Heart of the Wolf (3 page)

Tommy met her eyes intently, as if trying to read the hidden message in her request and not finding it. Then he glanced over her shoulder at Ren and back once again to Kathryn.

“You’re sure, Kathryn?” he said in voice low enough that if Ren had been human he’d have missed the exchange.

“I’m sure,” she said confidently. “A few minutes.”

Tommy nodded, clearly unhappy but willing to trust her judgment. He walked past Ren on his way out, turning at the last moment to give him a hard stare.

“I’ll wait right outside, Mrs. Avinger,” he said for Ren’s benefit and stepped into the hallway, leaving the door open behind him.

“You do that,” Ren muttered.

Kathryn closed the door with a firm click, pausing for a long moment, her back to Renjiro and everything he stood for.

“Kathryn,” he said softly.

She turned then, her eyes scanning him from head to toe, drinking in the sight of him. She’d loved him so much. Her heart squeezed in her chest, mocking any pretense that her feelings had changed. She loved him still.

Ren’s expression had shifted, all of the raging emotion of only moments before now carefully shuttered behind unreadable black eyes.

“A friend of your father’s?” he asked softly.

“Aren’t you?”

“He is the Alpha.” The capital
A
was clear in the way he said it.

Kathryn raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“He is
my
Alpha,” Ren ground out from between clenched teeth.

Kathryn laughed despite herself, her lips curling into a small, satisfied smile. Wolves like Ren never submitted easily.

One corner of his mouth lifted briefly, acknowledging her small victory, his black eyes sparking with sudden pleasure. He met her gaze and the laughter washed away, replaced by something far more intense, something that stole her breath and tightened things low in her body. He held out his hand.

“Kathryn.”

She stared at him, her gaze switching from the wolf now peering out from behind his eyes to his broad palm and back again. She raised her hand slowly, her fingers trembling until she steadied them with an act of sheer willpower.

His strong fingers closed over hers, mindful of his strength and so careful as he tightened his hold until he was pulling her gently into the curve of his arm, the swell of his chest. Kathryn swallowed a sob of relief as his arms came around her, as she felt safe for the first time in longer than she could remember.

Ren sighed, his breath running out in a long, slow exhale as if he’d been holding it for hours rather than minutes. “Kathryn,” he murmured.

She’d dreamed of this moment for months after her marriage to
Preston
, dreamed that Ren would find her somehow and save her. But he never had. And she’d learned a hard lesson, not to count on anyone but herself. She pushed lightly against his chest, not trusting herself to remain in control with him so close. “I can’t—”

“Let me hold you. Just for a minute. For me.”

She sighed, feeling her wolf deep inside preening itself with pleasure. Her wolf knew what she wanted whether Kathryn did or not.

She couldn’t have said how long she stood there, Ren’s heartbeat strong beneath her ear, his heat and strength surrounding her. She stirred at last, not because she wasn’t comfortable, but because she was.

“Why are you here, Ren?” she asked, trying to regain some distance. “Marla said you’re with the police?” She knew that couldn’t be true but wasn’t surprised he’d told Marla and Tommy it was.

“I’m here to help you. To find out who’s behind this and stop them for good.”

She frowned and stepped back even farther until she could look up at his face. “I thought you were living in
Europe
?”

“I was. I am. Dom called me.”

Kathryn stiffened and pushed completely out of his embrace, putting distance between them. He let her go, his arms trailing away, his hands lingering until she backed out of his reach.

“My father?” she demanded.

Ren shrugged, eyeing her curiously. “He called me back to the city a few days ago. I didn’t know why, but then I saw the funeral video on the news last night.”

 
She turned her back on him and walked around the desk, wanting to put something physical and solid between them.

“Why would my father—”

“I told you, I don’t know. But now that someone’s tried to kill you, Dom’s worried and he wants me to check into it.”

Kathryn’s heart, so recently warmed, froze instantly. Ren hadn’t come home for her. This was just more of her father’s interference, maneuvering to control her, using her in his games of power. She should have known better. She
did
know better. Ten years with
Preston
had taught her to guard every emotion, to give away nothing for free. If it had been anyone else, anyone but Ren, it never would have gotten even this far. Something her father had no doubt counted on.

She gave Ren a hard stare. “My father’s concerns are of no interest to me.”

“I got the impression—”

“Neither are your impressions. I see you’re still doing Dom’s bidding.”

“What the hell does that mean?” He straightened and came toward her, his cool exterior vanishing in a flash, burned away by the anger underneath.

Kathryn retreated two steps closer to the window at her back, forcing herself to remain still as soon as she realized what she’d done.

“Did I lie to Tommy, Ren?”

“What?” He stopped, frowning at her in confusion.

“When I told him you were no danger to me. Was I mistaken?”

Her words wounded him, as she’d known they would. “I’d never hurt you, Kathryn,” he protested softly. “You know that.”

Suddenly, it was all too much. Kathryn closed her eyes against the ache of seeing him again and turned away to stare out the window with its doomed snowflakes.

“What do you want, Ren?” she asked tiredly. “The police have already asked all their questions, and the answer is always the same. I don’t know anything.”

She heard him move, coming around the desk to stand only a few feet away from her. This close, she could feel the heat of his body and was almost overwhelmed by the scent of him as his wolf reacted to her. It was nothing personal, she told herself, the automatic reaction of an alpha male to an unattached female. Even if
Preston
had still been alive, Ren’s reaction would have been the same.
Preston
wasn’t Wolf. He didn’t count. He couldn’t have triggered her mating instincts even if she’d loved him. Which she never had.

“Kathryn…”

“Don’t do this,” she whispered without looking at him. “Please, Ren. You don’t have to do this.” Kathryn could feel him staring at her, could hear his steady, even breaths, the thudding of his heart. She wanted to beg him to let it go, but she’d promised herself once that she would never again beg a man for anything.

