Luck of the Wolf

by Susan Krinard

  A strange, nagging little doubt nudged the back of her mind. He had said the very first day they’d met that “Any honorable man would feel bound to protect a woman in your position.”

  But she knew not just any man, honorable or not, would have done what he had. Cort was different, not only because he was loup-garou. He cared about her, even if he didn’t want to kiss her. He wanted her to be safe and happy. It should have been enough to know that, and not have to understand the reasons.

  But it wasn’t. Not anymore. She still knew almost nothing about Cort except that he came from Louisiana, played cards and didn’t seem to want to talk about his family. She had no idea what he did when he wasn’t with her, or what he wanted for himself.

  Aria pressed her face into the back of the long sofa, breathing in the smell of the hundreds of bodies that had lain there before her. The future had always seemed a little unreal to her, but now it seemed to have turned into a bottomless abyss. Why was she only now beginning to realize how little she knew about both Cort and herself?

  Yuri had begun to snore, but Aria hardly heard him. She felt as if she were looking up at the sky through a pall of fog, trying desperately to see the stars. They seemed so close, and yet they remained invisible. A mystery.

  There was only one thing she was certain of, one truth that left all her uncertainties behind. She wanted to be with Cort. Not only here, but wherever they went. Not just now, but as far into the uncertain future as she could see, and beyond.

  She groaned into the musty fabric. Cort certainly hadn’t behaved as if he wanted to stay with her. He wanted to give her away to someone else. The way he had talked, he didn’t even plan to see her once they went to New Orleans.

  With a sniff, Aria picked up the fallen magazine, smoothed it carefully and opened it to an article about the silly undergarment called a “corset.” When Cort returned, she would be ready. Just not in the way he expected her to be.

  THE SALOON WAS nearly empty of customers. Cort’s first thought was that the patrons had heard rumors of a certain attack on Cortland Renier and anticipated trouble as a result.

  Of course, that was unlikely. But those few patrons who hugged their drinks along the bar or at the tables took one look at him and quietly left the premises.

  Cort walked up to the bar. “Where is Brecht?” he asked the barkeep in his softest voice.

  The man picked up a glass from the bar and began to polish it. “Don’t know anyone by that—”

  The last word was cut off, neatly strangled at its source by Cort’s fingers around the man’s throat. A glass dropped from the barkeep’s hand and shattered at his feet behind the counter.

  “I think you do,” Cort said, pulling the human down across the bar. “I met him here yesterday. He bought some rather expensive wine. Does that refresh your memory?”

  Rolling his eyes, the barkeep gurgled in protest. Cort tightened his grip.

  “If you’re afraid of Brecht,” he said, “you might consider the fact that he is not the one holding you by the throat. Your danger is more immediate now, I assure you.”

  The man’s chin bobbed. “I…” He swallowed, his face going red. “I’ll tell you.”

  Cort released him. The man hugged the counter with outspread arms as he sucked in several deep breaths. “Brecht…ain’t here,” he rasped. “He left. Didn’t say where he was going.”

  Cort drummed his fingers on the scarred wood inches from the barkeep’s flushed face. “You can do better than that, mon ami.”

  Slowly the barkeep straightened, carefully avoiding Cort’s stare. “I can’t tell you no more.”

  There was too much fear in the man’s voice to suggest he was lying. “What about his hirelings?” Cort asked. “The men he sends to do his dirty work?”

  This time the man didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know what Cort was talking about. “There’s some men in the back room,” he said. “I’ve seen ’em with Brecht. That’s all I know.”’

  “If it is not,” Cort said, “I shall certainly learn the truth soon enough.” He smiled at the barkeep, slapped down a few coins and walked away from the bar. He knew word of what he was about to do would be on the streets within hours.

  He felt absurd satisfaction at the prospect. Ever since he’d left the hotel, he had been tossing in a storm of emotions, each and every one bringing him closer to the reefs.

  Aria had asked him to stay with her. He’d been so sure she didn’t know what she was saying—until she’d talked about mating, and what men and women did together in dark alleys, and then he’d known he’d grossly underestimated her knowledge of such intimate matters.

  Oh, she still didn’t understand the half of it, not in the sense an experienced woman would. She wasn’t even sure a woman could enjoy the act of love. But the instinct was there, just as it had been when she’d almost let him kiss her. In fact, he would have sworn she’d been trying to kiss him after that very troubling conversation.

  Both of them—she from ignorance, he from sheer lack of self-control—were in danger of giving way to something that could only end in disaster.

  Cort knotted his fists and strode toward the back room. Just the thought of the fight ahead relieved his confusion. It was necessary, yes, but it would also be a pleasure.

  He smelled the stench of hard liquor even before he caught the scent of the men themselves, an odor strong enough to dull any loup-garou’s senses, and he knew his quarry wouldn’t be prepared when he walked into the room.

  Heads lifted and bleary eyes tried to focus on him as he opened the door. He recognized two of the men at once, and after a moment of confusion they clearly recognized him. The loup-garou had healed his wounds when he’d Changed back to human form, but he looked no less alarmed than his human partner. Two other humans were with them, just sober enough to pull their knives before Cort had closed the door behind him.

