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LENGTH: Full Novel
SENSUALITY: Sensual

Cover art (c) Eliza Black 2002
ISBN 1-891020-19-6
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GATHERING DARKNESS continues the story of Sergei Volek and his struggle to keep himself and his growing family safe from not only those around him but also from the Shapeshifters' deadly enemies, the Stalkers. And how can he control the strange powers of the babies being born within the family, aberrant talents that threaten the entire Volek clan? What will happen if his beloved grandson, Wolf, can't master his passion for the beautiful and deadly woman who is now a guest within their midst?

Rating: This California-based fantasy, set in the mid-nineteen hundreds, contains elements of violence and sex, but is also about the power of love.

"Four Stars! The stakes are high, and the tension even higher as the Moonrunner saga continues. Their triumphs, their failures, their struggle to protect their clan, endear this special family to your heart, making you want to stay with them to the very end." SimeGen Reviews

MOON RUNNER II
GATHERING DARKNESS

By

Jane Toombs

ISBN 1-891020-19-6
© copyright Jane Toombs
Cover art by Eliza Black

New Concepts Publishing
4729 Humphreys Road
Lake Park, GA 31636
http://www.newconceptspublishing.com

Chapter 1

After making certain the door to her tower room was still barred, Liisi lifted her sable pouch from a wooden chest. She crossed to the round blue silk rug positioned in the exact center of the room and sat cross-legged on it.

The old tapestry behind her stirred as Liisi readied the stones for casting, a movement she felt rather than saw. The scene on the tapestry was an old Finnish folk tale, one of those chanted by rune singers--the maiden Aino fleeing from the shaman Vainamoinen, about to cast herself in the lake to avoid becoming his bride.

Aino didn't drown, she became a magic fish--a salmon--and thus escaped. No one died in the old songs, they merely changed. In the past, Liisi had sometimes regretted not having Aino's ability to avoid her fate. From the first moment she'd seen him in that fearful summer of 1850, she'd known Sergei Volek was dangerous. She'd also known they were so irrevocably linked that only death could break the bond. In these thirty years since they'd met, they'd been apart more often than together but the link still held.

Caressing the soft sable fur, she sighed, remembering those early days when Liisi Waisenen had come very close to dying instead of becoming Liisi Volek. Since then Sergei had brushed against death too many times here in the United States and in Russia.
Yet they'd both survived. She'd built her castle in this beautiful California valley and Sergei had made it into a fortress to shelter them and those of their blood. Volek blood was tainted by darkness--but a darkness that could be controlled, as she'd proven.

Sergei had sworn that, for the safety of the clan, no outsiders would ever live in Volek house. Why would he violate his own vow within a week of making it? Never mind that Guy Kellogg was an old and valued friend. As soon as she'd met the three Kelloggs--husband, wife and daughter-- Liisi had felt in her bones that along with the Kelloggs Sergei admitted danger and death.

She hoped the stones would show her the way to rid Volek house of them once and for all.
Removing the quail-egg sized stones from the pouch, Liisi slid the ruby ring onto her left forefinger, then breathed on the other eight stones: Granite, for eliminating errant energy; crystal to focus the summoned energy; agate to stabilize; amethyst to promote foreseeing; coral for wisdom; obsidian for strength of purpose; turquoise to protect; and malachite for strength of will.

She dropped all but the ring into her lap, closed her eyes and chanted each stone's origin. As she finished the last words, the stones flew from her skirt onto the blue carpet. Opening her eyes, she bent over to determine how they'd fallen. Despite the dimness of the round room, illuminated only by the pale light from four high and narrow slits of windows, the ominous pattern was clear.

Malachite lay atop both turquoise and granite. "A strong will overcomes protection," she murmured. Whose will? One of the Kelloggs, she feared. Also the ability of the granite to keep out unwanted energy was blocked--a warning that her own noita spells might be bypassed by another. Amethyst, coral and agate circled crystal, as though in protection but as she passed the ruby over the stones, crystal and amethyst grew opaque, unreadable. Definite outside interference. She was being prevented from seeing ahead.
Liisi stroked the ruby absently. It must be the presence of the Kelloggs.

Guy had tracked down Sergei in desperation, claiming that finding him was his last hope for his wife Annette. Though she had little hope of solving Mrs. Kellogg's problem, Liisi knew she must try. Otherwise Sergei would insist on his friend remaining at Volek House.
She muttered under her breath as she gathered the stones back into the pouch. Sergei's devotion to his friends had led him into danger all too often. He was the first to insist the family came first--why couldn't he hold to that? More troubled than she'd been since the time of the night howling,

Liisi put the pouch away. It had been years since she'd ventured on that dreadful journey between the worlds. The Maiden knew she'd hoped never to go again. Reluctantly she removed the deerskin drum from the chest and set it reverently on the floor. She stripped to the skin. Bells tinkled and iron charms jangled as she donned the shaman's long deerhide shirt.
As she began to dance in a circle in time to the beat of the drum, she banished the thought that this time she might never return from Tuonela's deadly realm.

Wolf Volek stood on the tower balcony staring into the cold gray tule fog shrouding the valley. A similar miasma had clouded the interior of Volek House for over two weeks-- from the moment his grandfather had unlocked the gates to three night travelers and invited them in as guests.

Guy Kellogg, Grandfather claimed, was an old friend from New Orleans by way of France. The other two guests were women--Guy's wife Annette and his daughter Cecelia. Grandmother Liisi hadn't welcomed the guests. Death, she insisted forbiddingly, stalked Annette. A death that would doom them all.

Once he saw Cecelia, Wolf hadn't paid much attention to the elder Kelloggs. Cecelia was so pretty that the sight of her stole his breath from his chest. Mima had scolded him about how his eyes followed every move Cecelia made but he didn't feel guilty. The bond between him and Mima wasn't in the least weakened by the excitement that thrummed through him on those all-too-few occasions when Cecelia's green eyes chanced to meet his.
A sound warned him the door to the tower was opening and for an instant his heart leaped in hope. Could it possibly be Cecelia?

"Hello, Wolf," Guy Kellogg said as he stepped onto the balcony. "Still foggy, I see."

Wolf, concealing his disappointment, nodded.

"Fog in New Orleans is whiter," Guy said. "Mistier. And it doesn't last for days on end."

After a moment of silence, the reticent Wolf reminded himself that it was polite to speak when spoken to. "I've never been to New Orleans."

"That's where your grandfather and I met."

Wolf nodded again.

Guy smiled. "You remind me of him when he was young-- he wasn't much of a talker, either. He was twenty then, as I was. How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"You look older. Seem older." Guy leaned on the iron balcony rail and faced Wolf.

"Sherman told me--" He paused and ran a hand through his graying hair. "I have trouble remembering to call your grandfather by his real name. You see, I knew him as Sherman Oso, not Sergei Volek. How long ago that seems--over thirty years. We were both young, Sergei and I. That sense of secret darkness within him fascinated me from the first. But art was my life and so I sailed off to Paris, leaving him with papa."

Wolf's interest was caught. Grandfather had never spoken of his early life in much detail. He did know that Guy's father, a doctor, had uncovered Sergei's dark secret.

"My father never wrote me what he knew about Sergei," Guy said. "Until I came back to New Orleans from France after my father's death, I had no notion my friend was any different than myself. Not until Francois, one of our old servants--he'd been a slave before the War Between The States--told me what he'd witnessed under a full moon one fateful night."

When Guy didn't immediately go on, Wolf prompted him. "What did he see?"

Guy lowered his voice, at the same time intensifying its timbre. "Speaking of that night, even all those years later, made Francois tremble. His voice quivered as he told me how Gauthier, the master of the neighboring plantation, a murdering devil of a man, drove his horse at the unmounted Sergei, meaning to kill him. 'Your friend, he change,' Francois told me. 'He is no longer a man, he is a beast.' It was the beast who tore out Gauthier's throat, putting an end to that bastard once and for all. Loup-garous, we Creoles call men who change."

Wolf knew the French word meant wolf-men but it wasn't true grandfather's shifting turned him into a wolf. He changed into something else entirely.

"Which is why your name interests me," Guy went on. "You're called Wolf, yet Sergei insists you don't inherit his problem."

"Grandfather didn't choose my name."

