The Unforgettable Wolf

by Jane Godman

  “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.

  Sunlight had become a distant memory. Hiding away indoors, staying cooped up inside for days on end, running scared: all of those things were alien to Violet’s natural instincts. And the food? Don’t get me started on the food. Prepackaged, tasteless and limited. It wasn’t even fit for dogs. How mortals survived on this crap, she would never know. She needed to get out, to run, to hunt, to sink her teeth into her own kill. A kill that was still warm...

  The backyard was predictably more crowded than the house. Like Violet, most wolves would rather be outdoors than inside. She tilted back her head, drinking in the velvety night sky and sniffing appreciatively at the loam and pine scent of the forest.

  There was nothing she’d have liked more than to slip out of her clothes and let her wolf self run free through the trees. There was just one problem. She cast a sidelong glance in Roko’s direction. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. Violet almost laughed out loud. She didn’t want to give him any ideas. Coming to the mortal realm in his company had been about the worst move she’d ever made. She wasn’t going to compound it by letting him think she was ready to mate with him. She knew Roko was waiting for a signal from her. A signal that was never going to come.

  Violet found herself in a new situation. Strong-willed, headstrong and determined, for the first time in her life, she didn’t know what to do. Slink back to Otherworld with her tail between her legs, face her father’s wrath and the subsequent humiliation? Or remain here in the mortal realm with a man who wanted more than she was prepared to give? So far, there was no sign of the support he’d promised for the refugees, and she needed to get back to the Wolf Nation and back to her role in helping them. It was a dilemma, and she found herself paying more attention to her thoughts than to her fellow partygoers. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was never going back to her role as the oppressed daughter of the Wolf Leader. She wanted to do something with her life. What that something might be, she had no idea. All she knew for sure was that it would involve helping the oppressed werewolves under her father’s control...which meant she would be pitting her will against his.

  After a few beers, Roko seemed to relax and was soon the center of a group of young males. Violet got the impression he was inviting their admiration because of her, in a look-what-I’ve-got way. It annoyed her, because it provided more evidence of her foolishness in being here with him. She drifted away from him slightly, following her instincts and allowing the woods and the night to call to her.

  The moon was full, adding to her restlessness, and she walked deeper into the trees, leaving the sounds of revelry behind. She breathed deep, inhaling the darkness. Her inner wolf leaped at the scents and sounds around her. Damp earth, crackling leaves underfoot, scurrying creatures. Night sounds. A glance over her shoulder showed her the lights of the house, barely visible now through the dense tree trunks.

  Why not?

  What possible harm could there be? Violet’s wolf self nudged insistently at her human. Make it fast. No one will ever know.

  Slipping off her sneakers, she tugged her sweater over her head. Jeans and underwear followed. The cool breeze felt wonderful on her naked body. God, she had missed this. How had she gone so long without shifting?

  Hiding her clothing in a neat pile inside a hollow at the base of a tree, she was just about to shift when a low growl made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Looking up, she enc
ountered the burning, yellow gaze of a feral werewolf.

  Chapter 2

  Using the photograph and information Cal had given him, Nate tracked down the young guy to a house in the town. He followed him as he left his home, and watched as he glanced furtively all around before making his way up to the woods. Nate observed in dismay as darkness fell and the fresh-faced young man shifted by the light of the full moon. The memories came flooding back. He saw the fear and confusion on this guy’s face just before his body altered. His heart ached for the other man. Nate knew exactly what he was thinking. I’m going out of my mind. It was what Nate himself had believed six years ago.

  Now, of course, he knew exactly what had been happening to him. Back then, he had been twenty-two-year-old Nathan Jones. Zilar was his mother’s maiden name, and he’d been pushed into using it by his band’s manager, who wanted to go sexier and catchier. A promising music student, months away from graduation, he’d had his life turned upside-down. He’d been scared, lonely and unable to talk to anyone about what was going on inside his head and, even more frighteningly, within his body.

  He clearly remembered the werewolf bite that brought about his transformation. It was after a night out with friends. He didn’t have the money for a cab, so he had walked home. Something or someone—he thought at the time it was a wild dog—had jumped out on him from a narrow side street in a quiet part of town. It went for his throat. He thought he was dead for sure, but a group of passersby disturbed the animal and it ran away.

  Unconscious, Nate had been rushed to the hospital. He had bite marks to his throat and scratches on his chest and face. The police insisted they were looking for the same attacker who had brutally murdered a number of young men in the same area. He was lucky to be alive, they told him. It was only when the next full moon came around that Nate had known there was something very wrong. Lucky to be alive? He had lived with the irony of those words ever since.