To Catch a Wolf (44 page)

against the tree, shaking snow from the dead branches. "And you—you will destroy her

completely. That's why I must stop you just as I stopped her mother.”

Morgan cocked his head. "What happened to Athena's mother?" he asked softly.

"I was eight when I first saw them together. My mother didn't know. She didn't find out

for years. And I was too young to do anything then. But when I was twelve, I got rid of

the bitch, and Father never knew.”

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Twelve. Two years younger than Morgan had been when he'd left home forever, vowing

to find his own father and bring him back to California. He had abandoned his childhood

by the time he was fifteen.

At eight years of age, Munroe had seen his father in bed with his mistress. Four years

later, he had gotten rid of her. The ugly pictures that formed in Morgan's mind came

from the darkest of places within himself: images of a boy with a revolver, a woman

begging for mercy, the terrible finality of a gunshot.

A gun, a knife, poison—it didn't matter. Niall was too clever to implicate himself in

Gwenyth Desbois's death. It wasn't easy to kill a werewolf, but it could be achieved by

someone with knowledge, resolve, and sufficient hatred.

"I had to do it," Niall said. "I had to set my father free and restore my mother's honor. It

was the only way.”

Hatred was a ruthless master. It could make a boy, or a man, believe that whatever he

did was justified. It could convince him that his reasons were pure and good and

unselfish.

The boy had stood there with the gun and listened to the pleas. He had seen the

upraised hands, the hollow eyes, the quiver of the lips. He had aimed, so carefully. One

shot was all it took.

"You see why I must stop you," Niall said, his voice very far away. "There is just enough

human left in Athena to be worth saving.”

Morgan saw the gun in Niall's hand. He knew what it meant, and what it would take to

stop his enemy. A gathering of muscle and sinew, a leap, a single blow, a clean

snapping of the bones in a human neck.

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Another murder.

Niall fired. The bullet seared Morgan's side, a startling instant of pain that seemed less

real than the calm indifference of his thoughts. He staggered. A second bullet grazed

Morgan's temple.

For Athena.

He fell. Blood steamed in the snow. Morgan felt his body laboring to heal the wounds,

but he let the blood flow and the pain wash over him. He willed his heartbeat to slow, his

lungs to cease their struggle for air. He closed his eyes.

Niall's presence was a faint warmth above him. He waited for a third shot, but it didn't

come. His body absorbed Niall's kick without reacting. Cold metal pressed into his jaw.

He stopped his heart just as Niall's fingers sought the pulse at the base of his neck.

"So easy," Niall murmured. "You didn't even fight, you bastard. Why?" He lurched up

and away, his movements receding with Morgan's awareness. "Damn you. Damn you to

hell.”

Athena knew the way. As a woman she might have become lost, but the wolf could not

be confused or misled by distorted senses. She ran without pause through the storm,

and at the coming of dawn she knew she had reached Munroe land.

She could not have said what made her stop so close to her goal, with the scents of

wood smoke and horses and humanity thick in her nostrils. The place was very much

like any other in the park, where evergreens grew thick at the edge of a meadow. No

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animal or bird broke the silence. But she stopped, her fur bristling and her ears tilted to

catch the sound of a voice.

Morgan's voice. And she realized what it was that had halted her. The wind had gone

still; the cacophony of a thousand scents, tangled by the storm, had settled back into a

gentler song. And one subtle note rang sweet and beloved among all the others.

Morgan. She turned her muzzle toward the scent, all her weariness dropping away.

Morgan was here, very close, perhaps behind the next stand of firs.

She raced across the meadow, leaving a deep gully in the snow behind her. Halfway

across she slowed, and her hind legs began to cramp and seize up with pain that

shouted in her body like a warning of doom.

Wrong. Morgan's scent was wrong. What had seemed a pure, sweet melody was

tainted. Mingled with Morgan's scent was another she knew as well as her own, and a

third she recognized and feared above all others.

Niall had been here, or very close. And either he, or Morgan, had shed blood.

Not even the pain in her legs could slow her now. She forced her muscles to obey and

leaped up, broke the surface of snow in her descent and leaped again. The edge of the

meadow loomed ahead. She clawed her way onto a jutting boulder and entered the

cover of the trees.

The smell of blood grew thicker, Morgan's scent stronger as Niall's faded. Athena's

paws hardly touched the ground. In a small clearing, protected from the worst of the

storm, she found him.

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He lay on his. back in snow melted by his own blood, limbs twisted and dark hair thick

across his face. The ground all around him had been trampled by booted feet. Niall's

boots.

Niall had been here. The sharp tang of metal and gunpowder played counterpoint to the

stench of blood. No mist of breath rose from Morgan's parted lips.

Athena covered the remaining distance in a single jump. She lost her balance, fell to her

side, and scrambled the last few feet on shaking legs.

Morgan lay unmoving. Athena nudged his chin with her muzzle and snarled in his face.

His skin was cold. She clawed at him frantically, heedless of the scratches she left on

his bare skin. His chest didn't move. She grabbed his arm between her teeth and

tugged him this way and that with small, despairing whimpers.

Only then, when every attempt had failed, did she sit back on her haunches and howl.

