The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (3 page)

And it
never ended.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are
you the artist?”

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

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

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

“And if
we don’t?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*
       
*
       
*
       
*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eyes.
Teeth. Claws. Fur.

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

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

She
knew she would not die quickly.

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

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

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

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

“Did
you eat?”

“Yes. I
had dinner.”

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

“What
did you do today?”

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

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

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

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

Ilene
nodded understanding. “And Lucy?”

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

“Yes.
Yes, you mentioned that.”

“And
some kind of self-defense class.”

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

“What’s
your plan for dinner?”

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

“How’s
Dad?”

“Keeping
busy.”

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

“We’d
like that. Very much.”

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

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

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

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

“Anything?”

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

“What?”
He asked, taken aback.

“Did I
treat you differently—worse,” she choked on the word, “than I treated Adam?”

Alec
ruminated on the question, the thousand sleights, the thousand ways a child
feels less loved than other children flashing through his mind, and suspected,
all children feel it, from time to time. “No,” he answered. “But, then, you knew—or
suspected—I was different? Always.”

“Yes.”

“The
eyes?”

“The
eyes.” She reached across and stroked his cheek with the love of a mother. “Not
my eyes. Not your father’s eyes.”

“And
not Darius’s eyes.”

“No,
not his either. But whose?”

Alec
smiled. “Mine.”

Ilene
suddenly wept, tucking her face into her hands. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m
sorry.”