Heart of the Wolf (2 page)

Chapter Two

Renjiro Roesner let the heavy door slam behind him, closing off the chatty bottle blonde next door who was fresh off her third divorce and already trolling for hubby number four. Not in this lifetime. He shrugged off his heavy topcoat and threw it over the back of the sofa, pausing only long enough to grab the remote and click on the television as he headed for the refrigerator and a beer. The local news anchors blared out their cheerful recitation of murder, mayhem, and corrupt politicians, as he twisted off the cap and sucked down a long draught of the dark brew.

What the hell was he doing in this fucking city?

He grabbed the folder of takeout menus left for him by the leasing agent and stepped out of his Ferragamo loafers, making a note to himself to wear boots tomorrow. It had already started to snow by the time the taxi dropped him off tonight. He couldn’t remember if it usually snowed this time of year around here. He’d been gone a long time.

He wandered into the living room as the news program shifted away from its token feel-good report and returned to a rehash of the city’s latest outrage. Some widow had been shot at during her husband’s funeral, for Christ’s sake.

Was there no decency left in the world?

He shrugged.

What the humans did to one another wasn’t his problem.
His
problem was trying to find out why his Alpha had suddenly called him back to the
U.S.
from
Europe
after so many years. Not that he’d wasted his time over there. The European wolves had been in disarray since the last war, and there’d been plenty of opportunities for an enterprising dominant like Renjiro to make a name for himself. But despite his long absence, he was still nominally a member of the North American clan—he’d never changed his allegiance—and when his Alpha called, he had to come.

He sighed and turned his attention back to the menus, trying to decide what to order for dinner. The Italian was out of the question. There was no way it could measure up to what he was used to. And his Japanese mother would never forgive him if he ordered takeout sashimi.

On-screen, the news program had switched to a live feed from outside police headquarters where a reporter was breathlessly informing the audience that several days after the funeral shooting, the police remained stymied. Ren glanced up as footage of the incident itself began to roll. A windy hillside cemetery, great view of the harbor—what was the point of planting the dead with a great view, anyway? Who was supposed to enjoy it?

The video rolled on showing the usual assortment of black-clothed mourners.

Must be some money in that crowd, he thought. Lots of designer duds.

The picture jumped to the money shot, the silver-haired widow being escorted away from the graveside by a big gorilla of a bodyguard, when, suddenly, everyone was hitting the deck and screaming. More screaming than hitting the deck, he noticed, except for the widow and her gorilla, who were sensibly on the ground.

He frowned, playing the scene back in his head. Something about it wasn’t quite right, although he couldn’t put his finger on what. The footage was still playing as the apparently unharmed widow, barely visible behind the bulk of the bodyguard, was hustled off the ground into the safety of the limo. Ren tilted his head back to drain the last of his beer as he watched.

The cameraman got lucky at the last minute and caught a clear shot of the widow’s face.

Ren suddenly forgot to swallow. Beer rolled down his throat, nearly choking him as the bottle fell to the thick carpet. He scrambled for the remote, trying to remember where he’d thrown the damn thing on his way to the kitchen. He finally found it against the back of the couch and slammed his shin into the table diving for it. He swore viciously as his fingers found the control and hit rewind. Images blurred backward, and he silently blessed the redhead at the electronics store who’d convinced him to get TiVo along with his satellite package. He’d thought it a waste of money. He didn’t plan to be around that much. But she’d been a pretty, little thing, and he’d been thinking of the empty nights in this damn city.

He froze the playback on that single, clear frame of the widow.

Kathryn. He stared hungrily at the elegant lines of her face, the graceful curve of her jaw, the upper lip slightly too full for perfection. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of huge, dark glasses, but he knew they’d be storm gray with emotion, just as he knew they sparkled with lightning when she was angry or when she laughed. Her silver hair was cut brutally short. It had been long when he’d seen her last, thick and full and hanging down her back in a glistening waterfall.

He stared, forgetting to breathe. Damn. How long had it been? Ten years? It felt more like ten lifetimes. She looked the same, but then she would. Ten years was nothing to their kind.

He sat down heavily and played the footage again, listening to the details, the announcer’s voice-over suitably somber but with a trill of excitement he couldn’t hide.

The dead man was Preston Avinger, Kathryn’s husband—billionaire investor, patron of the arts, friend to politicians, all the usual accoutrements of wealth, and eighty-two years old at the time of his death. Kathryn was twenty-eight, and she’d been Avinger’s wife for ten years. Almost as long as Ren had been gone. Exiled.

A memory struck him suddenly, so bright and sharp, it was a blade slipping through his ribs to slice his heart. Kathryn, eighteen years old and beautiful. Her silver fur gleaming in the light of the full moon, her form a vision of sheer, elegant grace as she ran through the forests of Clanhome.

Her father, Dominick Bartek, Alpha to the wolves of
North America
, had promised her to Ren and then sent him away so he could give her to the wealthy human instead. Ren’s beautiful Kathryn, shackled to a human more than fifty years her senior. It was the reason Ren hadn’t fought Dom about staying in
Europe
. There’d been nothing left for him here but memories. That, and an anger so deep he couldn’t be in the same room with his Alpha without wanting to kill him.

Ren rolled the report back to the beginning once again, turning off the irritating announcer’s voice and watching the scene unfold in silence. So Kathryn’s husband was dead. Suddenly, it all made sense, and Ren knew why he had been called back to this fucking city.

* * * *

His phone rang ten minutes later while he was still staring at Kathryn’s face like a lovesick schoolboy. He’d played the few minutes of the attack over and over, cursing the television station for their clumsy editing and wishing he’d been in town long enough to have a single decent contact with a news organization or even the cops.

He picked up the phone.

