by Jane Godman
“Yes, but the brotherhood must be seven. We don’t have a seventh member . . .”
“Not her, Gunnar.” Wilder turned to face them, his anger under control, but no less dangerous. “Don’t do this.”
“She has all the credentials we need.” Gunnar kept his voice deliberately calm.
“No.” How the hell had Gunnar tracked Jenny down? He must have known she was an alpha female, possessing the strength, bravery, and skill to join the brotherhood. But Wilder was an alpha male. His protective instincts kicked in. There was a hierarchy here. Wolf law meant she should obey his commands.
“Are you talking about me?” Jenny asked, her voice quivering on a note of incredulity.
“No.” Wilder repeated the single-syllable word. If he did it often enough, maybe he could make the problem go away.
“You said it yourself. The brotherhood is out of date.” Gunnar met his eyes fearlessly. Damn him.
“You want to pit her against Santin?” Wilder could hear the incredulity in his own voice as he tilted his glass in Jenny’s direction.
“Santin is your job. You’ve defeated him once. This time you finish it. Everyone else is backup. Jenny has skills, modern-day skills, that can help us.”
“I would love that.” Jenny’s huge amber eyes sparkled with pleasure at the prospect. Clearly she was going to ignore Wilder and go with her alpha instincts and accept Gunnar’s invitation.
“Is anyone listening to me?” Wilder growled.
He never found out, because that was when the windows imploded.
* * *
When the glass shattered and the lights went out, Jenny threw herself onto the floor, crawling blindly toward where she thought Wilder would be. Relief flooded through her when she collided with his muscled bulk.
“Stay close to me.” Just what I was planning to do, she thought. He placed his body half over hers, shielding her.
Jenny could sense them in the shadows, smell their musky odors, hear their panting breaths. Three of them. Crouching low. Teeth bared. Pale eyes searching the darkened room.
“Santin?” She turned her head, her lips brushing Wilder’s cheek.
“No, he’s not here, but these are his pack. They have his scent all over them.”
Gunnar was across the room. Alone and vulnerable. Jenny cringed against Wilder as the first wolf pounced in the direction of the older Arctic. Using the movement as a distraction, Wilder hauled her to her feet, dragging her with him and out of the den into the hall, slamming the door behind him as he went. Jenny told herself the sounds of teeth snapping on bone as she ran must be her imagination. We can’t leave him there . . . Common sense told her Wilder knew what he was doing.
“Do you have anything I can use as a weapon?”
She shook her head, her cheek rubbing against his in the darkness. “I don’t own a gun.”
“Anything at all. I’m good at improvising.”
She did a frantic mental inventory of the house. “There are knives in the kitchen.”
“Not big enough. I can’t kill these wolves, not while I’m in human form, but if you have something powerful enough, I can slow them down so we can get away.”
“My polar expedition gear is stored in the closet under the stairs—”
Wilder interrupted before she could finish speaking. “Show me.”
After fumbling with the handle, Jenny got the door open. The light came on automatically in the closet and she offered up a silent thank-you that her gear was tidy and organized. Wilder glanced swiftly around. Grabbing a ski pole and an ice pick for himself and handing the same items to Jenny, he closed the door.
“I would tell you to get out, get in your car and go, but Santin will come after you. You have to stay with me. From now on, I’m your only chance of staying alive, do you understand?” There was no escaping the urgency underlying that calm, quiet tone.
Swallowing the panic that tried to rise up in her throat and choke her, she nodded. “I catch on quick to hints like Siberian werewolves in my den.”
“Good. I have to go check on Gunnar.” Wilder’s voice told her two things. One, he wasn’t going to like what he found. Two, she wasn’t going with him. “There is nowhere you can hide where these wolves won’t hunt you down. Get yourself into the smallest space possible, and when they come for you, go for their eyes.”
She swallowed hard. “Kitchen.” The word came out as a croak. She hoped he understood her.
“I’ll find you.” He gave her a little push. “Go.”
