TOL2 Kiss of the Werewolf Page 2

  Jie sighed. He wanted to tell Li to ignore what he’d learned. He wanted to tell him to let the subject die. But he couldn’t. Not only could he not say such a thing to Li, his venerated godfather and teacher, but truthfully, Li’s pronouncement had begun to unleash his desire. As much as he wanted to suppress nature, he could not. The word woman and all that it meant had embedded itself inside him as soon as Li had spoken it. “Sifu, where is she?”

  Li rose slowly from the bed. He trudged to Jie’s desk and pulled his atlas from the shelf of books on the wall above the desk. He returned to the bed and sat back down, opening the book on his lap.

  Jie watched the old man turn page after page, stopping only when he’d reached the United States of America. His heart began to pound. He’d been to England for medical conferences. He had even studied English and spoke it passably well. But he’d never been to America.

  Neither had Li, though a childhood friend with whom he’d spent his youth in a Shaolin monastery before the Communists took over had immigrated to America. The boy, Chen Lem Kin, had family who’d owned a market in Boston’s Chinatown since the turn of the twentieth century. Li had often spoken of the pranks he and Chen pulled in the monastery. Ironically, it had been one of Li’s astrological charts that had advised Chen to go to America to find his future wife and make his fortune.

  “Here, si zi.” Li moved his index finger across the page and stopped on Massachusetts. Boston. He tapped the spot several times. “She is there. In Chinatown. The prediction is that you will know her by smooth ivory, deep jade and golden silk.”

  Immediately, confusion clouded Jie’s mind. “Li sifu, how will I find her that way when I can’t see colors?” Since being bitten, he could only see in black and white, as if the entire world were colored the same shades of black, white and grays as an old movie.

  Li shook his head. His wrinkles deepened as he smiled. “If the Tibetans could find His Holiness the Dalai Lama by the stars, so you will find her.” His smile suddenly faded and he lifted his hand from the book and grasped Jie’s forearm. “You must go soon, si zi. You must accept your gift, or someone else will.”

  Jie’s heart lurched. “Someone else?”

  Li nodded. “Another lang ren. Not here in China. But he will go to her and take her.” His eyes darkened. “Not good for her.”

  A chill snaked up Jie’s spine. One thing he knew for certain, Li did not make up stories. If he said there was a woman for him in America, she was there. If Li said she could be in trouble, it was true. As much as Jie had wanted to hide from the world, he couldn’t now, and he knew it. Life had been bound sooner or later to force him out of hiding. He’d spent much of his adult life healing others. Even if the idea of having a mate hadn’t reawakened his desires, he knew he’d go to help another human being in trouble. Li had always been there for him. Honoring the knowledge Li was giving him now was the least he could do.

  He nodded. “I’ll go, of course.”

  Li squeezed his arm. “Go soon.”

  “My papers are in order. I can leave tomorrow.”

  The old man heaved a deep sigh and loosened his grip on Jie’s arm. “You’re a good son, Jie. Don’t forget. Smooth ivory. Deep jade. Golden silk.”

  “I won’t forget, sifu.”

  Li nodded and reached over to pour another cup of tea for Jie.

  Jie lay back against the pillows. Already, new strength infused him. Though he didn’t understand the words and couldn’t see the colors, all the same, they roused his deepest desires.

  He hadn’t even met her yet. She was still on the other side of the earth from him.

  Yet he wanted her.

  * * * * *

  Moscow, Russia

  “Idiot,” Ivan Schenko grumbled under his breath. His voice was barely audible above the thumping bass of the club dance music vibrating through his plush office. He turned the watch over in his hands, stunned by the gall of the werewolf who’d handed it to him.

  His lips curled in a snarl and he shot a look at the zalyavchek standing before his desk. If Yelin was trying to defect from the Kiev pack to his by this lazy deception, he was about to learn otherwise. Ivan may not have born a weyre, but he was an alpha, goddammit. This lowborn beta was not going to make a fool of him. “You think because you have shit between your ears, Yelin, that everyone else does too, nyet?” He tossed the watch over the surface of the desk. The object landed at Yelin’s feet.

