Читать книгу Claimed by the Alpha - Saranna DeWylde - Страница 6

Chapter Two

Blood never bothered Marijka Zolinski.

It was an intrinsic part of her culture, of stories handed down from Baba Zoranna around a crackling orange fire as it climbed high into the chill night air. A common thread to bind the secret ingredients of spells, curses and wise-woman cures. Blood could stain the ground for all eternity with a rage that anchored the past to the future. Or it could wipe the slate clean, a crimson blessing to wash away sins of the fathers.

No, blood was simply a tool. Like sage, a packet of peacock feathers, or a sacred stone pried from deep within the earth.

She could handle blood. Even if it belonged to her partner, Evan Van Brunt.

Evan had been out of contact for four days. Marijka had accepted he was dead after day one. Guild members lived hard and fast—their flames burned hot, but were extinguished quickly.

And horribly.

By even being at the scene, Marijka broke standard operating procedure, but she was the only Guild officer within two days of travel, and two days was much too long with the full moon occurring tomorrow night. Evan’s body had to be processed before then, or by the Guild’s treaty with the Aeternali, he’d be cursed.

Before his disappearance, he’d forwarded her recon he’d done in Nuremberg, evidence of a village outside of Ostrava where the villagers all suffered from a derivative of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. At first, he’d thought it was Kuru, another form of spongiform encephalopathy—a disease that turned brain matter “spongy” with holes, contracted through cannibalism, but the protein behavior was different. Something similar to undead proteins; the Zombie Virus. Because the villagers were still walking around, functioning. Kuru and CJD were both fatal.

All thoughts of scientific study died when she’d first seen Evan.

The first thing she’d noticed was the stark, white pieces of his skull. The rest of his body had been ravaged—torn apart by animals with unnatural jaws and teeth. His chest cavity had been cracked open, his body gutted from throat to belly. His organs were gone.

Eaten.

Just as her mother’s body had been on that January night so long ago. She fought against the rising tide of memory that was never more than a breath away from her awareness. Marijka breathed in deep, the eucalyptus from the Vicks VapoRub she’d put on comforting her. It calmed her, soothed away the terrors as much as it blocked the stench of decayed and rotting flesh.

Marijka’s gaze was drawn unwillingly up to where Evan’s eyes were wide open and the terror of his last moment was still painted on what was left of his face. She didn’t want to look, afraid she’d see her own terror reflected there.

And it was, but not as she’d feared. It was the loss of him, her own inadequacies—the intrinsic knowing she should have done more for this man who’d been her partner for the last five years. He’d been her partner, her friend, her family—like a brother. Unheard for an outsider—one who was not Gypsy.

He’d died alone, in agony and terror.

Unshriven.

“Damn it, Van Brunt,” she cried in a broken whisper. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” Marijka brushed a finger down his ruined cheek. It was the only goodbye she’d give. From here on out, it had to be about the job or she wouldn’t do him or the Guild any good.

She swallowed hard, choked back her bile and looked at him again with the eye of a Gypsy wise woman and then again as the forensics expert she’d become. Some of his wounds healed as she watched. Whatever this was, she couldn’t let him rise.

“Ma’am?” A hard-edged voice startled her from her thoughts.

Shit. She had to be more aware of her surroundings. She fumbled with the samples she’d been collecting and managed to stow them in her bag before she dropped them.

Marijka looked up at the intruder. He was big, like most supernatural males. Marijka couldn’t pin down what race, but he was obviously a leader from the way he carried himself. The yellow illumination of the streetlamp washed over him, accentuating the gold of his hair and the hard planes of his face. His mouth was set in a grim slash and she found his rugged appearance beautiful—like she did the Pyrenees. Harsh, brutal and immovable. His eyes were what captured her—the deep blue-black depths were like the sea off the northern coast of Ireland. Just as cold and black—and they pulled her down into the frigid dark...pierced her, probed her deepest secrets. Held her in thrall.

Oh, hell no. She erected her mental shields and Marijka pushed back with her own power, ejected him from her consciousness with the force of an army. Those icy eyes widened, but then slanted with surprised pleasure.

“Guild?” he asked, not bothering to apologize for the intrusion.

“Officer Marijka Zolinski. You?”

“Luka Stanislav. Aeternali consultant.”

“The Aeternali is consulting on this?”

He appraised her coolly. “I’m a regular on scene. In this part of the world, any death that’s not obviously human-on-human requires a consultant. Things they would openly mock in the States are accepted here. Like processing his body in accordance with the treaty.”

Marijka knew plenty about what the locals believed. She’d grown up in a Gypsy caravan traveling the world in an enchanted vardo—a traditional horse-drawn wagon much like a camper. She’d been all over Europe, from the open steppes of Russia to dark forgotten villages in France. And she’d never seen a consultant on any murder she’d investigated. She’d let him sell her that bridge to nowhere, though—it suited her needs to keep him in the dark about her skills. At least until he accessed the Aeternali database. She had to find out who he really was and what he knew about the deaths and the strange virus Evan had talked about.

He was good; she’d give him that. So she made a point of keeping her attention on her job. On what she had to do to keep Evan from the curse. He was a master of manipulation, this Luka. She wouldn’t let him get away with it, though. Marijka had questions and knew he could answer them.

“Since you’re familiar with the practice, maybe you could give me a hand?” She raised a brow.

“Full moon isn’t until tomorrow.”

Marijka debated how much to reveal. “He’s been infected with something unknown. Regeneration is happening fast. Faster than what I’ve seen even with the Zombie Virus.”

