"Stand up, put your foot next to the arrow, and pull."
This was a nightmare. Her nightmare.
Before she could stand, he caught her hand again. "Listen. After we get done here, if I pass out or go wonky on you, call 911 on your cell, get the paramedics here. But don't go out. Promise you won't go out."
"I won't go out."
"Make sure all the doors are locked. Take the icon and go to the linen closet beside the guest bathroom—there're bottles of perfume. Break one on the floor. It'll confuse his sense of smell."
Dumbfounded, she stared at him. Had the drugs taken effect?
"Why do you think I don't like cologne?" For a man with an arrow in his shoulder and possibly drugs in his system, he sounded quite sensible.
"Then go down the stairs to the vault and lock yourself in. Even if they set the place on fire, there's air piped in. You remember the combination to the vault, don't you?"
"Yes.” she said faintly. "But I don't think I can drag you that far."
"Honey, I'm the one who'll keep him occupied while you hide."
That pissed her off. "Not while I'm alive, you won't." Standing, she placed her foot on his shoulder. Bending down, she grasped the arrow close to his skin, got a good hold, and yanked as hard as she could.
For a horrible second, the arrow didn't budge. Then it broke free.
Jasha screamed.
She staggered backward. She held it up and stared. Stared at the iron shaft.
The arrowhead was still in his shoulder.
"No. No. No." She dropped to her knees beside his writhing form. "Lie still!" With her fingers, she probed inside the wound.
"My God. My God." He shuddered in agony every time she moved her ringers.
She felt the outline of the arrow. It was traditionally shaped, a triangle with a point firmly embedded in the bone. "I'm going to have to walk it out."
"Do what you have to." He strained, desperate not to jerk away from her.
She wrapped her palm over the wide base, her fingers over the slick, chipped sides. As gently as she could, she rocked the arrow back and forth. At first it scarcely moved. Then the arc got wider.
Still it wouldn't come out.
She had to get it out.
And finally, she felt the faintest snap as it came free.
He felt it/too. "Hurry. Now!"
She pulled. Her hand slipped. Her fingers skidded across the sharp sides. The corner punctured her palm.
The bite of stone through her tender flesh was instant and agonizing. She jerked her hand away. Tears sprang to her eyes. No mere cut should be so painful.
And he arched off the floor with a silent cry of torment.
"Sorry," she said breathlessly. Sorrier than she could say.
"What the hell happened?" he . rasped. "That burned!"
"I don't know. Does it matter?"
"No. I guess not."
Ignoring her misery, she went back in and pulled again. The arrow backed up. Slowly, laboriously, she slid the awful thing free of his muscles, his bones, and his sinews.
As soon as it was loose, he said, "Let me see it."
She handed it to him.
"It's obsidian," he said. "Black glass rock. Did you know that a chipped obsidian edge can be sharper than a surgeon's scalpel?"
"Do I look like I care?" She cradled her cut hand.
"No, that's good. It doesn't do as much damage going in. Yes, for some reason, they want me alive." Carefully he examined the tip. "There it is." He sighed in relief. "You got it out. See?" He held up the arrow. "See that tiny tracking device? It's formed right into the tip, and there's a perforation where the tip should break off in the bone. With my metabolism, the bone would knit and they could follow me wherever I went."
She turned her head away. She couldn't stand to look at the bloody thing. She was sickened, afraid, in pain, barely hanging on to consciousness.
"The important thing is, you don't have to go back in." He sounded encouraging.
Her head shot around to him. "Go back in!"
"If it hadn't come out—"
"Oh, for the love of God—"
"Perhaps not God—God doesn't look favorably on us—but for the love of my family. They're a pain in the ass sometimes, but they would do anything to help me, and I would do anything to save them."
Family? Are these the kind of sacrifices family requires? "I should have kept driving."
"But you couldn't leave me." He stroked Ann's arm. "Or her."
"Her?"
"The Madonna."
Ann pulled the icon out of her pocket and showed him. "I didn't leave her.”
