* * * *
Darinda beat feebly against the flank of the coyote on her face. Only snatches of air reached her straining lungs, and those tasted hot and musty. The world grew darker with each labored breath. She strained to think of a way out of this. She had to strain to think at all.
All at once the coyote was gone. All of them were gone. She gasped, sucked in huge gulps of precious air, and hacked and spit coarse hairs out of her mouth. The rushing in her ears gave way to yips and yelps and the roar of some furious beast wreaking determined havoc.
She forced herself up on her elbows. The pack had dropped from five to three. As she watched, another abandoned its fellows and ran for its life, driven off by the huge black wolf whose powerful muscles and flashing fangs seemed to be everywhere at once.
Something shiny hit the ground and bounced to a stop near her arm. Darinda’s dazed brain finally identified it as one of their spellbusting charms. The charm’s owner screamed. Darinda smelled blood in the air.
The coyote abruptly went human. Blood streamed from a bite on his arm. He aimed a kick at Roderick’s muzzle, then leaped clean over Darinda and plunged through the break in the trees.
That left the last coyote. It lay on the ground in classic canine submission posture, belly up and whimpering. The wolf stood over it and growled. Then he went up on his hind legs and blurred. Roderick dug his fingers into the coyote’s ruff, not gently, and hauled it up. Its legs dangled over the track. He ripped the charm from the were’s neck and flung it into the brush.
“Now, bitch,” he snarled, “let’s have a chat.”
The coyote writhed in his grip. It snapped at his hands. When neither worked, it tried whining. When that didn’t work either, it shifted form. The naked girl beamed up at him and batted her lashes. “You wouldn’t hit a girl, would you?” she simpered.
“Hit you? Of course not.” He closed his hand around her throat and squeezed. The coyote girl gurgled and started thrashing again. “On the other hand, I’ve no qualms about snapping your neck. Now, why are you trying to kill us?”
Her eyes bugged. Her face was turning purple. She tore at his hand with her nails. Roderick eased up without letting her go. She hauled in a breath and wheezed it out. “Paid.”
“Paid? To kill us?” The girl nodded frantically. “By whom?”
“Dunno.” Roderick started to squeeze. “I don’t! I don’t! We got your names and a wad of cash. That’s it.”
“From whom? Who’s your alpha? Your pack leader?”
She grimaced. “We don’t have leaders. Pack leaders are agents of the oppression.” She spotted his collar, and her grimace grew teeth. “Only dogs have pack leaders.”
Roderick brutally closed his hand. “Perhaps I’ll take off your nose. Or a few of your fingers. Will that be oppressive enough?”
The coyote girl yelped something. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Alfie. It’s Alfie. He makes the deals. Some relative of his wants the wolves dead. I dunno why. Nobody knows. But he’s paying good money for it.”
By now Darinda had regained her feet. It scared her how long that action seemed to take, and how her legs trembled as if all the strength had spilled out of them. But she made herself walk the three steps to Roderick and his captive, and she made the steps look steady. The coyote girl tried to cringe away from her, but couldn’t avoid the hand Darinda placed on her forehead.
“She’s telling the truth,” Darinda said shortly. “What she said is all she knows.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s Alfie. He pays us. I dunno who he gets the money from. Hey, it’s a living.” She whined placatingly. “No hard feelings, huh?”
“Well, I’m all for killing her,” Roderick said. “I suppose that goes against your witchy principles?”
Reluctantly, Darinda nodded. “You’re just lucky,” she told the coyote, “you aren’t the one who had her butt on my face.”
Roderick thrust the girl away. She hit the ground, rolled, and came up coyote. She dove through the brush and disappeared.
Scarcely had the noise of the coyote’s flight faded than another ruckus started up, this time from across the field. “Our other little friend must have found someone,” Roderick said. “The bastard’s probably telling them all about the people who attacked him in the woods. Time to go.”
