Rebel

by Zoë Archer

  And now she had found it again. In Nathan Lesperance. Even without the wolf inside, he was an unstoppable force. The shared intimacy of camp would be difficult to withstand, even with the campfire between them.

  They rode through a patch of swampy muskeg, the horses and mule slogging across the peat. A bad place to spend the night, too wet, no possibility of fire. Lesperance also took note of the growing shadows heralding the end of day. He knew they needed a place for the night but didn’t question her when she had them press onward.

  He trusted her decisions. That itself showed respect. Many men would not rely on a woman’s judgment, even if the woman’s experience was greater than their own. Lesperance was different, for more reasons than the obvious. She scowled to herself. This would be much easier if he wasn’t so damned captivating.

  A rustling in the scrub. Astrid held up her hand, signaling silence, as she and Lesperance drew up on their reins. He kept mute as she reached slowly toward her boot. Her hand curled around the handle of her knife. Then, with a single move, she drew the blade and threw it into the scrub. There was a small squeak, then nothing.

  Astrid dismounted and gingerly stepped into the undergrowth. Moving through the brush, she felt it, the difference.

  “You’re frowning,” he said. “Did you miss?”

  She ignored his comment. “Magic is strong here. I feel it in the ground, the plants.”

  “Magic’s everywhere, so you said.”

  “See this?” She plucked, then held up, a purple-tipped gold flower. “Isis’s Eyes. This isn’t their flowering season.”

  “A seasonal anomaly?”

  “More than that. Strong magic makes them bloom out of season. Blades use them to track Sources.” She frowned down at the little flower, a portent of something much bigger than its size would indicate. “Changes are happening. But I don’t know what’s stirring to life.”

  The flower was edible, so Astrid chewed on it meditatively and resumed her initial search through the scrub. She found what she was looking for. With tall grass, she wiped the blood off the hunting knife’s blade after pulling it up.

  When she held the rabbit up by its ears, showing Lesperance her prize, frank appreciation lit his face. She had to admit, it had been a good kill.

  “Looks like we’re having meat for supper,” she said, and liked it too much when he grinned in anticipation.

  Instead of watching her dig the fire pit, he wanted to try his hand at it. She was obliged to give him direction—but not much, for he learned quickly, and soon had their fire beautifully built and flickering. She skinned and cleaned the rabbit. Before long, it sizzled as it cooked on a spit, and the dusk filled with the sounds of roasting meat and nocturnal insects striking up their song.

  “See that?” she said, nodding toward the sky. Lesperance followed her gaze to some low-hanging clouds in the east. “That faint glow at the bottom of the clouds. It’s light from the Heirs’ campfire.”

  He scowled. “A taunt.”

  “Exactly. They want us to know they’re coming for you, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”

  He looked murderous, but it was one small drop of the Heirs’ arrogance. “We know where they are. We can stop them—use magic against them.”

  “I’ve none to use,” she answered. “The code of the Blades demands that Blades may only use magic that is theirs by birth or gift.”

  “Damned inconvenient,” he muttered.

  “It can be.”

  “You’re not a Blade anymore,” he pointed out.

  Hell. The prohibition of magic use was deeply ingrained into all Blades. She’d forgotten that their code no longer applied to her. Astrid knew it was inscribed in her very blood, no matter how much she wished otherwise.

  “Just be cautious,” she said instead. He gave a clipped nod. Even though the Heirs were nipping at their heels, she needed to think of something else. “Take care with rabbit,” she advised him. “They are too lean to live on. You can gorge yourself on them and still starve to death. Be sure to eat enough fat. Even pure suet, if you must.”

  He looked at her without hiding his interest. “You know a hell of a lot about living out in the wilderness.”

  “If I did not, I would be dead.”

  “And did you know as much, before you came to the Territory?”

  She gave a noncommittal shrug. “I knew some things.”

  “What brought you out here?”

