The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (6 page)

“Feet
apart. Good.” He approached her. “Now the sitting stance.”

Lucy
brought her feet parallel, shoulder width apart, and bent her knees.

“Good,”
Mitch took the same stance. “Now, hit me.”

Lucy
threw her punches, turning her arms as he had shown them. He deflected each
punch with ease. “Well done.” Lucy stepped back into the walking stance. “Now
we’re going to try the self-defense moves. Forget the flying fists and high
kicks. These are the moves that you’ll most likely use on the street—if you
ever have to.” He smiled. “Lucy, turn your back to me.”

Lucy
turned and prepared for his assault from behind. Before she finished a deep
breath, he had his long, muscular arms wrapped around her like two hungry pythons.
Her first instinct was to go rigid. Her arms were pinned to her sides. Lucy
recalled the moves he’d shown them. She took a quick step forward, then back
into Mitch, while shifting sideways. She reached over, grabbing his long arm
and flipped him over her onto the mat.

“Good
job, Lucy.” He hopped to his feet. “For a second there, I thought you weren’t
going to try to resist.”

Lucy
smirked. “For a second there, I thought you had a gun poking in my back,” she shot
her eyes down to his crotch, and then cut her eyes at Marie who choked back
laughter.

Mitch
eyed her briefly and then turned to the class. “Who’s next?”

The
group rotated, each trying the freeing technique and then throwing punches with
partners as they waited. When the class was over, Lucy gathered her gym bag and
headed for the door. “Lucy, hold up a sec,” Mitch called.

Reluctantly,
Lucy dropped her bag and rolled her eyes as Marie mouthed,
You’re in trouble
. She turned to Mitch. “Yeah, Mitch?”

Mitch
waited until the classroom was empty until he approached her. “Why are you
taking this class?”

Lucy
leveled her eyes on him, annoyed.
What’s
it his business?
She wondered.
He
doesn’t deserve my life story
. “I just want to feel safer on the street.”

“Hmmm.
Any other reason? I mean, you’re pretty intense.”

“I take
safety seriously.” She reached for her bag. “Look, if you’re mad about the
crack, that’s just how I am. If you say something snide, I’m going to shoot
back.”

A deep,
derisive chuckle erupted from Mitch, and the sound made Lucy fume. He said, “I
thought it was funny.
So
not true,
but funny.”

“Sure,
you’re far too professional.”

“Nah,
you’re just...not my type.”

“You’re
not my type!” Lucy snapped. “Why are we talking about this?”

He
leaned against the doorway, not blocking her but definitely making it
uncomfortable to push through. “You don’t like me very much.”

“Not
really.”

“Then
why take my class?”

“I
asked for the best instructor. They pointed in your direction.”

“I am
the best.”

“And
you never let anyone forget it.” Lucy began to push past him, but he put his
long arm across the doorway. “May I go now?”

“Just
tell me, honestly, why you’re taking this class.”

Flashes
of smoke and fire, Darius’s evil grin, his knife, flashed in her mind like
police lights. She fought the tears that demanded release. “I was attacked.
Okay? And, if it happens again, I want to be ready.”

Mitch
looked down at her, his smugness seemed absent. “And we’ll get you there. But
you have to trust me if you want the most out of this class.”

“I
trust that you’re the best.”

“I am.”

And the pompous jackass returns.
Lucy mustered as warm of a
smile as she could. “Next time you wonder why someone doesn’t like you,
consider this: Some people have a lot of charm and charisma. Then there’s you.”

Lucy
heard his loud, appreciative laughter roaring behind her as she pushed out the
door onto the sidewalk.

Light from the street lamp shone through the frosty window in
icy patterns on the wood floor as Alec watched Jared, sprawled on the couch,
absently lick the tip of his finger and flip a page in his book. Not more than
ten minutes had passed since Lucy left, when Alec interrupted Jared, saying, “So
this qualifies as one of those times Lucy is out of the apartment, right?”

