Buch lesen: «The Unforgettable Wolf»

Chapter 1

Just because he was no longer a werewolf didn’t mean he wasn’t big and bad. It just meant he had to be careful. Very, very careful.

Which was why, as the courier approached, Nate Zilar’s every sense was on high alert. He had chosen this meeting place because of its deserted location and had checked the surrounding area carefully. There was no one around. The parking lot was empty, apart from his car and the truck in which the other guy had just pulled up.

“Do you have the merchandise?”

“In the back.” The courier jerked his head.

Nate stepped forward. Another quick scan of his surroundings confirmed they were alone. Even now, after six years, he got flashbacks to that time. A reminder of that brief period when everything—his vision, hearing, scent and intuition—had all been so much more acute. When his body had been a raw mass of power and reaction. It wasn’t welcome, but at times like this, that residual supercharging of his senses came in useful.

The courier stepped aside, allowing Nate to view the objects in the back of the truck through the open doors. Silver samurai sword. Three daggers in varying sizes. They were the real thing. Nate had seen enough imitations and alloys over the years to know pure silver when he saw it. And he could smell it. It was another thing that had stayed with him. That crawling, gut-churning, nostril-burning stink of verdigris and death. When you’d been stabbed through the heart with a silver dagger, you never forgot the stench. It remained embedded in your pores, branded deep in your psyche.

Even though his shifting days were over, Nate remembered the damage silver could do. It was the only thing guaranteed to kill a werewolf. And he should know. He examined the guns. They were what he had ordered. His favorite Remington 700 and a couple of handguns.

“Bullets?”

“A dozen. Solid silver.” The courier pointed to a box.

Nate shook his head. What if his quarry wasn’t alone? “Not enough. I need at least twice that many.”

He clenched his teeth hard, biting back his frustration. This was the problem with international travel. He couldn’t carry his own kit on an airplane, so he was forced to rely on others to have things ready and waiting for him. At least here in America he could usually count on getting exactly what he wanted. In some places, like on his recent mission to a remote African state, it proved more of a problem.

“I was told a dozen.” Like hell you were. For the first time, he looked the other man in the eye. The courier took a step back under the full force of Nate’s glare. “I can get more, but it will cost you extra.”

“Figures.”

“I’ll have them here in the morning.”

Nate withdrew a roll of cash from the back pocket of his jeans and started counting. He knew from experience it was the only language that worked. “I’ll be gone from here in the morning. I need them tonight.”

The man’s eyes fixed greedily on the hundred-dollar bills. “Anything you say.” He paused. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask.” Doesn’t mean you’ll get an answer.

“Can I get an autograph? It’s for my daughter. She’s a big fan...” Under Nate’s steady gaze, his voice trailed off and he swallowed nervously.

When Nate didn’t answer, the courier walked away, muttering an embarrassed curse under his breath as he climbed back into the truck.

So the day he’d dreaded had come at last. He’d been recognized. Had this guy already been to the press with the story, or would he have long enough to complete this mission before all hell broke over his head? The best headline he could hope for was something speculative like Why is Nate Zilar Stockpiling Illegal Weapons? The worst? Rock Star Turns Werewolf Hunter.

* * *

“My friends are not your business.”

“I am the Wolf Leader. Everything you do is my business!”

They were the words her father had flung at her before Violet stormed out of his study in a rage.

He used the same words to end every argument. As the youngest daughter of Nevan, the ruler of the werewolves, Violet was tired of being expected to bend to his every demand.

Her father was a powerful figure in Otherworld politics. The Wolf Nation was one of the most influential dynasties in Otherworld, and many werewolves also lived alongside humans in the mortal realm. It meant the Wolf Leader was a dominant force in both worlds.

Their relationship had always been stormy. Violet’s mother had died soon after she was born and, without the calming influence of the woman he had loved deeply, her father had become even more autocratic and domineering. Violet, the child many said resembled her mother more closely than any of her siblings, had borne the brunt of this.

Things had gone from bad to worse recently when her father had succeeded in his ambition to overthrow his sworn enemy, Anwyl, the former Wolf Leader. Now he was no longer Nevan the Rebel. He was in charge. His arrogance had swelled in proportion to his power and influence. Violet’s defiance increased correspondingly. Their clashes became legendary. Confrontation was commonplace in the Wolf Nation, but when Nevan and his daughter fought, everyone else took cover.

