by Jane Godman
“I’m not very hungry.”
He reached across the table and took her hand. “Try, Violet. Please.” She could hear the fear in his voice, and it made her heart ache. What was she doing to him...to them? But she couldn’t stop this, whatever it was. She wasn’t choosing it, would give anything to make it go away. But it was as if her body had set itself on a downward path and there was no way she could pull it back up.
To please Nate, she cut a few more pieces of rare steak and forced herself to swallow them. Her stomach rebelled as she ate, and the feeling frightened her more. She remembered Paris and Nate’s wide-eyed reaction to the amount of food she could consume. That was the real Violet, not this delicate creature. The woman whose designer clothes, purchased only a few weeks ago, hung loosely from her because they were several sizes too large. I want that Violet back. I have to find her.
“Tell me what to do.” Nate’s dark eyes were deep wells of pain as they scanned her face. “We have to be able to beat this.”
“It’s my wolf. She needs to get out.” She smiled sadly at him. “I think she’s dying, Nate.”
“Don’t say that.” His voice hitched. “Oh, God, Violet, we can’t let that happen.”
She moved around the table, coming to sit on his lap, curling into the warmth of his body and resting her head in the curve of his neck. He held her close to him for a long time. It felt to Violet like he was trying to imprint her onto his skin, to inhale her, to hold her in his arms forever.
A shout from the courtyard below broke the spell.
“We’ve got company.” It was Diablo’s voice.
Reluctantly, Nate placed Violet on her feet and moved to lean over the balcony rail. “What’s going on?”
Diablo was standing in the center of the courtyard. He tilted his head back to look up at Nate. “Our werewolf friends are on their way.”
“Get the others together. I’m on my way down.” Nate turned back to Violet. “Promise me you’ll stay here?”
“But it’s me they’ve come for. How can I ask you and your friends to place yourselves in danger and not even show myself to them?” Her heart was pounding with fear. Fear for herself, but even more fear for Nate and the confrontation he was about to walk into.
“Unless they are prepared to say why they want you, we have to assume you are in danger from them.” Nate drew her close for a second, pressing his lips to hers. “Until then, you stay out of sight. No arguments.”
She nodded. “I’ll listen from up here.”
The truth was, she felt too weak for any coming showdown. She felt too weak to find that next breath.
He smiled down at her. “That’s my girl.”
“I’ll always be your girl.” Why did saying those words make her want to cry? “I love you.”
* * *
Beast was already lined up on one side of the courtyard when the werewolves arrived. The five huge black animals bounded into the courtyard and halted when they saw the five men standing there.
The werewolves hesitated, then, as if acting in response to a silent signal, they shifted back. Five naked men faced the members of Beast across a distance of several feet. One of them, the one Nate recognized as the man who had apologized for interrupting the party in Vermont, took a single step forward.
“I am Dario. Give us what we want and there will be no trouble.”
Nate matched the forward step. “That depends on what you want.”
“We have come for the girl.”
“Why?” Nate wanted answers. If he knew what this was about, maybe they could find out who Violet was. Perhaps she would be able to finally find her inner wolf and put an end to this mystery illness of hers. Dear God, let that happen...before it’s too late.
The other man’s lip curled. “That need not concern you.”
Behind Nate, Khan made a low rumbling sound deep in his chest. Nate held up a hand to warn him to back off. “Unless you tell me what your interest in the girl is, you and I can have nothing more to say to each other.”
“I am authorized to get the girl and take her back to my master. Entering into negotiations is not part of my remit.” The werewolf’s voice was haughty.
“Who is your master?”
Dario remained silent.
“Where will you take her?”
Nothing.
“Fuck this.” Torque was getting restless. “Let me torch these bastards and then we can go and drink the bar dry in celebration.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Khan bared his teeth in an expression that might have been a grin, but was probably a snarl.
“This one is mine.” Even as he said the words, Nate wondered what the hell he was doing.
His friends clearly thought he had lost his mind. Dev caught hold of his arm, drawing him back slightly. “Have you forgotten one very important detail? Like the fact that you can’t shift?”
“He’s mine,” Nate insisted stubbornly. “You take care of the others. Leave the leader to me.”
“What do you want us to tell Violet when we take her the pieces of your body?” Torque asked.
“Let Nate do this.” Ged stepped out of the shadows, his eyes lit by a curious golden glow. He handed Nate a knife with a long, thin blade. It wasn’t silver, but it was better than nothing. “This moment has been a long time coming.”
In the instant it took Nate to turn away from Ged’s mesmerizing gaze, the werewolves had shifted. Dario crouched low and fixed Nate with a hungry stare. Nate examined the tiny feeling of elation he felt—this is for Violet—as he decided the only way to do this was to seize the initiative.
Something deep inside him, something he had ruthlessly suppressed for a long time, gave a silent, triumphant howl as he crouched and launched himself at Dario. Leaping high into the air, he closed the distance between them, landing on the back of the huge animal. Nate might not be able to shift, but from somewhere within him, he found the fighting instincts of a wolf. His free hand formed into claws, digging deep, bringing the werewolf down as they rolled on the ground, face-to-face, teeth bared. Dario was strong, but Nate had the advantage of surprise on his side. And he was fighting for Violet’s life as well as his own. Nothing was ever going to be a stronger incentive for Nate than that.
