The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) Read online

  Jared said, “But where might we find the other half of the translation?” He looked at the table, hoping they wouldn’t notice he changed the subject.

  “Did Darius ever send you anything?” Alec asked.

  Jared shook his head. “No. He counted on our connection.”

  Lucy kept her eyes fixed on Jared a bit too long, before she added, “Then we’re at square one.”

  “Where the hell’s the rest of the pack?” Alec asked, pushing back from the table and standing, signaling that he was too frustrated to continue.

  The Dazzling Demeters

  Neon was giving Nadia Demeter a headache. It sparkled on her skin. It shimmered in the fountains. It rippled across the skyline. It flashed in the corners of her eyes.

  She avoided eye contact with the hordes of enthralled tourists as she strutted down The Boulevard. Day slipped lazily into night, and the chaos she felt coming off the crowds around her was—annoying. She was running late, per usual, for her act, and her mother, Helena, with whom she performed, would be irate. Too fucking bad for her, Nadia thought sourly. Nadia glanced up at the happy faces briefly. Las Vegas was a wonderland. A playground. 24/7 joy...unless you lived and worked there. Then, it was a job. A place to exist.

  A place to wait until something better happened in your poor, pathetic life other than running a freak show with your mother. Nadia loved her mother—desperately—it was just the two of them. But she had the ache to leave Las Vegas. To do something different and new, even something conventional. But she also knew that her mother needed her for the show.

  The Dazzling Demeters.

  In flouncy, sparkling outfits, she and her mother read minds, predicted futures, and cracked quite a few not-too-bad jokes. Their rapport was excellent. The crowd loved their Sonny-and-Cher, Dorothy-and-Sophia quipping—a pairing that had worked for comedians for centuries. Nadia was the straight man, and it suited her. She could deliver a dry, stinging barb with a finesse that made even mothers in the crowd laugh (though they were glad their daughters didn’t speak to them that way).

  As she entered backstage, Helena said, “You’re late. Always late.” She stubbed out a half-smoked cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. “Where do you go all the time?”

  “Around. Away. Relaxation. You should try it some time.”

  “Hey! We’re not on stage,” Helena warned.

  Nadia kissed her mother on the cheek. “I’m dressed. See?” She said as she opened her coat releasing the sparkles of her outfit.

  “Now let’s go dazzle these people. Let’s get some extra readings and sock money away for a trip.”

  “Mother, now you’re talking my language.”

  As the emcee announced the duo, Nadia pirouetted across the stage. Helena shuffled into the spotlight, dismissively waving her hand at her daughter’s antics. “This one takes dazzling far too literally. If I did that, I’d dislocate something.” She waited for the few chuckles. “So, you’re here, not to see my daughter’s interpretation of La Boheme—”

  “La Boheme’s an opera, Mom,” Nadia interrupted petulantly.

  “And this is Las Vegas. Everything here is La Boheme,” Helena delivered with such thick distaste that the crowd couldn’t help but laugh. “Anyway, you’re here to get a glimpse at what a real psychic can do. Well, we’re both psychics. And my mother was a psychic. And so was her mother.”

  “You know what the worst thing about being a psychic is?” Nadia blurted out to the crowd. “Blind dates. They never are,” she shook her head sadly.

  “You can tell she’s not a mother yet, if she thinks that’s the worst thing about being a psychic.” Helena turned to the packed room. “Our show demands audience participation.” She shielded her eyes to peer more intently at the crowd. “Sober or not.”

  “Preferably not, so you think we’re really psychic,” Nadia said with her hand to her mouth as if she were telling a secret.

  Helena rolled her eyes. “I knew she was going to say that.” She clapped her hands. “We’re not your run-of-the-mill psychics. We don’t read tea leaves and promise you Mister Right. Or a ton of money. We read minds.” She smiled devilishly. “Who wants to be our first victim?”

  A clearly drunk, middle-aged woman raised her hand fervently. She had on stretch pants, too much make up, gaudy jewelry, and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the faces of toddlers and the words, “We love our Nana!” A huge gold purse was slung over her shoulder.

