by Jane Godman
“You are my heir, Odessa. I have no other children. When I am gone, you must be the one to continue the fight.” She recalled the fanatical light in the eyes that were so like her own.
“What if I don’t want this fight?” She whispered the words she hadn’t been brave enough to say to Santin now, to her reflection in the mirror. There was no answer and, shrugging, she made her way out of her room and back down to the conference room.
A swift glance around told her that Alexei and Serena had done a good job of keeping things going in her absence. It struck her again how alike they were in looks. Perhaps that was what had attracted them to each other in the first place. The buzz they had generated with their introductory film was still going on and there was a queue of people waiting to try out the demo of Serpent’s Eye.
“No fallout from the final question?” she whispered to Alexei at the first opportunity.
“A few raised brows from the press, nothing we couldn’t handle. Who was that guy?” He placed a protective hand on her shoulder and, for once, she allowed it to remain there.
“No one important.” Why did her heart clench painfully at the words? “It’s dealt with.” She hoped so. Hoped she could draw a line under the whole sorry incident, however much her treacherous body might wish it otherwise.
Half an hour later and Odessa’s jaw was aching from fake smiling. Her eyes stung from the brightness of the overhead lights and her head pounded uncomfortably. There was no doubt about it . . . the launch was a success. Santin Creative would be the headline news of this conference. And the woman who had made it happen wanted to crawl into her hotel bed and hide away under the covers.
“Odessa?” She switched the smile back on again, turning to the man at her side. He wore a press badge and she prepared herself for another series of questions about the game.
“My name is Alec Porter. I work for Games Without Limits, but I also do some freelance work for an online news site called Environmental Heartbeat. I wanted to ask you about the issue with the poisoning of the Arctic tundra.”
Odessa felt the smile freeze. “That was a misunderstanding, Mr. Porter.”
“Hardly that if it brought Professor Lowell all this way.”
The world seemed to shift ever so slightly, as though she was suddenly on dangerous ground. “Pardon?”
“Professor Dan Lowell.” He said the name patiently, as though she should know it. “He’s the director of the Institute for Research into the Arctic Environment, and the world’s leading expert on Arctic ecosystems. As I was saying, he’s unlikely to have traveled all this way for a misunderstanding. I wondered if you had any comment?”
The world’s leading expert? And she’d dismissed him as a crank, refused to take his calls. Accused him of faking those pictures.
“No. No comment.” Her voice barely rose above a whisper.
Alec Porter sighed. “That was what Professor Lowell said when I caught up with him as he was checking out half an hour ago.”
Chapter Three
Damn it all to hell! It was the third time he’d read the same paragraph. Lowell returned his gaze impatiently to the research paper he was supposed to be analyzing. Ever since he’d returned from Florida, his concentration had been shot to pieces. He tried to tell himself it was annoyance at the way things had gone there, at his handling of the whole situation. He knew that wasn’t true. It was because, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get Odessa out of his mind.
Not the Odessa who had snarled at him in that hotel room. The other Odessa. The one who haunted his memory. The one who had melted in his arms, exchanging the sweetest kisses with him, opening her body willingly to him and driving him wild with her response.
He groaned. Here we go again. He was getting hard just thinking about her. Today, one week after his return from Florida, he’d made a promise to himself that he would forget her. It was—he glanced at the clock on his office wall—eleven A.M. and he’d done precisely nothing because she was occupying all his thoughts. This is becoming an obsession.
Maybe he needed to get laid to get her out of his head? It wasn’t his style, but radical action was needed here. In wolf form, sex was a huge commitment for an Arctic. Werewolves mated for life and, throughout the many centuries he had lived, Lowell had never found his mate. In human form, he could have sex without the same commitment—thank God—but he wasn’t into casual relationships. He almost laughed out loud as an image of him shoving Odessa up against that hotel wall within minutes of him meeting her came into his mind. Yeah, right. Bring it back to her again.
He was focusing determinedly on his paper, when the phone at his elbow rang with an internal call. Impatiently, he picked it up.
“A Professor Jenny Wilder is here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment . . .” His secretary’s voice was disapproving.
“Send her in.”
A smile lit his eyes as the door opened. Jenny was a fellow brotherhood member, the only woman on the elite team, and the wife of Wilder, one of Lowell’s other teammates. Their shared passion for the environment had forged an instant bond between Lowell and Jenny when she had joined the brotherhood just over a year ago.
“You look tired,” Jenny said, as she gave him a hug. “Or worried.”
“Try overworked.” He waved her to a seat. “Coffee?”
She grimaced. Some werewolves had adapted to the human craving for caffeine. Others just couldn’t get the hang of it. “Water, please.”
Lowell went to the small refrigerator in the corner of his office and came back with two bottles of water. He resumed his own seat on the opposite side of the desk to Jenny. She had said he looked worried. Now he had an opportunity to observe her properly, he could see that she appeared downright distraught.
“What is it, Jenny?”
“The last time I saw you was at the conference in Anchorage three months ago when you gave a presentation. The title was ‘The Ongoing Threat to Mosses and Lichens in the Tundra.’”
Lowell grinned. “I remember. I get all the sexiest topics.”