Wolves could not weep. But she was also human, and humans possessed a strange

and foolish quality called hope.

Hope gave her the strength to Change. Hope kept her heart beating as she lay atop

him, spreading her arms and legs over him like a living blanket. Hope warmed her

breath as she kissed his unyielding lips.

"Be alive," she whispered. "Damn you, Morgan, be alive." She pushed her fingers into

his hair and lifted his head as if he could see the determination in her eyes. "Are you

going to give up, after fighting the world with every breath? Is this how it ends? Well,

you've underestimated me for the last time, Morgan Holt.”

She kissed him again, bruisingly, biting into his lower lip until she tasted blood. Hating

him, and loving him more than life itself.

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He gasped. His chest arched up as if pulled by invisible cords, and he sucked in a

lungful of air. Bright, fresh blood welled from the wounds in his side and temple.

"Morgan!" she cried, searching for something to stanch the flow. But he didn't hear her.

His eyes remained closed. Dark mist formed over his body, the telltale sign of

impending Change.

She slid away from him just as the transformation began. It was neither swift nor

smooth; midway through the Change, he hovered between wolf and man just as he had

in her bedroom at Long Park. Only this time it was not by choice. His body could not

complete the Change in its weakened state, so near to death. Blood continued to stain

the snow.

Athena caught at his fur-mantled shoulders and shook him. "Decide, Morgan!" she

shouted. "Live or die. Wolf or man. But if you choose death, I'll know you were a

coward!”

His eyelids fluttered, revealing the alien yellow of a wolf's eyes. He shuddered violently,

and the mist became like a choking cloud. The shape under Athena's hands finished its

transition. The black wolf lay on its side, barely breathing.

She buried her hands in Morgan's fur, feeling for the wounds. Her fingers came away

dry. No more blood. Bone and muscle felt firm and whole. His heart beat strongly under

his ribs.

Without questioning the miracle, Athena let herself go limp and rested her head on his

flank. She knew she had slept when she felt hands—human hands—in her hair,

stroking it away from her face.

She blinked and sat up. Morgan lay beside her, his bare skin unmarked and his eyes

free of pain. He let his hand fall and gazed up at her, waiting for her questions.

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"I'm not dreaming?" she whispered.

"No." He smiled—that faint, almost imperceptible smile she had finally learned to

recognize. "And neither am I.”

She reached out, touching any part of him that she could reach. It was not her

imagination. The wounds that had bled so freely were gone as if they had never existed.

At first she thought even the blood-stained snow had vanished, but then she saw the

dark blotch several feet away and realized that Morgan had moved both of them to

clean ground.

It was daylight now, and the storm had passed, but the temperature remained below

freezing. Athena felt as warm as if she and Morgan lay wrapped in blankets before a

crackling fire.

"You healed yourself," she said in wonder. "How?”

"It is a dangerous thing," he said. "A great risk to take when there is no other choice.

One of us who is injured badly—if we Change, we either die or heal ourselves.”

"I thought you were dead." Her eyes welled with belated tears. "You weren't breathing.”

"But I heard you." He caught a tendril of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. "You

called me a coward.”

Her fist bunched with the savage desire to strike the gentle mockery from his face. "Did

you find that amusing? Did you enjoy making me think you were dead?”

"No. I had to convince Niall that I was.”

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Niall. Athena closed her eyes, and the tears spilled over. "He thought he'd killed you,"

she said. "When he said he was returning to Long Park, I knew something was wrong. I

left Denver as soon as I guessed what he intended.”

"You risked everything," he said. "You Changed, Athena. You brought me back.”

Somehow that victory seemed hollow. Whatever Morgan said, she had not saved him.

The admiration in his eyes, the pride in his voice made the coming trial that much more

unbearable.

"Yes," she said. "I Changed.”

"Because you feared for me. But you must have known it was Niall who was in danger.”

She met his gaze, and she knew. She knew that Morgan understood the reason Niall

had come back to kill him. Cecily's accusations hung between them, unspoken but

impossible to ignore. Even now, after his miraculous reprieve from death.

Especially now.

"I will believe you, Morgan," she said. "Whatever you tell me, I will believe.”

He looked away. "My great secret," he said. "It would not have mattered if I had

remained among the wolves. But Harry and his people drew me back to men, where the

past is never forgotten. Not even by the ones who lived it.”

Then it was true. The horrible things she had refused to accept

some part of them

must be true. But the question she knew she must ask froze on her tongue.

"I was in prison," he said, his voice without expression. "Niall discovered it. That was

why he came back. To protect you.”

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Athena sat very still, afraid that if she moved her entire body might shatter like a figure

sculpted of ice. "Cecily told me," she said. "She was the one who told Niall.”

"About me. About what I am." He made a harsh sound under his breath. "It is true." At

last he looked at her. "You didn't believe it until now. You had faith in me.”

How bitterly he mocked himself. She recognized the contempt, the unrelenting self-

judgment. Whatever he had done, his punishment had never stopped. He carried it with

him always.

He would tell her everything if she asked. Every ugly detail of his crime and

imprisonment, anything she might possibly wish to know. And he would hope, as he told

her, that she would turn from him in disgust and horror.

"You should not have come back, Athena," he said. "Your brother would have been