Rivals and Retribution (20 page)

Jessie poked him in the shoulder. “You’re allowed to be tired,
da,
” she teased. “But not cranky.”

“It is good to know,” he said.

“Let’s find you something to eat, okay?”

“That sounds like a wonderful plan,” Pietr confirmed.

Wrapping her arm around his waist, Jessie towed him toward the kitchen, the rest of us following.

Except for Marlaena.

“I’ll go check on Gareth,” she said, but no one listened because no one cared.

Jessie

“Was it hard—fighting Gabe?” I asked him.

He rolled over to look at me, his eyes clouded with memory. “It was harder to stop.” He flopped onto his back, one arm tucked beneath his head as he stared up at his ceiling so he didn’t need to meet my eyes.

“But you
did
stop,” I reminded him. “You could have … killed him?”

“Da.”
His voice was deep and hoarse. Strained. “I wanted to. He took you from me. He nearly had you killed.”

I puffed out a breath. “But don’t forget, Marlaena’s the one who almost did the killing.”

“So what would you have me do?” he asked, his tone going flat and nearly mechanical.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, setting my hand on his chest so I could feel his heart beat beneath my palm. His heart in my hand … I sighed. That’s what I wanted. To hold his heart. “Just don’t…”

He sat up to look at me, pinning my hand to his chest like he was worried it would leave. “Don’t what?”

Don’t forgive her? Don’t look at her that way? Don’t … don’t what? I shook my head. “Just don’t let me go,” I whispered, sliding my hand free of his so I could lean my head on that space instead.

“Never,” he whispered. “Never.” He leaned back again, taking me with him, and I dozed off like that, his heart racing in my head.

*   *   *

I woke to Pietr dozing beside me and slipped off the bed, out the door, and down the steps. I headed for Alexi’s room, but hearing movement in the dining room I turned that direction instead.

Alexi was at the table, staring at his cell phone and tapping a pack of cigarettes.

He froze when he heard me.

“What’s this?” I asked, pointing with my chin.

“Cell phone,” he said, holding it up for me to see.

“No, jackass. I meant the cigarettes.”

“If you knew they were cigarettes, why ask?”

I pulled out the seat beside him and sat down. “You know what I mean.” I poked the cigarettes. “Was it so bad tonight? Fighting Gabe?”

“
Nyet
.” He spun the pack, watching it solemnly. “It has nothing to do with Gabriel. Or the fight.”

I noticed the phone again. “Oh.”

The pack of cigarettes was still unopened, and I certainly didn’t want to be the one to ask the question that would make him want to chain-smoke every one of them, but it was a question that needed to be asked. It was the question that was keeping him up at night. “How is Nadezhda?”

“Happier without me.”

“Oh. Did you two—”

“Break up?
Nyet
. I never said the words to make us have anything
to
break up. I was such a coward. I never said…”

A long sigh escaped me like I had developed a sudden leak. “You never told her you loved her?”

“Nyet.”

“And how do you know she’s not available anymore?”

“She is working with a male partner.”

“But—”

“With whom she seems to be on quite familiar terms.”

“Oh. Could it be a cover story?”

“It is far more fact than fiction, I am afraid.”

“How do you know? Did you ask?”

“Some things you just know.”

“Holy crap, Batman. If you didn’t ask, then you can’t know. You’re assuming something’s going on. At least ask the question. At least find out if she’s available or not. What if all this time she’s been waiting on you and you never even take a chance?”

“Our lives are more complicated than that,” Alexi said, turning the phone facedown.

“Don’t make me call her. I do a lousy impression of you.”

The ends of his mouth tipped up in a smile. “I will bear that in mind. Perhaps I will call.”

I punched the sky.

“Perhaps. Later.”

“You really know how to bring a girl down,” I pouted.

“Evidently,” he quipped. “You came down the stairs to talk with me already,
da?
”

“
Such
a pain.” I tapped a finger on the table. “You know how you told me how I should immediately let you know if I experienced any weirdness after the Derek thing?”

