PRINCE OF WOLVES

by Susan Krinard

  The combined heat of fire and stove lent the room enough warmth to keep her comfortable throughout what remained of the night, she did not stir as he nudged her under the sheets and pulled the covers over her body. Once, as he threw the last blanket over the bed, she rolled her head against the pillow, her eyes fluttered, and the moan that came from her parted lips was filled with melancholy. Luke bowed his head and did not hear it. He turned away into the darkness and left her to her dreams, dreading his own.

  She would wake and know the coming of dawn and find herself again; for him, there would only be night.

  Chapter Seven

  The unsullied light that flooded through the sheer curtains of the window by the bed woke Joey slowly, warming her face with the gentlest of caresses. She stretched luxuriously, half-awake, savoring the light that traced across her cheek. She couldn't quite remember what today was, or what she had planned, but she could already smell the wonderful breakfast Mrs O'Brien was making up in the lodge kitchen, and the sheer sensuality of the moment made her reluctant to think about much of anything.

  With a sigh, Joey flung back her arms and arched her back Her hair was spread loose over the pillow, and the feel of the flannel nightgown against her skin was another delicious sensation. After another long, lazy interval of peaceful contentment, Joey forced herself to open her eyes to face the day and the things that had to be done.

  The first shock was the discovery that she was not in the bed in her room at the lodge. The second was that she was in a bed she had never seen before, in a totally unfamiliar room. The third was the realization that she was in Luke's cabin, in his bed—and the flood of memories that came with that knowledge.

  She sat bolt upright, casting the heavy layers of blankets aside. The nightgown she wore, soft and infinitely comfortable, was not hers either. Her own clothes lay over the back of a chair beside a simple desk, along with the borrowed jeans and shirt and socks. Luke had given her the night before.

  The night before. The room was not particularly warm, but Joey felt an inner heat sufficient to drive away any encroaching cold. The memories came back in a rush: everything that had led up to a loss of control so complete that even now Joey felt desperately confused. What had happened? She knew the hard facts, the sequence of events, but in the light of day it all seemed like some bizarre fantasy.

  She had let Luke make love to her. More—she had wanted him with a kind of savagery she hadn't known was in her. It had never happened to her before—certainly not with Richard. Never with him. Not that hungry need, that wild passion. With Richard she had never lost control.

  Wrapping her arms about herself, Joey squeezed her eyes shut as if that simple action could shut off all remembrance. Make it all as if it had never happened.

  But what had happened? There were enough questions to drive anyone crazy, for a moment. Joey almost laughed at the image of herself indulging in a fit of hysterics. It was not just a matter of how she had gotten herself into that position—for the second time with him—but why he had ended it all and left her half-crazy with desire.

  Again.

  A clean rush of anger and indignation flooded Joey, firmly pushing chagrin and bewilderment out of the way. She clenched her teeth and felt them grinding as her jaw set. The bastard! First he'd agreed to help her, kissed her in a way she'd never been kissed before, and then abandoned her. Then, after not bothering to give her the slightest explanation, and after she'd had to go chase him down, he'd so graciously allowed her the hospitality of his cabin, only to repeat the same exercise—this time getting her to a point of such emotional vulnerability that the memory was almost beyond bearing. And then—he'd just stopped. He'd left her as if she had transformed into some kind of noxious snake—or worse.

  His inexplicable behavior was bad enough, as was the constant uncertainty that seemed to be her normal state whenever she was near him. But this last blow to her pride was worst of all.

  Clenching her fists in sheets still warm with the heat of her body, Joey swung her feet over the side of the bed. The floor was cold, but that was the least of her concerns. She stalked to the chair and touched her crumpled jeans and shirt. The last thing she intended to do was take any more of Luke's "charity" or wear anything belonging to one of his past conquests. She wasn't one of them.

