She wanted a shower. She wanted to look at the cut on her palm and see whether it needed stitches. She wanted to go home, curl up with her cat, and pretend this never happened.
Instead she made a fist, trying to ease the sting. She wiped at the red smears on her orange loose-knit sweater and her white pants. She thought longingly of the bathroom upstairs, of the soap and the change of clothes. And she said, ‘‘Of course.’’ Going to Jasha, she stretched out on his good side, careful not to jar him too much. She covered herself with part of the throw, and placed her head on his shoulder.
He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her head. ‘‘The Madonna has chosen well.’’
The Madonna? Sister Mary Magdalene always said the Madonna watched over Ann. But in her secret heart of hearts, Ann knew Sister Mary Magdalene couldn’t know. Sister Mary Magdalene herself had taught Ann that God works in mysterious ways. No mere mortal could know whether the Madonna watched over Ann . . . or whether it was the devil.
Because bad things happened to people when she was around.
Her wishes were curses, and her love was lethal.
Ann went to sleep listening to the beat of his heart—and wishing she’d never met Jasha Wilder, or listened to the urgings of her love.
Chapter 15
"Ann. Come on. It’s time to go.’’
Her eyes sprang open. She sat up so quickly her head spun.
"Whoa. It’s okay. There’s no emergency—the hunters are gone.’’ Jasha looked fine. A little pale, a little tense, but very calm.
She glanced around. Outside, it was day, afternoon by the light. She rested on the floor, tucked into a nest of couch cushions and colorful throws. ‘‘What . . . ? How . . . ?’’
‘‘You had a shock. You were sleeping hard. So I let you get some z’s in, and got stuff ready.’’
She pushed her hair away from her face and tried to remember her dreams. She’d been running through the forest, faster and faster. She had glanced back and seen wolves behind her. Glanced around, seen wolves all around. She’d been terrified. . . . Then Jasha ran past and smiled, and became a wolf, too. She hadn’t been afraid anymore.
But she knew she could never go back. That she had to run forever.
She covered her eyes. ‘‘That was horrible.’’
‘‘It would have been more horrible if you hadn’t come back for me.’’ He held out his hand.
‘‘What? Oh.’’ She hadn’t been talking about his rescue, but she didn’t need Freud to interpret a dream like hers. She knew what it meant; she would never call her subconscious subtle. ‘‘Yeah, I’m a sucker for wounded animals.’’
Sadly, she was. Kresley had arrived on her door-step, a starving, flea-ridden tomcat suffering from a coyote attack. Until she got to know him, she didn’t understand how he’d survived. But unlike her, Kresley was a fighter, and he soon had every dog in the neighborhood whipped into shape. Even the manager’s Rottweiler trembled when Kresley swaggered past.
She took Jasha’s hand and let him pull her to her feet. And into his arms.
He kissed her, a long, slow kiss that paid no heed to his injury or her misgivings or the possibility of danger. Instead he concentrated on reducing her to the essence of desperation. His hands roamed her back, massaging muscles tense from the hard floor and the prophetic dream. His lips opened hers; his tongue probed deep within. The motion reminded her of the forest, the storm, the all-too-brief thrust of his body inside hers, and the bright lightning of union.
She remembered the pain, too, a warning she’d come too far too fast and now had to pay the price.
‘‘You are a glorious woman,’’ he whispered.
‘‘I look like a giraffe.’’ She’d been told that far too many times to believe anything else.
‘‘And I’m a wolf. We have our Halloween costumes worked out forever. My darling giraffe, have I told you how much I love your long, long legs?’’
‘‘The way a wolf admires an antelope?’’ She couldn’t help mocking him. She didn’t believe a word he said; he’d easily resisted her charms while she worked for him. It was only now, when they were alone and he needed her, that he paid her lip service.
Lip service . . . in more ways than one, and all very gratifying. ‘‘Jasha, why are we leaving? Where are you taking me?’’
‘‘We’re going into the woods. With this.’’ He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a thin and tiny silver disk. He showed it to her, stuck on his index finger. ‘‘He tagged me like an endangered wolf. He wants to see where I run for shelter. I want to draw him out so I can catch him, question him, and finish him.’’
