"We have so long to wait until it's dark. So very long. Since we must pass the time somehow, I'd like to close my eyes and picture your room before I see it. In anticipation." She leaned against the pine trunk, her eyelids drooping shut. "I imagine the bedrooms are on the second floor?"

Amused and touched, he told her she was right.

"Describe how we get to your room," she went on.

He did, naming, when she asked, who was behind the closed doors they'd pass. He hesitated when he came to the Kelloggs but, realizing their name would mean nothing to her, he said it.

"Ah, now I have my picture," she said, opening her eyes. "Except for what is inside your room. Will you tell me or do you wish to surprise me?"

"It's very plain."

"By your choice, I think. You're not a man for frills. Am I right? The rest of the house must have all those frills you don't care for, though."

"Yes," he admitted, amazed at how well she understood him. Encouraged by her interest, he described the downstairs rooms and their furnishings.

"Someday I would like to live in a castle," she said. "A castle with a tower like yours."

"The tower is really my grandmother's; the castle is hers and grandfather's."

"But one day it will be yours."

"In a way."

"By then I'll be far away over the ocean, back in Switzerland and you'll have forgotten all about me."

He took her hand and drew her closer. "I'll never forget you!"

She gazed at him for long moments before saying with a one-sided smile, "Perhaps you won't, at that."

Chapter 4.

He'd done it! Wolf closed the door to his room, and in the darkness illuminated only by moonlight from the window, reached for Linden.

She evaded him. "I've lost my oranges," she whispered. "I wanted to eat them with you when we got to your room." "Later," he murmured. "I'll get oranges later."

Linden submitted to his kiss but then pulled back. "Please find the oranges," she begged, touching his mouth with her fingers. "I'll undress while you're gone. Then you can take your clothes off and we'll peel the oranges and eat them, section by section while we--love one another."

His breath caught at the picture she painted--the two of them naked, lying flesh to flesh while she passed an orange segment from her lips to his. He could almost taste the sweet juice.

"You will do it for me, won't you?" she whispered, her warm breath teasing his ear.

He'd do anything for her.

Wolf eased through the door and padded barefoot along the hall. He had no idea where she'd lost the oranges he'd given her but a bowl of fruit was always kept on the dining room table--he'd find oranges there.

He'd been incredibly lucky so far. Jose had almost caught them at dusk when they'd crept through the rear gate with the cows coming in to the barn. But Wolf, leading the unsaddled bay, had been able to distract Jose by announcing he'd found a stray horse and asking the man to tether the animal in the barn for the night. While he transferred the reins to Jose, Linden had slipped past unseen and hid in the shrubbery.

Wolf joined her later and led her away from the house into the cluster of valley oaks near the wall. There they'd waited, she telling him stories about life in Switzerland, until Wolf was sure Jose, Belinda and Rosa had left the grounds and the children had been put to bed. He'd brought Linden to the back door, went in alone to scout, found the coast clear and whisked her up the back stairs to his room. No one had seen her. The only possible chance of discovery was if Grandfather chanced to count every aura he sensed inside the house and found one too many. Wolf thought that unlikely because Sergei was too distracted by Liisi's failure to control Annette Kellogg. The moon was only just past full so his grandfather would be busy helping Guy cope with Annette's shifting.

In the dining room, Wolf lifted two oranges from the fruit bowl and hurried back upstairs. To his consternation, he saw Linden walking along the hall.

Running to her, he grasped her by the arm and pulled her with him into his room. "Where were you going?" he demanded, forgetting to keep his voice down.

"Ssh," she cautioned. "Someone will hear. I wanted to wash and I was looking for the linen closet to find a clean towel."

"You must stay in this room! What if someone had seen you? There should be clean towels by the wash basin--didn't you find one there?"

"Never mind the towel." She reached for his hands and brought them to her breasts. "Since you're back so soon, would you like to undress me?"