  “Mother, pick her,” Nadia said, winking to the audience. “She’s the type that’s gonna believe we’re psychics.” She smiled as the crowd laughed and the woman seemed to miss the joke at her expense.

  “Ma’am, what’s your first name?”

  “Why do you have to ask?” A man called from the back.

  “Because she isn’t a plant,” Helena answered without missing a beat. “If I paid her to sit there, I could call her Jehoshaphat and she’d say yes. Name, please.”

  “Stella.”

  “Stella, I’d like you to dig deep in your purse—”

  “Mom, you sound like a televangelist.”

  “Pick out an object. But don’t show us. Keep it hidden in your palms so no one thinks there’s a spy camera or what-have-you. Show it to the audience.” Helena watched the drunken woman. “No, the audience is behind you, dear.” More peals of laughter. “Eyes closed, Nadia.” Nadia and Helena closed their eyes. Stella turned, showing the first few rows of people whatever she pulled from her enormous gold vinyl purse. “Has she shown the crowd?”

  “Yes,” the boisterous crowd cheered.

  “Now we need silence as we concentrate on the thoughts inside Stella’s mind.”

  “Why do I suddenly have a craving for a gin gimlet?” Nadia asked. The crowd roared.

  “Nadia, silence! Please...”

  A hush fell over the crowd as Nadia and Helena stood, stone-faced, under the harsh spotlight. Their dresses sparkled. The crowd shifted tensely, whispering to their neighbors. Several seconds passed—only 10, but for the crowd it felt an eternity. “Silence...” Helena cautioned again. She could feel the restlessness of the crowd. They would lose them soon.

  “Stella, you made it too easy,” Nadia announced. “It’s a keychain photo of the same two adorable grandkids on your shirt. Nicky and Ricky are their names.”

  “Yes!” Stella cried gleefully. The crowd cheered.

  Nadia looked over the crowd and smiled though her mind throbbed behind her eyes like a manic drum. She could read the faces of those in the crowd. Some, their faces shifting with doubt, wondered if Stella (unknown to her and her mother) was a plant. Others, their faces aglow with wonder, believed in psychics.

  They were all so dreadfully wrong.

  Their whispers were like a torrent over a cliff onto a pool. Babbling. Babbling. Babbling.

  And it never ended.

  Beauty and Pain

  Rebecca Kemper sauntered up to a metal sculpture and circled it to enjoy the work from all angles. She tried to picture the sculpture in her warehouse loft, but couldn’t visualize a spot for it. It was fashioned from barbed wire and sharp metal—and while intriguing, it was also unsettling.

  Although she rarely purchased, Rebecca was a regular at art openings at The Space in the trendy Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. She enjoyed the ambiance. A solo cellist played in a corner. Muffled laughter and conversation drifted through the rooms. Artists discussed their work—and she sipped wine. Normally, her sister, Rindy, joined her, but tonight she had been away on work. Rebecca was startled as she heard a man’s voice behind her.

  “What’s your opinion of this?” He asked.

  She turned to face the owner of the deep, gravelly voice. He had sharp green eyes, thick, dark expressive eyebrows. One was arched with his question, and he smiled warmly. “I don’t love it,” she said, and then thought, Damn! He could be the artist.

  “Hmmm,” he replied. He circled the sculpture, taking in its sharp, dangerous twists. “Angels bound,” he rea
d the name of the sculpture. He raised his eyes from the name plate and looked at her through the barbed wire.

  Rebecca looked at the sculpture again, seeing that the barbed wire in fact did seem to bind two angels, their sharp metal wings extended like a crown.

  “I think it’s grotesque. And beautiful,” he said. “The artist sees the beauty in pain.” He extended his hand. “I’m Griffin.”

  “Are you the artist?”

  He laughed. The throaty rumble was joyful yet unnerving. “No, not at all.”

  “I’m Rebecca,” she said, taking his hand. “The one who disagrees with you about this sculpture.”

  “Perhaps we should look around together, to see if we agree on any others?”

  “And if we don’t?”

  An overly confident smile blossomed across his face. “Then we should go for a drink and find something to agree on.”

