why had the car been returned almost six months after his death? And it was a very neat coincidence that the invisible watcher turned up the same day.

  “We need Madden here,” Sebastian said. “He used to be a police officer.”

  “But he moved to Svalbard when he quit the force,” Lowell reminded him. “You know the place. Right at the end of the world. Just about as close as you can get to the Arctic Circle. Not many people, but plenty of polar bears.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Sebastian reached for his cell phone, knowing his friend would come if he called him. “He can organize a private plane and give Wilder the bill. He’ll know how these things work. And he’ll have contacts.”

  “You talk to Madden. I’ll call the others.”

  Sebastian nodded. Cindy had been right when she said it was time to get the brotherhood around Lowell’s kitchen table.

  * * *

  A few hours later, the kitchen was filling up. Odessa had arrived home, much to Lowell’s relief. Her presence had a soothing effect on him and on Luka, who woke when he heard his mother’s voice and was wreathed in smiles. The first visitors to arrive were Samson and his wife Valetta. The brotherhood were all Arctic werewolves, which meant they shared the same distinctive coloring. With their white-blond hair, golden eyes, Nordic features and muscular physique, they stood out in any company. Even in such a striking group, Samson stood out for his size and strength. Valetta Lee was Hendrik’s daughter. Although she was not part of the brotherhood, she had the same coloring as an Arctic werewolf. But there was something different about Valetta. Something otherworldly that set her apart from everyone else. She was a Shadow Wolf, a unique werewolf who was possessed of incredible powers.

  Valetta wrapped Cindy in a warm embrace. After a rocky start to their relationship when Hendrik’s daughter had been inclined to view Cindy with suspicion, the two women had become close friends.

  “Are you okay?” Valetta searched Cindy’s face. There was no hiding from the golden searchlight of her gaze. “You look exhausted.”

  It was typical of Valetta to make a statement like that. Instantly Cindy, who had been feeling fine, began to feel tired. She also became conscious of her appearance. I must look dreadful. Next to Valetta’s ethereal beauty, she was fairly sure she always looked uninteresting. She still couldn’t understand why Sebastian would find her attractive. He was such a perfect example of Arctic maleness. Surely he must want to find himself an Arctic female?

  As she was comparing her own slender build, pale skin, and blue eyes unfavorably with the drama of the Arctic coloring, Wilder and his wife, Jenny turned up. Wilder was the brotherhood’s organizer. Strong, quiet, and conscientious, he got the job done.

  Jenny was the sort of gorgeous Arctic female Cindy imagined Sebastian must be seeking as his mate. Funny, feisty, and caring, she was the only female member of the brotherhood, but Cindy knew how much she was valued by the others. Every man on the team acknowledged Jenny as the brotherhood’s best fighter.

  “Can you keep a secret?” Jenny draped one arm around Cindy’s shoulders and the other around Valetta’s, drawing them away from the four men.

  “Depends what it is,” Valetta said. “If you want us to hide your latest hoard of clothes shopping from Wilder again . . .”

  “Nothing like that.” Jenny’s smile was bright enough to light up the room. “I was just wondering what you think the brotherhood policy on maternity leave will be?”

  It was just as well that Sebastian, Lowell, Madden, and Wilder were deep in conversation since the hugging and squealing that followed Jenny’s question would otherwise have drawn attention to them.

  “When?” Cindy asked.

  “Not for another six months. I’ve been to a werewolf doctor and everything is fine.” Jenny cast a glance in her husband’s direction. “Now that Wilder has recovered from the shock, he’s getting used to the idea.”

  Although Cindy was delighted for her friend, she couldn’t help wondering what this meant for the current situation. She had heard it said so many times: the Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun comprised the seven bravest and strongest Arctic werewolves. The figure was always seven and only seven. That was the rule. It had been unchanging for centuries. Hendrik had told her it was a magical number. The first choice “lucky number” of humans, beloved of the gods, and favored by nature. There were seven days in a week, seven colors in a rainbow, seven notes on a musical scale, seven seas, seven continents . . . and seven members of the brotherhood. Now Jenny was taking herself out of the equation—for the very best reason—but what would that do to the balance within the team?
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  While Cindy was still pondering the question, Vigo arrived. Vigo had been brought into the brotherhood after Hendrik left, and he always seemed to be trying to prove himself. Because of that intensity, Cindy often found him unapproachable and guarded. It was as if he could never quite let go and become one of the group. Maybe that was because of how important Hendrik had once been to the brotherhood. When Hendrik had voluntarily decided he was no longer brave enough and strong enough to play an active part, the other members of the team had been devastated. A series of replacements had come along before Vigo had found himself having to follow in the footsteps of a well-respected man and a good friend. And Hendrik hadn’t gone away. Until his death, he had stayed in close touch with this group.

  Now everyone was here except Madden, but Sebastian had confirmed that the seventh member of the brotherhood was on his way. Madden and his wife, Maria, were booked on the next flight from their home on the Svalbard peninsula.

  Cindy looked around the room at these people who had been her friends for four years—who were the only friends she had ever known—and a felt a tug of mingled warmth and sadness deep in her chest. It was the same whenever she was with them. They thought she was one of them. Not an Arctic, that didn’t matter. Odessa wasn’t an Arctic. Nor was Valetta. But they thought she was a werewolf. And it hurt her to mislead them. But the deception had gone on for too long. She couldn’t see a way back from it that didn’t involve leaving this group—a group that felt like her family—in shame.

  The thought drew her eyes to Sebastian. If she left, she wouldn’t see him again.

  I couldn’t do it. Leaving would be too difficult.

  Chapter Five

  While Lowell prepared dinner, Sebastian checked his cell phone. There were dozens of missed calls, most of them about the lead he had been pursuing. The possibility of the two computer geeks brainwashing their followers seemed to be taking off. It was typical of his luck for a story to break just when he was busy with something else.