Luck of the Wolf

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.