Free Scent of Darkness by Christina Dodd Page B

touched the mark on her lower back. It felt smooth; if she didn't know better, she would think that nothing was there.
    She should have expected her life would take this kind of freakish turn. But after so many years of balancing atop the high wire of normal, of only Sister Mary Magdalene's truly knowing how the infant Ann had been found and the troubles that followed, Ann thought ... believed ... hoped she could be ordinary. "I guess I need to change my opinion of what's impossible now," she mumbled.
    He laughed sharply, and glanced around. The wind had died; the lightning was fading, the clouds thinning. "The storm is gone, but this is no place to be after dark. Let's get out of here." He slid his arms around Ann again, picked her up, and strode off.
    He set a fast pace, and she read his moods very well—it was part of the job description. Right now he was worried. "Jasha, what are you afraid of?"
    "That I'll fail."
    That made no sense, but he was panting, and his uneasiness transferred itself to her. The last rays of the sun hit the treetops, while in the woods below, the shadows multiplied and thickened. She heard rustling in the underbrush. Wild animals . . . and worse. Maybe . . . maybe things like him.
    The wolves.
    Jasha and Ann reached the castle in record time— humiliating to think that if she'd run the right direction, she would have returned to the relative safety of a phone and locked doors—and he took her around to the back. Here she could see the garage sitting at right angles to the house, with its four doors for Jasha's prized cars.
    And that reminded her—"My poor car.” she said.
    "I'll call someone to tow it tomorrow."
    "If it's still there," she said gloomily.
    "Yeah. That was a hell of a storm. Literally." He laughed again, one of those short, bitter laughs that told her he knew something she didn't.
    He put her down on tine porch at the back door, and held her until she regained her balance. "You okay?"
    Her feet were sore, yes. All that running had exhausted her. But she held the icon, and she was alive. Alive as she had never been in her whole life. "I'm fine."
    He stretched up to the top of the doorsill and felt along it until he found a key; then he unlocked the door. Using his hand on the small of her back, he pressed her inside, acting as if she would turn and run at any minute.
    And maybe he was right. She didn't like the house anymore; it reminded her all too vividly of that moment when he transformed before her eyes. "Before—how did you get in?"
    "There's a dog door." He gestured absently, and reset the alarm system.
    "Of course. A dog door. How else would a man who turns into a wolf get into his own house?"
    His swift glance assessed her.
    The passions and madness had begun to pass, leaving cold good sense and a dreadful suspicion.
    His expression gentled. "Ask me."
    "Ask you what?"
    "The question that is burning in your mind."
    There were so many questions. So many. Yet one bothered her more than any other. She shuffled from one foot to the other, tried to decide if she wanted to ask it or remain in blissful ignorance. But one of the many lessons Sister Mary Magdalene had drilled required she seek the truth and face it square on, so she asked, "Did you kill him?"
    "Kill who?" He toed off his shoes without untying them and with his bare foot pushed them into the corner.
    "Are there so many you don't remember?" She tugged at the hem of the shirt, trying to cover her thighs with cloth and belated modesty.
    His generous mouth tightened in annoyance. "I haven't killed anyone   lately,   if that's what you mean."
    "Before you came in, I heard a shot. And you . . . you had blood on your mouth." She tensed, desperately wanting Jasha to deny the crime, not able to bear the idea that he'd come from murdering a man ... to her.
    "That's the question?" It was almost dark in the small entry hall, and in this light his face was all stone and shadow, with a pale slash of his scar across one cheek,