Heart of the Wolf

by D. B. Reynolds

  Chapter Four

  Ren stood on the cemetery hillside and stared up at the Avinger mausoleum, now covered with a frosting of snow. Old Preston’s grave had been filled in, the raw earth covered over with neat squares of green sod. His name was already etched into the roll of Avinger dead on the monument, the fresh snow blending into granite dust still visible in the corners of the archaic lettering.

  Eighty-two years old. What the hell had Dom been thinking? And what did it matter now? Avinger was dead. History. Just like Ren, as far as Kathryn was concerned.

  He sighed and turned, gazing out over the harbor, taking in that great view. He’d known it would be rough seeing her again. What he hadn’t known, hadn’t figured on somehow, was that Kathryn had grown up in the intervening years. She was no longer the sweet girl he’d exchanged secret kisses and whispered promises with. She was a fully mature female who aroused every protective and dominant instinct of his wolf, not to mention a whole lot of other less noble feelings. Unfortunately, she also rejected everything about him.

  It was a cold awakening.

  He crushed the anger, the rage that threatened to overwhelm him at the thought of losing her again and forced himself to concentrate on the business at hand. He surveyed the grassy hillside.

  “Mrs. Avinger’s limo was about there?” Ren pointed beyond the yellow crime-scene tape, already knowing within a fraction of an inch exactly where she’d been standing every second of those few moments.

  Detective Tony Maietta nodded and walked over, turning to sight along the route Kathryn and the bodyguard had taken back to the limo. “Bodyguard was with her, kinda holding her elbow, like she needed help staying upright, you know? Husband’s funeral and all, I guess. They’d been married a few years.”

  He paused, as if gauging Ren’s reaction to his next words. “Gotta say, though, a looker like that, and so much younger. Can’t think she’d be too heartbroken to lose the old man.” He shrugged.

  Ren scowled but didn’t say anything. Maietta’s comments pretty much reflected his own thinking, but he wasn’t happy to have Kathryn dismissed as some sort of trophy for a rich man. She deserved more. She deserved…

  What, Ren? You?

  He forced his mind back on track. “You checked Mrs. Avinger’s bodyguards,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  Maietta nodded. “Both of them have been with her a while. Both half in love with her is my read.”

  Ren felt his hackles rise and forced himself to calm down. Whatever feelings the bodyguards did or didn’t have for Kathryn, it wasn’t any of his business. Not anymore. He slammed his hand against the hard stone and, ignoring Maietta’s look of surprise, strode over to Kathryn’s actual location at the time of the shooting. Turning slowly, he identified the building the shot had to have come from, calculating trajectory, wind speed. Distance would be a factor with this cold weather.

  “You find the shooter’s location?”

  “You’re probably looking at it,” Maietta said. “Fifteenth floor, and get this—apartment belongs to Avinger. Apparently used it for getting a little on the side, although why an old guy like that would need—anyway,” he continued, “obviously, the shooter knew it would be empty, given the circumstances. There’s a few scratch marks where he set up his mount, but that’s it. No one saw anything, no one heard anything. This was a professional job.”

  Ren grunted, following the likely path with his eyes, remembering the exact moment Kathryn had gone down. “You find either bullet?”

  “Nope. It was windy that day, probably fucked up the shot. But the bullets could be anywhere.”

  “Metal detectors?”

  “They’ll be out later today, but, Roesner, this is a cemetery for rich people. There’s more gold in these graves than you or I will see in a lifetime. That’ll make locating a couple of slugs pretty damn difficult.”

  Ren was pretty sure he could locate them. It was a matter of looking in the right place, not to mention the advantage of a wolf’s nose. But then he knew the shooter had only missed because Kathryn had heard the bullet coming. Anyone else would have been dead.

  On the other hand, he had no intention of digging out the bullets only to have them snatched away into evidence by Maietta. Which meant he needed the good detective to go on back to his work for the taxpayers.

  “This cemetery have a manager or caretaker? Anyone talk to him?”

