Red Wolf

by Jennifer Ashley

  That fact cut through his strange terror and disorientation, giving him a focus. Jaycee. His love. His mate.

  Rubble continued to fall down on them, beating on Dimitri’s back; then, abruptly, it ceased.

  Dimitri raised his head. Dust choked the air, rendering visibility almost nothing. He couldn’t tell if the room was still there or not, if the house had fallen around them or was nothing but a ruin.

  He heard a groan near him, and then Ben dragged in a rasping breath. “Everyone all right?”

  “Yeah,” Dimitri croaked. “Jase?” He put his hand on her cheek, found it cold. Stark fear plunged through him. “Jase.”

  Jaycee coughed. “Goddess, I swallowed half the storm,” she said, voice grating.

  Dimitri’s relief made the terrifying memories kicking at him vanish. He lowered his head and kissed Jaycee’s lips. And again. Her mouth, face, dusty hair. She was alive, and all right.

  “When you’re done.” Ben’s voice came from above them.

  There was a crackling noise, and light poured into the room. The rose vines were coming apart, revealing gray light outside with gently falling rain. A beam of sunshine broke through the clouds, rendering the world a sparkling jewel.

  “What the hell?” Dimitri looked around, and Jaycee took the opportunity to slither out from under him.

  The room’s walls were still standing, but the ceiling above them had been half peeled away. The upstairs must be gone, because a sunbeam poured through the crack.

  “Oh, no,” Jaycee said in sorrow. “Jazz’s house. She’ll be devastated.”

  Ben looked around, almost in awe. “I hope our bikes are all right. Or else we’ll be out looking for a ride as well as a place to stay.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Dimitri managed as he climbed to his feet. He’d seriously mourn the loss of his motorcycle, but he knew he could buy another one when he was finished grieving. The house was irreplaceable.

  “We should find out the extent of the damage,” Jaycee said, her voice heavy. “I’ll have to—”

  Whatever she’d have to do was cut off by another noise. Not the boom and roar of the storm, but a crackling and rushing similar to what the rose vines had made.

  Dimitri moved to the window, which was unbroken, the draperies around it barely moistened from the rain. The vines were receding from this wall but climbing upward, moving to the broken part of the ceiling and on into the wreckage above them.

  “Holy shit,” Jaycee whispered beside Dimitri. The three of them watched as the vines wrapped around the bricks and shattered wood of the house and started to pull them together.

  Like a bizarre special effect, the house seemed to grow into itself, brick by brick, held in place by twining rose vines. Maybe that was why the entire mansion was covered with them, Dimitri mused—they were what kept the house from falling down.

  Little by little, the ceiling above the sitting room solidified. Dust rained down as the walls rose and the roof was pulled back on.

  Ben watched in wonder. “Some bitchin’ magic was put into this place,” he said, full of respect.

  Dimitri turned back as the room darkened again, the ceiling now in place. He took Ben’s flashlight from him and pointed it at the odd door they’d not been able to open.

  But now that the house was distracted . . .

  Dimitri moved swiftly to it, turned the handle, and wrenched it open.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jaycee heard Dimitri shout. Her heart racing, she swung around to see him hanging on to the knob of the now-open door in the wall.

  The doorframe outlined blackness. Jaycee hurried to Dimitri, who was leaning back from the dark rectangle as though trying to keep from being pulled in.

  “What’s in there?” Jaycee asked, peering around him.

  Dimitri let go of the doorknob to grab the back of Jaycee’s shirt and yank her away from the unnerving darkness. “N-nothing,” he answered.

  Ben was a few steps behind Jaycee. “What do you mean, nothing?”

  He took his flashlight back from Dimitri and shone it through the door. The beam cut through the blackness but only rested on more darkness. Jaycee couldn’t make out anything; not a wall, a corner, a floor . . .

  “N-nothing,” Dimitri repeated. “Like I said.”

  “Everything has to be something,” Ben said. “Even deep space between galaxies has a few molecules floating in it.”

