by Jane Godman
“Do you trust me?”
A few days ago Lowell’s question would have sounded crazy. Trust? From a Siberian to an Arctic? It was liking asking her to grind the gears of her whole belief system into reverse. She had been brought up to hate Lowell’s kind and all he stood for. It had been fed into her with her mother’s milk. The hatred between their packs went back to the dawn of time when the great god Odin put the sun and moon into chariots to fly back and forth across the sky. Because the sun and moon didn’t always do their job properly, the length of the days and nights weren’t regular. To solve the problem, Odin cast a spell on the giant twin werewolves named Skoll and Hati. Odin gave Skoll the task of chasing the sun across the sky, while Hati’s was to chase the moon. Siberians were the descendants of Skoll, while Arctics were descended from Hati. Siberians hoped that one day their god, Skoll, would catch the sun and cause perpetual night. Arctics, on the other hand, prayed to their own mighty deity, Hati, to catch the moon and bring about perpetual day.
The past didn’t matter. Odessa did trust Lowell. The way he had come into her life had been unexpected and memorable and, at the time, she had believed he was a force for harm. She had even tried to convince herself she hated him. But her feelings toward him wouldn’t allow distrust or old hostilities to rule her. She had been drawn to this man from the first instant she saw him. And her heart and mind had followed. She would have faith in her instincts. Lowell had already claimed her body with spectacular results. She would offer him her trust and her friendship.
Nothing more? It was a sly, little voice at the back of her mind. Ruthlessly she silenced it. Trust was enough. What more could the Siberian leader offer a member of the Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun?
“Yes, I trust you.”
Although there was no outward change in his demeanor, she sensed the tension in him begin to unwind. “Then let me do this. Let me call them.”
Odessa nodded. Lowell was offering a solution. It wasn’t one she liked, but she had nothing else. “I get an equal say in this. Your brotherhood doesn’t take over. My people died.”
“Of course.”
“Before we leave here, we have to do something about the bodies.” She drew a shuddering breath. “I can’t just walk away and leave them like this.”
Lowell drew her into his arms, his hands smoothing along her spine until her trembling stilled. “We can’t bury them. Even if we could spend enough time here to dig that many graves, the ground is frozen and iron hard.” He slid his fingers under her chin, tilting her face up to his so that she was looking up at him. “You are descended from the Norse gods, Odessa. The most fitting way to send your warriors to their rest is to build a funeral pyre and burn them.”
The image of what he was suggesting rose in her mind. Of going back into that room and moving those bodies, of the blood and the gore. Of placing Isaak on a pyre. Of setting light to them. Of the stench and smoke . . .
She was the Siberian leader. This was the legacy her father had left her. When all her fighters lay dead and the future of her pack was under threat, there were no easy decisions.
She squared her shoulders. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
The last thirty-six hours had a surreal quality to them. Like walking through a dreamscape with a nightmare edge. They had retraced their steps for much of the journey. Shifting back into wolf form, they had run side by side back to their vehicle, donned their warm clothing and driven to Yakutsk. From there they had boarded a flight to Moscow and checked into the same hotel. Lowell had secured early morning flights to Anchorage and now they were finally stepping out of a cab in front of his Fairbanks home.
They had found out that none of Odessa’s employees had died in the bomb attack, but she had been unable to contact Alexei and Serena to discover more about the damage. Even after all those miles and all those hours, Lowell could still smell the blood and smoke they had left behind them in Siberia. The memory of Odessa’s slender body wracked by tears as he held her while she wept for her murdered fighters would stay with him forever.
Lowell’s home was a gracious, Georgian-style mansion set in the grounds of its own country estate. With two wings extending out to either side and a grand porch with high marble colonnades flanking the vast double doors, it was an imposing structure. Beyond the house itself, the colorful formal gardens led to woods with the sparkling curve of a river wending its way in the distance. It was an idyllic location.
Odessa regarded the beautiful, rambling mansion with wide eyes. “This is your home?”
