Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author Susan Krinard

“Susan Krinard was born to write romance.”

—Amanda Quick

“Darkly intense, intricately plotted and chilling, this sexy tale skilfully interweaves several time periods, revealing key past elements with perfect timing but keeping the reader firmly in the novel’s ‘present’ social scene.”

—Library Journal on Lord of Sin

“Krinard’s imagination knows no bounds as she steps into the mystical realm of the unicorn and takes readers along for the ride of their fairy-tale lives.”

—RT BOOK Reviews on Lord of Legends, 4½ stars

“A master of atmosphere and description.”

—Library Journal

“Magical, mystical and moving … fans will be delighted.”

—Booklist on The Forest Lord

“A darkly magical story of love, betrayal and redemption. Krinard is a bestselling, highly regarded writer who is deservedly carving out a niche in the romance arena.”

—Library Journal on The Forest Lord

“A poignant tale of redemption.”

—Booklist on To Tame a Wolf

“With riveting dialogue and passionate characters, Ms Krinard exemplifies her exceptional knack for creating an extraordinary story of love, strength, courage and compassion.”

—RT BOOK Reviews on Secrets of the Wolf

Luck of the Wolf
Susan Krinard

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Also available from Susan Krinard

and Mills & Boon® Nocturne™:

BRIDE OF THE WOLF

COME THE NIGHT

DARK OF THE MOON

CHASING MIDNIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

San Francisco, May 1882

CORT RENIER GLANCED one last time at the girl on the stage and spread his cards with a flourish.

“Royal Flush,” he drawled with a lazy smile. “It seems the luck is with me tonight, gentlemen.”

They weren’t happy. The game had been grueling, even for Cort. The players were the best, all specially—and secretly—invited to the tournament, all hoping to win prizes no legitimate game could offer.

Prizes like the girl, who stared across the room with a blank gaze, lost to whatever concoction her captors had given her. She was most definitely beautiful. Her figure was slender, her face, even beneath the absurd white makeup, as classically lovely as that of a Greek nymph, her golden hair begging for a man’s caress.

She couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

Cort’s smile tightened. It was her youth, as well as her beauty and apparent virginity, that made wealthy, hard-hearted men fight to win her.

Many girls could be bought in the grim back alleys and sordid dives of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. But not girls like this one, who so clearly was no child of San Francisco’s underworld. Who was of European descent, not one of the unfortunate Chinese immigrants who routinely fell victim to unscrupulous traffickers in human flesh. Someone had taken a risk in offering her as a prize, if only the secondary one. The organizers of this contest were no doubt confident that she would simply disappear, hidden away by the winner until anyone who might look for her had given her up for dead.

Cort’s gaze came to rest on the man whose hand had lost to his. Ernest Cochrane wasn’t accustomed to losing. His lust for the girl had been manifest from the moment they’d sat down at the table. He had a bad reputation, even for the Coast, even if he deceived the high and mighty with whom he associated in his “normal” life. If he’d won her, she would have suffered a life of perpetual degradation as a sexual plaything for one of the most powerful men in California.

Until he tired of her, of course. Then she might, if she were lucky, have been sold to another man, less discriminating in his desires.

Or she might have ended up in the Bay. Cochrane wouldn’t want to risk any chance that his wife and children and fellow entrepreneurs might learn what a villain he truly was.

The others were no better. Even those Cort didn’t know stank of corruption and dissipation. They were dangerous men, and every one of his instincts had rebelled against becoming involved. He wasn’t some gallant bent on protecting womankind from a fate worse than death, however well he played the role of gentleman. If she hadn’t been so young, he might have ignored the girl’s plight. Yuri had urged him not to be a fool.

But it was done now, and Cochrane was glaring at him with bitter hatred in his eyes.

“Luck,” Cochrane said in his smooth, too-cultured voice, “has a way of turning, Renier.” He nodded to one of the liveried attendants. “We’ll have another deck.”

Cort rose from his chair. “I do thank you, Mr. Cochrane, gentleman, but I am finished for the evening, and I believe this game has been won in accordance with the rules of the tournament.” He tipped his hat. “Perhaps another time.”

“Another time won’t do, Mr. Renier. And I have doubts that this game was played honestly.”

“If I were a less reasonable man, Cochrane, I might choose to take offense at your insinuation.” Cort inclined his head. “Bonsoir, messieurs.”

He knew it wouldn’t end so easily, of course. He heard Cochrane’s hatchet man come up behind him before the hooligan had gone a foot beyond his hiding place behind the curtains on the left side of the stage. Cort casually hooked his thumb in the waistband of his trousers. The man behind him breathed sharply and shifted his weight.

“Now, now, Monsieur Cochrane,” Cort said. “We wouldn’t wish this diverting interlude to end on an unpleasant note, would we?”

“Another game,” Cochrane said, less smoothly than before.

“I think not.”

The hatchet man lunged. Cort turned lightly, caught the man’s wrist before his fist could descend and twisted. The man yelped and fell to his knees, cradling his broken limb to his chest.

Cort sighed and shook his head, flipping his coat away from his waist. “As you see, gentleman, I carry no weapons. However, I find it quite unmannerly to attack a man when his back is turned.” He bowed to Cochrane. “I bid you good evening.”

His ears were pricked as he walked away, but no one came after him. They’d been at least a little impressed by his demonstration, though how long that would last was another question entirely. It would be the better part of valor by far to leave this establishment as soon as possible.

And he would have to take his prize with him, even if he didn’t want her and had no place to put her. He was threading his way among the gaming tables toward the stage when Yuri came puffing up to join him.

“Why did you do it?” Yuri whispered, his accent thick with distress. “You have lost us half a million dollars and made enemies we cannot afford. Have you gone completely mad?”

Oh, yes, Cort thought, recognizing the true height of his foolishness. He could avoid Cochrane’s henchmen for a while, but he didn’t want to spend the rest of his time in San Francisco watching his back, and fighting was always a last resort. His strength and speed had a way of attracting too much attention. And the kind of attention he liked had nothing to do with being loup-garou.

“Don’t fret, mon ami,” he said. “Has my luck ever failed us yet?”

The question was sheer bluster, of course. He had not always had such luck. In fact, he and Yuri had been nearly penniless when they arrived in San Francisco. He had won just enough over the past several months to pay for room and board, and to get himself invited to the tournament, which had been intended only for the wealthier patrons of San Francisco’s gambling establishments.

But he had chosen to compete in the secondary match for the sake of a sentimentality that should have been crushed long ago, like all the other passions he had discarded over the years.

“Would you have me leave a child to such a wretched fate?” he asked.

Yuri had just opened his mouth to make a sarcastic reply when a tall, thin man with a crooked nose rushed up to them. His gaze darted from Yuri to Cort and then warily over Cort’s shoulder to the table he had left.

“Cortland Renier?” the newcomer asked.

Cort bowed. “At your service.”

“You’re ready to claim your prize?”

“I am.”

“Come this way.”

The thin man scurried off, and Cort strode after him. Yuri rushed to keep up.

“I think you’d best stay behind,” Cort said over his shoulder. “The girl may be frightened if both of us approach her.”

Yuri snorted. “And you care so much for the feelings of this girl you have never seen before?”

“I intend to protect my winnings,” Cort said.

“I am not going back into that room,” Yuri said, gesturing behind him.

“In that case, I would suggest that you go home.”

Yuri muttered a curse in his native language and stopped. The thin man went through a door at the left foot of the stage, which opened up into a small anteroom. A second door led to a larger room, empty save for a few broken chairs, a table laden with various prizes and a quartet of rough-looking characters Cort supposed must serve as guards.

The girl sat in the only sound chair in the room, utterly still in her white nightgown, her hands limply folded in her lap. The smell of laudanum and some sickly perfume hung over her in a choking cloud. She looked like a doll, which Cort assumed had been the point of dressing her to appear the waif, innocent and pliable and ready to be used. What she might be like free of the narcotic was anyone’s guess.

His guide disappeared and the guards glowered at him as he approached the girl. She didn’t look up.

“Bonjour, ma chère,” he said softly.

Her fingers twitched, but she continued to stare at the floor some three feet from tips of her small white toes. Cort moved into her line of sight.

“It’s all right,” he said. “No one will hurt you.”

Slowly, so slowly that the movement was hardly visible, she lifted her head, her gaze sliding up the length of his body. Her eyes, when they met his, were remarkable, even clouded with the effects of laudanum or whatever else they had given her. Their color was neither green nor blue but some intermediate between them, the color of the sea on a clear, still day.

The knowledge struck him all at once, stealing his breath. He had been more of a fool than even he had realized. This girl wasn’t merely some unfortunate who had run afoul of the most vicious elements of the Barbary Coast. It was remarkable that she had been taken at all.

For she was loup-garou. And he understood then why he had been compelled to rescue her.

There were a number of very colorful curses Cort had learned in childhood, before he had become a gentleman. He swallowed them and smiled.

“Come,” he said. “It is time to leave this place.”

Her tongue darted out to touch her lips, but she didn’t acknowledge his words in any other way. Her shoulders slumped, and her chin fell to her chest.

Werewolf or not, it was clear that she couldn’t walk without help. Gingerly Cort reached for her arm. It was firm under his fingers, not at all like that of the passive doll she appeared to be.

Taking hold of her shoulders, he raised her from the chair. For a moment it seemed that she might stand on her own, but that moment was quickly gone. Her legs gave way, and her head lolled to the side. Her eyes rolled back under her eyelids.

“Cochon,” Cort growled. “You have given her too much.”

Only the guards were there to hear him, and their indifference couldn’t have been more obvious. Cort lifted the girl into his arms, looking for a door that didn’t exit into the main room. There was another narrow doorway at the back of the room that Cort’s nose told him led outside. He strode past the guards, shifted the girl’s weight to the crook of one arm while he opened the door and walked into an alley heaped with rubbish and stinking of urine.

Early morning fog was rolling over the city, bringing with it the damp chill so familiar to San Francisco’s residents. Knowing that he was more vulnerable while he was carrying a helpless female, Cort moved quickly into the street, listened carefully and continued at a brisk pace away from the saloon.

The cacophony of smells—exotic spices, liquor, unwashed bodies, brackish water and things even Cort couldn’t name—nearly choked him, even after so many months as a regular visitor to the Coast. Inebriates and opium-eaters crouched at the sides of the street, some so lost in their foul habits that they didn’t notice him pass, others stretching out their hands in a pitiful plea for money. Shanghaiers, lingering in the shadows, followed Cort’s progress with calculating eyes. On more than one occasion he heard footsteps behind him, too regular and furtive to be those of a drunkard.

But his stalkers refrained from attacking him, no doubt recognizing that he would not be easy prey, even with the woman in his arms. Still, Cort released a sigh of relief as he turned onto Washington Street, where he shared a two-room apartment with Yuri. The woman who ran the boardinghouse never asked questions of either of them, and she wasn’t likely to begin now, no matter what strange cargo Cort brought home with him.

The girl still hadn’t stirred by the time he walked up the creaking stairs and passed down the hall to his room. He kicked the door, wincing at the idea of possible damage to his highly polished boot, and waited for Yuri to answer.

Fortunately, the Russian had taken his advice and gone directly home. Yuri opened the door, grimaced and stepped aside. Cort carried the girl to the moth-eaten sofa that graced what passed for a sitting room and laid her down, taking care not to jar her.

“Chyort,” Yuri swore. “What are we supposed to do with her?”

Cort took off his hat and hung it from the hook on the wall by the door. “That is my concern.”

“It’s as much mine as yours as long as she is here. I trust that will not be long.”

“I do not intend to keep her,” Cort said, returning to the sofa.

“Even a day is too much. Cochrane is not easily thwarted. He will have no difficulty in finding us.”

That was indeed a danger, but Cort was in no mood to cower in fear from a man like Cochrane. “You are free to move on if you wish, Baron Chernikov.”

Yuri drew himself up. “I am no coward.”

“Bien. If she has any family in the city, we shall find out soon enough.”

“Family? What family would allow this to happen?”

Indeed. There were few enough werewolves in this part of California, and those of any honor would hardly permit one of their own young females to roam alone on the streets or be exposed to the rough elements of San Francisco’s less polished neighborhoods. Yet it was also true that most of the loups-garous with whom Cort was personally acquainted were hardly models of virtue—lone wolves all, making temporary alliances with each other only when circumstances demanded it.

“I don’t know,” Cort said, “but as she is loup-garou, I do not believe she can be completely cut off from her own kind.”

The Russian’s eyes widened. “She is oboroten?”

Cort gave a curt nod, and Yuri breathed a laugh. “Ah. Now I see why you saved her.”

“I would have done the same had she been human.”

“Would you?” Yuri brooded as he looked the girl over. “Werewolf females don’t usually wander about in the city unescorted, do they?”

“Not as a matter of course. The men who took her could have had no idea what she was.”

“Then—” Suddenly Yuri grinned, showing his even white teeth. “Someone must want her back very much.”

“Naturally. There are only two established loup-garou families in San Francisco. If she doesn’t belong to them, we will inquire—” He broke off, struck again by his own stupidity. It should have occurred to him the moment he recognized what she was—hell, he should have thought of it when he first set out to win her.

“We could get back some of what you lost,” Yuri went on, recognizing Cort’s comprehension. “Most of it, in fact, if we handle this correctly.”

“You do realize that we are speaking of loups-garous?”

