Rivals and Retribution

  Images spun out of control in my head. Pietr staring at Marlaena, her absorbing every aspect of him even across a crowded room. Marlaena joining Max and Pietr on their hunts even after Max had firmly told her no—like she couldn’t help herself. Gareth looking so utterly heartbroken and watching me like we were kindred spirits.… Pietr getting sicker by the day and sickest around me, but rallying every time Marlaena walked into the room.…

  Max had me by the arm, lowering me to sit on the floor almost as soon as my knees gave way in realization.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered. “They’ve imprinted.”

  Alexi

  “Jessie. Jessie,” I called, kneeling before her to tap her cheek. “She fainted. Did you ever expect she would faint?” I asked Max as he slipped to the floor and tugged her limp body across his to give her support.

  “There is much about this I never expected,” he replied darkly. “What do we do now, brother? How do we fix things?”

  Jessie roused in his arms, her head lolling to one side. She groaned. “You start by telling me everything. Every little detail. Both of you.” She straightened. “I need to know and understand it all so I can help.”

  She caught us looking at each other over her head.

  “Oh, no. Absolutely not,” she said, placing a hand on my chest and shoving me back. “Don’t you dare hold any bit back because you think you’re protecting me. Not now. This particular school reporter is totally against censorship, so don’t even try.”

  I struggled to think of the best way to handle this.

  “They’ve imprinted, right?”

  I hesitated.

  “Say the words, Sasha. Give me the truth.”

  “Da. They have imprinted.”

  She let out a long sigh. Confirmation was not what she had hoped. “And imprinting is just like … like a chemical thing. An addiction. They need to be around each other.” She swallowed. “They need to be with each other.”

  I stood. “I do not see how this is helping matters.”

  “Don’t you dare try to shut down my questions because you don’t know where I’m going. Don’t. Dare.”

  I shrugged. “Da. It is chemical.”

  “So it’s not emotional. He doesn’t love her. She doesn’t love him.”

  “Nyet,” Max rumbled. “He does not love her. I doubt he even likes her. And she … well, she hates him even more because—”

  “Because it’s like he’s controlling her. And Marlaena’s not big on being controlled,” Jessie concluded.

  “Da.” Max unwrapped himself from around her and slowly stood, taking her hand to help her to her feet.

  She wobbled at first, but quickly regained her self-control.

  “So they don’t want this—it’s a desperate need. That is only stopped by…”

  “Knocking her up,” Max said.

  I punched him in the gut and immediately regretted the action, trying to rub the pain out of my hand as I bit my lips. “There are better ways of expressing the situation,” I complained.

  Jessie’s eyebrows were as high as I’d ever seen them. “He has to get her pregnant?” She raised a hand to us both, palm out as she turned her face away. “Sitting down again,” she warned, and sank to the floor.

  We both kneeled beside her.

  “Isn’t there any other way? He doesn’t even want kids, ever. There has to be some way,” she repeated, adamant. “Some way that … I dunno … keeps them from … that.”

  I shook my head. “I am so sorry. The imprint is activated so that the next generation is stronger. Their genetic codes complement each other perfectly, and their heightened oborot senses have recognized that fact, throwing their bodies into this state of heightened awareness. I am afraid it must run its natural course. Like a virus.”

  “The imprint is like a virus. Something that can’t be stopped? You either get past it, or … or you don’t. I’m sorry, Sasha. I can’t accept that.” She picked at the concrete of the basement floor. “You said their heightened oborot senses recognized each other. That was what kicked this all into gear, wasn’t it?”

  “Da.”

  “That’s why he was so determined to have me cure him again. But it wasn’t strong enough, was it? It couldn’t mask all the symptoms anymore. Our cure is like antibiotics, isn’t it?”

  I just watched her, unclear.

  “You take the medicine hoping it’ll wipe out your illness, but your body—or the illness itself—can build up a tolerance, right?”

  “It is entirely possible.”