  Astrid glowered. “This is the edge of nowhere, and you’re cross-examining me.”

  He refused to look abashed. In truth, he appeared downright arrogant. “I studied law for three years and took up at the firm right after that. Nobody argued a case better than me. Even ones that others thought unwinnable. I helped a Chinese laborer with settlement against a white banker who cheated the laborer of his savings. Everyone was sure the banker would win. The Chinese have hardly any rights in Victoria. But the banker lost, because I got the truth out of him. I always do.”

  She believed all of that. She felt her own truths laid bare before him. And as for arguing, she and Lesperance did that very well.

  It would be better if she kept quiet, if she knew as little about him as possible, yet she could not stop herself. “Will you go back to Victoria, go back to the law, after all this?”

  Arrogance fell away as he considered his options. “I’d be the only wolf in the courtroom.”

  “I’ve heard that lawyers are jackals.”

  A corner of his mouth turned up, wry. “Then it could be my advantage. Wolf beats jackal.” He shook his head at the fancy. “Maybe I can’t return. Maybe I won’t be able to find other Earth Spirits. All I know for certain is that I want to rip out the Heirs’ throats.” He gave a small self-mocking snort. “Finding out I can turn into a wolf, and that there’s a gang of murderous Englishmen after me, threw off all my pretty plans.”

  What those plans were, he didn’t say, but she was surprised at the loss coloring his deep voice. He didn’t show his vulnerability if he could help it. A twinge of shame pierced her, having, up to that point, mostly considered her own unhappiness at being drawn into this mission. It wasn’t a mission to Lesperance. It was his life.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, for that was all she could offer. She knew what it was to have dreams for the future, and those dreams to blow away like ashes.

  “I’ll find my way. Could use guidance, though. A firm hand.” He raised his eyes to hers, and a heated interest glowed there.

  “You don’t need that kind of guidance,” she answered tartly.

  His scarce smile flashed. “A man who believes he’s nothing more to learn about women is a damn fool.”

  Her sudden laughter caught them both off guard, but he chuckled with her.

  “That’s a nice sound,” he said.

  “Rusty,” she replied, grimacing. How long had it been since she’d laughed with another person?

  He fed twigs to the fire, but she could not help but notice the masculine grace of his hands. A traitorous thought teased her: How might he touch a woman? With a firm hand, no doubt.

  Astrid took her knife and carved the roast rabbit into pieces. Rather than bother with dirtying plates, she shoved a cooked leg into Lesperance’s hand and took one for herself.

  She muttered something in Swedish about her disloyal mind, but, before she could take a bite, he asked, “What language is that?”

  Astrid sighed. “I’m not used to all this conversation.”

  “You intrigue me,” he said simply.

  Her body gave a sudden pulse of answering interest. “I shouldn’t.”

  “But you do.”

  She had been so far withdrawn into herself for all these years, the idea that she could draw any man’s interest—particularly one as devastating as Nathan Lesperance—stunned her. “Why?” she asked, genuinely baffled.

  “You’re not like any woman I’ve met before.” When Astrid gave an indecorous snort, he said, “Don’t scoff. We’re alik
e, but not the same. Tied together somehow, you and I. I knew it the moment I met you. You felt it, too.”

  She wanted to deny it but couldn’t. She tried to shield herself behind flippancy. “Who knew a shape-changing attorney could be so sensitive? You should write poetry.”

  “Throw your barbs,” he said with a shake of his head. “You can’t scare me off. I want to know you from the outside in.”

  Oh, Lord. She could well imagine.

  “And,” he added, nostrils flared, “there’s a hell of a lot more heat than poetry in what I feel for you. The animal in me feels the same way.”

  She, who had faced enemy gunfire, water demons, sandstorms, and cannibal trolls, trembled at his words. Images flickered through her mind of her and Lesperance, slick and tangled, mouths and hands and flesh. His growls. Her moans. And not only bodies entwined, but minds and hearts as well. Exactly what she wanted. Exactly what she feared.