“I had no choice,” he said unexpectedly. And she knew he was no longer talking about this evening or even this year. “They gave me an hour to pack my things and go. I wanted to say good-bye. I tried. But they wouldn’t let me. I left a note—”

“I never got it,” she whispered.

He ran his fingers through his hair, gripping the thick strands tightly before letting go to press his hands against the window next to her, arms stiff and straight, holding his weight away from the doubled glass.

“I know that,” he said. “I think I knew it even then. But I was only supposed to be gone a couple of months, so I figured it wouldn’t matter. But then I heard you’d married right after I left, and I knew. You were Dom’s only daughter. He wasn’t going to waste you on someone like me.” His head rotated so he could see her. “But I never thought he’d give you to a human.”

“He didn’t
give
me to anyone,” she said in a harsh voice. “He sold me for a fourteen percent interest in Avinger Holdings. The negotiations were completed before you left. There was never any chance for us.”

“You could have refused. You had the right—”

“I had no rights!” She turned to face him, setting her own anger free, permitting herself a genuine emotion for the first time in years. “I was eighteen years old! Eighteen and the only daughter of Dominick Bartek. Do you know what that means, Ren? I’d never left Clanhome, never cooked a meal. I’d barely used a telephone, never even seen a television set. I was little more than a child! Sheltered from the human world, raised to absolute obedience to my elders and to my Alpha above all. But more than that, I loved my father. And I knew…I
knew
he loved me.” She laughed bitterly.

“Kathryn, I know—” He straightened away from the window, and she stopped him from coming closer, one hand raised palm out to ward him off.

“No,” she said. “No, Ren, you don’t. You don’t know anything. I’m not that little eighteen-year-old swept off her feet by the oh-so-powerful Renjiro Roesner. You say you left a note, and maybe you did. I don’t know. What I do know is that I was all alone. No one stood up for me. No one. My father sold me into marriage with a human I’d never met, and no one raised a finger. Not my mother, my brothers, not a single clan elder, not even you.”

“I didn’t know about it,” Ren protested angrily, his hands fisted at his sides, muscles straining at the fabric of his suit coat. “Hell, for all I know you were in on it, too. Maybe you and Dom had a good laugh at how stupid I was, how gullible. You married Avinger two weeks after I was gone, for Christ’s sake. There was a wedding! You really expect me to believe you knew
nothing
about it beforehand? I heard everything afterward, Kathryn, every little detail. People knew about us. They couldn’t wait to tell me. I felt like an idiot. Why the hell do you think I stayed in
Europe
all these years?”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should have stayed a little longer, then,” she snarled back at him. “Don’t you ever get tired of being Dom’s attack dog? Or is it his stud this time around? What’d he promise you, Ren? Me? Well, think again, pal, because I’m done playing the whore for my father.”

She drew a deep breath. The air tasted sweeter than it had in years, and she was suddenly calm.

“In any event,” she continued smoothly, “you don’t need to worry about me anymore and neither does Dom. As soon as the estate clears, I’m leaving and I won’t be back.”

Ren stared at her, his mouth a grim line, the muscles in his jaw clenching visibly as he struggled to contain his anger. His voice when he spoke was cold and flat.

“Dom didn’t promise me anything, Kathryn. I came because I cared about you, because I wanted you safe.” He blinked and looked away, his gaze staring out at the falling snow, before returning to regard her with an almost weary expression.

“And I still do. I’ll find your shooter, and I’ll eliminate him. And then I’m going home. You can hardly wait to get out of this place? Well, neither can I.”

He spun on his heel, striding across the darkened room with the uncanny grace of a born predator. Kathryn’s breath caught in her throat as she watched him go, as she thought about losing him again, forever this time. She sucked in a breath to call out to him, to ask him to stay, to talk. But then the door was opening and Ren was saying something to Tommy, his deep voice too soft for her to hear. Tommy nodded and then Ren was gone, his footsteps silent despite the cold marble floor.

“You okay, Kathryn?” Tommy asked.

She dug out a smile for him and hoped he couldn’t see her tears. “I’m fine, Tommy. I’m always fine.”

Chapter Four

Ren stood on the cemetery hillside and stared up at the Avinger mausoleum, now covered with a frosting of snow. Old
Preston
’s grave had been filled in, the raw earth covered over with neat squares of green sod. His name was already etched into the roll of Avinger dead on the monument, the fresh snow blending into granite dust still visible in the corners of the archaic lettering.

Eighty-two years old. What the hell had Dom been thinking? And what did it matter now? Avinger was dead. History. Just like Ren, as far as Kathryn was concerned.

He sighed and turned, gazing out over the harbor, taking in that great view. He’d known it would be rough seeing her again. What he hadn’t known, hadn’t figured on somehow, was that Kathryn had grown up in the intervening years. She was no longer the sweet girl he’d exchanged secret kisses and whispered promises with. She was a fully mature female who aroused every protective and dominant instinct of his wolf, not to mention a whole lot of other less noble feelings. Unfortunately, she also rejected everything about him.

It was a cold awakening.

He crushed the anger, the rage that threatened to overwhelm him at the thought of losing her again and forced himself to concentrate on the business at hand. He surveyed the grassy hillside.

“Mrs. Avinger’s limo was about there?” Ren pointed beyond the yellow crime-scene tape, already knowing within a fraction of an inch exactly where she’d been standing every second of those few moments.

Detective Tony Maietta nodded and walked over, turning to sight along the route Kathryn and the bodyguard had taken back to the limo. “Bodyguard was with her, kinda holding her elbow, like she needed help staying upright, you know? Husband’s funeral and all, I guess. They’d been married a few years.”