He scooped her up in his arms and set off at a ground-eating trot. At first Darinda was too surprised to speak. What did he think she was, some fainting fairytale maiden? She pushed feebly at his chest. “Put me down.”
“No.”
“Put me down. I can walk.”
“I don’t care. You’re not going to. Now stop wriggling, or must I bite?”
“Asshole,” she muttered, but stopped struggling. Her muscles seemed to go limp of their own volition, and she let her head rest against his chest. His skin was hot and sweaty from fighting for her life. She could hear his heartbeat, a steady, powerful, comforting thump, barely elevated in spite of his exertions. Weres, she’d heard, were stronger than humans. His arms were certainly strong enough. She felt feather-light within their cradle. He didn’t seem to notice, or mind, her weight at all.
In a shockingly short time they reached the parking lot. No sign of the coyotes or their car. There were humans around, though, and these stared and pointed. Darinda couldn’t blame them. A muscular naked man in a collar carrying a bedraggled woman in his arms wasn’t exactly an everyday sight in family-friendly Valley Forge National Historical Park. Roderick’s snarl kept them at bay long enough to reach Darinda’s car. He set her down gently. “Give me the keys.”
“Nothing doing. I can drive.”
With a rough growl he put his hand on her head and forced her eyes level with the side-view mirror. Blessed Goddess. Her face had gone pasty as bread dough and sported a number of scratches. Her lips seemed to hold no blood at all. Her enormous eyes looked nearly black in the pallid mask of her face. They were glazed with shock. Her hair stuck out in a dozen directions and had twigs in it.
“Give me the keys,” Roderick repeated.
This time she didn’t argue. She fumbled them out of her pocket and handed them over. He settled her on the front passenger seat. “Where are my clothes?”
“Back seat.”
He paused only long enough to rip off the collar and fling it to the floor of the car. He yanked on his trousers and shirt without bothering to fasten either and skipped his shoes altogether. He did take his time in tucking his jacket around her shoulders. His tender touch belied the grimness in his eyes.
By now reaction had set in. She clutched his jacket tight, but couldn’t stop her shivering. “Please don’t faint,” Roderick said. “I’m not sure I know the way back from here.”
“The trunk,” she chattered. “I packed a lunch. There’s herbal iced tea. Maybe it’ll help.”
It didn’t, but it gave her shaking fingers something to fasten on. Her hands were colder than the bottle. Roderick got behind the wheel and spat gravel getting them out of the lot, just as a park security vehicle headed in. “Close,” he murmured, “but we’ve made it. You’re not hurt? No bites? No open wounds?”
“I’m fine.”
She could tell he didn’t buy it, but he didn’t press the matter. “Of course you are. How do I get out of here?”
She guided him back to the highway. “How did they find us?” she kept repeating. “How did they know? I didn’t tell anyone where we were going, not even Peri.”
“They couldn’t have followed us,” Roderick said. “Not the way you drive.”
“Thanks for nothing.” Her head swiveled constantly, watching traffic. One of those other cars could hold the enemy. Which? What kind of car had the pack been driving? What color? It scared her that she couldn’t remember. Concerned with easing Roderick’s stress, she hadn’t been paying attention.
She moaned and lowered her head to her hands. “I am the worst bodyguard on the face of the planet.”
“It does
n’t matter. We’re safe now. I won’t allow anything to happen to you.”
He took her hand. Just a simple clasp and squeeze, but everything he was feeling poured into her through the contact. A rage so murderous she tasted the hunger to rend coyote flesh on her own tongue. A concern for her so profound it shook her to the core, and possessiveness that did likewise. A trust unshaken by her failures and mistakes. The lust remained, but was overwhelmed by a growing emotion she was too afraid to put a name to.
She should yank her hand away, break the contact, stop the flow, save herself. Her head knew this. Her heart wrapped itself in his caring, as her hand wrapped itself around his.
Roderick himself let go, in order to put his hand back on the wheel and send the Toyota careening around a Volkswagen. “Bloody monkey drivers,” he muttered.
