A moment later, Wolf pulled free. "Stefan's shifted," he said.

"I heard him," Sergei replied. "Where is he?"

"He escaped from the grounds. Over the wall, Chung thinks. Samara's missing, she must have gone after him." That explained the front gate being open. "How long ago?" Sergei asked.

"Samara left about fifteen minutes ago," Liisi said. "Druse and I are trying to melt silver for bullets but the fire isn't hot enough yet. What use is it for you to hunt him without silver bullets?"

Sergei stared at her. "Must we kill him?"

"Yes!" Wolf spoke emphatically. "Stefan refused control, he prefers his beast form."

Sergei shuddered, remembering all too clearly the seductive allure of blood lust. "I may be able to salvage him," he said slowly. "I'm going to try."

"You mean to shift." Liisi spoke flatly. "Don't. The stones show death."

"He's a Volek," Sergei reminded her. "He's my grandson."

"He's a killer," Wolf said. "He tore out his own mother's throat."

Sergei grimaced in horror, then raised his head, listening. Could that be a baby's cry he heard?

"That's Hawk," Wolf said. "My son and hers."

Sergei sighed. Another Volek to carry the trait. "You wait for Liisi's bullets," he ordered Wolf. "I'll go after Stefan."

"I don't think he'll hurt Samara," Liisi said, "but if you shift can you be sure you won't?"

He couldn't be. Hell, he wasn't even certain he could shift, given the years since he had, given the lack of the full moon's light.

"I'm coming with you," Wolf announced. "We both know you won't harm me and I can protect Samara if I have to." He pulled a gleaming dagger from his boot. "And I've the stalker's silver knife to use against Stefan."

Liisi stepped to Sergei and put her arms around him. "You are my life," she whispered and kissed him.

He held her close for a moment, unsettled by her embrace. It wasn't like her to be demonstrative. "And you, mine," he told her. When he stepped away from her he saw tears gleaming in her gray eyes.

"I've warned Chung to stay inside his cottage," Wolf said when they reached the back gate.

Sergei unlocked it. After he'd relocked the gate from the outside, he handed his key to Wolf. Together they trotted northwest, toward the pine grove in the hills above the valley.

"The stalker's dagger," Sergei said after a time. "You've kept it all these years."

"To remind me to trust no one." Wolf glanced at him. "Except you. I've always trusted you. I always will." Touched, Sergei gripped Wolf's upper arm for a moment. "I'm glad you came home," he said. "I've missed you."

"I didn't mean to have another child. The Miwoks have herbs to prevent babies and I thought their potions would be as effective as Grandmother's.

I should have known better." "Never mind, Hawk is welcome. But thank God he isn't a twin."

"You think double births trigger the Volek shifting trait?" Wolf asked.

"Besides being Voleks, it's the one thing that Arno, Stefan and I have in common. How long has Samara known about Stefan's shifting?"

"Since his first time. He swore he'd kill himself if she told you."

"Almost a year." Sergei shook his head. "Time for far too many to see or hear him. Already there's that article in the Chronicle. We must stop him before he attracts a stalker."

Wolf was silent a long time. They'd reached the grove before he spoke. "I don't think Stefan can ever be controlled. In the long run it would be kinder to kill him here and now."

Thinking of the tenacious hold of blood lust, Sergei nodded. "Perhaps. But I have to try to save him."

"Why are we cursed?" The words burst from Wolf. "Why?" "I believe the answer lies in the Russian forests. I'd always hoped to return there and search. Since Nicholas II has become the new czar, maybe Russia is once more safe for Voleks."

"We'll go!" Wolf cried. "After this is over, we'll sail for Russia, you and I."

Sergei took fire from the enthusiasm in Wolf's voice. But even as he considered the possibility, a chill crept over him, a certainty that he would never set foot on Russian soil again.

"If I can't go, you must," he said finally.

Wolf's answer was lost in the quavering howl arising from the depths of the pine grove.

The sound triggered a response within Sergei, a driving, pulsing need to answer the challenge. For the first time in over ten years, he felt the once familiar twisting of his guts that heralded a change. He tore at his clothes.

"It's happening," he told Wolf, his words already distorted. "Try to follow me."

"I always know where you are," Wolf assured him.

As Sergei's human reasoning faded, he remembered Wolf's special ability to track him whether he was man or beast.

Free! The beast, seeing the human near him, growled menacingly. The human didn't retreat. Still, the man held no visible weapon so he wasn't a threat. He wasn't prey. Nor was he the other, the challenger. Ignoring him, the beast loped away between the trees, alert for any sign of the interloper in his territory.

He picked up a faint scent. A male, as he'd suspected from the challenge. The scent, though, was mixed with traces of human smell, a complication that made the beast's hackles rise. He slowed his pace to consider how to cope with both the interloper and a possibly dangerous human.

Out of breath and near exhaustion, Samara stumbled into a clearing among the pines and stopped short. Twenty feet away an enormous, terrifying beast crouched over the bloody carcass of a deer. The beast. Stefan. His yellow eyes glared at her over the kill. He frightened her almost as much as the the amorphous peril she sensed lurking somewhere among the pines.

