Rivals and Retribution (12 page)

I winced, twisting away.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice thick.

“It’s the fall,” I said. I held my head, hoping I was right. “Just the fall. It made me queasy.”

His fingers roamed across my skull, tentatively feeling for bumps and fractures.

“I’ll be fine,” I promised. “I just need a little time.” I always needed time. “I’ll walk it off.”

I straightened and looked at Gareth. He swayed in my sight. Or maybe
I
swayed.

He reached out to steady me, but I stumbled back, my ankle twisting and collapsing beneath me, so I flopped against the mountain’s side. He nodded, accepting my words but not believing them. “
Fine
. If you say so.”

“I say so.” I regained my footing, placing a hand against the slope and pushing away from its surface. I peered up the gouged path we’d made coming down. “Too bad we can’t just fall back up,” I mused. “And too bad you—”

“Need to get pants. You remember that book you got recently? What was it …
Eclipse
or something like that?”

“Yeahhh?”

“The werewolves in that tied their clothing around their legs when they shifted so they didn’t wind up naked at an inopportune moment. Like this one,” he added, catching snow in his hand. “No one wants to get caught out in the cold.”

“How did those werewolves…?”

“Beats me. I don’t think they could morph a hand once they were furred to actually tie the stuff on, but…” He shrugged. “It’s fiction, after all. An author shouldn’t be expected to think of everything. It’s like spoon-feeding readers. Readers aren’t idiots. Well, not most of them.” He shrugged and peered past me, his lips curling as his eyes roamed. “Besides, a couple loose ends in a story aren’t necessarily bad. They make you wonder. If you’re bright enough to find them,” he concluded. “And bright enough to wonder.”

“So.”

“I can be better prepared, all thanks to a novel about fictitious werewolves.”

“Unlike the many novels about factual werewolves.”

“You said it, not me. Things blend all the time in literature.” He followed my gaze up the mountain. “I think Pietr and Jessie probably had the right idea. I think they found the right way up.”

I rolled my eyes, wanting a different path even more now. “There,” I said, pointing. “We can go that way.”

He squinted, following the line my finger made. “Okay,” he agreed hesitantly. “We can do that. If you want. But I really think their path was better.…”

I pretended not to listen. He changed, and the beautiful wolf followed me as we headed up the path I’d chosen for us.

The path less traveled.

By a lot.

Jessie

Stunned from the fall, from seeing Pietr make his change, I made an awkward mountain climber. Knowing it was all over and done with, that the cure was broken like some second-rate magician’s spell and now Pietr would die, had stunned me more than any tumble down a ravine could.

At the mountain’s top we paused to catch our breath. Pietr found his clothes partway down the hill near Max’s shivering form. I froze at the sight of Max, covered in so much red I gulped, imagining a bucket of paint had been dumped on him, trying to lock out the image of Max, a beautiful disaster painted in blood, I said, “Are you…”

“I’ll be fine,” he assured me. “You shoulda seen the other guy.” His mouth quirked up in an uneven smile, his gaze falling to the nearby snow.

I turned to follow his look, but he reached up, catching my face. Gently he turned my head back to face him.

“On second thought, you shouldn’t see the other guy.” He let me go and stood, stretching and wincing.

My cheek chilled where he’d touched it, and I reached up with a shaking finger to find it damp with blood.

“Where are Alexi and Cat?” I asked, catching Max’s shiver at the realization there was a lump leaking red into the little snowbank it seemed to create.

“Clean-up duty,” he said.

I swallowed. Pietr’s hands rested on my shoulders and he pulled me against him so my shoulder blades were tight to his chest, the curve of my backbone nestled against the muscles of his tight stomach.

“What did you do, Max?” Pietr asked, his voice tremendously level and calm for someone whose heart felt like it would break through his chest and lodge in mine.

He shrugged. “I only continued what she started.” He looked at me. “Just proving we aren’t starfish.”

I gulped. “Gabe?”

Max shrugged again. “He’s a little less than he was. He came after me when I was down. I don’t respect that,” he grumbled. “Let’s just say he’s not quite so handy now.”

“Eww,” I said.

Cat returned with a few branches, and Alexi soon followed.