Darinda gave him her first full smile since the attack. “You should talk.”
“You should be in hospital.”
“I’ll be okay. Really.” Her shivers had gone inward, and had nothing to do with the coyote incident. “Just get us back to Meadowlands.”
Chapter 13
They made it home in record time and in one piece. Roderick made only one wrong turn, down the wrong way on Girard Avenue into West Fairmount Park. Darinda didn’t want to be reminded of the Duquesnes just now. She got them turned around and back to the Meadows side of the Schuylkill.
Two of Big Alex’s guards lounged in the yard. Their ears pricked when Roderick got out of the car, but they didn’t rise to their feet until Darinda emerged. They lowered their heads and started forward. Roderick’s sharp bark warned them off. He hustled Darinda into the house and locked the door behind them.
Inside he tried to pick her up again. This time she resisted. “I’m not an invalid,” she snapped. “I’m just a little shaky. Who wouldn’t be? That bitch tried to smother me with her butt.”
Roderick let her go. “If you say so. Just a word of warning. Your scent’s reeking like a sick herbivore’s. Those two outside almost made a run at you. You’d better stay indoors until it’s back to normal. For your own safety.”
Again with the werewolf instinctual predator crap. “And what about you? Do you want to take a shot at me too?”
“Is that an invitation?”
“Oh, leave me alone.” She thrust him away and stomped up the stairs. By the time she reached the upstairs hall she was practically running. She slammed into the bathroom, tore off her clothes, flung them into the corner and climbed into the shower.
The water helped. It blasted her skin and melted the chilly lump inside her. It rinsed the stink of coyote off her flesh. Best of all, it sluiced away the worst of her humiliation. She turned her face up to the spray and let it wash away the tears that burned her eyes even hotter than the water.
She was a witch, Hecate damn it. Powerful. Strong. Self-reliant. Dependent on no man or woman. Yet a bunch of coyote teenagers had flicked aside her defenses and come within a heartbeat of killing her. Her magic, the foundation of her strength and confidence, had failed her. If not for Roderick…
She shut off the water and stood dripping. This time she shivered with an anger that would do a werewolf proud. Enough with the victim thinking. Whoever had ordered these attacks would face the wrath of the witch.
Darinda didn’t step out of the shower until she was certain she had herself at least outwardly under control again. Her clothes remained in a heap in the corner. She couldn’t bring herself to touch them, not with the rips and the musky stench and the wiry buff-and-gray coyote hairs all over them. She selected a towel instead, wrapped it about her and reached for the knob.
Roderick stood right outside the door.
Darinda hopped back a step. “I wish you’d stop doing that.”
“I thought you could use this.” He handed her a fluffy blue bathrobe. “It smells like it was Lorraine’s.”
Lorraine must be a roomy girl. The robe, which fell to Darinda’s shins, practically swallowed her. “Lorraine’s the married one, right? From New Jersey? And she still has clothing here? Doesn’t your aunt ever throw anything out?”
“Rarely,” Roderick confirmed. “No telling when a pup will pop in for a stay. Aunt Letty likes to be prepared. Good luck for the both of us, eh?” He’d changed his clothes to another of Charlie’s plaid-shirt-and-tight-jeans combos. He cast a dismissive look at the remains of her outfit. “I’ll see those get a proper burial. Or cremation, if you prefer.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I was—I was—oh hell. I should have been more alert. I shouldn’t have to be rescued. I thought I was stronger than this.”
“It does leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth.” He pressed closer to her side, but gingerly. Even without contact, she felt his dilemma, torn between his obvious need to comfort her and his awareness of her no-touch policy. “We all think we’re more capable than we turn out to be. Welcome to the club.”
Crap. Here she stood whining over her shortcomings while he’d had his alpha pride battered for days, helpless to the point of having to depend on a witch to save his hide. To hell with it. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him close. His surprise lasted barely a second before he responded to her embrace, returning warmth for warmth.