After three tries, words pushed past the fear choking her. "It's Samara," she quavered. "You know me, Stefan. Your sister. Your twin."

The beast snarled, showing sharp, pointed teeth. Samara forced herself to take a step forward. "I won't hurt you, how can I? I only want to talk to you. Please, Stefan, change back before it's too late."

The beast rose to his hind feet, growling.

She froze. "Wolf hunts you!" she cried. "Hunts you with Grandmother's silver bullets. Another hunts you, too. Someone--something-dark and dangerous."

The beast circled around the kill and lunged toward her. Samara cried out, stepped backward, tripped over an unseen obstacle and fell sideways, her head smashing against the trunk of a pine. The last thing she heard as darkness wiped away the world was a hideous howl.

The brown-eyed man with the backpack halted, the howl ringing in his ears as it echoed from the hills. Close by. Though he'd never heard the sound before, he knew what it was. He'd been right to investigate.

This is your chance, he thought eagerly. This is what you were born for, what you've waited to do all your life.

He eased the pack from his shoulders to the ground, lifted off the new Krag-Jorgensen gun and smiled as he stroked its polished stock. With a five-round magazine rifle, how could he fail? He carefully removed the silver bullets from the container in his pocket, slid them one by one into the magazine opening and closed the gate. He sighted along the barrel and nodded. Dim as it was under the pines, there was still enough light to focus on a target. Leaving the pack behind, he trotted in the direction of the howling. Minutes later his heart began hammering against his ribs as he sensed the presence of his prey. At last! He slowed, moving cautiously toward his quarry, circling to keep down wind. Though it couldn't sense him, it might pick up his scent if he didn't take care.

There! He drew in his breath, paralyzed by the horrible sight, far worse than he'd imagined. The monster crouched over a deer kill, the fur of its muzzle wet with blood. Overcoming his momentary terror, he edged closer. Raising the rifle to his shoulder with a slow, deliberate movement he hoped wouldn't catch the beast's attention, he took aim.

As the hunter pulled the trigger the first time, the beast looked straight at him. Too late. The bullet smashed into its head. The hunter advanced and pumped two more bullets into the writhing, snarling shifter. Blood spurted from an eye socket. Though not quite dead, the beast was clearly finished. The hunter's mouth opened to shout his triumph when a slight noise to his left made the man slew around, his rifle ready.

A woman lay sprawled near the edge of the clearing. Finger on the trigger, he hesitated, his special sense telling him she wasn't a shifter. He lowered the rifle. To shoot a nonshifter would be murder. Unless she was shifter kin. He crossed to stare down at her. She twitched but didn't open her eyes. He dropped to one knee to examine her closer and saw her dark hair was matted with blood.

Not shifter kin but shifter victim would be his guess. He lifted her to check for further wounds and found none, his hands lingering on the softness of her breasts. Her skirts, hiked above her knees showed the ruffled edge of her white drawers. He couldn't take his gaze away from the tantalizing ruffle and almost involuntarily his fingers followed his eyes, slipping under the loose edge of the drawers to stroke the smooth warmth of the bare skin underneath.

Aroused as much by his success in killing his first shifter as by the helplessness of the woman, he found himself throbbing with need. Why shouldn't he satisfy his desire? He was the victor, wasn't he? She'd be dead if he hadn't killed the beast before it finished her off. She owed him her life.

Quickly, his hands trembling with urgency, he stripped off her drawers, spread her legs and plunged into her. She screamed, moaning as he thrust violently within her until the convulsion of release left him gasping.

He stood and was rearranging his clothing when he suddenly sensed danger. He sprang for his rifle. He'd barely got it to his shoulder when a second beast leaped into the clearing and sprang at him. Shifter! He shot once before it reached him and he pulled the trigger again reflexively as the beast's jaws fastened on his throat and tore his life from him.

Wolf raced into the clearing as the last shot was fired. Stefan, his face half shot away, lay dead across the carcass of a deer. Five feet away, a snapping, growling beast mauled a man. Grandfather!

Glancing hurriedly around the clearing in the near darkness, Wolf saw Samara lying on the ground, her skirts over her face and blood streaking her bare thighs. Her drawers were crumpled beside her, telling him what had been done to her.

Wolf ran to kneel beside Samara. When he pulled her skirts down she moaned and flinched away from him. Relieved to find her alive, he called her name.

"Samara, it's Wolf."

Her eyes fluttered open. "Dark. Hurt," she whispered. When the beast howled, a long triumphant ululation, she clutched at Wolf, her face a mask of terror. He disengaged her fingers and leaped to his feet, whirling to face the beast, to stay between it and the helpless Samara. As he watched uncomprehendingly, the beast slumped to the ground, groaning. Warily, Wolf approached. The stranger the beast had attacked was obviously dead, his rifle on the ground by his side. Wolf stared in dismay at two gaping, bleeding wounds in the beast's chest. Somehow he must try to staunch the blood. But how?