  “There’s wine here,” Rebecca said. She didn’t want to seem easy. She took a few tentative steps away from him, her posture coy, and he followed. They chatted as they strolled through the gallery, commenting easily on the art, disagreeing amiably. After winding their way through the collection of prints, paintings, and sculpture, Griffin suggested they go for that drink and Rebecca agreed.

  They walked from the gallery to a wine bar just a block away. He ordered an Oregon pinot noir and she ordered a gewürztraminer. Rebecca laughed at their selections, and Griffin smiled, noting the odd pair they made. What the desultory conversation lacked, his keen, smoldering eyes made up for in Rebecca’s mind. He had a chiseled attractiveness, “super-model attractive” her sister would have called him. She couldn’t wait to tell Rindy about it, especially since any other night Rindy would have been at the gallery with her.

  The bar cleared out as the night wore on, and Rebecca announced that she needed to call it a night.

  “May I have your number?” He asked. He pulled his phone from his pocket.

  Rebecca smiled and rattled off her number. “Good night.” She felt elated as she walked down the empty street toward her car. She paused to look through the dark window of the gallery. She peered past her reflection in the glass to the sculpture of the sharp-winged angels wrapped in barbed wire. She gasped as Griffin’s reflection appeared in the glass behind her. Before she could scream, he covered her mouth and nostrils with a cloth and pressed.

  A pungent odor filled her nostrils. Her hands that clutched at his arm fell limp by her sides as she slumped unconscious.

  * * * *

  Rebecca tossed her head to the side and inhaled in a gasp as she awoke. A veil of confusion draped her mind as her vision snapped into focus. Her senses grappled as she realized she was in the front passenger seat of a car. It was still night and moonlight poured into the car through the windshield though the world outside the car was dark. Too dark—and she realized she was no longer in the city but that the car was parked on the edge of a woods. Dread writhed in her chest. Her lethargic appendages barely responded to her order to move, but as she concentrated, they awoke. She realized he hadn’t tied her up, and she felt a glimmer of hope. She stretched her arms and legs to regain full motor control.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” Griffin said, looking at her from outside the car. He stood on the driver side and peered down at her. The moonlight illuminated only one side of his face, and his dark smile vanished into the shadows covering the other side of his stony countenance. “I consider myself an artist, too.” His smile widened. “But of a very different sort.”

  She would not speak to him, she would not ask him what he wanted; she knew what he wanted.

  Rebecca painfully tore her eyes from his face to survey her surroundings: trees, a deserted road, no lamp posts. Isolation. She could no longer fight her panic, and she tore at the door handle and fell to the ground outside the car. She clamored to her feet and ran toward the woods without looking back.

  “Yes, run,” she heard him call. “The beauty is in the chase.”

  Griffin watched her race into the dark forest as he unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it off his muscular chest. He tossed it in the driver seat as he kicked off his shoes. “Run!” He shouted again as he unfastened his belt buckle and nearly pulled the button from his pants in his haste. He tossed his pants and underwear into the car then leaped over the hood. His bare feet slapped to the ground—and as he wailed her name, his voice choked into a howl.

  Rebecca heard the sound and froze with fear. She had no idea where she was—what he was—making the horrible sounds that she now heard. Do not think, she told herself. Run.

  She ripped through the darkness, stumbling, blind, half-mad. The undergrowth slowed her, but she pushed through. She could hear something clamoring through the forest, gaining on her. She willed herself to remain quiet, to run as swiftly as she could. Her mind screamed hide, but she knew the idea was futile. She stumbled onto a path. She looked both directions, each dark, stretching long into the forest. The moonlight broke through the trees’ naked limbs, casting shadows on top of darkness. She chose a direction and ran.

  The cold air seared her lungs and she could feel her shoes tearing at her feet. They were not designed for running, for fleeing.

  She listened to the forest as she ran. Tried to see into the tree-shrouded vortex of darkness surrounding her. As she ran, she passed a trail mile marker. Three miles! Three miles to where?

  Then suddenly the beast lunged onto the trail in front of her.

  Eyes. Teeth. Claws. Fur.

