The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (11 page)

Her
concentration was never at its normal level the day after a full moon, but the
act made her feel that she had a mind, a part of her that wasn’t uncontrollable
instinct. She flipped from the translation page to the original document and
found that, even with her faulty faculties, she was beginning to recognize some
of the runes. Before long, she would have the alphabet memorized, and the
translations would take her no time at all.

Lucy
cut her eyes from the page she was working on to the stacks of coded pages. She
sighed. Well, almost no time, she thought.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Steam
billowed in the air around Alec and Jared. Jared stood in the hot spray from
the shower, eyes closed, as Alec lathered his back, adding a shoulder massage
for good measure. He felt Alec nuzzle his neck, and Jared opened his eyes and
tilted his head for a kiss.

As
Jared turned to face him, Alec dabbed his nose with lather. “Cute,” Jared said.
He reached around and smacked Alec’s butt playfully. The wet smack was
gratifyingly loud.

“We
have a lot of history in this shower,” Alec said between kisses. Water rolled
down his bare skin and caught where his body pressed against Jared’s.

“Uh-huh.”

Alec
closed his eyes as Jared’s hands explored across his back and rested on his
hips, pulling him closer. “Good history.”

“Yep.”
Lather slid down their bodies, collecting at their feet and washing down the
drain as they pressed their bodies together. Jared brushed a clump of wet hair
away from Alec’s forehead. Alec’s gaze met his, and Alec placed his hands on
either side of Jared’s face. He held Jared back for just a moment, then leaned
in for a long, deep kiss. He clutched tighter to Jared, working their hips together
as the water beat on their skin. “No harm in using up all the hot water.”

Jared worked
his mouth across Alec’s wet skin, across his neck, down his chest to his
nipple. Alec tossed his head back with a sound that was half moan, half giggle.
Jared’s trail of kisses descended, each sending new shockwaves of pleasure
through Alec’s body. Alec winced as his shoulders rested against the cold
tiles, but he didn’t dare disturb Jared. He worked his fingers into Jared’s
hair, his eyes closed, as he floated away.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

As Alec
and Jared walked into the room, Lucy looked up with a mildly bemused smirk, an
expression suggesting the older sister who would always, to some extent, enjoy
tormenting her younger brother.

“Making
any progress with those?” Jared asked as he nodded to the translations.

Lucy
extended a paper to him. Jared took it, and Alec looked over his shoulder. “Is
this a full page, translated?”

Lucy
nodded.

“That
was quick, Luce,” Alec said.

“Jared
did the hard part of decoding it.”

“No need
for modesty on my account.” Jared sat in a chair, and Alec took the chair next
to him so they could read the page together:

The Gen5 Pack

Project leader: Dr. Albert Morlock

Project update: Dec-13-1995

Report to: The Society

Hypothesis: Through proper gene manipulation of the Lycan
retrovirus, we can develop a stabilized variation, which mutates under
controlled measures.

While The Gen3 Pack trials had mixed results, The Gen4 Pack
trials yielded great success with four fetuses carried to full term. The
genetic alteration variant used in the successful Gen4 trials has been used in
The Gen5 Pack. A sixth fetus has now been carried to full term, completing the
test subject selection. All six pack members were born within seven years of
the first insemination.

Human parapsychological traits that Lycans have deemed
“advantageous” have been identified as a genetic marker in each of the six test
subjects.

Test subjects:

Jennifer Blackwell; Bull Mountain, Oregon; boy, 1988

Helena Demeter; Las Vegas; girl, 1989

Marla Kincaid; Easton, Connecticut; boy, 1987

Georgette Michaelson; Chagrin Falls, Ohio; boy, 1987

Ilene Rune; Detroit; boy 1992

Mary Snug; Lime Springs, Iowa; boy, 1994

Lucy
waited for Jared and Alec to look up, signaling they had finished reading. “It’s
hard to see our mothers listed as test subjects,” she said.

“And
ourselves,” Alec added. “Though were not named.”

“So, these
are the mothers of the pack.” Jared said with a solemn finality. He stood and
pounded his fist into his hand. “We need to find them, so we can find the pack
members.”

“And
when we do?”

“Convince
them to join us.”

“And if
they don’t want—”

“Or
don’t believe you,” Lucy broke in.

Jared
shook his head. “They have to.”

“I
didn’t believe you. Not at first.”

Jared
crumpled back into his chair. He ran his hand over his short dark hair. “I’m
open to suggestions.”

“They
could already be moving in on them,” Lucy said. “They came after both of you.”

“We
don’t know what they’re doing,” Alec said.

“We
know more than I knew a year ago,” Jared said.

“Why
can’t you home in on them, like you did with me?”

“Because
Darius led me to you. I don’t have him to follow.”

“But if
you had something of theirs—” Lucy began.

“Yes?”

“You could
track them?”

“Right.”

“So we
start with what we have. Their hometowns. We search them out Internet-stalker
style and get you a scent to follow.”

“People
move all the time.”

“People
stay put all the time too.”

Alec
tired of their arguing and launched to his feet. He flipped the laptop on the
table around and typed in Mary Snug, Lime Springs. “She’s still there,” he
said.

“Who?”
Lucy asked.

“Mary
Snug. She’s still in Lime Springs.”

“I
guess we’re going to Iowa,” Lucy said and stood, as if she were ready to pack.
She looked at Alec and Jared. “Am I going alone?”

“Now?”
Jared asked.

“We can
have lunch first.”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

A murky
winter sun cast long shadows across the frozen land as Jenna Nichols stumbled
out of the woods. In the bluish twilight of the setting sun, she emerged
between trees. A narrow country road cut across the frozen landscape before
her. Like a newborn fawn, tentative, and seeming to have little comprehension
of cars, she stumbled, naked, onto the road.

