words with confidence. No doubt he’d fully expected Jet to obey.
He had every reason to.
Confused by the changes in her life, by the changes in her body, Jet had accepted the things done to her at Gausto’s hand…so that she might survive them, as so many had not done. And when he held the rest of her pack hostage to her good behavior and sent her out to take down the enemy—one, he’d said, who would see her coming and yet never truly see her at all—she’d had every intention of doing just that.
But he’d been wrong. Nick Carter had truly seen her. He’d recognized the wild in her; he’d seen her nature.
He’d seen her heart.
And she’d seen his.
The feelings were strange to her—they came differently than they had before Gausto had forever altered her. Sweet and hard and twisting, more complex…conflicting desires, conflicting needs. She didn’t know how to reconcile them…what to do with them.
She knew only that she needed time to understand them.
And so instead of bundling the stricken wolf into an unwieldy package on the back of her sleek, growly Triumph Tiger motorcycle, alone, she’d ridden the thirty-one miles north to Oro Valley much more quickly than she should—speeding and ducking and dodging through traffic, nipping at the heels of larger vehicles and sprinting on by, close enough to catch the hint of unease in the other drivers’ expressions.
Also against directions, that aggressive riding—but if Gausto had expected anything else, it only proved that he’d learned less about her world than she had about his.
This route, she’d practiced extensively, though she knew few others. She peeled off I10 and onto Route 77 without second thought, skimming west of the Santa Catalinas and through Oro Valley, up to the foothills of the Tortolinas. She left bike, helmet and leather biking jacket in the sprawling driveway of the desert estate, parked in the shadows of stately, groomed saguaro that looked no happier, leashed by civilization, than she. Past the unobtrusive guards with a lift of her lip they pretended not to see; past the entry landscaping cameras that showed of her approach.
Gausto knew, then, that she came alone.
He waited for her.
Past the public entrance to the house, the big double front doors of rustic wood enclosed by decorative steel privacy screening, and around the side to the entrance. Unlike the front half of the house, this hallway was narrow and dim, unexposed to exterior light; it led to rooms with no windows and no escape.
Jet had reason to know.
It led, too, to the far workroom, a deep place of murky memories and illness and brethren trapped and dead.
But today Jet went to none of those places. She went instead to the tiny vestibule of a room that was hers alone—flat off-white walls with token but classic southwest texture, a plain overhead fixture with a dim bulb, a tiny rectangular window near the ceiling. To her furniture, her cot, a small trunk of clothes and the chair where Gausto would be sitting.
He was.
Never taken unaware, that was Gausto.
He sat with his legs crossed and his hands quiet in his lap, but Jet was not complacent of him. Not this man, with his precisely tailored suit, his silver flashing jewelry, black hair drawn back in a tight tail at his neck. And dark eyes—cold, flat eyes. He didn’t wear amulets as so many did here; Jet had heard enough to understand that somehow, he was protected. Fully, completely protected from any workings anyone might try on him.
She was human enough to feel bitter envy at this fact, and wolf enough not to show it.
“Jet,” he said, using her name with flat authority. Well he might; he’d given it to her.
And she did as she’d learned; she showed him submission. The form was her own—down to one knee, hands quietly on the other, body twisted ever so slightly aside in token exposure, head tipped just as subtly to show her throat. Always a careful balance, there—she’d seen those flat eyes of his go alive at the sight of her tender flesh, and she thought that even in his fully human existence, he felt the flicker of impulse to go for her throat.
Especially when he was angered.
Slowly, she went down to one knee. Slowly, she gave him her vulnerability. Her very caution seemed to please him.
“You failed,” Gausto said. “I’m surprised. Perhaps I didn’t explain the stakes carefully enough? Another demonstration—” He stopped as Jet stiffened, and smirked slightly in the satisfaction of it.
She wanted to tear his throat out.
And she could have done it, could have shifted and been on him before he so much as moved from the chair. His blood would have splashed across these walls, his mysterious ward of protection of no use against her teeth and speed.
But she didn’t. Not with the scent wrapped around this house, ever reminding her…her pack, trapped beneath, some already dead at Gausto’s hand, the rest awaiting salvation only Jet could provide.
It should have been enough. It would have been enough. But Gausto had also promised her something else again.
Freedom.
For Jet, freedom had turned complicated and elusive—much more complicated than the simple return of a pack to the distant mountains from which it had come. For among them, Jet was no longer fully wolf…nor completely human. She was Gausto’s prize tool, his thing. That he would even contemplate releasing her…
He must want Nick Carter very much.
But Jet, in spite of her own best efforts, was not as biddable as she was meant to be.
Now she tipped her head just a little more, looking up for permission to speak. He made her wait for it—of course he made her wait—and then gestured assent, pleased with his own benevolence. She said, “I found him.” She used the words carefully; he had made it clear he found her natural way of speaking displeasing.
Nick Carter, she thought, had not minded at all.
“But you did not bring him back.” Gausto flicked invisible lint from his knee. “Finding him is no great accomplishment, little Jet. Did I not provide you with the details of where he would be, and train you in the exact route, the correct clandestine approach? Finding him was nothing. But I also gave you amulets to use on him. My dear wolf-child, all you had to do was take him aside and trigger the amulet as you’ve been trained.” He regarded her with disdain at the corners of his mouth. “You will try again tomorrow. And the next day, if necessary. But Jet—mark this well. For each day you fail, one of your pack members will pay the price.”
After an instant’s spike of alarm, she schooled herself. As long as he still wanted Carter, her packmates would not die. Because if she truly failed—if she died in the attempt or she died at Gausto’s impatient hands—he would need them to start again. And her pack was not such a very large pack that he could afford to discard any one of them.
Not until he’d given up on Carter.
And still, she couldn’t stop herself from saying, too quickly, “I have him.”
Gausto snorted, most genteelly. He must be in a mood. He was far from genteel when it suited him. “My dear, don’t insult me. The cameras would have shown him to me when you arrived.” His eyes narrowed. “But you’re smarter than that. Explain yourself.”
She straightened, watching to make sure it didn’t displease him—but he’d forgotten about such subtleties. He often did. It only proved to Jet that he was far less civilized than he pretended to be—but the same could be said about any of the humans she’d met here. “I found him. I used the amulet.”
Gausto’s expression swapped out triumph with a frown. “Then why have you not brought him to me?”
“I had questions,” Jet told him, and thought it reasonable.