Only when she’d started to run in the direction of the kitchen, did she hear him open the door to the den. Dark thoughts crowded in on her. What would he find? What if the wolves got both Gunnar and Wilder? Should she ignore what he’d said and run out of the house, get in her car, and drive? What did she really know about Wilder, after all? How much could she trust a man she’d know for only a few hours, a man everyone warned her was odd? Desperately, she fought down the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. Breathe. Think. Feel. The taste of Wilder’s flesh lingered on her tongue, his scent was fresh in her nostrils. He was an Arctic werewolf, but he was so much more than that. Deep down, hadn’t she known that the first time she saw him? She would trust him with her dying breath. She might be about to do so . . .
One kitchen cabinet was taller than the others and Jenny frantically cleared it of its few contents, tossing cleaning products and brushes onto the floor, before clambering into the empty space. It was a tight squeeze. The ski pole just fitted at an angle and she kept a grip on it with one hand. The ice pick was a solid weight in the other. Remembering what Wilder had said, she left the light on and the door open. She wasn’t hiding, she was making herself inaccessible. I want to be able to see you when you come for me, you bastards.
For the longest time, she heard nothing except her own heartbeat thudding loud in her ears like the distant sound of a woodcutter rhythmically chopping wood. Then there was an enraged howl followed by a crash. It took every ounce of strength she had to stay in that confined place and wait for them to come for her.
Above the sound of her breathing and her heart, she could hear them. Their razor-sharp claws scraping on the tiled floor with each step. The kitchen was small, so it didn’t take long for them to come into her line of vision. Two werewolves. Wilder must have done some damage to the third. The first wolf whipped his head in Jenny’s direction, blue eyes icy with fury. Both wolves went into stalking mode, dropping low, dark lips drawn back, fangs visible.
Despite the danger, Jenny’s attention was drawn past them. Wilder had positioned himself in a corner, his back pressed against the cabinets, his powerful leg muscles tensed as he prepared to strike. Watching him, Jenny’s pack instincts kicked in and her fear melted away. They were in this together. No longer individuals, they were working in symbiosis. This was what she had craved for so long.
Jenny was never meant to be a loner. She craved the security and organization of a family—a wolf pack—around her. That was why she hadn’t hesitated when Gunnar had suggested she should join their elite brotherhood. It offered everything that had been missing from her life for so long. Fellowship, belonging, loyalty, and a common purpose. It also appealed to her warrior spirit, the side of her she had to keep hidden in her human life. And it had nothing to do with the chance to get closer to the enigmatic Wilder? She didn’t have time to explore the question further.
Every nerve in her body cried out for the coming fight. The Arctic werewolf in her needed to see these wolves bleed, feel their flesh get torn apart, hear their bones snap, and see the light die out of their eyes, even if they would rise again. The knot in her stomach tightened and a rush of pure hatred surged through her veins.
One wolf lunged, jaws snapping at Jenny’s hiding place. Timing his leap to coincide, Wilder raised the ski pole, bringing it down between the Siberian’s shoulder blades. With a howl, the impaled wolf twisted and thrashed. In a synchronized movement Jenny came out of the cabinet, ducking and sliding, ice pick in her
hand. Closing in on the second wolf, she went low under the animal’s defenses. Her attack caught the Siberian by surprise, and they rolled across the floor in a flurry of fur, claws, teeth, and Jenny. When they came to a stop against the fridge, Jenny plunged the ice pick between the wolf’s eyes. Howling with a combination of rage and pain, the Siberian broke away, flopping onto its side and flailing wildly. Reaching out a hand, Wilder helped Jenny up.
“Gunnar?” She cast a glance in the direction of the den.
He shook his head. “The Siberians will recover quickly. How fast can you pack a bag?” That was it? A man he has known for at least four hundred years is what . . . ? Not dead, because that can’t happen. But whatever has happened to Gunnar, we are just going to leave him here—in my house—and that’s all he can say? “You’ll need your passport.”
“Where are we going?”
He looked at her blankly for a moment, as though he was surprised she didn’t know. When he spoke, the single word contained a world of memories and several lifetimes’ worth of nightmares. “Jotunheim.”
