Her smooth curves enticed him, his blood ran hot, he was rigid with lust, he would have this woman or die. Though he knew with one small sane part of him that it wasn't Willa seducing Wolf, he was so consumed by desire for her that he didn't care. About anything.

When he entered her suddenly everything turned as red as her hair winding around him. He possessed her in a crimson hell of burning, seething passion. Hate, not love drove him. Sergei's hate, transformed through him into unremitting lust for the woman whose voice spoke through Willa. It was really Sergei and that woman writhing and spasming, traveling together into fiery depths with Wolf and Willa their helpless pawns.

He wished he could free himself and at the same time he desperately wanted the embrace to last forever, to never end. ###

Chapter 12.

Wolf took the next train to California, unashamedly fleeing from Willa Gebhardt. He was certain if he didn't put thousands of miles between them he couldn't stay away from her. No matter how strong his own will might be, whoever or whatever controlled Willa was beyond his power to resist.

As it was, she haunted his dreams so that he fought sleep and arrived in Oakland tired to the bone. He was unable to forget the bright red hair he'd plucked from his jacket the morning after the seance. Willa's hair was honey-colored, not red--Larry had confirmed that--and neither Melissa Weidman nor Olive had red hair. Wolf shied away from speculation, doing his best to eradicate every memory of what had happened in that shadowed basement room.

He felt sure the episode had to do with Sergei's past, arising from something his grandfather had never told him; he was convinced that even Liisi didn't know the details. At the same time he feared his grandmother would sense he was somehow different. He flinched at the idea of being questioned in Liisi's tower room so he decided not to go home immediately but to visit Muir in Monterey. If Muir wasn't at the ranch, Wolf made up his mind he'd tramp into the mountains by himself. He craved the simplicity of the wilderness where things were what they seemed to be.

On a drizzly June morning in 1899, a baby girl was born in a midwife's cottage on the Hudson River in Tarrytown near the ferry docks. A solitary crow cawed from a tulip tree outside the window during the birth, an omen that disturbed the midwife--one crow meant sorrow. Immediately after pushing out the afterbirth, the infant's mother insisted on being helped to her waiting carriage without even looking at the child she'd delivered.

"Leaving the poor mite with you, is she?" the midwife said to the woman who'd accompanied the mother on arrival. Yuba Steinmetz clutched the swaddled newborn infant to her breast, gazing tenderly at the red fuzz covering the tiny head. "She's mine! Jael's mine."

The midwife, tidying up after the birth, shrugged. The way she'd heard it, the mother had an elderly and impotent--but wealthy--husband so was forced to conceal her love child or be cast out. It wouldn't be the first time she'd brought such a child into the world.

"No one will ever take Jael from me." The Steinmetz woman's voice was high and fierce. "Never!"

"Likely no one will try," the midwife said soothingly. At least that had been her experience--the sinning wives were only too glad to be rid of the results of their indiscretions.

Yuba Steinmetz's smile as she gathered her long cloak about both herself and the child was cunning and secret. She opened the door to leave, then looked back over her shoulder at the midwife. "They won't ever find me or Jael."

Wolf, caught up in Muir's plans to save the Yosemite Valley from further destruction at the hands of timber thieves, stayed on through '99 and into '01 to work with the older man. He was with Muir on September 6 when the news came that President McKinley had been shot by an assassin in Buffalo. McKinley died eight days later.

Overriding Wolf's shock about McKinley was the stunning realization that his friend, the man he'd fought with in Cuba, was now the President.

"President Theodore Roosevelt," he said aloud, testing the sound of the words.

Muir, writing at the desk in his study, turned to look at Wolf. "This is our chance. We've got to get him to visit Yosemite before I sail for Europe."

Wolf nodded. If you ever need me, Roosevelt had once said to him. "I'll send a telegram," he told Muir.

