Rivals and Retribution (17 page)

And our confidence.

We opened a door.

Wanda’s park sprawled out before us, her statues rearranged on the other side of the fountain, the gold man toppled and overgrown with vines that choked it.

Things had gone badly between them.

We skirted the statues and the sky darkened, thunder rolling in the sky above. “I need to hurry. Her defenses have improved since last time.”

“Don’t worry—just plant the seed and get out.”

We dug into our pocket and withdrew a seed the size of a peach pit. Across its surface a word shimmered.
Distrust
. We rolled it over in our palm as we knelt in the soft grass, our fingers digging into the moist and fertile dirt of Wanda’s subconscious. And as we dropped it into the hole and sealed it back up, I noticed the word
Betray
glisten across its other side.

We stood, stepped back, and then spread our dirty fingers wide, our hands stretched out above the place where the seed rested.

“Concentrate,” Mommy urged.

The ground trembled beneath our feet and we nearly lost our balance as up through the ground a tree sprouted, dark and twisted, gnarled and thorny and covered with leaves that each bore a single word.
Hate
.
Worry
.
Fear
. They lined the branches and writhed in the growing wind.

“Now get out,” Mommy urged. “The seed is planted and it’s taken root. Get out.”

We laughed.

And we ran as fast as we could as part of Wanda’s world began to fall down around us.

“I’ve got her.” Someone shook my shoulders. “Jessie. Jessie! Wake up or … snap out of it…” Someone patted my cheek, and I opened my eyes against the glare of sunlight bouncing off snow and ice.

My head throbbed. “Oh. God.” I squinted up. Someone stood in the sun’s direct path to block it and throw me in merciful shadow. Amy.

“What the hell was that all about?” she demanded.

I grunted. “Did I just make with the drama?”

“Hell, yes.” She stomped. “We’re driving up here and all of a sudden you flop to the ground like a rag doll. What was that all about?”

I swallowed. “Can we not talk about it right now?” I asked, sliding my gaze to Max as he rose and set me on my feet.

She looked at him, too, and the color that usually filled her face drained away leaving nothing but a scattering of freckles and the barest hint of windburn. “Fine,” she whispered. “We’ll talk later.”

“Great,” I muttered. “Let’s just get going, okay? I think I’d better have a chat with Alexi.”

Max’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded, his hand hot on the small of my back as he guided me to the car and watched with particular interest as I buckled my seat belt. “Is there something I should know?” he finally asked as he started the car up and adjusted the mirrors to begin backing down my driveway.

“No,” I insisted. Too quickly.

He nodded. “I thought so.” He rolled his lips together in thought. “I can handle keeping a secret. I used to keep a pretty big one just to seem normal—just to survive.”

“I know. It’s nothing,” I assured him. “Maybe it’s a secret that would do more damage if it gets out and won’t be a problem at all if it doesn’t.”

“Looks like it’s a problem already whether you talk about it or not,” Max stated.

“Don’t you have any secrets now?”

He refocused his gaze. “Fine. I’ll leave it alone,” he assured me.

But the way he said it, the way he reacted, made me wonder just what secret he was keeping from me, and something twisted in my gut at the thought.

*   *   *

“Are you certain you’ll be able to handle this?” Max asked grimly as we pulled into their driveway. The Queen Anne was stark against the gray sky.

“I’m fine,” I insisted, pulling my coat tightly around me and adjusting my scarf and hat. “It was nothing.”

“Right,” he responded dryly. “Collapsing onto the ground all of a sudden is absolutely normal.” Max was thinking. Hard.

“No, Max,” I said firmly. “No. Absolutely not. I know what you’re thinking, and no. You may not tell Pietr what happened.”

He grunted.

“Promise me, Max.” But my heart sped up. What if a promise didn’t mean as much to Max as it did to Pietr? To Pietr, a promise was the ultimate oath. He’d rather die than break a promise. But Max … “Promise me.”

He waved a hand in my direction, and it did nothing to slow the pace of my heart. “Fine. I promise. I won’t tell Pietr what happened.”

I examined his words in my head. It seemed like a solid promise. “Thank you,” I said with a sigh. “Okay, here we go,” I said, opening my door and letting winter tug at me.