Although Jenny returned the smile, it lacked her usual full-on energy. “It was a great talk. I need to show you something linked to that title.” She extracted a flash drive from the pocket of her jeans. Coming around the side of his desk, she slid the flash drive into Lowell’s laptop. After a minute or two, she clicked on a link and a video clip opened on the screen.
“This was taken on our webcam.” Jenny was a research scientist at the University of Alaska. “We’ve been watching caribou and, as you know, mosses and lichen form an important part of their winter diet.”
They watched in silence as, on the screen, a truck pulled up. A group of four people unloaded a number of barrels from the back of the vehicle. They all wore hats pulled down low and scarves covering the lower part of their faces. They proceeded to pour liquid from the barrels over the ground.
“What is it?” Lowell asked, his heart sinking.
“Toxic waste. The analysis isn’t complete, but initial results show a mix of chemicals found in common pesticides.”
Lowell felt his crawling feeling of unease increase. It was the same sort of poison that had been found in the waste dumped in the Santin Creative containers. On the screen the group was loading the empty barrels back onto the truck, high-fiving each other in a celebratory manner as they did. One of them stepped up close to the webcam and held up a homemade sign. The writing on it was clear.
HOW’S THIS FOR AN ONGOING THREAT, PROFESSOR LOWELL?
Throwing down the sign, the person on the screen tugged off the hat and scarf. Laughing, she gave a one-fingered salute to the webcam before walking away. It was Odessa Santin.
* * *
Odessa had no idea where her energy had gone. Since her return from Florida, it felt like she was plowing through molasses to get even the simplest task done. The high everyone else in the company was experiencing over the launch seemed to have bypassed her. Instead she felt numb. It was as if
this success story was happening to someone else and she was a bystander. A not-particularly-interested bystander.
The energy she had put into the last five years had deserted her. It was the same energy she had needed to shake off the expectations placed upon her by her mother.
“You are the Siberian leader’s daughter. You cannot take your place in the human world.” That was what her mother, a staunch werewolf traditionalist, had believed. It had taken a huge effort to break free of those chains, to convince Emina that Odessa’s human was more important to her than her wolf. She knew her mother would never accept her choice. In Emina’s eyes, Odessa had betrayed her Siberian legacy. She had turned her back on everything Santin stood for.
Deliberately. Odessa tried to massage away the slight frown that was forming between her brows. I can’t exist in the past, living only for vengeance and death.
Convincing Emina that she hadn’t turned her back on who she was, on her inner wolf and her pride in her Siberian heritage, was an ongoing battle. Thank goodness for Isaak. Santin never had a second in command. His ego wouldn’t permit another person to get close enough to be in a position where they might be tempted to seize control. Isaak had been one of her father’s loyal pack members and, when Odessa took over, he had been swift to show his allegiance to her. Now, she was able to leave much of the organization of the pack to him. He was her beta, her loyal servant.
She frowned at the trend of her thoughts. They were a reminder that she hadn’t heard from Isaak since before her trip to Florida. Usually he checked in every few days with updates.
Florida. She was allowing what happened there to occupy too much of her time and thinking. She suspected it might be responsible for her current lethargy. If she devoted as much eagerness and vitality to her work as she did to thinking about a delectable muscular body and a pair of wide golden eyes, she might get more done. Or maybe she should just go out and grab a coffee? Get some fresh air and call Isaak? Do at least one thing right today.
As she was about to leave her office, she encountered Alexei, who had been about to come in. His pale eyes searched her face. “You look tired.”
Although they had worked together for a long time, and she considered him a friend, Odessa was always wary of letting Alexei get too close. She sensed his feelings for her went deeper than friendship, and she wasn’t prepared to allow a situation where she let him get ideas. It would be unfair, not least to Serena.
“I’m fine. Did you need to speak to me?”
Alexei was carrying a stack of items, which he deposited on her desk. “Serena asked me to show you the prototypes for the next game. Hard on the heels of Serpent’s Eye, we are preparing to launch Knife River, the second of the Nine Clans of the Iron Wood. These are the pieces of the board game.”
Odessa examined the items as he laid them out. Quality was the Santin Creative watchword. The craftsmanship in these individually shaped pieces, each with its own internal microchip that would link it to the online action, was superb.
“That is meant to represent the sacred obsidian glass blade, the most sacred knife of Jotunheim,” Alexi said, while Odessa felt the weight of one playing piece in her right hand. As she did, it somehow shifted and the blade pierced the center of her palm. A bright spot of blood welled instantly.
“Back to the drawing board with this one?” She held up her hand to show Alexei the cut to her flesh. “We don’t want any lawsuits.”
He handed her a Kleenex from the box on her desk. “I’ll get the manufacturers onto it right away. It looks like they may have taken the brief a little too seriously.” Scooping up the pieces, he made his way to the door. “Were you going out?”
The question reminded her of her plan to call Isaak. Grabbing another Kleenex and holding to her hand, she nodded. “Coffee is calling me.”
She had her head down, checking her phone as she stepped out of the building and into the bright sunlight, which was why she was not immediately aware of someone falling into step beside her. Glancing up, she encountered Lowell’s golden gaze and came to an abrupt halt, almost causing a woman close behind to crash into her.