He laughed, but faintly, and closed his eyes. "The entry is a good place for us to stay right now. The board is over one window, the leaded glass makes it difficult to look in, and the siren will sound if anyone breaks in. The local cops are probably pretty sick of hearing my alarm, but out here, they don't have anything else to do, and I put a lot of money into their retirement fund. They'll come out."
She looked around. Yes. She felt relatively safe right now. Going to the wall, she set the alarm.
"Stay low," Jasha said.
"I know." When had she acquired a siege mentality? Outside, it was still morning—how was that possible?—and she thought the sunlight made an attack unlikely.
An attack. She was a modern woman. Why was she worried about an attack?
She looked at Jasha. Because she'd just pulled an arrow out of a man she'd seen turn into a wolf.
This was all a hallucination, because none of it made sense.
But whether it did or not, Jasha looked like hell. Smeared with blood, pale, and sweaty. In shock. "I'm cold," he said, and shivered.
She comfortingly pressed her hand on his chest, then rose, went to the couch, and grabbed a pillow and another throw.
When she returned and lifted his head, his eyes opened, angry yellow and rimmed in red.
But when he saw her, he relaxed. "Thank you," he whispered. "For everything."
Like she had a choice. She shoved the pillow under his head and tossed the throw over him. "Explain to me why I'm not calling 911 right now."
"Because when they arrest the hunter for shooting me with an arrow, he's going to tell the sheriff I'm a wolf. When they question you, you're going to blush and stammer the way you always do when you lie. When I heal as quickly as I do, the hospital's going to think there's something very strange about me. And we don't want anyone thinking there's anything strange about me." He fixed his changeable eyes on her. "Do we?"
"No. I guess not." Sadly, the whole thing made sense to her, and that, more than anything, told her how far she'd come from yesterday. "It wasn't the drunk hunter, was it?"
"It was. The drunk hunter, plus one of my cousins."
She didn't ask how he knew. But she believed him. "Why would your cousin try to kill you? And don't tell me because your parents got married."
"If he'd wanted to kill me, I'd already be dead." Jasha's voice was growing fainter.
"You think these guys are related to the Ukrainians?"
"I think they are the Ukrainians."
Her anger rose again. "And you think I'm in league with them."
"No, I think they planted a tracking device on you and urged you to come up here so they could find out where I lived."
"That's dumb!" At least in the real world, it was dumb. In a world where Jasha turned into a wolf and his cousin shot him with an arrow, it made sense.
"I'm still cold," Jasha murmured. "I know it's not comfortable, but would you lie with me?"
She wanted a shower. She wanted to look at the cut on her palm and see whether it needed stitches. She wanted to go home, curl up with her cat, and pretend this never happened.
Instead she made a fist, trying to ease the sting. She wiped at the red smears on her orange loose-knit sweater and her white pants. She thought longingly of the bathroom upstairs, of the soap and the change of clothes. And she said, "Of course." Going to Jas
ha, she stretched out on his good side, careful not to jar him too much. She covered herself with part of the throw, and placed her head on his shoulder.
He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her head. "The Madonna has chosen well."
The Madonna? Sister Mary Magdalene always said the Madonna watched over Ann. But in her secret heart of hearts, Ann knew Sister Mary Magdalene couldn't know. Sister Mary Magdalene herself had taught Ann that God works in mysterious ways. No mere mortal could know whether the Madonna watched over Ann ... or whether it was the devil.
Because bad things happened to people when she was around.
Her wishes were curses, and her love was lethal.
Ann went to sleep listening to the beat of his heart—and wishing she'd never met Jasha Wilder, or listened to the urgings of her love.
Chapter 15
“Ann. Come on. It's time to go."
Her eyes sprang open. She sat up so quickly her head spun.
"Whoa. It's okay. There's no emergency—the hunters are gone." Jasha looked fine. A little pale, a little tense, but very calm.
She glanced around. Outside, it was day, afternoon by the light. She rested on the floor, tucked into a nest of couch cushions and colorful throws. "What . . . ? How . . . ?"
