PRINCE OF WOLVES

by Susan Krinard

  Coming back to herself, Joey blinked as she looked up at her friend. It was with a powerful feeling of déjà vu that she caught the change in Maggie's expression as the redhead paused with a half-full mug of beer in hand, staring over Joey's shoulder at the door as cold air swirled through the tavern.

  The sense of him was so undeniable that Joey did not have to turn around to know what had riveted the barkeep's attention. She swiveled on the stool as Luke glided into the room and up to her as if they had parted only moments before.

  The grim lines of his face did not soften as his eyes swept over her and up to Maggie. Caught in the fascination of Luke's nearness like a bird under the spell of a snake, Joey heard rather than saw the redhead's retreat, the resumption of normal conversation as the tavern patrons reacted to and shut out Luke's presence.

  Luke's eyes dropped back to her with an intensity that banished anything or anyone but the two of them. Joey felt herself fast recovering from the shock of seeing him there, defensive anger rose to take its place, but she pushed that down and regarded him with forced calm.

  "Well, Luke, this is a surprise. I didn't think I'd be seeing you before we began the expedition." She kept her voice light and level, exactly as if she and Luke had reached the businesslike understanding she had implied to Maggie. She had no intention of revealing to him when she planned to leave, but she knew by the tightening of his jaw that he understood the mocking challenge she threw at him.

  The touch of anger in his face disappeared under a mask of cool indifference as blatantly false as her own. "I thought it would be a better idea to come in early, make sure everything is in order. No sense in taking any chances." His deep voice carried layers of meaning that Joey could not entirely read. Was it threat? Did he intend to make sure she didn't leave town, or was it something she could not even guess at?

  Joey slid off the barstool. "In that case, maybe we'd better go discuss our plans." She turned her back on him with deliberation and searched for Maggie, who stood watching with her arms folded and her eyes wide and troubled.

  "I've got to go, Maggie, take care of a few last-minute things." She smiled with all the warmth and sincerity she could muster. "Please don't worry I'll be fine, and I'll tell you all about it when I get back."

  Joey watched Luke's gaze track back to Maggie, almost a glare of warning, Maggie met it stubbornly. "I expect your guide to look after you. You'll do that, won't you, Mr Gévaudan?" The redhead's voice carried its own warning. "You make real sure you take good care of Joey. We'll be looking forward to seeing her again. Soon."

  With a last nod at Joey, Maggie turned her attention back to the bar, dismissing Luke as easily as he'd dismissed her.

  Luke's tension vibrated in the air between them, making the hair rise along the back of Joey's neck. She turned away and strode from the tavern, knowing Luke was hard on her heels.

  As the door closed behind them, Joey did not give Luke the satisfaction of a confrontation. She charged grimly across the street and headed back for the lodge as Luke kept pace in silence, a burning and implacable presence. It was only when they reached the vicinity of the lodge that Joey felt sufficiently in control of herself to face him.

  "I thought the plan was to forget you ever existed," Joey mocked quietly as she spun to a halt. "You made yourself fairly clear. I thought I was doing a pretty good job."

  The expected reaction didn't come. He merely looked at her without the remotest hint of desire or threat or anger. The amber-green eyes hardly seemed focused on her at all.

  "I'm here to do what I said I'd do. Nothing more. I'll guide you into the mountains and get you back. Then you'll be free to leave."

  The utter chill in his voice, as impersonal as if there had never been anything but business between them, penetrated even Joey's determined façade.

  "I see. You've decided to help me after all. Is this decision subject to sudden reversals like the others?"

  The taunt came out even when she tried to halt the flow of words; he stiffened almost imperceptibly. If his pride had been touched at all by her barb, he did not reveal it beyond that sudden tension and the merest flicker of his eyes.

  "I give you my word that I'll get you where you need to go, and back again."