  “Marlaena never took the cure before. What if she takes it now? If she took it and her body believed it was simply human again, wouldn’t Pietr’s also? Wouldn’t his body forget the imprint?”

  I only managed to squeak out “I” before Max jumped in.

  “Marlaena won’t wash out the wolf. She won’t take the cure. It’s the opposite of her whole ‘the Wolf is the Way’ thing,” Max said.

  “Even though it’s tearing Gareth up?” Jessie wondered aloud.

  We both shrugged.

  “Gawwd,” Jessie said, stretching the monosyllable so it was much more. “She’s such a selfish bitch.”

  “She’s confused,” Max muttered. “We’re all confused.”

  “Sasha.” Jessie said my name as if it were an oath. “Sasha—a permanent cure. Isn’t that what you’re working on?”

  “Nonstop,” I confirmed.

  “Not if you’re here, building this…” She pointed to the reinforcement we had only just started on the wall. “You need to get back to the lab. Let me deal with construction. I’m a farmer’s daughter, I know my way around a site. And I’ll bring in Dad and we’ll get this done. I want you back in the city at work first thing tomorrow morning,” she ordered, her eyes fierce, sparks of gold glittering dangerously in the brown most people probably thought was simply average.

  I nodded my compliance.

  “So wait—why the construction? You’re reinforcing this room, aren’t you?” She stood and turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. “This isn’t some love nest you’re building. This is…”

  “A prison,” I confirmed. “Pietr will not give in to his baser instincts, and it is destroying him. And shortly before the imprint kills him because he has denied its orders and is therefore irreparably flawed, it will drive him insane.”

  She nodded, taking it all much better than I might have hoped. “Interesting. And how much time do we have?”

  “Two weeks at most, before insanity takes control. Then another week until denying the imprint kills him. And sane or not, he will deny it.”

  She nodded again, then headed for the stairs. Clutching the banister, she turned to face us once more. “Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. I’m sure we can make this work.” Then she climbed the stairs, her head held high.

  Jessie Gillmansen was a trooper. If anyone could get through this, I knew she could.

  Jessie

  The forgetfulness. The obsession. The short temper. Pietr was going mad. I made it all the way up the stairs and out of the basement-turned-cage-construction site and into the kitchen before I fell against the counter and slid to the floor, sobbing. I couldn’t do this. This was too much. Every time I thought I had a victory, it just slipped away. Pietr was dying and the only way to let him live was to let him be with Marlaena?

  Curling in on myself, I tucked my knees to my chest and just cried until Gareth found me there.

  He knelt down beside me, sliding his arms around me and letting me sniffle all over his neck, and briefly, I thought I heard him crying, too.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Marlaena

  We ran like wolves made of wind, speed our drug, our tongues lolling, the long hair of our shoulders brushing as we raced down the deer trail side by side. The air bit our noses and stung our eyes, crystals of snow flying up from the ground as we spun in the hairpin turns and followed the musky scent of our quarry.

  I laughed, the sound trilling out of m
y furred throat and past my lolling tongue like the most natural of unnatural sounds.

  I had never felt more alive than I was, leading our combined pack on the hunt with Pietr.

  Or more angry.

  Max dove between us, his width shoving me into the brush at the path’s side and pushing me behind both he and Pietr.

  Gareth kept pace with me then, and as much as my mind whispered it was Gareth I loved and Gareth I wanted, every cell in my body ached with the need and hunger for Pietr Rusakova.

  With a grunt I stretched my legs even farther, slipping back between Max and his younger brother, wedging myself there. With a thrust and a kick, I shouldered Max into the bushes.

  With an outraged growl he gave chase and my ears tucked tight to my body, my tail low and long. Part of me wanted to outrun him—to be safe. And part of me—the part that still held tight to the hope that was Gareth—wanted him to kill me.

  To end me.

  To end every bit of the madness that was making me hurt the only person I’d ever dared trust.

  Ever dared love.