“You are one of them. Have you lost confidence in your ability to charm anyone you wish to?”

He had certainly not charmed Cochrane. There were limits even to his abilities.

But Yuri was right. There was no reason why they shouldn’t benefit from Cort’s act of charity while restoring the girl to her own people. It would, indeed, have to be handled carefully, and it would be necessary to make the girl fully aware of what he had done. A little gratitude on her part would go a long way.

Rubbing his hands, Yuri paced across the room. “As soon as she is well again, you must visit these families. I will look out for Cochrane.”

Cort turned back to the girl. “She has been given far too much opium. The fact that she is loup-garou means she is likely to recover with rest and care, but she must be watched carefully.”

The Russian clapped his hands, in high good humor. “I will leave that to you.”

“After you make yourself useful by fetching water and a cloth.”

Yuri shrugged and went into the bedroom. Left in peace for the first time in hours, Cort studied the girl as he had not had the chance to do before. The vividness of her eyes was hidden, and her virginal gown had seemed opaque from Cort’s place at the table, but now he could see that the cloth, molding as it did to the curves of her body, concealed nothing at all.

And what it did not conceal almost brought him to his feet. She was most decidedly not a child. Her breasts were small and firm, the nipples pale brown and delicate. But her body was very much a woman’s, down to the soft triangle of blond hair between her thighs.

“Ha!”

Yuri’s triumphant shout brought Cort around in a movement so sharp and swift that the Russian was forced to skip back several feet to avoid Cort’s clenched fist. Cort quickly lowered his arm, but he knew what Yuri had seen: the rough, hot-tempered, uncivilized boy Cort had been when he’d left Louisiana. The boy who still refused to be silenced after all the years Cort had worked to bury him.

The grin on Yuri’s face broadened. “Well,” he said, “I believe this is the first time I have ever been able to catch you unaware.”

Cort relaxed. “Should I be on my guard against you, mon ami?”

Yuri harrumphed, offered Cort a towel and basin of water from the washstand in the bedroom, peered at the girl and frowned. Cort recognized the very moment when he saw what Cort had seen. He glanced at Cort, eyes narrowed.

“Perhaps it is not I whom you should guard against,” he said.

Cort set down the basin, strode into the bedroom, and returned with his pillow and the tattered blanket that served as his sole bed covering. He dropped the pillow at one end of the sofa and spread the blanket over the girl, touching her as little as possible.

“You should go to bed, Yuri,” he said coldly.

“She is no child.”

“She is young enough.”

Pursing his lips, Yuri stepped back. “Just as you say.” He turned again for the adjoining room, his expression thoughtful. Cort felt an unaccountable burst of irritation, which he quickly suppressed. He picked up one of the cloths Yuri had brought, dipped it in the basin and hesitated.

She is young enough. He’d said that not only for Yuri’s benefit but for his own. How young—or not—might be revealed when he cleaned the paint from her face.

Cort wrung out the cloth and brushed it over the girl’s cheek. The paint came off on the towel, and the water made streaks across her face like the tracks of tears. Her lips, gently curved, parted on a moan.

When she subsided into silence again Cort finished cleaning her face as best he could, allowing himself to pretend that his hand was separate from the rest of his body and that his eyes saw nothing but a girl in need of rescue. When he was finished and her clear ivory skin had been stripped of the obscene “adornment,” he rocked back on his heels and blew out a long, slow breath.

The question of her age was not entirely solved, but now that he could see her face, he knew she was at least a half-dozen years older than she had appeared in the saloon … and far more beautiful than even he had guessed. Her lips, no longer smeared with some pale tint designed to give her a more childish appearance, were softly rounded and womanly in a way no child’s could be. Her eyes were framed with long lashes, darker than her hair, and her features were mature and defined, with high cheekbones and a firm chin.

Cort closed his eyes to shut her out. She was still helpless, and the last thing he wanted was to feel anything more than a detached interest in the girl’s usefulness to him and his empty wallet. He certainly had no desire to acknowledge any attraction to her, even of the most primitive physical kind.

She was nothing to him. And while he could reluctantly accept that he had been instinctively drawn to her because she was loup-garou, she could not be as helpless as she appeared. If he’d let matters take their natural course and allowed Cochrane to win her, she would have been able to defend herself once she recovered from the influence of the opium. Her potential buyers were all human, and no match for even the smallest female werewolf.

Unless she came from a family like the New Orleans Reniers, the loups-garous who ruled all the werewolves in that city and much of human society besides. They seldom Changed, and when they did it was only for ritual occasions and to remind themselves why they were superior to mere humans, and other werewolves not as privileged as they were. Madeleine had been delicate, sheltered, never expected to take wolf shape in defense of her life or her honor.

If this girl were like Madeleine.

Cort laughed. He was constructing a life for her that might bear no resemblance to reality whatsoever. He had never made any effort to learn how the San Francisco families lived, whether or not they hewed to their animal roots or preferred to ignore them altogether. Until the girl woke up, it would all be fruitless speculation.

With a quick glance at her face, Cort crouched over her. Her breath, still tainted with laudanum, puffed against his face. He lifted her head.

The contact sent a wash of sensation almost like pain through his body. The last time he had felt anything like it had been when he was with Madeleine. He had assumed then that it had sprung from his love for her, and that such feelings could never come again.

And of course they had not. That was impossible. Whatever he felt now was merely a pale imitation.

Cort quickly tucked the pillow under her head, adjusted the blanket once more and got to his feet. He pulled the room’s single chair close to the sofa and sat, stretching his legs and leaning as far back as the rickety chair would permit.

Think of the reward, he told himself. Yuri had been correct; they could be comfortable again, perhaps more than that, if they played their cards right. If he did.

And then, at last, he might find the means to take his revenge.

He closed his eyes again, focusing all his senses on the girl. He could safely rest for a time, knowing that he would be aware of any change in her condition and would be fully wake long before she was.

And then, in a matter of days, she would be gone from his life forever.

CHAPTER TWO

ARIA WOKE SUDDENLY, her head pounding and her eyes stinging. Her mouth was dry and her tongue leaden, coated with a foul taste that made her gag.

For a moment all she could do was lie still, listening to her pulse boom behind her ears. She was afraid to open her eyes, afraid to see what might lie on the other side of her eyelids. Memories fought a furious battle in her brain, some so unbearable she tried to force them away.

But she couldn’t. They were too strong, etched into her senses in sound and scent and taste. Hunger. Confusion. Harsh, mocking voices, and a rag soaked in bitter poison slapped over her mouth.

Had those been the last memories, she might not have struggled so hard against them. But there were others far worse.

She tried to swallow the bile in the back of her throat. She didn’t know where she was, but it might be somewhere even worse than the last place she had been before they had forced her to take the potion.

You must face it, she told herself. Hiding from her fear would gain her nothing, and knowing the truth would allow her to make a plan to escape. How many others were here? She had a hazy vision of many men looking at her, and the low hum of many voices. There had been one man in particular, though she could not recall his face. Someone who had touched her gently.

Open your eyes.

She did, and the room swam into focus. Peeling paint on a low ceiling. A few scraps of mismatched furniture. A wall covered with torn and faded paper. She was lying on some sort of couch, and a blanket covered her up to her chin.

She breathed in slowly. Mildew, dust, stale cooking. Bread and cheese closer by, setting her stomach to rumbling.

And another scent she recognized, cool and clean and masculine.

The room spun as she turned her head. The man sat a few feet away, long legs stretched before him, his head resting on the back of his chair. He was tall, well formed and elegantly dressed; his hair was deep auburn, and what she could see of his face was as handsome as that of any man she had seen in her long journey west.

He was not one of the men who had captured her. But she knew his face.

Cautiously raising herself on her elbows, Aria pushed the blanket aside. Sickness spiraled up from her stomach, and she had to sit still for several minutes. She watched the man’s face for any sign of waking, but he seemed completely unaware of her. Once again she tested her strength. This time she was able to sit up, and after a moment the hammer beating inside her skull fell silent.

Wherever she was, it wasn’t what she had expected. Despite the voices she could hear outside the room, she felt no sense of threat. She still wore the gown they had put on her, but when she touched her face she realized that it was clean again.

They meant to sell me, she remembered. They had spoken of it when they were certain she couldn’t hear. She was to become the “property” of the man who won her in some sort of card game, like the ones she and Franz had sometimes played on snowy evenings. Property just like the sheep who belonged to Matthias the shepherd, or the pony she had left behind in Trieste.

She looked hard at the man. Had he been the one to win her? Was he waiting to do the kinds of things to her that she had seen men doing with women in the back alleys of New York and San Francisco?

Even if he was, he seemed to be alone. She had some chance of escape.

Biting her lower lip, Aria pushed the blanket below her knees and swung her legs over the side of the couch. Her feet touched the bare, pitted floorboards. She put a little of her weight on them, testing her steadiness and the surface beneath her soles.

The boards made no sound as she pushed herself up. Another wave of dizziness caught her, and she stopped, half crouched, her heart drumming under her ribs. There was a door across the room, not far. All she needed to do was open that door and find her way to freedom.

Aria straightened, ignoring the protest of her stiff muscles. She took a single step. The man didn’t move. She took another step, and another, until she was passing him and only a few feet from the door.

“You had best stay here, ma petite,” the man said behind her. “You are not well enough to leave just yet.”

The words were as soft as lamb’s wool, the English touched with the pleasant lilt of an accent, yet she was not deceived. There was steel behind the voice, and she knew she would never escape without a fight.

“You need not fear me,” the man said, getting to his feet. He turned, and she could see he was indeed very handsome … and very dangerous. Though his face was almost expressionless, his eyes, more yellow than brown, seemed kind—but Aria did not believe for a minute that this man was kind.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“One who means you well.”

She retreated until her back was against the door. “You’re one of them,” she said.

“You remember?” he asked, arching his dark brows.

Aria curled her hands into fists. “You were with them,” she said. “You were in that place.”

“If you remember so much, you know that I took you away from those who would have harmed you.”

She knew no such thing. She thought this was the man who had touched her during the few brief seconds when she had fought her way free of the mist that filled her head. She thought he might have lifted her up in his arms.

But that meant nothing. She bared her teeth.

“If you want me,” she said, “you will have to kill me first.”

The man sighed. “I do not want you, and I have no intention of killing you. Come sit down before you fall.”

Taking stock of her body, Aria realized that she might very well lose her strength at any time. The mist was gathering behind her eyes again, and her legs felt far less steady than they had when she first stood up.

“Stay away from me,” she warned.

The man sighed. “What is your name?”

“What is yours?” she retorted.

“Cortland Beauregard Renier, at your service.” He bowed deeply, then walked to the couch and picked up the blanket. “And as I am a gentleman, I recommend that you cover yourself.”

Aria stared at the blanket and glanced down at her dress. Heat rushed into her face. She had not been aware enough until now what the gown revealed, and though she was not ashamed of what nature had given her, she had seen the look in the eyes of the men who had handled her. The same look she saw in the stranger’s eyes.

With a burst of courage, she darted forward to snatch the blanket from the man’s hand. As soon as she grasped it she lost her balance, tottered and began to fall. He caught her, lifted her up with a strength she could not resist and returned her to the couch. She scrambled away from him to the end of the sofa, drawing up her knees and pulling the blanket over them.

“Bien,” the man—Cortland Renier—said, and sat down in his chair. “Now we will talk like civilized people.”

Civilized. How she had come to hate that word. Franz had used it to refer to the world she was about to enter, as if it were a good thing. But “civilized” meant you went hungry because there was nowhere to hunt, nothing to do but root through heaps of discarded food along with the stray dogs. It meant asking questions no one could or would answer, and most of all it meant people who looked nice but proved to be otherwise.

“Let me go,” she said.

“You can hardly leave until you are properly dressed.” He settled back as if he meant to reassure her. “I have no suitable clothing at the moment, but if you will be patient—”

Aria wanted to laugh. “I can make you let me go. When I am stronger—”

His brows arched higher still. “I do not plan to keep you prisoner,” he said mildly. “It is my intention to restore you to your family, a plan I will set in motion when I know your name.”

“My family?” The laugh burst out of her, thick and wrenching. “I have no—”

The look in his eyes stopped her. They were piercing and sharp, as if he already knew everything that had happened to her since Franz’s terrible accident in New York.

“What is your name?” he asked again

She wanted to tell him. She wanted so desperately to trust someone, anyone, and he had not restrained her or tried to hurt her in any way. She could almost believe he meant her well.

But she had believed that before. Believed because she had to think that she would find the people Franz had said would welcome her in San Francisco. Her own kind. The ones who could answer all her questions. She had thought then that she couldn’t make it all the way to the West Coast without help, not in this strange and unknown country with its unfamiliar customs and terrible cities, and seething crowds of humans.

Still, she had made it here, though she had quickly learned that it was better to be alone than to rely on any stranger.

“I don’t need your help,” she said.

“The Hemmings?” he asked, as if she hadn’t said anything at all. “The Phelans?” He shifted his weight on the chair. “Did you run away?”

Aria jerked up her chin. “I didn’t run away from anyone.”

“Ma chère, this bickering will do neither of us any good. I saved you from a terrible fate, and—” He stopped abruptly. “Did those men do anything that.” His gaze shifted to her waist, then below.

A great rush of heat made Aria feel as if the blood was boiling under her skin. “No,” she said. “They didn’t hurt me.” She looked away quickly, but not before she saw the relief on Cortland Renier’s handsome face.