  A shadow of frustration passed across Yelin’s oily eyes. He bent and retrieved the watch. “What are you talking about, Ivan?”

  “That’s sir to you.”

  “Sir.” Yelin held the watch out in a pleading gesture. “I clipped it this morning from a jeweler.”

  “From a street vendor, no doubt.” Schenko slapped a large hand on the desktop and stood up, drawing himself to all his six foot three inches. He towered over Yelin, who quailed visibly, yet stood his ground. “You think that because I can’t see color, I can’t spot a fake? I saw you coming from a mile away. I only gave you a chance because I’m softhearted.” He turned to Yuri and Igor, his lieutenants, who were standing a few feet behind Yelin. “This is a weasel, not a wolf. Show him the door and give him a nice going-away present.” A good beating would keep Yelin from coming back and bothering him.

  Yuri and Igor, nearly as physically strong and imposing as their alpha master, each grabbed Yelin by a thin arm. Yelin looked like a twig caught between two giant pines. He struggled, a lock of his greased hair falling across his forehead. “No! Ivan, sir! Don’t do this! Wait!”

  Yuri and Igor started for the door, but Yelin twisted and writhed, digging his heels into the carpet with surprising strength. “One more chance, I beg you! I’ve something no one else can give you!”

  Schenko hesitated. He’d heard that one before, but something in Yelin’s tone made him pause. He held up a hand. “Let him go.”

  Yuri and Igor halted as if someone had pushed a button. In unison, they released him.

  Yelin glared at them, a brief glow of yellow flickering in his eyes, as if he would change then and there. He remained in human form, however, and tugged his rumpled shirt and jacket into place.

  “Speak up, Yelin. You’ve got ten seconds, and if I don’t like what you have to say, you’re leaving here in a body bag.” He lowered himself back to his seat. “Or should I say, a doggy bag?” He chuckled at his own joke.

  Yelin held up his hands. “All right, all right.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Quickly he worked open the folds and spread it out on the surface of Schenko’s desk.

  Schenko leaned over and examined it. “What the hell is this? This is what you are risking your life for? A piece of paper with a bunch of colored squares and weird writing?”

  Yelin shook his head vigorously and grinned, showing the glint of a gold tooth. “It’s Tibetan script. This is an astrological chart, the same kind of chart the Tibetans use to find their holy people. I know how to read them. That’s what made me valuable to the Ukraine alpha. But he does not appreciate my unique ability. I knew you would.” He waved his hand. “He thinks to trot me out like a trained seal and use me for his own greed.”

  “And you think that I would not do the same?”

  Yelin tilted his head. “Perhaps. However, I know that you treat your own as you, yourself, would wish to be treated. So the saying goes.”

  Schenko narrowed his eyes. The flattery was for shit. But the chart and what it could mean for him was a different matter entirely. The temptation to believe Yelin was nearly overwhelming, and he didn’t understand why. It was as if the chart alone held a power over him, making him desperate to have whatever it was showing him. “All right, you bought yourself another five seconds.”

  Yelin’s eyes glowed yellow again and his lip curled up. “You see, I worked your chart just this morning, and it shows here that there is a woman for you, a mate. The mate.”

  Schenko caught his breath, grateful for the c
ontinuous thump of the background bass that covered the tiny sound. His mate. The one thing in the world he didn’t have. Money, power, respect. He had all of those things, enough for a thousand more lifetimes. He also had women -- humans, she-weyres -- all of them at his disposal with the mere snap of his fingers. Shit, there had even been a woman who’d committed suicide a year ago when she’d learned that he was finished with her. But not the one that the beast inside him craved. The one woman who would truly belong to him and to no one else. Even if he had another woman with whom he was exclusive, she was not the mate that his nature decreed, the one that would bring peace to his restless animal’s soul.

  If Yelin was telling the truth, the little shit would have earned himself a cushy position in the Moscow pack. If he wasn’t, however ...

  “Where is she?”