Chapter Four
Jotunheim. Gunnar had spoken of it and now Wilder said they were going there. Just like that. He might as well tell her they were on their way to Narnia, Hogwarts, or Oz. You do know it’s a fictional place? We can’t go there because it doesn’t exist? She wanted to say the words aloud, but the intense look on his face as he bent his head over his cell phone wasn’t inviting conversation.
Jenny was driving again as they headed back to the university. “Why there and not your apartment?” she’d asked, once Wilder had thrown her bag and his gym bag into the trunk and she was able to pull out of her drive. She checked her rearview mirror. No Siberian werewolves in pursuit. Bonus.
“That’s where my passport is.”
The roads were quiet enough for her to steal occasional glances in Wilder’s direction. His body was tense, his expression closed. “Gunnar isn’t dead.”
“No.” Was she going to have to drag every sliver of information out of him? Just as she decided the answer to that question was a resounding yes, Wilder exhaled a long breath. “He was in a bad way.”
“In that case, explain to me why it was a good idea to leave him.”
“It’s part of the brotherhood code.”
Jenny took her eyes off the road for a second. “You guys have a code?”
A corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “We don’t recite it at secret meetings or anything like that.”
“If I’m going to be part of this brotherhood, don’t you think it’s time to share?”
He shifted position then, and she felt his eyes probing her profile. “Okay. First, the pack—or in our case, the brotherhood—is everything. It comes first, before the individual.”
“Sounds good to me.” Jenny nodded approvingly.
“Next, protect the young, and honor your mate.” He was watching her closely as he said that last part. Was there some hidden message there? This might not be the best time to explain her total lack of knowledge about werewolf dynamics. “Basic wolf rules for life. Finally, no member of the brotherhood will place the others at risk. That means if one of us is injured, we will never hold the others back.”
“How do we know Gunnar would have held us back?”
“You didn’t see him.” Jenny could tell the words caused him pain.
The campus buildings looked lonely in the darkness. The security guard on the gate peered into the car. Recognizing Wilder, he waved them through.
“You do this often?” Jenny asked.
“Now and then.”
He produced a set of keys and they made their way up to his office. Once inside, Wilder became brisk. There was a large safe in the corner of the room and, clicking quickly through the combination, Wilder had it open in seconds. Inside, there was a small bag and he checked its contents. Jenny peered over his shoulder. Passport, several credit cards, and a wad of cash.
“Were you expecting this?”
He turned his head, his face tantalizingly close to hers. “That Santin would escape? No. Trouble? I’m always prepared for that. Four hundred years means you have a hell of a lot of experience to draw on.”
“Where are we going? And don’t say Jotunheim because we both know that’s not possible.”
His eyes, so like hers and yet so uniquely his own, narrowed slightly. “I can see I have a lot of explaining to do . . . later. For now, let’s start with the simple stuff. First stop, Anchorage. We have a plane to catch.”
“There are going to be a few people out looking for me when I disappear off the face of the earth.” Jenny studied his bewildered expression. “Won’t anyone miss you?”
“No.” Wilder shook his head, his expression neutral. “I’ll send an email arranging cover for my classes. In a few days my students might notice I’m missing, but even that’s not a foregone conclusion. Apart from them, I don’t suppose anyone will notice I’m gone.”
“That’s sad.”
“That is exactly the way I like it.” He locked up his office again and they made their way back to the car. Before they set off Jenny bent her head over her cell phone. Wilder cast a sidelong glance in her direction. “Will work be a problem?”
“It’s never a great time, but I’ll say I need a leave of absence. I’ve never done it before, so hopefully it’ll be okay.” She turned to look at his profile. “Somehow, in comparison with tonight’s events, my current project researching the impact of climate change on the vegetation of the tundra seems unimportant.”
The radio was still tuned in to the local station she’d listened to with Gunnar and the upbeat music seemed out of place. As Jenny reached for the dial to turn it down, Wilder’s fingers connected with hers. Even that tiny brush of his body against hers started a wildfire of sensation that went through to every nerve ending. Very specifically to the nerve endings located between her legs. The feeling seemed inappropriate and she sent herself a Down, girl message. “Leave it. I want to hear the news.”