“Thank God for that,” he said. “But you might not be so fortunate next time. That is why I have no intention of allowing you to return to the streets. Your people—”

“I don’t know my name!” she burst out.

The silence lasted so long that Aria had to look at him again. Renier was still frowning, but now she could see that he was bewildered, as well.

“How is that possible?” he asked.

Now that she had decided to lie, she had to do everything she could to make the lie seem true. And in the most important ways, it was. She slumped against the cushions. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

“The drugs,” he said. “You are obviously not well.” He began to rise. “You must eat and rest. Tomorrow, when your mind is clear—”

“It wasn’t what they did to me,” she said. “I don’t remember anything.”

His eyes narrowed. “Forgive me if I find that difficult to believe, chère.”

“I don’t care what you believe. I don’t know where I came from.” She shivered for effect. “I remember the water. It was cold. And then I was walking, and I didn’t know anyone. I was hungry. A man said he would give me food and a place to get warm.”

“What did this man look like?”

“He was.” She screwed up her face. “I don’t know. He was one of them. They gave me something that made me sick. That’s all I remember.”

“Were you on a ship?” he asked. “Did you fall into the water?”

“I don’t know!” She buried her face in her hands. “Can’t you leave me alone?”

He got up. “I am afraid I cannot, chère,” he said. “If, as you claim, you remember nothing, you will face certain ruin if you return to the streets.”

“Why do you care?”

“I am not like those who took you. Any honorable man would feel bound to protect a woman in your position.”

“I don’t want protection,” she said, meeting his gaze. “No one will ever trick me again.”

“Your naiveté is touching, mademoiselle, but misguided.”

“I told you, I can make you let me go.”

“Ah.” He nodded with revolting smugness. “Forgive my discourtesy, but how do you propose to do that, chère?”

It was foolish, and she knew it. If there had been any other way, she would have taken it. But she had nearly lost herself after Franz’s death, forced to pretend to be human during the weeks that followed. She had almost forgotten what she really was. But once she showed Renier, he would never trouble her again.

Tossing the blanket aside, she began to pull off her nightgown. Renier started in surprise, and that gave her such satisfaction that she almost didn’t mind that he would see her naked.

The Change was as swift and easy as it had ever been. Aria felt new strength flowing into her body as the transformation drove the last effects of the poison out of her. Her senses grew so keen that the smells and sounds of the place were almost painful. In a handful of seconds she was no longer naked and vulnerable but powerful and unafraid.

She grinned, showing her teeth. No words were necessary, even if she could have spoken them. Renier would be just like the men who had seen her Change in New York. His shock would soon give way to horror. He would scramble away in terror, and she would knock down the door and make her escape.

But it didn’t happen as she planned. Renier didn’t try to run or collapse into a gibbering puddle. He was as cool and collected as he had been since she’d awoken, his head slightly cocked as if he found her performance amusing.

“Bravo,” he said. “You have made your point. Unfortunately.” He rose, turned his back to her, removed his coat and hung it over the back of the chair. He loosened his tie and removed the studs in his collar. His waistcoat came off, and then his shirt. His fine shiny boots and stockings followed, and finally his trousers.

Aria knew what was coming. She hadn’t guessed. She hadn’t met a single werewolf since the ship had landed in New York. When Renier Changed, it was like looking in a mirror for the first time in her life. His fur was auburn instead of gold, but he was everything she had imagined when she had come to San Francisco, so full of hope and dreams.

He was her kind.

Shaking out his fur, Renier sat on his haunches and stared into her eyes. She thought she might be able to dodge around him; he was bigger than she was, but her smaller size might make her faster.

If she’d had the will. If she hadn’t been paralyzed with wonder and a fearful, dangerous joy.

Renier wasn’t paralyzed. He Changed again while she hesitated, turned his back to her and put on his clothes. When he was fully dressed, he returned to his chair.

“So, chère,” he said softly. “You didn’t know I was loup-garou.”

Loup-garou. That was a word she hadn’t heard, but she could guess what it meant. She couldn’t very well deny that she hadn’t known that Cort was a werewolf.

He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Now,” he said, stretching out his legs again, “there can be no secrets between us.”

No secrets. Franz had promised that she would learn important things when they got to America, things only the wehrwölfe in San Francisco could tell her. He had even hinted that he himself knew more than he had ever let on.

But he had never had the chance to explain. He had taken all those secrets with him in death, and his special documents with them.

Maybe Cortland Renier could help her. If he knew about werewolves in San Francisco, it seemed possible that he would know about the Carantians, too. And he had mentioned families. Was that what Franz had meant? Was it possible her family wasn’t dead after all? Would she find cousins, uncles, brothers or sisters among those who waited for her?

She licked her lips. Franz had said the Carantian colonists in San Francisco were good people, honorable and steadfast. But he had said there were bad werewolves, too, just as there were bad humans. How was she to distinguish one from another, when she couldn’t even be sure when a man was human or not?

You don’t have to tell him everything, she thought. You can wait and see if he really means what he says.

Moving quickly, Aria grabbed the blanket in her jaws and raced to the door. She Changed, snatched up the blanket and wrapped it snugly around herself. Renier crossed his legs casually and smiled.

“Now that we understand each other,” he said, “you can have no further doubts that I wish to help.”

Aria pretended to relax. “Did you know what I was all the time?” she asked.

“Long enough. The fact that you could not recognize me, however, greatly complicates your situation.”

“Why? The people who took me … they weren’t werewolves, were they?”

“It seems unlikely.”

“Then I could have escaped as soon as the poison went away.”

“Perhaps. But where would you have gone?” he asked. “If you have no memory…”

“How many others like us live in San Francisco?” she asked quickly.

“A dozen, perhaps.”

“You said there were families….”

“Two that I am aware of, and various lone wolves.”

Any of whom might know or even be the Carantians she was seeking. “Do they hide what they are from humans?”she asked.

He regarded her with new interest. “Why do you ask, ma chère? Surely you know that all loups-garous conceal what they are, even as they move in human society. Was it different with your people?”

“I don’t remember.” But of course that was exactly what Franz had told her, that werewolves had to hide what they were, and she had seen what had happened the one time she’d been careless in New York. “Does anyone know what you are? Humans, I mean?”

“One man only, in this city. But—”

“Is it the man in the other room?”

“Baron Yuri Chernikov. You will meet him later.”

Yuri. It was a Russian name. Aria could speak fluent Russian, but she had never met a man from that country. “He is your … friend?” she asked.

“You have no more to fear from him than you do from me.”

But what did that really mean, given that she had no real idea whether she could trust Cortland Renier or not? Why should she trust this Russian, when he was human like the men who had taken her?

She had much more to learn before she could decide.

“You asked me if I ran away,” she said, circling around the room. “Wouldn’t someone be looking for me if I was lost?”

“One would presume so.” He watched her progress with keen yellow eyes. “I will make inquiries of the families I mentioned before.”

The Hemmings and the Phelans. She couldn’t keep the hope and yearning out of her voice. “So you know them?”

“Not personally, but that is no object.” He stretched his arms, and joints popped. “You must strive to regain your memory, beginning with your name.”

Aria stopped. Should she tell him her name? There must be a reason why Franz had warned her never to tell anyone what it was, why he’d made her go by another even in Carantia.

“What kind of name is Renier?” she asked.

“It is of European derivation.”

“Where do you come from?”

“From another part of this country, to the east.” He raised a brow. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s the way you talk. It’s different from most of the people I’ve met here.”

“Your manner of speech is also a little different, mademoiselle, though I can’t place the accent.”

Aria rubbed her arms, though the room wasn’t cold and she seldom felt uncomfortable even in freezing temperatures. “Where are we?”

“In the rooms I share with Yuri. You are quite safe.” He rose. “You obviously need other clothing. I will buy a minimal wardrobe for you until we determine what course of action to take.”

In all their time in the mountains, Franz had bought everything they had needed. She’d almost never had money of her own. After Franz had been robbed of the papers and his money, then killed by the thieves, she’d had only what Franz had given her for herself. When she’d used it up getting to San Francisco, she’d quickly learned just how necessary money was to survival.

“I haven’t any money to give you, Mr. Renier,” she said.

“I have sufficient funds to cover what you will need. And you may call me Cort.”

Cort. So much easier to say than Cortland Beauregard Renier.

“Will you give your word not to attempt to leave while I am absent?”

She would be foolish to do so. But Cort was still her only possible connection to the other wehrwölfe in San Francisco.

And she wanted so badly to trust him.

“I will stay,” she promised.

He nodded and strode toward her. She moved out of his way, and he went through the door to the other room. The Russian’s voice, his speech heavily accented, rose in question. Aria could understand every word he and Cort spoke, and she knew Cort was perfectly aware of that.

“She’s awake,” Cort said, “and well enough, but she doesn’t remember her past.”

“Chyort. I don’t believe it.”

“Believe as you choose. Whether or not she is telling the truth, we must help her.”

There was a long pause, and then the Russian said grudgingly, “I suppose you are right. But if she remembers nothing, how do you intend to find her people?”

Cort went on to tell Yuri the same things he had told Aria. When the discussion ended, the two men emerged from the adjoining room.

The human, Aria thought, was nothing special. He was a little round in the belly and plump in the face, but he carried himself like Cort, straight and proud. He walked into the room, paused and looked Aria up and down. His gaze came to rest on her face, and he stopped breathing. A moment later he seemed to remember that he could not live without air.

“So,” he said, and clicked his heels together. “Baron Yuri Chernikov, at your service.”

It was the same thing that Cort had said, but Aria didn’t believe it this time. There was something about the Russian she didn’t like, even if he was Cort’s friend. He had doubted that she was telling the truth about losing her memory. He was right, of course, but every instinct told her not to trust him.

“I don’t know my name,” she told him bluntly.

“So I have been told.” He glanced at Cort. “You are going to buy her clothes?”

“I was about to leave,” Cort said. He smiled at Aria. “She has given her word to remain. You will have a chance to get acquainted.”

“It will be my pleasure,” Yuri said. “And I will be certain that the young lady receives whatever she needs to make her comfortable.”

“There is bread and cheese in the cupboard,” Cort said. Aria’s stomach rumbled again, too loudly for him to miss. “You must be hungry,” he said.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“I’ll bring more to eat when I return,” Cort said, exchanging a glance with Yuri—a glance Aria knew she was not supposed to understand—and retrieved a hat from a hook on the wall. He turned at the door. “Trust me, chère,” he said. “We will uncover your past, whatever it may be, and restore you to your people.”

He left, and Yuri went to a cupboard that stood against one of the otherwise bare walls. He removed a wooden platter with the bread and cheese, and set it down on the table in the corner.

“It is true that you remember nothing?” he asked, taking a seat on the couch.

Aria hesitated, sat in the chair at the table and sniffed at a piece of cheese. She remembered, with a pang of sadness, the fresh, pungent cheese she had eaten nearly every day in the mountains.

But there was no returning to that life, even if she had wished it. And instinct, even when it went against her desire to believe what Cort had said, told her to continue to withhold information about that life.

“It’s true,” she said, biting into the cheese.

“So.” Yuri rubbed his knee. “You can be sure that Cort will learn the truth about you and your origins.”

It felt almost like a threat. “You have known Cort a long time?” she asked, as she swallowed a bite of stale bread.

“Da. A long time.” She caught him staring at her, and he quickly looked away. “I know more about him than anyone else in this world.”

“Did you always know he wasn’t human?”

“Yes.”

His grimly amused expression made Aria shiver. After she had eaten all her shrunken stomach would accept, she struggled with a fresh wave of exhaustion. She might have risked sleeping with Cort present, but she could not feel comfortable doing so with Yuri in the room. She retreated to the couch, settled in one corner and wrapped the blanket tightly about her body.

She had given her word. And it was true that she had nowhere else to go, and no real understanding of this country and the people in it. But still she watched the door, half anticipating and half dreading Cort’s return.

CHAPTER THREE

THE MAN WHO CALLED himself Hugo Brecht stared unseeing at the curtains that separated the private dining room from the peasants outside and sipped his wine. It went down sour and bitter, though it was said to be of the finest French vintage.

He had lost her. After years of fruitless searching, she had escaped him again.

Hugo swallowed the last of the wine and set down the glass. He remembered every day, every hour, of those years of seeking the lost princess. He had gone through hell and crossed the world to find her. Alese di Reinardus—the sole surviving heir to the throne, daughter of Hugo’s cousin twice removed, the King of Carantia—spirited away from her enemies in infancy and transformed by her protectors into Lucienne Renier of the New Orleans werewolf clan.

When at last he had found her in New Orleans and taken her captive, he had been patient, waiting for the day when she would be old enough to marry him. She would become his bride and give him the throne he had coveted long before he had engineered the coup against Carantia’s king.

Alese’s escape had altered all his meticulous plans. It was as if she had vanished from the face of the earth. All the rogues and investigators and lawmen he had hired to find her had returned empty-handed. Even he had begun to lose hope.

Until he heard of the tournament and the beautiful girl—golden haired, with eyes the rare blue-green of the finest turquoise. Subtle inquiries had convinced him. It had to be Alese. He’d been sure of it once he’d seen her.

How she could have been overpowered by humans and become a prize in San Francisco’s most notorious underground poker tournament he couldn’t guess. What had she been doing since her escape? Why hadn’t she returned to New Orleans? Had she been too ashamed? Afraid he would find her there?