‘‘Finish him,’’ she repeated
Jasha’s eyes were golden ice chips. ‘‘Finish him before he finds my family. Finish him before he finishes us.’’
‘‘So we’re bait?’’
‘‘We have two choices: We can be bait, and turn the tables. Or we can be dead meat. Which do you prefer?’’
‘‘I hate those choices.’’
He waited.
She sighed. ‘‘Stick a hook in my ribs, drop me in the pond, and call me a worm.’’
‘‘That’s my girl!’’ He hugged her shoulders.
Irritated, she wiggled away from him, and picked up a cushion and one of the throws off the floor.
He bent to help her gather up their nest.
She stopped him with her hand on his arm. ‘‘You shouldn’t do that. You’re hurt.’’
‘‘Not much. Look.’’ He opened his shirt and showed her the wound in his shoulder.
Gingerly, she touched it with her fingertips. It was red. It looked uncomfortable. But it looked and felt like nothing more than a three-inch scar.
And she knew—she remembered—she’d had her hand inside. ‘‘Is this healing part of the, er, the . . . ?’’
‘‘The deal with the devil.’’ He watched her, obviously judging her reactions, seeing too much for her comfort. ‘‘Yes, I can heal quickly, and that’s one of the benefits. One of many benefits.’’
‘‘You made an actual deal with the devil?’’ Her voice squeaked.
He seemed so calm, but she supposed he was used to the strange and miraculous. Or the strange and the . . . seriously strange. She wasn’t used to it. No matter what happened, she couldn’t get used to it— or wouldn’t.
She groped to get a grip on his story. ‘‘A deal with the devil. It sounds so melodramatic, like a Faustian play.’’
‘‘Faust was a lousy bargainer. With a little forethought, he could have got a lot more for the price of his soul.’’
Mouth open, she stared at Jasha. Snapping it closed, she said, ‘‘You should talk. You turn into a wolf. Couldn’t you have asked for something a little cooler?’’
His mouth quirked. ‘‘Like what?’’
‘‘I don’t know. First place on Dancing with the Stars?’’
‘‘Do you think the devil has his hand in on Dancing with the Stars?’’
‘‘He has to. There’s no other explanation for Russell and Teresa winning last season,’’ she said bitterly.
He laughed and, when she glared, changed his laugh into a cough and tried to look serious. ‘‘If I were making the deal, I’d be more likely to ask for the Giants to win the Series.’’
‘‘Great. I’m living my own personal performance of Damn Yankees.’’ She piled the cushions on the couch.
He followed suit.
‘‘You, um, can’t refuse the deal?’’ she asked.
‘‘It’s not an option.’’
‘‘No. I suppose the devil might have something to say about that.’’ She glanced at Jasha uneasily. ‘‘Wouldn’t he?’’
‘‘In the past thousand years, I don’t think anyone’s actually talked to him.’’
‘‘A thousand years.’’ She tried to get her mind around the vastness of the time passage, and got hung up on the legalities. ‘‘So you didn’t actually make the deal with the devil. It’s a family thing.’’<
br />
‘‘Right. My ancestor set the terms, and he didn’t know about Dancing with the Stars.’’
‘‘I suppose not. So the whole family—’’
‘‘Only the males,’’ he reminded her.
She bridled. ‘‘Doesn’t the devil like women?’’
‘‘According to my father, women have a tendency to see through Beelzebub’s tricks.’’
‘‘Oh.’’ That was sort of flattering. ‘‘Did you have to initial the devil’s contract or anything?’’
‘‘In this case, it’s pretty much sins of the fathers.’’
‘‘Maybe you could consult our lawyers and void the contract?’’
‘‘Lawyers all work for Satan, you know that,’’ Jasha said, deadpan.
She grinned. ‘‘If our legal counsel, Bob Rutherford, works for Satan, Satan should buy Bob a better toupee. ’’ She touched Jasha’s arm. ‘‘Really, if you wanted out, what could the devil do?’’
‘‘I doubt that any of us have ever seriously considered refusing the gift.’’
