Bargains and Betrayals (17 page)

Pietr let out a long, slow breath. “Mr. Gillmansen. You know there’s something different about me.”

Dad blinked.

“I’ve seen the way you watched me doing chores. I wasn’t completely careful,” he admitted to me apologetically.

Dad nodded. Slowly. Mute.

“My strength and agility are the results of a Cold War experiment the USSR did several generations ago.”

Dad snorted. “We’re a long way away from April Fool’s, don’t ya’ think?”

“He’s not joking, Dad.”

“They tampered with our DNA—toyed with our genetic code until our predecessors became something.…” Pietr paused and shook his head.

“No,” I whispered to him. “It’s not the right word.”

Pietr looked at me. “But it’s the clearest one.”

“Wait,” Dad broke in. “You became something
what
?”

“Something monstrous,” Pietr said so levelly a chill stroked my spine.

“Look. You’re fast. You’re strong,” Dad admitted. “But there’s nothing monstrous about you,” he insisted, his jaw set.

Pietr and I exchanged a look. Some people needed to see to believe. Pietr let go of my hand and stood, peeling off his shirt.

“What the hell is he doin’—” Dad asked, each word hanging in the air like a bad smell.

“I’ll show you,” Pietr volunteered, his hands working the button on his jeans.

Dad grabbed me, placing his hands over my eyes. His fingers trembled and he blustered on. “Look, boy, I played sports in high school—”

I heard the zipper go on Pietr’s pants.

Dad was rambling. “I’ve seen all sorts—”

Pietr’s jeans rustled, hitting the cool concrete slab floor.

“—of things guys thought were
monstrous
—”

And then there was the sound of two more things falling softly to the floor and Dad’s hands yanked away from my face just as Pietr’s front paws touched down.

Wolf, he shook out his coat and padded over to me.

Stunned to silence, Dad pulled me away from Pietr and yanked me haphazardly onto the bed beside him.

Pietr’s eyes glittered in his wolfskin, watching and worried.

“Holy.
Shit
.”

“Dad!”

“No, Jessie. Your mom would allow me this one,” he guaranteed.

I slid off the bed and crouched down, reaching out to Pietr. He padded forward on silent feet and let me wrap my arms around his furry neck and draw his head in to rest on my chest.

“Hey!” Dad warned. “None of that stuff.”

I chuckled.

Pietr whined, but I adjusted our position.

Dad was back.

“Okay. Maybe I just suffered an aneurism or stroked out,” Dad muttered. “There’s a rational explanation for this. Maybe I’m lying in a coma somewhere and this is all just part of it. Weird stuff happens on farms all the time. When was I last messin’ with that combine?”

“Dad. Dad!” I stood, taking his hands in mine. “You’re fine. I’m fine. Pietr’s—” I glanced at the wolf.

He had cocked his head to the side, listening intently.

“Pietr gives
fine
a whole new definition,” I declared.

Dad looked from me to the wolf. “Can he—?” Dad jumped, his fingers tightening on mine, and I knew that behind my back Pietr had become human again.

“Pants?” I asked, trying to be mindful of Dad’s fragile state and the fact I could wind up grounded as soon as I was out of the asylum.

My normal
.

“
Da
. Pants.”

Pietr was always a moment slow with human logic and remembering appropriate social behavior after he’d just shed his wolfskin. Things like pants were occasionally forgotten in the first moments after the change. I knew. I’d noticed that fact (along with other things) several times. I blushed just thinking about it.

Dad blinked.

Pietr came to stand beside me, shirt still in his hands.

“Shirt, too,” I admonished, though I really didn’t want to. I could spend hours staring at Pietr bare-chested … Pietr grinned in direct opposition to my father’s expression.

“Put your shirt on, boy.”

Pietr reluctantly obeyed.

“Okay. What just happened here?” Dad asked out loud.

Pietr started removing his shirt again, but I placed a hand on his arm. Just touching him made my nerves tingle and my blood rush.

“You sure are quick to strip, boy,” Dad said, clearly disapproving. “Lemme get this straight. He’s a werewolf, and your blood…”

“—is part of the cure.”

Dad stood. “How’d you figure that out?”

“Catherine volunteered to try a concoction…”

“So what? You kids are over at his place one day—after I release you from being grounded—and he says,
Hey, I’m a werewolf, but I’d like to be fixed—
”

Pietr blinked.

