To Catch a Wolf (3 page)

pudding as if it were a tough slice of beef. At last he set his spoon down and looked at

Athena. The back of her neck prickled as if at the gathering of a prairie thunderstorm.

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"This makes the fifth summer that you have not gone to the ranch," he said. "I don't like

it, Athena. The heat and dust is unhealthy for you. You need fresh air and quiet, and by

remaining in Denver you are certainly not getting it. I will not have you becoming ill

because of your own stubbornness.”

Athena sampled her pudding, barely tasting it. "I am in good health, Niall. There is no

danger—”

"You think me unobservant, but I have seen the changes in you. You've convinced

yourself that you can solve all of Denver's problems single-handedly, without taking any

rest for yourself.”

"Rest? Look at me." She swept her hand down the length of her body. "I have plenty of

rest. It is the people I try to help who have no rest, struggling as they do every day

simply to survive.”

"Our own father struggled when he first came to Denver, and no one gave him charity.

He would have turned it away.”

"Not everyone in this world is alike, Niall. You know that as well as anyone.”

They stared at each other. There were two subjects they almost never brought up

between them: Athena's accident, and the nature she had inherited from her mother.

Athena deliberately avoided thinking about either; the first could not be undone, and the

second she had left behind forever.

She had not known her mother. Perhaps that was why she felt so deeply for the

orphans, who had lost much more.

"I have kept my promise to you," Athena said, the words sliding past the lump in her

throat. "You promised not to interfere in my chosen occupation.”

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He scowled, rising from his chair. "I did not promise to let you do whatever you pleased,

no matter what the cost. Your insistence upon visiting the tent city and the warehouse

district is foolhardy in the extreme.”

Her skin went cold. How had Niall learned of that? She had been so careful to go

incognito, cloaked and hooded and accompanied by a brawny former soldier she had

employed after her orphanage administrator had urged her to take some protection.

Had it not been for her immobility, she needn't have feared any man, even in the worst

part of the city.

Do not think of what might have been. Do not.

"You have paid employees to send on such tasks," Niall continued. "No one, least of all

the members of your Society, expects you to dirty your hands or endanger your person.

You are no common shopgirl, Athena. Your fine Miss Hockensmith could not approve of

such impropriety.”

In her heart Athena knew he was right, but she had chosen to take the risk, knowing

that the other ladies would not expect a cripple to be capable of such adventures.

They were the only adventures permitted her, now. Among the orphans, or the

inebriates, or the poor folk in their threadbare tents along the South Platte, she could

not possibly be an object of pity. It was she who held the advantages, she who gave. No

one reminded her, however inadvertently, of what she had lost.

And they needed her.

"They are people, Niall," she said earnestly. "It is not enough to have someone deliver

the food and see that they have fresh water and clothing and coal enough to get

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through the winter. They must be encouraged, led to see that there is a better life to

strive for. Without real examples, how can they learn?”

"Let someone else do the teaching. Someone who is

unencumbered.”

She pushed away from the table and spun her chair about. "Am I not an encumbrance

upon you, Niall? Your worry for me is distracting you from your important work, and

wouldn't it be so much easier if I would sit quietly and knit stockings until you find some

use for me?”

Her outburst hung in the air like a choking haze. Athena touched her throat, amazed

and chagrined. Had that self-pitying, selfish tirade come from her, or had some harpy

assumed her shape and voice? What had possessed her?

Have you any use at all, Athena Munroe?

Niall walked the length of the table and stopped before her, grave and strangely quiet.

"Yes, Athena. It is what I would prefer—to see you safe and content. But I know that is

not possible.”

"But I am

I am content! Don't you see—”

"I am sorry. You leave me no choice. Either you agree to cease these clandestine visits

to the slums, and reduce your commitments to a reasonable number, or I must take

steps to see that you are removed to a place where you can reconsider your priorities.”

Icy terror swept through her. "The Winter Ball—you cannot expect me to give that up, or

abandon the orphans. Papa's money made it possible. I am only doing what he wished.”

"It is your choice, Athena. I could see to it that you are relieved of all your self-imposed

duties—and I shall, if I believe it will save you from yourself.”

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"If only you thought of something besides making money—”

"The money you are so glad to have?”

Tears burned behind her eyes. "Where did you get your hard heart, Niall? It was not

from Papa. Your mother—”

"Leave our mother out of this.”

"She was never my mother. She did not wish to be.”

Niall's fair skin reddened. "She acknowledged you as hers, when she might have—”

"I know what she might have done," Athena said quietly. "I know." She wheeled about

and started toward the door. "If you will forgive me, Niall, I am tired. I will go up to my

room now.”

"Athena—”

"Good-night.”

She heard the bang of Niall's fist on the table as she entered the hall. Brinkley

appeared, ever bland and efficient, to help her to her room. He steered her into the Otis

hydraulic safety elevator at the end of the hall and closed the gate.

After two years Athena was used to the curious motion of the device, which Niall had

insisted was the perfect solution for the problem of stairs. And now, of course, the grand

Windsor hotel had an elevator of its own. Niall's foresight matched their father's in every

way.