The fact was that it made no real difference what had happened to Alese during the past four years since she had escaped his custody. He had her at last.

Or so he had believed.

Hugo’s hands clenched and unclenched on the tabletop. He had not dreamed it possible that Cochrane could fail to win the match. The man was said to be the best in the city, perhaps in all the West, and yet he had lost to a common gambler.

No. Cortland Beauregard Renier was very far from common. He was werewolf, and that was the one circumstance Hugo had failed to prepare for.

Cortland Renier. A man of great skill—or luck. By all accounts an inveterate gambler, one of that class of men who considered themselves gentlemen but haunted the Coast seeking the easy life they hoped to acquire by the most dubious of means.

But this one, they said, could be very dangerous if crossed. That was hardly a surprise, given his inhuman nature.

Still, it was not his nature that troubled Hugo at the moment. The name Renier was not uncommon in parts of the United States. It was held not only by the most powerful werewolf clan in the country, but by lesser breeds scattered through the South and West.

The question was which clan and family claimed the man who had stolen Hugo’s prize, and whether or not his being here at such a time was more than mere coincidence. Most of all, Hugo had to find out whether Renier knew he had just taken custody of his own missing relation.

Hugo rang for another bottle of wine and scowled at his empty glass. If the New Orleans Reniers had heard of the tournament and the girl who stood as one of the prizes, it was not so incredible that they would have sent a family member to see if she could be the missing Lucienne. Discreetly, of course. The New Orleans Reniers had not widely advertised Lucienne’s kidnapping, and Hugo suspected that few in the family actually knew her true name and origins.

The name “Cortland” was not one Hugo recognized from his time in New Orleans. Even if the man was one of the Western Reniers, unconnected with the aristocratic lineage, he must quickly have realized that the girl was a werewolf.

Such females were not easily acquired in the West, especially not by lone wolves, and lust could be a powerful motive.

Lone wolf or New Orleans Renier, Cort was not likely to be an easy mark. Hugo’s clear advantage was that Cortland Renier, whoever he was, would not be likely to recognize him.

Hugo allowed his thoughts to simmer as the waiter brought another bottle, held it for his inspection and poured the wine. When the human was gone, Hugo’s mind was a little clearer. Assuming Cortland Renier was a free agent and didn’t recognize his prize as “Lucienne Renier,” she might be desperate and frightened enough to disclose her name.

How would Renier respond? Would he choose to help her? That would be only a little less problematic for Hugo than if he were a direct agent of the New Orleans Reniers.

Slapping a few coins down on the table, Hugo rose. It was only a question of getting the facts and making his plans accordingly. He would get Alese back. There was no question of that. He would set his men to watch the boardinghouse where Renier lived, and the gambling halls and dives he frequented. He would send a telegram to his contacts in New Orleans. By tomorrow or the next day, he would know if Cortland Renier had the backing of the clan.

If he did not, Hugo would approach Renier directly. He might simply take her by force, which would seem to be the easier path, but there was always a risk in using violence against a fellow werewolf. Alese might escape again.

No, Hugo thought as he walked toward the saloon door, he would take the somewhat lesser risk of offering Renier a substantial reward for the girl’s return.

One way or another, Alese would become his bride, the bride of Duke Gunther di Reinardus. The weakling cousin who now held the Carantian throne, ruling at the whim of the noble houses, would be far more easily deposed than Alese’s parents had been. And those who would change the ancient Carantian way of life, the human-lovers and rebel egalitarians who wished Carantia to become part of the corrupt modern world, would suffer the fate they deserved.

IT COULDN’T BE.

Cold logic told Yuri that the girl in the other room couldn’t possibly be the one she so vividly resembled. It had, after all, been eight years since the duke had stolen her from New Orleans, and there was no guarantee that a woman grown would resemble the child of twelve she had been then. Especially a woman who had so clearly suffered since her abduction from a pampered, aristocratic life.

He paced the narrow boarding-house hallway, shaking his head with every step. What were the odds that she could have escaped Duke Gunther di Reinardus, the ruthless traitor, the very man responsible for the deaths of her parents, and ended up in San Francisco at the very same time he and Cort were here? And she must have escaped, because the Gunther he had known eight years ago would never have let her go.

Yuri sat down on the steps and fiddled nervously with the unlit cigarette dangling from his fingers. It must be the same woman. He had seen the birthmark below her shoulder blade when her blanket had slipped. As fantastic as the whole thing seemed, he had never been one to doubt his senses. That very pragmatism had originally allowed him to accept the existence of werewolves and join the duke in his scheme to claim the Carantian throne.

A scheme that, apparently, had failed at some point in the years since he had left the duke’s service. Given the way di Reinardus had abandoned him in New Orleans once he’d taken the girl, Yuri couldn’t help but take a great deal of satisfaction in that fact.

He pushed the cigarette between his lips and tried to strike a match. His fingers trembled too much to keep it steady.

Think. If this girl had in fact lost her memory, it might explain why she hadn’t gone straight back to New Orleans. Perhaps she’d been on the run ever since.

But when had she left Gunther? Weeks ago? Years? Gunther would have begun grooming her for the throne as soon as he took her, and that would not have been a difficult task, given her upbringing among the New Orleans Reniers. Raised to be accomplished and cultivated, accustomed to every luxury due a girl of breeding, she would have needed little refining.

Where had that refinement gone? The way this girl had eaten, spoken, behaved … none of that suggested an aristocratic background. What had Alese di Reinardus, also known as Lucienne Renier, become?

And where in God’s name was Gunther?

Casting an uneasy glance toward the door, Yuri finally managed to light the match and nearly burned his fingers. He threw the blackened stick to the floor. Unless Gunther’s death or complete incapacitation had set Alese free—and Yuri didn’t believe anything short of the wrath of God himself could kill the bastard—the duke must be looking for her. Perhaps the girl’s amnesia was merely an embellishment to a desperate masquerade.

Gunther would certainly never rest until he found her. But if he had tracked her here to San Francisco, Yuri would soon know. The duke would quickly have learned the name of the man who had taken possession of his missing prize.

He would be on this doorstep momentarily, if he were not here already.

Sucking in a deep lungful of smoke, Yuri closed his eyes. Perhaps, for once, the duke had failed. Perhaps Alese had well and truly eluded him. And that left a whole wealth of opportunities for Yuri and Cort. Dangerous ones, perhaps, but if they acted quickly.

Without even knowing who she was, Cort was fully prepared to find her people and restore her to them for a price. Once he knew the girl was Lucienne Renier, he would see the beauty of Yuri’s scheme. There was little the New Orleans Reniers wouldn’t pay to get their lost “cousin” back.

And if or when Gunther discovered what had become of her, Yuri and Cort would be long gone.

Yuri dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the toe of his boot. Timing was everything. They needed to get the girl out of the city, just in case Gunther tracked her to San Francisco. And there were other things that would have to be done. It wouldn’t be necessary for Cort to know all the details to play his part in the plan.

Especially now that they had a princess on their hands.

Knees creaking, Yuri got to his feet, painfully reminded that he was no longer young. Soon he would need the money he had as yet failed to acquire and keep. This might be his final chance, and he was determined to take it. And if he got his revenge on Duke Gunther di Reinardus in the meantime, so much the better.

CORT WAS JUST APPROACHING the door to the rooms he and Yuri shared, precariously balancing several boxes in his arms, when the Russian walked into the hallway.

A jolt of alarm shuddered through Cort like an unexpected earthquake. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“Inside, asleep.”

Cort relaxed. “She’s well?” he asked.

“The devochka has many questions, but she shows no signs of distress.” He grabbed Cort’s arm and pulled him back along the narrow hall. His eyes were bright and calculating.

“What are you up to, Yuri?” Cort asked, recognizing that look all too well.

The Russian lowered his voice to a whisper. “Do you not recognize her?”

Cort set the boxes down. “What are you talking about?”

“The girl!” Yuri shook his head impatiently. “She resembles Lucienne Renier in every detail, even given the difference in age from the time she was abducted.”

Lucienne Renier. The name startled Cort, and it took another moment before he remembered the story. He hadn’t known the child stolen away from the grand manor of the New Orleans Reniers eight years ago. He had courted Madeleine in secret and had never visited her openly at Belle Lune until the last time he had seen her. If he had ever glimpsed Lucienne Renier, it had been briefly and at a distance.

Yuri, however, had been for a time a guest at the Renier plantation just outside New Orleans—an exotic but impoverished nobleman who, despite his human nature, was of interest to the Reniers because of his aristocratic bloodline. Though the Reniers had not widely advertised the abduction, Yuri would likely have heard about it firsthand.

It was his connection to the Reniers that had brought the two of them together at a French Quarter tavern shortly after Cort had won enough money to leave Louisiana. The Russian had taken Cort’s side in an after-game brawl, and once Cort learned that Yuri had recently parted ways with the Reniers himself, they had fallen into earnest conversation.

That, in turn, had led to a mutually beneficial agreement: Yuri would teach Cort to be a gentleman equal in every way to the Reniers of New Orleans, and Cort would support them both with his gambling skills. But if Yuri had spoken of the abduction when they’d met, Cort hadn’t been listening. He’d had far more personal things on his mind at the time.

“They never learned who took her?” he asked.

The Russian snorted. “Obviously they did not.” He rubbed his hands like the disciple of Midas he was. “Eight years. It is a long time. But I swear it is the same girl. No other could have such eyes.”

Cort sat heavily on the stairs that faced the building entrance. It seemed too incredible to be believed, and the implications were staggering.

Lucienne Renier. A girl who bore the same surname he did, but only the most distant connection by blood. Like Madeleine.

Yet this girl was nothing like Madeleine. She had none of Madeleine’s refinement or manner of speech, and for all her radiant beauty, her behavior was as rough as an uncut diamond. Could the offspring of such a family forget everything she had been taught before her abduction, all the graces, mannerisms and expectations of her station?

She had pride enough, true, but it wasn’t the sort the Reniers displayed. There was no arrogance, no pompous expectation of fealty from lesser beings, human or loup-garou.

How could she have lost so much? Where could she have been all this time?

She doesn’t remember. If she had been alone on the streets for any length of time, she would have had to fight for survival. It could have changed her beyond all recognition.

And yet …

“She was only a cousin, of course, not one of the central line,” Yuri said, “but she was regarded as a daughter by Xavier Renier.”

“What of her real parents?”

“I presume they were dead, though nothing was ever said of them. Regardless of her relationship to the New Orleans clan, they would have spared no expense in searching for her.” Yuri paced from one end of the hall to the other, his breathing sharp with excitement. “You spoke of finding the girl’s family and claiming a reward. This could not be more perfect! Of course we must make careful preparations. We will—”

“What if you’re wrong?” Cort interrupted.

Yuri stopped as if he had walked into a wall. “I cannot be. I would know if she—”

“Memories can deceive.”

A calculating look replaced the exultation on Yuri’s face. “Not only my memories. The Reniers remember her as she was. They will not expect to see what she is now—a wild, unschooled guttersnipe fought over by gamesters. You and I, however … we can make her into what they do expect.”

Cort rose and gathered up the boxes. He understood Yuri completely. The Russian recognized that he might be wrong, that the girl might only be a fluke of nature, a perfect duplicate no more real than the reflection of a face in a pond.

But it didn’t really matter. Yuri’s plan could work. The Reniers could be persuaded to accept her if they wanted her badly enough. So many, human and werewolf alike, lived in a world of dreams, blind to what they didn’t wish to see.

Just as he had lived, once upon a time.

“You must see that it’s worth the gamble,” Yuri said. “Their gratitude would be immeasurable if they were convinced of her identity. She—”

“You forget one thing, Yuri,” Cort said. “She may refuse. If she regains her memory …”

“Her memory will prove us right. You will see.” Yuri smiled, sly as a fox. “And what a coup for you. They may not even recognize you as Beau Renier, at least not at first. And when they do.” He rubbed his hands together. “The swamp wolf will have the pleasure of restoring a child of the noble Reniers to those who spurned him.”

After all their years together, Yuri knew exactly where Cort was most vulnerable to persuasion. Cort hadn’t forgotten a single humiliation, a single curse, a single blow he had suffered at the hands of the New Orleans Reniers. He’d been no more than a temporary amusement for a bored girl in search of adventure, briefly titillated by the prospect of rebellion against her autocratic father.

Because of her—because of all of them—he had transformed himself into the very image of the gentleman Madeleine might have accepted. When he made his fortune and could look her father and brothers in the eye, equal in every way, then he would go back and show Madeleine what she had cast aside.

His fortunes had proven more fickle than he had anticipated, and he had almost given up on the idea of returning. Now he had the opportunity that had eluded him.

And what if she has another family searching for her? He would be robbing her of a life she might have forgotten, but it would still exist, waiting for her return.

There was no earthly reason why he couldn’t make other inquiries, as he’d promised the girl. Such an investigation might take weeks, if not longer. But he could set it in motion immediately, and in the meantime make whatever preparations were necessary to groom her for her role as Lucienne Renier.

Oh, she might resist at first. She certainly had a mind of her own. But more than once he’d seen yearning and sorrow in her eyes, especially when he’d spoken of other loups-garous in San Francisco or speculated about her family. She wanted to belong to someone.

Perhaps he could win that sense of belonging for her as he had never been able to do for himself. And profit in the winning.