Before he could move, the beast convulsed and, before his eyes, began to shift.

"Grandfather, you're hurt!" he cried, falling to his knees as the beast muzzle flattened into a human face. Sergei's eyes opened. He tried to raise his head and failed. "Stalker," he mumbled.

"You killed him," Wolf assured him.

"Stefan?"

"Dead," Wolf said. "Samara's alive." This was no time to mention she'd been raped.

"Stalker used silver bullets," Grandfather gasped. "I'm dying." He lifted a hand, feebly groping. "Wolf?"

Wolf grasped his hand, leaning close to hear his grandfather's barely audible words.

"Wolf, why. Find out why...."

Chapter 10.

Wolf laid the half-conscious Samara on the ground while he unlocked the back gate with Sergei's key. He leaned against the iron bars for a few moments of rest before lifting her into his arms again and carrying her through the gate and up the path to the house. He banged on the door.

"It's Wolf," he shouted. "Let me in."

Liisi opened the door. As he staggered in with Samara, Liisi looked past him. He shook his head.

"No one else left alive." His voice sounded as drained and empty as he felt. "Where do you want me to put Samara? I've got to go back."

As he carried Samara up the stairs, he told Liisi what had happened, using as few words as possible. It hurt to relive the horror.

He had no choice but to leave Samara with the shattered Liisi. Back in the kitchen, he remembered to pick up the telephone connected to Chung's cottage and tell the Chinese man it was safe to come out of his cottage. He asked Chung which horse would be least likely to balk at transporting dead men.

Chung met him in the stable, holding the reins of a dappled gray mare. "Czarina, she slow but she steady," Chung told him. "Master, he die?"

Wolf nodded.

Chung bowed his head. "He man with heart like dragon. He save me. Chung never forget. You need help?"

About to refuse, Wolf paused. Much as he wanted to be alone with his dead, he realized he was close to exhaustion. After Sergei and Stefan were brought back to the house, he still would have the stalker's body to dispose of.

"I need help," he admitted and went to saddle his pinto. They rode in silence through the moonlit night. Far off in the hills a coyote called and Wolf winced at the sound. "Many howls tonight," Chung said.

Wolf didn't answer. He had no idea what Chung knew or suspected and he didn't want to find out.

Chung said nothing more until they reached the bodies. Gesturing toward Stefan, he said, "That one always reach for death."

The words rang so true that Wolf felt they should be Stefan's epitaph.

Czarina proved to be as steady as Chung had claimed, standing stoically as they lifted Stefan, then Sergei to lie across her back. Chung used several turns of rope to tie the bodies in position. He asked no questions and made no comment whatsoever about the third dead man.

"Last journey. Sad," Chung said as he led the burdened Czarina away into the trees, leaving Wolf with the stalker. The pinto wanted no part of the dead man, shying and snorting until Wolf finally gave up the attempt to throw the body over the horse's back. Instead, he constructed a crude travois from pine boughs and rope, lashing the stalker to it. When the pinto reluctantly accepted the travois, all Wolf had left to do was decide where to inter the body.

As he mounted the horse, the perfect place came to him, a spot where the stalker wouldn't be discovered for many years--if ever. The Miwok medicine man had showed him an ancient secret burial cave in the hills. Wolf had asked if the Miwok buried their dead in the cave.

"These are not Miwok bones," Bear Claw had insisted. "We do not disturb the bones of the people from the morning of the world."

Wolf hoped the morning of the world people wouldn't be too upset to have the bones of a stalker lying among them. He'd make sure to apologize to the Old Ones for the intrusion when he reached the cave.

He didn't return to Volek House until dawn grayed the sky.

The next few days passed in a blur of grief. Ivan and Arno, summoned by Liisi's telegram, arrived and took charge--to Wolf's relief. Despite his Grandfather's wish, he'd never wanted to head the Volek clan. Ivan and Arno, who already helped manage the various Volek business interests, were far more suited than he.

Samara worried him. Though her head wound proved superficial and Liisi assured him there'd be no permanent physical damage from the rape by the stalker, Samara had retreated into herself. Her movements reminded him of a puppet's--jerky and unnatural. She didn't speak and she didn't eat unless ordered to by Liisi. Each mouthful had to be monitored or Samara stopped eating. No one else but Liisi could reach her through the wall she'd built. Whatever rapport he'd once had with Samara was gone.

Druse, after her initial hysterics, settled down and became engrossed with Hawk's care. Unless he was sleeping, the baby was rarely out of her arms. Wolf was pleased by his daughter's interest in her half-brother and relieved that his son was being well cared for.

They agreed to call the deaths "tragic hunting accidents." Whether the sheriff or anyone else believed their story, it was accepted but Wolf knew there must be doubt. It would take time for local speculation to die down. Two weeks after the funeral, Arno and Ivan invited Wolf into the study for a conference. "What are your plans?" Arno asked.

"Since Druse has agreed to assume full care of my son," he told them, "I want nothing more than to go my way. If you need help, I'll stay on. Otherwise--" He paused.