She looked to see if Jasha was joking again. ‘‘Gift?’’
‘‘Wouldn’t you consider it a gift to be able to change into a wolf and run through the forest, free and wild?’’ Jasha took a breath as if he could smell the limitless fresh air. ‘‘Or change into a hawk and soar through the clouds?’’
‘‘You can change into a hawk, too?’’ Seriously cool. She’d always wanted to fly.
‘‘No. I’m a wolf. My brother Rurik is a hawk. My other brother, Adrik, is a panther.’’
‘‘Oh.’’ Her mind worked, and came up with one inescapable truth. ‘‘Those are all hunting animals.’’
‘‘Predators. Yes.’’ Jasha watched her, and only his golden eyes followed her. ‘‘For a thousand years, the family hired themselves out to warlords, dictators, kings, and thugs. Whoever had the money to pay, they would work for them. Once they were put on the job, they never stopped until they had done what they were hired to do.’’
She felt judged, as if Jasha was gauging the depth of her distress and the strength of her determination. ‘‘And what were they hired to do?’’
‘‘Track people. Find them. Kidnap them. Torture them . . . kill them.’’
‘‘I was afraid of that.’’ She put her hand to her forehead. ‘‘You said that was your cousin out there. And he shot you!’’
‘‘Right before I was hit, I caught a whiff of them. I recognized the hunter at once.’’ Jasha shrugged. ‘‘He’s big on deer urine.’’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘‘Euw!’’
‘‘Yeah. There’s no explaining a hunter. But the other guy—I’ve never met him.’’ Jasha’s lips lifted in a very wolflike snarl. ‘‘He’s one of us, though. I know it.’’
She did not want to hear this. She went back for more pillows, brought them to the couch, placed them, and turned around to find Jasha had planted himself in her path.
‘‘Pretending this isn’t happening won’t help,’’ he said.
‘‘It helps me,’’ she retorted, then relented. ‘‘All right. What does your cousin want?’’
‘‘Revenge. That’s what they all want. And they won’t stop until they get it.’’
‘‘Revenge for what?’’
He sighed. ‘‘It’s a long story.’’
‘‘You keep saying that.’’
‘‘And I was going to tell it to you, but you ran away.’’
She reminded herself that she’d pulled an arrow out of his shoulder a few hours ago. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t hit him hard enough to ring his chimes. In fact, even if she did manage to work up the gumption to hit him, his chimes would probably stay frustratingly quiet.
Jasha was a big man. A tall man, broad and heavily muscled. She forgot that, sometimes, until he stood in front of her, as he did now, and looked down at her, as he did now. And inside her, that smoky, sexy feeling rose in her because she had run away, and he wanted her again. ‘‘I didn’t run.’’ She sounded embarrassingly breathless. ‘‘I made an intelligent decision to walk away because it was obvious you didn’t trust me.’’
‘‘You don’t walk away in the fastest car I own. You were running.’’ He caught her arm when she would have stepped around him. ‘‘And I do trust you. I also know if they decided to put a tracking device on you, you’d never know.’’
‘‘Okay. That makes sense.’’ She looked him right in the face. ‘‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’’
‘‘You sometimes take responsibility for too much, and I didn’t want you to blame yourself if you’d led them to me.’’
‘‘Oh.’’ Oh, great. He’d been thoughtful, and she’d thrown a tizzy.
She would have gone back to their nest and finished picking up, but he placed his hand in the small of her back and guided her toward the stairs. ‘‘That can wait. We need to get ready.’’
‘‘Ready? For what?’’ Did she want to know?
‘‘My cousin cut the tires on my cars in the garage. He cut my phone lines. If I make a cell call, I know he’ll be monitoring to see who I call and where they are.’’ Jasha smiled, all sharp, white teeth and seething charm. ‘‘So you and I are going to give my cousin what he wants. We’re going to take him on a bit of a hunting trip.’’
When Jasha looked like that, she remembered whom—or what—she was dealing with. As they climbed the steps, she said, ‘‘He’s going to hunt us.’’
‘‘Yes. He’ll use the tracking device to follow us, hoping to find my family and eliminate them.’’
