PRINCE OF WOLVES

by Susan Krinard

  "You'll be all right, Joey," Luke said at last, turning back to her. His eyes still held a challenging sharpness, but gradually his expression softened, as if he read her hidden distress, his muscles tensed as if to cover the short distance between them, but he turned instead to retrieve the parkas and snowshoes, brushing by Philippe without a word.

  His back was to her as he pulled on his parka. "Be sure to lock up, and bank the fire as I showed you, we'll be back tomorrow as soon as we can."

  As if that alone were sufficient good-bye, Luke tossed one of the parkas to Philippe, who donned it silently; in another moment both men were heading for the door, Philippe casting a half-apologetic glance back over his shoulder.

  "Wait a minute." Joey shook herself and trotted after them, pulling Luke around with a firm hand on his arm. "You're just going to leave me alone here after what you told me, about"—she swallowed heavily—"what I am?" The words came out with some difficulty, but they came, she was amazed at her own calm. "Don't you think it's just a little unfair to leave me with only half an explanation?"

  The sudden flood of moisture in her eyes startled her more than anything that had come before. Without warning, Luke pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips against her forehead. After a moment he took her chin in one callused hand and pulled it up, the thumb of his other hand stroked away an escaping tear.

  "I will explain, Joelle—when I can. There's nothing to be afraid of. You are still what you always were." He dropped a kiss on each of her cheeks, then on her mouth with gentle tenderness. "I'll be back soon." Even as he spoke, he looked deeply into her eyes, in that way that always made her lose herself; she was smiling and forgetting whatever it was that had been bothering her by the time he dropped his gaze. He kissed her again, with sensual promise, and then released her. "Sleep well, Joey."

  She watched him as he and Philippe left the cabin, peering out the small front window as the two men strapped on the snowshoes, produced a large wooden sled from somewhere just out of sight, and set off at a steady pace over the lush white powder of new-fallen snow. Luke turned once to wave, she raised her hand, and as they disappeared, she frowned at a sudden twinge that made her lean heavily against the paneling of the wall for support. It passed quickly, but she was left with a disconcerting sense of wrongness that kept her awake and wondering far into the lonely night.

  Few words passed between them as they made their way across the snowbound wilderness of Luke's land, Luke was acutely aware of Philippe's unease, and he concentrated on keeping his instinctive response in check. He had no desire to quarrel with his cousin, in spite of the fact that he suspected Philippe had guessed far more than he would dare to admit.

  If he caught Philippe interfering...

  Luke stifled a curse as they kept up a steady pace over the untroubled snow. His cousin was far more tenderhearted than he let on, and like the rest of the villagers he seemed to have adopted Joey without reservation.

  They were not slow-witted, and neither was Joey. Luke cursed himself for the thousandth time, nearly stumbling over a half-buried snag. There were moments when he was sure she would break free, begin to think again of the world outside the one he had created for her. He could not risk it. It was too late to go back. Joey was so deeply in his blood that he knew it would kill them both if he were to let her go.

  He shook off useless speculation as he shook the snow from his boots when they arrived at the outskirts of Lovell. His business was conducted early the next morning without complications, and he and Philippe started back for home with their newly acquired burden.

  At the door of the cabin Philippe said his farewells with a rough hug and grave smile; Luke was as sincere as he could be in asking his cousin to stay the night, but Philippe only laughed and shook his head before discarding his borrowed clothing and dashing off, a wolf black as midnight against the pale landscape. Luke watched him only a moment before turning to the door, pulling it open as he pushed his bulky burden through.

  The sight of Joey's astonishment was worth the weariness of his long run and almost worth the night of separation. "Luke! What in the world..." Her face, bright with joy—at seeing him, he thought with that same perpetual wonder—shifted into a different expression as she found her path to him blocked by the thing he carried.

  "A bathtub?"