  He thrust the flashlight into the opening, but there was no change—the blackness swallowed the beam a few feet in. Next Ben put a tentative foot through the door. “Whoops,” he said as he tilted forward.

  Jaycee and Dimitri, as one, seized him and pulled him to safety. Once Ben had cleared the threshold, the door slammed shut, the lock clicking loudly. Rose vines shot through the open window to crisscross themselves over the door. They crackled with the effort, then suddenly went still, all quiet.

  Dimitri let out his breath. “Guess the h-house doesn’t w-want us in there.”

  “Guess not,” Jaycee agreed.

  “How can a house want anything?” Ben asked.

  He reached out and lightly touched one of the vines. It didn’t move, didn’t do anything, though one of the leaves on it twitched from the movement of his finger. It was just a vine.

  “I’m not going to argue with it,” Jaycee said. “The house kept us safe from the storm, didn’t it? It’s like a mother, almost. Or father. Both rolled into one. I’ll have to call Jasmine. The house repaired itself, but didn’t clean up inside. We have to do that, it looks like.”

  “Figures,” Ben said, shrugging.

  Dimitri gave the door a final look, then walked out into the hall. Jaycee followed and caught up to him in the staircase hall, where he cranked his head back to look up the stairs.

  The chandelier, amazingly, was still in place, hanging high above the main hall. This part of the house, in the middle, had the least mess. Dust had mixed with water to coat the furniture with a fine film of mud, but otherwise all was unbroken.

  Dimitri stared up at the chandelier as though transfixed by it. “We’re lucky the house likes us,” he said without a stammer.

  “I’m understanding that,” Jaycee said. “It likes Ben too or he’d have never been able to get in.”

  “Good point,” Ben, who’d followed her, said. He righted a table that had fallen and brushed it off with his hand. “Thank you.” He gave the paneling a quick stroke. “I’m very grateful.”

  The house was silent, water dripping from its eaves, wind rippling the chimes outside. No rumblings, creaking, climbing plants, whispered laughter. It seemed like an ordinary house, one that had survived a strong storm.

  Jaycee watched both men eyeing the building in admiration and heaved a sigh. “I’ll get some brooms and dust rags. We’d better get started.”

  * * *

  When Jaycee called Jasmine to tell her about the storm and the house’s peculiar behavior, Jasmine didn’t seem surprised.

  “My grandmother told me about it doing something like that during a hurricane,” Jasmine said, her light New Orleans accent coming through. “Though the house wasn’t hit directly that time. Let me know if any furniture needs to be repaired or replaced, and I’ll put my carpenters on it. They know how to make everything true to the period.” She paused and added wistfully, “Tell it I said hello and will be back soon.”

  “Sure,” Jaycee said. What was odder—the house or the woman who had a relationship with it? “Hopefully there won’t be too many repairs.”

  “It’s all right,” Jazz answered. “When you live in a historic home, you get used to it.” When Jaycee mentioned insurance, Jazz laughed. “We never could afford insurance. Cheaper to fix everything ourselves. Don’t worry, Jaycee. Just enjoy yourself.”

  Jazz also seemed surprised when Jaycee mentioned the swimming pool. “I don�
��t have a pool,” Jazz said, then concluded, “The house looks after its guests, I guess.”

  Jaycee hung up, startled and envying Jazz and her easy outlook. But then, Jazz had a loving mate in Mason McNaughton, a growling wolf of a young man not long past his Transition. Her serenity came from happiness.

  Jaycee, Dimitri, and Ben spent the rest of the day cleaning up from the storm. The downstairs didn’t fare so badly, but upstairs they had to pile plaster and pieces of wood and brick into the corners to haul away later. Jazz would have to replace some of the furniture in the bedrooms, including curtains and bedding. The bedrooms Jaycee and Dimitri had slept in, however, were untouched.

  The two men worked without fuss. Shifters had never considered cleaning a house to be “women’s work”—possibly because, traditionally, male Shifters hadn’t gone outside the home to find jobs. They’d hunted, gathered, and sometimes farmed on small plots. Both genders did the hunting and harvesting, and both genders took care of the house and raised the cubs.

