Читать книгу Rebel: - Zoe Archer - Страница 9

Laugher. Anger. Astonishment. Astrid expected any one of these reactions from Nathan Lesperance after revealing to him that he was not a mere man, as he had long believed, but a shape-changing Earth Spirit.

Instead, he stalked around her cabin, throwing open her cupboard, hauling up the ticking-covered mattress so that the bedding tumbled everywhere, shoving books out of her bookcase.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

“Looking for whiskey,” he growled over his shoulder. “Either you’re drunk, or I need to be.” He threw more books onto the floor, heedless.

Astrid stomped over to him, determined to keep him from wrecking her once-orderly home. She grabbed his arm. “Stop it.”

He whirled to face her, and only a few inches separated them. “Thank you,” he said, low and fierce. “I didn’t say that before. Thank you for finding me out in the wilderness and bringing me here to your cabin. I probably would’ve died if you hadn’t taken me in. I know you don’t want me here. So, don’t think I’m not grateful, because I am. But like hell will I be lied to or mocked. You think I’m a stupid Indian—the way they all do.”

“That’s not what I think,” she shot back. “I’m not lying. I’m not making fun of you.”

He glanced down to where she still held his arm, his eyes narrowing at the sight. His arm was tight and hewn with muscle. Warmth flooded her, and she pulled her hand back.

“Explain yourself,” he rumbled, “before I smash this cabin into matchsticks.”

She cast a quick look around, as if actually assessing whether he could reduce her sturdy cabin to kindling. At the moment, he was so ferocious, she almost believed it was possible.

“When I found you,” she said, “you were covered in cuts. Not little scratches, but actual wounds that might need stitches. And now look”—she gestured to his chest, forcing herself to consider the sleek contours of his skin—“they are practically vanished. Healed within hours.”

“Always been a fast healer.”

“No one mends that quickly. Not without some assistance.”

He shook his head. “So my wounds are almost gone. That’s not enough to convince me I’m some kind of man-beast.”

“I did not say you were a man-beast. A man who can change into an animal. That is different.”

His bark of laughter held no humor. “Stupid of me not to see the difference.”

Astrid held up her hands. “I know this is difficult to comprehend—”

“Difficult?” His mouth twisted. “Try ridiculous.”

“But it is true,” she persisted, clenching her teeth. “Edwin, the trapper who was outside, said a wolf attacked a group of Englishmen. The wolf bit someone and clawed them. You had blood in the corners of your mouth and under your fingernails. Blood that wasn’t yours.”

This made him pause, but for a bare moment. “Still a damned far leap to make. Maybe an animal attacked me when I was wandering around.”

Astrid wanted to pummel him. She had not spoken this much at one time in years, and the effort cost her patience. “Somewhere, buried in your stubborn head is the memory of your abduction and escape. In that memory is the truth.”

He swung away from her, gripping the blanket to his waist. “The laughable truth that I—me, a man—can shift forms into a wolf—an animal.”

“Exactly,” she said.

“Not ‘exactly,’” he fired back. “You may consider me some ignorant heathen savage—”

“I never said that!”

“But the stories my mother told me are just that, stories. I knew it as a child and I know it now. This is a world of steam engines and gunpowder. Magic isn’t real.”

“Trust me,” Astrid said darkly, “it is.” And she had the loss to prove it.

He glowered at her. “Trust. You’re asking me to trust you. Based on what?”

She should have expected resistance from him. After all, a person wasn’t told he was a supernatural being every day. Even so, his stubbornness was a stone wall she battered herself against. How unlike gentle, soft-spoken Michael this man was. But then, she realized belatedly, Lesperance was much like her. She always demanded proof, would never give her trust readily, even before her husband’s death. Michael had been the one to believe, to befriend everyone, while she guarded herself and him like a tigress. Lesperance had the same wariness.

“You said it yourself,” she countered. “I could have left you to die, but I did not. Even if your wounds did heal quickly, you were in the wilderness alone and dazed.” And naked, she silently added.

“If I could turn into a wolf,” he said as though humoring a fanciful child, “I think I’d know. I’ve never done it before.”

“Things change,” she said, grim. “People change.”

“But not into animals,” he countered. “Just find me some damned clothes and I’ll get the hell out of here. I don’t care how beautiful you are, I’m not going to listen to you—” He stopped, tensing, then inhaled deeply.