“Oh. Sorry,” Dad muttered, shoving his hands into his jean pockets. “Probably not the words you wanna hear.
But I wanna be just human
and so you—Jessie—what? You open a vein?”

“No, Dad,” I sputtered, trying not to laugh. “It’s not anything like that.”

He started to pace. “I always wondered what you teenagers would be doin’ together,” he admitted. “But this … I figured, underage drinkin’—Jessie’ll say no. Drugs? Jessie’ll turn ’em down flat,” he said with assurance. “Premarital sex?” Dad spun on his heel, staring us both down.

Pietr shifted his weight from foot to foot, staring at the floor. My alpha male had just been reduced to a puppy who’d imagined piddling indoors.

“She’d. Say. No.” Dad ground out each word. “But bloodletting? That’s a new one. Hadn’t given it a moment’s thought.” Dad shook his head and paced some more. He froze.

“Were you in his room to do this?” he asked, deceptively softly. I imagined smoke pouring from his ears as the gears in his brain sputtered off track a moment.

Dad sometimes got like this, not seeing the forest for the trees. As sole guardian of two daughters—and an admitted “red-blooded American male” back in the day—Dad focused on location so much sometimes he should have gone into real estate.

To be in a guy’s room—alone—was a huge taboo. Right up there with setting crosses on fire and leaving the milk out.

My normal.

I sighed.

I looked at Pietr. Absolutely no help. Was I in his room to do the bloodletting? Why, no, I wasn’t. I was in his room several other times—even slept in his bed one night (while Pietr sprawled on the floor)—but I wasn’t there for the bloodletting.

“No. I wasn’t.” Sweet, sweet honesty. So rare recently in my life.

Dad sighed. “So your blood’s part of this cure and someone doesn’t want them cured, so they want you out of the mix.”

“Literally,” I added.

“Who?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I mean—which lines had blurred and which were crossed while I’d been inside? If Wanda was agreeing with Pietr about getting me out … “It’s complicated.”

Pietr nodded. “More now than ever,” he said, a new note of regret in his voice.

Dad looked at us. “I just keep thinking this is all some strange dream. Any minute I’ll wake up and everything will be back to normal.”

“Try defining
normal
sometime, Dad. I can’t find any suitable words to do it myself anymore.” I closed my eyes a moment, taking it all in and knowing all I wanted was
out
. “So how do I get out of here?”

“I can’t get you out today. Dr. Jones isn’t here and she’d need to sign any legal stuff I could get the lawyer to fudge. But I can’t leave you here, either. Wait,” he whispered. “If your blood’s part of a cure … what about Anna’s?”

The blood turned to an icy slush in my veins. My snooping and far-too-smart-for-the-good-of-her-social-status little sister Annabelle Lee was a logical second choice, considering we shared the same genetics. If they wanted me because my blood could screw up their experiments, when would it occur to them to check her, too?

“Call Alexi. Have him run a test,” I urged. “And watch her, Dad. Watch everyone around her.”

“Thank God Christmas break’s just around the corner,” he said. “We can try and figure all this out together then—watch each other’s backs.”

Pietr nodded. “When do the nurses change shifts?”

“In about twenty minutes,” I answered.

“Mr. Gillmansen. In twenty-five minutes you’ll walk out of this door and head to the nurses’ station, ready for home. When they ask where I am, tell them I left a few minutes ahead of you. They’ll check the sign-out sheet. Tell them I was in a hurry and the nurse was pretty scattered from an earlier situation. Be apologetic. Explain Jess broke up with me before I stormed out. It broke my heart,” he concluded, his eyes drifting back to mine.

“Pietr,” I whispered, astonished. “You’re lying.” I couldn’t believe my ears. Lying was almost the one thing Pietr Rusakova couldn’t do.

“I’ve had to learn a few things since I last saw you.” Guilt again crept into his voice.

Dad nodded. “And you?”

“Will sleep here tonight,” Pietr said simply. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“In. Her. Room?” Dad snapped.

Oh boy.

“Seriously, Dad, let’s prioritize, okay? Someone wants to kill me. Pietr’s my best chance at protecting me. There’s no other place to stash him but here. In my room.”

Pietr eyed my bed.

“I don’t like the way you’re lookin’ at that,” Dad mumbled.

