Rivals and Retribution

by Shannon Delany

  “And how do you know she’s not available anymore?”

  “She is working with a male partner.”

  “But—”

  “With whom she seems to be on quite familiar terms.”

  “Oh. Could it be a cover story?”

  “It is far more fact than fiction, I am afraid.”

  “How do you know? Did you ask?”

  “Some things you just know.”

  “Holy crap, Batman. If you didn’t ask, then you can’t know. You’re assuming something’s going on. At least ask the question. At least find out if she’s available or not. What if all this time she’s been waiting on you and you never even take a chance?”

  “Our lives are more complicated than that,” Alexi said, turning the phone facedown.

  “Don’t make me call her. I do a lousy impression of you.”

  The ends of his mouth tipped up in a smile. “I will bear that in mind. Perhaps I will call.”

  I punched the sky.

  “Perhaps. Later.”

  “You really know how to bring a girl down,” I pouted.

  “Evidently,” he quipped. “You came down the stairs to talk with me already, da?”

  “Such a pain.” I tapped a finger on the table. “You know how you told me how I should immediately let you know if I experienced any weirdness after the Derek thing?”

  “Da. Oddly, I know exactly what you’re talking about. Should I wish I had skipped the cigarettes and gone straight to the liquor store instead?” he asked.

  “You aren’t going to smoke those,” I said.

  “Nyet, I am not,” he agreed.

  “And you aren’t going to start swilling vodka again, either.”

  “You seem to know me quite well. Have I become so predictable?”

  “Not predictable, just … more understandable. You can keep your props, but I will rat you out to Cat if I even suspect you’re about to indulge.”

  He snorted at me. “I will bear that in mind, too. I remember telling you to immediately report any strange symptoms.”

  “Well, I didn’t follow your instructions.”

  “And…”

  “That was not my smartest move,” I admitted. “We need to talk.”

  “So continue.”

  Alexi

  As glad as I was that Derek was dead, hearing Jessie explain what she had been dealing with these past few weeks, with him in her head, made me very aware physical death hadn’t even stopped Derek’s incredibly awful powers.

  “We need to get him out of your head.”

  “Do you know how to?”

  “Not yet. But I will. Has he—”

  “What?”

  “Has he managed to gain control of you?”

  “No. Could he?”

  “I do not know. But I need you to be careful. If he’s letting you in that close … You’re blending with what’s left of him.”

  “You can’t tell Pietr. Or Max. Not anyone, you understand?”

  “As long as you aren’t a danger to anyone—yourself included.…”

  “I can handle it,” Jessie promised. “Don’t worry. But”—Jessie stared at me with all the ferocity she could muster—“don’t tell either.”

  “That much, I can handle.”

  She leaned over and gave me a hug and then walked quietly back up the stairs to slip back into Pietr’s bed again to wait for morning.

  Jessie

  Gareth handled the pups’ paperwork and they were enrolled in school at Junction High. With so many werewolves roaming the halls I became even more of a nervous wreck. I was only starting to know each of them and guess who might get into trouble and who wanted a real fresh start.

  With Gabriel not even daring to sniff around the school grounds and Marlaena too old to be enrolled (and far from having any interest in any form of formal education), the pups were not as difficult as I feared.

  In fact, they seemed eager for some guidance.

  So I did for them what I had done for Pietr: I toured them around the school and gave them some advice.

  And I didn’t do to them what I had first done to Pietr: I never tried to slam a door in any of their faces, and I never tried to ditch them at lunch or race them to a classroom.

  They would have caught me, anyhow.

  I had learned some lessons at least, it seemed.

  Alexi

  I returned to Wondermann’s lab in the city, knowing Jessie, Cat, and Amy had things well in hand back at the Queen Anne. Well, at least Cat and Amy had things well in hand. Jessie’s battle with her newest inner demon—Derek—had me worried, but, with any luck and a good bit of skill, I might find a way to exorcise him from all the girls.