On May 14 of the following year, President Roosevelt arrived in San Francisco. On the next night, he, Wolf and Muir camped under the giant sequoias in Mariposa Grove. In the morning they mounted horses and took the trail to Glacier Point.

"Who needs tents?" Roosevelt demanded that evening as they cooked thick steaks over an open fire in the meadow behind the Point. "This is the bulliest ever!"

After dark, as Wolf and Roosevelt sat around the embers of the campfire drinking coffee and reminiscing about the Rough Riders, Wolf suddenly realized Muir was missing. Moments later a tower of flame shot into the sky and Wolf grinned, knowing Muir had fired one of the huge dead pines they'd passed.

Roosevelt cheered. "A five-hundred year old candle--hurrah for Yosemite!"

On returning, Muir directed the conversation, doing his best to convince the President of the necessity to protect Yosemite Valley by making it a part of Yosemite Park.

"People aren't meant to be ravishers and despoilers of earth," Muir insisted. "We're stewards, all of us, with a divine command to obey--to cherish and preserve the earth we live upon."

His words rose gooseflesh on Wolf's arms. A divine command. Yes, he told himself. Yes!

Listening to Roosevelt's favorable comments, Wolf knew the President was impressed and felt sure Muir's pet project was due to succeed. At the same time he sensed a dormancy inside himself had been awakened by Muir's impassioned words. An urgency possessed him, driving him to his feet. He'd been created for a single purpose; there was something he must set right, he must hurry or it would be too late. He strode away from the fire and stopped, bewildered. What was it he must do? He didn't know and there was no one to tell him.

Because of the inexplicable compulsion, Wolf had difficulty falling asleep. In the morning, he woke to find his blanket covered by several inches of snow. Roosevelt romped through the snow like a boy. "The grandest day of my life!" he crowed.

Watching him, Wolf realized that nothing would ever change the energetic enthusiast Roosevelt was--not even the Presidency.

Two days later, after Roosevelt had gone on with his entourage to Sacramento, Wolf said goodbye to Muir and set off, at long last, for home. Maybe at Volek House he could come to terms with what he was destined to do.

Though he could have telephoned Ivan or Arno in San Francisco at any time during these past three years in California, he had not. He wasn't sure whether it had been a reluctance to be drawn into family business or whether he'd needed the time to renew himself after the fighting in Cuba and his strange experience at the New York seance. Even now he had nightmares about red-haired witches.

He found a telephone-like device installed at the front gate and was about to ring the house when he saw Grandmother Liisi making her way slowly down the drive toward him. He smiled wryly, prepared for her greeting.

"Welcome home, Wolf," she said as she unlocked the gate. "I knew you were coming so I decided to meet you."

"I didn't mean to stay away so long," he said, dismounting and leading his horse so he could walk with her. "Ivan and Arno thought perhaps you'd sailed for Russia but I didn't believe you had."

"Not yet. I intend to soon. I hope all's well here." Liisi shrugged. "There are more of us."

His heart sank as he recalled Samara's rape by the stalker. "Samara had a baby?"

"Yes. Melanie's four." She slanted him a look. "Leo and Quincy are also four--making you a grandfather."

He stared at her in consternation. "Druse?" he stammered. "Druse had twins? Who did she marry?"

Liisi sighed. "I'm afraid Stefan was their father."

"My God!"

Giving him no time to recover, she said, "Tanya and Rodney McQuade have also added to the clan. Last year Tanya bore twin girls, Jennifer and Lily." She frowned. "I'm uneasy about those girls. I wish Tanya had remembered how dangerous it is to pass on Volek blood."

Another with Volek blood was his son, Hawk, now five. If Grandfather were alive he'd be appalled at the increase in Voleks. The night with Willa Gebhardt crossed Wolf's mind. What if--? He shook his head as though to dislodge even the thought of such a possibility.

"Druse didn't tell me until she began to show," Liisi went on. "Then she refused to take my potions; she was determined to bear Stefan's child--children as it turned out."