  "In return for what? You've said before you don't need money. What do you want from me?" She searched the distance of his pale eyes for some flicker of passion, anything to hint that he still wanted her the way he had before their second disastrous attempt at lovemaking.

  His voice was almost a whisper. "That's simple enough " He gazed up, beyond her, to the pale unreachable swathe of stars overhead. "When you have what you want, you leave. You never come back here again."

  Chapter Eight

  Joey felt herself trembling at his words. She refused to acknowledge the deep pang of loss, the utter hopelessness that came with his offer. After everything else she had done to reach her goal, this was little enough to give up. And she'd be forever free of the unsettling enigma of Luke Gévaudan.

  Looking up to catch his eyes, Joey nodded with slow deliberation. "All right If that's what you want But it seems unfair to you, after all, since I'll be getting all the advantage out of the arrangement."

  Her final remark did not seem to affect him more than any of the others, he folded his arms in front of his chest and studied her calmly.

  "I don't think so."

  He held her gaze for a moment and then looked away again, toward the lodge. "If it's agreed, then there's no point in wasting time. There are things to be arranged and planned if we're to leave as soon as possible."

  "I've done most of the planning already, as it happens," Joey countered. "I think you'll find everything in order."

  "That's what I intend to find out." Without warning Luke began to walk toward the lodge, forcing Joey to jog a few steps to match his long stride. "Nothing can be left to chance. I want this to be as uncomplicated as possible .

  "Excellent," Joey snapped. "Then we're in perfect agreement."

  Luke did not answer as he bounded up the steps to the front door and flung it open. Trailing after, Joey was secretly relieved to see that the last late diners were gone, and she and Luke were able to make their way up to her room without suffering a single accusatory glare. None of that should matter anymore, just as her relationship—such as it was—with Luke was of no further significance.

  Moving to lay out her maps on the bed, Joey paused as Luke scanned the room and its contents, dismissing all of it but the pile of equipment in the corner.

  "I've got everything assembled," she offered, clamping down on an unwelcome surge of defensiveness. "What I didn't already have I bought yesterday in town, there shouldn't be anything to prevent us from leaving tomorrow."

  Luke nodded absently, rubbing his jaw as he surveyed the items neatly grouped on the floor. "Let's hope not." He didn't seem to notice the shift in Joey's posture as she stiffened, before she could summon up an appropriate retort, he added, "I'll check through that later."

  He swung around and, with that uncanny swiftness of movement, joined Joey by the bed to look down over her shoulder at the maps. He studied them silently for a long moment while Joey grimly ignored the radiant heat from the body inches away from her own. Instead, she focused on the maps and smoothed out the wrinkles with nervous strokes of her palm.

  "This is the general map," she said at last, eager to break the silence. "These areas"—she indicated the red circles marked in several places throughout the map—"were the locations I determined most likely for the site of the crash." Her voice didn't quite catch on the words. "I knew the approximate area where they went down. Their last radio message broke up toward the end, but their description of the landscape narrowed it down. I know they were near a sizable mountain, and other landmarks they'd been passing over when they had to alter course; over the summer I've checked these other sites."

  "And found nothing." Luke leaned on one of the posts of the bed canopy and traced over the map with
a finger. "Didn't the authorities investigate this when it happened years ago?"

  His voice, cool as it was, held no hint of challenge, and Joey felt herself relaxing as much as his nearness allowed. "Oh, yes, they tried. Unfortunately, it was during a late spring snowstorm, and it was some time before they were able to begin the search. " A trace of bitterness crept into her words. "They told me their resources were stretched too thin to allow much time for one small downed plane. They made a few attempts, but once they decided it wasn't going to be easy, they more or less gave up."

  "Twelve years ago. That was a bad year."

  Joey looked up at him, his face a blank as he searched old memories. "There were many accidents that year." All at once he came back to himself, and his eyes deliberately avoided hers to rest on the maps again. "They found nothing at all?"