It was the same reaction he always got. “Yes.”
“How many people live here?”
“Just me.” He carried their bags inside the circular mosaic-tiled hall and, for the first time ever, thought how lonely those words sounded.
“No army of staff to keep it clean?” Odessa turned full circle, taking in the elegant features of her surroundings.
“I hire a team who come in and do that whenever I’m away.” Lowell shrugged at the question in her eyes. “I don’t like other people around me.”
Except you. You around me . . . that’s the best feeling in the world. Thankfully, he stopped short of saying the words out loud.
“I need to shower.” Odessa plucked at the front of her T-shirt with a grimace.
“There’s plenty of time. The others won’t be here for a few hours.”
He led her up the graciously curved staircase to the master suite. He wasn’t asking polite questions or offering options. She was sleeping with him. When they were together, that was the rule from now on. Depositing their bags on the floor, he gestured to the bathroom. “You’ll find everything you need in there.”
Overcoming the temptation to join her with an effort, Lowell made his way back downstairs and fired up his laptop. Diving into the depraved world of the Hellhounds was something he hadn’t done for several weeks, but maybe it was time to check in.
The Hellhounds were the followers of Chastel. Many of them never got further than cheering from the sidelines in these online communities. Some liked to live out their fantasy lives by meeting up and discussing how they would kill a werewolf if they ever met one. A small number went further and, following in the footsteps of their beloved leader, hunted down and killed werewolves.
Werewolf hunting wasn’t easy. It was time consuming and expensive. Werewolves had evolved to the point where they could live in the human world without detection. Most Hellhounds didn’t have the time, ingenuity or resources to get serious about werewolf hunting. But there were a few who were dangerous.
Before his death, Chastel had been active on these forums, offering huge sums of money to any Hellhounds who could provide proof of a werewolf kill. There was nothing he liked more than provoking a blood-induced frenzy among his followers. There had been too many occasions of murders caused by a suspicion that a friend, neighbor, or colleague of an overzealous Hellhound “might be” a werewolf. Very occasionally, they struck lucky and actually did kill a genuine werewolf.
Since Chastel’s death twelve months ago, this forum had gone quiet. Not silent. It had been subdued rather than extinct. Watchful. Just as Lowell had been watching, so had the Hellhounds. For what, he wasn’t sure.
Chastel himself hadn’t been content with killing werewolves one at a time. His ambition had been far greater. Chastel’s ultimate goal was to wipe out all werewolves. He had made an attempt to destroy the entire Arctic species by using Samson’s partner, Valetta—now his wife—against them. Valetta, a unique being known as a Shadow Born werewolf, had special powers that Chastel believed he could harness and use against the Arctics. The bounty hunter’s plan had backfired and, during a confrontation, Samson had killed Chastel.
Lowell scrolled through the messages on the forum. It had certainly been getting busier over recent weeks. Things seemed to be heating up in the murky world of online werewolf hunting. There were some distasteful threads and he grimaced as he bypassed them. The Hellhounds liked to
get creative in the detail of how they would kill werewolves. Although Lowell monitored this forum, he didn’t interact. The temptation to interject an occasional reminder about silver bullets, burning, and beheading was tempting, but he let it pass. The further the Hellhounds strayed from reality, the safer the werewolf community would be.
His eyes were drawn to a new thread, one that had been started just over a week ago. It was entitled “Ice Queen” and it drew his attention because there was a picture of Odessa heading up the thread. A feeling of dread began to agitate his stomach. As he read through the posts, shock gripped him. The thread had been started for the sole purpose of describing ways in which this group of Hellhounds intended to kill Odessa. There were hundreds of posts, by many different authors. As he glanced through the depraved fantasies, his blood began to boil. It was obvious that these sick bastards knew who Odessa was. There were photographs of her in human form, identifying her as the leader of the Siberian werewolves. Her human cover had been blown. In addition, there were gleeful references to how “the master” would let them toy with her before she died.
