Into the Flame Read Free Page A

strong, firm and muscled. For her, everything about him spelled security and love—the everlasting kind, like her parents had. Unexpected tears filled her eyes, and she clutched him harder, hoping he didn’t notice.

    Of course he did. Douglas noticed everything. He pushed her a little. ‘‘Hey, what’s wrong? Did something go wrong with your finals?’’

    She sighed. He noticed everything, but he wasn’t always insightful. ‘‘Everything went great, and best of all, they’re over.’’

    He glanced at the door. ‘‘Did that guy Jacob upset you?’’

    ‘‘No, honest! I’m just happy.’’

    Douglas caught one of her tears with his thumb. ‘‘You’ve got a funny way of showing it.’’

    Douglas didn’t talk about himself or his past, and so far, Firebird had let him get away with evading her questions, because something had put far too much cynicism into his dark eyes.

    Something else—her—had brought him joy, and when she caught him looking at her, that stunned expression of happiness on his face, she didn’t want to rock the boat.

    Someday she’d coax him into telling his life story. Right now, they could just be in love.

    ‘‘I brought you flowers.’’ He let her go and handed her the bouquet of red carnations and yellow roses. Leaning over, he picked up the dog and offered it. ‘‘And a cuddly buddy. And congratulations, my darling—in five weeks, you’ll march across the stage and get your diploma.’’

    ‘‘Thank you.’’ She grinned, delighted and relieved to be through with finals, with the pressure of finishing a four-year degree in three years, and finishing at the top of her class. ‘‘Thank you.’’ She smelled the flowers—there weren’t many, only a handful, but for a campus cop the pay wasn’t great.

    ‘‘They’re lovely. You remembered the kind of flowers I like!’’

    ‘‘I remember everything about you.’’ His gaze intent, he watched her fill a glass with water and arrange the flowers on her desk. ‘‘I could pick you out of a crowd in a full Las Vegas casino.’’

    She laughed, not believing a word. ‘‘Now let me see this guy.’’ She lifted the stuffed animal out of his arms and stared in surprise. ‘‘I thought it was a dog, but it’s a cat!’’

    ‘‘A dog? I wouldn’t give you a dog.’’ Douglas sounded grossly insulted. ‘‘It’s a cougar.’’

    ‘‘That’s right. It is.’’ A big, fuzzy, floppy cougar with a white belly and dark glass eyes that stared right into her soul.

    Wrapping her arms around the animal, she hugged him and buried her face in the plush fur. He smelled like Douglas : like shampoo and spray starch, like the flowers he had carried, and like the rich, intoxicating scent of her first and only lover. ‘‘This sweetheart will sleep on my bed with me.’’

    ‘‘That is exactly where he wants to be.’’ Douglas watched her with that expression that told her he considered her a miracle.

    That was why she’d succumbed to his seduction. To the Wilders, she had always been a miracle, the first female born into the family in a thousand years. But she was a smart girl.

    Her father and mother had immigrated to the United States , fleeing his family, the ones known as the Varinskis. Her father had been their leader, and she didn’t know what he’d done to win that honor, but whatever crimes he’d planned, approved, and committed, he repented of them now. Yet no matter where he was, in the old Varinski home in the Ukraine or in his vineyard in Washington , he still had the ability to change, to transform himself into a wolf.

    That was a miracle.

    He’d passed his abilities onto his sons.

    Like his father, her oldest brother, Jasha, ran the forest as a wolf. Her second brother, Rurik, soared through the air as a hawk. Her third brother, Adrik, had disappeared when he was seventeen, but he had been wild and rebellious, a black panther who hunted his prey without remorse.

    Those were also