“Roesner,” he snapped. He froze at the sound of Dom’s voice, lips curling back over his teeth in anger, barely managing to swallow the growl trying to force its way up his throat. “Yes, sir,” he rasped. “I saw it on the news.”

His rage only grew as he listened to what the Alpha had to say. “I’ll take care of it,” he snarled and heard the line go to dead air.

He stared at the empty phone for several minutes, then threw it across the room. “Son of a bitch!”

He wanted to put his fist through something, preferably Dom’s face. But he settled for dropping to the sofa and running both hands through his thick, black hair. He didn’t know how Kathryn felt about him anymore. He was no longer certain he ever had. But he knew one thing for sure. She would not be happy to see him again.

He stood up, retrieved the remarkably undamaged phone, and placed a call.

“This is Roesner. You know who I am?” The person on the other end, someone he’d never met before, agreed that he did indeed know and had expected the call.

“Great.” Ren heard the bitterness in his own voice and banished it. This was business. And he was very good at his business.

“I’ll want to visit the scene, but first—” The other man interrupted to say something. Ren waited and then continued as if the other hadn’t spoken. “I’ll need to see Mrs. Avinger. Alone.”

Chapter Three

Kathryn stood in front of the huge picture window behind
Preston
’s desk and watched the snow falling outside the penthouse apartment. This high up, the winds were erratic. Every once in a while, a few flakes would drift against the glass, where they would cling for a few precious seconds before melting away, sliding ignominiously down the slick surface to become nothing more than one more drop of moisture on a wet day.

She pressed her hand against the window, but the glass was thick and double paned. Nothing so crude as cold weather was allowed to enter Preston Avinger’s inner sanctum. Hers now. All of this was hers. The penthouse apartment, the vacation homes around the globe, and more investments than she could reasonably count. And God knew she’d earned it. Every penny.

Footsteps echoed down the marble hallway, and Kathryn identified her housekeeper’s featherweight followed by Tommy’s heavy tread.

Behind her, the door opened softly. “Mrs. Avinger?”

“Yes, Marla?” Kathryn turned away from the window.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but there’s someone here from the police. He wants to speak with you.”

More questions? She’d spoken to so many policemen and detectives and even the commissioner himself since the funeral. Every one of them had asked her the same questions over and over. And she’d given them the same answers. She had no idea who would want to kill her.

“Can’t it wait?” She said it wistfully, knowing what the answer would be.

Marla glanced over her shoulder at Tommy, then turned and took several steps into the room. “He says it’s important,” she said softly, her hands twisting together in agitation. “Someone’s got to help you, and he’s different than the others.”

“Different? How?” Kathryn looked at Tommy, but he shrugged.

“I don’t know exactly,” Marla said. “He’s more intense, frightening almost. But Tommy checked, and the officer downstairs says he’s cleared to see you.”

Kathryn lifted her gaze over Marla’s shoulder, wishing she could see through the walls to the penthouse’s small vestibule.

“Kathryn,” Tommy said urgently, but she shushed him gently.

“All right, Marla. Let him in.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the housekeeper said. “Shall I bring coffee? Or tea?” Behind her, Tommy shook his head in disapproval, but Kathryn shot him a reproving look and smiled at Marla.

“Let’s wait and see,” she said.

* * * *

Kathryn stiffened, her gaze going to the door, eyes wide with shock. She’d known it was a wolf the minute he turned down the hallway and had expected one of her father’s men, but she hadn’t expected this.

He filled the open space, towering over Marla like some ancient god of vengeance in an Armani suit. He looked exactly the same as he had all those years ago—a big man with the golden skin of his Japanese mother, straight black hair cut to a blunt edge right above his collar and pushed ruthlessly behind his ears. His father’s blood was in the slight rounding of the black eyes, the aquiline nose, in his height and the breadth of his shoulders.

Renjiro Roesner—her first love, her last, her only. He had disappeared from Clanhome without warning, leaving no note, no word for her, the girl he’d claimed to love. Two weeks later, she was married to Preston Avinger. Seeing him now resurrected too many feelings she wanted to forget, and every one of them hurt like hell.

“Kathryn.” His voice was a low rumble, tight with stress. He stared at her hungrily and yet his gaze kept shifting to Tommy, who drifted ever closer to Kathryn’s side, his body language clearly saying he saw this newcomer as a threat.

“Tommy,” Kathryn said quietly. She understood Ren’s dilemma. He was a wolf, and she was an unmated female among humans, strangers, at least to Ren. His instincts would be screaming at him to protect her. As much as she wanted to reject it, to insist it had nothing to do with her any longer, she understood it. And there was no doubt in her mind who would suffer if Tommy pushed it too far.

“Tommy,” she said again, louder.

Her bodyguard jolted, his gaze jerking reluctantly away from the wolf at the door.

“This is Mr. Roesner, Tommy. Renjiro Roesner. He’s a friend of my father’s.”

Ren’s gaze sharpened when she said that. She could feel his temper simmering just below the surface and wanted her people out of the room before it boiled over.

“That will be all, Marla,” she said gently. “Thank you.” The housekeeper gave Ren a last, nervous glance and hurried from the room. Tommy was another matter.

Kathryn gave Ren a warning look, then walked over to Tommy and touched his arm. She felt both men tense at the touch and suddenly felt like laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. She squeezed her bodyguard’s thick bicep.

“It’s all right, Tommy,” she said and stepped around to stand in front of him, forcing him to look at her instead of Ren. “I’m in no danger from Mr. Roesner,” she said, hoping it was true.

Tommy’s expression combined the hurt of a ten-year-old with the possessiveness of a grown man. Kathryn smiled reassuringly and said, “We need a few minutes alone. It’s business, family business. You understand.”