Rivals and Retribution (29 page)

Max began to slowly nod his head.

But Alexi shook his. “
Nyet,
” he said, setting down his hammer.

I scanned the rest of the room. Yes, there was wood, but there were also sheets of metal—steel? “What are you really doing down here? What are you building?”

“Jessie,” Alexi said, slipping his hand around my upper arm and steering me away from the impromptu construction site. “Pietr is … not doing well. You have noticed some changes in his behavior,
da?
”

“Yes,” I said, nodding my head. “Of course. Ever since Gabriel…” I looked away. “Since Gabriel nearly killed him and forced Pietr past the cure again.” And since I’d killed Gabriel to save Pietr. “Yes, he’s been different.” Forgetting things. But I was trying to forget things, too. Running with the pack more. But I was clinging more tightly to my friends and family, too. “We both are.”

Alexi’s eyes closed a moment, and I knew he was thinking.

“It is more than that. Think about it, Jessie. Even if you do not want to. You have noticed,
da
? Both Pietr and Marlaena…”

I tugged my gaze to the ceiling, hearing their names linked like that. “Yes. They’re acting weird. Sick again, too. But it’s just some illness, right? You said it might be something brought in by the new pack—like a werewolf flu.”

“I had hoped so,” Alexi said.

It was the closest he could come to admitting he was wrong about something—admitting he’d hoped it was a different way than it was.

“But if it’s not some bug…”

Alexi’s eyes were huge and soft. Sad.

Max was watching me, too. He licked his lips. Nervous.

“But what could it…?”

Images spun out of control in my head. Pietr staring at Marlaena, her absorbing every aspect of him even across a crowded room. Marlaena joining Max and Pietr on their hunts even after Max had firmly told her no—like she couldn’t help herself. Gareth looking so utterly heartbroken and watching me like we were kindred spirits.… Pietr getting sicker by the day and sickest around me, but rallying every time Marlaena walked into the room.…

Max had me by the arm, lowering me to sit on the floor almost as soon as my knees gave way in realization.

“Oh, God,” I whispered. “They’ve imprinted.”

Alexi

“Jessie. Jessie,” I called, kneeling before her to tap her cheek. “She fainted. Did you ever expect she would faint?” I asked Max as he slipped to the floor and tugged her limp body across his to give her support.

“There is much about this I never expected,” he replied darkly. “What do we do now, brother? How do we fix things?”

Jessie roused in his arms, her head lolling to one side. She groaned. “You start by telling me everything. Every little detail. Both of you.” She straightened. “I need to know and understand it all so I can help.”

She caught us looking at each other over her head.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not,” she said, placing a hand on my chest and shoving me back. “Don’t you dare hold any bit back because you think you’re protecting me. Not now. This particular school reporter is totally against censorship, so don’t even try.”

I struggled to think of the best way to handle this.

“They’ve imprinted, right?”

I hesitated.

“Say the words, Sasha. Give me the truth.”

“
Da
. They have imprinted.”

She let out a long sigh. Confirmation was not what she had hoped. “And imprinting is just like … like a chemical thing. An addiction. They need to be around each other.” She swallowed. “They need to be with each other.”

I stood. “I do not see how this is helping matters.”

“Don’t you dare try to shut down my questions because you don’t know where I’m going. Don’t. Dare.”

I shrugged. “
Da
. It is chemical.”

“So it’s not emotional. He doesn’t love her. She doesn’t love him.”

“
Nyet,
” Max rumbled. “He does not love her. I doubt he even likes her. And she … well, she hates him even more because—”

“Because it’s like he’s controlling her. And Marlaena’s not big on being controlled,” Jessie concluded.

“
Da
.” Max unwrapped himself from around her and slowly stood, taking her hand to help her to her feet.

She wobbled at first, but quickly regained her self-control.

“So they don’t want this—it’s a desperate need. That is only stopped by…”

“Knocking her up,” Max said.

I punched him in the gut and immediately regretted the action, trying to rub the pain out of my hand as I bit my lips. “There are better ways of expressing the situation,” I complained.