“What are you doing here?” The words came out as an undignified squeak.
“Waiting for you. I figured if I came up to your office you probably wouldn’t see me.”
Odessa chewed her lower lip. “You were right.” Yet hadn’t her first emotion on seeing him been pleasure? It was hard to reconcile the different feelings he aroused in her. She still wanted to slap his face. And kiss him. She just wasn’t sure which she wanted more. The desire to try them both—in the interests of research—was overwhelming.
He smiled and at least one of her problems was solved. She wanted to kiss him. Then she would punch him.
“I need to show you something.” He groaned. “That makes me sound like a pervert, doesn’t it?”
Despite her resolve to remain aloof and angry, Odessa laughed. “Tell me what you need to show me, and I’ll decide if it’s perverted.”
“Shall we get a coffee instead of blocking the sidewalk?”
They walked a block to Odessa’s favorite coffee shop. She surreptitiously watched Lowell as he ordered. Her imagination hadn’t played tricks. He really was every bit as hot and handsome as he remembered. Damn the man.
She forced herself to focus on why he was here instead of on the memory of those strong hands exploring her body. If he had come all the way to New York to show her something, that something must be important.
“Are you hurt?” Lowell nodded toward her hand.
Odessa had forgotten the minor injury in the maelstrom of emotion meeting him again had brought in its wake. “It’s nothing.” It really was nothing, but for some reason it wouldn’t stop bleeding. And it hurt like hell. She kept the Kleenex in place.
“I need you to watch something.” Lowell held out his cell phone, indicating for her to play the video that was on the screen. “A friend of mine brought this to my attention yesterday.”
Odessa took the phone from him tentatively. Why did she get the feeling she wasn’t going to like what she was about to see? As she started the clip, she was conscious of Lowell’s gaze fixed on her face, analyzing her reaction. She watched the short film with a feeling of rising anger. Her annoyance was directed two ways. At the idiots in the video who would deliberately commit such an act of sabotage, but also at Lowell. He is going to accuse me of being behind this again! When the film reached its final shocking few seconds, she recoiled in outrage before raising her eyes to Lowell’s face.
“I don’t know how that was done . . . but it wasn’t me in that video.” It sounded lame even as she said it. It had been her own face staring back at her from that screen. Her own face grinning like an idiot into that camera. How the hell was she going to convince him it wasn’t?
“I know it wasn’t you.” His expression was grim. “When that was filmed I know exactly what you were doing.”
Odessa frowned in an attempt to gather her thoughts. “You do?”
“I do. You weren’t in the Arctic Circle. You were in Florida, having sex with me.”
* * *
Lowell watched the emotions play over Odessa’s expressive features. For the first time in his life, he felt a tug of attraction that drew his wolf as well as his human. Deep within him, his Arctic werewolf stirred, urging him to claim her, to possess her, to make her his. His wolf instincts were stronger than his human ones. When his inner wolf wanted something, it was a primal and powerful urge, spreading through his nerve endings and overwhelming rational thought. It took a serious internal battle to suppress the yearning that swept over him. These were dangerous feelings and not ones he was prepared to pursue.
Yes, he wanted Odessa. He couldn’t remember ever wanting anyone, or anything, more in his entire life. But he wasn’t just a wolf. He was a werewolf. Part wolf, part human. He had to listen to his human . . . whether he liked it or not. And his human was saying that this was a mess. A mess made worse by th
e centuries old conflict between the Arctics and the Siberians. Just because his cock strained against his zipper in a desperate attempt to gain release every time he was near Odessa, didn’t mean he could complicate this by letting it have its way. Whatever this was. He wasn’t ruled by his cock. No matter how much he wanted to be right now.
“What’s going on?” She raised those huge, light blue eyes to his face. Her expression was an accurate reflection of her thoughts. Confused, troubled, and pissed off probably summed it up.
“I think it’s safe to say you are being set up.”
She made a dismissive gesture. “I get that. But why?”
Lowell slipped his cell phone back into his pocket. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me that.”
“I have no idea who would want to do this.” The tiny, uneasy movement she made told him that wasn’t entirely true. My God. How had he gotten in tune with her moods so fast?
“Odessa”—something flashed in the air between them as he used her name for the first time—“whatever is going on here is serious. On a human level, this poisoning is an environmental crime of epic proportions. On a werewolf level, it appears someone is trying to restart the war between our packs. Either way, you are being framed for it.”
She lifted her uninjured hand and raked it through that jet-black hair with its startling streak of white. It looked like a dramatic fashion statement designed to accentuate her pale skin and light eyes. It gave a Lowell constant subtle hint of her inner wolf. It was as maddening as her scent. Here, in the aromatic environment of this coffee shop, her scent was stronger to him than any other. She smelled of the outdoors. Lowell’s natural environment was the snow and ice of the Arctic wastes, hers was the dense, dark forest. He was a creature of the midnight sun, she thrived on near perpetual night. She reminded him of pine trees and tumbling rivers, of resin and wildflowers. Odessa was exotic to him yet he was beginning to crave her like a drug.