Guy shrugged. "In any case, Sergei fled New Orleans to save himself from exposure as a loup-garou, using the name my father gave him--Nick DePlacer--and set up as a doctor in Michigan. He still suffered from amnesia, as he had ever since he was eighteen when he woke up, naked and injured, on a beach in California. Sherman or Nick, he had no idea who he really was or why he bore the curse of shapeshifting."

"Mima went with him to Michigan," Wolf put in.

"Yes, Francois told me that Sergei saved Mima--a slave girl of eight at the time--from that devil Gauthier's lust." Guy sighed. "I missed all the excitement--and here I was so sure Paris would be far more interesting than New Orleans. If only Sergei had trusted me enough to confide in me before I sailed for France. I wish he had. For many reasons."

Wolf said nothing, well aware shapeshifting was not a secret a man willingly shared. He still carried the memory of that terrible moonlit night three years ago when the posse of ranchers roamed the hills beyond the valley hunting the mysterious beast who'd abducted Mima. The beast had been a shifter, though the men who shot him never discovered that. The posse had almost killed Grandfather, too.

"I'm glad Sergei found a woman like Liisi to help him," Guy said. "When I knew him he vowed never to marry or father children."

Friend he might be, but it was none of Guy's business that having the twins was Liisi's idea and Grandfather had known nothing of them until he returned to California from Russia. Unexpectedly coming face to face with his twin sons had driven Sergei into a dangerous state of uncontrolled shifting. It had been days before he returned to himself and was reconciled to the twins and Liisi.

"I know Ivan and Arno are Sergei and Liisi's twin sons," Guy went on, "but I'm not quite clear on how the other children at Volek House are related to Sergei. You're his grandson, the son of a child he fathered on a Kamchadal woman before he fled Russia in 1848--am I right?"

Wolf nodded.

"Remarkable how Sergei recovered his memory on that Russian-bound ship so many years later," Guy added. "He told me he befriended me in the first place because I reminded him of someone--and it turned out to be his dead twin, killed in Kamchatka when he and Sergei fled for their lives."

Wolf shivered. Not from the chill of the November fog but from the memory of himself as a child among his people, the Kamchadals, caged and treated as an animal.
Grandfather's rescue had come just in time--Wolf knew he couldn't have survived naked through a Siberian winter.

"Did your mother have unusual abilities?" Guy asked. Wolf hardly remembered his mother but he knew that the fact she was a shaman's daughter had enabled her to protect him from the rest of the tribe until she died. He didn't care to discuss her with Guy so he merely shook his head again.

"And you?" Guy persisted.

Wolf shrugged. "None." He wasn't a shifter like Grandfather nor a noita like Grandmother Liisi. He had no talent for seeing what was to come like Mima. He and Cousin Natasha were ordinary and he was just as glad.

"This second set of twins--the boy and girl--Sergei told me they were also his grandchildren," Guy said.

"Yes." Samara and Stefan had been sired by the dead shifter; their Miwok mother had delivered them the same night the posse shot their father. Grandfather had decided the shifter had been a son he fathered before he left California for New Orleans, a son he hadn't known existed. Wolf said none of this.

"And then there's his grandniece, little Tanya," Guy went on. "The small baby, I understand, is your daughter?"

"Druse is mine. Mine and Mima's." Guy didn't comment, though Wolf thought he raised his left eyebrow slightly.

Why? Because I'm sixteen and Mima's thirty-nine? Wolf scowled.

"I suppose it's too early to tell about abilities the little ones might inherit," Guy said.
It was and it wasn't. In the Volek line, shapeshifters were limited to one of identical twin sons, the shifting first occurring when the boy became a man. Though he couldn't explain how he could tell, Wolf knew the shifter, in the years to come, would be Arno. So maybe he did have a sort of talent, after all--though his had yet to be proven since Ivan and Arno were only six. The rest of the Volek children weren't identical twins so they wouldn't be shifters. Time would tell about other talents.

Guy shifted position to stare, as Wolf was, into the shifting grayness of the fog. "I feel we're safe here," he said, so softly he might have been talking to himself. "Safe. For the first time in years."

Volek House, even though built of stone to resemble a castle, was by no means a fortress like some castles Wolf had seen in Russia. Still, high adobe walls topped with iron spikes enclosed the grounds and locked iron gates shut out trespassers.

"This California valley is a perfect place," Guy went on. "Beautiful, isolated, fertile. Endless fogs seem to be its only drawback."

"They always lift."

"Unlike mine." Guy looked at Wolf. "Did Sergei tell you why I brought my family here?"

As a small child Wolf had been taught by his mother that it was impolite to look others in the eye. After she'd died and he'd been seized and penned by the men of the tribe, he'd been afraid to. But once Grandfather rescued him and took him away from Siberia, he'd noticed other people didn't behave like the Kamchadals. Still, he found it difficult to gaze directly at anyone when he spoke and so he stared over Guy's head. "I know your wife has an illness you hope my grandfather can cure."

It was Mima who'd told him. "Me," Mima had added, "I think the Kellogg woman's got something no one's going to heal. You watch yourself around that girl of theirs--like mother, like daughter."

"You might call it an illness," Guy said to Wolf, "but it's not the kind doctors can treat. Sergei is the only one in the world who can possibly find a way for Annette to control her affliction."

Control. The word echoed in Wolf's mind. Was Mrs. Kellogg a shapeshifter? Surely not, or Grandfather would have told him. Wouldn't he? Unlike Grandfather, Wolf couldn't see auras so he had no ability to identify adult shifters.

As if reading Wolf's thoughts, Guy said, "Sergei's learned to control his shifting, hasn't he? I'm happy he's survived against the odds, that he's thrived and prospered. I'm glad he's built a safe haven for himself and his family. Because of my wife's problem, the three of us aren't safe. Without his help we will never be safe. Is help too much to ask of him?"

Wolf shuffled his feet uneasily. What could he say? "Grandmother Liisi fears you bring danger," he blurted finally, immediately unhappy with what he'd revealed.

Guy shook his head. "I pray we don't. I'm sorry to distress her. Is that why she's shut herself in her tower room?"

"Not exactly. In her own way, she's trying to help." Grandmother Liisi was a noita, a Finnish wizard, a spell- maker. She was the one who'd taught Grandfather how to control his shifting. While she couldn't see into the future as well as Mima, Liisi could sense trouble before it happened. With her silver eyes seeming to probe his very thoughts, Wolf was never entirely at ease around her.

Aware that Guy had been silent for a long time, he glanced sideways and found him making bold black strokes on a white pad of paper. Moments later Guy tore off a sheet and handed it to Wolf.

Wolf stared in fascination at the sketch of himself standing at the rail. Is that really how he looked--dark and glowering? He glanced again at Guy and met his gaze by accident.

"I can see my drawing's unsettled you," Guy said. "Perhaps you don't think of yourself as dour. But do you know I've never seen you smile? You should learn how. All our lives we--you, me, everyone--teeter precariously on the brink of a dark void. What can we do about it? Nothing. Except smile because the darkness hasn't swallowed us yet.

"Sketching you reminds me of when Sergei and I were young in New Orleans and how I upset him with my drawings. Though at the time I knew nothing about his shifting, I once painted him crossing the grounds at Lac Belle at night under a full moon. To my surprise and his consternation, he emerged as a sinister monster. That painting, believe it or not, turned out to be my masterpiece. Today it hangs in a Paris museum. You Californians may never have never heard of me but I confess that my name is not unknown on the Continent, even though I haven't painted in years." He smiled sadly at Sergei. "Ah, but the young care little for museums or for the ramblings of an aging artist, n'est ce pas?"

Seeing a chance to learn more about Cecelia, Wolf gathered his courage. "How old is your daughter, sir?"

"Ah yes, Cecelia. Though she's not quite eighteen, my little girl fancies herself a woman of the world. You must try to excuse her if she snubs you, as I'm afraid she will. At present she insists that any male under the age of twenty- five is a mere boy. I fear we've spoiled her, Annette and I. We've certainly protected her, perhaps too much. Cecelia has no notion how serious her mother's affliction really is."

Guy held his hands out as though caressing the fog. "In truth I welcome la belle brume, the beautiful fog, because tonight its gray cloak will cover the valley and hide us from the full moon's silver rays. It's hard to recall how I once loved to walk in the moonlight."

Grandfather, too, avoided the full moon. "Though I control it," he'd once told Wolf, "the temptation is always there--the pulsing of blood lust, the urge to shift and run free."

