Black Howl (9 page)

My anger broke. I was tired and pushed to the limit and in no mood to deal with Nathaniel.

“I have told you that I will not marry you, and you know the reason why. Don’t make me go into details in front of everyone here, because it will hardly present you in a good light.

“I am not a toy to be manipulated by Azazel. It is not his word that matters in this case, but mine.”

As I spoke I became aware that the clearing had filled with light, and that it was coming from me. But I was too angry to care.

“Now, you may not be my fiancé, but you are a member of my father’s court. As such, it would be politic for you to go the hell home when I say so,” I said.

I could feel a headache building behind my eyes, the pressure of the unreleased magical energy that was burning through me in concert with my temper.

Nathaniel pressed his lips together. “Yes, my lady.”

He turned stiffly away, opened a portal and stepped into it without another word. We all watched silently as it closed behind him.

A very small part of me knew that I had behaved badly, that Nathaniel had helped us rescue the cubs, and that he deserved better than to be berated by me in front of everyone. The larger part of me was just mad, and tired of being crossed at every turn by some fractious male who thought he knew better than me.

I turned on Gabriel and Samiel. Samiel’s eyes were the size of saucers. He’d never seen me in 100 percent full-on Morningstar mode before. Even when I’d opened the portal
with Lucifer’s power it had been tempered by my own powers and inclinations.

My eyes didn’t always blaze with light, as I’m certain they were doing just then. Ever since I’d been marked by Lucifer’s sword this happened occasionally. “Lucifer” does mean “shining one,” after all.

“As for you two,” I said, pointing at the half brothers. “I want you to go home as well.”

“I will not allow you to go into harm alone,” Gabriel said.

“Yes, you will. Jude gave his word, and I trust him. He doesn’t want all of us there, and I don’t trust you not to follow me. So you and Samiel and Beezle are portaling it home before Jude and I take another step.”

“Why do I have to miss all the fun?” Beezle complained.

“Because I need you to make sure these two go home and stay home,” I said.

“If my lady orders it, then it shall be done,” Gabriel said angrily. There were meteors shooting across his black eyes, a sure sign that his own temper was rising.

“Don’t even think about giving me that passive-aggressive I-am-your-thrall shit,” I said. “I am not in the mood.”

“But I am your thrall,” Gabriel said tightly.

“Then follow my freaking orders and go home!” I shouted. “And stay there, so that we can have a proper argument about this later!”

Gabriel gave me a stony stare, then wordlessly opened a portal and went through it.

Beezle flew from my shoulder to Samiel’s. “Well, you just stepped in a giant pile of dragon dung. Have fun cleaning that up.”

I’m so glad that I’m not you,
Samiel signed.

“You two are so supportive. I don’t know what I’d do
without you,” I muttered. I handed the bag of cameras to Samiel. “Take these home and put them in a safe place. Don’t let
anyone
mess with them, not even Gabriel or Beezle.”

Samiel gave me a two-fingered salute and turned toward the portal.

“And, Beezle, all that waffle stuff had better be cleaned up when I get home!” I shouted.

I saw Beezle’s shoulders sag just before the portal closed.

“Told you I wouldn’t forget about the dirty dishes,” I muttered.

THE LIGHT EMANATING FROM MY BODY SLOWLY FADED as my temper cooled. I became aware of how dark it was outside, and just how long it had been since we’d left the house. I’d gotten up at five a.m. to be shouted at by the instructor at the Y and hadn’t had a second of downtime since. Plus, that measly bowl of oatmeal was the last thing I’d eaten.

I sighed and faced Jude. He waited, staring at me like I was a circus performer. The cubs hadn’t moved a centimeter since I’d told them to stop.

“That’s the entertainment for the day. Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion,” I said.

Jude said nothing, only turned and moved through the woods again. I told the cubs to follow him and then I fell in at the end of the column.

I don’t know how long we tramped through the forest.
I just know that I am not a particularly adept woodswoman even when I can actually see the tree roots. In the darkness my inability to avoid trippable objects was magnified about a thousandfold. I thought I heard Jude snickering a few times.

