Prince of Wolves - Tasha Black Page 0,3
mattered. He might have missed one shot at her, but the competition was gone, and his quarry was still in sight. The job was still on.
Ashe was well-ensconced in the diner now, a man knelt to touch her knee.
Varik was impressed when she didn’t flinch.
Ashe of the Winter Court had not been raised to be touched by commoners.
But she held herself in perfect control, the ugly fluorescent lights gleaming fetchingly in her dark hair, despite the few stray leaves collected there.
He felt an odd pang of something akin to jealousy, though he had no idea why he wouldn’t want anyone to touch his quarry. He had never even laid eyes on her before tonight.
Something tugged at his boot.
“Ronan,” he said firmly.
The wolf pup let go of his bootstrap, and looked up at him in puppyish reproach.
Varik smiled in spite of himself.
Ronan gave a little yap and grinned up at him, one ear up and the other still flopped down, giving the wolf pup an eternally inquisitive look.
He had been very frightened of the bear. But now he was bored again already. He had a short attention span.
“We have to be patient, little buddy,” Varik told him.
Ronan’s jaw snapped shut and he observed Varik like he was listening hard. And also like Varik might be about to produce a treat.
Varik looked past the pup, to the parking lot, where Ashe was getting in the car with the man from the diner.
“Let’s go,” he said, striding off.
He could hear the pup leaping after him, nails clicking on the asphalt.
The car was a pathetic wreck of a thing. But that would make their work easier. Varik only hoped it wasn’t going any great distance.
He slipped the compass from his pocket and held it up.
An icy weather vane with a tiny ice mermaid on top lifted from it and spun as if there were a harsh wind blowing.
The mermaid pointed in the direction the car was moving.
Varik walked after it, taking his time.
It would have been over much faster if he just let himself shift into his wolf form and gave chase. But that would cause its own issues.
Plus, it did no good to draw attention to himself. He had learned the hard way that big guys who had wolf cub pets and were a little too good-looking to be human could get hung up in unpleasant conversations when they let themselves be noticed. It was best to move like mortals, with plodding slowness.
The last thing this town needed was a giant wolf on the prowl.
The pace was probably best for the pup as well. His legs were short and Varik would end up carrying him in his satchel if the walk went on for too long.
But for now, Ronan was happily scampering along beside him. As always, the cub’s happiness called to his own and Varik relaxed a little.
Ashe couldn’t be going far, if someone else was driving her. They would find her soon, and be back in Faerie in time for breakfast.
He tried not to think about his prize for this quarry.
“Never count your chickens before they hatch,” he advised Ronan.
Ronan glanced up at him with his pink tongue hanging out of his mouth roguishly, as if to say that no one could stop him from counting chickens.
The mermaid on the compass swiveled to point him down a tiny suburban street.
“Thanks, babe,” he told her.
She winked at him dewily.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he warned her.
But she kept smiling and pointing.
Even the masthead on his enchanted compass wasn’t afraid of him tonight.
“Have I gone soft?” he asked the pup.
But Ronan was chasing a piece of trash that had blown off the street and paid him no mind.
“Put that down, Ronan,” he said firmly.
The pup scampered back, tail between his legs.
“It’s okay, bud,” he told it.
After a while, the mermaid swiveled again, and he found himself standing in front of a grocer’s shop with a CLOSED sign in the window.
Two windows with pretty flower boxes faced the street from the second floor.
As he studied the windows, wondering if someone lived over the shop, a light flicked on, flooding them with yellow warmth.
“Gotcha,” he whispered, clicking the compass shut.
It was odd, Varik had always been a gifted tracker, able to pick up on the smallest trace of his prey. But somehow, he could sense this girl’s presence, even without the compass. As if a strange sort of gravity drew him nearer to her.
The pup whimpered.
“Okay, Ronan,” he said sympathetically. “You can have your