She wasn’t indestructible. He wasn’t in control. But together they could be stronger than either was alone. Together they could see each other through this.
“Green,” she said abruptly. “They had a green car. I don’t remember the make. I just wish I knew how they found us.”
“I think I can answer that.”
He dug in his pocket and came up with a small, milky crystal, which he handed to her. She blinked at it, missing the connection. “Did this come off your collar?”
“No, it came off your car. I wondered myself how they followed us, so I talked to Big Alex’s boys. I figured they’d have more experience in this sort of thing. They found it fixed to your car’s undercarriage. What did you call it? A tracking device?”
Darinda let the crystal warm in her palm then closed her fingers over it. It carried a definite vibe of directional magic, like a mystic GPS. All this time she’d been so careful to ward and sweep the house. Checking her own car for bugs had never occurred to her. Her arrogance had nearly cost them both.
“They also found and ate your picnic lunch,” Roderick added. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it was delicious.”
“Screw the lunch.” She hurled the crystal into the toilet. Let the coyotes track that. “I’ve had it with this being hunted crap. I want to hunt for a change.”
“Now you’re thinking like a wolf.” He clasped her to him in a rough were hug. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
His words brought back all her misgivings. His feelings for her were becoming more powerful, harder to resist. Worse yet, hers had begun to echo them, and that just couldn’t be.
She had to put an end to this. In just another minute. She pressed her cheek against his shirt. His scent had already supplanted Charlie’s on the fabric. How long before it did the same to her own? Alphas demanded submission from their followers, and witches didn’t do submission at all.
Gently but determinedly she loosened her hold and eased herself out of his embrace. “Have you called Coraline? She must have heard about this by now. I’m sure she’ll want to know that you’re all right.”
“Coraline?” He cocked his head at her, puzzled. “What’s she got to do with this?”
“She’s your future wife. Have you even spoken to her since the dinner party?”
“We’re getting married in roughly five days. We’ll have the rest of our lives to talk to each other. Why are you so concerned with her all of a sudden?”
“It seems to me one of us should be, and I shouldn’t be the one. I’m only here to look out for your safety.”
“Is this some kind of human thing? That monthly heat cycle I’ve heard about?”
“No. It’s me getting bac
k on track so you can stop looking over your shoulder.” She made her voice brisk, businessy. Never mind that her insides were shriveling up. She needed to look at something other than him, so she picked the toilet. It made a nice metaphor for her current emotional turmoil. “I don’t think I would have gotten anything from that crystal anyway. They’ve made a point of keeping their magic untraceable. Maybe they left some other clue on the car. I should talk to our guards. How’s my scent?”
“Confusing,” Roderick growled, “but unmistakably blunt. Perhaps I will make a call or two. Good luck with your hunt.” He stormed off down the hall.
Darinda hugged the oversized robe to her body and willed it to still her inner trembling. “Yeah,” she muttered to herself. “Good luck with that.”
* * * *
Darinda spoke briefly with the wolves outside. Her Toyota was officially a dead end as far as leads were concerned. If there’d been anything else on her car, even a hair or a whiff of odor, they would have found it and reported it. Big Alex’s employees were nothing if not thorough.
If she and Roderick were to survive these assaults, she would have to become the same.
She spent the rest of the afternoon warding her room. For a long time she stared at the vial of dark yellow powder. The nerve-searing ward was a definite harm-doer. Why not? They’d tried to kill her. They’d tried to kill Roderick more than once. The rage that welled up at the second thought far surpassed that for the first. That realization cleared her mind in a snap. What was she thinking? That was the witch’s injured pride talking. Those dark thoughts veered too far from the light. She’d been hanging around wolves too much.
In the end she picked the simple shock/alarm. It wouldn’t keep out a determined assailant, but it would make them think twice. While she was treating the windowsills she looked out and noticed the yellow wolf prowling around the garden again. She hadn’t seen it when she’d gone out to talk to the other two. It probably didn’t care for humans much.
A London Werewolf in America Page 17