Now Violet had reached adulthood, and she found her father’s control stifling. She wanted to do something with her life, an ambition that horrified Nevan. No child of his was going to undertake any form of employment. Violet’s suggestion that she should do voluntary work had also been met with scorn.

The vast series of rural islands that comprised the Wolf Nation was a difficult territory over which to keep control. Nevan wanted to maintain the appearance of a powerful leader with a dutiful family at his side. A daughter who went her own way did not fit that image.

Although Nevan had quickly consolidated his position with ruthless strikes against all those who had previously opposed him, a new resistance had soon sprung up. For so many years, Nevan had been the rebel leader. Now he had achieved his goal. Anwyl, the man he hated was dead, but the new rebel leader, Roko, was as determined as Violet to change the political landscape. The difference between them was that Roko was able to speak openly about his beliefs. Violet didn’t dare.

It had been easier to pretend her closeness to Roko was friendship than to tell her father the truth. If he discovered she was working secretly with the resistance to help the refugees, those werewolves made homeless by Nevan’s cruelty, the storm breaking over her head would have become a tempest.

Since becoming leader, Nevan’s fury against Anwyl’s followers had been boundless. The two main islands that comprised the Wolf Nation were Reznati and Urlati. Until recently, Reznati had been the base of Anwyl and his followers. Urlati had always been Nevan’s home. Following Anwyl’s defeat, Nevan had exacted terrible retribution upon the people of Reznati, burning villages and driving men, women and children out of their homes.

Violet drew a breath as she exited Nevan’s study. In the most recent confrontation, her father had forbidden her from seeing Roko. He had forbidden her many things during her life, most of which she had disobeyed.

Leaving the house, the beautiful mansion known as the Voda Kuca that occupied a prominent position on the island of Urlati, she made her way to the nearby forest where she knew Roko would be waiting. Sure enough, he was lounging against a tree trunk.

Faced with her father’s atrocities toward his enemies, Violet had no choice other than to turn to the resistance for help. But both Roko and her father made a huge assumption if they believed her interest in the rebel leader was romantic. Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough to convince either of them. She experienced a pang of guilt as Roko’s handsome features lit up with a smile when he saw her. She had never given him any encouragement, but that look told her she might not have given him a clear enough signal that friendship and a working relationship were all she had to offer. Her conscience prodded her again. Maybe a part of her had enjoyed inflaming her father’s anger even further by hinting that this was something more.

“Trouble?” Roko asked as he saw her expression.

“My father has issued an ultimatum. I am to stop working for the refugee movement or face banishment.” The words came out in a rush. The tears she had tried so hard to suppress were close to the surface, but she didn’t know Roko well enough to allow them to spill over in his presence. Her pride would not allow a display of that nature. She knew he would be only too happy to offer a sympathetic shoulder, but that would mean dismantling a boundary that she preferred to keep intact.

“Bastard.” His features hardened. “What will you do?”

“What can I do?” Violet sighed. “I cannot accept my father’s autocratic rule, not just over myself, but over the Wolf Nation. I’ve always known he is a cruel man. I’ve seen the evidence of that throughout my life. Even when I was younger, I tried to persuade him that there were other ways to secure the loyalty of his subjects.” She laughed at the memory. “My efforts were always greeted with a sneer. When he finally defeated Anwyl and took over, his treatment of those who were loyal to the former leader was brutal.”

Roko nodded. “I know. I see the evidence of it every day. Anwyl was a good man. He led our dynasty peaceably for many years until Nevan turned against him. I want a return to those days, a return to the werewolf traits of nobility and pack loyalty. We are not a nation that turns on its own.”

Violet didn’t point out to him that the resistance was weak. Since Anwyl’s defeat, Nevan had done everything he could to stamp out any opposition. The only reason Roko was still alive was that Nevan didn’t view him as a real threat. Her father had made sure Roko had no real support. Anyone who might have considered joining the resistance was already in the refugee camp, fighting to stay alive.

“As I was growing up, my brothers and sisters tried to get me to follow their lead, to turn a blind eye to what my father was doing, but I couldn’t. That this cruelty is going on in his name makes it so much worse, because I am associated with it through my relationship to him. He makes me stand at his side when there is a formal function. I must walk next to him when he goes on his triumphant journeys through the Wolf Nation. When he took over, I had to do something—anything—to make things better for the innocent werewolf packs caught in the crossfire of his revenge.”