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So did his devotion to her. A devotion that imprisoned him as surely as her chair did

Athena.

At the second floor, Brinkley met her to roll back the gate and step aside. He had been

too long with the family to ask if she wished to be taken to her room. Fran would be

waiting in the small chamber adjacent to hers, and all Athena wished to do now was

retire.

How had things gone so wrong? How had she managed to quarrel with her brother,

when they so seldom lifted their voices to each other? She could never beat Niall in an

argument, and she did not make the mistake of doubting his threats.

Fran helped her undress and get into bed, and she lay staring up at the ceiling for a

long while. She had wanted Niall's happiness; she needed to continue her work without

hindrance. Somehow she must distract Niall from his focus on her, and at the same time

prove that she was fully capable of caring for herself.

If you were truly independent

But how? Niall still controlled her inheritance, according to the terms of Papa's will. She

could not demand her portion unless Niall agreed. And he saw her as what she was—a

cripple.

She tried to move her legs. They remained lumps under the blankets, only the toes

capable of wiggling. She had given up on walking long ago.

There must be some other way of convincing Niall that she was a sensible, mature,

strong woman in mind and spirit if not in body. Some way to relieve him of his guilt once

and for all.

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She drifted into a twilight world between sleep and waking, and it seemed that she was

running—running on four legs instead of two. Four whole, healthy, powerful legs. And

she was not alone.

In dreams, she could pretend.

Southern Colorado, June 1880

Voices.

They drew him toward flickering light and the smell of human habitation, though he had

left that world behind in a time beyond memory. He could not have said, even had he

been capable of speech, why he fled the hunters into the arms of other men instead of

to the deep wilderness.

Madness. Yet the pain drove him, and the knowledge that he was near death. The

voices were very close.

Firelight seared his eyes. He plunged into the circle made by the many human dwellings

and staggered to a stop. The baying of hounds resounded from the forest's edge.

Raised voices, cries of alarm, shouting like the howls of wolves. He braced himself for

more pain, ready to expend the last of his strength if they came with ropes to bind him.

None did. Tall shapes darted in and out of his blurred sight. Human scent washed over

him. His legs buckled, and he fell to his side. Each breath brought searing agony. Little

by little, the light and the remnant of his senses faded. Then came the darkness.

Peace.

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He returned to himself slowly, and the voices were still there. They flooded his mind like

tainted water: human words, human thoughts, human images.

But now he understood what he heard. And he, himself, was human.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Did you see that?”

"Remarkable," said the second, deeper voice. "Quite astonishing.”

A murmur of agreement and disbelief followed. "Since we all witnessed it," said a third

voice, marked by a gentle drawl, "we must conclude that it was not a delusion.”

"Delusions don't bleed," the first voice said. "Whatever he is, he's been shot.”

"He may be dangerous," came a fourth. "Do not touch him, Caitlin.”

"Can't you see that he is too badly hurt to be a danger to anyone?”

He opened his eyes and tried to bring the world into focus. His senses were dulled,

hearing and smell filtered through awkward human organs. The body he now wore

refused to respond to his commands.

Memory came, and understanding. Between his lower ribs lodged the hunter's bullet,

the same that had caught him as he fled the human's dogs. It would not have been a

fatal injury had he remained a wolf.

But he had not. Somehow, in some way beyond his will, he had Changed. The wolf had

run to men, and the man within him had betrayed the wolf. And now he lay in his own

blood, firelight dancing over naked skin, suspended halfway between life and death.

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He could not make out the faces around him, but he smelled them clearly: woven cloth,

leather, sweat, and horseflesh. A dozen men and women whose voices came more

swiftly now, like midsummer rain.

"He appears to be regaining consciousness.”

"He will bleed to death if we don't help him.”

"Help him? We know nothing about him.”

"It's possible that whoever shot him had good reason.”

"Maybe he can't talk at all!”

He struggled to remember how to move his mouth and tongue to form words, how to

speak the name he had worn in that past life.

Morgan. Morgan Holt, who accepted help from no one. No debt, no obligation, and no

charity. Yet he had come here. He was completely in their power.

With a fierce act of will, he shut away the distractions of thought and memory. He

summoned up his dwindling strength and called upon the wolf within.

Nothing. Nothing but pain, and night. Blood whistled behind his ears. His heart

stuttered, stopped, sprang to sluggish life again.

One of his would-be rescuers came near, and he tried to pull away. Calloused skin

brushed his. He was too weak to shudder in disgust. He floated, disembodied, in a

limbo where only the voices were solid.

"Come, children," the first voice said. "Help me move him to my tent.”

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"We hardly have enough food left to keep ourselves alive, let alone an outsider.”

"An outsider? Just look at him! He's like us!”

"Caitlin and Harry are correct. We cannot leave him to die, and I believe I hear sounds

of pursuit.”

"You know as well as anyone how the townies are, and how they treat those who are

different.”

A face, round, male, and bewhiskered, took solid form from the fog. "Can you hear me,