Her heart, already racing, began to knock forcefully in the cage of her chest. “What is it?”

His eyes met hers, ebony to steel. “Trouble.”

“Can you hear something?”

“I smell it.” He drew in another breath through his nose. “The men who captured me. It’s their scent.” A moment’s rare bewilderment crossed his face. “I don’t know how I know, I just do.”

Astrid did not doubt him. She took a spyglass from her pack, still resting on the floor, and darted to the window. As Lesperance watched in puzzlement, she drew back the curtain, then pulled herself through the window.

“There’s a new invention called a door,” he said drily as she stood on the windowsill.

She ignored him, instead climbing up onto the roof. The pitch of the roof was not very steep, so she easily held her footing. Her hands, however, shook slightly as she trained her spyglass on the lone pass leading into the meadow. She would not be visible to whoever tried to breach the lea, and had a good enough vantage to see whoever dared disturb her isolation.

What she saw caused her heart to seize. Curses or swears refused to come to her lips. Instead, a cold sense of inevitability threaded through her. She could not see the faces of the men riding in the pass, but she was able to count their number, and knew them at once from their posture. A sense of entitlement radiated from them like noxious vapor. The world belonged to them, and whatever was not already in their possession soon would be.

She knew these men, knew them almost as well as she once knew herself. They were a blight upon the earth, an engine of destruction and enslavement that she had once foolishly thought she could stop. Until the day when Michael was taken from her. Then she no longer believed whatever she or any of her friends did made any difference. Their enemy was and would always be stronger, more ruthless. She had tried to leave them, and her friends, her work, behind. Yet even here, in this wild place, the enemy had found her and even now was less than a half an hour from her home.

The Heirs of Albion.

Balanced on the roof, balanced on the cusp of her own conscience. What to do? A few, far too few, options. She could get her rifle, wait for the Heirs to come within range, and then pick off as many of them as possible. But there were too many. At best, she could hit two or three before their own shooters took her down. No, she refused to throw her life away for a petty victory.

It isn’t me they want. The Heirs wanted Lesperance. He was their objective, not her. Years she had spent nursing her seclusion, far from everything and everyone who meant anything to her. The deprivations she had suffered just to carve out a corner of the world where she could be alone. Do nothing, let the Heirs take him. Reclaim your peace.

Impossible. She cursed at her integrity. No matter how much she wished, her honor rejected the idea of allowing the Heirs to capture Lesperance. Even if he possessed the ability to shift into wolf form, he could never face the Heirs by himself. They were far too powerful, too brutal. And his survival in the wilderness, alone, was next to impossible. He didn’t know the terrain. Without a guide, without protection, he would be vulnerable to the wild and, most of all, to the Heirs. She had to get him to safety.

She was down from the roof, inside her cabin, within seconds. She did not spare a glance toward Lesperance. “We have to leave immediately,” she said. She dashed around the single room, throwing gear together for a longer trek into the wild. Her mind and body switched far too easily into a mode of being once thought forgotten. Everything became clear and precise. Uncertainty led to hesitation, which led to death. So, no uncertainty.

A revolver’s hammer clicked behind her. She spun around.

Edwin stood near the open door, his gun pointed at her. To one side lay Lesperance, dazed, struggling to sit up amid the splintered remains of the chair. Astrid immediately deduced what had happened. The trapper was a big man, incredibly strong. It was a wonder Lesperance wasn’t completely unconscious.

“What are you doing?” Astrid asked, even though she knew perfectly well what Edwin was doing.

To his credit, the trapper looked contrite, though he didn’t lower his weapon. “I’m sorry, Astrid. They offered me too much money to say no.”

She didn’t have to ask who “they” were. The Heirs. Her mind raced. It wasn’t the first time she’d been on the dangerous end of a gun, especially that of one of the Heirs’ hired mercenaries. Her own revolver was still in her gun belt on the table, her rifle by the door. She could go for the knife in her boot.

Astrid was still calculating odds when a gray, snarling blur leapt onto Edwin. She barely saw the movement. One moment, the trapper had his gun aimed at her, and in the next, he rolled on the floor, screaming, as an animal attacked.

Not any animal. A wolf. Huge, much bigger than any wolf she had seen in these parts. And merciless as it tore into Edwin.