Together we headed into the house. Pietr, Cat, and Alexi were there, standing in the foyer. Pietr grabbed me immediately and pulled me into his arms, pressing me snug to his body and pushing his nose to the edge of my ear where my hair was escaping from beneath my knit hat.
“Allo,”
he said, his breath hot and fierce in my ear.

My legs trembled and I locked my knees in defense against my body’s immediate betrayal. “Hello, Pietr,” I whispered back, stretching up to get my lips closer to his ear.

Max cleared his throat. “Still in the foyer,” he pointed out.

I slipped away from Pietr’s grasp, blushing.

Pietr glanced at Max, one eyebrow rising in challenge. “We can correct the oversight of our location,” he mentioned, glancing from me to the top of the stairs behind him. Toward his room.

Amy snickered.

I peeled off my hat, coat, and scarf and shook my head. “Quit it, you two,” I said, handing my things to Pietr to hang for me. “We have things to get ready for.”

“Guests,” Alexi said.

“And we’re putting them—”

“Downstairs,” Cat responded. “It will be easy.”

“Easy. Right. That’s exactly what I was hoping for when I headed here this morning—making things easy on an incoming wolf pack,” I muttered.

Pietr grabbed my hand and tugged me back toward him. “Come with me,” he said, “while we still have time in a not so very crowded house.”

I nodded and let him draw me up the stairs and to the quiet solitude of his room.

The door clicked shut behind us and we tumbled onto the bed together, a knot of arms and legs, kissing each other eagerly.

“I missed you,” I admitted, panting as his lips grazed my neck.

“I didn’t go anywhere,” he whispered back, rolling me beneath him. His hair fell into my face, and I giggled and brushed it back only to watch it fall forward again.

“You did,” I argued. “It was like this part of you…” I brushed a finger along the heated power of his lips, “was gone. Tucked away.”

“I was not myself?” he asked, kissing along my jawline.

“You…” But I couldn’t agree because of what that meant. If Pietr wasn’t himself when he was cured, would he ever take a cure again? “You were still you, just dialed back a bit,” I whispered. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.
Pocelujte menyah
. Kiss me, Pietr.”

He rested his hips on mine, pinning my legs beneath him and kissing me with a heat I’d thought we’d both forgotten. Pietr had his passion back, and Alexi was working with Wondermann—maybe a real cure could still be created. Maybe we could have it all.

We were still in love as much as ever.

His lips on mine, our breath mixing, I was
invincible
.

He rolled away from the wanderings of my eager hands and propped himself up on an elbow, looking at me.

“We should take it easy, shouldn’t we?” I asked, scrunching up my nose.

“
Da,
” he answered. “I am not—prepared,” he said with a shrug, and I knew he meant he didn’t have protection. “And we cannot afford any accidents.”

“Yeah. I can’t risk getting pregnant,” I agreed. “Dad would eventually realize we’ve had sex.”

Pietr chuckled, the noise rising from deep in his stomach, tumbling past the place his growling accent lived and making everything inside of me quiver.

“Besides,” I said, trying to steady my breathing, “I’m
so
not ready for kids. Not yet.”

“Not ever,” he said firmly.

“Really?” I straightened and pulled myself up to sit there, looking down at him, realizing in my furthest daydreams, those ones that stretched out a decade ahead of us, I’d imagined us married with kids. I hadn’t spent much time on those fantasies, especially when it seemed my most important fantasy would be that both of us lived that long. But they’d seemed right. Normal. My parents were married. They’d had two kids and a very happy life together. Until the car crash killed Mom.

“No children.
Ever
?” I clarified.

“
Nyet
. No children. Ever,” he confirmed. “Think about it, Jess. If you had a disease—something you knew would kill or cripple someone—would you pass it on?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not.”

“My life span is incredibly short. What sort of parent would I be to force that—and these changes—on my offspring? What sort of parent would I be knowing I created a child and would leave it early? Abandon it?”

“But, Pietr, our children would be a
mix
of our blood—our DNA. They would have a very good chance at a longer life span,” I insisted. “And our children—our
hypothetical
children—” I stressed, “would not be abandoned. They would still have me.”

“I would never burden you with a child of my kind.”