  She edged in alongside him, her hip and shoulder against him as she tried to take some of the weight from his arms. The feel of her body almost made him drop it, and she nearly lost her balance before he caught himself. He eased it away from her long enough to wrestle it down to the kitchen floor and then turned in one swift motion to take her in his arms. Her mouth was soft and giving under his, a more certain home than any he had ever known.

  "Luke," she gasped at last when he let her up for air. "A bathtub?"

  "You prefer the barrel?" he teased gently, winding his fingers in the fine silver gold of her hair. "If you don't like it, I can take it back."

  Her eyes widened as she pulled free of his arms and stepped back to examine his acquisition. "That's why you needed Philippe. But I'm still not sure how you two managed to get it here. It's huge!" She looked it over thoughtfully. "There's a drain in the bottom, I presume you're going to rig something up."

  Luke interrupted her with a feathery kiss on the nape of her neck, gathering her hair out of the way. The taste of her was intoxicating. "Eventually. Later." She sighed and leaned back into his caress as he nibbled at her neck and shoulder, pulling her shirt aside to breathe in the compelling scent of her skin.

  "You know," she said after a moment, her words gratifyingly breathless, "I think I could probably use a bath right now. What about you?"

  Grinning into her shoulder, Luke ignored the demands of his body's immediate response. "A very good idea," he agreed in a husky whisper. With considerable reluctance he let her go. A soft sigh of protest escaped her, heightening his arousal even further. "I'll get the water."

  "I'll help you." Joey's eyes were bright with desire, and as the two of them set about filling the tub with water warmed in the stoveside tank, it was all Luke could do not to forgo patience entirely. Each time they touched, brushing against each other not quite accidentally, it was like fire licking along the nerves, igniting his body to fever heat; her skin was as hot as his own, flushed with the same urgency.

  With deliberate control he disciplined himself to complete the task at hand. Only when the tub was filled with water, and steam clouded the air, did he turn to look at her and allow the full force of his desire free rein.

  She looked back at him with naked emotion in her eyes. It almost frightened him, that emotion, those words she had once spoken after their loving. It sobered him enough now that he was able to check his lust and channel it into something gentler, something that could allow him to give back some small part of what he read in her eyes.

  She flowed into his arms and met his mouth with her own, giving herself freely as she always did. She was not merely beautiful or desirable. She was life itself, and the promise of life that he had never before come close enough to touch. Trembling with his need for her, Luke worked the buttons of her shirt loose and found the weight of her breasts with his palms, taking a moment to stroke the impossibly delicate skin. The centers of them were already hard, and he bent down to kiss one, savoring it with his tongue, delighting in the taste of her. Her gasp drew so powerful a response from him that he stopped to rest his head in the cradle between her breasts as her small hands, entangled in his hair, relaxed.

  Then, before he could recover, it was her fingers undoing his buttons, her hands that stroked and caressed his chest. Her hands. He stopped one in its motion and brought it to his mouth, kissing each finger, trailing over the soft palm with his tongue. She broke away and grabbed the edges of his shirt as if for support, almost shaking him.

  "I want my bath, Luke. And if we don't stop, we aren't going to make it to the tub." Her voice was as unsteady as he felt, but she was smiling, and the dark
mystery of her eyes glowed with sparks of gold, embers of a fire that might consume them both.

  Luke said nothing as he pushed the shirt away from her shoulders, his hands lingering on the curve of them before letting her slip free. Words were artificial constructs, shallow and meaningless within the deeper communication of their bond and their need for each other. He was silent as she helped him shrug out of his shirt, only the gradual quickening of his breath speaking for him when her touch traced down from chest to belly and lingered there, teasingly, before working free the buttons of his jeans.

  She captured him with her hand in the instant when he would have returned the favor, holding him still and rigid with the lightest of touches until he thought his control would break. The sound that escaped him was hardly a word at all, but she seemed to understand, she grinned, a slow, sensual smile of triumph, and released him, moving to free herself of her own jeans before he could assist—or, more likely, tear them from her body.

