The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

He lay back on the pillow, forcing the hair all over his body to recede, and leave him alone.

It came again, almost sorrowful, this howling—full of pain and pleading, it seemed.

He was more than half asleep, and tumbling into dreams, when he heard it for the last time.

A dream came to him. It was confused even in the dreaming. Marchent was there, in a house in the forest, an old house full of people and lighted rooms, and figures coming and going. Marchent cried and cried as she talked to the people around her. She cried and cried and he couldn’t bear the agonized sound of her voice, the sight of her upturned face as she gestured and argued with these people. The people did not appear to hear her, to heed her, or to answer. He couldn’t clearly see the people. He couldn’t clearly see anything. At one point Marchent rose and ran out of the house and, in her bare feet and torn clothes, she ran through the cold wet forest. The bristling saplings scraped her bare legs. There were indistinct figures in the darkness around her, shadowy figures that appeared to reach out for her as she ran. He couldn’t stand the sight of it. He was terrified as he ran after her. The scene shifted. She sat on the side of Felix’s bed, the bed they’d shared, and she was crying again and he said things to her, but what they were, he didn’t know—it was all happening so swiftly, so confusedly—and she said, “I know, I know, but I don’t know how!” And he felt he couldn’t stand the pain of it.

He woke in the icy-gray morning light. The dream fell apart as if it were made of melting frost on the panes. The image of the little girl came back to him, little Susie Blakely, and with it the miserable realization that he was going to have to answer to the Distinguished Gentlemen for doing what he had done. Was it on the news already? “Man Wolf Strikes Again.” He roused himself uneasily and was thinking about Marchent as he stepped into the shower.

7

HE DIDN’T CHECK his phone until he was on his way down the stairs. He had text messages from his mother, his father, and his brother all saying essentially “Call Celeste.”

What in the world could she possibly want?

An amazing sound greeted him when he headed for the kitchen, that of Felix and Margon obviously arguing. They were speaking that ancient tongue of theirs, and the argument was heated.

Reuben hesitated in the kitchen door long enough to confirm that they were really going at it, with Margon actually red in the face as he thundered under his breath at a plainly infuriated Felix.

Frightening. He had no idea what it meant, but he turned around and left. He’d never been able to bear it when Phil and Grace actually fought or, frankly, when any two people had a violent argument in his presence.

He went into the library, sat down at the desk, and punched in Celeste’s number, thinking angrily that she was the very last person in the world whose voice he wanted to hear. Maybe if he hadn’t been so damned afraid of arguments and raised voices, he would have rid himself of Celeste a long time ago and once and for all.

When the call went straight to voice mail, he said, “Reuben here. You want to talk?” and clicked off.

He looked up to see Felix standing there with a mug of coffee in his hand. Felix looked completely calm and collected now.

“For you,” he said, setting down the coffee. “Did you call your old ladylove?”

“Good heavens, she’s even reached out to you? What’s happening?”

“It’s important,” said Felix. “Critically important.”

“Someone’s died?”

“Exactly the opposite,” said Felix. He winked, and seemed unable to suppress a smile.

He was formally dressed as always, in a tailored wool coat and wool pants, with his dark hair neatly combed, as though ready for whatever the day would bring.

“This isn’t what you and Margon were arguing about, was it?” Reuben asked tentatively.

“Oh, no, not at all. Put that out of your mind. Let me deal with the inimitable Margon. Call Celeste, please.”

The phone rang and Reuben answered at once. As soon as Celeste spoke his name, he realized she’d been crying.

“What’s happened?” he asked, making it as sympathetic and kind as he could. “Celeste, tell me!”

“Well, you might have answered your phone, you know, Sunshine Boy,” she said. “I’ve been calling you for days.”

More and more people said this to him, and more and more he had to make guilty excuses, which just now he did not wish to do.

“I’m sorry, Celeste, what is it?”

“Well, in a way the crisis is over because I’ve made up my mind.”

“As to what especially?”

“As to marrying Mort,” she said. “Because no matter what you do, Sunshine Boy, in the ivory tower in which you live, your mother’s going to take the baby. That has pretty much settled it, that and my refusal to abort my firstborn even if it is the son of an airhead ne’er-do-well.”

He was too shocked to say a word. Something kindled in him, something so near to pure happiness he scarcely knew what it was, but he didn’t dare to hope, not yet.

She went on talking.

“I thought I was out of the woods. That’s why I didn’t even bother to tell you. Well, that was a false alarm. I wasn’t out of the woods. Fact is, I’m four months along now. And it is a boy, and he’s perfectly healthy.” She went on talking, about the wedding, and about how Mort was fine with it all, and how Grace was already applying to take off a year from the hospital to take care of the child. Grace was the most wonderful woman in the entire world to stop everything to do this, and Grace a brilliant surgeon, and Reuben would never really know how lucky he was to have a mother like Grace. Reuben didn’t appreciate anything, in fact, and he never had. That’s how he could ignore people’s phone messages and e-mails, and isolate himself in Northern California in a “mansion” as if the real world didn’t exist.… “You’re the most selfish, spoiled person I ever knew,” she said, her voice rising, “and frankly, you make me sick, the way everything just falls into your lap, the way this mansion up there just fell into your lap, the way no matter what happens somebody does your dirty work and cleans up your messes.…”

The torrent continued.

He realized he was staring at Felix, and Felix was looking at him with the usual protective affection as he waited without apology to hear what Reuben had to say.

“Celeste, I had no idea,” he said, breaking in on her suddenly.