“And why are we not worried about Dmitri?” I wondered aloud, glancing around at the darkening forest that flanked us.

“Pietr’s
oborot
again,” Alexi stated as if I needed reminding. “Dmitri doesn’t have the resources to come after him without additional help. That is why he arranged for Marlaena and Gabriel to be here. He expected more help taking Pietr after he’d changed.”

“But he didn’t anticipate Gareth’s interference.”

“Or Marlaena’s feelings toward Gareth,” Cat concluded.

“And that’s the real reason why we’re setting fire to Gabriel’s hand out in the open and
not
worried about Dmitri raining bullets down on us?” I glanced around, squinting into the trees in the distance, nervous despite their obvious confidence.

“Oh. And I did knock Dmitri out,” Cat added matter-of-factly.

“Oh.” That was better.

“Of a tree,” she continued.

“Ohhh,” I said, my eyes widening.

“Onto his head,” she concluded.

“Ah.”

“That’s close to the sound he made,” she said with a nod. “That with a dash more pirate to it: Ahhhrrgh.”

“Is he—”

“Dead?
Nyet
.”

“But he’ll feel like he drank more than one bottle of rotgut vodka when he wakes up,” Max said. He shrugged and cupped a handful of snow against his chest and scrubbed at the blood clinging stubbornly there. “I do not know why you did not finish the job,” Max muttered as Alexi coaxed the fire to life.

“Go after him while he was down?” Cat asked. “You do not respect that,” she concluded with a smirk.

He sighed and leaned over to nudge the hand free of the little snowbank. He threw it onto the fire.

I stared as it sizzled.

“I’m sorry,” I said, covering my nose and mouth with my hands. “I can’t stand that smell. Can we go?”

“
Da,
” Max said, standing up and brushing his hands off on his jeans. “Good idea.”

The others nodded.

It was only Pietr who disagreed. “You go on ahead. I’ll stay and watch the fire finish up. I don’t want to leave it going.”

I pulled out of his arms and looked up at him. The fire was small and far from anything else that might catch. The snow around it made me believe it wouldn’t be able to spread beyond the sparse branches they’d fed it with.

But Pietr wanted to stay longer.

“Okay,” I said, my eyes on Pietr’s face. I glanced at the others, saying, “We’ll meet you guys at the car.”

“Jess,” he said. “You’ll freeze if you stay out here much longer. Go on. I’ll catch up. Soon,” he said.

I hesitated.

“I
promise,
” he said.

I still hesitated a heartbeat, and it was completely telltale.

He looked away and I reached out to take his hand, wrapping my fingers around it.

“I’ll see you at the car in a few minutes,” I said.

“
Da
.”

We left him to the fire and whatever thoughts were running around in his head. I followed the others, staggering along and trying to edge out my own dark thoughts. Something weird was going on between Pietr and Marlaena and Derek’s creepy memories were growing less and less alien.

And that they had pushed through me at just the right time.

Again.

Marlaena

Gabe was bleeding all over the inside of the car and I didn’t care. Dmitri and his mini-arsenal was AWOL and I didn’t care. Gareth was trying to be gentle and soothing (although I guessed he seethed beneath his calm exterior), touching me with gentle hands every chance he got.

And I didn’t care.

Something inside of me had shut down.

And something else was struggling to take its place.

The only thing I cared about was where Pietr Rusakova had gone, who he had gone with and why. I couldn’t get him out of my head. His scent lingered just beyond the tip of my nose, making me want to breathe deeper. My fingertips, numb, felt strange and foreign as if they’d only regain sensation by touching
him
.

Gareth reached around and buckled my seat belt for me. “Hello?” he tried.

I blinked. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded curtly, stroking a hand down my shoulder and arm to my hand. “Sorry,” he muttered, looking into the backseat at Gabriel. “You need to apply more direct pressure,” he warned as he backed the car out. “We’re all lucky to be alive. You both should be dead—at the hands of the Rusakovas. You’re lucky they showed mercy.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Gabriel snarled.

I twisted around to look at him. The expression he meant to be threatening and strong was laced with fear and frustration.