  Fragmented pieces of reality assaulted her mind. Rebecca shrieked and stumbled back. A large, clawed paw swiped at her, tearing her dress and shoulder. She didn’t even feel the lacerations as blood poured down her arm. She turned to run yet felt another swipe down her back that made her wail. She stumbled and fell against a tree. She turned back to see the beast approaching her. Its green eyes stared at her with lust. And she realized—that he is the artist—and she is the art. The beauty in pain.

  Rebecca cowered against the tree as the beast approached with methodical steps, savoring the beauty of her pain.

  She knew she would not die quickly.

  Mother and Son

  Alec pushed the elevator button and waited as he heard the machine hum to life. He looked at his reflection is the shiny chrome doors, and he looked miserable. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see his parents, but that every time he did, they asked about Lucy, and in particular, why she was avoiding them. It’s not like he could explain that she was a paranoid werewolf, convinced she could wolf-out under the right conditions, regardless of the full moon. So, instead, their parents assumed she resented them over Rene.

  Alec acknowledged, as he entered the elevator and pressed the button for the sixth floor, his parents weren’t completely off base. Lucy was angry. They never liked Rene as much as they should have; he had saved Alec’s life and lost his own in the process. Alec tried not to think too deeply about his parents’ snobbery, their biases, because it was such a hard road to travel. It made him, at times, feel shallow, but it was how he negotiated the relationship. And, he knew that Lucy loved them—and that, had they had the time, they would have come around, would have loved Rene.

  Alec knocked on the door and Ilene opened it immediately. She tossed her arms around him and placed a kiss on his cheek with unfettered affection. “Alec. Did Lucy come? Or Jared?”

  “It’s just me,” Alec said, as he pulled his arms from his coat sleeves and hung it on the coatrack.

  “Did you eat?”

  “Yes. I had dinner.”

  “Come. Sit.” She led him to the living room. She sat on the couch and patted the seat beside her. Alec noticed that she was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and he suspected she had not left the loft all day. “Your father isn’t home yet.”

  “What did you do today?”

  “Oh, I—” she stopped, seemed to search for something to talk about, something that sounded as if it could have filled an entire day. “I had a lot of paperwork. I’ve b
een submitting some photographs into some contests and juried shows.”

  “Are you taking pictures again?” Alec asked a little too brightly.

  Ilene shook her head and avoided his eyes. “I’ve entered some older ones.” She looked down, seemed to fight with herself. “And how are you keeping busy?”

  “I’m working, part time, for now. I’m going to start back to school in the fall. Just not yet.”

  Ilene nodded understanding. “And Lucy?”

  “She’s started taking yoga. Did you know that?”

  “Yes. Yes, you mentioned that.”

  “And some kind of self-defense class.”

  “Oh.” The word was neither shocked nor pleased. “Are you sure you’re not hungry? I can cook.”

  “What’s your plan for dinner?”

  Ilene looked at Alec as if the question was asked in a foreign language. “I didn’t really have a plan,” she admitted. “Your dad often picks up something on his way.”

  “How’s Dad?”

  “Keeping busy.”

  Alec could feel the accusation against his father—the loneliness—behind the words but ignored it. He was so scared to say the wrong thing, so afraid that she would ask the wrong questions, that their conversation remained flat, uninvolved, like old friends bumping into each other in a store. The look of despair etched in his mother’s face pained his soul. “You two should come over for dinner.”

  “We’d like that. Very much.”

  Alec looked out the window. Dusk clouded the skyline, like figures in murky water. Lights blinked on in buildings around them, seeming too bright in only near darkness. “I have a question. A hard question.”

  Ilene froze, seemed to tremble. “Yes?” An apprehensive smile shook her face.

  “Did I ever receive a gift from Darius? Maybe when I was young.”

  Ilene looked away from Alec. Her lips turned down in a bewildered frown. “A gift?”

  “Anything?”

  She nodded. The movement was so subtle that Alec was unsure she was answering his question. He sat with her, in silence, as she wrestled with her memories. Ilene closed her eyes, reliving the moment she had opened a package, left on the door step, with a note that simply read: For Alec. She had known—in the instant—who the box was from. Had known that no one else would give a gift to just one twin. “Did I treat you differently?” She suddenly asked, grabbing Alec’s hand.