Even so, it took every ounce of Nate’s strength and newfound fighting ability to prevent his opponent from sinking those huge canines into his throat for the death blow, or slicing his abdomen open with claws like razors. He twisted and turned, bit and clawed as he rolled around the terrace with Dario alternately above and then below him. He was only half-conscious of the mayhem around him. The other members of Beast had shifted, and the snarls and growls of the big cats mingled with the flapping of wings, the roar of dragon flames and the bear roars that filled the night air. Luckily, they were the only guests at the hotel that night.
The werewolf was slipping from Nate’s grasp, his sinewy body twisting and turning in an effort to break free. The whole time those huge canines were snapping close to Nate’s wrists, threatening to snap them in two. With a final lunge, Dario sprang free of Nate’s grip and ran across the terrace.
Nate moved with lightning speed, covering the ground between them and throwing himself on the huge werewolf as it was about to dash into the darkness of the hotel gardens. His fingers dug like claws deep into his opponent’s hind leg, bringing Dario crashing to the ground. With a surge, he managed to bring the knife up and plunge it into the muscle of the werewolf’s leg. Wolf howls rent the night.
Tightening his grip on the werewolf against the odds, he managed to straddle the creature and get his hands around its throat. Dario writhed furiously, his lethal claws slashing into Nate’s side. Stinging pain followed by the warm sensation of blood soaking through his shirt indicated that the blow had done Nate some damage.
No one knew better than Nate that he couldn’t kill thi
s werewolf. Even if he had the strength in his bare hands to break its neck, he would only slow it down. What kind of werewolf hunter am I that I don’t have my kit with me when I need it? Silver bullets and a samurai sword: that’s what this occasion calls for.
Keeping his hands around Dario’s throat, he leaned close so that the creature could hear every word as he spoke. There was fury and pain in the werewolf’s eyes, but there was also understanding.
“Take this message back to your master. The girl is not a possession to which he can stake a claim. I’m willing to talk to him...if he comes here alone and behaves like a reasonable man.”
Dario shifted back. Nate’s hands were no longer sinking into thick fur. They were pressing deep into human flesh. He loosened his hold slightly. The man beneath him winced in agony as he spoke. “You have no idea what you are up against.”
Nate let him go and got to his feet. “Nor has he.”
The werewolves had gone, Dario limping and trailing blood in his wake. Ged had persuaded the hotel manager that the whole incident was typical rock-star horseplay. The addition of a hefty wad of money to the conversation had helped to ease the man’s concerns on the subject. The other members of Beast had retired to the hotel bar to relive the fight in detail.
Breathing a sigh of relief, still astonished that he had managed to fight and defeat a werewolf, Nate made his way back up to his room. He knew Violet would be worried about what had happened, and he wanted to reassure her. He just wanted to be with her. The knot of worry in his chest whenever he thought about her was tightening.
She was fading fast, and the decline had happened so suddenly. There had to be a way around this. Somewhere, somehow, in time and space, there had to be an answer to this problem that would allow them to be together. They had to be together. He couldn’t imagine a life without her. There wouldn’t be a life for Nate without her.
He opened the door to their hotel room, his eyes going to the open balcony doors where he expected her to be waiting. She wasn’t there. His gaze swept the room, and he let out an exclamation of horror when he saw her lying on the floor near the bed. Nate dashed to her side, dropping on one knee as he felt for her pulse. It was barely there. Her breathing was shallow, and she was so cold her skin chilled his fingertips when he touched her.
“Don’t you leave me.” He muttered the words through clenched teeth. His throat was tight and painful, and sharp moisture burned the backs of his eyelids. “Don’t you dare.”
Snatching up the quilt from the bed, he wrapped it around her. Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her down the single flight of stairs, across the terrace and out into the darkened gardens. He kept on going until he reached a wooded area of the parkland. Finding a dense clump of trees, Nate lay down on the leafy ground, cradling Violet against his chest.
I don’t know how to do this. For six long, lonely years his life had been an empty void. The only feelings he’d known were bitterness and hatred. Inside his chest, in place of what should have been his heart, there had been a fossilized relic. When he looked back on that time it had a color. It was stained a bleak, dark gray, like residual clouds after a fierce storm.
Then Violet had come into his life with her brightness and beauty. She had shown him other feelings. From the moment he first saw her—really saw her in that hotel room—he had felt life begin to flow back into his heart. He had started to believe in himself again as a person, not simply as a killing machine. Violet loved him. That meant he was worth loving. And Violet? She was everything. Those gray storm clouds had lifted and his life had the same color palette as everyone else’s. Except he had Violet, so his colors were more vibrant and spectacular than other people’s. He had been offered a future...and now he was watching it fade away.
It shook him to the core of his soul that, after being ruled by hatred for so long, this brief chance at love could be snatched away from him so fast. And then what? My next big emotion will be grief? How will I ever deal with that? How will I ever get over losing her?
Nate buried his head in the scented mass of Violet’s hair. I can’t. I can’t let her go. There has to be a way.