  "Nothing. Even they didn't know exactly where the plane went down—the places they searched are the same ones I've considered, though I was able to eliminate some areas"

  She swallowed and concentrated on facts as cold and hard as glacier ice. "They believed that the place might have been covered by an avalanche after the crash, which would have made finding it almost impossible until the spring thaw. By then they had more important business."

  There was a profound quiet broken only by Luke's deep, measured breathing and her own, fast with suppressed emotion. She sensed something from Luke that had nothing to do with cold facts and everything to do with unreasonable emotion,;for an instant she tensed in expectation of his touch. Then the moment passed, and Luke's words were as even and cool as before.

  "If it went down under an avalanche, the plane could be anywhere—the wreckage could be wedged into a crevice or covered with a rockslide. You could have missed it at one of these other sites—and it may not be here, either." His finger marked the final location, the one she needed him to find.

  "I know that." Hearing the steadiness of her own voice, Joey knew she had passed the crisis point. "But that doesn't change anything, I have to try."

  For the first time Luke's eyes met hers. They were unreadable, but there was a flicker of that old intensity.

  "There are some needs that drive animals beyond the limits that mere survival demands," he said softly. "Human beings are no different."

  His gaze dropped away, and Joey was left with the obscurely comforting feeling that Luke had tried to tell her that, in some way, he understood her compulsion. The thought almost warmed her, she wrapped up the feeling and hid it away with the others.

  "In any case, this is the last place I have to check," Joey said at last. "There's no point in thinking beyond finding it, is there?"

  She had not expected an answer, but Luke echoed her words. "No. No point at all." He leaned over, Joey could smell the intensely masculine odor of his skin and the flannel shirt he wore. "And the other map?"

  Joey pulled the smaller map over to the center of the bed. "This one covers the immediate vicinity of the site, you told me before much of the near area to the south is your land. That shouldn't pose any difficulty." She didn't look up at him, remembering all too clearly his threats to keep her from crossing his territory. And what had accompanied those threats. "The most direct routes don't seem to intersect the Provincial Park on the other side of the mountain—unless you think there's a better way than the one I've marked here."

  Luke's finger followed the meandering red line she had used to sketch out the path she'd intended to travel. "Miller's Peak," he murmured "The best route is close to the one you've indicated, and much of it does cross my land."

  Frowning, Joey traced the area immediately south of the mountain, careful not to let her fingers brush his where they touched the map. "I wasn't sure about this part. I know it's private, but I haven't been able to locate the owners. Do you think that'll be a problem?"

  The softest breath of a laugh made her look up at Luke in startlement. His grim-set mouth had relaxed into a wry half-smile. "No, I don't think that will be a problem. I know the owners of that land, they won't object if you're with me." He offered no further explanation, and Joey shrugged, explanations didn't matter if it meant one less obstacle to her goal.

  "Good. In that case there's nothing to prevent us from getting this done as quickly as possible." Joey straightened, feeling a rush of genuine confidence for the first time in many days. Things were finally falling into place.

  Luke studied the map for another long moment, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Then he turned to fix her with a hard stare, the brief smile gone, his eyes pale and cold. "Don't misunderstand, Joey. It's not a great distance, not as we reckon distance up here. But it's wild country. The way to Miller's Peak covers ground from above timberline to heavily forested valleys, all wilderness. No civilization, and no conveniences. We aren't going to take any chances." Each word came with measured deliberation. "This will be done in slow, easy steps—and if there's any chance that you can't handle it, or if anything at all happens to make it too dangerous, we're turning around and coming back. Do you understand?"

  The brief surge of confidence fled as Joey absorbed Luke's warning. She tilted her head and set her jaw. "I understand what I came here to do, what I have to do. One way or another, I'll do it."

  Luke rose to his full height and took a menacing step forward. "Get this straight, Joey. You'll do exactly what I say at all times. You'll obey without question, and if I determine that it's too dangerous to continue, you'll come back here with me and stay here." His eyes locked on hers and did not look away, Joey refused to let him see the unsettling and unwelcome effect of his words.