His grandsons were male twins. With Volek blood on both Druse's side and Stefan's. He grimaced. One was bound to be a shifter when he became a man. They were already four years old.

"I should have come home before now," he said.

"You couldn't have prevented any of the children from being born. Actually, having to take care of Melanie has been good for Samara--though she's far from her old self. And we've hired a nursemaid--Jose's granddaughter Maria comes in during the day to help with the children."

Chung came hurrying up to take Wolf's horse. "Good you home," he said. "We miss."

Wolf clapped him on the shoulder, feeling a bond with the man who'd proved to be a staunch ally on the terrible night Sergei and Stefan died.

As Chung walked off with the horse, Liisi caught Wolf's arm, stopping him before they reached the steps. "Look at me," she ordered.

He had no choice but to obey. Since he hadn't taken a good look at her, he was startled to see that her hair had turned completely silver with no trace of blondeness left. New age lines showed around her eyes and mouth, yet even at seventy-one her pale gray eyes held their power of command. Shaman's eyes.

As he watched her pupils widen and then contract, he willed himself to remain calm. Shaman or not, what had he to fear from Grandmother Liisi?

"Yes," she murmured at last, turning away. "She left a mark. But I don't see any permanent harm."

Since Liisi spoke to herself, he said nothing, even though her words made him uneasy. He dare not ask questions since that might lead to questions from her that he didn't want to answer.

"You'll let me know what you sense about Druse's twins," she said, leading the way up the steps. "And Samara's Melanie. She frowned again. "I doubt if you'll sense anything amiss with the McQuade twins but I'm afraid no good will come of their birth."

Wolf nodded, agreeing to do what he could to help, not not relishing what he might find.

In less than a week, Wolf had settled into the household routine so thoroughly he could almost believe he'd never been away. After a day or two of wariness, Druse's natural warmth re-emerged and he started making friends with the daughter he hardly knew.

His grandsons were lighter-skinned than their mother, with very curly dark hair and the golden eyes of Volek twins. Neither Leo nor Quincy was shy of him but his son, Hawk, stood apart, staring, unable to decide whether he liked this strange father or not.

When Samara spoke to Wolf she seemed distracted, as though only part of her attention was on the outer world. She never smiled and he found no trace of he bond they'd once shared.

Wolf told Liisi immediately that Quincy was the shifter but he waited a full week before bringing up the subject with Druse. They were alone in the morning room having coffee.

"I know how you predicted Arno would be affected," she said. "And Stefan, too." She paused, waiting.

"It's Quincy." He spoke as gently as he could, being careful, as she'd been, not to use the word shifter in case there were any servants within earshot.

"You're positive?"

He nodded.

Druse sighed. "I hoped against hope they'd escape the problem."

"They're Voleks."

"What about Melanie?" Druse glanced over her shoulder at the open door and lowered her voice. "Her father--will she take after him?"

"I have no way to tell. I can't sense--them."

"Samara worries about it. We all do. I think poor little Melanie feels how uneasy we are about her. At least Hawk's all right. Isn't he?"

Wolf nodded. "I wish I knew how to make friends with him."

"Take him for a walk in the woods," Druse suggested. "Just the two of you.

Tell him about being a soldier in Cuba."

"Would he be interested?"

"He's a boy, isn't he? Try it."

On their walk, Wolf did everything he could think of to prod Hawk into speech but the boy said as little as possible and then only if asked a direct question.

Finally, in desperation, Wolf began to talk about his son's mother. "...and so, because that was the first thing she saw on the morning of your birth," he finished, "she named you Takenya. In the Miwok tongue that means Hawk-Swooping-Down-On-Prey."

Hawk stared at him for a long moment. "I like my name," he said at last. "I wish I was a really truly hawk so I could fly."

"I've seen men travel through the air in baskets under giant balloons," Wolf said. "Maybe someday you and I can take a ride in one."

Hawk's slightly slanted black eyes widened in pleased surprise. "What do those balloons look like?" he demanded. "How do they stay up?"