Jared looked up from his book and adjusted his glasses. He
smiled across the room at Alec who was placing the last of the clean plates
away, on his night to wash the dishes. He marked his spot as he set the book
down. “Yes.” He stood.

Alec tossed the dishtowel onto the counter and sauntered
toward Jared, his eyes alight. “We have about an hour.”

“Then we better hurry,” Jared said, grabbing Alec by the
back of the neck and pulling his face toward his. He closed his eyes as their
mouths found each other.

“Come on,” Alec urged him, as he pulled away and peeled his
shirt off. He discarded it in the hallway as he backed toward the bedroom,
pulling Jared by his belt. Alec’s back bumped into the bedroom door, pushing it
open. Jared kicked the bedroom door shut with his heel. Dim light from the
street cut through the blinds in slits in the otherwise dark room. As Alec
pulled Jared, he tumbled onto the bed, on top of Alec, still embracing. Their
mouths found one another again as Alec and Jared clung to each other with the
urgency of shipwreck survivors in dark waters.

Alec brushed his hands along the defined contours of Jared’s
back, felt the muscle taut and flexing under the skin. Just feeling Jared’s
skin sent fire through him—a fire that demanded release. “I love you. I love
you so much.”

Jared pulled back from the kiss, clasping his hands on
either side of Alec’s face. He gazed into Alec’s eyes in the dim light. “I
loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you.” Even in the dim light,
Jared could see Alec’s cheeks flush. Jared brushed a wisp of hair back. Jared
launched to his feet, standing over Alec, and began to tug Alec’s jeans down
with a heated vigor. Alec pushed on the denim, sliding the jeans over his butt
and down his thighs.

Alec sat up, his legs straddling Jared, as he unfastened
Jared’s belt and pants, dropping them to the floor. Jared leaned on top of Alec
again, the kisses more fierce, moving from mouth to cheek to neck to chest,
dancing down Alec’s body. Alec tossed his head back with a pleasured groan, his
lips parted in an open smile. He rose off the bed onto his shoulders and heels
as Jared tugged his underwear, and felt Jared’s hands caressing his legs as the
material traveled down and off.

Jared was beside him now—and Alec felt that he would explode
with the joy of feeling the man he loved locked in his arms. He rubbed his
hands over the dark hair on Jared’s chest, as Jared rubbed his smooth chest. They
locked their mouths together, and their kisses were furious and deep. They
gulped air only as their passion allowed. Alec pulled his mouth away from
Jared’s and his kisses trailed down Jared’s body, over his nipples, across his
stomach.

Jared shivered, imbued with the staggering ecstasy of Alec’s
mouth. His mind floated—and the thought of Pompeii drifted to him. He pictured
the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the sky glowing red and black, like autumn
lightning in a stormy, night sky. He could feel the ground quaking, shivering.
His body trembled with the ecclesiastic frenzy of stumbling through darkness
within the well-known safety of home, as their hands fumbled across each
other’s bodies in the dim bedroom light. He heard the din of pain and ecstasy
in their own muffled voices. He could feel the heat of it on his skin, as
Alec’s chest pressed against his own bare flesh. The intensity of kisses,
suffocating, the gasping, of mouths pressed together, yet fumbling for air in
staccato, rapid succession. And the ash, he could see, covering them, thinking
that they could be immortalized, like this, intertwined for eternity, into a
cast of perfect melding. And the final, exaggerated sigh and moan, of
releasing, giving in, to the satisfied silence and comfortable, still darkness
afterward.

After a while, Jared reached over and rubbed Alec’s chest
again. His hand trailed lower, across the flat, firm stomach, until he found
the thin line of hair trailing down from Alec’s belly button. The words
happy trail
popped into his mind, and he
suppressed the gleeful silliness it brought about in him so as not to tarnish
their quiet moments in the half-darkness. He loved these quiet moments
afterward, when they still touched, but with less urgency, still enjoying the
closeness of each other’s bodies. The only sound was the sound of their own
breath, regulating from the frenzy to a calm, and the distant hum of cars on a
faraway street.