  “Gentlemen,” Cort said, “I do regret this interruption of your celebration, but I believe we have unfinished business.” He glanced at the two armed men. “I presume that you also work for Brecht?”

  The taller of the humans, marked with an ugly scar from forehead to chin, waved his knife. “You made a mistake coming here, Renier.”

  “I believe your associates would tell you that it is they who made the mistake in acting on Brecht’s behalf. I wonder if your judgment is as poor as theirs.”

  The loup-garou tried to stand, lost his balance and toppled over the table in front of him, spilling the contents of his glass. It wasn’t often that werewolves could become so drunk; the man must have been going at it for hours. His partner had already begun to edge toward the back of the room and the door that led outside.

  The other two humans, however, had decided that they would not be cowed by a single man, even though they undoubtedly knew that man was not human. The one who’d spoken tossed his knife from hand to hand. His companion didn’t bother to show off. The two men separated, intent on making it more difficult for Cort to attack them both at once.

  Cort didn’t even try. He went straight for the drunken loup-garou, caught him by his frayed coat and threw him headfirst at the wall. The man slid to the floor unconscious, blood spilling from a cut in his forehead. Not dead, but not about to get up anytime soon.

  The man who’d been so eager to display his skill with a knife lunged at Cort’s back. Cort spun and slammed his fist into the scarred face. The knife flew across the room. As the werewolf’s partner slipped out the door, the other human attacked.

  Cort finished with him quickly, leaving him bloodied and beaten but still alive. Alive enough to report exactly what had happened.

  Cort bent over the man who’d threatened him. “I have a message for your employer,” he said. “I’ll kill any man he sends after the girl.”

  The thug groaned. “I…I can’t give him no message. He’s gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Left San—” The thug spat out a gob of blood. “He said…he didn�
�t need us no more.”

  Cort let him go. He couldn’t be sure the man was telling the truth, but no matter how much Brecht offered in payment, few men would willingly put themselves in Cort’s way after this little demonstration.

  And if Brecht really was gone, it would solve all their problems completely.

  A pair of young gentlemen were standing just outside the door when Cort returned to the main room. They stared at his bloody face, looked beyond him through the open door and quickly walked away. Another pair of eyes and ears to regale the Coast with tales of the carnage.

  Cort lowered his head and stalked through the saloon, aware of eyes following his progress to the front door. He’d never wanted the kind of reputation he would have now—or at least he hadn’t before he’d let his anger and frustration overcome his sense.

  An ability to fight like a common sailor would hardly lessen his reputation in the eyes of a large portion of the Coast’s population, and it would certainly achieve what he intended, but he knew just how far he had sunk. No cool, dispassionate manner could alter the fact that he had fallen back into the pit.

  But he need not fall any further. Not if he was careful. Not if he remembered why he’d spent so many years remaking himself. He’d gone after Brecht’s men to protect Aria, but this was as far as it went. He’d come far too close to losing himself completely. From now on, he must focus solely on what he wanted and how he planned to achieve it. Nothing but cold, calculating resolve.

  And just to prove he was capable of it, he wouldn’t go out of his way to keep his distance from Aria or try to avoid touching her. He would test himself in the fire until he was well tempered and completely invulnerable.

  He laughed at himself, and a sailor half-hidden behind a table cringed. Cort saluted him and walked out the door.

  CORT RETURNED TO Aria’s room a few hours later. The first thing she noticed was that he had a few little spots of blood on one white cuff. The second was that he was most emphatically not in a good mood.

  Yuri was certainly aware of his friend’s ill humor. He looked Cort up and down without noticing the blood spots, shook his head and left without a word. Painfully conscious of all the bewildering thoughts that had been going through her mind in Cort’s absence, Aria set down the book the Russian had given her.

  “War and Peace,” Cort said, reading the title from across the room. “It’s in Cyrillic. You can understand it?”

  This wasn’t at all the way she’d wanted their next conversation to begin. She shrugged and closed the book. “I must have learned when I was a child,” she said.

  His eyes were very sharp. “Odd that you remember languages when you have forgotten so much else.”

  “Why should I forgot how to read?” She was angry, though she didn’t know why. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “Aria.” He sat down on the long sofa beside her and laid his hand on her shoulder. “I have never thought you stupid. You are an enigma, to be sure, but no one could doubt your intelligence.”

  His hand was warm and firm on her shoulder. She bent her head to rest her cheek against his knuckles, rubbing her skin gently over his. He drew in a sharp breath and abruptly dropped his hand.

  “You haven’t eaten your supper,” he said.

  “I’m not hungry,” she muttered.

  “You will eat.”

  “I will if you answer one question.”

  He regarded her warily. “What is it?”

  She waved at the room around them. “Doesn’t this cost a lot of money?”

  His shoulders relaxed. “You need have no worry about the cost, Aria. It will be taken care of.”

  “But the dress and all the other things you bought…” She fingered the cloak she’d laid over the back of the couch. “There’s a lot I don’t know about money—”

  “That is clear,” Cort grumbled.