Jude stopped abruptly. I saw two shadowy figures emerge from behind trees ahead of us. I told the cubs to stop walking while Jude conferred for several minutes with his pack mates. After a while he came back to me, and the other wolves slid back into the trees.

“You can go no farther,” he said.

I quirked an eyebrow at him. I could barely make out his features in the starlight, but I knew he could see me as clear as day. Wolves have excellent night vision.

“And just how are you going to get the kids into your camp?” I asked. “This is the same problem that you had before.”

“My pack mates are collecting other wolves to help carry them in,” Jude said.

“And what will you do after that?” I persisted. “Are you going to pose them like statues? They won’t move; they won’t even eat unless I say so.”

“Do you think it comforts me to know that the children of my pack will respond only to you? Do you think I relish having to face their mothers and explain that we have returned their cubs to them broken? What are you going to do? Live with the pack? Spend your days caring for the cubs?”

“You wouldn’t even have the cubs back if it weren’t for me. You would never have been able to enter the portal. I am so sick of your attitude. It’s like you’re reminding yourself to dislike me.”

“I don’t have to remind myself to dislike anyone who shares blood with the Deceiver.”

“Lucifer’s not my favorite person, either, you know. Just what the hell did he do to you?”

The woods seemed to go still at my words. The wind stopped moving through the trees. Small animals ceased their scurrying. The cubs were motionless, and Jude stood as though encased in ice.

I thought perhaps that he would not answer me, that I had crossed that invisible line that every person has, the one that says, “This far, and no farther.”

But then he spoke, and his voice was like I had never heard it before. It was ragged, and soft, and there was none of the anger that always ran under the surface.

“Do you know how old I am?” he asked.

He looked like a really active man in his mid-forties, but something told me that probably wasn’t the right answer.

“A hundred?” I guessed. Wolves are generally pretty long-lived.

“Two thousand and twelve,” he said.

I sucked in my breath, shocked to my core. I’d never heard of a wolf so old.

“Do you remember why we count the years of the calendar as we do, why this year is 2011?”

“It’s 2011 A.D.,” I said automatically.

“And what does ‘A.D.’ mean?” Jude said patiently.

“Anno Domini,” I said. “‘In the year of our Lord.’”

I remember weird things. Beezle hates playing Trivial Pursuit with me. He never wins. “Are you trying to tell me that you knew…”

I trailed off, all the pieces suddenly coming together. A two-thousand-year-old redhead, and some stories that I remember reading as a child. A kiss, and thirty pieces of silver.

I stared. “You betrayed him.”

“I was tricked,” Judas said, and that undercurrent of anger was back. “The soldiers told me that he wouldn’t be harmed. I thought I was protecting him. There were mobs by then, people who didn’t believe, who wanted to kill him. I thought the Romans would protect him. That was what they told me they would do.

“When they came for him in the garden, they threw that money at my feet. I never asked for it. I never betrayed him. But he went to his grave believing I did. And under the helm of the soldier who had thrown the money at me was Lucifer’s laughing face. He’d designed it all, from beginning to end, for his own pleasure.”

He stopped for a moment, and I was afraid to speak, afraid to break the spell. I held my breath, waiting.

“After they killed him, I went into the wild. I wanted to die. I wanted animals to rip my limbs from me, as it seemed only right. But I was bitten by a wolf, and, rather than die as I wished, I was condemned to walk the Earth forever. I can never escape my memories, and I don’t deserve to.”

“Was he really who he said he was?” I asked tentatively.

“I don’t know,” Jude said heavily. “All I know is that he was good, and I loved him, and Lucifer tricked me into giving him up. I swore that I would protect my alpha with everything that I had, that I would never again trust another outsider. And today, I trusted a face with Lucifer hiding behind it again, and now Wade is gone.”

“I am not Lucifer,” I said fiercely. “We don’t know that Wade is dead. I promise you, I will find him.”

“Lucifer enjoys making promises he doesn’t intend to keep.”

“I am not Lucifer,” I repeated.

