Bargains and Betrayals (35 page)

He dropped my hand as soon as we were out of everyone else’s view. “You came back.”

“It appears so.”

“Why?”

“Because I realized something, even if you haven’t. You need me, Pietr. At least as much as I need you.”

He crushed himself against me, lips covering mine as he swallowed my breath and stole away my thoughts. His arms wrapped around me and lifted me, setting me on the counter’s edge. “I’ve known that for a while.”

“So you understand, Pietr Rusakova?
Yah tebyah lyewblyew
,” I assured him. “I love you. Very much. I would do anything for you.” I looked deep into his eyes. “Tonight, maybe we … celebrate?”

“Celebrate what?” he asked, intrigued.

“Being alive.”

He sucked down a breath, nodding. “It’s a good thing to be.”

“Come on,” I said, taking his hand. “You’re the one who says we should make the most of our time.”

He nodded, following me close as shadow to sit beside me at his mother’s feet.

Telling the stories she still had to share with her children, I saw the strain on her face as she fought to hold things together while the wolf tried to work its way free.

She was a fighter. Sometimes she paused in a story, focused on odd details, a scent, a particularly round and moonlike shape, but then she’d blink, recover, and move on.

There were moments she slipped, scratched at her ear with a curled hand that seemed more a paw, or licked her lips or flared her nostrils and panted at the most exciting parts of her tales. Still, she never let the wolf overtake her.

Not in front of us.

There was a moment she suddenly stood, apologized, and headed for the bathroom. “Sit,” she commanded her children.

Pietr and Max exchanged a look, and Cat and Alexi stood, anyway, all of us sensing a problem.

We heard the whimpering moments after she’d closed the bathroom door. There was scratching and yipping and the clatter of things falling onto the tile floor.

Pietr rose.

I did, too.

“
Nyet
,” he whispered, unable to meet my eyes. “She’s confused. She might hurt you. But she will know me.”

I followed him to the stairs, letting go of his hand then.

From where I stood I could just glimpse the bathroom door.

Pietr knocked, waited a moment, and twisted the knob.

Mother stumbled out and into his arms, wholly human, her shirt buttoned wrong, her hair mussed. She licked at his face as wolves did in the wild, acknowledging the leader.

“Cat,” Pietr called.

I bounded up the steps against her protest.

“He’s embarrassed,” she said in my ear, matching me stride for stride.

“He has no reason to be. Let me help.”

Cat shook her head but didn’t argue.

Mother gazed at me and I slowed my approach. Still in Pietr’s arms, she tilted her head, examining me quizzically.

“Wherrre am I?” she asked.

Pietr looked over my head at Cat, blinking rapidly.

Stepping forward cautiously, I placed a hand on his back, and one on her arm. I thought of my hours at Golden Oaks Adult Day Care, of what I’d overheard the nurses and staff say when patients were confused. “You’re home, Mrs. Rusakova,” I explained. “With your family.”

She squinted, looking at me closely. “What a pretty daughter I have.”

Releasing her arm, I tugged Cat into her range of vision. “Yes, you do.”

Cat sniffled.

“Ekaterina,” Mother whispered, her eyes focusing.

Cat caught her breath and nodded.

“My beautiful baby,” Mother said, stroking Cat’s cheek.

I carefully separated Mother from Pietr and transferred her to Cat and myself, encouraging her back into the bathroom. As Cat straightened her blouse, I realized we were suddenly in a stage of something like senile dementia.

The floor was puddled with water, cups scattered across the tile. “Here we go,” I said, heading back out of the bathroom. “Wait.” I grabbed a hairbrush and gently pulled it through her hair. “There now.” I put her hand in the crook of Pietr’s arm. “Go on, Pietr, Cat. I’ve got this.”

“No, Jessie,” Cat protested. “You don’t have to.…”

“No arguing,” I said, looking pointedly at their mother. “Head back downstairs.”

“Do you have her?” Pietr asked Cat as I searched the bathroom for a ratty towel.

They started down the stairs and he entered the bathroom behind me. “Please go.” But my voice cracked as I pulled out a frayed green towel from the bottom of the slender linen closet.

