Blood's Shadow: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 3 (17 page)

Chapter Eighteen

It didn’t take me long to find Selene. She walked toward me out of the alley where I’d been attacked. Her expression seemed dazed, and she nearly tripped over me when I stopped in front of her. She dropped her gaze to my face and blinked.

“Oh, Gabriel,” she said. “Why are you like that?” She looked around. “Someone could see you,” she whispered. “Where did you change?”

“A friend helped me out. Where did you go? What happened?”

Our questions crossed in the mental space between us, and she knelt down, put her arms around me, and buried her face in my fur.

“Let’s go somewhere,” she said. “I can’t handle any more people.”

“All right. Let’s go to my place.”

“Mine is closer,” she said. “And I have your clothes there. I forgot to bring them with me tonight.”

“Won’t they be following you?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No, they’ve made their point. They don’t need to.”

I wanted to snarl at the idea that something had been done to her, but I didn’t want to scare her. She drove her car since my keys were in my clothes, which David now had. If she had a tracking device on her vehicle or we were being followed, I couldn’t tell. Nothing smelled out of the ordinary, and no one automobile or moped stayed behind us for long. As much as Morena wanted Max to be followed so the wizards wouldn’t spirit him away—and good luck with that if they really wanted him—I reminded myself to ask to have Selene followed. That I had to request something like that reminded me how powerless my position truly was.

Selene pulled all the way into the drive. “So no one will see you from the street,” she said and opened the door for me. “I’m not supposed to have pets.”

I followed her inside, and she went into her bedroom so I could change back to human form in the living room. This time, I uncurled from the inside out, again without the pain that normally accompanied my transformations. When I stretched to encourage the last few parts to pop back into place, I saw her watching me from the door. The expression on her face revealed puzzlement and something else—fear?

“Why are you glowing?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I looked at my hands. Nothing.

“You have—had, it’s gone now—a white-blue outline.” She looked down and then to the side. “I’m sorry. I thought you were done. It was about ten minutes. It usually takes me five or six.”

“You have my clothes?”

She nodded. “In the bedroom. Go ahead and get dressed if you like. Do you need undergarments? I put out a pair of boxers I’d gotten for Curtis for when he stays here, but they’ve never been worn.”

“Thank you.” I had to squeeze by her to go through the door, and our bodies brushed together. She put her hands to my cheeks.

“You’re freezing!”

“I don’t feel cold on the inside.”

She moved her hands to my chest, her nails trailing through my chest hair. “All your skin is cold. Get in the bed.”

“Selene, you know what happens to us after we change. It would be…hard…for me to be in your bed.”

She looked up at me, and her hungry gaze met mine. Her hands slipped around my sides to my lower back, and she pressed herself into me. “You’re already hard.”

I recalled our interlude from earlier and how I suspected she’d tried to seduce me. “What is your game, Selene? What happened to you in the square?”

“Strip poker,” she replied and gave me a wicked grin. “I always won in graduate school. Poor boys never kept their clothing.”

“It seems that you should be the one with the handicap in this situation, not me.”

“Get dressed, then, and we’ll both have a chance to get what we want.”

I found my clothes in a dry-cleaning bag and put on the boxers, my T-shirt, my shirt and sweater, and my pants, which fit a little too snugly over that part of me that wondered why we weren’t doing anything useful and taking her up on her very obvious offer.

Settle down,
I told it.
I need to think with my brain, not you. We need answers.

When I walked into the living room, I saw her sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a deck of cards.

“I didn’t have any playing cards, only the Tarot deck I picked up in town when I first got here. I took out the Major Arcana cards, so they should work like a regular deck.”

“I recognize these,” I said and flipped through them. “They’re by a local artist.”

“You can deal. Five card draw okay?”

I gave her a look. “Why do I feel like I’m about to get card sharked?”

“You want answers. I want to see you naked again. Whoever loses the hand takes something off.”

“Or gives an answer,” I told her.

“Fine.”

