Destiny and Deception (24 page)

The nurse knocked twice on the door, announcing, “Mrs. Feldman, you have a visitor.”

There was a rustle and the occupant of the room, a woman dressed in a colorful long skirt and seated on the room’s bed, shuffled a deck of cards, drawing a single one before nodding, returning it to the deck, and setting the whole stack aside. “Death,” she muttered.

“This is Mr. Alexi Rusakova,” the nurse explained.

Mrs. Feldman cocked her head, examining me carefully; the intensity of her gaze made me feel small.

And angry.

I was being judged.

She nodded solemnly. “Thank you, Karen,” she said, dismissing the young woman. Feldman peered at me. “Mr. Rusakova,” she finally said with a sigh, “please have a seat.”

I pulled a chair away from the wall and sat, my back straight and chin up. This was business, not pleasure. I would not relax my guard and let her under my skin. I cleared my throat.

And she waved a hand to silence me before I had even begun. “You realized the cure is temporary. A stopgap method to maintain some semblance of a normal life.”

She appeared amused.

I hated her even more. I had not realized until then that it was possible to hate someone more than
completely
.

I closed my mouth, trying to hide my surprise at her very accurate assessment. But it was too late.

The skin at the corners of her eyes crinkled in a smile. “You have grown to be quite handsome,” she remarked offhandedly, her gaze skimming my face.

I twitched. No one thought of me as handsome. Especially not when set beside Max or Pietr, who seemed to glow. I swallowed. I would not let her get past my guard. I merely nodded at the compliment.

“
Da
, the cure is temporary. Which gives me a bargaining chip with an important corporation.”

“A bargaining chip?”

“
Da
, but my time to use it is…”

“Short? Or perhaps running out. It is always that way with the oboroten … Alexi.” She tried out my name as if the word were a completely foreign construction.

“I did not name you Alexi,” she murmured, caught in her own thoughts as her eyes lost focus for a moment.

“You would not have named me anything as fast as you traded me away,” I returned, leaning forward so that my elbows rested on my thighs.

“Ah.” She sat back and set her gnarled hands in her lap, chunky jeweled rings twinkling on her fingers. “It was not like that. Not at all.”

“I do not care
what
it was like,” I proclaimed, wishing my words were true. But my heart beat a little faster as my mind raced, wondering just what she meant.

She nodded. “Of course not. Forgiveness is hard to come by in situations like these.”

“I doubt there are many situations like these to compare things to,” I retorted, pushing back in the chair to show her clearly that I was unfazed by her words—by her utter abandonment. “There are few enough oboroten and fewer with family members secretly transplanted from otherwise normal situations to become their keepers.” I folded my hands behind my head and rested my ankle on my other leg. “Of course you may correct me if I am wrong,” I teased.

“You are not wrong. Yours was a one-of-a-kind situation. But you exceeded expectations, Alexi. Marvelously so.”

“What expectations did you have of a baby being thrown into a wolf’s den?”

“You were no baby.”

“What?” I pulled up short, my expression open and utterly readable.

“Do you not remember?” She sighed. “Perhaps not. You were only a few years old, after all.”

“I was a
few years old
when you gave me up?”

She nodded slowly.

“You hated me that much, did you?”

“No—no, Alexi. I
loved
you.”

This time I waved her to silence. “What is it they say: ‘Actions speak louder than words’? I am not here to rehash the past. I am a grown man. I am beyond all this. All I need from you is your scientific knowledge. To help my
family
. I have a family, you know. I had a wonderful father, a loving mother, and I still have three amazing siblings. I am here because of all of them. The man you see before you? He is the result of their involvement—not yours.”

She swallowed and nodded slowly. “And they are precisely what I could have never provided you with except the way I did,” she whispered. “I am glad they have inspired such love and loyalty from you.”

“Your scientific knowledge and connections, Feldman.”

She winced at hearing me use her last name. Or perhaps she winced because of the way I said it. Venomously.

“Tell me who to see and what to say when I see them.”