"I'm no expert but we'll find pictures in some of the books in the library with explanations of why--"

Hawk grasped his hand, pulling him toward the house. "Let's hurry!"

The day before Christmas Hawk broke his collarbone leaping from the barn roof while holding onto a makeshift flying contraption. While Druse and Liisi strapped the broken bone into place, Wolf retrieved what he realized was Hawk's attempt at constructing his own balloon.

"Next time tell a grownup before you try flying," he advised his son.

Rodney and Tanya brought their twin daughters to Volek House on Christmas Day. As casually as he could, Wolf picked up Lily, then Jennifer. Though he hadn't seriously expected to find either of the babies was a potential shifter, he was relieved to be right. Taking Tanya aside, he told her the good news.

"Well, of course not!" she exclaimed. "They're completely normal. Why they don't even look like Voleks. They're McQuades, through and through."

He was tempted to remind her that their sandy hair and blue eyes didn't mean the girls couldn't pass on the shifter trait but he knew she wouldn't listen to even the slightest hint her babies weren't perfect.

Rodney was as enthralled with the twins as Tanya. "We were beginning to think we weren't ever going to have a child," he said to Wolf in private. "It was sort of strange how it came about. My wife got all upset because I accidentally broke the last two bottles of that special health tonic Mrs. Volek makes up for her and what happened?" He winked at Wolf. "We wound up with twins."

Rodney was no fool, Wolf thought. Had he deliberately broken the bottles, suspecting a connection between the tonic and a barren wife?

As the new year passed from January to February and then March, Wolf told himself he should be planning his Russian trip. But he enjoyed his son's company so much he found it hard to leave. Then Ivan and Arno took advantage of Wolf's presence at the house to both stay in San Francisco for the month of April, explaining that they were looking into making an investment in the new automobile industry and wanted to be sure it wasn't too much of a risk.

From the way all the boys, Leo and Quincy as well as Hawk, followed him around, it was clear to Wolf that they needed a father. He tried to do his best. Even with Melanie.

She was a very pretty little girl with brown curly hair and brown eyes. But she held aloof from everyone as though sensing their doubts about her. Wolf felt sorry for her and agreed with Liisi--the child should never have been born.

If only they knew more about stalkers. Was it a trait that emerged at puberty, like shifting? Or were stalkers formed in the womb and born already able to sense shifters? Would a stalker raised with a potential shifter like Quincy try to kill him after his first shifting?

It could be the stalker trait didn't necessarily manifest itself in each child and little Melanie was absolutely normal. But he felt certain she could pass the trait on so, one way or another, Melanie posed a danger to the clan.

On the other hand, Melanie's birth into the family was a chance to learn more about stalkers.

Liisi's continuing worry about the McQuade twins disturbed Wolf and he visited Tanya often, hoping to ease Liisi's mind by his reports on the normal development of the little girls. He taught his son and grandsons how to shoot with a bow and arrows as well as with a gun. With him remaining at home, Arno and Ivan were able to spend more time together in San Francisco. He knew he contributed to the welfare of the household.

Though glad to do his part, his continuing need to discover what his purpose in life was kept him restless. He finally decided the answer might lie in Russia, in the forests of the Volek ancestors. Hadn't Grandfather urged him to go there?

By the time he made up his mind to set sail for Russia it was February of 1904. Before he could announce his plans, the conflict between Japan and Russia over trade in Korea and Manchuria blossomed into a full-scale war between the two countries. Wolf postponed the journey.

In the early spring he planned a camping trip into the foothills with the three boys. The night before they were to leave, he was downstairs making last minute preparations before going to bed when the phone rang. After midnight--who'd be calling? He hurried to the special cubicle constructed to hold the instrument and lifted the receiver. "Volek House, Wolf," he said.

"Get over here as fast as you can!" Rodney McQuade shouted frantically. "Bring Druse." He broke the connection.