There was an appeal from the police for calm following the attack in downtown Fairbanks. Citizens were told not to go hunting for the animal, but to leave it to the authorities. The response to the appeal for information about the identity of the unknown hero had been huge.
Wilder groaned. “At least I don’t have to face that hell tomorrow morning.”
Nationally, all eyes were on a rally being held in Washington by the hugely popular cult leader, Van Marsh. Early estimates were that over a million people were in attendance; a similar number had attended Marsh’s meetings in Asia and Europe last month.
“What do you make of this guy?” Wilder nodded toward the radio.
Jenny wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. He seems to have come from nowhere and become phenomenally popular in a short space of time. Yet I’ve listened to his speeches and I still don’t get what he stands for. It’s like he’s brainwashing people on a massive scale. How about you, do you think he’s going to save the world?”
Wilder made a derisive sound. “He’s dangerous. What my father would have called a ‘fame wolf,’ from the Marsh werewolves of Norse legend.”
Jenny frowned. “You think Van Marsh is a werewolf?” She thought of the TV and newspaper images she’d seen of a slim, elegant, blond man who wore designer suits and handmade shoes. Always surrounded by an entourage of sycophants and photographers with a couple of bodyguards thrown in. Dangerous, yes. But nothing about Van Marsh had ever struck her as remotely wolflike.
“I know he’s a werewolf. He reminds me of one of the warrior Marsh wolves, but they are all extinct. What I don’t know is why he’s doing what he’s doing and, more importantly, why he’s doing it now.” He shrugged. “But we have more important things to worry about. Right?”
* * *
Gunnar’s organizational skills hadn’t let them down. Even though it had taken more than twenty-four hours, and a stopover in Frankfurt, they were finally approaching Helsinki. Jenny had regarded Wilder wi
th a question in her eyes when the tickets were waiting for them at the check-in desk as they arrived at Anchorage airport.
“How did Gunnar know I’d agree to join you?”
“He tends to get his way.”
“That’s not an answer.” Although her tone had been disapproving, she hadn’t pursued it. He supposed the damage to her house, three blood-soaked Siberians, and the injured Arctic leader had been the clincher.
Now she was asleep with her head on his shoulder, the weight of her body against his doing interesting, tightening things to his chest and groin. Regretfully, he woke her so she could get her seatbelt on. Jenny blinked, yawned, and stretched. Beneath them, the Finnish capital glistened pure white.
“Beautiful.” She turned to Wilder with a smile. Her expression reflected the sort of glee that only a winter landscape could bring to the eyes of an Arctic wolf.
“Yes.” She didn’t have to know he wasn’t talking about the snow.
“So what happens now?”
“The rest of the team is arriving tomorrow. Gunnar booked us into a hotel tonight.” Why the hell was there suddenly a world of hidden meaning in that innocent sentence?
Her long dark lashes swept down and the faintest hint of pink touched her pale cheeks. So she felt it, too? “And when the others arrive, what then?”
“We travel together to Svalbard. Have you been there?” The Norwegian archipelago was a raw, elemental place of glaciers, vast ice fields, and forbidding icebergs, where the perpetual sunlight of summer held its own unique magic and legend deep within. It was the closest most mortals ever came to the North Pole.
“I’ve done research there twice. Do we have the right equipment?” She started to laugh at the foolishness of the question. “I mean, do we have the right equipment to travel there in human form? I know we are perfectly designed to do it as werewolves, even though it’s not our homeland.”
“Gunnar has taken care of everything.”
Her smile faded as she studied his face. “Will he be okay?”
An invisible hand squeezed Wilder’s heart. What if he wasn’t? An Arctic werewolf couldn’t be killed without the midnight sun, but they could be damaged, and what he’d seen back in Jenny’s house . . . The choice he’d faced had been made in a split second and was unbearable. He heard Gunnar’s voice in his head, then and now.