  Jaycee remembered when she’d first encountered human women who’d been expected to wash all the clothes, do the cooking and the cleaning, take care of the cubs, and go out and find a job to bring in extra money. She’d been amazed they put up with it, seemed to think it was normal. Jaycee would have to have a serious talk with any male who expected her to do all that.

  Watching Dimitri bend double to sweep out the corners wasn’t a bad thing either. Did he deliberately wear jeans that enticingly snug? Knowing Dimitri as well as she did, Jaycee was sure of the answer.

  She realized she’d been polishing the same corner of a hall table for about five minutes, her gaze glued to Dimitri’s ass, when she caught sight of Ben grinning at her, his dark eyes crinkling in the corners.

  Jaycee flushed and whirled away to clean somewhere else.

  Ben departed a couple of hours before Dimitri wanted to return to the club where they’d met Brice. Jaycee didn’t see Ben go—one minute he was devouring a bag of chips in the kitchen, the next, he was gone.

  When she and Dimitri went out to the shed to retrieve Dimitri’s motorcycle, they saw no sign of Ben, no sign of the motorcycle he claimed to have ridden here. No tire tracks, nothing. Stealth indeed.

  Jaycee rode behind Dimitri to town without question, not insisting that she drive. She held on to Dimitri as they pulled away from the house, enjoying the feeling of him moving against her.

  As they headed into the city, Jaycee noticed something odd—in a long day of strange things. There were no puddles from the rain, no tree limbs down, no damage to the houses and buildings they passed. Jazz’s property had been covered with mud and deep puddles, but once they turned onto the road that led to the 61, she noticed nothing amiss. It was as though the storm had been localized to the narrow strip of land where Jazz’s house lay.

  She didn’t like that, and neither did her leopard. Ben had said the house might be on a ley line, which was a power flow of deep magic. Did it mean the storm was magical too? An attack against the house and the two Shifters and Ben inside it?

  Or had it simply been crazy Louisiana weather? Tornadoes could be arbitrary. Jaycee had seen them do heavy damage to one house, while leaving a house across the street untouched. She’d have to think about that for a while.

  They were in the city quickly. It was still light, as summer days were long, but by nine, twilight had fallen and New Orleans came awake.

  Jaycee liked the city, which was different from any she’d visited. Tourists flocked here, of course, but as she and Dimitri walked down the street toward the Shifter bar, local women and men said hello, and while they waited to cross a street among a crowd, people asked how they were doing.

  Groupies streamed toward the Shifter club by the dozen. No one on the street seemed to think it odd that both women and men had their faces painted to look like cats or wolves—a few bearded men going for the bear look—or wore ears, whiskers, and tails. One woman had forgone most of her clothing to wear a bikini, a tail, and cat ears. She drew looks of envy from those walking in the sticky heat. The heat was one reason no one hurried—strolling was much more pleasant than rushing.

  The club was already going strong, though Jaycee knew from experience that Shifter clubs didn’t become fully crowded until midnight. Shifters were supposed to be back in their Shiftertowns by then, and the partiers lived on the edge of excitement, anticipating a raid. Usually, the human police left the clubs alone, city police and Shifters having learned a long time ago how to give and take to keep the peace.

  Not always, though. Dimitri slowed as they neared the club. “Not good.”

  The men outside the door checking IDs weren’t Shifter bouncers or even human cops. They wore military camouflage and one carried a tranq rifle.

  Sometimes this happened. Shifter Bureau would get a hair up its collective butt and decide to make sure Shifters were following the rules. No Shifters leaving their home states, no Shifters out after midnight, all Shifters in Collars.

  Jaycee and Dimitri had resumed their Collars for the club—the humans there would know they were Shifter and many would have seen them the night before wearing Collars. No way to strip them off and fade into the crowd—the momentum of the people behind them, eager to reach the club, kept them moving forward.

  “Shit,” Dimitri said softly.

  “Let’s cross the street,” Jaycee said. “Quietly, like we changed our minds and want to look in shops instead.”