  “Her, actually. Relatively new on the job.” Maietta caught Ren’s quick look. “Not that new. Two years. Old guy was here for forty before he retired. And, yeah, someone talked to her, but, shit, it’s a fucking cemetery. People come and go all the time. The shooter could have stood right here taking pictures of every building that suited him and no one would have noticed.”

  “Probably right. Mind if I have a word with her anyway?”

  Maietta shrugged again. “Knock yourself out. Office is over that way. She’s in nine to five, like a banker.”

  “Okay, thanks. If I come up with something, you’re the one I call?”

  The detective nodded. “I’m your contact for the duration, and let’s be clear about something, Roesner. I’ve got no problem with you on this. Neither does my captain. We want this case cleared as much as you do. The Avingers are big money, and that gets the widow personal protection until we figure out who’s behind the hit, but I’ll be honest. It’s taking up men that could be better used somewhere else.

  “Just do me one favor. I don’t know exactly who you are. I’m told to let you in on this investigation, and that’s what I’ll do. But if you turn up anything, I want to know what it is. I don’t want you going vigilante on me.”

  Ren smiled for the first time since leaving Kathryn’s penthouse, a slow, lazy grin that wasn’t even trying to reassure Maietta. “You’ll know what I know,” he said, leaving the “eventually” part of the sentence unspoken.

  * * * *

  Ren followed Maietta’s four-door police-issue sedan away from the grave site, turning his own Mercedes CL600 off onto the small road leading to the manager’s office. Maietta gave a quick farewell tap on his horn, and Ren lifted one hand in acknowledgment.

  He went through the motions of talking to the woman, a trim brunette with that irritatingly placid attitude of undertakers everywhere. It always made him want to do something outrageous to see how they’d respond. He managed to restrain himself long enough to convince her he cared about what he was asking, then thanked her politely and drove back to Avinger’s grave.

  Beginning at the elaborate monument, Ren retraced Kathryn’s exact steps for the third time that day, pausing at the moment of the first shot and factoring in her height, which was several inches shorter than his own six foot four. He remembered she’d been wearing high heels and added a few inches, recalculated the bullets’ trajectory, walked a few steps, and dropped to the ground, heedless of the snow-wet grass.

  It took longer than he expected. And when he finally located the first crumpled bullet, it had more to do with his body’s unique sensitivities than to any precision on the part of his mathematical skills. He dug down into the grass several inches and found what looked like a .338 slug, badly distorted by distance and collision with the hard ground. The second was easier to find now that he knew what to look for.

  Standing up, he raised one of the slugs to the thin light, turning it in his thick fingers. He felt the first trickle of real fear for Kathryn’s safety. Winking back at him from beneath the covering of dirt and grass, making his fingers itch, was the dull sheen of silver. Someone hadn’t only taken a shot at Kathryn Avinger. They’d known enough about her and what she was to use silver bullets to do it.

  Chapter Five

  “This is not something the human police can handle, Kathryn, and you know it.”

  He was back at her penthouse, back in that damn study that stank so strongly of Preston Avinger, Ren had to wonder if Kathryn had ever been in the room before today. And this was where she’d chosen to meet him. Had it been calcul
ated on her part? Did she understand what it cost him to stand there and pretend to be human with the scent of her ex-husband all around him? Or had she become so separated from her wolf that she couldn’t even smell it anymore?

  “Are you listening to me, Ren?” she responded testily. “I know you’re used to marching in and bossing everyone around, but this—”

  “You don’t know anything anymore,” he snarled, his patience finally snapping. He closed the distance between them with a hard stride, drawing a small pouch out of his pocket and shoving it at her.

  Kathryn jerked back, staring at the black silk bag, distorted as it was by the lump of silver slug inside.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Hold out your hand.”

  “Why?”

  Ren met her gaze evenly. “Don’t you trust me, Kathryn?”