Kevin
and Molly Byrne, along with Kevin’s lifelong best friend, Tristan, were
explorers. Urban explorers. They loved the breathless anticipation of turning a
corner in a structure left to rot. Detroit offered them hundreds of decaying
carcasses, forgotten by most: dark, broken, and empty.

Usually
empty.

A few
times, they had stumbled upon homeless people, drug addicts, even other explores.
Once, they had to dodge security guards and hid out in the dank pitch black for
over an hour. But the thrill of walking through a hulking, abandoned structure—at
night—with just your camera and flashlight—was addictive to them all. They
maintained a blog where they posted about their expeditions. The blog contained
photos of interesting finds, audio and video, and their thoughts for other
explorers. Tristan considered himself an amateur ghost hunter, and a number of
his photos that seemed to captured otherworldly objects garnered thousands of
hits.

But the
celebrity was secondary. The exhilaration of the moment—moving through the
darkness like an archaeologist in a tomb compelled them.

They
were preparing for their next adventure—under the full moon. The Fullerton
Building was an abandoned, six-story office building with an empty bank on the
bottom floor. Built in 1930, the lobby boasted amazing art deco details. Kevin
shook with the excitement of exploring all six floors; Molly couldn’t wait to
capture the moldering chandeliers, the crumbling tableaux, and rotted woodwork
on film; Tristan anticipated the possibility of the paranormal.

“Batteries,
bulbs, and poking sticks—all set,” Molly announced, finishing her pre-explore
checklist. She glanced at the battered—she considered it shabby chic—curio
cabinet where she and Kevin kept the small trinkets they took from each
exploration. She imagined what she might place there after tonight.
Perhaps a broken piece of cornice?

“I
printed the blueprints, so we’ve got a pretty good idea of the layout,” Kevin
said, ready to methodically move from room to room, dark hall to dark hall.

“My
sound equipment is ready to rock,” Tristan said, already savoring the paranormal
sounds he might capture. “I brought video cameras for you guys, too.”

“Sweet,”
Molly said. She flipped a piece of her short, red-streaked hair from her
forehead. She took the offered camera and flipped it on. “Night vision?”

“You
bet.”

“Since
we usually explore in the daylight,” Kevin said, and Molly and Tristan audibly
groaned.

“Blah,
blah, we’ll be safe,” Tristan replied.

Molly
added diplomatically, “I have the first aid kit in my bag.”

Kevin
kissed her on the forehead. “Tonight’s going to be awesome. I can
feel
it.”

Alec
waited in his car as slushy drizzle pelted his windshield in angry, icy drops
that melted and slipped down the glass to gather like a snow cone at the
wipers. The dreary day was forecast to linger into a cloudy evening. Clouds on
the night of a full moon led Alec to wish for the comedic effect of clouds on
werewolves from cartoons. He pictured clouds blocking the moon and Lucy
resuming her true form.

True form
.

The
words lingered in his thoughts. He pondered his own
true form
—and Jared’s. Was this human skin the actual disguise? He
wondered. Since the night of the fire, the night that Darius told them that
someone else held the key, the trigger to their transformation, a cold river of
fear poured through him. His mind raced daily with the implications.
Is the trigger already within me? Could I be
forced to change into a monster at any moment? With my mother? In a crowded
mall? While making love to Jared?
Every joyful moment had been tainted with
the fear that he could not control the sleeping demon beneath the thin layer of
human skin that he called
himself
.

Ilene
pulled her car into the drive next to him, and Alec forced a smile. Ilene
returned a frail smile as droplets slid down the window, obscuring her face.
She climbed from the car and hurried to the front door of Geraldine’s home.

In the
months since Geraldine had passed, no one had the energy or heart to sell the
home that had hosted so many Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthday parties, and
treasured memories. Alec walked up behind his mother as she pushed the door
open.