  “Back on the job, I see,” Wondermann said in his snide way.

  I paused, pouring a new solution into a thistle tube, and gave him a sideways glance. “Da. I had urgent family issues to attend to.”

  “Aren’t all family issues of the urgent variety?” he asked, picking up a beaker.

  “Please do not touch that,” I asked, taking it out of his hands and returning to the thistle tube.

  “I’ve been thinking about our deal.”

  I straightened the smallest bit, hearing something like a threat crawling in his tone. “Oh?”

  “Yes. Oh. It occurs to me that I have waited on werewolves for most of my life now. And although I am no longer what I would consider a young man, I am by no means old. Although your research and experimentation will surely speed the process, it might be more in my interest to reintroduce the supplement in the children’s food.”

  I set the tube back in its rack and looked at him. “That would be unwise.”

  “And just why would that be such a problem? It allows me to regain my lab space, get some additional research in the field, and return some of my lab equipment to my other programs.”

  “We had a deal.”

  “You sound disappointed. Disillusioned. If you say, ‘But you promised,’ I will laugh.”

  “Why now?” I asked, turning to fully face him.

  “I’m bored with this. If I thought you were making significant progress, maybe the entertainment value would make this more worth continuing. But…” He looked at the assortment of vials and beakers. “You are no closer to a permanent cure than you were when we started this charade, are you?”

  I glared at him. “I am closer.”

  He waved his hand at me. “Your services are no longer needed. Our deal is off. Clean up your things.”

  He turned and left the room, and I stared at the reaction going on in the test tube. “I am close. Damn it.”

  I stalked through the lab, dropping folders on the floor and kicking cabinets.

  “Why? Why now?” I paced. “What has changed?” I raked a hand through my hair and wished I had the pack of cigarettes with me. “I need coffee. Coffee,” I muttered, leaving the lab. I went down the hall and turned into the modest room where the coffeemaker perked along most of the day. My hands shaking, I poured myself a cup.

  It smelled awful and tasted worse. But I drank it and I thought. Something had changed. A new asset was in play. They had something. Something new. Something that would allow them to make and test a cure without my involvement.

  They had a werewolf.

  And I needed to find out where Terra was.

  Marlaena

  Even standing on the back porch in the whistling wind I heard them down the hill in the wood lot behind the Rusakovas’ house. Max and Pietr had just begun an early evening run.

  They were hunting.

  I itched to join them like I’d never wanted to join anyone before.

  The pups were all being obedient, either watching a last bit of television, reading some book Jessica’s sister had brought over for them, or showering on their way to bed—it was a school night and I was trying to be a positive influence. Gareth, Tembe, and Judith had split to do their running, Gareth keeping his nose to the ground in hopes of catching a whiff of Terra.
r />   He had stood in the foyer, watching me as I watched them head to the back door, and had taken my hand in his own and smiled gently at me, saying, “Come run with me. The stars are out, the powder is fresh, the moon is bright. It is the perfect night for a hunt.”

  And it was the perfect night for a hunt. So why was I so torn? So desperate to hunt with a pack that wanted none of me?

  Why did I want to race alongside Pietr with my snout sucking down equal amounts of the wind and Pietr’s scent?

  Gareth had finally left me there, standing in the foyer, planting a quick kiss on my forehead.

  I wanted to turn and kiss him back—my brain demanded it. But my heart was beating as if it would explode if I even touched him, so I stood perfectly still, my eyes closed, and I let the moment pass.

  Something dark inside me whispered that Gareth wasn’t supposed to be mine no matter how much I wanted him to be.

  And the want I felt for Gareth, the lingering ghost of something that might have been love for the best thing I’d ever stumbled into in my entire pathetic life was eclipsed by a bizarre need—like a hunger eating my heart out and making ribbons of my guts—that I felt every time I saw Pietr. Or smelled Pietr.

  Or thought about Pietr.