“What has happened that finally brought you here? Mother is dead—that much I know because Jessie recently came by with Pietr as part of their Service Learning project. But why now? What happened to force you to come to me?”

“The same company that sprouted from the research of your father’s assistant is tampering with the local school’s food in order to create a gifted group of students. They are taking casualties. Most recently a dear friend of Jessie’s has been made ill. I want them to withdraw the food. I need them to. For Jessie and the others.”

“Ah. There is only one thing that man would want from you, you know.”

“
Da
. The perfected cure.”

“And you understand why?”

“
Da
. I do.”

“And you would doom future people to save these current ones?”

I glared at her.

“I see,” she said. “Lean in. This is what you must say and do and who you must say it to.”

Marlaena

The Rusakovas’ avoidance had forced me to make a deal I already regretted with Dmitri. But my wolves were well fed and better dressed and staying at the local Motel 8, where we at least had running water. And hot showers. Often.

But the deal meant I needed to keep a close eye on the Rusakovas. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much if it didn’t also mean Gabe felt the need to keep an even closer eye on me. Luckily, Gareth also shadowed me—but it was frustrating at times, having females gawk at them.

Even when we were doing something so mundane as watching a basketball game at Junction High.

Perhaps what I felt about the girls stalking Gareth and Gabriel was the same thing they thought about the way simple human males watched me.

“What?” I snapped at Gabriel.

He shrugged and scooted over on the bleachers, tilting his head as he watched me watching
them
.

Pietr and Jessica were a few rows below us. She was leaning her head on his shoulder. He was still banged up from the accident—more damage than an oborot would take, but far less than a human at the site of impact. The cure held. So my choices had tightened down again.

Bring him to our side—to Dmitri now—or kill him.

Pietr was trying to watch the game, and—I tried to get a look at the paper and pencil he held—extrapolate some data about the players?

Gabe was still examining me with his eyes, raking his gaze across my face.

“What?!”

“You seem so intrigued by the two of them. And so absolutely curious about
him
.”

I pulled back and looked at him sharply. “I just don’t get how something like that works,” I said, surprised by the disgust lacing my voice. “He seems to have so much potential.…”

“Seriously?” His eyebrow rose. “
Him?
We do mean Pietr Rusakova,
geek
, right?”

“That’s how he appears to you?” I cocked my head.

“Chyyyeah … Have you seen who he hangs with? They make The Geek Squad look like professional athletes.”

I shrugged. “So he’s geek-by-association.”

“Geek, nerd, dweeb … whatever you want to call their breed.”

I laughed. “There’s a difference, you know. Nerds are big on knowing stuff—like, all sorts of stuff—they’re the kings of book knowledge; geeks have skills—they’re tech-savvy. They can do stuff and fix stuff. Nerds know it, but geeks can
do
it.”

His stare had intensified. He was clearly bewildered by my sudden proclamation.

“And dweebs?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I have no idea.” I cocked my head to mimic his pose, and he smiled. “But it doesn’t matter how you label Pietr Rusakova … no label’s gonna stick.”

“So he
has
caught your attention.” Gareth bent toward us.

“Only as much as anything shiny and new,” I justified.

But Gabe and Gareth knew I was lying. There was something oddly intriguing about Pietr Rusakova. If I could only figure out what …

A “cured” werewolf was one thing—one really strange, disturbing thing—but Cat didn’t catch my attention the way Pietr did, so it wasn’t the cure.

And regardless of what Max claimed, he didn’t carry the same trace scent the other two did. He was the biggest liar out of them all.

Besides, Max seemed to be someone girls needed a cure
against
, not someone in need of a cure himself.

“He doesn’t pay you any attention,” Gabriel pointed out in that magical why-waste-my-time-on-subtlety way of his.

“He doesn’t pay his own girlfriend attention,” I corrected. “And I’m not her.”

He rubbed his chin, the sound of his fingers across his short but curling beard reminding me of sandpaper whisking across rough wood. Gabriel was thinking.
Hard
. I shifted beside him. He dropped his hands away, reaching for my waist.

I slapped his fingers away.

He shrugged and tucked his hands into his jacket’s pockets. “Let’s go.”