Astrid ducked as the trapper’s revolver fired, the shot going wild and slamming into the wall. When she looked up, it was all she could do not to turn away in horror. The wolf had Edwin by the throat. The trapper gave another scream, then the sound collapsed into a wet gurgle. Blood splashed across the wooden floor and stained the wolf’s maw, crimson on the silver fur. Edwin’s limbs twitched, and he went still.

Wolf and woman stared at each other.

The wolf snarled from his crouched position over the trapper’s body as Astrid took a careful step forward. Dear God, it was enormous. At least thirty inches at the shoulder. Silver and black fur bristled with aggression. A mouth full of white, tearing teeth. Eyes of glinting topaz.

It was those eyes into which she stared, searching for the man within. “I am your friend,” she said slowly, hands upraised. “I am no threat to you.”

The wolf relaxed slightly from its crouch, its snarl easing. It tilted its head a fraction, as if considering her.

“Please,” Astrid whispered, drawing nearer even as her mouth dried and her hands grew slick. What if he was too far gone to recognize her? She would die beside traitorous Edwin Mayne, her blood mingling with the trapper’s, as the Heirs neared. “You and I are in danger. We must leave at once. I am your friend,” she repeated, holding out one trembling hand. The wolf leaned closer, cautiously sniffing her palm.

She expected, at any moment, to have her hand torn from her body. Instead, the air shimmered. A vapor gathered around the wolf, silvery light gleaming through the mists, like clouds covering the moon. The vapor swirled, then dissolved, revealing Nathan Lesperance on hands and knees where the wolf had been. Blood smeared his mouth. He glanced down at the trapper’s corpse, then lurched upright and back until he connected with the wall.

Lesperance stared at her, utterly, profoundly shocked by what had just happened. He brought shaking fingertips to his mouth and started when they came away wet and red. He did not seem to care that he was completely nude. What was modesty compared to the incredible, awful truth?

Before he could speak, Astrid crossed the cabin to him. She stepped over the splayed, still form of Edwin, unconcerned that she tracked his blood over her formerly clean floor. From her back pocket, she produced a kerchief. Lesperance reared back when she reached for him, knocking his head into the wall behind him.

“Easy,” she murmured, bringing the square of fabric up to his mouth.

“Don’t want to hurt you,” he said hoarsely.

“You won’t.” She carefully wiped the blood from his lips until it was completely gone. The kerchief was ruined, though, and she tossed it to the ground.

“I’ve never…” He swallowed hard, then shut his eyes when he tasted blood. But he was strong, because he opened his eyes a second later. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”

Astrid turned away. “It doesn’t get easier.”

Considering that Astrid Bramfield had just watched him change into a wolf and rip a man’s throat out, she was damned calm. Nathan, buried in layers of shock, watched her bustle around the cabin with a levelheaded precision that would have shamed the most seasoned soldier.

“Help me strip the body,” she said, tugging on the dead trapper’s buckskin coat.

Nathan normally bridled at being told what to do, but in this instance, he couldn’t bring himself to be angry. At least someone was thinking clearly. He moved to follow her command, helping her to pull off the trapper’s coat, deerskin leggings, wool shirt, and boots. Blood stained the coat and shirt, blood that was still wet because Nathan had taken his teeth to the man’s throat and torn at the flesh until the man died. Holy hell.

“Lesperance.” Astrid Bramfield’s voice cut into the downward spiral of his thoughts. “Don’t travel that road. Put the clothes on.”

Numb, Nathan did so. The garments were ill-fitting, cut for a heavier, taller man, and they still held the warmth of the trapper’s body. Soon, the body would be cold.

As he dressed, he kept his eyes trained on Astrid Bramfield, knowing instinctually that if anything could keep him from losing his mind entirely, it would be her. He felt her strength, her presence. Normally, he relied on his own. But he’d lost his mooring and found steadiness in her. It shouldn’t be a surprise. He knew the moment he met her yesterday that this was a woman of uncommon will, a will that matched his own.

She pulled on her heavy coat and her broad-brimmed hat, then culled items from the cabin, things needed for a journey. She knelt in front of a box at the foot of the bed. From this, she loaded a cartridge belt with rifle shells. Women who lived in the wilderness had to be familiar with using firearms, but this woman possessed a long familiarity with weapons. That much was evident in her economic, efficient movements.

