by Morgan Hawke
Yaroslav winced. “Not all the answers, no.” He focused on her. “However, I have no doubt that you will return to me.”
She rolled her eyes and slid her arms into the straps of her pack. “You’re awfully sure of yourself.”
“You will come…” he leaned forward on his knees and caught her face, “because you cannot resist me.” He smiled from only a kiss away.
She lifted her brow and bit back a smile of her own. “Really?”
He leaned close and brushed his lips against hers.
She answered his caress without thinking. Their mouths joined in a sweet, hot kiss. Warmth coiled around her heart. She jerked back, startled. What the hell was that?
“There, you see?” He released her and smiled tiredly. “You already have love for me.”
She froze. Love? Her mouth curved up into a cynical smile. “I’ll admit to lust, but I am not in love with you.”
“Of course you are.” He nodded and tugged at his coat. “I am of great age. I know love when I feel it.” He waved a hand toward the cave entrance. “You must go.” His smile broadened. “I will follow with the night.”
She sat back on her heels. “You’re going to follow me?”
He groaned and sprawled out on his back. “Later, when full night has come. Now I will sleep.” He folded his arms behind his head.
She scowled and shivered, but she couldn’t tell if she trembled from the cold or from the idea of him following her, of her seeing him again. She shook her head in confusion. Later; she would worry about it later. Her wolf rose from within in a wash of joy, heat, and power.
Standing firmly on four paws, she leaned back to stretch her long forelegs and then leaned forward to stretch her back legs. Oh, yes, the rest, and the bed sport, had done her a world of good. She shook hard to settle her fur and her pack.
Yaroslav looked over at her. “You have great beauty as a woman and as a wolf.” He held out his hand. “Come, I would touch your glorious coat.”
She padded over to him, though not sure why. As a wolf, she normally did not want to be touched.
His fingers slid through her fur in a long caress. “You are silver, like the moon, and so large.”
Pleasure stirred along her spine. His touch felt good. Too good. She had to resist the urge to rub against him for more. She moved away.
He waved his hand. “Yes, yes, you must go.”
She turned to the cave mouth and scrabbled her way out and into the setting sun. The chill wind ruffled her fur. She turned her nose toward the pass and hesitated. Her tail switched. She didn’t want to leave him alone and undefended.
She shook herself hard. He had defended himself just fine against her fangs. He could handle anything else. She stepped away, and each long step became easier to take. She bounded up onto the snowy ledges, and the joy of running in fur took her.
The sun fell completely, and the stars filled the blue velvet of the night sky.
She reached the pass at the mountain’s peak just as the moon rose. Standing atop snow that would not hold a man’s weight, she looked back. The cave was very far away and well down the mountainside. She lifted her nose to the waning moon and sang. Her voice sailed into the sky, deep and strong, and then high, like the whistle of a hawk, echoing across the mountains. I am here….
Laughter echoed in the back of her thoughts. Why, so you are.
The journey down the mountainside was swift and full of bounding, joyful leaps from cliff edge to cliff edge. Visibility was excellent. The moon on the snow made the night very nearly as bright as day. The cliff heights became rolling, heavily forested foothills, and the snow thinned underfoot.
A small deer started before her, and she gave chase. She needed to eat. She had changed too many times in too short a period. The deer fell under her fangs, and she feasted on sweet, hot meat.
The scent of wolves drifted on the breeze.
She lifted her head and detected movement in the deep shadows under the trees. She licked her lips, cleaning her teeth. She turned and left her kill for them to feast on. She couldn’t eat the whole deer anyway, not on a run. It was better this way; no waste.
She entered the farmland valleys. Ears forward and tail straight out, she bounded across snow-covered fallow fields. Dogs barked in the night. Small villages dotted the valleys, but she continued by. She was looking for something much larger, a town with a railway station.
The night passed, and dawn colored the thick, dark clouds in bruising shades. There was snow on the wind.
