Kept (7 page)

Alex was far less reserved. In Russian, he spat back, “Watch your words if you value your tongue. Are you the man who owns his debt?”

“What if I am? Take your piss-poor honor back home, pup.” He sneered, revealing a single canine. In English, Roscoe said, “Grown men take care of their own moon debts.”

“I want to see my father,” I said.

Roscoe leaned forward, abandoning his computer game. “Do you know what it means to fulfill a moon debt,
devushka
?”

“I have an idea.” I also knew what a blood debt was, having recently had one on my own head for the death of another, but that had nothing to do with the problem at hand.

Thorn moved in front of me, but he couldn’t prevent Roscoe’s gaze from boring into me.

“A long time ago, when the Code was first being forged, men always paid their debts one week after the full moon, when they were fresh from the hunt and ready to fight. Since I saved your father’s life, he owes me such a debt.” Roscoe waited for me to speak, but when I didn’t he continued. “Have you ever been to Russia?”

He’d addressed the question to me, so I shook my head. He laughed at my frown, but I wasn’t ashamed.
Traveling overseas to visit my distant relatives wasn’t a cheap affair. The Code was also strictly enforced over there. That made it low on my places to visit.

“When I first encountered your father in Russia, he was a businessman who supported the White Army. I, on the other hand, supported the Bolsheviks and their noble revolution.”

Since Thorn was a bit of a history buff, I didn’t need to play the role of an encyclopedia and fill him in on the Russian Civil War of the late 1910s. When my dad drank a few too many beers with my uncles, he’d tell us stories of his work with the White Army. None of them included Roscoe. He evidently had never gotten
that
drunk.

“As we always did, the party went from house to house to rally support among the citizens of St. Petersburg. When my comrades and I arrived at the Stravinsky home, we found quite a surprise.” Roscoe grinned. “It was a shame we uncovered White Army propaganda there. A few guns as well. At first my comrades wanted to search the house peacefully, but Fyodor’s father, Gregor, didn’t have the sense to
give
us entry.”

“So you just waltzed inside, huh?”

Thorn’s chin twitched. I really should behave, but an asshole like Roscoe brought out the worst in me.

“Gregor was a proud man,
devushka
. Since he was a White Army sympathizer, we had to search the house. But your grandfather Gregor had to open his big mouth and get Fyodor in trouble.” Roscoe chuckled. “When the other men held your grandfather down and threatened to kill him, your father made a foolhardy move against my men. He attacked them. Very successfully, I may add.

“Somehow, perhaps due to the fact that Fyodor’s a survivor, he managed to escape and elude my men—until I caught him not far from the house. He begged for the
lives of his family, and I felt inclined to offer it since he promised to fulfill his moon debt when I was ready to call on it.”

“And what does he have to do?” Alex asked.

“That’s between Fyodor and me. But if you really want to know …” He smiled at me suggestively.

I rolled my eyes. The man had to be around my father’s age. Over a hundred and still horny for younger wolves. Good God. He took “dirty old man” to a new level.

“Stop checking out my goodies and tell us.”

Thorn’s head snapped in my direction. His expression warned me to shut up.

“Moon debts aren’t simple things,
devushka
. They require a sacrifice equivalent to the one made by the other person. I saved not only his life but his father’s and his ancestral home. Therefore, your father must do work for me before the end of this moon’s cycle.”

“Could you be more specific, please,” I mumbled. Why did some people feel the need to do this kind of stuff, drag things out all the time?

Roscoe continued. “Fyodor must first retrieve something that was stolen from me a long time ago. A family heirloom that was my great-grandmother’s. He needs to hurry before that piece-of-shit goblin dealer sells it off again. He’d trade my compact for one of those tires he loves so much.”

“ ‘First part’? You mean there’s more?” Alex asked. A faint buzz filled the air. The noise came from Alex’s leg. His phone. He ignored it and remained focused on Roscoe.

My first thought was that Dad wasn’t done. How could fetching an heirloom fulfill such a large debt?