“A child of your
kind
 … What exactly does that mean? Beautiful, intelligent, caring? Oh, yeah. What a burden
that
would be.”

“An
oborot
. An abomination.”

“Holy crap, Pietr. Quit it. You aren’t a monster. You’re a man—a good one. Yes, you’ve made mistakes and have some weird genes, but every so often in my dad’s family line there’s a kid with mismatched eyes, and on Mom’s side there’s an albino great-aunt. So you bring werewolves into the mix.” I climbed off the bed, frustrated. “Stop torturing yourself,” I snapped. “There are plenty of people standing in line ready to torture you instead.”

I adjusted my top and checked my hair. Slamming the door behind me, I hurried down the stairs.

Cat looked up at me as I entered the kitchen. “Not the best of talks?” she asked mildly.

Horror forced my eyes wide.

“Do not glare at me, Jessie. Can you blame him for taking a hard line about children?”

“Wha—”

“Honestly, you seem so observant most times.” She jabbed a spoon toward the ceiling. “Heating grate,” she pointed out. “
Allo,
Pietr!” she called.

To which he responded with something very angry sounding. In Russian.

“Language!” she snapped toward the grate.

Pietr stomped in anger.

“You two are a perfect match. Headstrong and teetering just between self-involved and self-sacrificing. If you can both find your balance, you will be wonderful together.”

A knock at the door made me jump, and Cat said, “We have guests!”

“Wonderful,” I muttered, joining the others in the foyer to watch the door as the rest of the pack members climbed the stairs and approached the house.

Alexi

I decided to greet everyone at the door like a proper host (or an alpha). Marlaena wisely let Gareth take the lead and do the introductions. The pups were gracious and curious, their eyes still wide from seeing the outside of the house. In truth, it was a relatively standard Queen Anne, though I would never claim it to be modest. It was simply the standard home built for its time.

Squeezing into our foyer, one of them closed the door behind them.

“Wait,” I said, looking out the lacy curtain that fluttered against the door’s window. “Was there not someone else with you?”

The pack members looked at one another and then back to me. “No,” Marlaena said. “This is all of us.”

“Oh. I thought there was someone else.…”

Gareth glanced out the window. “There’s no one there now. And we would have smelled the only missing members of our pack.”

“Or any other troublemaker,” Marlaena added, sharing a nod with Gareth.

I presumed they meant Dmitri, the troublemaker who had landed them in this predicament.

“Where’s Pietr?” one of the blond girls asked. Londyn or Jordyn—I could not yet tell them apart.

I stopped myself from saying anything and, instead, looked at Jessie.

She shrugged at me.

“I do not know at the moment,” I admitted. “It appears he has thrown us to the wolves.” I winked at her.

She rolled her eyes.

Cat slid in between us, her eyes kind but crisp with challenge. “I think it is best if we move all of Amy’s things into Max’s room and give your pack the basement. It is not the most comfortable location,” she said almost apologetically, “but it will allow you all to stay together in one place.”

Gareth nodded. “We appreciate that consideration,” he said.

Marlaena just eyed Cat. “And no one knows where Pietr is?” she asked.

Cat and I exchanged a glance. Whereas the blond girl’s question had seemed offhanded, Marlaena’s sounded more calculated.

Jessie asked what we ourselves were wondering in silence. “Why should it matter to you?”

Marlaena raised an eyebrow, as if talking to Jessie was somehow belittling.

Max coughed to draw attention to himself and away from the smackdown that was preparing to happen in our foyer.
Da
, this would be no trouble at all.

“Alphas like to be aware of the locations of other alphas. You wouldn’t understand,” she said in dismissal.

“Oh, I wouldn’t, would I?” Jessie asked, stepping closer.

Marlaena straightened her back.

So did Jessie.

Gareth’s hand came down on Marlaena’s shoulder, but that didn’t turn her attention from Jessie at all. If anything, it focused her intensity to laser hot.

“Here,” Pietr called from the top of the stairs, verbally stepping between the girls before they squared off in the foyer below. “I am here.” His eyes first found Jessie and he smiled, but his expression changed—subtly, but still a change—and his gaze was drawn as if by magnet to Marlaena.

Jessie