"Wolf?" Natasha called from the doorway. Her voice, like everything else about her, was hesitant. She'd never fully recovered from what the soldiers had done to her in the czar's palace in St. Petersburg.

"I don't mean to interrupt." Natasha spoke in Russian-- she understood some English but rarely tried to speak it. She'd also been taught the French tongue as a child but she avoided that, too.

Guy greeted her in French and she smiled nervously at him. Natasha remained afraid of all men. Except Grandfather.

"Would you come and try to quiet Samara?" Natasha asked Wolf. "She's screaming again and Uncle Sergei is nowhere to be found."

Though the twin's widowed mother, Morning Quail, lived at Volek House, she left much of the care of three-year-old Samara and Stefan to Natasha or Mima. Stefan was no more trouble than any little boy but Samara had inexplicable crying spells that disturbed everyone. At those times, Morning Quail fled, seemingly afraid of her little daughter.

"I'll come," Wolf told Natasha, remembering only when he reached the door to excuse his departure to Guy.

Samara huddled in a corner of the second floor nursery, her eyes tightly shut, sobbing piteously. Tears squeezed past her closed lids, dribbling down her cheeks, and her nose ran. She was a picture of misery.

Wolf strode to the corner and hunched down beside her. He didn't gather her into his arms as his grandfather would have. Instead, without speaking, he laid his right hand gently on her head, feeling the softness of her dark hair under his palm. After a moment the intensity of Samara's crying diminished. Without opening her eyes, she reached up with both hands and grasped Wolf's wrist, clutching hard. With the child clinging to his arm, he eased to his feet, bringing Samara to hers. Only then did he lift her into his arms.

He sensed her fear ebb as her sobs gave way to sniffles, sensed it not in his mind, more with his entire body. If he'd had to explain the feeling he wouldn't know where to start. Though not the same, the feeling reminded him of the bond between himself and Mima. Something connected him and this child who shared the Volek blood. And, young as she was, Samara understood this.

Unexpectedly, an image flashed into his mind. Huge trees. Under them, a dark and menacing figure. Waiting. Before he could make sense of it, the image faded and was gone. Though this had never happened between them before, he knew the mind picture came from Samara, knew that she'd shown him what frightened her. But he had no idea what the image meant. It had been nightmarish, the trees more gigantic than real trees, the dark figure a monster. As he dried her tears and wiped her nose, he wondered what he should do. Questioning her wouldn't help. Once the spell was over, Samara never remembered what set off her terrified weeping.

He'd share the nightmare image with Mima. He shared everything with her. Except a confession of the strange allure Cecelia had cast over him. How could he share that? After all, Mima was the mother of his child. He cuddled Samara in his arms, murmuring soothing words.

Stefan, who'd run out of the room as he always did when his twin began screaming, peeked in the nursery door, then raced inside and flung himself at Wolf, holding onto his leg. Wolf reached down with his free hand and patted the boy's head. An instant later his hand jerked back. Shifter! his special sense warned. He'd touched a shifter!

Startled, he stared down at Stefan, who scowled up at him. "My turn," the little boy said. "You always pick her up. It's my turn!"

He'd touched the boy before. Why did he only now see what Stefan was to become? He glanced at Samara. Could she be providing a linkage? He didn't know. The only thing he was sure of was that he was right about Stefan and he had to warn Grandfather there wasn't only one Volek boy but two who'd shift when they reached manhood. Arno and Stefan.

Morning Quail came and took the protesting Stefan away but Samara refused to leave the sanctuary of Wolf's arms so he carried her with him while he went in search of Mima. If Natasha hadn't been able to find Grandfather, chances were he was outside. Wolf would look for him later.

Descending the stairs, he heard music and, curious, detoured to see who was playing the piano. Pausing at the open door of the music room, he caught his breath. In time to the pulsating rhythm of her mother's playing, Cecelia, dressed in a gauzy, floating gown, twirled past him, the bright red of the dress accenting her dark beauty.

The passion of her dancing transfixed Wolf. He'd never seen anyone move so gracefully, yet with a fire that sizzled through the space between them, heating his blood. He was conscious of nothing but Cecelia. Her arms reached out in an invitation that drew him toward her. Come to me, her dancing urged. Come to the flame and burn!

Unaware of what he did, he glided into the room, following her as she spun away from him. With a sudden turn she changed direction and whirled into his arms. Or would have, if he hadn't been carrying Samara.

He clutched the child with one arm while with the other he supported Cecelia. She clung to him to keep her footing. Her scent was spicy, arousing. But before he had time to enjoy their accidental embrace, a radically different message shot through him. Shifter! He let go of Cecelia so quickly she stumbled.

"What a nerve!" she exclaimed in French, turning her back and stalking to the piano.

"Maman, this clumsy boy has quite ruined everything. Make him behave!"
Wolf was hardly conscious of her scolding or of Mrs. Kellogg trying to smooth things over. Overcome, he all but staggered from the room. What was wrong with him that he sensed a shifter every time he touched someone? Cecelia couldn't be a shifter! Could she?

He found himself in the kitchen, Samara still in his arms, without being certain how he got there. Mima, stirring a pan on the stove, took one look at him, shoved the pan to one side and hurried to him.

"Upstairs!" she ordered and all but pushed him toward the back stairs. He climbed them dazedly.

Mima had touched him and he hadn't sensed that she was a shifter. Why would he? She wasn't.

Mima urged him into her room and shut the door firmly. "Let that poor child go," she scolded. "You're squeezing her so tight she can't breathe."

He tried to set Samara on the bed but she wouldn't let loose her grasp of his shirt so he sat down with her on his lap.

"That's some better," Mima said. "Now, tell me what's the matter. But keep your voice down, Druse is asleep." Their daughter slept in a cradle on the far side of the bed.

Hearing Druse's name, Samara scrambled off Wolf's lap and across the bed to peer down at the baby. She began crooning a wordless song, presumably to the sleeping Druse. Ordinarily, Wolf would have hung over the cradle, too. The tiny perfection of his daughter thrilled and moved him. But he was too upset.

He gestured with his head toward Samara. "She had a spell. Natasha fetched me and I quieted her. But this time Samara showed me what scared her." He rose, crossed to where Mima sat on the chaise longue and dropped to the floor at her feet. Speaking low, so Samara couldn't hear, he told Mima about the nightmare picture.

"Nothing to show if what she saw was inside or outside the gates?" Mima asked after a moment.

Wolf stared at her. "I didn't think of the trees or the monster as being real, more of a bad dream."

"Something might be lurking around, how do you know there isn't?"

A memory of the stalker in the spruce grove near St. Petersburg came to Wolf. Grandfather, who could sense all humans and animals by their auras, couldn't sense the stalker, a man with no aura at all. But Wolf had known something lurked in the grove. Even though he'd been able to warn Grandfather, the stalker had stabbed Sergei with a silver knife, poisoning him. Grandfather had nearly died.

"Samara." Mima's voice was low but commanding. The child turned to look at her.
"Come to Mima."

Samara did. Mima took the child on her lap. Cupping the girl's head in her hands, she looked deeply into Samara's light brown eyes. Stefan's, Wolf thought, were more yellow than Samara's. Like Arno and Ivan's eyes. Golden Volek eyes. Cecelia's were green. But Cecelia wasn't a Volek.

She couldn't be a shifter. Cecelia was already a woman, she wasn't a little girl. She should have shifted by now, if she was a shapeshifter. Wolf shook his head, confused. He lacked Grandfather's talent for reading auras--at one glance Grandfather could spot a shifter. That is, if the person was an adult and had already shifted at least once. Children lacked the tell-tale shifter aura.

Whatever it was Wolf sensed in Arno had nothing to do with auras. When he touched the child, he simply knew this was a potential shifter. Never before today had he sensed it in Stefan. As for Cecelia, if she'd changed shape even once he'd no longer be able to tell she was a shifter any more than he could tell that Grandfather was. That meant it hadn't happened to her yet. He grimaced unhappily. If he was right, some night, under a full moon, she'd change.

He couldn't be right. Still, hadn't Guy hinted than Cecelia's mother was a shifter? He must talk to Grandfather!

"She has a talent," Mima announced, startling him.

He stared blankly at her and Samara.