“Jess.”

I dropped the towel onto the puddle and sat on the edge of the clawed tub. “Pietr. Let me help you and help her.”

“You shouldn’t—”

“What? Be helping you? This confusion is normal,” I said, “with senile dementia.”

“Senile dementia shouldn’t hit when you’re thirty-eight.”

I nodded. “Take the cure, Pietr.”

He looked down at the towel soaking up the water. “Maybe I’m meant to be this thing. Maybe I’m meant to go this way,” he said, lips curling. “What if the cure isn’t what it might be?”

I looked away, remembering the way Cat had changed when pushed too far. And knowing she still hadn’t told.

“If it buys you more time … if it buys
us
more time…”

“What if I wind up drinking more and more of it—because it might happen that way—perhaps because there’s a tolerance level in this mix of your blood that keeps us alive?” He jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “How much blood will you give to sustain my family? How dare we expect you to bleed for us?”

“I would give you every last drop,” I said. Standing, I crossed the floor.

“And what happens when others come and they want the same thing? Do we ask Annabelle Lee to open a vein, too? Do we deny them a chance at life so you aren’t hunted and sucked dry?” He doubled over, growling in frustration.

“Why was I so stupid, so selfish? We should have gone and let you be. The morning after we botched the first rescue attempt. If I’d had any balls we would have packed up then. But all I could think of was how much it’d hurt not seeing you, not smelling you, touching you … I should have broken your heart.…”

“Stop,” I commanded. “Look at me.”

He refused.

“You’re a horrible liar. I would have never believed you didn’t love me, even if you’d just up and left. It wouldn’t have mattered what you said. I would have figured out you were trying to protect me.” I sighed. “I have to admit, the roundabout method you tried with Sarah nearly worked, but again—you’re a bad liar and I’m a good enough one to recognize that.”

I shrugged. “So here we all are. Thrown together. I love you. You love me. So we make the most of what we have. You don’t get to wuss out on me. I love you too much to let you go.”

I put my arms around him, holding him until he relaxed in my grip. His arms slipped around me and we clung to each other a moment before I pried him loose and said, “Now go see your mother. Let me finish up.”

I turned him around and stood him at the top of the stairs. “Go,” I urged. “Don’t miss these moments, no matter how hard they are. Each one—it’s a precious gift some of us have already lost.”

He kissed me and when I was finally certain he’d gone, I returned to the bathroom to finish cleaning.

Amy’s voice made me jump. “Is this how it ends for all of them? They’re these proud and strong wolves—
werewolves
—and then this … so soon?”

“Unless they take the cure, I think this is it,” I admitted. “Alexi’s afraid it may be sooner for them than for her—no one knows what to expect as the generations go on.” I was amazed at how coolly the words came out.

“So how do we get them to…”

“Take something that makes them less amazing than they’re used to being?” I snorted. “No idea. I just know I’m going keep trying with Pietr. Because even if he does become less amazing than he already is, he’ll still be damned amazing to me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jessie

Their mother rallied in the afternoon, coming back to her senses. She chatted and played with her children as if time were not running out. Maybe that was the key to making the most of it: put the important stuff first—family and friends. Then worry about the details that made up most days.

Pietr curled me into his lap and we listened to her tell the story of how she and their father had met.

“I had only just left Eastern Europe, running through the wild remnants of state forests and national parks, driven west for no better reason than my desire to watch the sun set off the western coast. Where precisely I was and when, I do not know—what did I care for any political limitations like boundary lines? I ran most of the year as a wolf, proud and free and sometimes hunted”—she shrugged like it was only a game—“until one early morning I ran across the tracks of another oborot.

“I was astonished, and a bit frightened because the only other of my kind I had known were my parents and one oborot who had nearly killed me when I was newly changed. I decided I would sniff this one out, find his lair, and determine if he was a threat. I tracked him an entire day and night until I found a place his scent was thick as mushrooms after a rain. A place at the edge of the most beautiful forest I had seen in leagues. It no longer quite lived up to its legend as the Schwarzwald—the Black Forest—but it was shadowy and pine filled and beautiful. At its edge the oborot’s scent was heavy as if he passed by frequently. And there it was. A human’s house. A small but pretty cottage with flowers in the window boxes. Well maintained and wild all at once. So I slunk around the small fenced yard, rubbing my body along the wood so he would have no choice but to catch my scent. And then I went to the forest to wait.