Cold
air rushed past them with a whoosh as Ilene shut the door. The house smelled
stale and dusty. Alec closed his eyes, recalling the scent of cookies and
dinners that haunted the house. “I miss her every day,” Alec said, turning to
his mother.

“I
know. I do, too.” She placed a loving hand on his shoulder. She pulled away to
take of her coat, hat and gloves. As Alec took of his coat, Ilene walked to the
fireplace and plucked a ceramic figurine from the mantle. “You got her this when
you were six.”

“I
remember.” He smiled at the memory. “For her birthday.” Alec sauntered into the
kitchen. He pictured Geraldine there, stooped over, pulling cookies from the
oven with the sweet-hot smell of baking pouring out around her. He looked to
the back door off the kitchen, which had been replaced after the night of the
attack. Alec turned his eyes away.

“How’s
Dad?” He called as he walked back into the living room.

Ilene
settled onto the couch and crossed her legs at the knee. “He’s working a lot. I
think it helps him cope with everything we’ve been through.”

“How
are you coping?” Alec sat on the couch next to his mother.

Ilene
shrugged. Her eyes filled with tears. “Do you ever visit Adam?”

The
question struck Alec. Of course he thought of Adam
every
day. The ache of missing him became like a shadow, so much a
part of him he seldom thought of it, until in certain slants of light when it
grew long and overpowering. Alec simply accepted missing Adam as part of who he
had become. “I think of him every day. All the time,” Alec said, sitting next
to his mother. He took her hand. “I think of things he’d say. The way he’d
laugh. The way he would handle a situation.”

“But do
you go to his grave?” Ilene asked, the tremble in her voice breaking Alec’s
heart. Ilene pictured Adam’s grave, always the wilted flowers she had placed
there awaiting her—never replaced in the intervening days with fresh flowers.

“Mom, I
don’t feel like Adam’s there.”

Ilene
nodded. “It’s easy for me to talk to him there.”

“I
understand.” Alec swallowed hard. “I talk to him every day. Lucy and I—and
Jared—we talk about Adam and reminisce.

“How is
Lucy? She’s so distant, now.”

“She’s
quiet. She’s more stern. She’s hurting.”

“I
know. I never hated Rene,” she said with the air of the confessional.

“He did
it to protect us,” Alec said, before he realized what he was saying.

Ilene’s
gaze caught him off guard, as if she had expected what he said. But she asked,
“What do you mean?”

Alec
thought quickly. “The night Adam and I were attacked. He saved me. He just
rushed in—”

“I
don’t think that’s what you meant.”

Alec
stood. “Where do you think Grandma kept the mobile?”

“Alec—”
Ilene stopped herself and stood. “You know you can tell me anything.”

Alec
smiled. “I know.”

Ilene
brushed Alec’s cheek and rested her hand on his shoulder. “How are things with
Jared?”

“He’s
been so good to me—to both of us through this. He’s my rock.”

“Good.”
Ilene walked down the hall toward the bedrooms. “He healed quickly from the
attack that night.”

The
image of Jared, his arm shredded and hemorrhaging blood in the smoke-filled
basement flashed across Alec’s mind.

“Go,” Jared said, “I’m
dying.”

“The hell you are,
Kincaid.” Alec grabbed Jared by his good arm, ignoring his screams of pain. He
pushed his good arm to Lance. “Pull!” Alec grabbed Jared’s butt and shoved.

“He was
lucky,” Alec offered.

“We all
were—” Ilene cut off her words, looking at her mother’s bedroom door. The door
was ajar, and Ilene glanced in at the bare wood floor, where the carpeting had
been pulled out, and bedframe, missing the mattress and box springs. She pulled
the door shut. “I think the mobile’s in the attic.”

Ilene
reached up and pulled down the folding ladder to the attic. It squeaked as it
unfolded and the springs extended. “Why do you need it?” She asked as she
ascended.

“I
can’t really explain, Mom,” Alec said, sounding whiney to his own ears.