"This child," Mima insisted, "shines. It's too early to tell what her ability is. We'll watch and wait." She frowned at Wolf. "Whether you can sense anything out there or not, you'd best look around the grounds--at least inside the fence. How do we know Samara didn't have a true foreseeing?"

The fog closed around Wolf the moment he stepped through the front door. Surrounded by the dense gray blanket, he walked down the steps and circled the house, finding nothing unusual. What now? No landmarks were visible through the fog. He didn't fear getting lost--his sense of direction had never failed him. But he could see only a foot or two ahead. Until the fog lifted, wasn't a search futile?

He thought of the Russian stalker, that ordinary looking man who had no aura, rendering him invisible to Grandfather's special sense. Thanks to Wolf's warning, Grandfather had been alerted and he'd killed the man. Did other stalkers exist in America?

I'd feel the danger if a stalker were near, Wolf assured himself, at the same time wondering what unusual talents a stalker might have besides the lack of an aura.
He glanced uneasily at the fog shrouding everything familiar and wished he could give up and go back inside. Knowing he couldn't, not yet, he took a deep breath and walked away from the house into the cold gray unknown.
Chapter 2

This damn fog could smother a man, Wolf told himself. He'd followed the inside of the adobe wall surrounding the grounds for its entire circumference and was now making random sorties through the trees and bushes. So far he hadn't sensed any lurkers on the property but, because he couldn't see more than a foot in front of him, he remained on edge.

When a building loomed ahead of him he stopped. The barn. He caught the murmur of a man's voice and tensed. Had Jose come to work this morning? Not likely, with the fog this thick. Belinda and Rosa, the cook and maid, hadn't arrived. Listening carefully, he realized the man spoke Russian. Jose didn't.

Grandfather? Wolf couldn't be sure. He advanced cautiously.

"I could use some help, Wolf," Grandfather called.

Wolf smiled in relief. No one could creep up on Sergei Volek. Except a stalker with no aura for Sergei to read. Involuntarily, Wolf glanced behind himself. Nothing but fog. Between Grandfather's special sense and his own sensitivity he was all but positive no trespasser lurked inside the walls.

He trotted around and into the barn where he found Grandfather on a stool, milking one of the cows. Without speaking, Wolf found another milking stool and a clean pail and started on the next cow. For a time there were no sounds except the streams of milk hitting the pails, the snuffle or stomp of a cow and the clucking of hens in the coop at the far end of the barn.

There wasn't a cat in sight. Wolf knew cats lived in the barn because he'd seen them come around for their daily quota of milk when he helped Jose. Cats never came near Grandfather. Though all animals feared him after he'd shifted, when he was himself they'd do anything Grandfather wanted. Except for cats. Somehow they sensed his underlying darkness.

"Much as I dislike the idea, I suppose it's time to think about hiring a man to live in," Grandfather said at last. "I wouldn't have him in the house--we'd build a cottage near the stables. The stock plus the grounds are too much for Jose to handle alone."

"I like helping him," Wolf said.

"After your tutor arrives you'll be too busy."

"Tutor?" Wolf knew what the word meant but he didn't see how it applied to him.
"You can't expect to enter a university without schooling," Grandfather said.

Wolf's grasp on the cow's teats loosened as he gaped at Sergei. The university! Him? His milking rhythm faltered and the cow stomped impatiently, flicking her tail at him.
"At the same time we build the cottage," Grandfather went on, apparently oblivious to Wolf's bemusement, "we'll put up a school for the little ones."

"I didn't know you meant for me to go to the university," Wolf said haltingly. "You didn't go to one and you know everything."

Sergei chuckled. "Not quite. But Vlad and I did have almost the equivalent of a university education from our Cossack tutor. He was a tough taskmaster."

Until the beast killed him, Wolf thought and then felt guilty. The beast and Grandfather were one and yet not one. Grandfather had no control over and no knowledge of what he did in his shifted state. But if the beast hadn't acted quickly, the Cossack tutor would have carried out his orders from the Volek family and killed Sergei after the first shifting.

"I wish you could have known Vlad." Grandfather sighed. "Vlad died in my place. He was no shifter--the Kamchadals killed the wrong twin."

Reminded of what he'd meant to tell Grandfather, Wolf blurted, "Stefan's not an identical twin but he's going to be a shifter."

Grandfather stared at him. "What do you mean?"

Wolf did his best to explain what had happened with Samara. "I was holding her and I believe I was able to feel the darkness inside Stefan when I touched him because I was bonded to Samara," he finished.

"I know you share a bond with Samara. But my father assured me the Voleks have never produced a shifter except in identical twin sons."

"Maybe boy and girl twins were never born into the family before."

"I suppose that's possible." Sergei's voice held reservations. "We'll keep an eye on Stefan."

"That's not all," Wolf added. "Samara wouldn't let me put her down, so I was still carrying her when--" He paused, trying to find an easy way to tell his grandfather what occurred in the music room without mentioning embarrassing details. "I accidentally touched Cecelia Kellogg," he said finally, "and I felt the same shifter darkness within her. It--it startled me."

Grandfather was silent a long time, long enough to finish stripping the cow's teats and slide the stool over to the next cow. "How much do you know about the Kelloggs?" he asked at last.

"I know that Mrs. Kellogg has some affliction that makes her husband fear the full moon, something he believes only you can help her control."

Grandfather sighed. "There's no reason not to tell you all the facts. Annette was a famous French dancer when Guy met her. He's always been attracted to what he calls a 'feral mystery' in people and she fascinated him from the first. His discovery that she disappeared from Paris for five days every month, days that coincided with the full moon, made him all the more determined to make her his. Desperate to keep her secret, Annette resisted marrying him for years.

"At last Guy found a way to follow her when the moon was full, watched his beloved Annette change in the moonlight into a half-woman, half-beast and fled when she attacked him. But Guy, as brave and remarkable a man as his father was, returned in the morning, vowed he still loved her and insisted they marry so he could protect her." Grandfather shook his head. "A brave man. Would you have had the courage to do the same?"

Wolf couldn't answer. Grandfather was a shifter--he loved Grandfather; he'd give his life for him. But marry a woman who might change to a beast even as you made love to her?

Grandfather's smile was touched with sadness. "I see my question troubles you. In any case, marry they did. Annette's shifting has never been complete and Guy manages her by tying her to the bed in a locked room on the nights she's dangerous. Unfortunately, she got loose last year, escaped from the house and seriously injured a man in a Paris park. Guy caught up with her in time to keep anyone from discovering what she was and later the French newspapers reported a wild panther was loose in the city. It was after this he decided to bring his family home to New Orleans."

And in New Orleans, Wolf knew, Guy had heard from a servant that the man he'd known
as Sherman Oso was a loup- garou. So he'd searched for Grandfather, hoping to find help.

"Can you help her?" Wolf asked.

"I can't but I hope Liisi can. She's locked in her tower room, searching for a way. God grant she finds one." Sergei shook his head. "Liisi tells me she was able to teach me control because of the bond between us--a binding neither of us had any choice but to accept. Such bonds are not forged by will or by spells but in some inexplicable fashion."

"Like mine with Mima," Wolf put in.

"Exactly. Two strangers with no blood ties. Liisi has no such bonding with Annette." He shrugged. "We'll have to wait and see if any of Liisi's noita spells are effective."

"Does Annette Kellogg's aura show you she's a shifter?"

"She doesn't have a normal human aura. Guy and Cecelia do. Guy tells me Annette's first shifting was at the time of her first woman's bleeding. My observation of Cecelia tells me she's well past her first shedding of blood. Are you sure about what you sensed in her?

Wolf, flustered by the discussion of women's bleeding, finished his milking before he responded. "I'm sure."

"I can't say whether you're right or wrong because I don't know. Only time and a first shifting will prove your ability. Until then, you'll tell no one else what you suspect about Stefan and Cecelia." He fixed Wolf with a stern glance. "Do you understand?"

Wolf nodded. He hadn't intended to tell anyone except Grandfather anyway.

"As for the image Samara showed you--I don't know what the trees and the monster mean," Grandfather went on. "If you're right about Stefan, she could possibly be seeing into the future, seeing him shifted. There's no way to tell. I'll speak to Liisi about it. Come on, let's finish up the chores before lunch."

Grandfather was right--how could anyone know what Samara's distorted vision meant? Wolf was relieved to think the child might be a foreseer and had been viewing the future instead of the present. At the same time, he was disturbed by what Grandfather had said about a tutor.