“It is a reasonable plan,” he said to Yuri. “But you must contain your eagerness, mon ami. She is like a wild animal who must be coaxed into the cage little by little. We must begin by discovering what she does know. With rest, safety and careful cultivation, whatever she was before may emerge on its own.”

“We can’t keep such a girl hidden long,” Yuri said, “even if Cochrane makes no attempt to steal her back.”

“Then we’ll keep her confined until such time as we can find a safer place to put her.”

Yuri fingered his short beard. “A safer place,” he murmured. “It should be outside the city. Leave it to me.” He nodded to himself. “She will need a complete transformation, and you and I cannot do it alone. I have thought of someone who would be ideal to teach her subjects on which you and I are not qualified to speak.”

“Is that not somewhat premature?” Cort asked.

“Not if we wish to move quickly.”

“Who is this person?”

“An old acquaintance from New Orleans, from a time before you and I met. She is well educated, has excellent taste and is familiar with New Orleans Society.”

“How familiar?”

“She is not loup-garou, but she has had frequent dealings with the leading families in the city. She knows your kind exist.”

“And you trust her?”

“As much as I have ever trusted anyone.”

“How do you expect to pay her? Until I’ve won a few more games, we’ll have barely enough funds to cover the girl’s basic necessities.”

“Babette has fallen on hard times. She is widowed and currently resides in Denver in a state of near poverty. I am certain she will settle for a modest salary and a cut of the reward.”

“How much do you suggest we tell her?” Cort asked.

“She can’t do her job unless she knows as much as possible,” Yuri replied.

“Say nothing of my previous association with Lucienne’s family.”

“Naturally.”

“How long will it take to get Babette here?” he asked.

“I can telegraph her immediately. She could be here in a few days.”

“Then do it.”

“At once.” Yuri examined Cort from under half-closed lids. “You’ll have plenty of time alone with the girl while I’m gone. Are you certain you have no. personal interest in her?”

“My tastes hardly run in that direction,” Cort said with a cynical lift of his brow. “And even if they did, I would not act on them. The girl claims that no one touched her. She may or may not be a virgin, but she must be guarded from anyone’s amorous intentions from now on.”

With a curt nod, Yuri removed a silver case from inside his coat, tapped out a cigarette and left the boardinghouse. Cort felt the uncomfortable weight of the half-truths he’d told Yuri, pretending he’d never felt any physical attraction to the girl.

But the fact that he had felt such attraction in the past hardly meant he couldn’t ignore it in the future. He shifted the packages, returned to their rooms and walked through the door.

The girl was bundled up on the sofa, her chin on her knees, her body taut under the mantle of her deceptive calm. Her nose twitched. Cort set down the packages and bowed.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, “I trust rest and a meal have improved your health.”

She glared at him from under the mane of blond hair that had fallen over her face. “I am very well, Cort.”

“Did you enjoy your visit with Yuri?”

“I don’t like him.”

It surprised Cort that Yuri hadn’t tried to make himself agreeable, given his ambitions. “Perhaps you will like this better,” Cort said. He unwrapped one of the packages to reveal half a ham and another that held a loaf of bread, butter and jam.

The girl’s nose twitched again.

Cort set the food on the table. “You are free to eat as much as you like,” he said.

“I can get my own food.”

“By stealing it? That would be unwise, ma chère.”

“Stop calling me ma chère.”

“As yet you’ve given me no alternative,” he said.

Pretending to ignore his comment, she eyed the other packages. “What are those?” she asked.

“Clothing for you. Proper attire for a lady.” He put one of the boxes on the table and began to untie the ribbon.

“A lady?” she echoed.

Her voice held a note of scorn that surprised him. “Certainly. Is that not what you are, mademoiselle?”

She tucked her chin against her chest. “No. And I don’t want to be one.”

Cort let the half-untied ribbons fall back onto the lid. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve seen many ladies. They can barely move in the clothes they wear, and they act as if they are weak and helpless.” She sniffed. “I don’t have to be like them. I don’t want to be.”

The contempt in her voice startled Cort into silence. The situation was far worse than he had imagined. She had not only forgotten that she had been raised as a lady, but she felt no desire to become one. What in God’s name had given her such a low opinion of her own sex?

In truth, was his opinion any better?

“When did you decide this, mademoiselle?” he asked.

“Before I came to—” She stopped, looking at him warily from under her lashes.

Before she came to San Francisco? Had she begun to remember? “If you were not a lady, what were you before?”

“Just …” She averted her gaze. “Just what I am now.”

“You are a woman, are you not?”

She seemed to struggle with an answer. “Not every woman is a lady.”

If Cort had been prone to despair, he might have felt it then. “That is true,” he said. “Some are—”

“A lady would never go to the places those men took me.”

“You are hardly at fault for what they did. If you come from one of the families I mentioned, you are a lady by birth and breeding. And not all ladies are as you described.”

“They all wear those awful dresses, don’t they? The ones with the.” She gestured at her blanket-clad body with eloquent distaste. “The stiff things they wear on top, and the bottoms like hobbles for ponies, and the pointed shoes and the silly hats and—”

Cort raised his hand to stop her. “The dress I have brought you is quite plain, mademoiselle,” he said with all the patience he possessed. “It was purchased ready-made and can be put on without the help of a maid. You need have no fear of resembling the fine ladies you speak of.”

One of her feet emerged from under the blanket, as if she were dipping her toes into frigid water. “But I’ve never worn a dress before,” she said plaintively. “At least … I don’t think I have.”

“How were you dressed when the men took you?”

“Like you.”

He barked a startled laugh. “Like me? You were wearing a man’s clothes?”

“Yes. Is that so funny?”

Appalling, Cort thought, but hardly funny.

“No,” he said, attempting to soothe her agitation. “It was a wise precaution if you were alone on the streets. Someone must have told you to disguise yourself.”

“I don’t remember.”

That refrain was rapidly becoming tiresome. “You have no clothes of your own. Wherever you come from, whatever your past, society has certain expectations of any young woman.”

“Even loups-garous?”

“Even loups-garous.” He took the lid off the box, unfolded the paper in which the dress was wrapped and draped the garment over his arm.

“Surely you have no objection to this,” he said.

Her cheeks flushed. “How can I run in something like that?”

“As long as you remain under my protection, you’ll have no need of running.”

He could see her preparing to remind him that she didn’t need protection, but she seemed to think better of it. “Can you take it back?” she asked in a small voice.

As he had guessed, she wasn’t nearly as confident as she pretended. “I suggest you try it on before you make any decisions.” He laid the dress over a chair and glanced at the other boxes with a frown. One contained sensible but attractive boots, another stockings and undergarments and the last the corset no lady did without. The shoes and undergarments would surely not be objectionable, but the corset?

He left that box aside and opened the others, leaving their contents in place. “I will wait in the other room while you dress,” he said, and walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

For what seemed like hours he paced the small room, twice bumping into the beds with uncharacteristic clumsiness. He imagined her letting the blanket fall, standing naked as she examined the dress. He envisioned her slipping the drawers over her strong, slender thighs and easing the chemise over her head. The thin lawn was just sheer enough that her nipples would show pale brown and tempting through the fabric.

Cort wiped the image from his mind. He heard the rustle of heavier cloth, noises of frustration and the clatter of shoes. When he could bear it no longer, he opened the door.

The girl was standing in the center of the room, the dress in place, balancing on one booted foot. She was very red in the face.

“Here,” she said. “Are you happy?”

Happy was not the word for his feelings at that moment. The dress was very plain, as he had said, intended more for a shop girl than a well-bred lady. But she … she made it look like the most expensive French couture. Her figure needed no corset, nor could her stiffness and embarrassment hide her natural grace. His body stirred in unwelcome rebellion.

“Parfaitement,” he said in a half-strangled voice.

She gave him a suspicious glance and suddenly lost her balance. Cort was beside her in an instant, but she shoved him away.

“I hate these shoes,” she said, kicking off the one she had been wearing.

“But you like the dress, yes?” he asked.

She pulled the sides of the skirt away from her body. “No.”

He took a seat in the chair and rubbed his chin. “How can I help you, ma chère, if you refuse my assistance?”

The girl bristled. “What do you want in return for this ‘help’?” she demanded.

He had already given her an explanation, but apparently she had yet to accept it. Once again Cort wondered what she had suffered before he had found her. What had she seen on the streets? Had she been living under circumstances where men routinely used women as objects of pleasure and convenience?

“I regret if I have given you the impression that I want anything from you,” he said stiffly.

Her face fell, and she stared down at her bare feet. “I’m … sorry,” she said. “I’m just not used to …”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but he couldn’t doubt her contrition. It was a step toward gratitude, in any case. And gratitude was exactly the emotion he wished to arouse. That, and unquestioning trust.

He would have to work very hard to earn that particular prize.

“Whatever you have suffered in the past,” he said gently, “not all men are like the ones who abused you. There are motives other than.” He stopped, unwilling to put his thoughts into words. They seemed far too dangerous when he himself could not quite control his physical reaction to her. “Have you known no kindness in your life?”

“I …”

Don’t remember, of course. “If that is true,” he said, “I regret it deeply.”

She met his eyes. “I believe you.”

Another small step. “You do me honor, mademoiselle,” he said.

All the yearning he had seen before filled her face again. “Do you really think you can find my family?”

“I am certain of it.”

“There is so much I don’t understand. Everything is so strange.”

“I will guide you.”

Something in her seemed to give way, and she stumbled back against the table. Cort jumped up to support her, and this time she didn’t push him away. All the resistance went out of her body, and she looked up, vulnerable and frightened and trusting. Her eyes were like the sea at its most tranquil, right before a storm.

He didn’t intend to let that storm break. He held her, feeling the warmth and suppleness of her body, taut with the kind of muscle built by vigorous exercise. If he had ever doubted that she had experienced something very different from the soft, easy life of a Madeleine Renier, he had no such doubt now.

And yet she was so beautiful.

“Ma belle,” he murmured.

Her eyes half closed, dreamy and inviting. Her lips parted. She could not have offered a more appealing invitation.

He lowered his head. She made no move to stop him. With a staggering flash of insight, Cort recognized that she didn’t fully comprehend what he was about to do. She had understood enough to realize that the men who had taken her had planned something unpleasant for her.

But in this matter of a kiss her expectations were only half-formed, like those of a child who has heard snatches of conversation between her elders about things no youngster should know. Cort was certain now that she had never been touched.

A string of bitter curses ran through his mind, each one more profane than the last. He had lied to Yuri when he’d said he had no interest in this woman. He might tell himself so, but his resolve was not nearly so firm as a certain part of his anatomy, which had quickly developed the troublesome habit of demanding his attention whenever he was near her. And even when he wasn’t.

Perhaps if he had never seen her body in that diaphanous gown, or witnessed her Change, he might have dismissed such unwelcome sensations more easily. But he had seen it. All he wanted now was to feel her flesh touching his, taste her lips and her breasts, hear her eager little cries of joy when he introduced her to a world of pleasure he was certain she had never known.

And that would make him no better than the others who had lusted after an innocent girl. Would turn him into a barbarian who would use her for the sake of his own satisfaction. Destroy the very trust that was so essential in what was to come.

Slowly he released her. She swayed a little and found her balance again. The protective stiffness returned to her body. She edged away from him and toward her safe harbor on the sofa.

The sound of ripping fabric made Cort wince. She started, glanced at the shoulder seam of the bodice and bit her lip. He no longer doubted that she had little experience with dresses.

At least the garment hadn’t been too expensive.

He smiled at her. “Would you feel more at ease in a shirt and trousers?”

“Oh, yes.” She grinned, all embarrassment forgotten, then her shoulders slumped again. “But if you really think I need to wear a dress to see my family …”

“I do. In spite of your doubts, I remain convinced that you are of good family. I am certain that they would be deeply dismayed if they had any suspicion that you had suffered as you have. Dressing properly will help ease their worries. That is what you would wish, is it not?”

She hung her head. “Yes,” she said. “I will learn to wear a dress.”

She was so earnest that Cort almost felt ashamed. Her loneliness was like a wound in his own body. Whatever companionship she’d had before he had won her, it couldn’t have been enough. She would do anything to ease that emptiness inside.

Once he would have done the same.

“I promise,” he said, “that I will not ask more of you than you can give.”

Her smile was radiant, giving without holding back any part of herself. “Thank you,” she said, glancing down at her updrawn knees. “I have remembered something.”

Cort braced himself. “And what might that be, mademoiselle?”

“My name,” she said. “It’s Aria.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ARIA.

Not Lucienne, as Yuri had hoped, but something far more enchanting.

Aria. A song. She was a song, as enticing as a waltz, as earthy as an Acadian air, as full of fire as a Beethoven symphony.

God forbid that he should learn that melody too well.

“Aria,” he repeated. “A lovely name.”

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

The tone of her voice brought Cort to attention. “You wish to keep it a secret?”

“I … I just don’t want anyone else to know.”

Which was most peculiar. Was that the name she had been using since her abduction, the name her captor had given her? But why would she want to conceal an assumed name? Had she remembered something she didn’t want to share even with him?

“You can confide in me, Aria,” he said. “Why don’t you want anyone to know?”

“I don’t know why!” she said, her voice rising. “It must be important, but—”

“Do you remember ever having gone by any other name?”

She frowned. “I remember someone calling me ‘Anna.’“

Anna. Not an inspired name for a woman like her. “Would you prefer that I call you by that name?”

“Yes,” she said, then lowered her voice. “Except when we’re alone. But I still don’t want you to tell anyone else about Aria.”