  When she rose, the gentle glow of fire- and lantern-light caressed her skin and painted the curves and valleys of her exquisite form in a mystery of shadow. Luke caught her up in one motion and held her against him, breathing in her quiet gasp as he kissed her. He lifted her easily, marveling in the gentle weight, the perfect way her body fit his, savored the texture of her breasts against him, the warm caress of her belly where it cradled his arousal. He kissed her eyelids when they fluttered closed, the tip of her nose, her chin; he would have lifted her higher still to taste the sweet column of her neck and the gentle hollow where it met her shoulder, but he knew if he did so, it would break the final shreds of control, and he would pull her down onto himself and end it too soon. Already her thighs were clenched around his, the compelling scent of her own excitement and her moisture on his skin driving him inexorably to the brink.

  There was only one solution. Carrying her to the tub, he tested the water with one finger and unceremoniously dumped her in.

  "Luke!" she sputtered, shaking the wet strands of her hair and spattering him with silvery drops. The word held more of laughter than outrage, he took advantage of the moment to calm his racing heart and overloaded senses.

  "Do you mind if I join you?" he said softly. The way she looked up at him, trying to mold her exquisite features into stern disapproval and failing with a giggle, made it suddenly easy to forget the demands of his body. His throat seemed strangely blocked as she held out her hand to take his.

  Suddenly she tugged, and half the water in the tub sloshed onto the surrounding floor as he fell in. There was just room for two, as he had planned, even so, knee-to-knee was not the position he most favored.

  "Come over here," he demanded roughly. She only smiled, brushing water from her face, before scooting around and settling herself against him. Her sigh was blissful with contentment as she let her head fall back on his chest, her damp hair under his chin; the water rose up to lap at her breasts. Luke shut his eyes for a long moment, feeling her, feeling the pleasant ache where her back trapped his arousal between them.

  "It's a little lumpy," she complained lazily, shifting m a way that made him open his eyes with a soft oath. "But I don't suppose there's much we can do about that."

  Luke groaned into her hair and bit the top of her ear. "Not unless you'll settle for a very short bath. " She moved again, a gentle torture that made him grab her hips to hold her in place, her breath caught.

  "Maybe you're right, Luke," she murmured huskily. "I really would like a chance to enjoy this." He could feel her deliberately easing the tightness from her muscles, loosening against him, though his own tension remained and showed no signs of departing. He would have had to be dead or kilometers away not to react to her, and even distance was no sure remedy.

  But he leaned back into the sloping surface of the tub and breathed deeply until he could find simple pleasure in their touch without the driving urge to alleviate his hunger for her. Her breathing steadied, and her hands settled onto his thighs where they cradled her on either side; the touch was simple and without erotic intent. Brushing the damp tendrils of hair away from her face, Luke listened to the sound of their heartbeats and let himself be soothed by the rhythm and the heat of the water and by the wholeness that had replaced the broken void in his soul.

  It was Joey who spoke first, she moved very carefully and woke Luke from his doze. "I need to talk to you, Luke—about what Philippe said yesterday. About—" She broke off for an instant, drawing in a deep breath. "About my being like you."

  Luke came to full wakefulness. He sat up, pulling her with him, wanting to see her face but unwilling to let her go long enough to make it possible. His heart began to beat again with a rush of adrenaline. "What do you want to know, Joey?" he said very softly.

  "Philippe said—he said I could learn your language, the one you use as wolves—if I learned how to do what you do." Her voice trembled, her hands tightened on his thighs, the short nails lightly biting his skin. "He said I had the ability to change. That I carry your blood."

  Closing his eyes against sudden fear, Luke considered his answer. He had started this, urging Philippe to reveal what he had deliberately made her forget. A test, he had told himself. A test to see if she could deal with any part of the truth beyond what little she already understood. A test of how much she remembered.