  She had to change the subject before she gave in to her body’s darkest desires. “If I tell you what language I was speaking, do you promise not to say another word all night?”

  “I’ll be quiet for ten minutes.”

  “Ten! Thirty.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Twenty.”

  He held out his hand to shake. “Done.”

  Her fingers slid into his grasp, and the sensation of fingers pressed against each other echoed in humid pulses through her body. “How did you talk me into this?” she asked, breathless.

  He smiled, wry but also confident. “I’m a very good negotiator.”

  That, she did not doubt. She wondered how many women he had “negotiated” into bed. A goodly amount, she wagered. Perhaps all his talk of being intrigued by her, their connection, was merely that—talk.

  She wished that was true. Yet knew, somehow, it wasn’t. He was no polished city attorney, beguiling women into his bed with glossy words of seduction. What he wanted, he achieved through strength of will. And he wanted her.

  It took longer to retrieve her hand than it had taken to give it. The drag of skin contacting skin. Her starved body wanted more. She refused to acquiesce. Yet he knew, too, the effect he had on her, blast him.

  She finally pulled back and kept her hand cradled protectively in her lap. “It’s Swedish,” she said, trying to herd her thoughts and the conversation toward more secure ground. “I learned from my father. Bjorn Anderson, born in Uppsala. He was a great naturalist.” Her father’s fame as a naturalist had brought Michael as a pupil, and it was over Latinate texts of botanical disquisitions that her and Michael’s love had taken root and blossomed. In particular, they were both fascinated by the works of one of England’s only female botanists, the Viscountess of Briarleigh. Astrid dreamed of exploring the world as Lady Briarleigh had, with her beloved husband by her side, and soon Michael came to share that dream. Shortly after she and Michael were married, Catullus Graves approached them, offering places within the Blades, the opportunity to travel and study while protecting the world’s magic. It had seemed perfect.

  “Was?” Lesperance asked. “Your father is no longer living?”

  “Is,” she corrected, relieved that he was willing to talk about something other than the attraction between them. “Alive. In England.”

  “You must send him hundreds of specimens for his studies. Plenty to investigate out here.”

  She shook her head. “I cannot remember the last time I wrote him,” she admitted. Her father’s correspondence, however, arrived as regularly as post could out in the Northwest Territory. The last letter had related that Michael’s youngest sister had been married and was presently on a bridal journey in the south of France. Astrid had realized that everyone else had picked up their lives, yet she continued her self-imposed exile. The idea had left her moody and restless for weeks.

  Lesperance’s brows drew down. “Are you feuding with your father?”

  “No. We’ve always been close.” Except for the past four years.

  “Why the hell don’t you write him?”

  Astrid drew back from the anger in Lesperance’s voice. How could she answer him? She could not even answer herself. When she had first arrived in the Territory, she sent her parents and Catullus a letter each, assuring them she was still alive but had no wish to return home. Their letters, however, did not stop. At first, they pleaded with her to come back, said they were worried, that it wasn’t right or healthy for a young woman to consign herself to a living afterlife. She need not contemplate another marriage. If she was done with the Blades, everyone would respect her decision. But please return, however she wanted.

  Her replies, when she had written them, were terse. No, she was staying. If her parents and Catullus wished to keep writing, they were free to do so, only know that she would no longer open their letters if they insisted on pressing her to come back.

  “I just…ran out of things to say,” she said to Lesperance after a moment. To write to them of her life in the mountains, her observations of the flora and fauna, her interactions with Natives and trappers—it was too much like returning to life, to admit that her grief was loosening its hold, and what held her immobile in the wilderness was something else. Something she dared not name. “I fail to see why that should upset you.”

  Lesperance’s handsome face was stark with fury. He jabbed a finger at her. “Unlike you, who chose to abandon your family, mine was torn from me. They wouldn’t let me see my parents after I turned eight. Didn’t want me to be tainted by their heathenish ways. I saw them alive only once more after that.”