The cards smelled vaguely of their plastic coating and resisted my attempts to bend and shuffle them, but I did it passably and dealt out five cards to each of us. She looked at her hand and gave me one to exchange, which I did from the top of the deck.

I looked at my cards: Ace of Cups, Seven of Cups, Eight of Pentacles, Nine of Swords and Ten of Wands. “I’ll keep these.”

“Okay,” she said. “Show me.”

I laid my cards on the table. “Straight with Ace high.”

She studied my cards. “That’s an interesting combination. I’ve got two pair.” She laid them out. Sure enough she had two sevens and two nines, so I won the hand.

“Fine, I get an answer,” I said.

She pouted. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have me to take something off?”

“I would, but that’s not what I need most.” Heat crept up my neck. “That’s not what I meant, but I do need to know who your scarfaced friend is and why he’s stalking you. Also what is his involvement with the Order of the Silver Arrow?”

She slumped back in her chair. “That’s three questions. I’ll answer the first.” She took a sip of white wine. “His name is Rhys Cromwell. He works in town as a carpenter and occasional bodyguard. He’s from England but has been here for several years. And he is neither a boyfriend nor a friend, so he’s no threat to you.”

“I would beg to differ. That tells me a few things about him, but not the important ones.”

She grinned. “That was all the information I have to answer your first question. Deal again.”

I did, and this time, she exchanged three cards. I did the same. She won that round, so I took off my sweater. The next game was mine with a full house.

“So why is Rhys never far away?”

She rubbed her temples and then drained her glass of wine. “That’s a more complicated answer, but it boils down to the fact that his boss has something of mine that means a lot to me, and I have to do something in exchange for getting it back.”

“His carpenter boss or his bodyguard boss?”

She shot me a “don’t play with me” look. “Neither.”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “You withheld important information when you answered the question of who he is.”

“Fine, I’ll take off my shirt.” She pulled her v-neck shirt over her head. Her breasts filled out her lace bra nicely, and I almost forgot my question. “Deal again.”

By that time, the bottle of wine had been drained to half empty, but I hadn’t had any. She had bright red spots on her cheeks, and her eyes took on a glazed look. The more we played, and the more she told me, the more I smelled her fear. Our game was no game, but rather an act of desperation. She needed my help but couldn’t ask for it directly or… Or what? She’d risk losing whatever Rhys’s employer held?

She won the next hand with two pairs to my nothing. “All righ’. Take off your shirt.”

I did as she commanded, and we faced each other topless, although she still wore her bra. Somehow the sight of all the skin seemed more intimate than when we’d been wolves in the woods, although we’d technically been completely naked at the time. Without taking her eyes off my chest, she said, “Deal.”

I pulled the bottle of wine to my side of the table but didn’t pour. “I think you’ve had enough wine and poker. You obviously want me to ask you something, but you don’t want to tell me outright. That’s fine. I understand the power of words. But I can’t help you if you’re going to harm yourself in the process.”

“The only harm I’ll come to from this is some embarrassment and likely a nasty hangover,” she told me, her words clearer than I expected. “You see me as an innocent victim, and perhaps I am.” She took a deep breath, and her breasts caught my attention.

I dragged my eyes to her face. “But…?”

“But I’m responsible for the trouble I’ve gotten myself into, and I have to deal with it. I appreciate your trying to help me, but it’s not necessary.” She stood, but her foot caught on the chair rung, and she stumbled. I stood and grabbed her before she fell.

“You’re right about the wine.” She held on to my arms and pulled into me, possibly to stabilize herself, but I became very aware of her soft skin and the scratchiness of the lace bra against my chest. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

This behavior and her earlier disorientation only further convinced me that someone had messed with her head. But who and why?

“Go get cleaned up,” I said. “You’ll feel better after a shower.”

“Will you come with me?” she asked with a coy look. “Wash my back?”

“I’ll tuck you in after your shower, but that’s all I’m going to do. We can talk more tomorrow when you’re not intoxicated.”
Or otherwise influenced.