"You had a shock. You were sleeping hard. So I let you get some z's in, and got stuff ready."
She pushed her hair away from her face and tried to remember her dreams. She'd been running through the forest, faster and faster. She had glanced back and seen wolves behind her. Glanced around, seen wolves all around. She'd been terrified.... Then Jasha ran past and smiled, and became a wolf, too. She hadn't been afraid anymore.
But she knew she could never go back. That she had to run forever.
She covered her eyes. "That was horrible."
"It would have been more horrible if you hadn't come back for me." He held out his hand.
"What? Oh." She hadn't been talking about his rescue, but she didn't need Freud to interpret a dream like hers. She knew what it meant; she would never call her subconscious subtle. "Yeah, I'm a sucker for wounded animals."
Sadly, she was. Kxesley had arrived on her doorstep, a starving, flea-ridden tomcat suffering from a coyote attack. Until she got to know him, she didn't understand how he'd survived. But unlike her, Kres-ley was a fighter, and he soon had every dog in the neighborhood whipped into shape. Even the manager's Rottweiler trembled when Kresley swaggered past.
She took Jasha's hand and let him pull her to her feet. And into his arms.
He kissed her, a long, slow kiss that paid no heed to his injury or her misgivings or the possibility of danger. Instead he concentrated on reducing her to the essence of desperation. His hands roamed her back, massaging muscles tense from the hard floor and the prophetic dream. His lips opened hers; his tongue probed deep within. The motion reminded her of the forest, the storm, the all-too-brief thrust of his body inside hers, and the bright lightning of union:
She remembered the pain, too, a warning she'd come too far too fast and now had to pay the price.
"You are a glorious woman.” he whispered.
"I look like a giraffe." She'd been told that far too many times to believe anything else.
"And I'm a wolf. We have our Halloween costumes worked out forever. My darling giraffe, have I told you how much I love your long, long legs?"
"The way a wolf admires an antelope?" She couldn't help mocking him. She didn't believe a word he said; he'd easily resisted her charms while she worked for him. It was only now, when they were alone and he needed her, that he paid her lip service.
Lip service ... in more ways than one, and all very gratifying. "Jasha, why are we leaving? Where are you taking me?"
"We're going into the woods. With this." He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a thin and tiny silver disk. He showed it to her, stuck on his index finger. "He tagged me like an endangered wolf. He wants to see where I run for shelter. I want to draw him out so I can catch him, question him, and finish him."
"Finish him," she repeated.
Jasha's eyes were golden ice chips. "Finish him before he finds my family. Finish him before he finishes us."
"So we're bait?"
"We have two choices: We can be bait and turn the tables. Or we can be dead meat. Which do you prefer?"
"I hate those choices."
He waited.
She sighed. "Stick a hook in my ribs, drop me in the pond, and call me a worm."
"That's my girl!" He hugged her shoulders.
Irritated, she wiggled away from him, and picked up a cushion and one of the throws off the floor.
He bent to help her gather up their nest.
She stopped him with her hand on his arm. "You shouldn't do that You're hurt."
"Not much. Look." He opened his shirt and showed her the wound in his shoulder.
Gingerly, she touched it with her fingertips. It was red. It looked uncomfortable. But it looked and felt like nothing more than a three-inch scar.
And she knew—she remembered—she'd had her hand inside. "Is this healing part of the, er, the . .. ?"
"The deal with the devil." He watched her, obviously judging her reactions, seeing too much for her comfort. "Yes, I can heal quickly, and that's one of the benefits. One of many benefits."
"You made an actual deal with the devil?" Her voice squeaked.
He seemed so calm, but she supposed he was used to the strange and miraculous. Or the strange and the . . . seriously strange. She wasn't used to it. No matter what happened, she couldn't get used to it— or wouldn't.
She groped to get a grip on his story. "A deal with the devil. It sounds so melodramatic, like a Faus-tian play."