Violet shook her head. She hadn’t answered Roko’s question. What was she going to do? When your father was feared throughout Otherworld for violence, and within his own family for his temper, it was probably best not to openly defy him.

So why do I continue to do it? Violet wondered, not for the first time. Why the hell don’t I just accept defeat and bow down to his wishes?

The answer was obvious. Because if I give in this time, I’ll do it every time. I would abandon my principles and let down all those people who are depending on me.

Maybe this one time, I have to let go. It was a small, insidious voice at the back of her mind. She had been hearing it more and more frequently lately. No matter how hard she tried to shut it up, it refused to be silenced. She knew her father’s threat to banish her was a serious one. She didn’t have far to look for the proof that he meant what he said. After all, it had happened to one of her own brothers.

Roko cast a speculative glance in her direction. “Why don’t you come with me to the mortal realm?”

Roko had boasted before that he had friends in the human world. It had seemed so exotic when he first told her about it. The mortal realm was a mystic place, somewhere Violet had heard of only in stories. She knew there were werewolves who lived alongside mortals without detection, but it sounded like the fairy tales she had read as a child. It was another world, one she had never thought to visit.

Even though the veil between the two worlds was a thin one, with Otherworld existing unseen alongside the mortal realm, there was very little overlap between them. All Violet knew was that access to the mortal realm could be gained through a series of portals. While some hardy adventurers used these as a means of traveling regularly between the two, most beings remained within their own worlds. Those in Otherworld had an awareness of the mortal realm, but mortals remained blissfully unaware of Otherworld.

She blinked at him. “Pardon?”

“There are werewolves there who can help the refugee cause. Wealthy businessmen and women who make their money in the mortal realm. They can provide the support we need for the camp of Anwyl supporters who have been displaced by your father’s policies.”

Violet’s heart began to beat faster. “My father would never allow it.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we should tell him.” Roko grinned delightedly at the look on her face. “Your father’s beta werewolves, the goons he sends to sniff out a problem, are used to operating here in Otherworld. They’ll never be smart enough to figure out where we’ve gone.”

It all sounded so enticing, so brave, so spur-of-the-moment glamorous. There was just one problem.

“We are friends, right? Nothing more.” She had to be sure Roko knew that before she embarked on any journey with him.

His grin deepened. “Sure thing, babe.”

Babe? Had he listened to what she’d just said? Violet knew why Nevan was so opposed to her friendship with Roko. Apart from the fact that he was a rebel, her father saw her as a pawn to further his political ambitions. He wanted to marry her off to one of his powerful allies. Prospects were everything as far as her father was concerned. Prospects were something Roko lacked. He was not an alpha wolf, and his family was not noble.

Looking at Roko’s smiling, handsome face, Violet finally understood what prospects really meant. It wasn’t about whether the man she chose as her mate would further the werewolf cause with Otherworld dynasties. When the werewolves sat around the table at gatherings of the Otherworld Alliance, they met with faeries, elves, phantoms, and dryads, to name but a few of the many dynasties who made up the vast realm of Otherworld. Not to mention the age-old enemies of the werewolves. The vampire dynasty under its charismatic leader, Prince Tibor, was on the rise. Nevan wanted alliances that would make the werewolves a match for the vampires. That was what prospects meant to him.

But shouldn’t prospects also mean her mate would be able to care for her, protect her and shelter her if they made a mad dash into the mortal realm? With Roko, the answer to all of those was a resounding no.

When she looked at Roko, Violet saw the opposite of Nevan. She saw weakness instead of strength, but neither man had the true qualities needed to lead the Wolf Nation. Both were lacking the essential ingredients of compassion and empathy. It scared her that her people—her pack—were reliant on these warring individuals to provide the leadership they so desperately needed.

Oh, Roko could offer her fun...and fun had been one element that had been missing throughout Violet’s life. Now and then, she had briefly wondered if it might be worth combining business with pleasure. But Violet had realized some time ago that fun might be all Roko had to offer. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from her future mate, but it was a hell of a lot more than this.

Even though she had her doubts about the company, a proposed trip to the mortal realm offered her an escape from her father’s threats and the chance to drum up some much-needed support for her cause.

“Very well.” She nodded. “When do we leave?”

“How about right now?”