Nathan, tugging on the trapper’s oversized boots, saw her hesitate over an item in the box. Eventually, she seemed to make a decision, and put what looked like a field compass into her coat pocket. Odd that she’d hesitate over something so ordinary. She took a few more small objects from their hidden places around the cabin, also stuffing them into her pockets. She wavered over the pile of books—books he’d thrown to the ground when refusing to believe her claim that he was a shape changer—then decided against them.

“I made a mess of your place,” he muttered.

She dismissed this brusquely. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not coming back here.”

The implications hit him. Her cabin had been her refuge, though from what, he still didn’t know. And now she had to abandon it. Because of him.

“No time for apologies,” she said, seeing he was about to offer exactly that. “We must leave now.”

Easier for him to find shelter in movement and action than dwell upon what he had just done, what he had now become. She headed for the door, a revolver in her belt, rifle slung across her back, and he followed, but not before taking the trapper’s fallen revolver and tucking it into his belt. She gave an approving nod. He found a gleam of satisfaction in getting her approval.

Once outside, sensations battered him. The sound of the wind in the pines. Trails of scent telling thousands of stories. He tasted the deepening afternoon. Everything had become too sharp, too present. Somehow, he must find a way to navigate this new world, or else risk being drowned by his senses.

She watched him struggle, her own expression remote. This was a battle for her, he realized, as much as it was for him.

It shook him that he could read her so intimately, and that she, too, could see into him. No one, especially no woman, had ever done the same. He’d never let them and never wanted anyone prowling around the inside of his mind. But he and Astrid Bramfield shared a connection. Whether either of them wanted to.

“Take Edwin’s horse,” she directed. “And we’ll keep the mule, too.” She didn’t look behind her to see if he did as she bid him. Instead, she trotted toward the corral and readied her own horse. The trapper’s animals seemed indifferent to their change of owner. He smelled the horse’s and mule’s momentary confusion and then acceptance.

In moments, she saddled and mounted her horse, then joined a mounted Nathan in front of her cabin.

“Their scent’s growing stronger,” Nathan said. “The men who took me.” A coil of fury unwound within him, strong and fierce. He wanted to hurt those men as they had hurt him.

“You and I can’t fight them,” she said, somehow reading his thoughts. “I know those men, and we could not defeat them on our own.”

He wanted to press her on how she knew those bastards, but she had already set her heels to her horse. Nathan followed her lead, spurring his horse into motion.

They plunged their horses into the woods bordering the west end of the valley, and then up steep, forested hill slopes. Nathan was no stranger to riding, but he would never have found the route on which she led them, narrow passes between rocky ridges all but invisible to any but the most experienced mountain dweller. She never stopped to look back, not at him, and not at her now-abandoned home. He didn’t ask where they were headed. All that mattered was moving forward.

The mountain’s secrets she knew well. They slid up between the hills, barely a notch, and then they rode downward, putting the valley behind them. Dense stands of spruce trees kept them in lengthening shadow. Nathan watched her watching, her eyes constant in their movement, assessing, thorough. What manner of woman was she, to carry herself like a veteran?

She sat tall in the saddle, moving easily with the horse. He followed the golden rope of her braid hanging down her back and thought of what it might look like unbound. Those trousers showed her legs to be long and sleek.

Hot, swift hunger clawed through him. He saw himself leap toward her, drag her off her horse, and, wrapping her legs around him, thrust into her as she moaned her pleasure. A claiming. Pure visceral demand. He saw it clearly but fought the urge to act. He stayed on his own horse and beat his thoughts and needs down, stunned by their savagery and strength. It had to be the animal within him.

He didn’t know who the hell he was anymore. He was a stranger to himself, a stranger who was not another man but, incredibly, a wolf, capable of killing with nothing more than tooth and nail. Wanting a woman in the most basic and elemental way. Demanding to make her his. His study of the law meant nothing compared to the unleashed truth of his body and mind.

She turned in her saddle at his rueful laugh. “You find this amusing?”

“No. Yes.” He shook his head. “The world’s changed.”

“It often does.”

He nudged his horse so that he rode beside her, and considered the clean lines of her profile beneath the brim of her hat. “Tell me what you know.”

Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “I know as much as you.”