“It should’ve been an easy in-and-out job. All he had to do was get me an antique compact case. He left
around dawn yesterday and hasn’t returned.” Roscoe grinned. “It’s too bad he won’t fulfill his debt to me in time. Especially since I have more for him to do.”

I rested my hands on my hips when Thorn shook his head. “A compact case? Even if it’s a Romanov dynasty heirloom, I doubt such a simple task could take care of his debt.”

Roscoe continued. “The case has a few trinkets hidden inside that I’m interested in. A few stones.”

Stones as in
precious
stones, I’m sure. “Is that it? It still doesn’t seem enough. What else does he have to do?” I asked.

Thorn gave me an exasperated look and then said to Roscoe, “When Fyodor returns, could you kindly tell him to call his son or daughter? They’re concerned for his safety.”

Roscoe was all smiles. “Of course! I wouldn’t want Fyodor’s family to be in the dark over the whole thing. Right now his life belongs to me, but he’ll be safe and sound with them when the debt’s all cleared.”

“Why are you hiding things from us?” I couldn’t resist advancing forward.

One of the guards closed in fast, grabbing my shoulder. Thorn growled, ready to fight, but Roscoe’s hand shot up.

“No member of the debtor’s family may be harmed in my presence!”
he thundered.

The tension in the room was thick enough to make it hard for me to breathe. The guard released me, keeping his eyes on Thorn.

Thorn took a step backward, pulling me with him—but Roscoe stopped him by offering a card. “There’s no need for us to part on such poor terms. My
associates
are rather protective of me.

“You might not be interested in a little spare cash right now, but you never know when a strong man like
yourself might want some. Or maybe in the future you’ll need an extra hand or two to keep your pack safe and sound?”

Thorn’s face was even. “I’ll be sure to think long and hard on it.”

Roscoe laughed. “I’m sure you will.”

Chapter 5

G
oblins
, like my boss, Bill, tended to keep to themselves. They even preferred not to work with other goblins—especially when it came to money. Bill always had his fist around a wad of cash, and he was paranoid about holding on to it.

The way he was always looking around outside and grumbling about how the older goblins made him pay a lot of money to keep The Bends open made it seem as though he was constantly under attack.

These little nuggets of information about goblins led me to where we needed to go to find out if Dad had met up with that black market dealer. Most goblins liked to sell their wares outside of the cities and along major roads, because the city was far too busy and cluttered with other supernaturals. The goblin black marketer we were looking for would most likely not operate in the city. If we wanted to find him, we’d have to follow our noses. For example, if he sold or collected rubber tires, I could find him easily enough. Rubber had a distinct scent. A bit overpowering, in fact. Of course, Google would provide enough information for me to locate all the tire distributors along the Expressway, but our noses would reveal the exact location of his place just as effectively, if not more so.

Before we could set out, though, we had to wait for Alex to finish talking on the phone.

“Are you sure, Heather?” he asked. “Does my mom know that my wife is in labor?” Heather was his wife’s former roommate—a fellow wood nymph.

While I did a little search on the Internet, I couldn’t help but overhear most of the conversation. As I listened, joy filled my heart … and dread soured my stomach. It was time for my brother to go home—he was going to be a father soon.

My gaze went to the window and the world beyond it. I could go back with him. A part of me didn’t want to be here to face this without my brother. Or be alone with Thorn. And for all we knew, my dad could already have obtained the compact and be heading back to Roscoe.

I sensed Thorn’s gaze on my back. He really hadn’t looked at me this way since we’d begun our trip. It was like a caress at the nape of my neck that swirled down my back.

I swallowed a bout of nervousness.

“It’s an hour drive,” Alex said, “but I’ll get there as soon as I can. I’ll rent a car.”

“No you won’t!” I piped in. “You’re borrowing my car. This is Atlantic City. If I can’t find a rental to use, then this tourist trap isn’t doing its job properly.”

So, it was settled. And hopefully in a few hours I’d be an aunt.

We all left the hotel at the same time. Not that I couldn’t tolerate being in a room alone with Thorn, but due to everything that’d happened with my father, I was as jittery as a newborn pup. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen Thorn lately. I’d seen him the other morning at the track, certainly. But today something was different. As we walked to pick up my car from valet parking, I sensed a change inside me. I was looking forward to being alone with Thorn. I had so many things to ask him since the
battle with the Long Island werewolves. Most were about that night, when he’d saved me from the pack leader. What had happened to him?