The bitter scent of coal fires and the distinctive scent of train steam warned her that she was coming to the town she was looking for. On a small rise she stopped to look. Her wolf eyes were not particularly keen on details, but there was no mistaking that she was looking at a good-sized town, nestled deep in a valley, surrounded by the mountains she had just crossed. However, the sour scent of burning scrap-wood overwhelmed the sharp scent of burning coal. More people were using cheap wood rather than coal to heat their homes.
Or, houses were burning.
She didn’t see any leaping flames and only traces of black smoke. Puzzled but determined, she trotted toward the town.
Head low, she followed the muddy road into town but stayed among the hedges to avoid being seen by the early morning farm traffic. Wolves tended to draw bullets. Luckily her coat blended in with the winter terrain.
A row of massive factories squatted right on the town’s edge. Steam whistles announced the stoking of the factory boilers and the change in shift. People bundled in heavy coats, caps, and mufflers slowly made their way in and out of the multistoried brick monstrosities.
Slipping out from the brush, she bounded over railroad tracks and skirted the walls of the factories, avoiding the pools of light cast from the tall paned windows. She spotted a gate into the town proper, but people and wagons moved in and out of it. A momentary lull in traffic came. She bolted across the icy cobbled yard and into the town.
Shouts followed her down the street.
She ducked into an alley, her claws clicking on the cobbles. She lifted her head, searching the backs of the cheek-to-jowl buildings for an abandoned stable. It was time to assume her human form.
Slender red-coated wolf dogs drifted slyly from the backs of the scattered houses. They were half her size and weight and stank of the human garbage they ate.
She lowered her head but kept her ears up and her tail lifted in deliberate warning that she would kill any that came too close.
They eyed her and kept their distance.
Behind a crumbling, fire-scorched house, she found a stable in relatively good condition. She ducked inside and changed. Shivering in bare human skin, she padded into a stall and tugged off her pack. Dressing with haste, she pulled on her warmest socks and her thickest creamy flannel shirt before stepping into her dungarees.
One of the odd advantages of moving between shapes was that it kept her clean. Dirt, and fleas, left with the shift between bodies. There was no trace of the blood, and other things, from her lovemaking with Yaroslav. She smiled. Trying to find clean and unfrozen water to wash in before dressing would have been a nightmare.
She pulled back her pale brown hair and secured her braid with a thong and then tugged on her gray sheepskin coat. She stopped and sniffed. The black fleece lining smelled of Yaroslav. She smiled, and her belly warmed with memory. She doubted she would see him again, but what they had shared had been well worth the delay.
She shrugged her pack onto her back and stepped out of the stable into gray morning daylight. Jamming her hat on her head, she pulled the card from her coat pocket. It was time to find her delivery address. She strode out to the main road.
There were Russian soldiers everywhere.
From the mouth of the alley, Thorn watched line after line of them march by without stopping. The local townsfolk stared at them in confusion. Apparently no one had any idea what the Russian army was doing there, but they didn’t seem to be bothering anyone,
and they all appeared to be heading for the main gate out of town.
Thorn shrugged—the Russian army was not her problem—and started searching.
4
She reached the busy steel and glass train station at the very end of town just as the tall cast-iron gas lamps were being lit. The face of the train station’s clock tower was bloodstained with sunset.
Exhausted, she sat down on the steps of the ticket office and cursed, using every foul word she could think of. She had wasted the entire day searching for an address on a street that didn’t seem to exist. The town was a freaking rat’s warren of unnamed streets, and she didn’t speak the local language. Worse still, the address was written in English, so the locals couldn’t read it. She stomped the cobbled walk with her booted foot and cursed some more.
A double line of Russian soldiers marched out of the train station and kept going.
Thorn blinked. Oh, so that’s where they were all coming from….
“Is something the matter, young sir?” The accent was British, and the voice was right behind her.
She jolted and whipped around.