  “—but I know the difference between a place like this and that nasty old boardinghouse.” She spread her arms. “Why did you stay there? This is the kind of place a gentleman should live in, isn’t it? Like the other Reniers?”

  He was on his feet before she had a chance to blink. “Leave such matters to those who understand them.”

  “I want to understand.” She caught his gaze again. “You said the other Reniers had a lot of money. Do you?”

  “Aria,” he warned, “that is none of your—”

  She followed her instincts. “I don’t think you do. I…” She stiffened her resolve. “I don’t want you to spend any more money on me if you don’t have it.”

  Muscles rigid, Cort walked back to the window. He gripped the curtains so hard that Aria thought he might tear them apart. “I earn what I need,” he said.

  “How?” she asked. “What things do gentlemen do to get money?”

  He ran his hand down the edge of the drapes. “Do you remember what I told you about the card game?”

  “Of course.”

  “That is how I earn my living,” he said. “I’m usually very good at such games, and men will bet a great deal of money if they think they have a chance at winning.”

  “And you usually win?”

  “Since you…” He stopped again. “Yes. Enough to cover any expenses related to getting you home.” There were so many different emotions on his face that Aria couldn’t make heads or tails of them. “It’s vulgar to talk about money, Aria. You’ll have to learn to—”

  “I’ll pay you back,” she said.

  “That isn’t necessary.”

  “I want to. And if my family is happy to see me, won’t they want to give you what you—”

  “I want nothing from them,” he snarled.

  His anger didn’t scare her. Not nearly as much as what his words might mean.

  “You don’t like them, do you?” she asked. “You said your family hardly ever met with mine. They aren’t rich like the New Orleans Reniers, are they?”

  “They—” He sucked in a deep breath. “They have what they need.” Maybe that was the truth, or at least part of it. But there was much more, and Aria was determined to discover it.

  “What made you hate my family?” she asked.

  Aria heard the curtains rip. He stared at the torn fabric in his hands as if he couldn’t imagine how it had happened.

  Aria sat up on her knees so she could watch his face. “What did they do, Cort?”

  He smiled…lazily, the way he used to when they’d first met.

  “You wouldn’t find it an interesting subject, chère. It’s long in the past.”

  “Is that why you don’t live in New Orleans anymore?”

  The curtains fell with a clatter, rod and all. “That had nothing to do with it,” he said, breathing fast. “I preferred to explore the rest of the country rather than remain in Louisiana.”

  Aria could smell the lie as she could smell a stranger passing in the hall. Her mind jumped wildly from one thought to another, drawing little strands of meaning together into an untidy knot of comprehension.

  “You were looking for something,” she said. “Just like me.”

  Cort walked away from the window with sharp, jerky steps. “I came west to make my own life. And that is what I have done.”

  Just like I will, Aria thought. But I’ll be going east. Not into the future, like Cort, but into the past.

  And that left her with the most important question of all. But her throat went dry, and once again she couldn’t ask it. So much still lay unresolved between them.

  The smell of meat and potatoes and a dozen other good things wafted through the door, interrupting any chance of further conversation. A man brought in a rolling table covered by plates heaped with food, and in spite of everything, Aria found that her appetite was undiminished. Cort picked at his meal and left most of it untouched. At midnight he went to the room he shared with Yuri, offering only a quiet good-night.

  Aria put on the heavy nightgown Cort had bought her, lay down in the big bed and tried to sleep.

 
; But the bed was too soft, the room itself too alien in its refinement. She almost longed for her plain little pallet in the cottage, or even the sprung mattress in the boardinghouse. At least that had smelled of Cort.

  Far too restless to stay still, she got up and went to the door of the sitting room. No sound in the hallway, except for the scratching of a mouse and snores from nearby rooms. No voices. Even Cort and Yuri must be asleep.

  She wandered back to the window, gathered up an armful of the abused curtains and breathed in deeply. Cort’s scent still lingered in the fabric. She tore a piece free of the rest and curled up on the couch the way she used to do at the boardinghouse. Wadding the curtain under her head, she closed her eyes and pretended that Cort was still with her.

  But he wasn’t. In many ways she felt more alone now than she had in the mountains, when she had truly believed she was the only one of her kind in the world.

  Maybe Cort felt the same way. He hadn’t only been angry when she’d asked him about his family and the other Reniers. She had seen something else on his face, too. Pain. Sadness. It was almost as if he had lost something dear to him when he’d left his family to seek his “own life.” Just as she had lost Franz.

  Aria lifted her head and gazed at the moonlight streaming through the window. Cort kept his secrets as well as the moon. Or herself.

  But not forever. When she found out why he was so angry and hurt, then she would know she could share everything with him. Maybe it wouldn’t just be her needing him. Maybe he would need her, too.

  “YOU ARE TOO kind, monsieur,” the woman’s voice said.

  Aria sat up, suddenly aware that she must have slept far longer than she had intended. A path of sunlight lay stretched across the carpet where moonlight had been before, and the bare window glittered like crystal. She brushed her hair out of her face and listened again for the voice.

  “My pleasure, madame,” Cort said on the other side of the door. Aria scarcely had time to jump to her feet and smooth her nightgown before the door opened, and Cort walked in with the stranger.