  But this thing burning inside me and making the wolf seem cool and distant beside it—this thing was like destiny. Inescapable. And, like destiny, I had no love of this need, either.

  Alexi

  She had to be here somewhere. Down some hallway, tucked into some room hidden away from most of the employees and yet close enough to the labs to make samples fresh and easy to obtain.

  I jogged down hall after hall, waved at the employees and muttered things about coffee getting to my nerves, and kept going. No one stopped me because they were all employees of Wondermann, which by definition meant they had seen far stranger things than a Russian-American scientist jogging off a burst of caffeine.

  Down one hall I found it. A small room with a single armed guard standing outside, unlike any other door on any level but the penthouse, where occasionally Wondermann’s personal guards strode the area for his own safety.

  Before the guard saw me, I got a good look at him and turned back around, making a beeline back to the coffee machine. I returned in a few minutes, holding a cup for myself and one for the man who would become my new best friend.

  “Allo,” I greeted. “Long day, huh?”

  He looked at me, examining everything about me. “Decided to take a break from the lab?”

  “Da, I had to get out of there for a little while. Numbers are swimming in my head. Coffee?” I offered him a cup.

  Hesitantly he accepted the cup, though he did not drink but just watched me.

  “So. You’re the only guard I have noticed here—other than in the lobby or the penthouse. Do you have some fascinating secret you are guarding?”

  He snorted. “No secret. Just a punk-ass kid caught sneaking around the offices. CIA told us to hold her until they send someone up from DC.”

  I froze at the combination of CIA and DC. Either he had misheard or this was the work of the rogue branch. “And they are sending someone soon?”

  “Yeah. Some woman.”

  “Is it not amazing how many women have entered the field recently?” I commented.

  “Not as many as you might think. Still pretty rare, from what I’ve seen.”

  I nodded. As rare as Wanda? I wondered. What were the odds? “When is the agent arriving?”

  “In two days.”

  “Two days.” That wasn’t much time at all. “Mind if I take a peek?”

  “Be my guest. Kid doesn’t do much at all. Just sits there looking miserable.”

  “Teenager?”

  He snorted. “Aren’t they the most miserable?”

  “Da. I have younger brothers,” I sympathized.

  “A son and two daughters.”

  I slipped past him and peered in the door’s window. I was proud I did not drop my coffee cup when I saw Terra seated inside. “Looks miserable, just as you said. Well, good luck to you,” I said, raising the cup to my lips.

  “Yeah, you too,” he said.

  I headed down the hall and away. Terra had not been sneaking around Wondermann’s labs—that much I was certain of because she had never been anywhere near New York City.

  Junction, yes. But not NYC.

  Indeed Terra looked miserable locked in that room, but miserable was far better than dead or being the victim of some experiment.

  Dmitri was in league with Wondermann. And Wondermann had set a trap for Wanda, I would stake my life on it. And she was going to take the bait, but for what reason, I could not fathom.

  Two days.

  I needed to get Terra out of here and make sure Wanda knew it was a trap before she got snared.

  Because as much as I wanted her to pay for what she had done by betraying my mother, I wanted even more to be the instrument of her destruction.

  I just needed to figure out how to do it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jessie

  Back at Junction High I’d asked Counselor Harnek for the mother of all scheduling favors. After she’d muttered a bit and glared at her master schedule she was able to make sure most of the pups shared a lunch with Amy, Sophie, Cat, Max, Pietr, and me. Even the wayward Sarah occasionally made an appearance. We filled one and a half of the long tables in the cafeteria and I was able to feel like I still had some semblance of control in my own school.

  Except when it came to the sheer volume of homework. Ms. Ashton had given us a new assignment, and it was heavy. We were all supposed to write a novel in a genre we enjoyed.

  I thought about the notebook I’d already started filling in during her class. Oh, I’d write her a novel. In a genre I loved. And there’d be only about twenty of us who knew the truth about it:

  That it wasn’t fiction at all.