“You got plans to get in the car, Nat?” Alex’s tone was persistent.

I’d drifted off again. It was all too easy with Thorn, my father, and my brother’s new baby weighing on my mind. This whole situation was an information overload.

Not more than thirty minutes later, even in the middle of night, Alex had driven off in my car and we had a rental. An SUV. Not my first choice, but Thorn had haggled me out of a nice little four-door vehicle.

“Do you seriously want to do a getaway in that?”

“What’s wrong with a Honda?”

He sighed. “If something goes wrong, I’m not making a run for it in a Honda Fit.”

I laughed. “Have you seen the gas prices around here? In the city?”

He got into the driver’s side of the SUV and sighed. “It’s the principle of the matter. You wouldn’t get it.”

Thankfully, I did get my way in one regard. I got my leather seats. Cloth seats weren’t the easiest to clean, so if I had to ride in a rental, I made sure it had leather seats. Easy to wipe off with an antibacterial wipe. Still, the leather seats in the SUV had a strange smell, as if the rental company hadn’t cleaned them very well, or often enough.

“You need help?” he asked.

As I cleaned the head support I mumbled, “No, I’m good.”

He didn’t hurry me, simply checked the stations on the radio until he found a mellow jazz one. Quite nice.

“You still like to listen to Miles Davis before bed?” he asked.

The question came out of nowhere, making me halt my cleaning. “I’m more into John Coltrane now. The local station turned me on to him. He’s really good with the tenor saxophone.”

I finished my work and settled into my seat. We had a few possibilities in mind for the location of the goblin’s market, so I sat back and kept my eyes on the well-lit road.

Questions bubbled in my mind while the music played. Why
did
Thorn come here with us? Why not let us find Dad and settle this debt on our own? Since he belonged to Erica now, he had no business helping my family—yet here he was—with me, all alone. Was it friendship or did he still care for me?

The soft lilt of the sax and drum set pulled me in and pushed my mind away from my troubles. I think that’s why I’ve always preferred jazz music. Especially when I was a kid. My aunt Vera loves jazz music and used to play it whenever we ate dinner at her house. Since my mom’s food is far better, and she loves cooking and serving it, I could pretty much count on one hand how many dinners I’d had at Vera’s house. But the exposure was enough to teach me the greats of jazz and harness their soothing effects on my anxiety.

“You never answered my question,” Thorn said. “Do you still listen to Miles Davis before bed?”

My mouth went as dry as my lips. The question brought about memories I’d buried deep and only retrieved on my loneliest of days. Us naked, with limbs intertwined. His fingertips lazily drawing figure eights along my clavicle bone. My soft sighs as his hands drifted over the tips of my breasts. All the while, in the background, a haunting trumpet would play, its horn lulling me to sleep with the promise of a sweet dream next to Thorn.

My voice was jittery when I spoke. “Once in a while I do.”

“I still do, too.”

I was glad I was facing the window and he couldn’t see my face flush with heat. My body was most likely betraying my feelings. It was something wolves couldn’t hide from each other: the quickened breath, the heated skin. But I refused to look at him and acknowledge what he’d severed when he left me five years ago. It was plain and simple. We were simply friends now—maybe even something less than that if I ever managed to stomp my raging hormones into the dirt.

To violently stab and bury my libido as quickly as possible, I asked, “Does Erica like jazz music?”

Thorn laughed. “She’s educated and all, but her idea of music, whether classical or modern, is a pop video with dancers gyrating.”

I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t that what guys like? Buckets of breasts and thighs shaking like they’re fresh out of the oven from Kentucky Fried Chicken?”

We’d finally left the city and were now driving westward along Highway 30. We’d hit the first place pretty soon.

Thorn continued. “Not every man needs to see that kind of thing to be entertained.”

“Oh, c’mon. You can’t tell me you don’t like watching scantily clad women doing a stripper-pole dance in what
someone
would call a music video.”