A car
filled with teenagers swerved to miss her as the car headlights flashed on her
naked, alabaster skin. They swerved to miss her, and their car skidded toward a
roadside ditch. Snow burst into the air as the car collided with a snow bank.
Jenna stared at the car for a long while before approaching. As the driver,
shaken up but not hurt, called the police, a young girl in the backseat opened
the door and called to Jenna. “Are you hurt?”

“Help
me,” Jenna sobbed. The girl then noticed the dried blood that caked one side of
Jenna’s body. The girl scanned the woods, fearing whoever hurt Jenna now had
them in their grasp. She realized with certainty that so many horror movies
began this way. The realization sank deeper as she heard the car’s tires
whirring in the snow, unable to find traction. She forced down her panic, and
offered her coat to Jenna and helped her into the car.

An hour
later, Darrin Nichols received a phone call that his wife and been found, and
he rushed to the hospital where she was being treated. Joy and apprehension
wrestled within him as he approached the room where she was being treated. He
pushed the door open. “Jenna?” He whispered.

“Darrin,”
she cried, raising her arms toward him. He darted to her and clutched her,
sobbing in relief.

Jenna’s
memory of what happened was hazy; she remembered jogging, remembered finding
the woman, but nothing else. She was treated for minor injuries, including a
bite wound, and released from the hospital.

On the
nightly news, Darrin expressed his gratitude to all those who helped search for
Jenna, and he wept joyously when he said, “I can’t believe she’s home.”

Looking
out the car window, Lucy noted that mid-February was not a pleasant time to
visit most places in the northern half of the U.S. Winter had grown old, bleak,
and tired. Snow clung in gray-black clumps to the side of the road, and brown
grasses and broken cornstalks poked through the white and black fields like
liver spots. The sky droned on in a gray that nearly matched the dirty snow—and
Lucy forced herself not to judge Iowa on this visit. Judging a place in
February was simply unfair.

From
the interstate highway to a state route, they drove for almost nine hours. They
exited the state route for a motel before reaching Lime Springs. Jared paid for
the room with two double beds while Alec and Lucy waited in the car. Alec
looked across the nearly empty parking lot, washed white by the halogen lamp
overhead. A wind gust rocked the car, and he watched as debris skittered across
the asphalt and out of the wash of the lamplight.

Jared
emerged from the office and waved them to join him as he walked to a
first-floor room near the car. The door groaned against the wind as Alec pushed
it open. He slung his and Jared’s bags over his shoulders as Lucy climbed out
with her bag. Alec grabbed a cooler from the trunk before following Lucy into
the hotel.

“Cozy,”
Alec said as he kicked the door shut behind him.

“I’m
just glad to be out of the car,” Lucy said. She yanked the bedspread down and
flopped onto her bed. Jared flopped onto her bed with her, and she shoved him
playfully.

“I’m
glad to have wine.” Alec removed the bottle of red wine from the cooler and
filled three plastic cups. He handed Lucy and Jared their cups. Alec sat on the
bed with them. “Cheers.”

“Clank,”
Jared added, imitating glass. “Do you think they’re ahead of us?”

Lucy
and Alec returned blank stares.

“Sorry.
The other werewolves. The bad guys. They have to be going after the pack, too.”

“Without
Darius, I wonder who they’re sending,” Alec pondered.

“Let’s
just hope we get to them first,” Lucy said.

Alec
stared into his plastic cup while contemplating. He looked across the bed at
them as a warm smile bloomed on his face. “We haven’t done this for a long
time. Just talked. Had some wine. It feels a little like old times.”

“It’s
hard,” Lucy said, “balancing the past and the present.”

Jared
nodded. “I still think about my parents, my sisters all the time. At first, the
only thing that drove me was revenge.” Alec and Lucy remained silent, the room
somber. “I brought the mood down. What should we talk about?”

“I
could complain about Mitch.”

“You
did that for the entire drive.”

Alec
said, “Mom’s been asking about you. I suggested they come by for dinner.”

“Alec!”

“Lucy,
you can’t avoid them for the rest of your life. And you have blue contacts to
wear.”

“The
contacts aren’t the point. And I
can
try to avoid them.”

Jared smiled
sympathetically at Lucy. “I know you’re trying to protect your parents, but I
think you’re hurting them more than you ever might because of your affliction.”

“They
think you hate them because of Rene.”

“I
don’t hate them. I am angry.” Lucy topped off her cup of wine.

“Is
that why you keep the distance? Are you afraid the anger could trigger the
werewolf?”

Lucy
held Jared’s eyes for a moment before she answered. “Yes, I think maybe.”

“Yet
this Mitch drives you nuts on an almost daily basis. He really infuriates you.”

“It’s
not the same,” Lucy snapped.

Jared
nodded agreement. “I’m not saying it’s the same. But, I think that if emotions
triggered a change, you’d know it by now.”

Lucy
tossed her head back. “Okay. I don’t want to be psychoanalyzed anymore. Someone
else’s turn.” She turned her eyes to Alec, and her face softened. “Why don’t
you visit Adam’s grave?” Her question was sisterly, without malice.

Alec
topped off his own cup. He felt Jared’s hand rub his shoulder, reassuringly. He
turned and the corners of his mouth rose in a weak, appreciative smile. “I find
it hard. It’s hard to think that Adam’s there, and that it’s my fault.” Alec
put his hand up before Lucy or Jared could object. “I know I never asked for
this. That doesn’t change that Adam, Grandma, and Rene lost their lives—” His
words broke off, and he turned his face from them both.