Ilene
flipped on the attic light. “It’s in one of these boxes.” She walked over to a
stack of boxes, and stooped to open one. “I’m not sure why I kept it. You and
Adam never used it. I didn’t want it hanging over your crib,” she said with
such malice that Alec wondered just what his mother did know.

“Maybe
you knew I’d need it someday.”

“And
prayed you wouldn’t.” She removed boxes from the stack.

“Mom,
what all—what do you think happened the night of the fire?”

“I
think this is the box,” she replied. She pulled the flaps of the box open. Alec
noted that the box had been labeled “Alec’s baby things.”

“Why
was this box stored here and not at the house?”

“Your
grandmother offered to keep it.” Ilene smiled. “She had some things here for
you and Adam. She watched you all so often. And she just—when I received it, I
brought it to her. So, she kept it.” Ilene pulled the mobile from the box. It
unfolded in a delicate spiral as she pulled it out of the box.

The
attic light shone through the mobile, and letters and numbers fell on the attic
floor. The importance immediately struck Alec: this was the decoder. What
looked like an innocent mobile with 123s and ABCs unlocked the runes of the
Meredith Stone. Alec took the mobile as she handed it to him.

“Is
this it?” Ilene asked.

“Yes, I
think it is.”

“Will
it
help
?” Tears threatened to flow from
her eyes again.

“I hope
so, Mom.”

Maxwell
Snug was having a bad day. At the age of nineteen, he had already been on his
own in Chicago for three years, so he was used to bad days. But today was
particularly bad. And it wasn’t even the fact that he had gotten stiffed on a
table at the diner where he worked; it wasn’t the fact that he was going to
have trouble scrounging up his half of the rent; it wasn’t even the fact that
he hadn’t had a date in two months. At the moment, what troubled him was the
presence of the dark-haired man who had slid into a booth in his section.
Maxwell’s skin had tingled as soon as the man walked in—but not a butterflies-in-your-stomach
tingle. This was one of his bad tingles. The kind he got just before disaster.

“I’m
cursed,” Maxwell complained to his roommate and co-worker, Haley.

Haley
smiled indulgently. She looked into Maxwell’s eyes. They were so green they
made her feel lost in a jungle. His lips were pouted out in a sweet-sad way
that melted her heart. No one could complain in such a self-effacing,
everything’s-the-end-of-the-world way as Maxwell. Somehow, it was endearing.
“What now?” She adjusted the band holding back her ponytail of blonde hair.

“Check
out the dude in my booth,” he said, using his shoulder to point at a man
sitting in a corner booth across the diner.

“He’s
cute,” Haley effervesced.

“Creepy.
He’s creepy,” Maxwell disagreed. “He’s wearing giant sunglasses inside.”

“Maybe
he’s hung-over.”

“Trust
me, that hipster has bad mojo.”

“He’s
not a hipster.”

“Creeper,
then.”

Haley
rolled her eyes. “What’d he do?”

“Nothing.
Yet. Just wait.”

With a
resigned exhale, Maxwell trudged to the booth and flourished a tip-winning
smile. “Welcome to Trotters. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Coffee.
Black,” he replied without looking up. He flipped the coffee cup on the table
upright. He turned his head deliberately, let his eyes, obscured by the
sunglasses, fall on Maxwell’s name tag. “Maxwell.” He let the name drag out,
somewhere between flirtation and annoyance.

“I’ll
get that and be back to take your lunch order.”

“Well,”
Haley asked at the coffee pot. She was ignoring her own tables.

“Coffee.
Black. If that’s not a sure sign he’s the devil, I don’t know what is.”

“You’re
hopeless. Maybe he’ll ask you out,” Haley added as she flitted away to check on
her own customers.

Maxwell
returned and filled the cup with coffee. “Ready to order?”

“You
have amazing eyes,” the man said, and he peeled his sunglasses away.

For
just a moment, Maxwell stared into eyes as green as his own. A pang shot
through his head, behind his eyes, like a thunderclap rattling through a
valley. Maxwell averted his gaze away from the eyes. “Thanks,” he muttered.
“Your order?”