  "Yes, Joey. It's true. " He felt her stiffen in his arms and relax again, too quickly for the fear or denial he had braced himself to deal with. Luke expelled the air trapped in his lungs. So she did know, in some way, the truth of it. But was her seeming acceptance due to the hidden memory of what he had told her that day in Val Cache, or a more certain inner perception? "You have the ability," he continued gently. "You carry the blood. But it's not my blood—it is, and has always been, your own."

  He waited for her response, feeling the helplessness of knowing she was, now and in this, beyond his influence. "You mean," she said in a very small voice, "that I've been this all along. What you are. A werewolf." The flatness of the words almost chilled him. "And that can't be. Nothing ever happened—nothing—my parents were normal, and I was normal. " She trailed off, dropping her head. He cradled her face in his hands and pulled her back against him, stroking her high cheekbones with his thumbs.

  "You couldn't know, Joelle," he murmured. "It must have been hidden in you, in your family." He stopped himself quickly, fearing to summon up the demands of her past. "The blood and the gift are rare. Occasionally we hear of others, loups-garous outside of Val Cache. My father..." With an effort he continued. "My father didn't know what he was when my mother chose him."

  He stopped again, shutting off memory of the man who had sired him. Who had refused the call of his blood, had been unable to accept what Joey was learning now. "It's a rare thing, Joelle, but not unknown, even in your country. And it is nothing to fear."

  Her breathing was quick, but for the first time he sensed something other than trepidation.

  "I should be afraid," she said hoarsely. "I should be screaming, if I had any sense. And I can't quite figure out why I'm not." She chuckled, a lost little sound. Wrapping his arms around her, Luke pulled her into himself as if that alone could give her the peace and courage to accept what she was. "I know it's true. I don't know why I know, but I do." She burrowed against him, hard. Her body trembled in his hold. "I suppose the only way I'm ever going to understand this is to prove to myself—to see it with my own eyes. Feel it.

  "You can do it if you wish to, Joelle," he said, willing her strength. "You have the power within you. " Her silver-blond hair was soft where his lips brushed it. "You would be as beautiful a wolf as you are a woman."

  A long tremor shook her, as if the picture he had conjured up in his mind had communicated itself directly into hers. It was not beyond the realm of what was possible between them. He kept her tightly against him as he closed his eyes and thought of what it would be like to have her running beside him, a pale and graceful she-wolf almost the color of snow.

 
"In the winter nights," he mused, his cheek to her hair, "you don't feel the cold. Your fur is made to turn it away, and the snow shatters out from under your feet as you run. Your sense of smell is so intense that it's as if the whole world has crossed your path, the scents like thousands of colors without names splashed over the landscape like paint on canvas." He heard her breathing catch again and knew she felt the things he described.

  "Your ears pick up every sound, and it's as if every melody ever composed by man is some poor imitation, some distant memory of what you hear around you. Your packmates speak to you without words, without any need of them. The moon is so bright that even a night-blind human could find his way; when the hunt begins, it is you the pack follows, because you are strongest, but there is no resentment or jealousy or pride. There is a pattern—a weave to existence of which you are only a part—that sets the course of things as they should be, and even the beasts you hunt give up their lives to that pattern when their time comes."

  He fell silent, listening to the rapid beat of her heart. "Often," he said at last, "the pattern lets the prey escape, and you have run for many kilometers with only an empty belly at the end of it. Your breath clouds the still air as you rest, accepting the defeat because it is not the first and won't be the last, and because the wolf-spirit gives you understanding. There is no rage or bitterness to shadow the sweetness of the night. The pack draws in around you, enfolding you, one with you, and when you cry out it is for joy and for the binding of the pack. In that moment, when the pack raises its voice, there is such perfection that your heart aches with the beauty of it, and with sadness because, like human contentment, it cannot last."

  Staring into emptiness, he ignored the warning of his own words. "When the chorus is ended, you return to the rendezvous site hungry and wait for another day."

  Cooling water lapped around them as Joey slid her palms over his thighs, raising goose bumps. "I can feel it," she said softly, "as if I had done those things."