Cort saw no good in pushing her too far. “I will not share your name with anyone without your permission,” he said. “You have my word.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Have I permission to tell Yuri your real name?”

“I … I suppose.” Her eyelids began to droop, the fringe of long lashes brushing her cheeks. She quickly opened them again, but Cort knew she was losing the battle to stay awake.

“You will have my bed tonight,” he told her. “Yuri and I will sleep in this room.”

“I don’t mind sleeping here,” she said.

“There is no need.” And I would prefer you sleep well away from the door. If Cochrane should send someone after Aria, it would be at night. Cort would spend the dark hours in the hall, watching for intruders. Yuri could guard the inner door.

“I will find you other clothes,” he said. “Yuri will remain with you while you rest.”

Aria made a faint sound of protest. “Why does anyone have to stay with me?”

“Because the others who … wanted to take you when I found you may come looking for you.”

“Here?”

“They are dangerous men, and I won’t take any chances with your safety.”

“Very well.” She sighed and closed her eyes. In seconds she was asleep.

Innocence. That quality seemed to radiate from her face like the gentle light of a candle burning bravely in the darkness. Whatever she had experienced, it had left no real mark on her.

Why should he find that appealing? He hadn’t been attracted to innocence since he’d courted Madeleine, and in the end, she had proven anything but innocent.

Yes, indeed. They would have to acquire new lodgings very soon. Lodgings that would allow for more distance between him and Aria.

At least her feelings about him would not be likely to proceed any further unless he encouraged her.

And he wouldn’t. No matter how much she provoked him.

Cort took hold of himself and went out to see if Yuri had returned.

The Russian was smoking in the hallway. “Well?” he asked.

“She’s sleeping again. I have a few more errands to attend to.”

Yuri gave him a long look. “What is it?” he asked. “What has happened?”

Cort told him briefly about her reaction to the dress.

Yuri rolled his eyes. “This will not be easy.”

Feeling an unaccountable desire to defend Aria, Cort glared at Yuri. “She has remembered her name.”

“Lucienne?”

“Aria,” Cort said.

Yuri eyed him askance. “You do not seem disappointed.”

“I never assumed she was Lucienne Renier.”

“You were confident enough to agree to my plan. In any case, she might not remember her real name. Or she might be lying about not remembering.”

“You think she is feigning her amnesia?”

“It is possible, is it not?” Yuri took a drag. “Have you changed your mind about our plan?”

Cort considered telling Yuri that he had decided to place advertisements in local papers and thought better of it. Yuri wouldn’t be pleased. “I believe we must be cautious,” he said.

“I am still confident that she is Lucienne. We must proceed on that basis, or we cannot proceed at all.”

Yuri was right. Yet a little prick of unease kept Cort silent. By the time he had finished his errands, however, he was thinking clearly again. Night was falling, and for once the sky was clear. He returned to the boardinghouse in far better spirits.

Yuri met him in the hall.

“She is going to need a great deal of work,” he grumbled.

Cort’s good mood began to fade. “Have you had an argument?” he asked.

“What makes you think that?”

“She doesn’t like you.”

“So? That means nothing to me. She trusts you, and that is enough.”

“Did she tell you so?”

“You can try to turn a Russian bear into a pussycat if you wish.” He shook his head with a sigh of resignation. “We will have to begin as if she were a peasant child from some backward derevnia in Siberia.”

Cort began to grow angry. “A peasant?” he repeated softly.

“She eats like a peasant, behaves like one and speaks like one.”

“As I did?”

Yuri threw up his hands. “You are one no longer. Nor will she be when we are finished.”

Damn Yuri. It would be the same discussion all over again if he let this continue. “I have things to give her,” Cort said. “You’re free to go out.”

“Spasibo, Your Highness,” Yuri said, bowing with an ironic snap of his heels. “When have I your permission to return?”

“Before nightfall, Baron Chernikov. And bring back a proper dinner and a bottle of wine, s’il vous plaît.”

Growling like the Russian bear he had spoken of, Yuri strode out the door. Cort went on to their rooms, knocked lightly and waited for Aria to answer.

She opened the door a crack, her face pressed to the jamb, a single turquoise eye visible in the narrow gap. The eye widened, and Cort almost thought he caught the edge of a grin.

“Oh. It’s you,” she said with an air of indifference, and opened the door. She was wearing a sheet from one of the beds, gathered and tied around her waist with what looked like one of Yuri’s suspenders. She glanced at the packages, skipped out of his way and took her accustomed place on the sofa. Beside her lay the damaged dress. She picked it up and began industriously stitching the shoulder seam.

“I asked Yuri for a needle and thread,” she explained. “I will have this mended very soon.”

Cort set down the packages and watched her, careful not to reveal any of his thoughts. Her skill was evident in her deft motions and the painstaking care she put into the task. Ladies of good family might embroidered handkerchiefs or antimacassars, but few made or mended their own clothing.

“Where did you learn to sew so well?” he asked.

Aria looked up, and Cort could see the pleasure she quickly concealed. “It isn’t difficult. Anyone can learn to do it.”

Especially anyone who didn’t have the luxury of replacing worn clothes with new ones.

“I’ve brought you a few more items you’ll need,” he said.

Aria set down her sewing. “My shirt and trousers?”

“Among other things.”

“Thank y—” She wrinkled her nose. “Something smells awful.”

Cort couldn’t have agreed more. He knew better than to give a loup-garou female perfume, no matter how subtle, but the paper the shop girl had wrapped the items in was scented.

“It will fade,” he said. He laid out a selection of hair combs, a mirror, a brush and other toilet items. Aria slid off the couch and approached, real interest in her expression. She picked up and examined each item in turn. The mirror she held a little longer, staring ferociously into the glass as if she could make no sense of what she saw in it. After a minute she put it down.

“Thank you,” she said.

Cort was unaccountably pleased by her gratitude. “Voilà,” he said, opening the last package.

As soon as she saw the trousers she gave a crow of delight and nearly knocked Cort over in her eagerness to take them from him. She held them up to her waist.

“They are perfect!” She danced like a foal kicking up its heels as he displayed the shirt and cap and shoes. “How wonderful!”

Bemused and reluctantly charmed by her antics, Cort considered how mortified any respectable mama would be to see her daughter in such bliss over a secondhand, outgrown set of common boy’s clothes. But Aria was unaware, or simply didn’t care, how she must appear or who might disapprove.

With a little bob of her head, she dashed off into the bedroom. The sounds that followed told him that she was obviously in some haste to remove her makeshift robe and change clothes. Cort did his best not to listen or imagine her appearance between the shedding of one garment and the donning of another. He was studiously examining one of many threadbare spots in the ancient, dirty carpet when she reemerged.

Aria might have passed for a boy if she had taken the time to bind her breasts and tuck her hair under her cap. As it was, with her tresses tied back in an untidy queue, she looked once again a full five years younger than the twenty or twenty-one years he judged her to be.

It would be easier, much easier, for him if she wore such clothes for the remainder of his time with her. But that wouldn’t be possible. Soon enough she would be accustomed to wearing proper garments again. Perhaps, given the many layers with which modern women armored themselves, that would make things easiest of all. Her flesh would be confined, untouchable.

But that wasn’t going to happen soon enough. Her warm body fell against his. “Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Cort closed his eyes, working desperately to suppress his instinctive response. The smell of her hair filled his nose. Her heart thumped against his ribs. She broke away, and he realized with relief that he had been able to stay true to his resolve. She was only expressing her gratitude as a child would, oblivious to the consequences. His body remained under his control.

His emotions were another matter. He was in another kind of danger now. The danger of becoming fond of her. He could so easily step over the line from a certain admiration to something like affection. And he had given up such feelings many years ago. Any personal interest in her could only lead to disaster.

“De rien,” he said, setting her back. “It’s nothing.”

“Au contraire,” she said, speaking with a distinctly European French accent.

“You speak français very well,” he said.

“Do I? I wonder where I learned it.”

From a teacher whose employers considered it an essential skill, he was sure. But why that, and not an appreciation for other pursuits essential to the American rich?

“Well,” he said casually, “it is an ability not everyone can master.”

She plopped down in the chair and gazed at him as if he were a demigod and she his acolyte. “You are very kind,” she said.

Yuri would have laughed. Cort would have done the same if he hadn’t seen in her eyes what he had hoped to see: complete and absolute trust.

Will you betray that trust? he asked himself, then shook off the thought. “Yuri will be bringing dinner presently. Is there anything more you need?”

“I want to go outside.”

She had managed to startle him yet again. “Surely, after what has happened—”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Nevertheless, it would not be wise, especially after dark. Those men—”

“They won’t come around if you’re with me, will they?”

Not openly, perhaps. But the type of scum Cochrane would employ would use any tactics to get her back, and Cort had no more desire to fight now than he had before.

“I can’t stay in this room forever,” Aria said.

“It has only been one day. For the time being …”

She hopped off the chair. “But you’re like me!” she said. “Why can’t you understand? Werewolves weren’t meant to be confined like—” She broke off and glanced toward the door, jaw set. “You can come and go as you please. Why should you care if I go out, too?”

The girl was stubborn, yes. And apparently used to getting her way. That was certainly a Renier trait. But her insistence that being loup-garou should allow her to run free was not.

Cort listened to the quickening of her breath and observed the high color in her cheeks. It was as if she remembered racing through wood and over meadow, hunting the marshes and tasting the raw, steaming flesh of a deer or rabbit.

He remembered. Once he had relished such barbarities. But he had only Changed a half-dozen times since he’d left New Orleans, and one of those times had been today.

“You must be patient,” he said. “Your time will come.”

Aria’s shoulders sagged, and she retreated to the sofa.

It was an unpalatable victory. Cort knew better than to leave her alone in such a mood, but he could at least give her privacy to overcome her anger. He went out into the hall and sat on the stairs, counting the minutes until Yuri’s return.

The Russian came bearing a generous dinner and the requested bottle of wine. Cort and Yuri shared the wine without offering any to Aria; she seemed indifferent to the slight. The three of them ate in near-silence. Yuri looked between Cort and Aria with suspicious curiosity. Cort saw no reason to enlighten him as to the cause of the tension.

That night was not an easy one. Aria had finally agreed to use Cort’s bed, while Yuri slept on the sofa. Cort spent the night pacing back and forth in the street, every sense straining for the approach of footsteps or the smell of the men who had played against him in the tournament. No one came. When he went back inside a few hours before dawn, he could hear Aria tossing and turning in his bed, her warm body tangled among the sheets.

It was not only Aria who would have to be patient.

THERE WAS ONLY ONE SMALL, dirty window in the sitting room, and Aria spent nearly all the next three days planted in front of it, watching the parade of men and women in the street below go about their business. She had seen almost every kind of American in her journey west, from the fine ladies Cort so admired to the most common folk, like those she had been accustomed to in the mountains.

This part of the city, however, had no “real” ladies or gentlemen, except for Cort himself.

Aria had become very familiar with the dark, stinking streets of the Barbary Coast. When she’d first arrived in San Francisco, she had quickly learned that this city was almost as vast and incomprehensible as New York had been. She had discovered how difficult it was to find anything when you were alone, and how important money was when you didn’t have any.

She had managed to survive on her own for a while, moving from the brighter areas of the city into the grimy, fetid alleys where she could find food and shelter without having to pay for them, using her hunter’s senses and instincts to win her small advantages over the untrustworthy folk who knew and understood this terrible place so much better than she ever could.

But Cort had been right. She had assumed everyone she met was human because she didn’t know how to recognize one of her own kind. In the mountains, she had always known that she was stronger and faster, and could smell and hear better, than anyone else she met. Franz had finally told her that all wehrwölfe, at least those of pure blood, had such advantages over humans. She had been able to use them in the human world, but she wouldn’t have known a Carantian werewolf if she had bumped right into him.

Aria sighed and leaned her chin on the window frame. After weeks of keeping to herself, she had made one mistake. The mistake of letting hunger drive her to trust a stranger because she had not been able to fill her stomach in three days.

Now she had everything she needed to eat, and a quiet, safe place to rest. She knew she shouldn’t be so ungrateful and troublesome, but she couldn’t help it. Her feet were beginning to itch with the need to run, and her nose longed to smell the ripe scents of wood and mountain.

If only Cort could understand.

Someone shouted in the street, and Aria leaned closer to the filthy glass to see what it was. A wagon had turned over, and two men were shaking their fists at each other as the overripe vegetables were crushed on the ground beneath their feet.

The sight didn’t distract her for long. She was too busy trying to decide who Cort Renier really was. After she’d gone to bed last night, when she’d really taken the time to think, she had remembered all the expectations she had carried with her from Carantia.

She had always assumed that the wehrwölfe she met would be like her. Any werewolf would prefer the freedom of the wild to a human city with its high brick walls and crowds of people, even if they had to live among humans some of the time.

But Cort liked this place. He felt at home in it. He didn’t understand why she wanted to get out, even if it was dangerous.

Were the werewolf families, the Hemmings and the Phelans, like him? Cort had made very clear that they would want her to be a lady. Were they happy to stay in small boxes like this one, in a world where you couldn’t smell anything green or hear anything but the clatter of wheels and loud voices and clashing metal?

The itch in Aria’s feet became a nagging pain. She moved around the room, and examined each stick of furniture and the faded paintings as if she hadn’t already memorized every inch of them.