* * *

Nate jerked awake suddenly, aware that he was no longer alone in an anonymous motel room. Instinctively, his hand dived under the pillow for his gun.

“Relax. You don’t need it.” The voice of the man seated in the chair at the side of the bed was amused. The moonlight streaming through a gap in the curtains illuminated his face, and his eyes shone with a silver gleam that was unusual, but familiar.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that. Can’t you just arrange to meet in some seedy strip joint like other people do at—” Nate squinted at the digital clock on the bedside locker “—four in the morning?” He reached out a hand and flipped the switch on the lamp.

His uninvited visitor grinned. “Must I remind you that I’m a happily married man?”

Nate sat up against the pillows, tucking the bedcovers around his waist. “Looking good for it, Cal. Being a father obviously suits you.”

It still felt strange to call Merlin Caledonius by his nickname. The greatest sorcerer the world had ever known, the man responsible for bringing the legendary King Arthur to the throne, should surely be accorded more respect. Nate reminded himself that Cal was the name the man himself preferred.

“You haven’t seen me trying to change a diaper. It would do my reputation no good whatsoever if word of how bad I am at that simple task ever got out. Three children, and it doesn’t get any easier. Stella sends her love, by the way.”

Nate could never think of Cal’s wife, Stella, without remembering that night six years ago. As far as he could recall it. Some of the details were a blur. The part where he had tried to rip Stella’s throat out was pretty much lost in the mists of time. The voice in his head urging him on wasn’t. Nate could still hear that voice. It haunted his dreams.

“Sending mine right back to her. And the twins? How are they? Nice touch on the names, by the way. Keeping the whole Merlin and Arthur theme going.”

“We think so. And it’s a tribute to one of my best friends, of course. Young Jethro and Arthur are thriving, thank you.”

“It was certainly unexpected that your friend Jethro de Loix would turn out to be the reincarnation of King Arthur,” Nate said.

“But useful when it came to naming our sons. We were able to name both twins after the same person.” Cal cast a glance around the bland room. “Not up to your usual standard. Seeing this, no one would believe you were one of the most well-known men in Europe.”

“The choice of location was yours. They don’t exactly deal in luxury out here in the back of beyond. Anyway, I thought we agreed I wouldn’t draw attention to myself. The band may only have made it big in the US recently, but people tend to sit up and take notice when I fly into town.” Should he mention the courier? There was always a tendency to assume Cal knew everything. “Which reminds me, I was recognized yesterday.”

Cal muttered a curse. “Give me the details and I’ll sort it out.”

Nate nodded. He knew the man assigned with the task of keeping the peace on the boundaries between Otherworld and the mortal realm was unlikely to mean anything sinister by those words. It was probable Cal would simply erase the courier’s memory, or use some other sorcerer’s trick on him.

Nate yawned and glanced at the clock again. He’d been asleep for four hours. It felt like less. “Who have you got for me this time?”

Cal produced a photograph from the pocket of his button-down shirt. It showed a young man, looking directly at the camera. There was a slight smile on his face as he raised a beer bottle in salute to whoever was taking the picture.

“He looks about the same age I was.” Nate’s voice was expressionless. This was always the hardest part.

“A bit younger.” Cal’s tone held a note of sympathy that Nate really didn’t want to hear.

“How long?” He swallowed hard, fighting the emotions that were trying to rise up inside him. This was going to be difficult enough without feeling any sort of attachment.

“Three months.”

“Just a novice.”

“Hardly that.” Cal produced another set of pictures, and Nate’s resolve hardened. Blood, gore and the torn-apart bodies of innocent victims would do that every time.

“Where?” Nate became businesslike again.

“There is a thriving werewolf population in this part of the world. A peaceable one for the most part. They generally live alongside the humans without drawing attention to themselves, but there is a big party tonight. It’s a fund-raiser of some kind.” Cal tapped the photographs with one fingertip. “Our friend here is a feral werewolf, so he won’t be invited. But he will be drawn to the other werewolves. Pack instinct. He won’t be able to help himself. It will be easier to hunt him and take him down out there, in the countryside, than in town.”

Nate nodded. What Cal was saying made sense. Werewolves were sociable. They liked to reinforce their pack status with regular parties and meetings. The rogues he hunted were cast out by the werewolves who lived alongside mortals. They gave werewolves a bad name. Even so, the feral ones, the ones who belonged to the legends of full moons and misty moors, still longed to be part of lycanthrope society and were drawn to their law-abiding counterparts without understanding why. It was just another facet to the curse they labored under. He remembered it well.