  He didn’t explain the circumstances of this final visit, but she did not ask for further details, knowing instinctively that his pain would become her own if she knew more.

  “And when I was old enough to leave the school,” he continued, “I went to find my parents.”

  “Did you locate them?”

  “By the time I reached their village, I learned they’d died the week before from smallpox.”

  Astrid swallowed, an ache in her throat.

  “I made the medicine man show me the bodies,” he said, bitterness hardening his words. “I didn’t recognize them.”

  She struggled not to look away. “I didn’t know—”

  He was on his feet, a shadow hovering large and dark, with the glow of the fire turning him gilded, sinister. “My parents were illiterate, but I would’ve killed for something from them, even a damned rock. Didn’t matter. I just wanted them, a family to belong to. And you’re throwing that away.” To punctuate, he threw the cooked rabbit leg into the dirt, then turned to stalk off into the night.

  “The Heirs are out there,” Astrid said to his retreating back.

  He pulled at his clothes, so she was forced to look away. “The wolf will take care of me.” Moonlit mists began to gather around him, as if he prepared to change, but then he saw her watching him, and the clouds dissipated. He pushed farther into the shadows.

  “What about supper?” Astrid asked.

  The vicious smile he sent over his shoulder chilled her. “The wolf can take care of that, too.”

  Then he was gone, disappearing into darkness. She thought she heard the sounds of paws upon the ground, racing into the night, but the night’s noise soon hid this.

  He would come back. He had no choice but to stay with her, since, even with the wolf in him as protection, he would die in this wilderness without her. Yet she did not doubt that, under different circumstances, he would have left her then, to forge his own path.

  Though she was hungry, it was a struggle to force herself to eat. She told herself that she didn’t give a damn, that Lesperance could do whatever he pleased, and if he starved out there or got himself killed by a bear, it mattered not a whit. If the Heirs captured him, she might have to come to his rescue, but the location of the Heirs’ fire showed they were at least a day behind, likely more. He was in no danger on that front. And the man had turned into a bloody wolf. He was well situated.

  Astrid lay down t
o rest, uneasy but insisting in her mind that there was nothing to be troubled about. She had spent weeks on her own in the wilderness away from her cabin. She wasn’t afraid.

  Had she been selfish, shortsighted? Callously tossing aside love. When she knew that there was all too little of it in the world. The idea disturbed her.

  She looked at the empty space across the fire. For the first time in years, she felt very alone.

  A warm muzzle nudged her from her light doze.

  Astrid’s eyes opened to see a large silver-and-black wolf hunkered over her. She bolted upright, hand flying to her gun.

  The wolf made a sound, halfway between a growl and a whine. An alert. It paced closer, brushing against her, moving in a circle around her. A primal fear snaked through her to be so close to the massive animal. Yet she fought against the fear. Even in the darkness, she saw its topaz eyes, the man within.

  Her hand dropped from her revolver. “Lesperance?”

  He made a small yip of acknowledgment, followed by another warning growl as he looked off into the woods, his ears swiveling toward an unheard sound.

  “What is it?” Astrid whispered, rolling up into a crouch. An odd conversation. She’d never met a shape changer. But the novelty of this had no place now as her senses struggled to full wakefulness. There was a threat out there.

  Lesperance moved as though to head toward it, but stopped a few feet away. He swung back to her, pacing around her, as if forming some kind of barrier between her and whatever lurked in the darkness. A low growl rumbled in his throat, deep and continuous.

  Suddenly, Astrid heard it. Rhythmic beats upon the ground. Steady and fast. A horse. Big, by the sound of it, and riderless. Even a bareback Indian would change the sound of a horse’s hoofbeats. Wild horses weren’t unknown in these parts, but they roamed in small herds, never alone, as this one was. She could only hear it as it headed directly toward her and Lesperance.