“
Da
. Oddly, I know exactly what you’re talking about. Should I wish I had skipped the cigarettes and gone straight to the liquor store instead?” he asked.

“You aren’t going to smoke those,” I said.

“
Nyet,
I am not,” he agreed.

“And you aren’t going to start swilling vodka again, either.”

“You seem to know me quite well. Have I become so predictable?”

“Not predictable, just … more understandable. You can keep your props, but I will rat you out to Cat if I even
suspect
you’re about to indulge.”

He snorted at me. “I will bear that in mind, too. I remember telling you to immediately report any strange symptoms.”

“Well, I didn’t follow your instructions.”

“And…”

“That was not my smartest move,” I admitted. “We need to talk.”

“So continue.”

Alexi

As glad as I was that Derek was dead, hearing Jessie explain what she had been dealing with these past few weeks, with him in her head, made me very aware physical death hadn’t even stopped Derek’s incredibly awful powers.

“We need to get him out of your head.”

“Do you know how to?”

“Not yet. But I will. Has he—”

“What?”

“Has he managed to gain control of you?”

“No. Could he?”

“I do not know. But I need you to be careful. If he’s letting you in that close … You’re blending with what’s left of him.”

“You can’t tell Pietr. Or Max. Not anyone, you understand?”

“As long as you aren’t a danger to anyone—yourself included.…”

“I can handle it,” Jessie promised. “Don’t worry. But”—Jessie stared at me with all the ferocity she could muster—“don’t tell either.”

“That much, I can handle.”

She leaned over and gave me a hug and then walked quietly back up the stairs to slip back into Pietr’s bed again to wait for morning.

Jessie

Gareth handled the pups’ paperwork and they were enrolled in school at Junction High. With so many werewolves roaming the halls I became even more of a nervous wreck. I was only starting to know each of them and guess who might get into trouble and who wanted a real fresh start.

With Gabriel not even daring to sniff around the school grounds and Marlaena too old to be enrolled (and far from having any interest in any form of formal education), the pups were not as difficult as I feared.

In fact, they seemed eager for some guidance.

So I did for them what I had done for Pietr: I toured them around the school and gave them some advice.

And I didn’t do to them what I had first done to Pietr: I never tried to slam a door in any of their faces, and I never tried to ditch them at lunch or race them to a classroom.

They would have caught me, anyhow.

I had learned some lessons at least, it seemed.

Alexi

I returned to Wondermann’s lab in the city, knowing Jessie, Cat, and Amy had things well in hand back at the Queen Anne. Well, at least Cat and Amy had things well in hand. Jessie’s battle with her newest inner demon—Derek—had me worried, but, with any luck and a good bit of skill, I might find a way to exorcise him from all the girls.

“Back on the job, I see,” Wondermann said in his snide way.

I paused, pouring a new solution into a thistle tube, and gave him a sideways glance. “
Da
. I had urgent family issues to attend to.”

“Aren’t all family issues of the urgent variety?” he asked, picking up a beaker.

“Please do not touch that,” I asked, taking it out of his hands and returning to the thistle tube.

“I’ve been thinking about our deal.”

I straightened the smallest bit, hearing something like a threat crawling in his tone. “Oh?”

“Yes. Oh. It occurs to me that I have waited on werewolves for most of my life now. And although I am no longer what I would consider a young man, I am by no means old. Although your research and experimentation will surely speed the process, it might be more in my interest to reintroduce the supplement in the children’s food.”

I set the tube back in its rack and looked at him. “That would be unwise.”

“And just why would that be such a problem? It allows me to regain my lab space, get some additional research in the field, and return some of my lab equipment to my other programs.”

“We had a deal.”

“You sound disappointed. Disillusioned. If you say, ‘But you promised,’ I will laugh.”

“Why now?” I asked, turning to fully face him.

“I’m bored with this. If I thought you were making significant progress, maybe the entertainment value would make this more worth continuing. But…” He looked at the assortment of vials and beakers. “You are no closer to a permanent cure than you were when we started this charade, are you?”

