The Dark-Hunters (319 page)

She stared up at him with those accusing brown eyes that were shining in anger. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Wren. You push me away and yet you look at me as if you’re a starving beggar and I’m the only steak in town.”

“That sums it up about right,” he said softly. “You are so out of my league.”

“How do you figure?”

“I’m not right, Maggie. Physically, emotionally, socially … I shouldn’t be with you.”

“That’s just stupid. You keep saying that and I don’t see anything abnormal with you. What is so wrong with you that we can’t date?”

How he wished he could tell her, but that was stupid and he knew it. To tell her he was an animal would scare the life out of her. Instead, he settled on human arguments. “I’m antisocial.”

“So am I. I’m socially awkward and I hate parties and mixers.”

“I hate people.”

“Then why is your hand still on my face?”

He swallowed at the truth he couldn’t deny. “Because I don’t hate
you.
”

“Well that’s a relief to know, especially after this afternoon.”

A tic started in his jaw as he dropped his hand away. “I need to get back to work.”

“Will I see you later?”

He wanted to say no, but there was a part of him that was so calm around her. It was the only time in his life that he had felt such.

Dear gods, she had actually tamed some part of him.

Shove her away.

He couldn’t. He needed to feel her against him. Against his will, he felt himself nodding.

Marguerite breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized that she’d been holding her breath in expectation.

He hadn’t rejected her this time. It was a good sign.

“Wren?”

She looked past him to see the mean older woman on the street, glaring at them. Apparently the woman hadn’t warmed up to either one of them since the last time she’d thrown Marguerite out of her house.

Wren glanced at the woman, then growled a sound that didn’t seem quite human as he returned to stare into Marguerite’s eyes. “I have to go now.”

“Okay.” Marguerite leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. As she pulled back, she saw the way he savored it.

He picked her hand up and brought it to his lips, where he placed a hungry kiss on her knuckles. “Be careful.”

“You, too.”

He stepped back as she got in her car and he didn’t move until she’d driven away.

Turning, Wren walked to where Nicolette was still standing. The bear didn’t say a word as he walked past her, but he felt the heat of her stare.

Ignoring it, he returned to the bar and went back to work.

Nicolette followed the tigard inside and paused by her son Dev’s side. “It is unnatural for our kind to be attracted to a human.”

“He’s becoming unstable.”

She nodded. “I spoke with a cousin of his a few hours ago.”

“And?”

She narrowed her eyes on the tigard. “He said that Wren had killed both of his parents.”

Dev looked stunned by the news, but she hadn’t been. It was what she’d expected to hear. There was something evil about that tigard.

“How?” Dev asked. “He was barely more than a cub when he was brought here.”

“It is the curse of his breed. Why do you think the snow leopards are nearly extinct? They go mad and turn on the ones they depend on. The ones who care for them.”

“You think Wren is going mad?”

“What do you think?”

Dev glanced to where Wren was cleaning a table with Marvin on his shoulder. “I think he’s in love with that woman. I actually heard him laugh.”

Nicolette sneered at the very thought. “It is unnatural for a Katagari to love a human. Not to mention, that
woman,
” she spat the word, “is death to all of us. Can you imagine what would happen if her father ever learned of us? We would be hunted and killed.”

Dev nodded. “The humans would panic, no doubt.”

Nicolette ground her teeth as raw, bitter anger consumed her. “I will not allow that hybrid beast to jeopardize all of us.”

“What do you plan to do,
Maman?
”

She didn’t speak as she watched the tigard curl his lip at her before he took his dishes to the kitchen.

She couldn’t tell Dev what she had planned. For some reason, her son was rather fond of the tigard. Something that truly appalled her. But then most males were weak. It was why bearswans were the stronger of the species and why she was the one who led this household.

“Don’t worry, Devereaux.
Maman
will handle everything. You go back and monitor our door.”

And soon her house would again be safe from the threat that Wren posed to them all.