He had never felt so helpless. Stay with me, my beautiful wolf, my beloved Violet. It was the ultimate irony, the cruelest twist of fate that he seemed to be finding his wolf, just as she was losing hers.
He could feel a vague ache from where the werewolf had cut into him with its razor-sharp claws. That was nothing. The pain he felt when he thought about losing Violet was like losing a part of his body. It was as if a giant crescent-shaped wedge had been sliced from his shoulder, down the middle of his chest and out through his ribs, piercing his heart and damaging his lungs in the process. The pain was brutal, choking in its intensity.
The utter helplessness got to him as much as the pain. If there were only some clues. If he only had some idea about what he could do to make this right. But all he could do was hold her in his arms and rock her frail body gently while the tears poured down his face.
He made a vow that the pain and tears wouldn’t be wasted. Let her live and I’ll be able to walk away from her with no regrets. That he would remember this moment and be happy to let her go. He would do the noble thing and be content just knowing there was a part of the world that contained Violet, even if they could never be together. I can do that. He forced himself to believe it.
Gradually, during the night, the natural environment of the forest worked its magic and went some way to restoring her. The problem was, it was taking longer each time to do it, and it wasn’t restoring her to full health. The decline was too steep to be reversed.
The dawn light was filtering through the trees when Nate finally carried Violet back to the hotel. She was sleeping peacefully now. Her breathing was even and regular, some of the warmth restored to her limbs. As he placed her in their bed, she lifted a hand to stroke his cheek and murmured his name. He caught her fingers and pressed them to his lips. Something, there must be something.
Leaving her to sleep, he wandered through to the sitting room of their suite and headed for the minibar. Spanish brandy sounded like a good idea. Taking out a miniature bottle, he found a glass and sloshed the amber liquid into it. As he was about to raise the glass to his lips, he was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“You look like you could use a double.”
Cal was lounging in a chair, his long legs stretched before him. Nate raised his glass. “This will do to begin with.” He took a hefty slug of the brandy, feeling the instant warming effect as it hit his gullet. “Care to join me?”
Cal shook his head. “I’m like the police. I don’t drink when I’m on an interwordly peacekeeping mission.”
“Is that a grand way of saying you have another feral werewolf for me to kill?” In the past, Nate never would have believed the day would come when he would turn Cal down, but this was it. Watching the woman he loved nearly die had sharpened his priorities. “Only, I have rather a lot on right now.” He cast a glance toward the closed bedroom door. He didn’t want this conversation, didn’t have time for explanations. All he really wanted to do was get back to Violet.
“Funnily enough, that’s not why I’m here.” Cal’s curious silver eyes probed Nate’s face. “You look like shit.”
I feel it. “Thanks. You always did have a way with words.”
The sorcerer’s eyes dropped lower, taking in Nate’s torn and bloodstained T-shirt. “I’m here because I’ve been hearing stories about a group of werewolves terrorizing one of your concerts. Oh, yes. Gossip manages to travel even as far as Otherworld. The werewolf population here in the mortal realm tends not to draw attention to itself in such a spectacular way. As the person responsible for overall control of the borders between the two worlds, I need to be sure this isn’t the start of something bigger. Since I know you, I thought I’d come straight here and find out what’s going on.”
Nate sighed,
flopping into the chair opposite Cal’s. “I don’t know much about them. There was an altercation with my bandmates, and the werewolves ran off.” He lifted his T-shirt, indicating the scratches to his side. “They turned up again tonight, and I fought their leader.”
Cal raised a brow. “Man against wolf?”
Nate grinned. “Turns out you might not have destroyed all of my werewolf six years ago. I can’t shift, but there is still a lot of the wolf left inside me.”
Cal shook his head in a gesture of frustration. “I don’t know who these guys are. The werewolves in Otherworld are in chaos right now. I’m not Nevan’s biggest fan, but I thought he might provide strong leadership. Things have been going badly, though, since he captured and imprisoned one of the young rebel leaders with no obvious reason. Roko escaped and since then—”
“Whoa.” Nate’s heart gave a violent thud. “Back up a bit. What did you just say?”
“Roko, one of the rebel leaders. He didn’t have much of a following until Nevan imprisoned him without reason. Now he’s free and is drumming up considerable support. Werewolves don’t like injustice.” Cal paused, watching Nate’s face. “What is it?”
“I know that name. Roko.” Even to his own ears, Nate’s voice sounded hollow. He had a horrible feeling about where this might be going. “Never mind. Continue with your story.”
“And Nevan is still going crazy over his family problems. His critics think his judgment has been affected because, even after all this time, no one has come up with any information on the whereabouts of his missing daughter.” Cal shook his head. “Just my luck. I get the faerie political scene to calm down and the wolf dynasty decides to erupt.”
With a hand that wasn’t quite steady, Nate lifted the glass to his lips and drained it. “What’s her name?”
“Who?”
“Nevan’s daughter.” He didn’t know why he was asking when he already knew the answer. Cal was looking from Nate to the brandy glass with a bemused expression. Impatience flared in Nate as he repeated the words. “What is her name?”