“That’s exactly why you’re missing a hand now,” Gareth retorted. He glanced in the rearview mirror again, shaking his head at Gabriel. “Dude. If you’re trying to flip me the bird, use the hand that still exists, genius. Oh. That’s right. That’s one of the fingers you’re missing, isn’t it? Funny a brutal fight would manage to force better manners on you.”

Gabriel kicked my seat in anger and Gareth pulled the car over. “Don’t make me kick you out
here
.”

Snow slithered down the windshield before being whisked away by the squealing wipers.

“You wouldn’t—”

“Dare?” Gareth asked. “You have no idea what I’d dare given the proper motivation.” He looked at me, and I turned to look out the window, knowing he was talking about leaping down the cliff face. Talking about saving me.

No one else would’ve bothered.

We both knew that.

My stomach was burbling, and I forced myself to look past his reflection in the glass and tried instead to pick out something in the woods beyond to focus on.

“How much money do we still have?”

I shrugged.

“You need to think, ’laena,” Gareth urged. “That money determines what options we have. If any.”

“I—I’m not sure exactly,” I admitted.

“Well, think hard. Because, if you didn’t notice, you failed to come through for Dmitri. He may have it bad for Pietr Rusakova, but I have the feeling he’ll take anyone who’s able to do what he wants without question. Above everything else, he wants a werewolf.”

“Give him Gabe,” I said through a sneer.

“He wants a whole werewolf. One who follows directions,” Gareth added. “Have you noticed how much attention he’s been paying Noah?”

I swallowed.

“Let’s take the money and run as far and as fast as we can and hope our trail goes cold before Dmitri realizes he’s lost us.”

I shook my head. “It won’t be enough.”

Gabe sank into the backseat with a groan.

“Dmitri will be at the motel in the morning—I guarantee you that,” Gareth said.

“Not if I kill him tonight.”

*   *   *

“Why did you finally agree to come along with me?” I asked Gareth, my fingers wrapped around the steering wheel.

He was quiet for a long time, working out the words to say somewhere between his head, his heart, and his tongue. That was the weakness of Gareth: He always let his heart get caught up in the mix. That was also his strength. “You can’t do this alone,” he muttered. “You shouldn’t have to, either.”

“Huh. So when the moment comes, when it’s time to actually do the deed—kill the mobster—will you help?”

Again he was silent. “He is a threat to my family. I will do whatever has to be done when the moment comes.”

I nodded solemnly and slowed the car down. “That’s what I thought,” I confirmed a heartbeat before I snapped a hand out, undid his seat belt, and kicked him out of the car and onto the roadside.

He rolled a short distance, shouting my name in surprise.

He was the best of us. The kindest, the most compassionate. If I let him come along—help commit murder—I’d be killing more than some mafia man who had his hooks in my pups. I’d be killing the heart and soul of Gareth.

My
Gareth.

My head spun, and I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and nailed the brakes a dozen yards away.

I couldn’t let Gareth be destroyed. No matter that I thought without backup Dmitri would get the drop on me.

And end me.

“… end your sorry existence,” Margie had threatened the time I’d forgotten to change the cat litter. I’d hated that cat as much as it had hated me. I’d never realized it knew what I was long before I did—that must’ve been why it shredded my curtains and peed on my walls. But I’d had my revenge. People say, “Revenge is a dish best eaten cold,” but cat, I knew, was best eaten fresh.

And hot. The memory stirred something in my blood. Reminded me of who I was.

I was the alpha.

In the side-view mirror I saw Gareth stop rolling and clamber to his feet.

All the things that came with being the pack’s leader—the respect as well as the burdens—were mine to shoulder, to bear. Alone.

Gunning the engine I sped away to find Dmitri and free us of his influence.

Jessie

I was hardly still, tight in the truck waiting for Pietr’s return.

“Stop doing that,” Max complained, jabbing my knee with his finger.

“Huh—wha-?” I blinked at him.

“You’re twitchy.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“He’ll be back any minute,” Cat reassured us, but she was also obsessively looking out the truck’s window back the way we’d come. “He knows better than we do what time it is.”

I nodded.

Cat began picking at her fingernails.

“Something’s going on,” I muttered.