Chapter 7

Marguerite sighed heavily as she walked alone in the zoo, watching the animals play together or rest. Three days had gone by without a single word from Wren. Worse, her father had called two hours ago to yell at her about Blaine’s arrest and pending trial. Apparently neither Blaine nor his father had bothered to inform him just who Wren really was—Blaine most likely refused to believe it. After all, whose family could ever be more important than his own? And how could anyone with Wren’s kind of money ever do anything other than bask in his own greatness?

It was enough to make her sick, and even now she could hear her father’s angry voice in her head.

“He will have a permanent mark on his record and for what? A worthless vagrant you decided to befriend? Really, Marguerite, what is wrong with you? Blaine’s father has helped to raise tens of thousands of dollars at a time for my campaign, and my daughter had his only son arrested? Are you trying to kill me? Do you want me to drop dead from cardiac arrest so that you can have your inheritance early? Just take a gun out and shoot me then. Get it over with.…”

And then he’d pulled out the one zinger that never failed to tear straight through her.

“This is what I get for marrying a Cajun against my family’s wishes. I should never have had children. They’re a liability no politician can afford.”

She hadn’t even been able to get a word in edgewise during his entire forty-five-minute rant. After a while, she hadn’t even tried. She’d set the phone down on the counter, munched chips, and flipped through a magazine while he railed. Once he’d finished, she’d simply apologized and hung up.

Her father had never been the kind of man to listen to reason. Of course, she could have ended the whole thing by telling him who Wren was and why Blaine hadn’t been able to bribe his way out of trouble, but she took sadistic pleasure out of not telling him. Let her father go on with his delusions.

Knowing her dad, he’d do a full turnaround as soon as he learned about Wren’s wealth.

But she didn’t want her father to like Wren because Wren was wealthy. She wanted him to see the man, not the money.

Shaking her head, she walked down the wooden pathway between the cages in the zoo as she tried to put the whole thing out of her mind. But it was impossible. She didn’t want to fight with her father.

All she wanted was to have her father be proud of her. To accept her. And yet he was so unreasonable. She’d never known anyone who could make up their mind so fast with so little information and then argue into infinity that they were right while everyone else was wrong.

“One day I’m going to stand up to you, Dad,” she whispered. At least she hoped she could, but it was hard. No matter what, she loved him. He was her father and he had profound moments of tenderness …

At least sometimes.

He just had higher expectations for her. He wanted her to be like Whitney or Elise, a perfect debutante. A stunning beauty who could be some rich man’s consort. One who threw strategic parties to help her husband climb the ladder of success in whatever venue he chose.

But that wasn’t her. She was plain and far from skinny or petite. As for parties … she’d rather be alone in a corner somewhere reading. She hated being nice to people she didn’t like because her father wanted their contributions. She hated being fake. All she wanted was to be herself.

She wanted to make her own mark on the world like her mother had done before her marriage, not be the helpmate for someone else. That kind of life had destroyed her mother, and she knew intrinsically that it would kill her, too.

“I just want to breathe.” She didn’t care what she did so long as it was a job or career
she
chose. She wouldn’t be locked in a cage like the animals here. No matter how much she loved her father, she refused to let him treat her the way he’d done her mother. Sooner or later, she was going to force him to see her for herself.

Marguerite stopped her walk in front of the white tiger exhibit. Since she was a little girl, she’d always loved to come to the zoo. It had been her mother’s favorite place on earth.

Her mother had grown up here. It’d been Marguerite’s maternal grandfather who’d led the crusade to save the zoo in the seventies and early eighties. He had been a visionary who had taken the zoo out of the dark ages and turned it into one of the leading zoos in the country.

Everywhere she looked, she saw her mother’s side of the family here.

For that matter, she saw her mother.

When her mother had been a college student at Tulane, she’d worked here as a docent. She had planned on being a veterinarian or zookeeper after college, but her marriage had stopped all of her dreams.