I glared at him. “I am closer.”

He waved his hand at me. “Your services are no longer needed. Our deal is off. Clean up your things.”

He turned and left the room, and I stared at the reaction going on in the test tube. “I
am
close. Damn it.”

I stalked through the lab, dropping folders on the floor and kicking cabinets.

“Why? Why now?” I paced. “What has changed?” I raked a hand through my hair and wished I had the pack of cigarettes with me. “I need coffee. Coffee,” I muttered, leaving the lab. I went down the hall and turned into the modest room where the coffeemaker perked along most of the day. My hands shaking, I poured myself a cup.

It smelled awful and tasted worse. But I drank it and I thought. Something had changed. A new asset was in play. They had something. Something new. Something that would allow them to make and test a cure without my involvement.

They had a werewolf.

And I needed to find out where Terra was.

Marlaena

Even standing on the back porch in the whistling wind I heard them down the hill in the wood lot behind the Rusakovas’ house. Max and Pietr had just begun an early evening run.

They were hunting.

I itched to join them like I’d never wanted to join anyone before.

The pups were all being obedient, either watching a last bit of television, reading some book Jessica’s sister had brought over for them, or showering on their way to bed—it was a school night and I was trying to be a positive influence. Gareth, Tembe, and Judith had split to do their running, Gareth keeping his nose to the ground in hopes of catching a whiff of Terra.

He had stood in the foyer, watching me as I watched them head to the back door, and had taken my hand in his own and smiled gently at me, saying, “Come run with me. The stars are out, the powder is fresh, the moon is bright. It is the perfect night for a hunt.”

And it was the perfect night for a hunt. So why was I so torn? So desperate to hunt with a pack that wanted none of me?

Why did I want to race alongside Pietr with my snout sucking down equal amounts of the wind and Pietr’s scent?

Gareth had finally left me there, standing in the foyer, planting a quick kiss on my forehead.

I wanted to turn and kiss him back—my brain demanded it. But my heart was beating as if it would explode if I even touched him, so I stood perfectly still, my eyes closed, and I let the moment pass.

Something dark inside me whispered that Gareth wasn’t supposed to be mine no matter how much I wanted him to be.

And the
want
I felt for Gareth, the lingering ghost of something that might have been love for the best thing I’d ever stumbled into in my entire pathetic life was eclipsed by a bizarre
need
—like a hunger eating my heart out and making ribbons of my guts—that I felt every time I saw Pietr. Or smelled Pietr.

Or thought about Pietr.

But this thing burning inside me and making the wolf seem cool and distant beside it—this thing was like destiny. Inescapable. And, like destiny, I had no love of this need, either.

Alexi

She had to be here somewhere. Down some hallway, tucked into some room hidden away from most of the employees and yet close enough to the labs to make samples fresh and easy to obtain.

I jogged down hall after hall, waved at the employees and muttered things about coffee getting to my nerves, and kept going. No one stopped me because they were all employees of Wondermann, which by definition meant they had seen far stranger things than a Russian-American scientist jogging off a burst of caffeine.

Down one hall I found it. A small room with a single armed guard standing outside, unlike any other door on any level but the penthouse, where occasionally Wondermann’s personal guards strode the area for his own safety.

Before the guard saw me, I got a good look at him and turned back around, making a beeline back to the coffee machine. I returned in a few minutes, holding a cup for myself and one for the man who would become my new best friend.

“
Allo,
” I greeted. “Long day, huh?”

He looked at me, examining everything about me. “Decided to take a break from the lab?”

“
Da,
I had to get out of there for a little while. Numbers are swimming in my head. Coffee?” I offered him a cup.

Hesitantly he accepted the cup, though he did not drink but just watched me.

“So. You’re the only guard I have noticed here—other than in the lobby or the penthouse. Do you have some fascinating secret you are guarding?”

He snorted. “No secret. Just a punk-ass kid caught sneaking around the offices. CIA told us to hold her until they send someone up from DC.”