Free Luck of the Wolf by Susan Krinard Page A

today.
    â€œYou 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 therequested 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.
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    T HERE 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