  Kathryn stared at him and he could see the war in her eyes. She wanted to trust him. He believed that. So he made it easy for her, raising one eyebrow in a blatant challenge. Her lips tightened, and she stuck out her hand.

  He emptied the bag, letting the silver slug fall into her cupped palm. She juggled it for a moment and he could see the fine rash popping up on her skin before she dropped the metal to the desk, letting it roll away in a lopsided sort of wiggle, before she turned to glare at him.

  “That’s silver,” she said accusingly.

  “That,” Ren clarified, “is what’s left of a silver bullet. One of two silver bullets that nearly took your life at the funeral.” He picked up the bit of crumpled silver and dropped it back into the pouch.

  Kathryn stumbled away, the backs of her knees hitting the hard edge of the big chair as she fell into it.

  “Silver bullets?” she whispered.

  Ren tucked the bullet in its silk covering back into his pocket, hearing the fear in Kathryn’s voice with satisfaction. Finally, she was taking this seriously. He glanced over at her where she sat in the high-backed executive chair, her slender form dwarfed by its size. Her eyes were huge, their gray gone nearly white, her face pale with shock. Her hands looked impossibly delicate against the blocky arms of the chair, her fingers dancing with a fine tremble before she clenched them against the wood to stop it.

  He felt a pang of remorse for frightening her like this but steeled himself against it. Whatever feelings he still had for her, she clearly had none left for him. He could hardly blame her for that, but he couldn’t let her risk her life in order to push him away, either. He crouched in front of her, keeping his hands to himself, not wanting to risk a touch between them when she was this vulnerable.

  “Who knows about your wolf, Kathryn?”

  She focused on him with obvious difficulty, and he watched with admiration as she visibly pulled herself together. She licked her lips.

  “No one,” she said weakly, then drew herself up and spoke firmly. “Preston knew. Why do you think he paid my father so much for me?” she added bitterly.

  Ren clenched his jaw so tightly, he could hear his bones grinding. Dominick Bartek had always been ruthlessly practical, but this was a new low, even for him. “Who else?” he ground out.

  Kathryn glanced at him nervously. “Tommy. He had to know,” she added quickly, forestalling Ren’s protest. “He goes with me to the country house every month for the full moon. He’s never actually seen my wolf, but he’s not stupid.”

  “Why not go to Clanhome? You would have been safe—”

  She gave a hysterical bark of laugher. “There is no safety at Clanhome for me, Renjiro. There never was. Besides, Tommy loves me. He’d never—”

  Ren couldn’t stop his growl of rage. He stood up, shoving the chair and Kathryn away, and forced himself to walk to the other side of the room. He stood there for several seconds until he was certain of his control. And then he turned back to her.

  “Is that all?” It came out as a snarl. The wolf was still too close to the surface.

  “Well, you know. How long did you say you’d been in the city, Ren?”

  He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. She might as well have. “Fine,” he said in a barely discernible growl. “If that’s how you want to play this, Kathryn, then fine.”

  “That’s how it is, Ren. What I want doesn’t matter. It never has.”

  “What about the money?” he asked bluntly.

  “What money?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he snapped, abruptly tired of this whole charade. “Preston’s money. I’m assuming you get most of it, or at least a big chunk. So who gets it if you die? There’s always a provision in these wills. You have to survive your husband,” he said the two words with deliberate emphasis, “by at least sixty days to inherit. So who inherits if you die?”

  Kathryn stared at him as if she’d never even considered the possibility. “It goes to a charitable trust,” she said finally. “An old one set up ages ago by Preston’s grandparents.”

  “What about his children from the previous marriage?”

  “No. The estate is already split three ways. And the same provision applies to them. Any unclaimed bequest goes to the trust. Besides, Phoebe and Preston Junior like me much better than they ever liked their father.” She smiled as if at a private joke. Ren wasn’t amused.

  “I want the name of the estate lawyer. In the meantime, you stay inside until you hear from me.”

  “I don’t need to stay inside. Tommy can—”

  “You willing to bet Tommy’s life on that, sweetheart? That bullet was a three-thirty-eight. It would go right through Tommy to get to you. I don’t think he’d make it. How about you?”