Jude turned away from me. I didn’t blame him for not believing me. If I had been immortalized as the most
famous traitor the world had ever known because of Lucifer’s actions, I wouldn’t believe me, either.

But this was a promise I would keep. I would find Wade, and show Jude that I was more than just another face of Lucifer.

The snake on my palm wriggled, as if to say,
Good luck with that.

I handed the care of the cubs off to Jude and his pack mates, secretly glad not to face the rest of the pack. I didn’t want to see the joy on their mothers’ faces when they were reunited with their children, only to watch it turn to heartbreak when they realized their kids were damaged beyond repair.

I went a little ways in the woods until I could find a clearing. I had no idea how to make a portal, but after what had happened today I knew that the snake would know what to do.

“Get me home,” I whispered.

The snake wriggled in response and a portal opened before me. While it was mostly unnerving to have an entity operating independently of my body, it did occasionally have its benefits. I didn’t relish the thought of flying back to Chicago from northern Wisconsin.

Of course,
I thought as I stepped into the portal,
this isn’t my favorite way to travel, either.

I landed in my own backyard with a crash, just a few inches away from my back porch. I was lucky I hadn’t broken a bone yet.

I stood up, brushed my clothes off and started for the stairs. And stopped when I saw Gabriel there, as still as stone.

My head had been so full of Jude’s tale that I’d forgotten about Gabriel, about what I’d said to him before he left.

“Gabriel,” I said, unsure of how to proceed. Crow-eating is not my favorite pastime.

“I see you have returned safely, my lady,” he said stiffly.

The “my lady” bit set me off again. “Don’t start. I am sick of you pulling this crap whenever you want to put distance between us.”

“And what ‘crap’ might that be, my lady?” he asked. Not a muscle twitched as he stood there, but I could hear the heat in his voice.

I stomped forward, ready to have it out about this once and for all. I walked toward him until he was forced to back into the side of the house, and then I left him no room to move without touching me. “This thing that you do where you act like a thrall when it’s convenient for you and ignore me when it’s not.”

“Would my lady prefer that I act more like a thrall should?”

I grabbed his shoulders and gave him a little shake. “I don’t want you to act like a thrall
at all
, and you know that.”

“I will act however my lady wishes me to act. That is my duty.”

“No, that is your choice. You want to hold me away, to make sure that we never face each other as equals.”

“We are not equals, Madeline,” he said, and his façade cracked. I saw the heat and the anger and the want that he bottled up inside. “I have told you this time and again. Even when I was Azazel’s we were not equals. We do not live in a world where it is possible for us.”

“It was also impossible that I come back from the dead,” I said. “It was impossible for me to defeat a nephilim, or to
defy Amarantha in her own court. It was impossible for me to survive the Maze. But I did all of those things.”

“It is not the same. You believe you can ignore the dictates of Lucifer’s kingdom, to defy the class structure that has been in place for thousands of years?”

“Yes,” I said. “Because I don’t care about Lucifer’s stupid class system.”

“It exists whether you care about it or not. Would you condemn my life for your own pleasure?”

I stepped back, stung. “You know that’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about, Madeline?” Gabriel said softly. “What is it that you want from me?”

I put my hand on his cheek, felt the roughness of his stubble. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

“I want the truth from you,” I said. “I want you to tell me what is in your heart, not what you think you want me to hear. I want to know what you keep hidden from the world because you have been raised to believe that it’s wrong for you. I want to know that you feel what I feel.”

For the second time that night it felt like the Earth had stopped spinning on its axis, that all things in the darkness went still and waited.

He covered my hand with his hand, turned my palm toward his mouth and kissed it. His fingers tightened around mine.

“You wish to know the truth.”

“Yes,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest.

“You wish to know what it is that I feel.”

I nodded, unable to speak further, every part of my body focused on the point of contact between us, the touch of his hand on mine.

“You wish to know that I have not had a restful night’s
sleep since the first moment that I laid eyes upon you. You wish to know that every time I see your face my only thought is to possess you utterly.”