Jessie’s eyebrows were as high as I’d ever seen them. “He has to get her pregnant?” She raised a hand to us both, palm out as she turned her face away. “Sitting down again,” she warned, and sank to the floor.

We both kneeled beside her.

“Isn’t there any other way? He doesn’t even want kids, ever. There has to be some way,” she repeated, adamant. “Some way that … I dunno … keeps them from …
that.
”

I shook my head. “I am so sorry. The imprint is activated so that the next generation is stronger. Their genetic codes complement each other perfectly, and their heightened
oborot
senses have recognized that fact, throwing their bodies into this state of heightened awareness. I am afraid it must run its natural course. Like a virus.”

“The imprint is like a virus. Something that can’t be stopped? You either get past it, or … or you don’t. I’m sorry, Sasha. I can’t accept that.” She picked at the concrete of the basement floor. “You said their heightened
oborot
senses recognized each other. That was what kicked this all into gear, wasn’t it?”

“
Da
.”

“That’s why he was so determined to have me cure him again. But it wasn’t strong enough, was it? It couldn’t mask all the symptoms anymore. Our cure is like antibiotics, isn’t it?”

I just watched her, unclear.

“You take the medicine hoping it’ll wipe out your illness, but your body—or the illness itself—can build up a tolerance, right?”

“It is entirely possible.”

“Marlaena never took the cure before. What if she takes it now? If she took it and her body believed it was simply human again, wouldn’t Pietr’s also? Wouldn’t his body forget the imprint?”

I only managed to squeak out “I” before Max jumped in.

“Marlaena won’t wash out the wolf. She won’t take the cure. It’s the opposite of her whole ‘the Wolf is the Way’ thing,” Max said.

“Even though it’s tearing Gareth up?” Jessie wondered aloud.

We both shrugged.

“Gawwd,” Jessie said, stretching the monosyllable so it was much more. “She’s such a selfish bitch.”

“She’s confused,” Max muttered. “We’re all confused.”

“Sasha.” Jessie said my name as if it were an oath. “Sasha—a permanent cure. Isn’t that what you’re working on?”

“Nonstop,” I confirmed.

“Not if you’re here, building this…” She pointed to the reinforcement we had only just started on the wall. “You need to get back to the lab. Let me deal with construction. I’m a farmer’s daughter, I know my way around a site. And I’ll bring in Dad and we’ll get this done. I want you back in the city at work first thing tomorrow morning,” she ordered, her eyes fierce, sparks of gold glittering dangerously in the brown most people probably thought was simply average.

I nodded my compliance.

“So wait—why the construction? You’re reinforcing this room, aren’t you?” She stood and turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. “This isn’t some love nest you’re building. This is…”

“A prison,” I confirmed. “Pietr will not give in to his baser instincts, and it is destroying him. And shortly before the imprint kills him because he has denied its orders and is therefore irreparably flawed, it will drive him insane.”

She nodded, taking it all much better than I might have hoped. “Interesting. And how much time do we have?”

“Two weeks at most, before insanity takes control. Then another week until denying the imprint kills him. And sane or not, he will deny it.”

She nodded again, then headed for the stairs. Clutching the banister, she turned to face us once more. “Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. I’m sure we can make this work.” Then she climbed the stairs, her head held high.

Jessie Gillmansen was a trooper. If anyone could get through this, I knew she could.

Jessie

The forgetfulness. The obsession. The short temper. Pietr was going mad. I made it all the way up the stairs and out of the basement-turned-cage-construction site and into the kitchen before I fell against the counter and slid to the floor, sobbing. I couldn’t do this. This was too much. Every time I thought I had a victory, it just slipped away. Pietr was dying and the only way to let him live was to let him be with Marlaena?

Curling in on myself, I tucked my knees to my chest and just cried until Gareth found me there.

He knelt down beside me, sliding his arms around me and letting me sniffle all over his neck, and briefly, I thought I heard him crying, too.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Marlaena

We ran like wolves made of wind, speed our drug, our tongues lolling, the long hair of our shoulders brushing as we raced down the deer trail side by side. The air bit our noses and stung our eyes, crystals of snow flying up from the ground as we spun in the hairpin turns and followed the musky scent of our quarry.