  “Bastard.”

  “You bet. That’s why your dear old daddy keeps me around.” He started for the door, more than ready to get the hell out of there. He yanked the door open, crossing the hall to where Tommy stood watching him warily.

  After pulling out a business card, Ren handed it to the bodyguard, who took it automatically. “I’ll need the name of the estate attorney. You can leave it on voice mail at that number.”

  Then he turned and strode down the hallway, not needing the housekeeper or anyone else to tell him where the front door was.

  He didn’t stop until he was outside, buttoning his coat against the cold with angry jerks.

  “Well, that went well,” he muttered to himself.

  He shook his head in disgust and checked his watch. A cab veered in his direction, but he waved it off. His car was parked down the block, but he needed to move, needed to work off this rage if he was going to be any good to anyone, including himself. If he’d been anywhere but this fucking city, he’d shift and let his wolf run it off. But that wasn’t an option tonight. Maybe he could find a bar somewhere, preferably one with patrons who enjoyed a good brawl. He glanced around, taking in Kathryn’s upscale neighborhood. Not much chance of a good bar fight around here.

  He started toward his car, swearing softly. She’d been right about her father, though he’d never admit it. The Alpha hadn’t said it so crudely, but the promise had been there when they spoke on the phone.

  Clear this up and welcome to the family, Renjiro.

  It was typical Dom politics. Ren hadn’t been idle during his years of exile. He’d built a reputation for himself in Europe. He was well respected, especially among those younger wolves who were tired of the old alphas calling all the shots. Wolves lived a long time, and there were many who had no intention of waiting for Dom or the other alphas to die before striking out on their own.

  Dominick Bartek had finally called Ren back to the U.S. precisely because old Avinger had died. He probably thought to bind Ren, and hence his followers, to the status quo by giving him Kathryn, just as he’d promised years ago. That someone was now trying to kill her only made it easier for the Alpha to bring Ren into the picture. Too bad he hadn’t checked with Kathryn first.

  Ren sighed and kept moving. Easy for Kathryn to talk about taking her money and walking away from the clan. She was all but gone already. It wasn’t that easy for
him. He had family and friends, people who counted on him, and all of them tied to the wolf clans. Whether Kathryn wanted Ren here or not, he’d have to find a way to settle this to Dom’s satisfaction, which meant finding whoever was trying to kill Kathryn and shutting them down.

  He beeped his locks open and stepped into the street, his boots sinking into dirty slush. The snow was coming down harder than ever. He really had to get out of this fucking city.

  Chapter Six

  “Kathryn? Everything all right?”

  It was Tommy. Decent, loyal Tommy who was more than half in love with her. Maybe the only person in her life these days whom she could count on completely. Her eyes filled with tears, and she brushed them away impatiently. This wasn’t like her. She had no room for self-pity. Such weakness had been burned out of her long ago—along with every other useless emotion.

  “Yes. Thank you, Tommy,” she said. “I’m just a little tired, I think.” She stood up, automatically brushing her hands down the front of her wool slacks, straightening her sweater. Preston had always hated it when she looked wrinkled. “I was thinking we’d leave for the country tonight after dinner rather than waiting until the full moon. It looks like a storm’s building, and I don’t want to get trapped here in the city.”

  Tommy frowned, which was odd. He never disagreed with her on anything. “That Mr. Roesner said you should stay here, Kathryn. I don’t like the guy, but I gotta worry when he says that. Let me talk to him first, make sure it’s safe.”

  Kathryn felt the chains of Clanhome tightening around her once again, trying to drag her back in now that Preston was gone. This was only the beginning. Her father had sent Ren first, but he would reach out personally soon. She couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t. But there was no way she could explain all of that to Tommy.

  “I’m going to lie down,” she said instead. “Tell Marla not to make a fuss about dinner. I’ll come to the kitchen later.”

  * * * *