The man at the top of the stairs was head and shoulders taller than she and dressed in a heavy caped coat that was buttoned all the way up and draped to his heels. A bowler hat was perched on his head, and dark round spectacles covered his eyes.
The hair lifted at the back of her neck, and she jumped to her feet; then she looked again. His clean-shaven face was long and narrow, not square and florid, and a neat braid of dark brown hair fell over his shoulder. No trace of bright orange. She released her breath. “Sorry, you surprised me.”
“Oh, an American?” He smiled and came down the steps. “And my apologies to you, young lady.” He walked over to the curb and then turned back to eye her clothes. “It’s the trousers, you see….”
Thorn smiled. “Dressing like a boy is safer when you’re…traveling.”
“Ah, yes, how clever….” He lifted his chin, looking past her at the passing Russian soldiers. His gaze chilled. “Considering that there are a lot of, shall we say, less than civilized soldiers marching about.” He sighed and shook his head. “The Turks and the Russians are at it again.” He waved his hand in clear dismissal. “Well, never mind that….” He touched his hat and smiled. “I’m Max, by the way, Max Rykov, a linguist with the British attaché.”
She nodded politely “I’m Thorn Ferrell, and I’m…” She winced. She was not going to say lost. “I’m looking for a specific address, but I can’t find it.”
Max arched his brow. “Perhaps because a great many of the streets are not marked?”
She snorted. “That could have a lot to do with it.”
Max clicked his heels smartly together. “Maybe I can be of assistance? Where did you wish to go, Miss Ferrell?”
Thorn held out her card. “I’m trying to find this….”
Max took it and frowned. “Oh, this is…” He lifted the card to his nose and stilled. He reexamined the card and then looked at her and smiled. “You are a quite a ways from this address.”
Thorn scowled. “Oh, wonderful.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. Why had he sniffed the card? It only smelled of paper…and her. Suspicion niggled, but she squashed it. A human did not have her sense of smell. All he would be able to detect is the scent of the paper.
Max looked up past her shoulder. “Since I just happen to be on my way to visit Colonel Ives, why don’t you come with me?”
“Come with you to see…Colonel Ives?” She stilled utterly. He couldn’t mean her Colonel Ives, the cavalry officer that had found her living feral in the mountains so many years ago? It had to be a different Colonel Ives. It couldn’t possibly be the same man she’d called father until he’d betrayed her to the U.S. Army.
“Certainly.” Max lifted his arm and waved his hand, signaling to someone behind her. “Why walk when you can ride?”
The hissing chug of an approaching vehicle came from behind her. She darted back against the wall. A bright yellow and ornate, horseless vehicle on tall rubber-tire carriage wheels came bumping up the cobbled road billowing gouts of steam. Brass headlamps speared the mist rising from the road. A driver in a heavy overcoat, wearing a squashed cap, sat up high in the front holding the long, curved steering pole.
Thorn eyed the oncoming vehicle. It was a steam carriage. She’d seen Mr. Dudgeon’s steam wagon rattling along the roads back in Long Island City, but this one was a far finer vehicle, and it didn’t make half the noise. The tall wheels were not huge wooden disks, like those on Mr. Dudgeon’s steam wagon, and the passenger compartment was a proper carriage. “Wow….”
Remaining exactly where he was in the road, Max looked over at her at her and smiled. “Steam cars, Miss Ferrell. Wave of the future, don’t you know.”
The vehicle came to a hissing stop right in front of Max, and two loud bangs echoed from the rear of the vehicle. The driver tipped his hat. “She’s all warmed up and ready to roll.” His accent was thickly Eastern European, but it was clear he had learned his English from a Brit. “Where to, Master Rykov?”
Max rattled off the address Thorn had spent the day hunting.
“Ah…” The driver nodded. “That’s by the new brass factory.”
Thorn frowned. Good god, did he mean one of the factories all the way back over on the other side, where she’d come into town in the first place? She groaned.
Max stepped to the side of the carriage and tugged open the door. He looked over at Thorn. “Coming, Miss Ferrell?”