She didn’t understand at first. Then she did, but she didn’t believe it. ‘‘Eliminate them. You mean— kill them? Your whole family? That’s not . . . do you really think . . . what is this, In Cold Blood?’’
‘‘He shot me with an arrow. I think we can acquit him of good intentions.’’ Jasha led her into his bedroom, then into his bathroom.
‘‘But murdering a whole family just because—’’ He turned on the water in the sink and thrust her wounded hand under the stream. ‘‘Murder is what they do best, and my family wouldn’t be the first family they eliminated, right down to the smallest child.’’
The water ran red. She tensed, waiting for the pain.
She felt only a mild sting. ‘‘How will we survive?’’
‘‘We will survive. Don’t forget—I am one of them.’’ He turned her palm up to the light.
A red streak cut across her palm. The cut was deeper and swollen on one end. She couldn’t see anything but pale scars on her fingers, and the lines on her skin no longer completely lined up—but the wound seemed ridiculous in comparison with the pain she’d felt when the arrow pierced her hand. ‘‘I don’t understand. I really cut it. I know I did.’’ She watched him test the skin, trying to pull it apart.
‘‘My blood helped you heal.’’
Because he was one of them.
She could pretend he was a friendly wolf. She could applaud his loyalty to his parents and his siblings.
But she couldn’t ignore the truth.
When Jasha wished, he turned into a wolf. He was a predator. He was the son and grandson and great-grandson of murderers, rapists, and assassins.
She brought the bad people. She always brought the bad people.
No matter how much she wished otherwise, he was one of them.
Chapter 16
When Jasha and Ann stepped out the back door, twilight hovered in the air like an essence only they could smell.
‘‘Are they here?’’ She looked around at the trees that crowded the house and imagined eyes, shining with hunger, watching every step.
‘‘They’re gone. I’d bet my cousin’s off giving the hunter his reward.’’
‘‘Paying him off, you mean.’’ The unprincipled rat.
‘‘Giving him what he deserves.’’
She jerked her head around and stared at Jasha. ‘‘Is he going to kill him?’’
‘‘I don’t know. Possibly
. Do you care?’’ Jasha locked the door, then rested his hand on it, almost as if he were saying good-bye.
‘‘Shouldn’t I?’’
‘‘The hunter got drunk and shot at wild wolves— at my pack, at my leader—and ran to the police when he was frightened. Then he joined with a stranger so he could see me shot with an arrow, and he used a rifle to shoot out the tire on my Beemer.’’
Troubled by Jasha’s rancor, she said, ‘‘I wasn’t too easy on your car, either.’’
‘‘I’m not sure he was aiming at the tire. He might have hit you.’’ Jasha looked right at her, his mouth a flat, thin line. ‘‘I break out in a sweat every time I think of what he might have done by accident—or on purpose.’’
‘‘I didn’t think of that.’’ She clutched the pocket where she kept the icon.
Was death stalking her . . . again?
‘‘So do I care if my cousin makes him suffer? If he kills him?’’ Jasha answered his own questions. ‘‘No. No, I don’t.’’
But Ann did. Didn’t she? She hated cruelty . . . but whose cruelty should she hate now? That of the hunter, the man who preyed on beautiful, sleek beasts who ran wild in the forest? Or the predator who preyed on the hunter? Neither of them was a good man, and perhaps . . . perhaps what happened was nothing more than justice. Certainly there was nothing she could do about it.
‘‘That’ll keep the Varinski busy, and no one else will see us go. Do you have the icon? Do you have your cell phone?’’ When she nodded yes to both questions, Jasha strode off down the driveway into the woods. ‘‘Come on, then. We’re going to have an adventure.’’
Before she took the final step into the cover of trees, she stopped and looked back at the castle.
Had it been only yesterday that she’d driven up to the front door and stepped into this legend? Since that moment, there hadn’t been one instant when she could have turned back. She knew, because she’d desperately looked for the sign U-TURN ALLOWED HERE.
Or, more fittingly, I’D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU. Because she was the Cowardly Lion.
She glanced at Jasha, waiting for her in the shadows.
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