He was no scholar; he didn't want to go to the university. He winced at the thought of being shut into a building all day poring over books or listening to professors lecture. Outdoors was where he belonged but how was he to convince Grandfather?
Grandfather expected him to become the head of the family--and he would if he had to.

At six, Arno and Ivan were obviously too young to assume any responsibility. Given Grandfather's good health, though, chances were the twins stood an excellent chance of becoming men before anything happened to Grandfather. In that case, they could take their rightful place as heads of the Volek family--and welcome to it.
If he could live any life he wanted, Wolf knew he'd choose to be a wanderer. He'd avoid cities and seek the woods, the fields, the mountains. Like Morning Quail. She'd confessed to him that she didn't like living in Volek House.

"My people--poor," she'd said in her halting English. "No money. Little food. Live in mountains like quail, like bear, like deer. Free. Is good." But Sergei insisted Stefan and Samara stay at Volek House and Morning Quail didn't want to leave her children. Someday, Wolf vowed, he'd take her back to her people.

By noon, as Sergei and Wolf walked from the outbuildings toward the house, the fog was thinning.

"Clear by tonight," Sergei predicted, smiling.

Wolf knew the heaviness inside the house wouldn't lift with the fog. He hoped Grandmother Liisi's noita knowledge would solve the Kellogg's problem soon so they'd leave and Volek House would return to normal. So he'd return to normal. Cecelia's presence was as much a torment as a delight. He'd be glad when she was gone. When all the Kelloggs were gone. Everyone would be glad.

"Liisi tells me we should put in more orange trees," Grandfather said. "What do you think?"

"Yes." Wolf had no idea whether a larger grove was good or not but if Grandmother Liisi said to plant more orange trees, that was enough. She was never wrong.

"I'll talk to Paul," Grandfather said.

Paul McQuade, their closest neighbor, was Grandfather's partner in McDee Enterprises. They'd started small--canning fruit and vegetables in Thompsonville in an old barn. Now they owned a packing plant in Thompsonville as well as a large canning factory in Sacramento. Grandfather always said Liisi's foresight and advice had built the business.

Lately Grandfather had been buying railroad stock and spoke of opening an office in San Francisco. Wolf was willing to work hard at anything outdoors but he wanted no other part of running the Volek businesses. So far he'd lacked the courage to say so.
Just before opening the back door, Grandfather looked up. Following his glance, Wolf noted the pale outline of the sun behind a high curtain of fog.

"We've a good chance of seeing the moon tonight." Grandfather's voice was grim.

But, though the fog lifted, it didn't entirely dissipate. By evening the gray mist once more enclosed Volek House in its damp, depressing shroud, hiding the moon and the stars.
Because Liisi was still locked in her tower room, Wolf helped Mima put Arno and Ivan to bed. Natasha came into their bedroom after singing Tanya to sleep and told the twins a bedtime story.

"This is how the brave Dobrynya," she began in Russian, "saved Prince Vladimir's favorite niece, Zabava, from the dragon's lair...."

Wolf listened as eagerly as Ivan and Arno. Vladimir had also been the name of Grandfather's twin, killed by the Kamchadals as he and Sergei sought to reach the Petropavlovsk harbor and the safety of an outbound ship. Sergei had survived only because the moon was full so he'd shifted and fought his way clear.

"So," Natasha went on, "Dobrynya's mother bade him saddle the horse that had been his grandfather's and then his father's, the magic horse that had been waiting in the stables for him these fifteen years. And she gave to him a silken whip from the Caucasus Mountains, a whip with secret powers...."

If only he had some secret power, Wolf thought. He wouldn't care to be a shifter but he'd wouldn't mind having Dobrynya's strength and bravery. If he did, he could keep Volek House safe from any threat. Cecelia would be impressed and stare at him admiringly instead of calling him a clumsy boy.

"Because the earth would not soak up the evil dragon's blood," Natasha continued, "Dobrynya found himself stranded in the middle of a huge bloody lake. Again the voice from heaven spoke to him and Dobrynya obeyed. Striking his lance through the blood to the ground, he commanded, "Open, moist Mother Earth and swallow up the blood of the dragon...."

And so Dobrynya rescued the beautiful Zabava. Wolf wasn't quite sure if dragons had ever existed but he knew there were none any more. If all the dragons had been slain many, many years ago, what was left for him to rescue Cecelia from? He longed to prove himself to her somehow. Perhaps his chance would come if he secretly watched over her and saved her from harm on that unlucky day when she finally shifted for the first time.

Grandfather warned that first time shiftings were the most dangerous because they were unpredictable. If seen by normal humans, the shifter could be hunted and killed by the frightened men. Especially if they used a silver weapon. Shifting was always painful and, once begun, it was all but impossible to stop the change and revert to human form. Even worse, when he woke up naked as a man again, the shifter didn't realize how the beast had howled for blood under the moon. Whatever the beast did while shifted remained unknown to the man.

I'll protect Cecelia, no matter what, Wolf vowed.

"Tomorrow I'll be the dragon," Arno announced, half his words Russian, half English. "Ivan can be Dobrynya. But my dragon won't die."

"Hush," Natasha murmured and began to sing a Russian lullaby about the moon shining on a baby's cradle.

It was then Wolf noticed that a silver sliver of light had slipped through a slit where the window draperies failed to meet. He walked to the window and peered at the sky.
Only a sheer veil of mist covered the full moon, riding high in the heavens. Concerned, he hurried from the twins' room and ran along the hall toward the Kelloggs' suite. Before he reached the door, he heard Liisi chanting inside and paused. His grandmother must have conjured up a charm for Annette Kellogg.

"Dark spirit," she intoned, "do not ride the silver moonlight. Remain in Tuonela's depths where you belong.
Evil one, seek not the light. You of the dark, remain in darkness...."

On and on she chanted, her voice raising the hair on Wolf's nape. Just so had the Kamchadal shaman chanted when he plucked Wolf away from his dead mother's side and thrust him into the animal pen, calling him an evil spirit from the darkness between the worlds.

Yet the boy he was then hadn't been evil. That boy hadn't contained a dark spirit any more than Wolf did now. Was it possible Grandmother Liisi, like the shaman, could make a mistake? He tried to erase the frightening thought from his mind but it clung, as sharp and prickly as a goathead seed.

The melancholy five-toned notes of his grandmother's kantele wove through her chant. Her instrument was made of bone. "Like Vainamoinen's," she'd told him. "Vainamoinen, the greatest Finnish noita--he lives forever, somewhere between the worlds."

Wolf waited outside the door, chilled by the music and the words. He didn't believe his grandmother would fail to control Annette's beast but he wanted to be sure. He had his baby daughter to protect as well as the other children. He was leaning against the wall when the chanting finally stopped. Wolf straightened when the door eased open.

Grandfather ushered Grandmother Liisi from the room, nodding approval when he saw Wolf. "Annette's asleep," Sergei said softly. "Liisi's spell seemed to work but, for safety's sake, Guy tied his wife to her bed. He'll stay with her--no need to stand guard any longer."

Dismissed, Wolf ambled along the hall and around the corner to his room. He wished he could go to Mima instead. He hadn't slept in Mima's bed since Druse was born, though sometimes he had to fight the urge to go to her. But he'd promised Grandfather he and Mima wouldn't have any more babies and, while there were ways to avoid creating a child, Mima had told him no method was altogether certain. Tonight he needed Mima's warmth and comfort as much as anything else. But if he went to her one thing would lead to another.

In his room, Wolf stripped off his clothes and slid beneath the covers. It had taken him some time to grow accustomed to sleeping in a bed. He'd never gotten used to nightshirts; he slept naked. Reassured by his grandfather's words, he allowed himself to be sucked down sleep's dark tunnel into the world of dreams. And nightmares.

He ran along a street, the paving cracked and rubble-strewn, toward a forest of greenery. Among the trees and bushes death waited. The metallic taste of fear fouled his mouth, terror clouded his mind, but he ran on.
Ahead, the dark spirit hidden in the greenery screamed a challenge, a caterwauling cry more chilling than any cougar's. He longed to stop, to turn back. He could not. All he could do was race toward his doom....