  That it would be the story of the Rusakovas in Junction.

  Pietr was picking at his sandwich, the same pale color in his face he’d had since Marlaena had thrown me off the cliff. Since his change, he’d stayed pale, gotten some of his fire back, stopped needing to wear watches, and started to need to wear his special necklace—what Cat called his collar—again to keep simple human girls at bay.

  Except, it seemed, for me and Amy.

  “You usually scarf down sandwiches like they’re nothing,” I mentioned, reaching across to rest my hand on his. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  He looked up at me, a strange hollowness holding back the light that usually glowed up from the depths of his eyes. “Da. I am fine,” he said. “I am just not hungry.”

  The conversation at the table died down to nothing.

  “You are not hungry?” Cat asked, her perfect eyebrows sliding close together in surprise. “But, Pietr, you are always hungry.”

  “I ate my fill last night,” he said, referring to the hunt.

  “But your metabolism…”

  He waved a hand at Cat. “It is nothing.” He looked at me again, lowering his voice and putting space between each of his words like a warning. “I. Am. Fine.”

  “Fine,” I said, though I believed him less now than ever. “You’re fine.” I glared at the sandwich. “Then eat your lunch,” I challenged him.

  He snorted at me and tore a huge bite out of his sandwich, chewing with huge, zealous motions as he stared at me, contempt in his eyes.

  Amy just watched him the whole time, putting down her own sandwich before saying softly, “Dick alert.”

  He shifted his glare to her briefly and then returned its full force on me as he stretched his neck out and swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding.

  And then he grew another shade paler.

  “Pietr?” I asked as he vaulted away from the table and out into the hall.

  I stood to follow, but Amy’s fingers snared my wrist. “Don’t,” she warned.

  I shook free of her and followed as fast as I could, but I only saw t
he bathroom door swing shut as I entered the hall.

  I ran to the boys’ bathroom and stood there, unsure of what to do next. Yes, Pietr and I had spent quite a lot of time in the boys’ bathroom the night of the Homecoming Dance—the night I shared my secret about my mother’s death and Sarah’s involvement in it—but he’d dragged me inside. It didn’t seem right going into it without a male escort.

  “The drama that swirls around you constantly…”

  I spun to see Max approaching, his long strides full of purpose. He wiped at his mouth with his hand, and I heard the rasp of his stubble as clearly as I saw it shadowing his face.

  “A guy can’t even have a decent meal with his girlfriend around here anymore,” he muttered. “Not that my lunch could be called a decent meal.… But I wouldn’t be blowing my guts out over a sandwich, either.” He puffed out a breath and looked at me solemnly. “Stay here. And out of trouble.”

  I snapped him a salute, and he plowed into the bathroom, grimacing.

  Leaning against the wall nearest the door, I tried to hear what was going on inside. I heard their voices—the deep, rich rumble of Max’s at his most serious and the slightly higher and more frustrated pitch of Pietr’s. I waited impatiently. Toilets flushed. They talked a bit more. I caught one word, truth, and then nothing else.

  Someone was coming down the hall and I tried my best to look inconspicuous—not an easy task standing outside the guys’ bathroom and not being a guy.

  The boy paused a few yards away, looking from me to the door of the bathroom and back. Crap. My behavior would seem pretty suspicious.

  Inside, they had resumed talking.

  I stared at the kid, wishing him away. Couldn’t he use another bathroom? One not inhabited by werewolf brothers? But of course not. Hesitantly I reached out and knocked on the bathroom door.

  The boy just watched me.

  The voices fell silent and in a moment Max stepped out, followed by Pietr.

  The boy’s eyebrows rose and I shrugged at him, trailing behind two of my favorite werewolves for a short distance—just until I heard the bathroom door swing open and then shut again—and I shoved Max. “So what’s going on?”

  Pietr stepped between his brother and me and said, “I wasn’t hungry. You made me eat. Bad things resulted.”