I waited until I heard the bathroom door close and the water start, and I pulled on my shirt and sweater. The room had gotten cold when she pulled away, but not ghostly cold—I hoped—just chilly summer night in Scotland cold. Yes, I would have loved to have warmed her up, but it had to be her choice with her mind unclouded by alcohol or whatever else had happened to her between when her mobile was stolen and when I found her.

I grabbed the wine bottle and her glass, and when I turned to put the glass in the sink, I noticed she’d put the Major Arcana cards on the counter. The artist who had designed the deck was a friend of mine, and I always appreciated her drawings, so I looked through them after putting everything else away.

The Moon card almost made me drop all of them. An image of Reine smiled up from under her cloud of white-gold curls as she poured out the stars from a silver pitcher against a royal blue background.

The next card also took my breath away—Rhys without his cheek scar as the Devil.

Yes, I would have to visit Veronica, the artist, the next day.

The shower water stopped, and the noises of Selene getting dressed came from the bedroom. She walked into the living room wearing a large T-shirt, soft pajama shorts, and a very embarrassed expression under a full-force redheaded blush. She sat beside me on the couch.

“I made my shower a cold one,” she said. “And as the water washed over me, I realized what a fool I’ve been acting tonight. I don’t know what got into me.” She slumped back and pulled a pillow over her stomach. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened after that kid snatched your phone? Where did you go with Rhys?”

“That’s the strange part. I don’t remember. Or I do remember, but it makes no sense.” She closed her eyes. “It was a small chapel just off the square. It looked like an office building from the outside. I saw…something. Like a person, but more like a skeleton, and it told me I needed to seduce you. I resisted, but then I felt a sharp pain in my thigh.” She rolled up her pants to show me a bruise. “And suddenly it made perfect sense.” She frowned. “Why? What good would my seducing you do for him?”

“That’s a very good question.” I hadn’t moved my hands, and my fingers itched to stroke the soft freckled skin of her left thigh. The energy of the Solstice poured into the room with the light caramel rays of the setting sun, but I resisted giving in to my temptation. Someone else wanted it too badly, which put both her and me in danger.

“I should go,” I said and heaved myself off her low couch. She stood beside me.

“I understand. And thank you for not taking advantage of me.”

I turned toward the door, but then looked back at her. “Do you have someone to change and run with for tomorrow night’s full moon?”

“No. I was just going to go to the Institute and run around there. Garou has his men there, and Max should’ve strengthened his wards around the property, so it should be safe enough.”

“I’ll join you.”

“Thank you. And Gabriel?” She touched my shoulder.

I turned to face her. “Yes?”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed my cheek. “I enjoy your company, and I think I’m starting to care for you. I wanted you even before they tried to make me seduce you. I just wish I knew how much were my feelings and how much was their manipulation.”

I drew her into my arms. “I care for and want you too, Selene. Let me know when you figure it out.” I leaned down to kiss the top of her head, but she looked up, and our lips met. She tasted of mint and sweetness and moonlight, and I saw her as a wolf running free through a forest with trees I’d only seen in the American southeast. The places where our bodies met heated, and I growled and pulled her closer to me, but then I remembered—this is what Rhys’s boss wanted, and until I knew more, I couldn’t put her at risk.

Is this my punishment—uncertainty about what’s going on between us at this delicate first stage of our relationship?

I pulled away, and she stepped back, but her hands lingered a moment longer than they needed to.

“Right, tomorrow night, then?” she asked.

“Tomorrow night. See you at the Institute at sundown.”

My car was still at the pub, and my car keys and cell phone with David, so I headed back that way to see if he was there. If not, Troy would let me call him or crash in the little apartment above the bar.

The long walk through the stretching shadows of sunset that faded into the dusky gloom of twilight gave me time to clear my head and sort through what Selene had told me and what I’d seen.

Rhys, and by extension Selene, were involved with the Order of the Silver Arrow, which held something Selene desperately wanted back. My instincts and common sense told me that seducing me wasn’t their endgame for her, but what was? Probably something having to do with the Institute. I’d learned the night before that others wanted to know how to use the reversal process, so could that be it?