No, she couldn’t make any sense of Cort. What was worse, she couldn’t make any sense of herself. She’d never had such feelings as she had when she was with him. Unease, annoyance, frustration, confusion.

But those were not the only feelings. Nor even the strongest ones. She had been so glad when he had offered to help her and when he’d agreed to bring her the boys’ clothes. She had basked in his compliment about her French. She had wanted to tell him so much more than just her real name. She had wanted to surrender the last of her suspicions.

Maybe that was why she had embraced him. Because she finally wanted to let go. She’d wanted him to.

Her face went hot, and she touched her forehead with her fingertips. Franz had told her about men and women when she was sixteen. Humans and werewolves weren’t so different from the wild animals she’d seen mating in the woods, he’d said. They wanted to be together, male and female, and make children in the same way the forest animals did.

She had wanted to see that for herself and had gone to the edge of the village to watch the people there. What she’d observed had only confused her more. Some of the villagers spent a great deal of time kissing each other, not at all the way Franz kissed her on the forehead. It had looked very nice indeed.

But once they were in New York, she noticed something very different … men and women in shadowed alleys, the men grunting and groaning as they pushed themselves into women with paint all over their faces. Franz had turned very red and finally admitted that those men didn’t want to make babies. They enjoyed what they were doing, even if the women did not. Franz had warned her to be very careful around such men.

She hadn’t given any real thought to his warning. When the evil men had taken her, she hadn’t realized what they wanted at first. But when she listened to the things they said about her, everything fell into place.

They didn’t want to make children, either. They wanted to sell her to someone who would take his pleasure with her, just as those other men had done with those women in the dark streets. Whether she wanted to or not.

Cort hadn’t tried to do that. But when he had held her and looked down into her face, his mouth so close to hers, she had remembered what she’d seen in the village, the gentler things those people had done, and had known something wonderful was about to happen. Something she wanted with all her heart.

The sound of footsteps climbing the outside stairs pulled her out of her pleasant dreams. She ran to the door. The scent was unmistakable, like the rhythm of the footsteps themselves.

Not Cort, but Yuri. Aria backed away from the door and waited for him to come in.

He gave her a cursory smile that she didn’t quite believe, though she knew he wanted her to think he was her friend.

“Hello,” she said warily. “Where is Cort?”

Yuri eased himself into the chair with a grunt. “He is conducting necessary business.” He stared at her in a way she found disconcerting, and she stared back, trying to make him look away.

But he didn’t. He seemed to be weighing his thoughts, getting ready to say something important.

“Do you remember nothing more of your past?” he asked at last.

Aria shook her head.

Yuri stroked his beard. “Well,” he said, “we may have discovered something of interest. Cort did not want to tell you until he had made further inquiries, but …”

“What have you found?” she demanded, circling his chair.

Once again he made a show of hesitating, as if he enjoyed keeping her in suspense. “We believe we have located your relations, but they are not here in San Francisco.”

Not in San Francisco. That meant they couldn’t be the Hemmings or the Phelans or the Carantian exiles.

“Where?” she asked, refusing to give up hope.

“My dear, prepare yourself for a shock. Your kin are the Reniers of the city of New Orleans in the state of Louisiana.”

CHAPTER FIVE

HIS LUCK HAD most definitely changed. Cort laid out his winning hand, and the other players accepted in silence, grimaced or threw down their cards in disgust.

Two thousand dollars. It wasn’t much, but, added to his winnings during the past few days, it would be enough to make a serious start on Aria’s “education.”

Nodding to the other players, he gathered up his chips and went to cash them in. This was a decent establishment, aboveboard and free of the dangers that lurked in the worst of the gambling dens on the Coast. But after his recent run of luck, his reputation was beginning to make him less than welcome at the better places. If he intended to keep earning what he and Yuri needed, he would have to return to the less savory locations.

As he collected his money and secured it under his coat, he heard someone coming up behind him.

“Monsieur Renier?”

The voice held the cadences of a foreign tongue. Cort had never heard it before.

He turned and sized the man up quickly. Expensive clothes, a taut, proud bearing, a lean face punctuated with icy blue eyes, graying hair under a spotless top hat. Cort judged him to be in his fifties, and of an educated background.

He was also loup-garou.

“How may I assist you?” Cort asked.

Removing his gloves, the man bowed. “I have a business proposition for you, Monsieur Renier. One I think you will find interesting.”

Cort smiled, but he wasn’t amused. San Francisco was full of “businessmen” of every sort, many far from legitimate. “What sort of proposition?” he asked, leaning back against the bar. “Are you a gambling man?”

“Forgive me.” The man bowed again. “I am Hugo Brecht. What I propose would be no gamble for you, monsieur. It would be, as they say, a ‘sure thing.’“

“You intrigue me, sir,” Cort said, “but I am content with my winnings.” He tipped his hat. “Au revoir.”

He got no farther than a few steps before Brecht laid a hand on his arm to stop him. Cort didn’t so much as give him a glance.

“I will kindly ask you to remove your hand,” he said in a pleasant voice.

Brecht declined to cooperate. “Monsieur, you must listen. It is in regard to the girl you won during the tournament.”

All thoughts of dismissing the man drained out of Cort’s mind. He swung around, tense and ready to fight. “What about her?” he asked softly.

“Please join me in my private booth and I will explain.”

Damned right he would explain. The primitive part of Cort was tempted to drag Brecht into the alley behind the building and beat the answer out of him.

But he hadn’t yet fallen so far, and Brecht was already moving away. Cort strode after him, his heart beating fast. Brecht didn’t look like an errand boy or a hatchet man, and few loups-garous would consent to being a human’s agent. Still, it was possible that Cochrane had sent him without knowing what he was.

Possible, but not likely.

Cochrane almost certainly didn’t know that werewolves existed, or he would have behaved very differently with Cort.

Brecht’s private booth was one among several others located down a short hall. Brecht swept back the curtains and ushered Cort inside. He took a seat. When Cort didn’t follow suit, he poured himself a glass of the wine that sat on the small table in the center of the booth. Cort’s nose told him that the wine was of excellent vintage and had probably cost a small fortune.

“Since this is to be a gentlemen’s conversation,” Brecht said in a clipped voice, “I would prefer that you make yourself comfortable.”

Cort leaned over the table. “I would prefer that we get to the point,” he said.

“As you wish.” Brecht sipped his wine with a casual air, but there was nothing casual about the way he watched Cort. “I presume you still have the girl?” he asked.

“She is safe and well.”

“Excellent.” Brecht studied the contents of his glass. “You have done me a great service, monsieur, and I intend to reward you for it.”

“Indeed?” Cort settled into the vacant chair at last and pretended interest in the label on the wine bottle. “Perhaps you ought to explain your interest in the girl.”

“It is very simple, Monsieur Renier. She was lost to her family some time ago, and I have been seeking her ever since. When I learned of the tournament and the prize for the second-tier match, I planned to enter the contest. Alas, I was too late.” He met Cort’s eyes. “It is essential that I restore her to her family.”

A sharp chill of shock raced up Cort’s spine, and he bought time by making a show of considering what Brecht had said. His first thought was to wonder if Yuri had been wrong all along and Aria belonged to some local werewolf clan.

His second thought was more lucid. Lost some time ago, Brecht had said. But how long? Eight years, perhaps?

Cort picked up the second glass that stood empty on the table and filled it. “Strange,” he said. “She has said nothing about being ‘lost.’“

The other man raised a brow. “Indeed? What has she said?”

Cort had no intention of providing more information than he had to. He certainly wouldn’t tell Brecht about Aria’s loss of memory.

“She has said very little,” he said. “She has not even revealed her name. What is it?”

A tic jumped in Brecht’s cheek. “I am not surprised she failed to tell you. After what has occurred, she is doubtless afraid and ashamed to go home.”

He’d deliberately dodged Cort’s question. Brecht, too, was bent on revealing as little as possible. If he was an agent of the New Orleans Reniers …

Did they know who had won the girl? It seemed unlikely, or they wouldn’t have hesitated to approach Cort directly and demand her return. Brecht was either employed by the Reniers and was bargaining in more-or-less good faith, or he was simply a mercenary, like Cort himself, who believed he had recognized Lucienne Renier and saw a chance to claim a reward from the loup-garou clan.

Yet if he was not working for the Reniers, how could he be certain that Cort himself was not?

“The family’s name?” Cort repeated.

“You have no idea, monsieur?”

Cort gave him a taste of the truth. “I have heard nothing of any local family missing a daughter.”

“The family wishes to remain anonymous.”

“What makes you certain that she is the one you seek?”

“I was able to obtain a good description.”

“Descriptions can deceive.”

“Nevertheless, I am sure.” Brecht took another sip from his glass. “I must ask … have you touched her in any way?”

Cort began to rise. “I am a gentleman, monsieur. Your insinuations …”

“Forgive me,” Brecht said, waving his hand. “Naturally I take you at your word. I presume your intention in winning her was to help an innocent girl escape a terrible fate. The family in question has authorized me to be very generous. You may ask any price for her return.”

Any price. Cort was almost torn between asking more than Brecht could ever expect to receive from the New Orleans Reniers or rising to his feet in great offense and claiming to be a member of that very clan.

But that was too great a risk when he knew so little of Brecht or his true purpose. He settled for mild reproach. “I think you mistake me, sir,” he said.

Brecht reached inside his coat. “I am sure that we can reach some sort of agreement.”

“Are you not interested in learning if she has been used by those who put her up for auction?” Cort asked.

“That would be most unfortunate.” Brecht’s mask slipped, and Cort could see the wolf in him struggling to emerge.

Cort finished his wine and rose. “I am afraid that you have provided too little information for me to accept your offer. The girl is an innocent, and I do not intend to cast her out into the world until I am certain she will be protected.”

“Very admirable,” Brecht said, barely showing his teeth, “but your concern is unnecessary. Since you have no personal interest in the child …”

She is no child, Cort thought. But he only shook his head. “Pity has been my sole motive. Nevertheless.” He moved toward the curtains. “I must in good conscience decline until you are able to provide evidence of your honorable intentions.”

“Perhaps this will ease your doubts.” Brecht pulled out a fat leather wallet, withdrew a large number of bills and laid them on the table. The amount was staggering.

“This will surely recompense you for your time and sacrifice,” Brecht said, smugly certain of victory.

He had some reason to be. Such a sum would recompense Cort a hundred times over. He would never have guessed that he would ever turn down such an offer.

“Monsieur,” he said, “you are generous indeed, but again, I must decline.” He bowed. “Good day.” He bowed again and pushed his way out through the curtains.

Brecht released a harsh breath, and Cort fully expected the man to come after him. But by the time he reached the street, he knew he was not being followed.

That didn’t set his mind at ease. It was remotely conceivable that Brecht was telling the truth. Aria might be lying about everything, from her name to her amnesia. If Brecht was in fact honorable and Cort refused to cooperate, the man could simply tell the Reniers that Cort had her.

Yet if Aria hadn’t lost her memory, why wouldn’t she tell Cort right away that she had been kidnapped and ask to be returned to her family? Could it be that she didn’t want to go back to them? But why, then, would she appear to be so eager to find someone, anyone, to whom she belonged?

If he had to choose which one was the liar, Aria or Brecht, Cort wouldn’t hesitate. Brecht stank of deception. Cort had felt the simmering emotion beneath that cultured speech, and it was not merely concern for the girl or relief at the prospect of restoring a wayward daughter to the bosom of her family. There was something too personal in his interest.

Cort reached the boardinghouse in ten minutes. He stopped in front of the porch steps, his mind working furiously. He had made his position clear enough, but it was evident that Brecht wouldn’t give up easily. If he wasn’t able to bribe Cort, Brecht might very well take the kind of action Cort had expected from Cochrane.

The danger to Aria hadn’t diminished. If Cort wanted answers, he would have to speak to her and gauge her responses carefully. He had expected her to trust him. If he couldn’t trust her …

His body strangely heavy, Cort went into the house. He wasn’t ready to talk to Aria yet, and he didn’t believe that Brecht would send anyone to the house in daylight or so soon after their conversation. He would tell Yuri what had happened, but not now. The next few hours would be devoted to questioning the locals about Hugo Brecht.

He spoke briefly to Yuri, warning him to be vigilant, and slipped away before Aria could claim his attention. He couldn’t afford to have anything on his mind but his newest enemy.

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND what you must do?”

The men—two werewolf, two human—nodded without quite meeting his eyes. They were rough fellows, but they had been in his employ long enough to understand the consequences of failing Duke Gunther di Reinardus.

He sent them on their way and strolled out of the saloon, nodding and smiling to the proprietor, who had good reason to appreciate his taste in fine wines. The smile was a mask, of course. He felt nothing but contempt as he walked out into the street, stepping over sewage and horse droppings and the bodies of men too drunk to sit up, let alone stand.

All humans were scum, hardly worthy of treading the same earth as any werewolf. But even among his own kind there were those no better than the most loathsome dregs of this city. Cort Renier was a perfect example.

Gunther’s lip twitched as he made his way through the mud and filth. He brushed off a whining, dirty child begging for pennies and recalled the conversation. The risk had been considerable, but he had learned much of what he needed to know. He had little doubt now, even before he received the expected reply from New Orleans, that Cort Renier was an independent agent, not a member of the New Orleans clan. His trace of an accent and perfect French told Gunther that his origins were almost certainly in Louisiana, but everything else about the man pointed to inferior blood and breeding.