“Don’t lie to me. You saw me turn into a wolf, and it didn’t shock you at all, like you’d seen something like that before. You know the men who abducted me, who paid the trapper to capture me. For someone who claims to be ignorant,” he said, his voice hardening, “you sure know a hell of a lot.”

A slight tension in her jaw drew his gaze. So subtle, the shifts of her emotions, yet he could read them. She wanted to bury those emotions, but there was too much fire in her to be dampened. She debated with herself, what to say, what not to say. She was a keeper of many secrets. He wanted to know them, to know her. The glimpses of herself that he caught tantalized and made him need more.

“Tell me, damn it,” he growled.

Her nod of acquiescence was so small as to be almost invisible. “There is,” she said after a pause, “real magic in the world. The magic of legends and tales. You said you did not believe in it, but, after what happened at my cabin, it is safe to assume you believe now.”

“I’ve got proof,” he said, grim.

“Your mind is open now.” She gave him a quick glance of approbation. “That’s good. You will need to keep it open.” She guided them down a series of switchbacks through the trees, using a trail only she could see. “This magic can be found everywhere, all over the world. When humanity created civilization, it created magic, and placed it into objects both for protection and to coalesce the magic’s power.”

“What kind of objects?”

She gestured with a gloved hand. “Anything, everything. A coin, a knife, even something as mundane as a rock. Such objects are known as Sources.”

Just the word alone sent a cataract of wakefulness swirling through him. He felt it, the animal inside himself, respond, pacing and alert, as though responding to a long-awaited call.

“The Sources are prized beyond all reckoning,” she continued. “They must be kept hidden from those who would exploit them. And there are many who do just that.”

“The men who abducted me,” he deduced.

Again, she looked approvingly at him, though it was only a slight thaw in the gray ice of her eyes. “They are called the Heirs of Albion, an organization of British men who plunder Sources in order to make Britain master of the globe. If the Heirs had their desire, Britain’s empire would see no limits.”

“They didn’t come all the way from England just for me,” he objected. “I’m just one man.” He stumbled over that word, knowing he was something more than a man. He felt it now when she spoke, how her voice lured the beast within him. He pushed it down when it coiled to spring. “Not enough to make a difference where building an empire is concerned.”

“They probably did not come for you. I’ve heard legends of magic in these mountains. Monsters living in the lakes. A giant serpent.” She said these fantastical things as though they were as familiar as house pets. Maybe to her, and those Heirs, they were. “The Heirs must have come for one of those, and to scout for other Sources. That’s why they brought a falcon with them. Birds are extremely sensitive to magic, so when their falcon came near you, it sensed the magic within you and reacted. That was enough for them to decide they needed to capture you.”

She held his gaze. “It’s a fortunate thing you escaped their clutches. They would have made your life a hell, had they taken you back to England. Dissect you with magic, see how you work, perhaps to reproduce your changing ability in one of their own.”

The flatness of her tone, more than her words, chilled him. “Were you one of these Heirs?”

A tiny, mirthless smile notched in the corner of her mouth. “Heirs have no women in their ranks. They believe we are too weak and fragile for such dangerous work.”

“They’ve never met you, then.” He meant it as a compliment. The courage of this woman made most men look like green saplings. The animal inside of him rumbled its approval, knowing she could meet his strength with her own.

Her smile, small as it was, disappeared. “They’ve met me. Watch out.” They had reached the bottom of the hill, and now the horses had to pick their way through a quickly moving stream.

He was careful to lead his horse exactly where hers had walked. Soon they reached the opposite bank of the stream, coming up on shingled gravel flats.

“Sources,” she continued, “are not entirely undefended from organizations like the Heirs. They have their own shielding magic, and the wisdom of the ancients, but there are people who make it their life’s work to protect Sources.”

“People like you.”

She spoke stiffly, refusing to look in his direction. “Not anymore.”

“Why did you leave them, these…whoever they are?”

“They’re called the Blades of the Rose, but that doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. “What matters now is to keep running.”

“I can’t run from the Heirs forever. I won’t.” The idea of fleeing like a wounded deer infuriated him and his inner beast. He never turned from a fight, no matter what form it took.

“We cannot fight the Heirs,” she protested. “We don’t even know what’s happening inside of you.”

The animal was a betrayal and a blessing. All these years, never knowing what he truly was, what he could be capable of doing. It was terrifying and liberating. The impossible now possible. Men turning into animals and back again. Magic throughout the globe, and secret societies battling for it. What had become of the world?