Nate drew a breath. The formalities might be over, but there was something else he needed to say. Even though he knew what Cal’s response would be, he always had to raise the subject. It burned away inside him, ate him up. He needed to hear the words every time just in case, by some miracle, they might be different.

“You know which one I want you to send me after.”

Cal shook his head. Like he always did. “You know it can’t be done. Nevan rarely enters the mortal realm, and it would be too dangerous for you to go after him on his home territory. Otherworld is not the place for humans.”

“I’d risk it if it meant I could take that bastard out.” Nate hated the tremor in his hands as he pressed his fingertips against his temple. “When I remember what he did to me. Having him inside my head...”

“Let it go, Nate.” Cal’s voice was gentle.

Nate leaned back on his pillows, breathing deep as he tilted his head to look at the ceiling. Let it go? Only a man who had never lived with the nightmare Nate had endured could utter those words. Six years ago, Nate had been attacked by a feral werewolf. Having survived, Nate had become a rogue werewolf himself, subject to the same bloodlust each time the moon was full. Even worse, his mind had been controlled by a powerful, manipulative werewolf called Nevan. This werewolf, one whom Nate had never met, had used an evil form of telepathy to try and force him to kill Stella.

Nate had a feeling he might be the only person who had lived through the horror of becoming a werewolf and coming through the other side as a human once more. That remarkable feat was due to the ingenuity of Cal and Stella. When Nate had attempted to kill Stella, Cal had stabbed him through the heart with a silver dagger, killing the werewolf within him. Stella, who was the greatest necromancer the world had ever known—so great that she was known throughout Otherworld as the “necromancer star”—had used her incredible powers to bring him back to life. Nate had survived the experience. He was intact, but not unscathed.

Cal regarded him steadily. “Although I’ve never questioned your commitment, I worry about what this does to you.”

“It screws with my head, but I can’t stop.” Nate gave a shaky laugh. “And I don’t see a queue of people lining up to take my place. So, worrying or not, I guess I’m the only werewolf hunter you have.”

Cal nodded. “I know this is no consolation, but Nevan has his own set of problems right now. As well as struggling to maintain control after a bloody fight to take over as leader, his youngest daughter has gone missing.”

“My heart bleeds for him.” Nate managed a sarcastic snarl that was a little too wolfish for his own liking. “Just so we’re clear...if the opportunity ever presents itself, I will do whatever it takes to make that bastard pay for what he did to me. With or without your approval.”

* * *

The party was in full swing when they arrived. Held in a vast, ranch-style house deep in the heart of a Vermont forest, it was unlike any other Violet had ever attended. The dress code was casual; there were no formal introductions, and, since dinner seemed to consist of helping yourself to raw steak and beer, there wasn’t a seating plan. The mortal realm was finally beginning to live up to its fairy-tale reputation.

Violet was conscious of the number of glances, both surreptitious and open, being cast her way as, with a proprietorial hand on the small of her back, Roko steered her out toward the backyard.

“Do these people know who I am?”

He shook his head. “No way. I haven’t told anyone. Only Teo. One word in the wrong ear and your father’s mongrels would find us and rip me apart.”

“Then why are so many of them staring at me?”

Roko flashed his grin at her. He hadn’t used it much since their arrival in the mortal realm, and somehow it had lost a lot of its impact. “Because you’re gorgeous.”

Teo, who’d overheard the remark, tilted his drink in her direction in an appreciative salute. Pack dynamics seemed to be off-kilter here in the mortal realm. In Otherworld, Teo would not have dared to cast a look in the direction of the daughter of the great Wolf Leader. Here it seemed to be okay to throw her a glance that blatantly told her he was picturing her human without any clothes...and her wolf self baring her belly in preparation for submission.

So far, the mortal realm had not lived up to Violet’s expectations. From the moment they entered it, they had been in hiding. Her father controlled all werewolves, not just those in Otherworld. Nevan’s word was absolute. From the minute they crossed the border from Otherworld, the search had been on. Violet was hunted, and Roko was a marked man. One or two narrow escapes had been enough to turn the swaggering, would-be alpha into a frightened, petulant cub.