  She lost no time in stripping off the flannel nightgown—it also had belonged to some other woman—and began to tug on her own stiff clothing As she balanced awkwardly with one leg half in the jeans, some sixth sense warned her. It wasn't noise or anything else so obvious that made her look up to find Luke in the doorway. The warning was too scant for her to do anything but cross her arms over her chest and glare at him with all the indignation she could muster.

  There hadn't been time for her to have any expectations about what she would do when she saw him again, or what he would look like. If what had happened last night would show on his face. If he'd bother to explain himself. But now he stood in the doorway, filling it completely, fully dressed and ominously big and very silent.

  Joey almost ordered him out, detesting her half-dressed vulnerability. The words wouldn't come. Instead, she stared at him, face hot with anger and embarrassment—and other emotions too appalling to bear thinking about. Even after what had happened, his mere presence did things to her that made her want to scream in unabashed rage.

  Perhaps she would have given in to her impulse if Luke had said or done a single thing to provoke it. But he merely stood there, gazing at her with absolute blankness, not looking at her bare skin or reacting to her hostility. He dropped his amber eyes long before she could begin to engage him in yet another contest of wills.

  "Breakfast is ready. I'll take you back to town after you've eaten." For a moment he paused, looking back up at her under his brows as if he debated more personal words. Then he turned on his heel and left her staring after him.

  If Joey's anger had been hot before, it had become a veritable blaze now. She swore in a way that shocked even herself and pulled the rest of her clothing on with savage jerks. He wasn't going to get away with that—no, not a second time. She would make him tell her what was going on even if she had to risk life and limb to find out.

  Luke was sitting at the small table over a bowl of oatmeal, across from a similar bowl before an empty chair. His posture, head dropped in one hand while the other stirred the oatmeal listlessly, was so alien to what she knew of him that Joey stopped to stare. It almost managed to defuse her anger. Until he looked up to see her, stiffened into rigidity, and sprang up from the chair, moving to the far side of the room as if she had a disease he didn't want to catch.

  Joey spun to face him. "I've had enough of this, Gévaudan. I think it's about time you told me what the hell is going on here. Between us. If this is the way you acted with all your other girlfriends, I'm not surprised they didn't stick around. I came all the way out here to find you, and you..."

  "Eat your breakfast." Luke's voice was no more than the softest of whispers. He was not looking at her. His back was pressed up to the far wall, hands spread against it like an animal backed into a corner. Joey ignored the tone and the tension that twisted his imposing frame into a taut spring on the verge of release. "You aren't going to just ignore me this time, Luke. You owe me an explanation. You told me you'd help, and then you—used me and didn't even bother to finish what you'd started." Her face burned with chagrin at her bluntness, but anger had taken her too far to back down now. He had rejected her.

  "I can tell you nothing." Again his voice was deadly quiet, but this time he looked at her. His eyes were wide and piercing with some nameless emotion. "Eat, and I'll take you back to town. You won't see me again."

  That was the last straw for Joey. The anger she felt was beyond anything she had ever experienced,.She had always prided herself on her control and rationality, her cool ability to meet every challenge. All that went out the window as if it had never existed at all.

  She found herself advancing on L
uke, step by step, her fists clenched before her. "I won't see you again? Maybe I'd like that idea if you hadn't agreed twice to help me. Now you're going back on your word—again? What kind of man are you, Gévaudan? Maybe you're just the kind of coward who likes to pick on anyone you think is weaker than you are. Or maybe you're afraid of me. Is that it, Luke? You're afraid—of me?"

  The absurdity of her own words shocked her into momentary sanity, but it was too late. Luke lunged at her with one incredibly swift movement and caught her arms so tightly that she cried out with the force of it. Her feet dangled as he lifted her, holding her as helpless as a newborn kitten while his eyes bored into hers.

  His breath rasped, and his face was contorted into such an expression of bleak ferocity that Joey almost closed her eyes to block out the sight of it.

  "I warn you, Joelle Stop now. Eat your breakfast, go back to town, and forget you ever heard my name."