  "I told you before, Luke," she said softly. "I'll do this with or without you. If you won't go through with it, I will."

  Joey had become so practiced at reading the language of Luke's body that she was able to note the faintest vibration in his muscles as he held himself absolutely still. His voice dropped to a whisper. "And I told you, Joey—I won't have you die in my territory, or come to harm in my care. If you don't do exactly as I tell you, I'll see to it that you never get within twenty kilometers of Miller's Peak."

  Trembling with an inner rage she struggled to conceal, Joey held her ground. "I see. You're very good with threats, Luke—and if you're good at anything else, then you'll do what I hired you to do. Or is it all nothing but empty words?"

  Luke spun away from her so suddenly that she flinched, backing away from the violence of his retreat. He began to pace the room like a caged panther, the slight hitch in his turns revealing what his face did not. The charged silence of the room grew heavy with tension, Luke came to an abrupt halt to fix her again with his icy gaze.

  "Don't play games of dominance with me, Joelle. You can't win them." As if to prove his point, he shifted subtly into a posture rife with menace, one that made him look bigger than Joey had ever seen him, she felt herself mesmerized into immobility, all her limbs locked and beyond her control. She was drowning again in the cold yellow-green glow of his eyes, but there was no desire there to soften the experience. Her breath came hard and fast, from some distant place, for an endless moment she struggled against what he tried to impose on her and broke free with a gasp, trembling with exertion and indignation.

  She waited until the shaking had stilled, until she could look at him again without fear of losing herself. With infinite, glacial chill, she said, "I'm not interested in playing games with you, Luke. Of any kind. I am interested in only one thing. Do your job, and I'll cooperate. Get me to where I need to go, and you'll never see me again. We'll both have what we want."

  Turning her back on him, she knelt by the bed and began to fold up the maps with precise, deliberately controlled motions. Behind her, Luke said nothing, she wondered why she felt so little satisfaction that he had no answer.

  There was a businesslike and perfectly efficient remoteness between them for the remainder of the evening. Luke set himself immediately to sorting through her gear, pronouncing approval or disapproval of the various items she had ass
embled over the summer and dividing them into two neat piles. True to her word, Joey did not attempt to interfere with his decisions, although she could not resist occasional comments on the necessity of paring down her already scant "luxuries." Luke reminded her that a lighter pack made travel that much easier, something she could not deny.

  They came briefly to an impasse over her butane stove, however, Luke insisted that there would be more than enough dead wood on their route to supply fires of the handmade variety, and Joey's argument about the possibility of inclement weather didn't sway him. When he pointed out that they'd return home if the weather got that bad, Joey found it most prudent to clamp her mouth shut; Luke got his way and, with an expression of loathing at the gassy smell, consigned the stove to the farthest corner of the room.

  "What about that?" Joey said as she adjusted the shoulder straps on her loaded pack, nodding at the larger pile of equipment that remained untouched where Luke had left it. "You aren't planning to carry it in your arms, I take it?"

  Luke looked up with narrowed eyes that almost hinted at humor. "Not at all. My backpack is at the cabin, since it's on our way, we'll stop by and pick it up there. In the meantime..." He paused to gather up a large canvas sack Joey had used for laundry. "This will do until we reach the cabin." With total unconcern he dumped out the contents of the sack and began to refill it with items from the second, larger pile.

  Joey undid the buckles of the hip belt and shrugged out of her pack, setting it down carefully before she replied. "If we need to stop by your cabin to pick up your gear, that's fine. But I won't spend another night in it."

  Deliberately studying one of the zippers at the top of the pack, she sensed rather than saw the shift in his stance, the sudden stillness that followed her words. After a moment the efficient motion resumed. "You won't be," he growled. "The first night will be a good trial run to see if you're up to this. We'll camp a few kilometers beyond the cabin. Will that be satisfactory?"