  She glanced to where lit shops enticed the crowd with promises of real voodoo magic, the best New Orleans gumbo, and other temptations. A brass jazz band sat in the middle of it all, filling the air with wild trombone and trumpet runs.

  “I can help,” a young man said softly in Jaycee’s ear. He was tall, blond, and wore wolf’s ears, with whiskers painted on his cheeks. “I know the back way in. You won’t have to show ID.”

  Dimitri said nothing. He turned so his back was to the crowd at the door and sharply gestured for the young man to lead the way.

  Their guide was in his early twenties, Jaycee guessed, which for humans meant fully grown, able to marry and leave his family. Shifter males usually didn’t leave their families at all, even once their Transition happened—brothers, wives, and cubs often lived in the same houses. The Shifter family who’d raised Jaycee had lived as such, though in their case, it hadn’t been a good thing. They’d fought constantly, the entire pack at each other’s throats most days.

  The young man led them between two buildings, the passageway so narrow Jaycee hadn’t realized anything was back here. Her nose wrinkled at the stench of garbage, urine, and animal droppings as they picked their way between walls of crumbling brick.

  The passage opened to an alley, which smelled even more strongly of garbage. Bins lined the space, and back doors opened to kitchens, from which smells of foods and spices tumbled out. Men lounged by these doors, tips of cigarettes glowing.

  They paid no attention to Jaycee, Dimitri, and their guide after one glance. Likely it wasn’t unusual to see Shifters skulking in alleys around here.

  The guide took them to a blank, black door, and knocked on it. A few moments later, a Shifter opened it, a Lupine by the look of him. He had black hair cut short against his head, an equally trimmed shadow of a beard, and clear gray eyes. His short-sleeved black shirt showed tattoos on his arms. He gave Dimitri a hostile stare.

  “Who are you?” he growled.

  Dimitri said nothing. He chose to do that sometimes, using his stare to intimidate in case his mouth wouldn’t cooperate. Jaycee folded her arms and spoke to the Lupine for him.

  “We’re looking for Brice.”

  The Shifter didn’t do a happy dance. In fact, his scowl deepened. “Brice? Figures. Fine, I’ll let you in, but you keep the hell out of sight.” He switched his glare to the groupie, who quickly bowed his head, curling in on himself.

  The Lupin
e moved aside and let them past—Dimitri first, then Jaycee, and the young man scuttling in after them.

  “Thanks,” Jaycee said kindly to the groupie, and he was all smiles again.

  The Lupine led them through the cubbyhole that was a kitchen—unused, as no food was served here—and to a hall that led to the main club. He paused before he opened the door at the end, behind which came the pulse of music.

  “Anyone asks, I didn’t do this,” the Lupine rumbled. He looked Dimitri up and down. “What are you supposed to be, anyway?”

  Dimitri kept up the silent stare, his gray eyes unwavering. Jaycee pinned the Lupine with her gaze, though she wasn’t as good at it as Dimitri. “He’s a red wolf,” she said. “They’re rare.”

  “I’m sure he’s proud of himself.” The Lupine kept his gaze on Dimitri, not Jaycee, certain Dimitri was the bigger threat. “You don’t look like Brice’s usual dickheads.”

  Dimitri dropped his silent alpha mode and asked, “What d-do they usually l-look like?”

  The Lupine’s eyes narrowed. “Glazed. Like they’ve sucked in too much incense dancing around naked to the Goddess.” He looked Dimitri up and down again. “But you’re new. Give it time.” He reached for the door. “I’m Angus. One of the bouncers. If you want to ditch the Goddess fanatics, I can get you out again. My advice—go now and don’t come back.”

  Dimitri studied Angus for a time, then gave him a slow nod. “Angus. G-got it. You going to l-let us in now?”

  The Lupine eyed them in more irritation, then switched off the light in the hall, opened the door to the club, and led them through.

  Turning the light off kept their silhouettes from showing in the open doorway, a consideration Jaycee appreciated. They followed Angus into a shadowy area near the bar, which was crowded with Shifters and humans. The groupie who’d shown them the way in faded into the morass, lifting his hand in greeting to other groupies, male and female.