Healer's Choice (42 page)

Aryck tensed. Rebekka’s heart pounded. If she was wrong—

I’m not.
Radek’s increased agitation and doomed escape attempt had to mean something inside the building would incriminate him. She stepped through the doorway, knowing Aryck would follow her.

A low growl rumbled in his throat as soon as he did. “Something died in here,” he said, using his body to position her between him and the wall.

Captain Nagy entered. The door closed behind him, trapping air and scent inside.

Rebekka could smell a hint of urine and voided bowels. She remembered the conversation she’d overheard. “Gregor said he and Radek shared a common interest. They both like to kill women at the end of their fun.”

Captain Orst frowned, directed his words at Nagy. “The Were smells death in here. Two prostitutes have gone missing. The last one left the brothel building with Radek but never returned. He claimed he finished with her early and sent her away. Gregor provided an alibi, saying he saw her later going off with someone else.”

Captain Nagy shrugged. “While I find the murder of a prostitute personally distasteful, it’s not what brings us here. Do what you can to prove the healer’s allegations against Radek before this night ends in slaughter.”

Still standing protectively between her and Captain Nagy, Aryck flexed and unflexed his fingers, as though he was close to shifting forms and attacking.

Rebekka touched his back. Stroked. Her stomach knotting in nervous anticipation as Captain Orst went to the desk.

One of the keys slid smoothly into the top drawer. Orst pulled it open and reached in, removing a green canister whose design and appearance made Rebekka think of something left over from the days of war.

Setting it on the desk, he said, “It’s got an image of a wolf engraved into the metal.”

A second canister joined the first. “Hyena.”

A third followed. “This one appears more generic. I presume it’s meant for big cats of all types, certainly the image could mean mountain lion or jaguar.”

The muscles against Rebekka’s hand bunched in a prelude to attack. She wrapped her arms around Aryck’s waist. “Wait,” she whispered, hugging him tightly.

ORST’S expression held nothing but loathing as he looked at Radek. “Death is too good for a man willing to unleash plague. Tell me where the information files relating to these canisters are.”

Radek sneered, his earlier fear falling away. “Find them yourself. If you can. You have no evidence against me. All you have is the accusation of a woman who is willing to sleep with an animal. Even if you did have proof, I’d take my chances with a jury of my peers. They’d see me as a hero! A visionary! Someone with the courage to act and get rid of the Weres.”

“They’d see you for what you are, the worst of what humans are capable of.”

Orst placed his hands on the keyboard and began typing. Rebekka’s only experience with computers was at the library. She didn’t know how to do more than perform searches for information on what the librarian called an internet, a network of huge private computers all storing massive amounts of data and connected together by cables running underground.

The captain knew quite a bit more. It didn’t take long before the sound of typing stopped and the movement of his eyes indicated he was reading.

When he looked up he said, “I found his notes. The super-virus targeting werewolves was placed in a small pond. It degrades fast outside of a host. It should be inert, and any wolves or elk infected by it dead at this point. Bait of some type was used to infect the hyenas. Radek didn’t have time to distribute it to more than a single pack. I’m sure Captain Nagy would be willing to order his men to hunt—”

“The hyenas have been dealt with,” Aryck said, his voice harsh.

“Then that leaves only the third super-virus. It was being fed to the goats. I can attest that none of them have left the encampment.”

Captain Orst straightened and directed his attention to Radek. “Radek Ivanov, I am placing you under arrest. You have the right—”

Gunfire silenced him, its thunder throbbing through the room as Radek toppled backward with a hole in his forehead.

Aryck surged forward, knife drawn but halting almost instantly as Nagy’s weapon lowered. The militia captain said, “I think you’ll agree, Captain Orst, it is in the best interest of all the Founding Families that there be no mention of plague and no mention of what was found at this site. As far as my men and I are concerned, Radek died in a fire started most likely by drunken carelessness and which spread quickly, creating chaos and panic and also drawing predators to the area. Pardons and a payment of coin will erase any memory of flaming arrows.”

Captain Nagy holstered the pistol and walked to the door. He opened it long enough to retrieve the gas can he’d ordered put there.

Uncapping it, he moved to the desk and upended it so gas spilled over the computer and canisters and into the drawer. Radek’s body was next.

“We will evacuate at dawn,” Nagy said. “Considering the likelihood there are other caches of bioweapons here, I suspect the Weres will have no objection to us planting ordnances and detonating this excavation site.”

He shook the empty can and tossed it aside. A small smile played at his lips as he turned and faced Orst. “I suspect the Ivanov and Iberá patriarchs together wield enough power to have these lands declared off-limits to humans seeking to run salvage operations in them.”

Rebekka couldn’t read Orst’s expression. She didn’t know how he felt about Nagy’s approach to justice. His voice was without inflection as he asked Aryck, “Is this solution acceptable to the shapeshifters?”

Aryck hardly dared to believe the threat to the Weres could be over and they could resume living as they—

A glance at Rebekka halted the thought. No, not as they always had.

He touched his mind to his father’s, getting the same answer he would have given had he been alpha. “It is acceptable to us. We’ll remain to witness your departure and will follow you to the border of the lands we claim. As long as no one offers us a threat, safe passage is granted.”

“Fair enough,” Orst said.

Captain Nagy pulled a pack of matches from his pocket. Lit one and dropped it into a pool of gasoline on the desk.

It ignited in a whoosh of flame and heat, making the Jaguar snarl and demand retreat. Aryck took Rebekka by the arm and guided her toward the door, but neither of them left until after Nagy set multiple fires and both he and Orst exited ahead of them.