Thorn’s mouth fell open. “In your steam car?” She hesitated. Everyone knew you didn’t go anywhere with strangers. She balled her hands at her side. She was a werewolf. If he caused a problem, she’d rip him to rags. “I’d love a ride.” She strode to the open door. “I have had enough running around today.”
Max held out his hand to help her up the steps. “Well, we certainly can’t have you running around anymore, can we?” He smiled.
Thorn glanced up at Max, but his dark spectacles made it impossible to see his eyes, and the cologne made it hard to read his scent. She shook her head and climbed up. She had more important things to worry about than him. She was going to see a Colonel Ives, possibly the last man she’d ever wanted to see again.
Thorn ducked into the small door. The carriage’s interior was done entirely in brass-tacked leather with leather-curtained windows. Two leather-upholstered, cushioned benches with curving brass armrests faced each other. She went to the far side of the carriage and sat in the front-facing bench by the curtained window. Everything reeked of saddle soap, brass polish, and money.
Max climbed in and sat on the bench beside her. He reached up and tugged a cord strung along the roof’s edge. A bell sounded outside the window.
A piercing steam whistle answered.
“Here we go!” Max grinned and grabbed the strap by the window on his side of the car. “You’d best hang on. The carriage moves rather jauntily.”
The car lurched under them, throwing Thorn back against the seat cushions. She grabbed onto the leather loop by her window with both hands.
The steam car chugged forward, rocking side to side as it bumped along the cobbled road.
Thorn shoved her head out the window to see. The car’s lurching and rocking increased with their speed until the chilly breeze against her cheeks became a strong, icy wind. The car chugged along insanely fast, practically flying past streets and buildings. Moving horse carts appeared to be at a standstill. It was frightening and thrilling. “Holy smoke!”
“I love modern science!” Max laughed. “Do try not to lose your head on a lamppost. Some of these streets are very narrow, and my driver tends to make sharp turns.”
The steam car chugged to an intersection and slowed just a little to go around a corner. The entire carriage rocked to the side, practically lifting off its wheels.
“Whoa!” Thorn jerked her head back in. “I see what you mean!” She settled back to watch from her seat. Stre
ets passed, shops passed, and as they went, people pointed, horses spooked, and shadows lengthened.
They bumped off the cobbled way and jounced along the packed dirt of the town’s main road. The street got darker, narrower, and misty. The gaslights of the factories appeared at the far end of the road.
Thorn turned to look at Max. “I see it!” She was forced to shout over the noise of the steam engine. “I can see the factory lights ahead!”
Max nodded and smiled. “Almost there!”
Thorn grinned. “It took me all day to cross town, and here we are in less than an hour.”
The car bumped back onto a cobbled road and then lurched and chugged past a busy factory, and then another, and then another…. Workers in heavy coats and mufflers were everywhere. People stopped and stared. Some pointed, and others waved.
Abruptly the car turned onto a narrow gaslit street lined with two-story brick houses. The car’s steam whistle sounded and then whistled again.
Max tapped Thorn’s knee. “Brace yourself. We’re getting ready to stop.”
The car gave a hard shudder and released a squeal. The bumping, chugging, and rocking eased to a trembling putter and then a hard stop.
Max smiled. “We’re there.”
Thorn followed Max out of the carriage on wobbly knees.
The driver leaned over the side of the car. “Eh! Enjoy your ride?”
Thorn turned to wave at the driver. “Yes, thank you!”
Max looked up at the driver. “You know where to go?”
The driver nodded. “I will make very sure the car is secured for travel.” He frowned. “Are you sure you won’t need me to come for you?”
Max shook his head. “I will be taking a different route back to the lab.”
The driver stiffened, and his eyes went wide. “Oh, of course.”
Max waved his hand. “Carry on!”
The driver nodded and tipped his squashed hat. “Yes, sir, farewell, sir!”
Max strode past Thorn. “This way, Miss Ferrell!”