Pietr ignored him and stepped over to the mattress, playing with the sheets so they hung down to the ground. He crouched, sweeping the sheets back up and eyeing the space underneath the bed as if measuring it. “I’ll sleep there,” he said so firmly there could be no argument.

Dad glared at him.

“I’m here to protect Jess,” he assured. “Don’t worry.”

“I won’t—about
anything
,” Dad repeated, stressing the final word.

“No, Mr. Gillmansen,” Pietr reassured. “Not anything.”

I sighed and Dad’s glare shifted to me.

“Young lady,” he warned. “Don’t you even
think
…”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, Dad. Like Pietr said. You won’t have anything to worry about.”

“I’ll journal the rest of the day and tomorrow until you arrive, Dad. I’ll just stay here.”

“The nurses should be switching now,” Pietr announced, his internal clock freakishly accurate.

“You’d better go, Dad. You,” I said to Pietr, “under the bed in case they peek in the window.”

He did as I suggested and I arranged the sheets so he was completely hidden. For once my sloppy housekeeping skills would pay off as the accepted routine.

I hugged Dad and walked him to the door, pressing the button. The door buzzed and with a click the lock released. “It’ll be fine,” I assured. “I’m the safest I’ve been in days.”

He shot a look at the shadowy space beneath my bed.

“If he tries…”

“Dad. Pietr’s a puppy dog,” I whispered, though I knew werewolf ears would hear.

The door shut behind him, and my back against it, I let out a sigh.

“Were you ever frightened growing up?” Pietr asked.

“Of what?”

“The monster under your bed?”

“You’re no monster, Pietr,” I admonished, crossing the room to get my journal and do my best to appear normal. Bored.

He sighed and shifted in the darkness, waiting for me to tell him when the coast was clear. “Things change, Jess. People change.”

The silence that followed his words was heavier than it had ever been.

Jessie

“It’s been ten minutes,” I whispered.

“Thirteen. But who’s counting?” Pietr responded dryly.

“They would have checked by now if they were going to.”

“So I’m allowed out?”

I flipped back the sheets. “Come out.”

He slid out from under my bed, staying toward the wall farthest from the window’s view. He stretched, joints popping.

“A little cramped down there?”

His lips curled in a teasing grin. “We wind up in the nicest places.”

“At least you can’t complain about the company.” I jabbed his ribs and raised my face for a kiss.

“
Nyet
. No complaints there.” Eyes glowing, he leaned down to kiss me.

The knock on the door startled us both, and Pietr slid with an accuracy a baseball pro would envy, right under the bed again. I tugged at the sheets and crossed the room.

Christian
.

I buzzed the door open.

Christian wheeled in the laundry cart and clipboard. “Sorry this is so late. I just found out I’ve been sentenced to laundry duty. Rumor has it you’re on your way out.”

I grinned. “Finally a rumor with truth behind it!”

He looked me up and down. “That’s too bad. I was really hoping to get to know you. I guess I should’ve taken a chance earlier on.” The smile he showed me was far more wicked than anything that had ever twisted Pietr’s lips. “Ah well, there’s no time like the present—” He grabbed my face and kissed me.

I yanked back with a squeak. “
That
wasn’t a good idea. Go. Now.” I stepped back, closer to the bed, and felt the heat rolling off of Pietr as he held his animal instincts back. This was bad. “I’m telling you. Go now.”

“Fine.” He grinned. He put up his hands and backed toward the door. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Yes, I can.”

He scowled. “Will I see you at dinner?”

“No. I’ve totally lost my appetite.”

As soon as the door closed behind him I rushed to the bathroom—past Pietr, who was out from under the bed and bristling in the corner—to grab my toothbrush.

He glared after me the whole way as I stepped into the tiny bathroom and loaded my toothbrush with toothpaste and scrubbed the flavor of Christian’s mouth away from mine.

“I see you’ve made new friends,” he said, slinking in and filling the bathroom’s other side. He cast a menacing shadow.

“Not. Friends. Obviously.” I spewed foam into the sink. “Grrr!”

In the mirror I saw him startle.

“Don’t glare at me.” I spewed more foam as I shook my toothbrush in the mirror at him. “God!” I spit. Rinsed. Brushed some more. “This is your fault.”

His eyes widened at the accusation and the rage fell away from his face. “How is it
my
fault?”