"Faust was a lousy bargainer. With a little forethought, he could have got a lot more for the price of his soul."
Mouth open, she stared at Jasha. Snapping it closed, she said, "You should talk. You turn into a wolf. Couldn't you have asked for something a little cooler?"
His mouth quirked. "Like what?"
"I don't know. First place on Dancing with the Stars?"
"Do you think the devil has his hand in on Dancing with the Stars?"
"He has to. There's no other explanation for Russell and Teresa winning last season," she said bitterly.
He laughed and, when she glared, changed his laugh into a cough and tried to look serious. "If I were making the deal, I'd be more likely to ask for the Giants to win the Series."
"Great. I'm living my own personal performance of Damn Yankees." She piled the cushions on the couch.
He followed suit.
"You, urn, can't refuse the deal?" she asked.
"It's not an option."
"No. I suppose the devil might have something to say about that." She glanced at Jasha uneasily. "Wouldn't he?"
"In the past thousand years, I don't think anyone's actually talked to him."
"A thousand years." She tried to get her mind around the vastness of the time passage, and got hung up on the legalities. "So you didn't actually make the deal with the devil. It's a family thing."
"Right. My ancestor set the terms, and he didn't know about Dancing with the Stars."
"I suppose not. So the whole family—"
"Only the males.” he reminded her.
She bridled. "Doesn't the devil like women?"
"According to my father, women have a tendency to see through Beelzebub's tricks."
"Oh." That was sort of flattering. "Did you have to initial the devil's contract or anything?"
"In this case, it's pretty much sins of the fathers."
"Maybe you could consult our lawyers and void the contract?"
"Lawyers all work for Satan, you know that," Jasha said, deadpan.
She grinned. "If our legal counsel, Bob Rutherford, works for Satan, Satan should buy Bob a better toupee." She touched Jasha's arm. "Really, if you wanted out, what could the devil do?"
"I doubt that any of us have ever seri
ously considered refusing the gift.”
She looked to see if Jasha was joking again. "Gift?"
"Wouldn't you consider it a gift to be able to change into a wolf and run through the forest, free and wild?" Jasha took a breath as if he could smell the limitless fresh air. "Or change into a hawk and soar through the clouds?"
"You can change into a hawk, too?" Seriously cool. She'd always wanted to fly.
"No. I'm a wolf. My brother Rurik is a hawk. My other brother, Adrik, is a panther."
"Oh." Her mind worked, and came up with one inescapable truth. "Those are all hunting animals."
"Predators. Yes." Jasha watched her, and only his golden eyes followed her. "For a thousand years, the family hired themselves out to warlords, dictators, kings, and thugs. Whoever had the money to pay, they would work for them. Once they were put on the job, they never stopped until they had done what they were hired to do."
She felt judged, as if Jasha was gauging the depth of her distress and the strength of her determination. "And what were they hired to do?"
"Track people. Find them. Kidnap them. Torture them ... kill them."
"I was afraid of that." She put her hand to her forehead. "You said that was your cousin out there. And he shot you!"
"Right before I was hit, I caught a whiff of them. I recognized the hunter at once." Jasha shrugged. "He's big on deer urine."
She wrinkled her nose. "Euw!"
"Yeah. There's no explaining a hunter. But the other guy—I've never met him." Jasha's lips lifted in a very wolflike snarl. "He's one of us, though. I know it"
She did not want to hear this. She went back for more pillows, brought them to the couch, placed them, and turned around to find Jasha had planted himself in her path.
"Pretending this isn't happening won't help," he said.
"It helps me.” she retorted, then relented. "All right. What does your cousin want?"
"Revenge. That's what they all want. And they won't stop until they get it."
"Revenge for what?"
He sighed. "It's a long story."
"You keep saying that."
"And I was going to tell it to you, but you ran away."
She reminded herself that she'd pulled an arrow out of his shoulder a few hours ago. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't hit him hard enough to ring his chimes. In fact, even if she did manage to work up the gumption to hit him, his chimes would probably stay frustratingly quiet.