  Yelin tapped a spot on the chart. “America. Boston. Where the Chinese live.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “That I cannot tell you. Except that she will give you smooth ivory, deep jade and golden silk.”

  Schenko sat back down to hide his growing erection and reached for the cigarette he’d set in the ashtray when Yelin first came into the office. The butt had nearly burned down. He took a long drag on it and blew the smoke into Yelin’s face. The casual air he affected belied that hungry tightening in his groin. He wasn’t certain if it had been the mere thought of a mate that was getting him hard enough to cut a diamond or if it was because she actually existed. Maybe. “If this is true, then why didn’t you tell me this first? Why did you waste my time with that piece of shit watch?”

  Yelin chuckled. “Would you have given me access to your office if I’d said I was bringing you an astrological chart?”

  Schenko looked at him and chuckled. He took a last drag on the cigarette and mashed it out, making a point to blow more smoke into the other werewolf’s face. “Point taken.” He leaned back in his chair, staying pushed in enough to his desk to keep his raging hard-on covered. “All right, Yelin. You are going to take me to her. If you think you’re sending me on a chase to America to have a laugh at me, you’re dead wrong. Emphasis on dead.”

  Yelin nodded vigorously. Glee shone in his eyes, and his lip curled with his grin, revealing his permanently extended incisors, the birthright of born weyres. “Absolutely. I would not have told you this if I weren’t absolutely certain.”

  “We leave tomorrow. Myself, Yuri, Igor --” He pointed to Yelin. “-- and you. Boston is on the water. If there is no mate like you’ve told me, then we shoot you and dump you in the ocean before we return to Moscow.”

  Yelin’s slithery grin curled his lips, giving him the appearance of being in the midst of the change, even though he wasn’t. “That will not be necessary. She is there.”

  Chapter Three

  Jie prayed he wasn’t too late. His plane from Hong Kong touched down in New York at 8:15 at night. He’d managed to get enough sleep during the very long flight, so after he’d made his connection to Boston’s Logan airport, he took a cab to Chinatown even though it was nearly one in the morning.

  The driver left him off at the Chinatown Gate. Jie paid him, shouldered his duffel bag, and walked through the lionhead gate that marked the entrance to Chinatown. The summer night was mild and slightly humid after a light pattering of rain. The streets were quiet and dark, lit only by the streetlamps and an occasional security light from inside the locked markets and restaurants. He had no idea how large this Chinatown was or where anything was located, so he wandered along slowly, reading each sign and getting a feel for the area so in the morning when places were open he could begin a methodical search for his ... mate.

  The word always sent an electric thrill through his body. He couldn’t imagine how he would know who she was or how he could simply walk up to her and ask her for ivory, jade and golden silk. The whole situation seemed so strange, but here he was, now on the other side of the world from his home.

  One storefront caught his eye. He stared at it from across the quiet intersection. Chen’s Market, the sign read in both Chinese and English letters. He raised his gaze above the awning. The brick building appeared to house one apartment above the store. No lights were on and the building sat in hushed quiet. Though the place was locked up, there were no security shutters down and he could see inside. The sight of the place caused a small flutter in his gut. Though the chance was very small, perhaps this was the market Li’s boyhood friend owned.

  Jie crossed the intersection and looked in the window. It was a typical market as far as he could see. The shelves were piled to bursting with boxes, bottles, jars and packages, with everything from noodles and rice, to tea, Chinese teapots, and candies. Along the opposite wall, a set of refrigerated coolers showed packages of tofu, boxes of prepared dishes such as eggrolls, bottles of lychee juice, and plastic bags of frozen seafood. Produce stands crowded the main aisle, obviously to be rolled onto the sidewalk in the morning.

  The glass counter under the cash register and the shelves behind it were crammed with Chinese herbal preparations and bottles. Because of his canine eyesight, he could make out the letters on the boxes, recognizing many of the same medicines he often gave to his patients.

  Scanning the interior of the store, he saw another open door that led to an adjoining room. The market spanned the corner so Jie followed the windows around the corner, finding the room to which the interior door led. Another sign hung in the window, Tai Chi Chuan, also in Chinese and English lettering. His breathing quickened and he peered in.