  He caught up to me, and turning whip fast, I faced him down, all teeth and claws, hate and daring. He came for my throat, and I welcomed his snapping teeth and his steaming breath with a snarl of my own. We tumbled to the ground together, and I felt his mouth on my throat and saw Gareth’s shocked expression as the last thing filling my fading vision.

  Jessie

  “What the hell…” Amy’s startled voice made me turn toward the back door. Cat set her cards down and looked at me.

  We heard the popcorn bowl hit the floor, falling from Amy’s fingers in the hallway, and we bolted from the dining room table, rushing in her direction.

  There was blood everywhere. Rich and bright red, flowing and fresh. For a long, frightening moment I couldn’t tell who the blood belonged to. I just knew it was spread nearly equally between Pietr and Max.

  Pietr shoved Max, the force of them nearly equal and making them land against the walls on either side of the hall, standing as two tall and powerful, bloody, and equally savage and sweet warriors.

  Then I understood.

  Because between them came Gareth.

  Carrying the limp body of Marlaena.

  She was coated in blood—her own, I realized—seeing how it crusted thickest along her slender neck. Her head rolled loose on her neck and her eyelashes fluttered, the pulse in her neck pounding and then all but disappearing before it started its violent rhythm again.

  Gareth brought her to the sitting room and before Cat could even shout about getting sheets or towels, he’d draped her body across the love seat.

  Her chest still rose and fell. She still breathed and lived, but it was an ugly and awkward life at best.

  “Bandages,” I whispered, hearing Max race up the stairs to the bathroom and the first-aid supplies kept there.

  “And I repeat,” Amy said, “what the hell?”

  “Max pushed her,” Pietr said, his tone flat and his eyes unfocused.

  Amy’s eyes narrowed. “That’s more than a push,” she said. “I know what it looks like when a girl’s been pushed.”

  His eyes cleared a moment, and he stepped back with a curt nod.

  Everyone in the Rusakova household knew Amy, of all people, understood what it looked like, and felt like, to be pushed around.

  “What happened, Pietr?” she tried, her voice fraying in frustration.

  Max blew past with bandages and gauze pads. “I gave her a little push and she attacked me.”

  “You pushed a girl?” Amy asked.

  “Not like that,” he muttered, realization slow to dawn in his eyes. “No. No—not ever like that.…”

  “Then what was it like?” Amy whispered, staring him down.

  “I was trying to run with Pietr. I came up between them and—”

  “Pushed her into the underbrush,” Pietr concluded.

  “Underbrush doesn’t try and tear out your throat,” I said, watching as Max turned back to help Gareth apply pressure to Marlaena’s seeping wound.

  “She attacked me. Baited me. Came at me when I was wolf,” Max snarled, glaring at the girl his hands tried to help.

  Gareth sighed. “He is correct. She came at him like a rabid animal.”

  “Is it the—” I fell silent, seeing Pietr.

  “The what, Jess?” he asked, blinking, his eyes cleared.

  “Nothing,” I insisted.

  Did you dare tell a crazy person they were crazy? Was there any one advisable course of action? Alexi would know what to do. He always knew what to do, or at least was able to bluff his way through a situation convincingly enough that people believed he knew what to do.

  “What?” Pietr stepped closer to me, and catching my scent, his eyes rolled.

  “Nothing,” I soothed, reaching out to touch his hand. But he pulled back.

  “Don’t lie to me. You lie to everyone else. Don’t start lying to me, too.”

  “I’m not…” But as I stepped forward to reassure him, he jumped back like a frightened animal, and turning, dashed out the back door.

  Amy took the single step required to stand beside me. “He’s not himself,” she said, leaning in to rest her head against mine. “Remember that, Jessie. That’s not your Pietr.”

  “I know. I know. But that Pietr … he may be the only Pietr I have left.”

  “Don’t give up on Sasha yet. There’s still some time.”

  “What if it’s not enough time?”

  But instead of answering, she just held me close in a hug because we both knew too well there was never enough time with the Rusakovas—until we had a real cure.