He’d make a place for himself. That meant knowing more, battling toward a goal.

“I don’t run,” he said.

She flushed, because that was exactly what she was proposing.

“And if I can’t fight the Heirs alone,” he said, “I’ll find people like me—the other Earth Spirits—and we can face the Heirs together.”

“You’ll never find them,” she pointed out. “Local tribes say the Earth Spirits are secretive and elusive, living far from others, somewhere deep in the wilderness. Only a few bands in this area know of them or where they might be.”

“Then I find one of those bands,” Nathan said, decisive. “Even if they don’t stand with me against the Heirs, I’ll learn more about who, and what, I am. Why the change happened now, after all this time. Make them tell me what they know.”

“You cannot ‘make’ the Native bands do anything.” She pursed her mouth wryly. “Out here, one doesn’t storm onward, heedless of everything but one’s own objectives.”

He quirked a brow. “You think I have no finesse.”

“As much finesse as a wildfire.”

His sudden crack of laughter startled her, almost as much as it did himself. “Back in Victoria, they called me a ‘hard-headed son of a bitch.’”

He watched, fascinated, as she fought down a smile. He wanted to see the progress of her smile, how it might change her, lighten her. But her will was strong, and she wouldn’t allow such lightness.

Instead, she glanced up at the sky and the deepening shadows cast by the trees.

“Finding a band of Natives will have to wait until tomorrow,” she said. “Right now, my concern is putting enough distance between us and the Heirs so we can make camp.”

He noticed she included herself in his plans. Not unwanted—she intrigued the hell out of him and the animal within. But, even though he knew she was as capable, if not more so, than any man he’d ever met, the idea of needing her help, of needing anyone, riled him. He’d spent too long alone, fighting for himself.

“I’ve drawn you back into something you want to avoid,” he growled.

She didn’t try to deny this.

“Point me in the right direction,” he said. “I can do this on my own.” He didn’t want to part with her, not when too many of her mysteries tantalized him as a man, not when that primal inner beast wanted to claim her for its own. But this was bitter medicine, dragging her into the dangerous—and baffling—morass his own life had become.

She brushed away his proposal as a horse might twitch away a fly. “You cannot do this alone,” she said. “Whether either of us like it, you need an ally. God help us both, but that ally is me.”

Thoughts of Heirs, Blades, Earth Spirits, and his own complex, changeable nature spiked in and out of his mind in the preparation of camp. His fascination with Astrid Bramfield grew each moment he spent with her.

The journey from Victoria to the trading post had taken Nathan through some of the wildest and roughest terrain he’d ever encountered. He knew a fair amount about life out of doors—no matter how much the school administrators had tried to coax or beat the Native out of him, he’d been determined to learn something of his tribal self. And the voyageur who’d served as his guide between his home and the trading post seemed to have tree sap running in his veins, his knowledge was so deep, and had taught Nathan a few things about surviving in the wild.

Though the voyageur had many years on Astrid Bramfield, he didn’t possess her instinct or expertise. She chose the site of their camp with a keen eye, close to a river, but not so close that the site might flood should the waters rise. Ample feed for the now-hobbled horses and mule. His heightened sense of smell told him she’d steered clear of game trails. No unwanted guests during the night.

“The Heirs might come,” he said as they spread dried bracken on the ground for bedding.

She shook her head. “They will, but not today. Even their guides cannot find the hidden pass out of the valley. They’ll lose time doubling back and skirting it. Besides, we are far enough from the river so I can hear them coming.”

“I can help with that, too,” he pointed out, touching a fingertip to his ear. “Unexpected gift.” He could also hear the sounds of her body in motion, so that he was aware of every shift, every sigh.

Kneeling, she began to dig a fire pit. He noted that she made one hole in the ground, and then a smaller connecting hole beside it. He saw the rationale when, after she lit a fire, the smoke dispersed.

“Clever,” he murmured. He lowered down to sitting, cross-legged. “Our position won’t be given away by the smoke.”

“A war-camp fire,” she said. The flames were low in the pit, barely giving off any light. In the growing dusk, her cool remove kept her distant, even as she sat opposite him.

“Did you learn to do that out here,” he asked, “or when you were a Blade?”