“You worried about the ceremony or just getting it done?” Stanislav asked in a brusque tone.

“Getting it done.” It was what Evan would want. He’d never been much on ceremony or tradition. He’d been tapping his foot and inching toward the door with the last Guild member they’d processed together.

The consultant produced a small, black bottle from the folds of his long overcoat and removed the stopper. He splashed what appeared to be oil on Evan’s body with three flicks of his wrist. Supernatural fire incinerated flesh, blood and bone, reaching out in a hungry spiral to destroy any trace of Evan Van Brunt.

A lone wolf howled, his song echoing around them.

Stanislav turned sharply, his stance one of a warrior, and those cold eyes scanned the landscape of the night. “The other officers are gone. Well secured against the beasts. You should go, Officer Marijka Zolinski.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you answer a few questions.”

A chorus of answering howls reverberated in the dark like a choir from hell.

“You should be inside,” he reiterated slowly. His blue-black eyes reflected nothing, only a deeper Abyss, a dark so cold and endless the chill stabbed into her bones with a thousand needles. “They’re coming for him.”

“There’s nothing for them to claim.” Marijka refused to be cowed by him and refused to acknowledge the fear that snapped in electric currents as the howls grew louder. It was a tactic designed to to foster terror and immobilize their prey.

She shuddered involuntarily. Marijka hated werewolves. Their howls terrified her and resurrected memories of her mother’s mutilated body

“Yet still they come, malenkaya.” His voice was smooth, like dark chocolate and silk.

Her survival instincts screamed at her to take shelter, but her pride was louder. “And here I stand,” she said, a fiery defiance of him and them burning in her gut.

“Is this really where you want to turn and make your stand? Alone against a rogue pack?”

A pack? She gritted her teeth and blinked hard as she swallowed her fear. “No,” she acknowledged. “But I’m not running.” Marijka had sworn she’d never run from a werewolf. She’d never surrender to her fear and if that meant another officer would be processing her body here where she’d said goodbye to Evan, then so be it.

“No one asked you to run. Only to come to the inn with me where there will be hot vodka with honey, warm cream biscuits with salted butter and where we may talk of the business of the day.” He spoke gently, as if to a wounded beast, his accent more pronounced—his Russian heritage more obvious in his speech patterns.

The words wrapped around her like velvet, soft and seductive, drew quaint images of large fires and soft light, the comfort of tradition, hot food and safety, and slipped inside of her to caress secret desires and guided her to follow his commands. She pushed again with her metal shields, but realized this was no magic, no telepathy. It was the innate power in his voice, the supernatural charisma of an Alpha male.

Marijka wondered again what he was and more importantly, who he was to the Aeternali. He was more than a consultant, more than what he portrayed himself to be. An ageless, eternal power thrummed through him and it resonated with her own.

“And you will answer my questions, Luka Stanislav?” she asked, doubtful. Marijka wasn’t sure she wanted to be in his company. He was dangerous.

“Yes, I will answer your questions. As best as I may.”

“Always a catch with the Aeternali, isn’t there?”

“As there must be,” he admitted with a boyish smirk and halfhearted shrug. When she still hesitated, he spoke again. “A female so lovely shouldn’t be unescorted in Aynkava. Even if you are an officer of the Guild. There are many dangerous males who would have no respect for your title.”

True, but they would respect her Evil Eye and the mark of Baba Zoranna she wore in the tattoo on the back of her neck. There was no power more potent than gypsy magic and she used it with the same precision as she did her 9mm.

“And you? You’re not a dangerous male?” The air around them changed as soon as she spoke...became heavy.

He laughed, the sound rich and decadent. Its resonance sent shivers through her body and centered deep in her core where lust sparked and burned.

“Oh, malenkaya. I am.” His cold gaze was suddenly hot, raking over every inch of her as if she belonged to him. “The most dangerous in Aynkava.”

She’d heard those lines before, males puffed up like blowfish on their own reputations. As if she were some mortal woman afraid of the crawling things in the dark and not a cop who’d been into the Abyss and clawed her way out for her Guild badge. Yet, with Luka Stanislav, she believed every word from his granite-carved mouth.

It made her wet.

Marijka knew part of it was the adrenaline, the rush of being alive when surrounded by death and the fear coursing through her veins as the coming pack signaled their descent onto the small village. Her analytical mind told her this was nothing but a chemical reaction, one she could overlook and put from her mind as soon as she parted company with the handsome Luka Stanislav.

But she didn’t want to put it from her head. What Marijka did want was a few hours of mindless pleasure, of touch. Some connection with another living being, even if it were no deeper than a one-time fuck in the upstairs of a quaint country inn with honeyed vodka on her breath.

“If you’re so dangerous, wouldn’t I be better off on my own?” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and knew there was something there...watching, waiting. Something hungry. Part of her wanted to run, but part of her wanted to stay, too, because leaving with him was a retreat.

“Perhaps. That is your choice to make.” He shrugged again as if it mattered little to him either way, but Marijka watched his eyes flash from frigid indifference to languid heat. “Although I suggest whatever you choose, you do it quickly.”

“The inn,” she blurted before she could stop herself.

He held out her hand to her, his tanned fingers large and broad. “Then take my hand to mark your choice.”

To show those who were watching she was with him. Under his protection. Dear God, who was he that a pack of werewolves feared to attack him?

Marijka thrust her hand into his and he led her casually down the cobbled street, as if the beasts slavering for their blood in the dark behind them meant nothing.