  * * *

  Back home the next day a knock at the door made me freeze, seeing Gareth standing on its other side. His thick dreadlocks were pulled back into a modified ponytail, and his eyes were red. But not the red of a man on the verge of changing into a wolf, instead, the red of someone not getting enough sleep. I understood. My own eyes looked eerily like his and burned like I’d forgotten to blink for days.

  “Come in,” I muttered once I was certain Marlaena had not somehow healed up and managed to join him.

  He slipped in with the grace of the beast that was always just a breath away and waited for me to show him the way to the couch.

  He fiddled a moment with a coaster on the coffee table, waiting for me to clear my throat or maybe waiting to find the right words. I could relate to that.

  “We share a common problem, you and I,” he whispered, not meeting my eyes.

  “Yeah. She’s redheaded and bitchy and named Marlaena.” I flopped into Dad’s easy chair, tucking my legs underneath me. I played with the edge of the armrest cover, waiting for him to bark at me.

  He didn’t. “They’ve imprinted.”

  “I’m aware of that fact.”

  “You see what it’s doing to them both,” he added.

  “And you know what it’s doing to us.”

  He nodded. “But what it does to us and what it does to them is incomparable. This might break our hearts. But it will kill them. And that would break our hearts, too.”

  I stopped touching the dustcover and stared at him. “It sounds like you have an idea.”

  “I do.”

  “Go.”

  “Wait. It requires a very open mind and some truly liberal thinking.”

  I straightened in the chair. Already I didn’t like where this seemed to be heading. “I said go.”

  “The imprint is designed to attract the best mate for passing on superior genetics to the next generation, that’s it. Once the female’s impregnated, the imprint should drop because the deed’s been done.”

  “Whoa. What are you suggesting?”

  “Let them embrace the imprint.”

  “You mean embrace each other.”

  He paused, searching my face. “They are fighting the imprint so hard they are dying.”

  “But maybe they’re winning. We don’t know.”

&nbs
p; “How late are you willing to wait to know for sure? Are we going to watch them suffer when we could just let nature take its course and move on?”

  “You’re talking about letting them—encouraging them—to have sex together.”

  “It’s only sex.”

  I jumped to my feet. “Only sex? Only? Sex is a pretty big thing, where I come from—it means something. It’s an act of love and is usually a commitment.”

  “I told you this requires extremely liberal thinking.”

  “Yeah.” I puffed out a breath. “I may be liberal enough to date a werewolf whose family comes from a country my own once considered our enemy, but I have my limits.” I wrapped a strand of hair around my finger just to pull on it. “I think you’d better go.”

  Gareth rose to his feet. “If you think this idea sits well with me…” He shook his head. “They are killing themselves, Jessie. And we’re encouraging them to do it. What are you willing to sacrifice to save your love’s life?”

  Mute with frustration, I pointed toward the door.

  The slamming of it proved he’d gone, and I sank into the chair and cried. But only long enough to regain control of myself so I could sound sane on the phone with Alexi.

  “I need you to do something for me,” I told him, the quiver nearly out of my voice.

  “Da,” Alexi said. In the background I heard the clinking of glass and the hum of machinery. “What is it, Jessie?”

  “I need you to tell me how to cure Pietr. How to break the imprint.”

  “If I knew…”

  “No. Not ‘if I knew.’ Go over all the ways to break the imprint with me again, Sasha. Now. I need to think.”

  “He gets her pregnant. I find a chemical antidote. Or one of them dies.”

  “Gareth was just here pushing plan A. How close are you to plan B?”

  “Not as close as you want me to be, but closer every minute.”

  “Keep working on it, Sasha. You can figure this out. I know it.”

  “But it may take time I do not have.…”

  “Just keep pushing forward.”

  He sighed. “I will, Jessie. You have to know that I will.”

  I hung up the phone and all I could think about was not plan A or B but the very existence of a plan C. Gareth wanted to know what I was willing to sacrifice to save my love’s life? What if the answer was simply one word—a name? Marlaena.