She scowled. “I thought Indians were supposed to be stoic and silent.”

“I’m not your typical Indian,” he noted, a fair amount of pride tingeing his voice. He’d worked like a fiend to ensure no one mistook him for ordinary. And now he was far beyond ordinary, in ways even he couldn’t have envisioned.

She regarded him steadily, the fire pit between them. In her eyes was a tentative reaching out, a marked contrast to her tart words. Her voice softened, became pliant with curiosity. “I cannot figure it. You seem remarkably…adjusted to your new magic.”

“I won’t let myself go mad, even if a man doesn’t often learn he can change into a wolf.”

“Usually someone doesn’t have a say in the matter of madness. It takes them, whether they want it to or not.”

“Like grief,” he said.

Vulnerability flared in her gaze. He wanted to take that vulnerability into himself, shelter her.

“Like grief,” she answered, then looked away, breaking the connection.

The truth was, and he could hardly voice it to himself, let alone Astrid Bramfield, he felt…relieved. Late at night, he had lain in bed, at war with himself, struggling to contain something he couldn’t name, something animal inside of him that scrabbled to be let out. When he dreamt, his dreams were of moonlit forests, of nocturnal hunts and flight. Those who ran the school that raised him, they insisted Natives were wild, savage creatures that wanted taming. He had to prove them wrong. So he rebelled against not only them, but himself.

“Why—” she began, then stopped herself.

“Yes?”

She made a dismissive gesture, but he wouldn’t let her retreat so easily. “Ask your question.”

She tried again to wave it away.

“Short of being bludgeoned with a heavy log,” he said, “I refuse capitulation.”

“How aggravating,” she muttered.

“Effective,” he countered. “No one was going to hand a Native a law degree. I had to seize it for myself.”

She seemed to respect that. “Are there any other Indian attorneys in Victoria?”

“No, and probably not in all of British Columbia, either. And I wasn’t called to the bar by falling for such simple attempts at distraction. Ask your question,” he repeated.

Knowing that she couldn’t shake him, she finally asked, “Why did you turn into a wolf at the cabin? How did you know how to do it? You didn’t believe it was possible.”

He turned his gaze to the fire she had built with such skill. Only the tips of the flames showed at the rim of the pit. One would hardly know a goodly blaze burned beneath the surface. “The first time—I’m not sure. Can’t even remember. But the second time…” He frowned. “I saw that trapper’s gun pointed at you. He wanted to hurt you. And I couldn’t let that happen.”

His answer caught her off guard. “You were protecting me?”

“Yes.”

Her jaw tightened as it did, he began to learn, when she was angry. “I don’t need protection.”

Nathan’s own temper flared. “Tell that to the wolf. We both saw you threatened. And he came out. You look tough, but you’re also a woman.”

“Tough? Like an old, stringy hen?”

He almost laughed at her look of outrage. She might have been one of the most unusual women he’d ever met, but she had her feminine vanities, just the same. Made him wonder what other parts of her were as purely female.

His animal rumbled in his chest. Man and beast were both intrigued with Astrid Bramfield. He had felt it earlier and he felt it now. The man was drawn by her mind, her tenacity and will. The beast’s interest was much more primitive but just as powerful. He was both, animal and man. Each moment from now on would be a fight between the two parts of himself. Unless he found balance.

“So, to answer you,” he said, “instinct guided me.”

“And, when you were the wolf, was it you? Did you have the same thoughts, the same feelings?”

“I was there,” he said, after considering her question. “But I was also the wolf. His mind and mine…blended together. Hard to explain. I want you to feel it with me.”

The idea seemed far too intimate for her. Without another word, she got to her feet and went to the packs taken from the horses. Nathan almost believed she, too, had some animal within her, she moved with such lithe grace, like a sleek mountain cat. But this cat would sooner claw him than accept a caress. He grappled with the urge to stalk her now like prey. Or a mate.

She rummaged in the packs until she produced what Nathan recognized as dried meat and pemmican, and a canteen.

“Dinner,” she said, coming back beside the fire. “Courtesy of Edwin. We’ve enough provisions to last us awhile without hunting.” She handed him the food, careful to keep their hands from touching. It was the same with the canteen.