The only time Marguerite could remember her mother smiling and laughing was when she’d brought her here and told her stories about the different animals and how they lived and hunted. It was here that Marguerite found peace.

Here that she could again feel her mother’s presence.

Marguerite’s father hated this place. To him was gauche, common, and filthy. But to Marguerite it was beautiful.

“I miss you, Mom,” she whispered as she watched the two tigers play in a small facsimile of their wilderness home.

She’d only been twelve when her mother, sick of being a politician’s wife, had overdosed on antidepressants. Of course Marguerite’s father had covered it up so that everyone thought it’d been an accident, but she knew the truth. Her father had refused to divorce her mother or even live apart. It would have been bad for his career.

Unable to stand the prospect of being castigated for her friends, her wardrobe, and her taste in everything for the rest of her life, her mother had taken matters into her own hands. She’d left a final note telling Marguerite to be stronger than she had been.

Follow your heart, Marguerite. Don’t let anyone tell you how to live your life. It’s the only one you have,
mon ange.
Live it for both of us.

Marguerite’s lips quivered as grief swept through her. Her mother had been a truly beautiful and gentle soul.

For the longest time, Marguerite had hated her father after her mother’s death. And in truth, she’d hated God for leaving her alone with him. But as she grew older, she’d begun to understand him a bit.

Like Blaine and Todd, he was at the mercy of his own family’s ambitions for his future. Her grandfather had run her father’s entire life from birth. Her grandfather still did in many ways. Even as a powerful senator, her father always deferred to his father for advice. If Grandpa was upset, Dad was upset and contrite.

The only time her father had ever stood up to her grandfather had been by marrying her mother.

Marguerite wasn’t even sure that her father ever really loved her mother. Her mother had been one of those absolutely stunning women. The kind of beauty who turned everyone’s head. Any man would have wanted her.

No doubt her father had been attracted to her for her exceptional looks. Not to mention, as a former Miss Louisiana and a Cajun whose father had saved their beloved Audubon Zoo, she was a major benefit to a man with political ambitions. With her mother by his side, her father had been able to claim that he understood the needs of all members of Louisiana—both rich and poor.

Well, he might understand their needs, but he’d never understood his daughter’s and he never would.

“Hi, Maggie.”

Marguerite froze as she recognized that deep, hypnotic voice. She looked over her shoulder to see Wren standing back from her. Wearing a loose denim shirt and jeans, he was the best thing she’d seen in days. His blond hair was a bit shaggy, and the blue of his shirt made his eyes practically glow. He completely took her breath away.

Before she could think better of it, she literally threw herself into his arms and held him close, needing to feel warmth from someone.

His timing couldn’t have been better.

Wren was shocked by her reaction. He wrapped his arms around her as she clutched him to her. No one had ever been so happy to see him before. He swallowed as unfamiliar emotions tore through him.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispered.

“I noticed.”

She pulled back with a grimace and he sensed her instant dismay. Wren offered her a smile as his heart pounded with a foreign ache. “It was a joke, Maggie.”

Her expression softened back into one of joy. “How did you know I was here?”

He hesitated as he tried to think of a plausible lie. “You weren’t home.”

“Yeah, but I could have been anywhere in New Orleans.”

Wren rubbed his neck nervously. He had to distract her away from this line of questioning before he let something slip.

“I like coming here.” That was a complete lie. He actually hated zoos. He couldn’t stand to see the animals who were caged. As one of them, he could hear their thoughts and sense their discomfort. Not that all of them were unhappy with their situation. There were a number of animals who liked the attention and who were grateful to have a safe environment.

But others …

They were like him. Predators. And they despised cages of any sort.

When he was a child, his mother had always threatened to sell him to the zoo.

“It’s a freak. They’d pay good money to have something like it on display. Just imagine how much money we could make.”
His father had been the only thing that had kept Wren out of such a place as this.