The master. That was what the Hellhounds had called Chastel. But Chastel was dead. Lowell frowned over the reference. Did the Hellhounds have a new master?
Lowell moved on and began to scroll through the other posts. When he finally logged out and closed his laptop, his mood was considerably lower. Although he hadn’t picked up on anything specific, there was a definite air of celebration among the Hellhounds. For the first time since Chastel’s death, they were upbeat and looking forward to something. It couldn’t be a coincidence that their mood change had coincided with the attempts to set the Arctics and Siberians at each other’s throats again.
Lowell massaged his temples. Attempts? Whoever had done this knew exactly what they were doing. The flame had been well and truly lit, and he had no idea how to put out the fire. Only one thing was certain . . . Odessa was in danger. No matter what else happened, Lowell had no intention of letting anything happen to her.
Chapter Seven
As she waited with Lowell in the elegant family room that overlooked the undulating gardens, Odessa decided she had never been more nervous in her life. That presentation back in Florida? Child’s play. Waiting to meet the Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun, the elite Arctic werewolf peacekeeping force who had killed her father? That was anxiety inducing. Her nervousness was trickling down her spine, cutting through every rational thought, threatening to turn her into a puddle of stuttering embarrassment before the visitors even arrived.
Lowell was doing his best to reassure her. “They are not scary.”
“You say that because you’re one of them.”
“Do I scare you?”
She turned away from her contemplation of the gardens to look at him. To study those near perfect aristocratic features and that Nordic coloring. The harsh planes of his cheekbones, narrow blade of his nose, and strong jaw might all have been carved from granite. In contrast, the sensual fullness of his lips drew her eyes and reminded her—all too powerfully—how they felt against her own. Lowell was dressed casually in torn and faded jeans and a gray T-shirt. These items did nothing to disguise the perfection of his body. Broad shoulders, bulging biceps, with a narrow waist, powerful thighs and a taut, oh-so-touchable ass.
Yes, you scare me. But not in the way you mean.
“Tell me about them.”
“Centuries ago, when the goddess Angrboda introduced the brotherhood, she decided it must comprise the seven—always seven and only seven—strongest and bravest Arctic werewolves. The bond we have is unique. We can be apart for hundreds of year, yet as soon as we get back together, it’s as if we last saw each other five minutes ago.” Lowell seemed to be looking back over the years, his mind flipping through his memories. There was no doubt his thoughts were pleasant ones. “In addition to our strength and fighting skill, each of us also brings another power to the group. Madden is a cop in his day job. He gets teased because he’s the pretty boy of the group and we have to surgically remove him from his mirror before we can get him out on a mission, but there is no one I’d rather have at my side in a fight. And the talents he brings to his police work—his perception and empathy—also help the brotherhood.” Odessa heard the genuine affection in his voice and was envious. Lowell might view himself as a loner, but he had a bond with his friends she could only envy.
“Sebastian is a maverick. He can be guaranteed to come up with wild ideas and take us off on a tangent, sometimes getting us into trouble along the way, but he knows how to get results. Vigo is a newcomer to the team, so he feels the need to prove himself. He can be intense, always striving to do more and be the best he can be. He relaxed a bit more on his second mission with us. He’s a gifted healer and is a paramedic in his human job. Then there’s Wilder.” Lowell sent her a sidelong glance. “He was our leader on the mission against your grandfather, Fenrir. Wilder is strong, quiet, and conscientious. Moving the brotherhood around the globe is a big task. Wilder is our organizer, the one who makes things happen.”
Odessa didn’t comment. If Wilder was the leader against Fenrir—the grandfather she had never known, but whose name struck fear into all who heard it—that meant he was the leader when her father was killed. She needed more time to process both those facts. It seemed her family might not be all she had once believed, but now was not the time to probe into that.
“You talked about a man called Samson.” She decided to move him on rather than dwell on Wilder.