Wolf sprang from his bed, heart pounding, the cry echoing in his head. As he grabbed his trousers and pulled them on, he assured himself the cry must have come from his evil dream. Unconvinced, he padded to the door, opened it and looked into the hall. In the brass wall sconces, oil-fed flames flickered behind their protective chimneys as he listened.
The caterwaul came again, rising and falling in a eerie pitch that brought gooseflesh to his arms. A man shouted. A heavy object thudded to the floor. Glass shattered. A door crashed open. A woman screamed.

Wolf ran along the hall toward the commotion, driven by his fear for the children. As he rounded the corner, he stopped short. Something half-human, half-beast thrashed furiously in the grasp of Guy and Sergei, yowling as it fought to get away. Farther along the hall, a white-garbed figure flitted down the front stairs, disappearing from view.

Forcing himself on, Wolf hurried to help Guy and Grandfather as they dragged the snarling, spitting half-beast back into the Kelloggs' room where moonlight streamed through open draperies. Wolf jerked them closed.

As Guy and Grandfather forced the half-beast onto the mattress, Wolf wrapped rope around its taloned hands and its human feet and tied it, spread-eagled, to the bed frame. The half-beast continued to struggle, yowling.

Knowing this had to be Annette Kellogg, Wolf took only one appalled look before averting his eyes. As Guy had told Grandfather, her shifting wasn't complete. She wasn't really a beast but fangs, a coarsely feline cast to her features and black patches of fur on her torso separated her from being human. And her abnormal strength--it had taken the three of them to pull her into the room and onto the bed.

"I'd hoped Liisi's noita charm would prevent this," Guy said wearily, "so I'm afraid I nodded off. I promise I won't let her get loose again."

"I'll sit up with you until morning," Grandfather told him.

Realizing they didn't need him any longer, Wolf made for the door.

"Thank you for your help, Wolf," Guy said. "I'm sorry you had to witness this."

Wolf mumbled that he was glad to help and fled. About to return to his room, he recalled the figure in white who'd flitted down the stairs. He was sure it had been a woman.
He couldn't imagine Natasha leaving the safety of her room and he knew Mima would stay with Druse. Liisi would have come to help, rather than fleeing. That left Cecelia.
Was she all right? Was she in danger of shifting?

Wolf ran down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he heard the plink of a single note on the piano. Heart pounding more from anticipation than fear, he padded toward the music room. Though the wall sconces in the entry were lit, the music room was dark except for the silver glow of moonlight slanting in through the open draperies.

Wolf paused in the doorway and drew in his breath. Illuminated by the moon, Cecelia, in a white nightgown of some gauzy fabric, stood by the piano picking out a plaintive melody with one finger. He watched her for long moments, certain he'd never see a woman more beautiful or desirable. She turned away from the piano and drifted to the window where she stood with her back to him, the silver moonlight showing her woman's curves through the thin gown. Unable to wait any longer, he crossed the room to her, his bare feet silent on the floor and on the carpet. "Cecelia," he breathed when he stood behind her.

She gasped, whirling to face him. "How you frightened me!" she cried.

"I'm sorry. I only wanted to--" He paused, unable to find words to tell her she aroused him. She smelled of some mysterious flower--a tropical flower that bloomed only at night, he decided--and of herself, infinitely alluring. "Are you all right?" he finished.

"No." Her head drooped. "I'm frightened."

"Of me?"

"Why should I be afraid of you? I heard a terrible noise and I saw--" She broke off. "Never mind."

"I know what you heard, what you saw," he said.

"You do not!" She stamped her foot.

Wolf thought he understood. She was afraid to admit to him that she suspected her mother was the half-beast that had frightened her.

"Cecelia," he said gently, thinking her name was like the sound made by a mountain stream. "I do know because I helped your father and my grandfather tonight. Your father came here in the hope Grandfather had a cure for your mother."

"There's nothing wrong with my mother!"

Longing to touch her, he rested a tentative hand on her shoulder. "I don't mean to upset you."

She shrugged free of him. "Then go away. I don't want you here."

But he couldn't make himself go away. She was far too fascinating. Besides, she needed to be warned about what lay ahead for her. Even without Samara, his touch had confirmed what he'd felt in her earlier. She was a potential shifter. "Cecelia, it's dangerous to close your eyes to the truth," he said at last. "There are such things as shapeshifters."

She turned away from him and started for the door.

He caught her arm. "Listen to me!" he ordered. "Never mind your mother's affliction--this is about you. I can sense shifters before they change. I have to warn you--you're one. You're a shapeshifter."

Ceceila raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face. Startled, he released her.
"Liar!" she sobbed, tears streaming down her face. "There's nothing wrong with me. Nothing. Do you hear, you stupid boy? I hate you! I'll hate you forever!"

Chapter 3

Still smarting from his grandfather's stern words, Wolf let himself out the back door and loped toward the barn. A chill wind from the north had blown away the last vestige of fog and today the sun shone. But Wolf was in no mood to appreciate the fine weather.

Jose had already driven the cows into the field and Wolf hurried through the still open rear gate. He circled back along the outside of the wall, on his way to the pine grove west of the grounds. He preferred being outdoors even during the best of times and when he was upset his craving for being under the sky and among the trees surpassed all bounds.
Today was not the best of times. Early this morning, Cecelia had sailed past him on the stairs with her head held high, not sparing him a single glance. Guy, following her, had greeted Wolf coldly. He'd more or less expected such treatment from the Kelloggs but
Grandfather's subsequent tongue-lashing was a surprise.

"I told you to keep your mouth shut," Sergei had begun. "Why did you defy me?"

Wolf tried to explain his feeling that Annette must be warned of what she was to become but Sergei cut him off. "None of us, including you, know for certain you have the power to sense potential shifters. What if you're mistaken? You may have ruined Cecelia's life because you presumed to 'warn' her of something that may never occur."

Wolf hung his head. He hadn't thought about being wrong and he was forced to admit it was possible.

"You will apologize to her," Grandfather ordered. "And to her father."

"Yes, sir."

And then Grandfather said the words that cut to the bone. "I'm deeply disappointed that you've betrayed my trust in you." Tears stung Wolf's eyes at the memory of that moment.
He blinked them back. He was too old to cry. Besides, his hurt went too deep for tears, too deep for anyone to heal. Even if he wanted to turn to Mima for comfort, her parting remark to him when he left the house would have turned him away.

"Didn't I warn you to stay clear of that French girl?" she'd said.

I won't go home tonight, Wolf told himself as he approached the grove. He wished he didn't have to go home at all. I did what I thought best, he told himself sullenly. They may not believe me but I could be right, couldn't I? Why does everybody blame me?

As the pines closed around him, a squawking bluejay flew ahead of him into the grove, warning of his coming. If Wolf had been feeling better he might have smiled--he'd always admired the feisty jays, the sentinels of the woods. He wandered aimlessly among the trees, breathing in the fragrance of the evergreens. Brown needles crunched under his feet and the wind whispered to him from the overhead boughs. At times he thought he was on the verge of understanding the wind's message but not today. He was too disturbed to let himself drift into the spirit of the grove. A pine cone plunked onto the ground in front of him, followed by the angry chirr of the squirrel who'd been harvesting the cone. Just as Wolf glanced up at the squirrel, something moaned. He froze.

No animal or bird he knew moaned in such a way. Only humans did. Humans in pain.
The sound came again. Ahead of him to the left. He eased toward it cautiously.
"Please..." A woman's voice, her plea no louder than a sigh.

Abandoning caution, Wolf strode forward only to stop, staring, when he saw her. She was as out of place in this pine grove as he would be in the czar's court. A young woman sat propped against the trunk of a pine, her fair hair tumbled over her shoulders, her pine green riding costume rumpled and soiled. Evidently hearing him, she turned her head. "Thank God!" she cried when she saw him.

Wolf knelt beside her. "Where are you hurt?" he asked.

"My--my ankle," she faltered, raising her riding skirt to show her left foot.

Uncertain if he should touch her, Wolf tentatively reached for her foot. When she didn't object, he lifted it gently. She wore a short black riding boot, coming just to the ankle. The silk stocking above the boot was torn and he couldn't help savoring the warmth of her bare skin against his fingers.

"I don't think your ankle's broken," he said after a careful examination. He was no doctor but he'd treated broken bones in animals.

"Merely twisted, would you say?" she asked, her eyes wide and trusting, eyes as brown as sable.