  The shaking of his voice was that of barely repressed savagery, and Joey knew with the surety of instinct that he was one step away from a total loss of control.

  It was not quite enough to defeat her.

  "No."

  She winced as his fingers tightened but met his eyes even though part of her screamed to run and keep running.

  "I came here for the help you promised me. You have to help me. Damn you, you have to." She clung to that one goal that had never changed, discarded every personal consideration and every desperate question.

  For a moment she thought he might get a grip on himself, calmly set her down, and agree to do as he had promised. He closed his eyes, and the break in his frightening stare was a relief. It lasted for only the briefest of instants.

  "You don't know, Joelle. You don't know what game you're playing." The words were even, deliberate, cold. "If you push me far enough, you'll regret you ever left San Francisco. And you may never go back."

  Before his chilling words could penetrate, he lifted her against the hard rigidity of his body and forced his mouth on hers. Struggling against him was like trying to stop a forest fire with a garden hose. There was not the smallest trace of gentleness in the kiss, it bruised her mouth as he forced his tongue between her lips with utter violence. She could do nothing against it, and when it ended, he dropped her so suddenly that she staggered.

  As she clutched the chair back and straightened he stood over her, unmoving, unrepentant and unrelenting. The bitter tang of blood was in her mouth, her tongue searched and found the place where he had grazed her with his teeth .She backed up, ignoring the hard edge of the chair where it dug into her spine.

  Luke was wild. His eyes blazed, and his teeth were bared, Joey kept very still while he struggled visibly to regain his composure. Joey battled for her own, and the first rush of alarm and fear at his attack subsided under the weight of returning anger.

  Lip curled in defiance, Joey straightened to regard him with something approaching contempt. "Your threats and boorish behavior aren't going to work on me, Luke. Don't concern yourself any longer, I'm not about to impose on you for one more minute." She whirled on her heel and left Luke standing there, angry strides propelling her into the main room. She jerked at her hair and wound it into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, securing it with a bit of string from her pocket as she made for the door.

  Luke was already blocking her exit when she reached it. Skidding to a halt, Joey narrowly avoided a collision, she hid reaction under a mask, of cool hostility. "You wanted me to leave, if you'll kindly step aside, I'll be going."

  His eyes were still wild, his posture taut with threat. "Forget you ever met me, Joey. Go back where you came from—give up on this quest and return to your city. Don't come back."

  "Oh, no." Joey matched the harshness of his tone with a ferocity equal to anything he could muster. "Not on your life. I came here for a reason, and I'm not going home until I've done what I set out to do."

  Tensing in anticipation, she took a step forward until her chest almost touched his. "With or without your help. I'm going to find my parents. If I can't find a guide, I'll guide myself. And neither you nor anyone else is going to stop me."

  She had almost been ready for his reaction this time, but even so it was a shock when the steel grip of his hands fastened on her shoulders and forced her back, back against the near wall, pressing her there with the full power of his body. The harsh lines of his face were rigid, the amber-green glow of his eyes lambent with a kind of madness.

  "No, you won't." His words grated, breath hot against her forehead. "You won't find a guide, and you won't go up into the mountains. You won't get yourself killed in my territory." He pushed her against the wall so that every inch of their bodies touched; Joey trembled with rage and fear and yearning.

  "Why do you care, Luke?" She made the familiarity of his name into a taunt. "You could have had what you wanted, and you didn't take it. What does it matter to you what happens to me?"

  A wordless growl rose from his throat, and he tossed his head back in a gesture of something like despair. His trembling vibrated in time to her own, Joey gritted her teeth as he dropped his feral gaze once again to hers.

  "I won't allow it. I will not a allow it." The words came like blows. "You will not go Do you understand?" His fingers tightened hard enough to leave bruises. Joey felt her teeth bare in response, she struggled uselessly in his grip, nearly spitting with rage. No sane, logical response would come, nothing except irrational defiance.

  "I can prevent you from going, Joey. Easily." Luke's tone had become almost even, almost reasonable, even as her own heart beat hard and fast in growing fury.