“Samson, as his name implies, is the strong man of the brotherhood. But that’s not all he is. He led our last mission, when we took on Chastel and his Hellhounds and he did it well. Samson isn’t just strong in body, he is a man of principle, a loyal friend . . . and the joker of the pack. He’s a tracker whose skills extend beyond the physical. His intuition allows him to sense the emotion in a scene. It’s a useful skill. One that has helped us on many missions.” Lowell’s smile was warm. “That just leaves Jenny. She will tell you that her ambition is to one day turn the brotherhood into a sisterhood. Like Vigo, Jenny is a new recruit and she’s also Wilder’s wife. She joined the brotherhood when Gunnar, our long-standing leader left. Jenny is warm and caring, but she’s also tough and feisty. Her fighting ability is her special talent. I’ve seen her in action and I’d back her against any man or werewolf.” He seemed momentarily embarrassed at having said so much. “I suppose they are the closest thing I have to a family. That’s how I know so much about each of them.”
“And you? What is your special talent?”
Lowell grinned. “I’m a geek. Environmental geek, werewolf history geek . . . I’m where the others come to get information.”
“I think I’m more scared than ever now. They sound formidable.”
He crossed the room to where she stood, wrapping his arms around her. “I won’t promise they’ll love you at first sight.”
She gave a snort of derisive laughter. Love her? She’d be lucky if they didn’t rip her apart.
“I can’t wipe out centuries of history in an instant. But I’m here . . . and I’m on your side.”
As if his words were a cue, they heard tires crunching on the sweeping gravel drive outside. Odessa swallowed hard at the sound of voices and laughter. It was the sound of camaraderie. Someone pushed the front door open, someone who clearly needed no invitation. Footsteps echoed on the tiles in the hall, and a man’s voice rang out.
“He’ll have forgotten and have his nose buried in a book. You try the library while I get the beers.”
“In here, Samson.” Lowell called out to signal his presence in the family room.
Odessa slid her hand into his as she heard the direction of the footsteps change. Then they were there, crowding into the room. Five tall, muscular male Arctic werewolves. Powerful and imposing with a military stance. Alongside them, Jenny Wilder appeared almost fragile even though she was above average height and looked to have a wiry strength of her own. They were
all striking with their silvery hair, pale skin, and wide-set golden eyes.
Lowell gripped her fingers tighter and the action gave Odessa an injection of courage, enabling her to lift her head a little higher and meet the stares that were directed at her.
“This is Odessa Santin.” She was grateful to Lowell for the way he said her name as though it was something to be proud of.
There was a lengthy silence before one man—the one who had to be Samson because of his size—stepped forward and held out his hand. “You look like your father.” Although the words could have been damning, his voice was courteous. For Odessa, who had been brought up to believe that all Arctic werewolves were demons, it was a relief. It didn’t drive away her nerves, but it helped to alleviate them slightly. She found her hand being held in a warm, strong grasp. “I’m Samson Lee.”
“I thought you were getting the beers?” Another man moved alongside Samson. He beckoned Jenny forward. “My name is Elliott Wilder and this is my wife, Jenny.” She sensed he was awaiting her reaction to his name with some apprehension.
She knew why. This was the man who had killed her father. She didn’t know the details of how Santin had died. She did know his death had been sanctioned by her grandmother, the goddess Angrboda. The woman who was also, because of their convoluted family tree, her great-grandmother. For now, she had to put her father’s death behind her and focus on ending this nightmare. If tolerating this man had to be part of that, then she would do it. Although she couldn’t quite summon a smile, she managed a nod.
By the time she had been introduced to the other members of the brotherhood, Odessa’s head was spinning. Although they looked alike, she was surprised to realize she would have no difficulty remembering their names. They were all unique.
Samson returned with an ice bucket loaded with beers that he set on the large coffee table in the center of the room. Everyone sat on the sofas grouped around it, except Jenny who sat on the floor at Wilder’s feet. Before Lowell could begin to tell them what had been going on, they heard another car pull up outside.