"Probably." He released her foot with great reluctance. She was very pretty with her blonde hair, brown eyes and trim figure. She'd opened the front of her jacket and it was an effort to keep his glance from the soft rise and fall of her breasts under the white shirtwaist she wore.

"What shall I do?" she asked plaintively.

He hadn't really paid attention to the difference in her speech until now. Though she spoke English well, she had a faint, charming accent.

"Don't worry, I'll help you," he assured her. "My name's Wolf Volek--I live near here. What happened to you?"

She put a hand to her cheek. "Oh, it's too embarrassing. My friends will scold me when they discover how foolish I've been."

"I won't scold you."

She smiled at him, a flashing, brilliant smile, like the sudden appearance of the sun. Wolf blinked, dazzled.

"You are a wonderful man! What would I have done if you hadn't found me?" She shivered. "When night came I might have been killed and eaten by wolves or bears! But you don't want to hear about my fears, you wish to know how I came to be here. It's very simple--my horse bolted and threw me. You didn't happen to see a dappled gray, did you?"

Wolf shook his head.

"I dragged myself into the trees here and collapsed," she went on. "Perhaps it was foolish of me to venture to ride from Thompsonville on my own but I was so tired of being shut in because of that awful fog and today was so lovely and clear..."
"You're staying with friends in Thompsonville?"

"Not exactly. I'm staying in that charming inn in the town waiting for my friends to arrive from San Francisco. Alas, they've been delayed."

"I'll be happy to escort you to the inn, Miss--?"

"Wainwright. Linden Wainwright." Linden. The name was as lovely as she was.

"I do hate to be such a bother, Mr. Volek. I've been enjoying every minute of my visit to your most interesting country--until that unpleasant animal bolted. If they ever manage to arrive, my friends are planning to take me on a camping trip into the mountains so I won't be homesick for Switzerland. They've assured me the Sierras are the American Alps. I rode out alone today to try and see for myself if they were right." She smiled again. "I confess to being a goose."

Wolf was only vaguely aware that Switzerland was in Europe and he was still more uncertain about the Alps. His lack of education bothered him as it never had before.
"Let's see if you can stand up," he said.

Linden Wainwright, leaning heavily on him, found she could hobble slowly if she didn't put too much weight on her injured ankle. As he helped her along, her dependence and trust warmed Wolf's heart--and her softness pressing against him created an entirely different sensation in another location. She smelled of roses and of horse, an earthy scent that aroused him. The trip home couldn't be too long for him--he never wanted to let her go.

When they came in sight of the wall, Linden slumped against him. "I--I'm afraid I can't go on," she admitted, biting her lip. "The pain--"

"I'll carry you." Without waiting for her to agree, he scooped her into his arms.

"I'm imposing dreadfully," she said softly as he strode on.

He couldn't tell her how wonderful she felt in his arms but, carried away by his emotions, he blurted, "I'd do anything to help you." Though she didn't reply he thought she nestled closer against him. He hoped it wasn't his imagination.

Because he knew the rear gate would be open, he brought her into the grounds that way, entering the house through the back door into the kitchen where Mima was talking to
Belinda, the cook. Both women stared at him. Mima frowned. "Miss Wainwright's hurt her left ankle," Wolf said.
Within minutes, Mima had Linden settled into a chair with her boot off and was kneeling beside her, examining the injured ankle. "No bones broken," Mima muttered as she manipulated the ankle. "No swelling, so it can't be sprained." She looked up at Linden. "You say your horse threw you?"

Linden nodded.

"I can't see where you're hurt much at all." Mima's words were a challenge.

"My ankle does feel better," Linden said, reaching for her boot. She glanced at Wolf. "I'm sorry to have caused trouble."

Puzzled and angry at Mima's attitude, he leaped to Linden's defense. "Miss Wainwright obviously twisted her ankle," he told Mima. "I'm taking her into Thompsonville in the buggy."

Mima shrugged and rose to her feet. "The sooner the better." She walked away without another word.

Twenty minutes later Wolf and Linden sat side by side in the buggy on their way to town. Linden, who hadn't spoken since he'd helped her from the house, laid a hand on his sleeve.

"I'm so very grateful to you," she said.

It was as well he held the reins in both hands, tempted as he was to cover her hand with his. He wished the ride into Thompsonville were longer; he couldn't bear to think of their time together ending.

"I've never met a man quite like you," she went on.

"You're like no one else!" he told her.
Her smile and the warmth of her hand through his sleeve encouraged him to go on. "I want to--I mean I wish I could see you again."

"Ah, but that might prove to be a problem. You understand that it's not proper for me to invite you to visit me at the inn and, as for your house--" She allowed her words to trail off.

Wolf's heart sank. He couldn't invite her to Volek House. Not with his grandfather's prohibition about admitting strangers. He was already in enough trouble with Grandfather.
"Don't look so downcast," Linden told him. "We'll find a way to meet."

He turned to her. "But how?"

She shrugged. "I can ride, can't I? I assume the stupid horse came back to the livery stable and I'll make certain to request a more trustworthy mount next time."

Next time. The words thrummed in his blood.

"There's always the pine grove," she murmured, soft as the wind in the boughs. "We met there once, why not again? To give my ankle a chance to heal we'll make it in two days time." She leaned closer and touched her lips to his cheek in a fleeting caress. "That's for your brave rescue."

Though she didn't come as close to him again for the rest of the ride, Wolf floated on air. He knew she must be older than he--at least in her twenties--and he suspected she was acquainted with far more polished men. But Linden liked him; she wanted to see him again.

Unlike those at Volek House, here was a pretty and exciting woman who didn't scold him or snub him. The way she looked at him and her praise made him feel ten feet tall.
And she'd kissed him. Only on the cheek, but one kiss could lead to another. Especially in the pine grove where they'd be alone. Wolf didn't know how he'd manage to get through the hours until he saw her again.

When he returned home, he half expected another lecture from his grandfather--this time about bringing a stranger into their midst. He meant to defend himself--Linden had been lost and injured, after all. Grandfather, though, wasn't waiting for him.

"I didn't tell Sergei," Mima advised Wolf later, "but bring that woman here again and I surely will. If you ask me, she was putting on a show of being hurt for just that reason--to get inside Volek House."

How could she say such a thing about poor Linden? Annoyed as Mima made him, Wolf held his tongue, not wanting to argue with her.

"I suppose you didn't even notice how she talks," Mima went on. "She's a foreigner."

"Visiting from Switzerland," Wolf said in triumph. Mima seemed to think he was still a know-nothing ten year old. Thinking it over when he was alone, Wolf decided he'd confess to Grandfather that he'd found an injured woman in the woods and given her a ride back to Thompsonville in the buggy. There was no need to mention she'd actually been inside the house--what difference did that make?

When he got around to making his confession, Wolf thought that Grandfather seemed distracted, giving only half an ear to what he said. "--and so I left her at the inn," Wolf finished.

His grandfather nodded. "That should be the end of the matter, then."

It wasn't a question but guilt roiled inside Wolf because he had no intention of admitting he'd arranged to meet Linden again in the pine grove. He hated to keep secrets from Grandfather but it was his own business who he associated with off the grounds.

Relieved that he hadn't upset Grandfather, Wolf hugged his secret to himself for the next two days. The fact that he'd soon be seeing Linden enabled him to endure Cecelia's pointed snubs and Guy's chilliness without difficulty. What did he care how they acted? Spending most of the day out of the house helping Jose or wandering into the woods meant he was mostly alone anyway.

When the morning of their meeting day dawned, Wolf remembered they'd set no time. Not that it mattered--he meant to go to the grove early and wait. He wished he could take enough food along for a picnic but, if he did, Mima was certain to find out and ask questions. He didn't want to arouse any suspicions.

After leaving the house, he detoured through the orange grove, admiring, as always, the contrast of the bright orange fruit against the glossy green of the leaves. He picked a couple of ripe oranges from one of the trees and, as he left the grove and strode toward the pines, he practiced different ways of presenting the oranges to her. "I wish they were made of gold." Much as he meant it, the words sounded foolish in his own ears. "My heart goes with them." Even worse.

Wolf finally decided he'd simply hand the fruit to her without comment. If she came.
When he'd begun to doubt she might not come, he didn't know. True, Linden had praised him--even kissed him. And she was the one who'd suggested the pine grove. But what if her friends had arrived? Would she remember she was to meet him? Would she care whether or not she did? The morning, fair and bracing, stretched on endlessly. A dozen times he told himself he was going to leave, all the while knowing he'd stay until dark before giving up.