Nathan was ravenous. He hadn’t eaten anything since the night before at the trading post. Hell—had it been only a day since the world as he knew it had changed completely? Yesterday, he’d been an ordinary man. If not ordinary, then certainly less unusual. He had believed himself on a certain path. Retrieve Douglas Prescott’s belongings, take them back to Victoria, and then continue his pursuit of justice and equality for Natives.

Now he’d discovered something about himself, something that tested the strength of his will. A man who could transform into a wolf. Yet even this was a small piece within a larger wonder. He stood in the middle of an ongoing war. A war for the world’s magic. Heirs of Albion. Blades of the Rose. Even the names were fanciful. He’d wandered into an adventure story and found that it was not fiction, but truth, and he was part of this fantastical, yet real, world. It was a world that Astrid Bramfield knew well. He wondered what she had seen. Enough to have her accept his shape-changing ability immediately.

As Nathan watched her, the beast tried to push its way out, but he held it down. A dark smile curved his mouth. She might be able to accept him as a shape changer, but she didn’t have to wrestle with the damned thing every time he looked at her.

They ate without talking, but he heard everything: the pop of the fire, the horses and mule cropping grass, the nearby river flowing over rocks, and the profound loneliness surrounding Astrid Bramfield, revealing itself through her silence. He knew that loneliness. It marked him from the moment he awoke to when he lay down to sleep, and in his dreams, too. They both belonged to no one, and no one was theirs.

Night descended, enveloping them in darkness.

After trading sips of water from the canteen, she struggled yet again to keep herself from speaking. Maybe this was why she had become a Blade, her relentless curiosity that even she couldn’t contain. He thought about what she must have been like all those years ago, bursting with a need to know, a need that propelled her toward defending the world’s magic. It was the same demand for knowledge he’d felt as soon as he was aware of his own consciousness.

He wanted to see that part of her, unguarded, eager. He would find a way to bring it back.

So now he waited. Like a wolf stalking prey.

Finally, she asked, lowly, “Can you do it now? Change into the wolf?” In the darkness, he couldn’t tell whether she blushed, but he felt it, the subtle warming of her skin. His own flesh heated in response.

Nathan hadn’t tried to deliberately change, not yet. “I feel it. Just beneath the surface. It wants to come out.” Wants you, he added silently. He knew she’d flee at the first open mention of the pull between them.

“Then it shouldn’t be difficult,” she said.

He couldn’t resist. “I’d have to strip.”

He didn’t miss the way she swallowed hard. He wasn’t alone in this desire. Not much comfort, when the woman in question was more closed-off than a vault. Buried beneath ten feet of solid stone. Defended by man-eating dragons and poisonous, carnivorous vines.

“And if you did…undress,” she rasped, “could you then?”

Could he? Reach into himself and channel the beast inside of him? The thought both unnerved and thrilled him. Without telling her so, he let slip a little the bonds he’d lashed around the animal, but then, seeing her watching him carefully, he forced the beast back under control. It growled in frustration.

He toyed with an evasion. Or an outright lie. But the only way past her armor was to show her that he wasn’t without his own vulnerability. “Not now,” he said, “even though I’d be a ferocious animal, something about it, about changing, that’s exposed. Unguarded. Maybe that doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” she said slowly. She seemed to recognize what he had done, how he had opened himself to her as a show of faith. Her gaze fastened to his and he saw the shadows fall away, just a little. “It makes perfect sense.”

Man and beast were one at that moment. They both saw in Astrid Bramfield courage and need, strength and softness. And they both wanted her.

Her eyes widened slightly as she held his gaze. She read in his eyes his intent. Before she could push it away, a responding desire gleamed in her silver smoke eyes. Not just desire of the body, but of the mind and heart as well.

Then she stood and grabbed her bedroll. “Get some sleep,” she said gruffly as she unrolled the blanket. “All the days now will be long.” She didn’t take off her boots or coat, only her hat, which, after she laid down, she used to cover her face.

The drawbridge is up, Nathan thought. A siege it would be, then. But not one of outright force. No matter what the beast demanded. He was still a man and had his own needs. This woman would be his, but she would give him herself by her own desire.

He took the blanket that once belonged to the trapper, then lay on the grass bedding and looked up at the stars. There were legends and stories about the stars, tales he once thought were nothing more than fancies dreamed up to while away long nights. Now he knew differently.

And all around him, the mountains whispered. You are very close. Come, we await you.