“That night I heard his call—a beautiful noise so much more soulful than human song. I could not help myself. I threw my head back and answered, wanting to know immediately if he was friend or foe.

“But instead of coming to meet me, his call died away and I heard nothing until the next night. Again he howled, I replied, and he fell silent. It was as if he was wondering about me, curious but afraid.” She glanced at her children’s expressions. “I know you do not remember your father as a plotter and a planner, but he was. That was how he had lived so long among humans without notice.”

She shrugged. “He acted and lived as they did and only entered the woods out of necessity. But I ruined his tidy little life,” she said proudly. “The next night he did not howl. I thought it strange, so I put up the first cry. I waited and tried again. Then I heard them. Hunters. Bumbling through the forest, they came with lanterns and flashlights and dogs. I raced away, evading them, but in the darkness I heard a whimper.

“I could not help it. I turned back toward the little town where his cottage was, listening. I heard it again. I sprinted and there he was, his foot in a trap and already trying to heal by growing into the gruesome metal teeth. As a wolf, there was nothing I could do for him, but as a woman … It was strange, trying to change after so long.

“I had to remember what I had been, had to remember my human face and human eyes—things I’d long ago glimpsed in streams and in the single mirror in my parents’ home. It took longer than I’d hoped and my hands were so clumsy.…

Cat caught her breath—she had complained before about clumsy human hands.

“But I pried the jaws apart with a stick, and yelping, he tore free. I changed and together we ran from the hunters and their dogs, muddling our scent through the pines and streams, until it was nearly dawn and it seemed safe to return to his house. I slept the day away in his bed, while he did the normal, human things that eluded me.” She shrugged and stretched, yawning widely before she returned to a proper-appearing position, seated at the edge of the couch. “What shall we have for dinner?” she asked.

I looked at Pietr. Nudged him in the ribs.

“Mother, you will take the cure tonight?” Pietr tried.

She looked at us each in turn. “
Da
,” she said. “I think perhaps I will. May I have dinner to wash it all down with?”

“Of course,” Cat said. “Anything you want, Mother.”

Jessie

We were all gathered at the table, Mother at its head. Dmitri glowered at Pietr from the table’s far end—I’d heard them arguing about there being little time to accomplish certain jobs. Dmitri wanted Pietr away from his mother as much as he wanted him away from me.

No connections. No family.

“A toast,” Pietr’s mother suggested, noting the wineglass before her, filled with the cure. We raised our glasses in response. “To brave young men and women who give a bit of themselves so others may profit.”

She looked at me.

Glasses clinked and she drank. She wobbled a moment, the remaining cure sloshing in the glass Pietr caught and set down carefully, before taking her hand.

“This may get messy,” Max warned Amy.

“Mother?” Pietr asked.

“
Da
,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Have I told you the tale of how I first met your father?”

We stiffened.

“I had only just left Eastern Europe—running through the wild remnants of state forests and national parks, driven west for no better reason than my desire to watch the sun set off the western coast.” She trembled.

“Pietr,” Cat warned.

“Mother,” he whispered, moving to stand beside her, wrapping her in his arms.

She shivered. “Where, precisely, I was, and when,” she continued, her voice falling away to a whisper, her eyes unfocused, “I do not know—what did I care for political limitations.…” She smiled. “He was such an amazing man … just like my boys.…”

With a shudder, she collapsed out of the chair, falling limp into Pietr’s arms. Her chest stopped rising and falling, the glow fading from her still-open eyes.

Pietr stared at me, mute. “Mother…?” His knees gave way beneath him and he tumbled to the floor, dragging her body onto his lap.

Dmitri rose, solemn and cool. “Her time is over. Now yours begins,” he said to Pietr.

Shaking, Pietr cried, “Do you not see this?” He lifted her body, her head lolling to the side, hair falling across her face. “She was as much our future as our past!”