Orst departed to spread news of the evacuation and an agreement with the Weres for safe passage. Nagy gave the same order to the five militiamen but remained with Aryck and Rebekka, escorting them out of the encampment only after the building Radek had occupied had been reduced to smoldering ash and pieces of charred wood.

Aryck led Rebekka away from the gathered Weres, taking her to a small pond surrounded by oak trees draped in Spanish moss. He desperately needed to be alone with her, to celebrate their survival with the touch of flesh to flesh, to lovingly chastise her for scaring him so badly.

Rebekka undressed with the unselfconsciousness of a Were, discarding her clothes and wading into a pond shallow enough to hold some of the day’s heat at its edges, and pockets of warmth a little deeper. Aryck halted her with a hand on her hip, stopping and turning her.

The water settled into smooth calm around them at waist height. Cicadas and crickets and frogs renewed their songs. In the distance, an owl hooted.

“You’re hurt,” Rebekka said, smoothing her fingers over the cuts he’d gotten when he crossed over the concertina wire, then leaning in, taking his breath away as she touched her mouth to his chest and arms, healed him with the brush of her lips and the sensuous wet glide of her tongue.

He’d thought she would revile him for slaughtering the goats. Instead, she’d changed the course of the night and the fate of both Weres and humans. And now she tended to him, treated him as a Jaguar female wearing fur would treat its injured mate.

“I’m sorry—”

Rebekka stopped him by lifting her arms and putting them around his neck. By touching her mouth to his, preferring a different kind of conversation.

Words seemed unnecessary, an intrusion that would shatter the peace of the setting and the time they had together before they had to face questions about their future.

Aryck responded like a man in the grip of a desperate hunger, taking control of the kiss and pulling her against him so tightly their bodies touched in an unbroken connection. Heat poured into her, filling her breasts and turning her nipples into hard, aching knots before sliding into her belly. Her clit. Her labia.

He grew hard and it was impossible not to rub against the smooth, heated length of his cock. Her nether lips became swollen, parting in readiness.

She captured his tongue. Sucked. Reveling in the way his hips jerked and a low moan joined the night sounds.

His hands roamed. Settled again on her hips. Lifting then lowering her onto his cock.

She moaned. Wrapped her legs around his waist.

His mouth never left hers as he took her in fast, hard thrusts. Not coming until she’d cried out in release.

They were both breathing fast when he freed her mouth. He bit her shoulder then, a sharp rebuke instantly soothed with the swipe of his tongue. “I’ve never known fear like I did today, when I crossed your trail and realized you were heading in the direction of the encampment.”

Her heart dropped to her stomach. She’d hoped to delay reality, to delay the truth. But she didn’t shy away from it. “My gift doesn’t just allow me to heal. What I said to Captain Orst, about the goats drawing me to the encampment because they were diseased, is true. But there’s more to it. If they’d been free instead of penned, I could have drawn them to me, though I wouldn’t have done it intentionally. By the time I got to them, I’d learned how to control that part of my gift.”

Speaking the words out loud, she realized somewhere along the way she’d stopped thinking of the urchin’s gift as something terrible. It made her a weapon, but one that could prevent those, like Radek, from using plague to kill the Weres.

“It’s a dangerous gift to have,” Aryck said, no censure in his tone. He touched his mouth to hers, nibbled on her bottom lip. “And a secret best shared only between mates unless there’s need for others to know.”

Her heart soared, and she decided to give him the rest of the truth. “My father isn’t human. I’ve seen him only once, when he saved my life and told me I’d find work and protection in the Were brothels. I think he’s a demon.”

Aryck buried his face where her neck met her shoulder. Inhaled deeply and said, “Whatever your father might be, you smell fully human to me.”

A small growl followed. “And you smell of other males. If they weren’t already dead, I’d have to leave so I could attend to the matter.”

Without warning he went over backward, submerging them both before letting her go and becoming a jaguar. As a playful cat he swam in circles around her, brushed against her, repeatedly requiring her touch until finally nudging her back to shallow water.

When he shifted to human form and stood before her in the moonlight, the water sluicing down his body, Rebekka could see why ancient civilizations had once formed cults around his kind. He was a primal, powerful male meant to be worshiped. Legs apart, the heavy globes of his testicles and hardened cock were a symbol of potent masculinity.

Rebekka rose up on her knees. His sharp intake of breath brought a smile to her lips, as did the way his cock became more engorged, straining away from his body as if begging her to take it into her mouth.

She placed her palms on his thighs and felt the slight trembling of a man waiting for pleasure to be given freely rather than demanding it. She rewarded him for his restraint by touching him, sliding a hand between his thighs to cup his testicles as the other took him, thumb brushing against his exposed cock head.

His moan sounded loud in the quiet hush surrounding them. His hips bucked, driving his penis through her fist and sending a rush of feminine satisfaction all the way down to her toes.

She leaned forward, heard his breathing become harsh even as he tried to close the distance between his cock and her mouth with another thrust.

A dart of her tongue, a quick swipe, and she shattered his control. His fingers tangled in her wet hair to prevent escape. His body curled over hers, and his voice was little more than a growl when he said, “Now, Rebekka.”

Her channel spasmed at the rough command. Arousal escaped her slit to join the water wetting her inner thighs.

She waited for his hands to tighten in her hair before she yielded. But even then she denied him. Her tongue laved instead of darted, the slow swirl offering torment instead of relief, the warning press of her teeth keeping him from simply taking.