I touched his cheek. “I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. “I wouldn’t have left the car if I knew I was going to make things harder.”
He curled his fingers around mine, holding our joined hands against his face. “I know, and there’s nothing to apologize for.” When he opened his eyes, his irises were their usual chocolate brown. “It seems we’re both determined to save each other.”
Warmth spread through me, the heat like a cozy blanket tucked around my heart. “I like the sound of that.” We stared at each other, unspoken things flowing between us.
A shuffling sound jerked both our heads toward the fire pit. The rogue’s body twitched.
I jumped. “What the?—?”
“It’s all right,” Jesse said, grabbing my arm. “When the host of the lycanthropy virus dies, the virus dies, too. His body can’t hold his animal form. The final shift is a natural part of death.” Jesse stood, pulling me up with him. “Stay back, okay?”
“No problem.” If Jesse wasn’t in any danger, I was super fucking happy to keep my distance. Hollywood had nothing on the writhing, bloodied mess across the patio. Jesse crossed to the rogue’s body and stood over it as fur melted into skin and canine limbs lengthened into human arms and legs. Dark, swirling tattoos covered the rogue’s muscular torso and upper arms. As the gruesome transition sped up, bright-red arterial blood spurted from the rogue’s stump of a neck.
My breakfast burrito sloshed in my stomach like a ship in the North Sea.
Don’t look at the head. Don’t look at the head.
I looked at the head. Matted fur lengthened into dirty blond hair that spread over the snow. The wolf’s snout contracted, shrinking into a human nose and square jaw covered with a blond beard as untamed as the rogue’s hair. Surprise tempered some of my revulsion as high cheekbones and a broad forehead emerged. Despite his unkempt appearance, the rogue was a handsome man. His dark-blond hair grew longer, giving him the look of a biker or a Viking. When the transition finished, his eyes were a bright but vacant green. His mouth hung open in death, making it look like he’d stopped speaking mid-sentence.Creepydidn’t begin to cover it.
And it was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that the man on the ground was the werewolf who’d attacked me on the jogging trail. He’d turned me into a monster and left me for dead. Was I supposed to feel some kind of kinship with him?
I turned to Jesse to ask, only to snap my mouth shut. He stared at the rogue’s head with a look of unmistakable recognition on his face.
“You knew him,” I said, moving to Jesse’s side. When he nodded, I put a hand on his shoulder. “Was he a friend?”
He kept his gaze on the rogue as he spoke in a low voice. “I wouldn’t call him a friend, no. But we crossed paths a fewtimes. He was a decent man. Reserved, almost shy. His name was Ulfrik Haraldsson. He was…very old. His mate died in some long-forgotten war. As far as I know, he never took another.”
Between the name and the rogue’s appearance, I assumed my Viking assessment probably wasn’t too far off. I let my gaze wander over Ulfrik’s body, where the dark tattoos wrapped around his biceps. “How old are we talking?”
Jesse sighed, but I sensed it had nothing to do with my question and everything to do with him knowing the rogue. “Ulfrik was turned just before the Norman Conquest of England.” He looked at me. Interpreting my blank stare correctly, he added, “The year was 1066.”
I wasn’t the best at history, but math had never posed a challenge. I stared at Ulfrik’s face. “He was almost a thousand years old.” What kinds of things had he seen in ten centuries of living? Had the weight of time grown too heavy to bear? Jesse had said Philippe was old, too, but a thousand years was, like,oldold. Ulfrik had gone from carrying an axe to watching astronauts walk on the moon. What happened when life as I knew it faded and a newer, faster world took its place? How was I going to adjust to the yearthree thousand?
“I need to take care of the body,” Jesse said, interrupting my silent spiral. “I can’t hold this ward indefinitely.”
Memories of Welch’s office flooded my head. “Is that the magic that keeps people away?”
“Yes.” He turned to me, and his eyes sharpened at once. “You’re anxious.”
Damn.I kept forgetting he could feel my emotions. But he couldn’t read my mind. Being an expert bullshitter, I quickly seized on a believable explanation.
“Maybe a little,” I said. “I don’t know what I was expecting today, but this was bloody. I’ve never seen a dead body before.”
His expression went contrite. “I know. And now I’m making you stand around and stare at it.” He nodded toward the house. “Why don’t you go inside and jump in the shower? Get the scent of blood off you.”
Something—my masculinity, perhaps—within me bristled. “I’ll help you with the body first.”
He shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but it’ll be a lot easier and faster if I don’t have to ward both of us. Secrecy is the top priority in a situation like this. My neighbors keep to themselves, but I can’t risk anyone seeing or hearing me.” A soft, slightly tired smile touched his mouth. “If you really want to help, just leave me some hot water.”
“I can do that,” I said.
He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Go on, then. I’ll be up in a bit.”
I headed inside. And as I climbed the stairs to the master bedroom, I tried not to think about French aristocrats or ancient Vikings.
Chapter
Seventeen