Gareth shrugged. “It’s a dull game,” he agreed.

I nodded, and together we ambled away from the school and back to the car Gabe had so recently obtained. “When will you ditch this one?” I asked Gabe as he held open my door for me.

“I figure it has a couple more days left before I need to trade it in. It’s not a bad one, really. Not what I really have my eye on, though…”

I followed his gaze to the candy apple–red convertible sitting in the parking lot. The Rusakovas’ car.

“We’ve been through this. That’s way too hot a car to take, and you know it,” I reminded him.

He slammed my door shut and slid into the backseat, allowing Gareth to drive. “Look who’s suddenly become the voice of reason.”

“Isn’t it ironic?” I countered.

“Yeah. Ironic you keep your hair that screaming red—highly noticeable—instead of your natural color. Brunette, right? Gareth’s told you about it, I’ve hinted about it, but still—you have to be you, don’t you?”

“Gabe…,” Gareth warned.

“You have no idea who I really am,” I snapped. “Why I do what I do.”

“That’s because you don’t let anyone close enough
to
know you.”

“So is that what you want, Gabe? Some deep spiritual connection with me? Do you really wanna
know
me?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but I spun in my seat and cut him off.

“Because what I think you
really
wanna know is what’s the best path to gaining control of this little pack I’ve established. I get the feeling that for you I’m just the means to an end. And I’d bet there’s already some twisted plan forming behind that thick skull of yours.”

His mouth closed, jaw tightening. From between thinned lips he asked, “Is that what you think of me? Of my loyalty to you? Damn it. If I’m twisted, it’s because of
you
.”

Gareth silently pulled the car out of its parking space and started down the road.

“You know as well as any member of the pack that loyalty has nothing to do with this. It’s normal—even preferable—for a pack to have an alpha of each gender: alpha male and alpha female. You’re doing what seems natural—trying to maneuver into the position of top dog.”

He stayed quiet, but I knew he weighed my every word.

“It’s natural for you to want that, Gabriel,” I said. “But it’s also natural for me to pursue what
I
want.”

“You mean
who
you want.”

My lips puckered. “That, too.”

“So how much wolf are we, ’laena?”

“What?” I looked from Gareth to him, puzzled by his question.

“How much wolf are we? You always act like we’re more wolf than man … or woman. What is it you believe?”

“I—” I sensed a trap. No matter how I answered, I’d somehow be wrong. Somehow I’d get tangled into one of Gabriel’s weird webs of logic. “We’re more animal than man. Or woman. More wolf.”

“Of course,” he replied, his jaw working. “You do realize that if we’re more wolf, the natural order of things really comes down to what the dominant
male
wants. Yes, you can lord over the females, but in a pack, the alpha male rules all.”

“Maybe I’d agree if I was truly dealing with an alpha male.”

“You
are
dealing with an alpha,” he said, slamming a palm against the back of my seat. “He’s just not the one you want. Neither is Gareth.” He groaned, slouching down in his seat. “And the one you want … well, he doesn’t want
you
.”

I snarled at him, feeling my teeth lengthen to threatening points.

“Don’t kill the messenger,” he said, holding up one hand. “Pietr doesn’t want you, and Gareth doesn’t
get
you.”

Gareth shook his head, the beads the pups had so recently put on the end of each of his dreadlocks rattling.

“Not like I do,” Gabe concluded.

I wanted to scream. “It’s not going to happen. You and me—taking on the world together?
Not
going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t feel that way about you.”

“Taking on the world together doesn’t require a romantic connection,” he stated.

I looked at him sharply.

“Why not view it as a simple partnership?”

I couldn’t believe he was being so bold—with Gareth
listening
. And I couldn’t believe Gareth was just listening. Maybe I’d been wrong, maybe all I had were beta males.… “Because more would inevitably be expected.”

“Not by me.”

“By the pack.”

“So you’ll go it alone, shoulder the full responsibility for the pack even though you know I’ve limited my expectations and that Gareth—
sorry
,
buddy
—will never fulfill yours?”