If Alese had told Renier her assumed name and the location of her relatives, or if he had already guessed who she was, he would now be doubly on his guard. That was only to be expected. Renier had certainly done an excellent job of pretending disinterest in the money Gunther had offered.

But pretense it was. Gunther did not for a moment believe that the man was honorable, nobly and unselfishly committed to guarding an abused girl’s innocence. One of his kind would never act simply out of altruism. It had been far too much money for such a rogue to turn down—unless he believed he could obtain more directly from the girl’s family.

The dirty human whelp stumbled and fell as Gunther pushed him away a second time. His thoughts returned immediately to Renier. Either the man was playing a deeper game than even Gunther could imagine, or he was simply stupid.

That, too, Gunther did not believe. Underestimating the man would almost certainly be a mistake.

Gunther turned the corner into an even more fetid street, attempting to close his nostrils against the stench. Perhaps Renier would think over their conversation and decide to accept the money after all, but Gunther wasn’t taking any chances. His men would dog the rogue’s footsteps and watch his boardinghouse every hour of the day and night. They were under strict orders not to act unless there was a certainty of success. Once a decisive move was made, there might very well never be another opportunity.

Pondering the obstacles that still lay ahead, Gunther slowed his pace. Renier’s boardinghouse was another block along the street, squeezed amidst a row of equally decrepit houses, saloons and bordellos. He cut into a back alley, turned and continued parallel to the street, then turned back again toward the main thoroughfare when he was across from the boardinghouse.

The porch sagged, the colorless paint was peeling from all the walls, and the roof looked on the verge of collapse. A pitiful domicile for any werewolf, especially one who fancied himself a gentleman.

There was no reason why Gunther himself should keep watch; his men would be along soon enough. Still he lingered in the shadows, leaning against the pitted brick wall beside him, and waited to see if anything interesting might happen.

Nothing did. The girl remained hidden, and there was no sign of Renier. Dusk was settling over the Coast and Gunther was preparing to leave when a man emerged from the boardinghouse, plumpish but unmistakably arrogant in his bearing. He looked right and left as he stood on the porch, pulled out his pocket watch and straightened his overcoat.

Even in the gloom of evening, Gunther’s keen wolf eyes picked out the details of the man’s face. He stiffened.

Yuri Chernikov.

Gunther watched the Russian stride away from the house in an obvious hurry. There was something furtive in Chernikov’s movements, in spite of his fast pace. But then, he had always been more rat than man, scurrying from one foul nest of schemes to another.

The wolf in Gunther urged him to pursue, relishing the image of Chernikov cowering at his feet. But he knew better than to give in to instinct without the balancing influence of intellect.

Intellect told him that the seemingly bizarre coincidence of finding the Russian in San Francisco, leaving the very boardinghouse occupied by Cortland Renier, was no coincidence at all. Yuri had been in New Orleans with Gunther eight years ago. Cortland Renier almost certainly came from Louisiana. The two of them might have known each other for years; Gunther had never bothered to vet all of Yuri’s connections once he had found those useful to him.

Gunther chuckled grimly. It was almost amusing. Had Yuri urged Cort to enter the game because he had guessed the girl’s identity, or had he recognized her afterward? He would certainly have known her as soon as he’d seen the birthmark on her back.

He would have realized that she must have escaped his former employer, but he obviously hadn’t suspected that Gunther was also in San Francisco. He would have seen an unprecedented opportunity in her fortuitous appearance.

But had he told Cortland Renier the full truth?

Smiling coldly, Gunther walked back to his hotel. Perhaps it would not be necessary to use violence after all.

YURI WAS GONE.

Aria pushed away from the window and circled the room, counting her steps for the hundredth time. It seemed years since the Russian had told her about her real family, and ever since then she had been able to think of nothing but talking to Cort.

But he hadn’t given her the chance. He’d come home briefly to speak with Yuri—a conversation she hadn’t quite been able to make out—then had left again immediately, as if he wanted to avoid her. She could guess his reason for running away. He didn’t want to explain why he’d kept something so important a secret.

Yuri had claimed they’d just found out who she was, but that didn’t make any sense. Didn’t she and Cort have the same surname? Why, she’d asked, hadn’t he known her identity right away?

Because, Yuri had explained, she and Cort were related in only the broadest sense of the word. The first Reniers had come from Europe centuries ago, but the various clans spread across the United States shared little more than the name itself.

She had wanted to ask more about those clans, but Yuri had shaken his head and changed the subject. He’d told her that she’d been “taken away” from her cousins in New Orleans many years ago, and that they had been looking for her for a very long time. With a terrible hope, she had begged to know if her parents were still alive.

He had told her what Franz had always claimed: that her parents were dead. After that he’d refused to answer any more of her questions.

Aria hugged herself as if she might burst into pieces if she so much as breathed too deeply. She had a surname now, a real identity. She was finally beginning to find out who she was. Who she truly was.

She stopped in the middle of the room and tried to quiet her soaring thoughts. There was still so much she didn’t understand. Franz had told her she had come to him when she was a baby. In her earliest recollections she had been too small to reach the pretty carvings Franz always kept on the highest shelf of the big glass case in the cottage parlor. She could see herself reaching and reaching, tears running down her cheeks when the exquisite figurines remained beyond the grasp of her chubby hands.

So clearly someone had taken her away from her family—her cousins—when she was only an infant, sometime after her parents had died. When she and Franz had left for America, Franz had said she would meet the men who had first brought her to him. He had said they wanted to keep her safe. But New Orleans was very far from Carantia, and Franz had told her that there were many in Carantia who would want to hurt her.

So why would anyone have taken her from her family in America and sent her all the way across the ocean?

And why would Franz have kept her past a secret? Why had he kept her isolated in the mountains? Why had he waited so long to tell her about her own kind and bring her to America? Why had she and Franz headed for San Francisco instead of the city called New Orleans, where her family had been looking for her?

None of it made any sense, but there must be some explanation. Franz must have had very good reasons for doing what he had. He was no longer here to explain, but soon she would know. Soon she would know everything.

Torn between sadness and exultation, Aria tried not to let her wild suppositions overwhelm her. But when night fell, tugging at her senses like the sweet smell of fat deer grazing on the thick summer grass, she could no longer bear it. She had to speak to Cort.

You must wait, she told herself. It was what Cort wanted. It was the safe thing to do.

But she didn’t want to be safe anymore. She wasn’t stupid enough to let another stranger on the street fool her with promises, and fill her with poison that made her blind and deaf and dumb. Even in this ugly city with its stench of rot and machines and thousands of conflicting odors, she could track a familiar scent.

Twisting her hair into a knot on top of her head, Aria secured it with one of the pretty, fragile ribbons Cort had brought and planted her cap on her head. She found the stuff Cort used to polish his boots and shoes, and smeared it over her face so it looked like smudges of dirt.

With only a twinge of guilt, she slipped into the hallway, paused to listen and then crept out the front door.

No one was paying any attention to the house, or to her. People came and went on their own business, heads down, dragging their scents behind them. She was just another boy to them, and that was the way she wanted it.

There were no lights on this street like the ones she’d seen in other parts of San Francisco, but she didn’t need them. There was still a trace of Cort’s scent, very faint, lingering just outside, as if it had been trapped in a bubble that burst only as she walked through it.

Concentrating with all her might, Aria followed the scent as she would follow a days-old deer track in the mountains. It wove in and out of a thousand other distracting smells, most unpleasant, but she grasped it tightly and moved deeper into the noxious maze of the Barbary Coast.

She was so focused on Cort that she only smelled the men when they were almost upon her. Metal caught the light from an open doorway, flashing down in an arc near Aria’s shoulder. Rough hands snatched at her shirt, and a rope slapped against her face. She broke free and ran into a small street squeezed between two ugly brick buildings. All she needed was a minute to get out of her clothes.

But her attackers didn’t want to give her any time at all. While one of the men swung the rope, the other came at her again, too fast and strong to be human.

CHAPTER SIX

ARIA DODGED OUT of his way, furious at her own stupidity. Cort had been worried about her going out alone. She had assumed he was concerned about the men who had taken her the first time.

But these weren’t the same men at all. She might not have Cort’s ability to recognize wehrwölfe just by looking at them, but she couldn’t mistake the way this man moved, or how easily he countered her attempt to escape.

It was almost funny that the second werewolf she’d met wanted to hurt her. But he did, and there was no point in trying to warn him off, or ask him and the other man what they wanted.

And no one was going to help her. She’d learned in her first week on the Coast that the people here knew better than to get in the way of bad men.

Backing deeper into the alley, Aria swept off her cap, dropped it on the ground and ripped open the front of her shirt. The man with the rope waited while the other werewolf began to remove his own clothing. Aria tore her trousers open with one hand and threw them aside. Cold, damp air wrapped around her arms and legs as she flung her underthings away.

The strange werewolf finished undressing a moment later. He was big all over and very hairy, and when he Changed his shoulder stood as high as Aria’s head. She closed her eyes and let her own wolf take her. Her enemy went straight for her front legs and knocked them out from under her.

But Aria was fast, and strong. She had spent years running and riding up and down mountain slopes, and along treacherous trails that wound through dense forest and beside sheer cliffs. Her muscles reacted instantly, propelling her to her feet again. She snapped at the stranger’s nearest foreleg, her teeth sinking through fur, and into flesh and bone.

Her enemy yelped and snarled, swinging his big head around to seize the ruff on Aria’s neck.

“Don’t hurt her!” the other man cried. “He wants her alive and well!”

But the wolf didn’t seem to hear. He bore down on Aria, smothering her with his far greater weight. She realized that he could crush her without even trying. She struggled beneath him, gasping for breath, her tongue lolling and her ears flat against her skull as she scrabbled at the mud with her nails and tried to get a grip on the stranger’s belly.

“Baldwin!” the man yelled. “Stop! If you—”

His voice cracked on a cry of pain. Aria made a feeble attempt to lift her head.

Cort, she thought. And suddenly she was free, the massive body on top of her tumbling sideways with a grunt of surprise. Aria leaped up, her whole body protesting the sudden movement, and sprang toward her attacker. A warm, thickly furred shoulder brushed hers. Together she and Cort fell on the stranger, who snapped and snarled but proved no match for the two of them working together. He rolled on his back in a grotesque posture of submission, and the stink of urine mingled with the foul carrion odor of his breath.

Cort stood over him, bristling and growling. Aria couldn’t laugh, not in this shape, but she grinned and danced with joy. She had never felt anything like this before, not even when she brought down the fleetest and noblest of stags after a long and exhausting hunt. She and Cort had won. Together.

But Cort didn’t seem interested in their victory. He Changed and stood over their enemy, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Get out of here,” he said, something cruel and rough replacing the usual smoothness of his voice. “Tell your master he won’t have her, even if he sends every loup-garou in California.”

He aimed a kick toward the other werewolf’s belly, but the beast dodged away and fled. The man who hadn’t Changed was already gone.

Cort turned to her. “Stay as you are,” he said harshly. He went to the mouth of the alley, glanced left and right, and gathered up the clothing he had dropped there. He had torn his clothing off when he’d Changed, and the garments were badly mangled. He examined them with obvious disgust.

“Ruined,” he said. He pulled on the trousers, which were ripped lengthwise from knee to hem, and fastened the two remaining buttons. He drew the equally torn shirt over his head, ignored his once-shiny vest and finished with his stained and dirty coat. His feet were bare and covered with mud. He looked so unlike his usual self that Aria wanted to laugh again.

That would not be a very good idea, even if she could have managed it in wolf form. He glared at her, promising reprisals for her disobedience, and picked up the rope the men had left behind.

“There is no point in collecting what remains of your clothes,” he said, “and it wouldn’t be advisable for a young woman to be seen walking the streets in a state of complete undress. You will pose as a dog until we get home. As for me—” He examined himself and made a sound of disgust. “I will doubtless be considered just another inebriate emerging from a fight in some den of iniquity.” He made a loop out of the rope. “Come here.”

The freedom she had claimed for so short a time, the warm rush of victory, could not be taken from her so easily. She laid her ears flat and bristled.

Cort sighed. “If you knew how much trouble you have caused.” He dropped the rope. “Stay close to me. If you stray more than an inch—”

He left the rest of the threat unspoken, but Aria heard the real anger in his voice, in the flat cadence of his words and the slight but noticeable change in his accent. She realized that she had seen him annoyed, even short-tempered, but never angry. Never so furious. Not with her.

Lowering her head, she crept toward him. He spun around and strode out of the alley, pausing once to study the ground.

“Someone seems to have availed themselves of my best pair of shoes,” he said.

With a grimace, he took a handful of Aria’s thick ruff in his fist and began walking. The feel of his hand in her fur was not in the least uncomfortable. In fact, it felt warm and strong and wonderful.

She realized he hadn’t been angry with her just because she had disobeyed him and taken a stupid risk. He was upset because he had been afraid for her. He had always claimed to care what happened to her, but now she was certain he had really meant it. He must have had a reason not to tell her who she was.

They were back at the house in five minutes. Cort let her go when they were safely in the hallway, and opened the door to their rooms. She darted inside, shook out her fur and Changed.

Something in Cort’s expression made her rush to find the hated dress. She put it on in the bedroom and came out again.

Cort was hunched in one of the chairs by the table, his elbows resting on his knees, staring at the carpet.

“You could have been hurt,” he said, not looking at her. “You do understand that?”

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