  "You'd have to pass through my lands to get where you need to go, unless you want to spend a month doing it. And I won't let you. Do you understand me? I won't let you pass."

  The last of Joey's tenuous control broke in a flood tide. The sounds that came out of her mouth were hardly words, they were cries of rage mingled with emotions that had heated to fever pitch. She beat at him with her fists, half-trapped as she was, and her feet struck blows on his shins and ankles. She tossed her head so that her hair came loose and whipped about her face in a frenzy, throughout it all he stood as unyielding and silent as one of his mountains.

  As suddenly as it had come, Joey's eruption of madness subsided, and she felt the tears on her burning face. They lay glistening on Luke's, too, where she had flung them in her struggles, the sight shocked her more than his absolute stillness. Her arms and legs went limp, and had he not held her there she would have fallen. She lay against him, her head rolling on his shoulder in abject defeat. The tears came in earnest then, and she had no will to fight them.

  Luke's shoulder made a hard pillow to muffle her sobs, but nothing so trivial—not even his victory—seemed to matter. Her tears soaked his shirt, her body shook and jerked like a puppet controlled by some indifferent hand She hardly noticed when the pressure against her body eased, and arms caught her up and held her in the gentlest of embraces.

  It was only after the final storm had subsided that Joey felt Luke's stroking hand as it caressed her hair, pressing her face into the sculpted planes of his chest. He supported her as easily as he might a child, his arms dwarfed and protected her as his cheek rubbed the top of her head. The utter emptiness of emotion, the bone-weariness Joey felt, did not hold that awareness at bay.

  When the last shaking had stilled, Joey struggled to summon the energy to wipe the tears away. Luke's big hand came up to cup her chin, raising her face to meet his. She tried not to look at him, not to let him see the aftermath of her ignominious loss of self-control. Her eyes felt swollen, face stiff with drying tears, before she could gauge his expression, he lowered his head to kiss the wetness from her cheeks. The feather-light touch of his lips was infinitely tender, infinitely different from all that had gone before. His tongue tasted her tears and stroked her eyelids. She closed them, and the soft gasps that came now were not of furious grief.

  It seemed impossible, ludicrous, that anything
could be left within her to stir at his touch. The rage was gone, but there was still something that could respond to the feel of him, to his gentle caresses. The utter contradictions that were Luke Gévaudan, and that comprised her own feelings about him, had no more significance than a single fallen pine needle on the forest floor. Her trembling returned, and with it a rush of sheer sensuality.

  Perhaps it was the sudden sense of helplessness that broke the spell between them, that cut through the pure sensation to strike at the forgotten core of logic. Joey stiffened suddenly, released her hold, and pushed Luke away, using her body to repel him as she had accepted him only a moment before. He did not struggle to hold her. As he fell back with a single graceless step, his face was as stunned as if he had been struck. Joey looked away.

  Luke said nothing. He stood motionless as Joey felt her way to the door, blinded by confusion and wanting only one thing, one solution to the almost unendurable chaos of her emotions. Her hand found the doorknob and twisted it, she stumbled through the tiny room that served as an entryway and opened the door to freedom. Sunlight dazzled her eyes. She reached up instinctively to shield them, staring with incomprehension at the arch of blue sky, the brown and green edge of forest. Her feet carried her from the cabin. It didn't matter that she didn't know the fastest and most certain way home, all that mattered was to get away, away from Luke Gévaudan and her own madness.

  She had nearly reached the lake shore before Luke caught up with her. Knowing he was there without benefit of sight or sound, Joey froze; he came up beside her silently and handed her a small rucksack. She took it as if she had no will of her own, numbly assessing the contents through the canvas. Clothing—her jacket, perhaps—and smaller objects that might have been food items. Joey hardly cared, she did not meet his eyes, nor did he force contact. When she shrugged into the light pack, he backed away, face turned aside, and melted into the trees like a ghost.