  Mirrors covered one wall and the floor was of smooth wood. The room held an aura of peace, obviously from years of people inside practicing the martial art that was connected to the Tao Teh Ching of Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher. The fluttering erupted again in his stomach. Deep inside, his intuition told him that this was, indeed, the connection to his teacher’s friend. Perhaps Chen would know enough people in the area to help him locate the woman he sought.

  Then he noticed a flyer taped to the window from the inside. Tai Chi classes cancelled until further notice, due to death in family. Sorry, was also written in both Chinese and English. The handwriting was feminine, Jie noted. Perhaps Chen’s wife?

  He stared at the sign for several moments, then sighed and stepped back. No matter how possible the connection was, he would have to wait until the morning to find out.

  To his surprise, a small Japanese noodle joint was open across the street a few doors down. Jie walked over and went in. He ordered a pot of tea and a bowl of noodles, tucking himself into a booth from which he could still see Chen’s Market.

  The little restaurant was empty except for himself and the man behind the counter who served Jie his tea and went back to preparing the noodles.

  Jie thanked him and poured himself a cup. Then he sat back, took a small sip, and settled in to wait.

  Finally, at 6:45, the lights went on in Chen’s Market. Jie caught his breath and sat up, his gaze trained on the store windows. Someone was moving around inside, a young woman from what he could see. He watched her prop open the door and move the produce carts onto the sidewalk, lining them up against the front window. He was tempted to get up and offer to help her, but thought the better of it. She didn’t know him and it would probably seem suspicious.

  He remembered that the store hours sign said the market opened at seven, and though he was terribly anxious to speak to her, forced himself to remain seated.

  Without the carts in the aisles to block his view, he could now freely observe the woman as she moved about, checking the shelves and opening the cash register. He was surprised to see she was white. She looked to be perhaps a few years younger than himself. Her light-colored hair was pulled into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, and she had a graceful build, slim and curvy in places that roused an ache inside him, a disturbing need to experience what she’d feel like in his arms. The sudden deep longing to know the scent of her hair and skin assaulted him.

 
Jie waited the last torturous quarter of an hour until seven, then paid his bill and went out onto the street. The neighborhood was awakening in the mild sunny summer morning. Delivery trucks chugged past on the street, while shopkeepers were lifting the security shutters on their windows and restaurants emitted the smells of cooking food. All of this registered in the back of Jie’s consciousness, practically drowned out, however, by the pounding of his own heart.

  Drawing closer, he could see her more clearly, registering details of her face and body that hadn’t been as visible blocked by the objects in the market, like, for instance, the push and stretch of her ample breasts against her T-shirt and the slender strength of her pale arms and hands with short, neatly trimmed nails. The soft beauty of her face with its large eyes, heavy fringe of lashes, and delicately arched brows and lips. Even the tiny bump on her nose just below the bridge added to the raw femininity she exuded. Her eyes, he noticed also, were almost an almond shape, making her appear like a Chinese woman who’d dyed her hair.

  Approaching the front door, he took in a deep breath and pulled it open.

  The tiny bells on the door of the shop tinkled. Meg looked up from the inventory list she’d been studying and caught her breath.

  A man had just entered the store and was walking toward her. Make that an incredibly handsome man who could almost have been Bruce Lee reincarnated.

  She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the way the light glinted off his short, smooth, raven-dark hair, or the way his chest and shoulder muscles strained against his white t-shirt as he moved. She tried to force her gaze not to rove lower, but failed, taking in his slim hips and obviously strong thighs encased in plain jeans.

  He carried a small duffel bag and a denim jacket slung over it between the handles. He came to a stop in front of the counter and looked right at her.

  She gripped the papers in her hand and glanced away, for fear of drowning in the depths of those large, brown, almond-shaped eyes. For one brief moment, she actually thought she was having a hallucination, a visitation from the spirit of Bruce Lee, her beloved idol and one of the best-looking men she’d ever seen cross a movie screen. “May I ...” She cleared her throat. “May I help you?”