I laughed, the sound trilling out of my furred throat and past my lolling tongue like the most natural of unnatural sounds.

I had never felt more alive than I was, leading our combined pack on the hunt with Pietr.

Or more angry.

Max dove between us, his width shoving me into the brush at the path’s side and pushing me behind both he and Pietr.

Gareth kept pace with me then, and as much as my mind whispered it was Gareth I loved and Gareth I wanted, every cell in my body ached with the need and hunger for Pietr Rusakova.

With a grunt I stretched my legs even farther, slipping back between Max and his younger brother, wedging myself there. With a thrust and a kick, I shouldered Max into the bushes.

With an outraged growl he gave chase and my ears tucked tight to my body, my tail low and long. Part of me wanted to outrun him—to be safe. And part of me—the part that still held tight to the hope that was Gareth—wanted him to kill me.

To end me.

To end every bit of the madness that was making me hurt the only person I’d ever dared trust.

Ever dared
love.

He caught up to me, and turning whip fast, I faced him down, all teeth and claws, hate and daring. He came for my throat, and I welcomed his snapping teeth and his steaming breath with a snarl of my own. We tumbled to the ground together, and I felt his mouth on my throat and saw Gareth’s shocked expression as the last thing filling my fading vision.

Jessie

“What the hell…” Amy’s startled voice made me turn toward the back door. Cat set her cards down and looked at me.

We heard the popcorn bowl hit the floor, falling from Amy’s fingers in the hallway, and we bolted from the dining room table, rushing in her direction.

There was blood everywhere. Rich and bright red, flowing and fresh. For a long, frightening moment I couldn’t tell who the blood belonged to. I just knew it was spread nearly equally between Pietr and Max.

Pietr shoved Max, the force of them nearly equal and making them land against the walls on either side of the hall, standing as two tall and powerful, bloody, and equally savage and sweet warriors.

Then I understood.

Because between them came Gareth.

Carrying the limp body of Marlaena.

She was coated in blood—her own, I realized—seeing how it crusted thickest along her slender neck. Her head rolled loose on her neck and her eyelashes fluttered, the pulse in her neck pounding and then all but disappearing before it started its violent rhythm again.

Gareth brought her to the sitting room and before Cat could even shout about getting sheets or towels, he’d draped her body across the love seat.

Her chest still rose and fell. She still breathed and lived, but it was an ugly and awkward life at best.

“Bandages,” I whispered, hearing Max race up the stairs to the bathroom and the first-aid supplies kept there.

“And I repeat,” Amy said, “what the hell?”

“Max pushed her,” Pietr said, his tone flat and his eyes unfocused.

Amy’s eyes narrowed. “That’s more than a push,” she said. “I know what it looks like when a girl’s been pushed.”

His eyes cleared a moment, and he stepped back with a curt nod.

Everyone in the Rusakova household knew Amy, of all people, understood what it looked like, and felt like, to be pushed around.

“What happened, Pietr?” she tried, her voice fraying in frustration.

Max blew past with bandages and gauze pads. “I gave her a little push and she attacked me.”

“You pushed a girl?” Amy asked.

“Not like that,” he muttered, realization slow to dawn in his eyes. “No. No—not ever like that.…”

“Then what was it like?” Amy whispered, staring him down.

“I was trying to run with Pietr. I came up between them and—”

“Pushed her into the underbrush,” Pietr concluded.

“Underbrush doesn’t try and tear out your throat,” I said, watching as Max turned back to help Gareth apply pressure to Marlaena’s seeping wound.

“She attacked me. Baited me. Came at me when I was wolf,” Max snarled, glaring at the girl his hands tried to help.

Gareth sighed. “He is correct. She came at him like a rabid animal.”

“Is it the—” I fell silent, seeing Pietr.

“The
what,
Jess?” he asked, blinking, his eyes cleared.

“Nothing,” I insisted.

Did you dare tell a crazy person they were crazy? Was there any one advisable course of action? Alexi would know what to do. He always knew what to do, or at least was able to bluff his way through a situation convincingly enough that people believed he knew what to do.