It was past noon when he heard a horse's hoofs. Wolf, sprawled under a pine, sprang to his feet. A handsome bay appeared between the trees with Linden riding sidesaddle. Wolf drew in his breath as he saw her. He thought of the two oranges and winced inwardly. They were far too humble a gift for the elegantly garbed woman who rode toward him.

"Mr. Volek!" she cried as she reined in the bay. "I feared you might not be here!"

She dismounted by sliding off into his arms. "You smell of roses," he said involuntarily, holding her a moment longer than necessary.

Linden wrinkled her nose. "And horse, too, I've no doubt."

"But I like the scent of horses!"

She smiled and patted him on the cheek with her gloved fingers. "I've brought a surprise in the saddle bags," she said. Her surprise was a striped blanket to sit on and a small picnic hamper crammed with food. As he spread the blanket, Linden noticed his oranges underneath the pine and exclaimed over them. "I adore oranges! How wonderfully thoughtful."

"Picked ripe from our grove," he said, pleased that she appreciated his simple gift.

He tethered the bay and stood watching her as she knelt on the blanket setting out the food. He wasn't one to notice women's clothes in detail but she looked so pretty in hers that he paid more attention than usual. Today her riding habit was golden-brown and the jacket was trimmed with a darker brown velvet collar and cuffs. She wore a soft felt hat with a moderate brim. Yellow roses decorated the band. "Come sit beside me," she suggested, patting the blanket.

He obeyed eagerly. Linden peeled off her gloves, revealing soft white hands. She removed her hat and set it aside with the gloves. "I've even brought wine," she said, holding up a green bottle. "And, yes, I remembered a corkscrew. Would you like to open it or shall I?"

Wolf, who'd never opened a bottle of wine in his life, said, "I'd rather watch you do it. I like to watch you." Actually, he'd never had more than a glass or two of wine in his life--and that recently. Grandfather didn't drink anything intoxicating himself--as a shifter he didn't dare--and hadn't had wine served with meals until the Kelloggs arrived.

"You'll quite turn my head," Linden protested.

After she'd opened the bottle and poured a small amount of the almost clear wine poured into one of two small stemmed glasses, she offered the glass to Wolf. Recalling how Guy sniffed before he tasted his first glass of wine with dinner, Wolf imitated the actions.
"A good year," he said, copying Guy's words. At least Linden wouldn't think he knew nothing at all.

She smiled and poured herself a glass, then offered Wolf a plate of sliced cheese. He took some of everything she offered, hardly aware of what it was or how it tasted, so intent was he on Linden herself. Though he didn't remember drinking it, by the time they'd finished eating, the wine bottle was empty. Linden cleared the blanket of picnic remnants.
He felt wonderful, better than he'd ever felt before. "Linden," he said. "Linden. Your name is beautiful. Like you."

"I shall take that as an invitation to call you Wolf," she said, edging closer to him and taking his hand. She held it between both of hers. "You're so strong," she murmured, looking up at him with admiring brown eyes. "So much stronger than I. I adore strong men."

Bemused, he lowered his head until their lips met. Then she was in his arms, clinging to him, returning his kisses, arousing him beyond his ability to control himself. Though he wasn't clear how it happened, eventually she lay on the blanket, undressed to the waist, while he caressed her bared breasts.

"Oh, Wolf," she whispered, her breath warm in his ear, "I want all of you."

God knows he wanted her! But when he tried to raise her skirts, she pushed away his hand. "Not here," she murmured. "It's not right, out in the open like this. I can't. I won't."

"No one will see us," he said hoarsely, urgently, afire with need.

"I'm afraid," she said piteously. "If we were in your room, in your bed--" Her words trailed off as she inched her fingers along his thigh until they touched his rock hard prick, inflaming him. "Oh, Wolf, Wolf," she whispered. "How desperately I want you to take me. But not here. Properly. In your bed."

"Linden, please--"

"No." She pulled free of him, sitting up and turning her back as she put her clothes in order.

He tried to find a more comfortable position but his continuing need made it difficult. "Your room at the inn?" he suggested.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Never! Everyone would know! This is our secret, yours and mine. I couldn't bear it if the whole world discovered what we mean to one another."

Exactly what he'd told himself. It was their secret. He had to have her--but how? Was it possible to smuggle her into Volek House? He started to shake his head, paused. Not in the daylight, no. But at night?

"I've never felt for any man what I feel for you," she said softly, turning to him. "More than anything, I want to show you how much you mean to me."

More than anything, he wanted her to show him.

"I can't ask you into the house," he said slowly. "My grandfather forbids visitors. He'd know if I broke his rule. I'd have to--" Wolf paused, looking at her. Even for Linden, did he dare defy Grandfather's taboo?

"You'd have to what?" she prompted, stroking his arm with her soft fingers.
"I'd have to sneak you in at night," he blurted, afraid she'd take offense.
She looked at him solemnly. "I'm not used to being unwelcome. I'd thought to be invited to your house as a guest."

"I'm sorry. Maybe if Grandfather knew you--" Wolf stopped again. Whether his grandfather met her or not, she was still a stranger. "I can't explain," he said finally.

"Poor darling Wolf. I should be angry with you but how can I be?" She brushed her lips over his, pulling back before he could put his arms around her. "I can't help feeling insulted, though. Why, I've been a guest in some of the finest homes in Switzerland!" She sighed.
"Perhaps we just weren't meant to belong to one another."

"We were, we are!" Wolf spoke fervently. "Please don't give up. You don't know how badly I need you in my bed tonight."

She pouted. "But so clandestine!"

Wolf grasped her hands in his. "That'll make it all the more exciting."

"Do you think so?" She still seemed doubtful.

He brought her hands to his lips, aching to hold her, to kiss her mouth instead of her hands, but knowing she wouldn't let him. Tonight, in his bed, she would. She'd let him do
anything he wanted then. If he could get her there.

"You're very convincing," she murmured. "How can I resist you?"

"Don't. Just trust me."

"I suppose I must."

His heart leaped. He'd demolished the first barrier. Now all he had to do was perfect a plan to slip her into the grounds, into the house and into his bed without anyone discovering what he was doing. Then, of course, out again before morning. Naturally, he'd see her safely to the Thompsonville inn afterwards. But why concern himself with the afterwards when he hadn't yet possessed her? His need to make her his mounted by the minute.

"I'm not at all certain I should go along with this," she said.

Wolf stood, drew her up and held her loosely in his arms. "I'm certain."

She gazed into his eyes. "I want you to know I've never done anything remotely like this in my entire life."

He believed her. Not an elegant lady like Linden. He only hoped she wouldn't change her mind and ride off before nightfall.

"I think you've cast some sort of spell over me," she murmured.

If only he could! As it was, he considered himself the luckiest man in the world.

"I've never before met a man who lived in a castle," she told him, easing from his arms.
"Your house must have hundreds of rooms."

"Not that many."

"We have so long to wait until it's dark. So very long. Since we must pass the time somehow, I'd like to close my eyes and picture your room before I see it. In anticipation." She leaned against the pine trunk, her eyelids drooping shut. "I imagine the bedrooms are on the second floor?"

Amused and touched, he told her she was right.

"Describe how we get to your room," she went on.

He did, naming, when she asked, who was behind the closed doors they'd pass. He hesitated when he came to the Kelloggs but, realizing their name would mean nothing to her, he said it.

"Ah, now I have my picture," she said, opening her eyes. "Except for what is inside your room. Will you tell me or do you wish to surprise me?"

"It's very plain."

"By your choice, I think. You're not a man for frills. Am I right? The rest of the house must have all those frills you don't care for, though."

"Yes," he admitted, amazed at how well she understood him. Encouraged by her interest, he described the downstairs rooms and their furnishings.

"Someday I would like to live in a castle," she said. "A castle with a tower like yours."

"The tower is really my grandmother's; the castle is hers and grandfather's."

"But one day it will be yours."

"In a way."

"By then I'll be far away over the ocean, back in Switzerland and you'll have forgotten all about me."

He took her hand and drew her closer. "I'll never forget you!"

She gazed at him for long moments before saying with a one-sided smile, "Perhaps you won't, at that."