The feel of her soft breasts under his hands made him forget everything else. He peeled off her jacket and was fumbling with the tiny buttons of her shirtwaist when a shriek shattered the night's quiet.

Wolf held, listening to the wavering crescendo of terrified screams. Samara. From experience he knew she'd go on until either he or Sergei quieted her. Sergei would be too busy.

"What in heaven's name--?" Linden began.

"My little cousin has these spells. I'll be back in a few minutes. Don't go out of this room!"

He hated to leave Linden but Samara gave him no choice. Before he reached the nursery, he passed Morning Quail, fleeing toward the front stairs with Stefan in her arms. She wouldn't return, he knew, until Samara was quiet. In the main nursery, Ivan and Arno sat up in their beds, blinking at him.

He found Samara huddled into a corner of her crib in the small bedroom off the nursery that Morning Quail shared with her twins. In the light slanting in through the open door from the hall sconces, he saw Samara's eyes were squeezed shut. Rather than startle her by picking her up, he laid his hand on her hair to let her know he was there.

She seemed to understand who he was for, without opening her eyes, she immediately sprang up and flung her arms around his neck. Wolf lifted her from the crib.

"I'm here," he murmured into her ear. "You're safe."

As Samara clung to him, wailing, a monstrous dark figure loomed in his mind, a figure he knew came from Samara's terror. Despite this realization, he had to fight to control his own surge of fear.

Grandmother Liisi's sudden appearance in the doorway startled him. "Get Samara out of here!" she cried. "Flee the house. Hide! Death is loose in Volek House."

She yanked Ivan and Arno from their beds and, pulling her twins with her, ran down the hall shouting, "Listen, everyone! Save the children. Grab a child and run from the house. Hurry!"

Doors slammed. Men shouted. A woman screamed.

Linden! Was she all right? With the sobbing Samara clinging to him, Wolf raced back to his room. His door was open. Linden was gone.

Where was she? Somewhere along the hall a gun cracked once, twice. Who was shooting? Why? Had Annette shifted and gotten away from Guy and Sergei? He thought of Druse and prayed that Mima had heard Liisi's warning and fled to safety with their daughter.

As he tried to decide what to do, he heard Grandfather's hoarse cry.

"Stalker!"

The word broke Wolf's paralysis. With Samara in his arms, he ran toward the sound of his grandfather's voice.

The gun roared again.

Wolf plunged through the open door to the Kelloggs' suite and stumbled over the sprawled body of his grandfather. He regained his footing to find himself staring into the muzzle of a small revolver.

"Linden!" The word jolted from him.

She stood over two bleeding bodies--Guy's and Annette's. Her smile froze the blood in his veins.

"A nest of shifters," she spat at him, aiming the pistol. "Shifters breeding shifters."

As her finger tightened on the trigger he tried to leap aside, knowing he was too late. Someone darted in front of him as Linden fired. Mima. She dropped at his feet.

Linden laughed harshly. "There's another bullet left for you, Wolf. One for two--you and that Volek spawn you hold."

Samara stiffened in his arms. Linden gave an inarticulate cry, then stood transfixed. The revolver dropped from her hand, Wolf tried to lunge for the gun and found he couldn't move a muscle.

He stared in horrified disbelief as Mima, blood staining her white nightgown, raised up on one elbow and reached for the fallen gun. Grasping it in a shaking hand, she forced herself to her feet and staggered to the unmoving Linden. Slowly, painfully, she lifted the gun until the muzzle rested against Linden's temple. Steadying the pistol with both hands, she pulled the trigger. A tremor convulsed her as the gun fired. She collapsed onto Annette's dead body.

Samara relaxed in Wolf's arms. Linden started to lift a hand to her head, groaned, and crumpled to the floor. Wolf, the child still hanging around his neck, knelt beside Mima, calling her name.

Mima opened her eyes. "Liisi has Druse," she whispered. Before she could say anything more, blood welled from her mouth and her eyes glazed over.

At the same time something inside Wolf seemed to shatter and he knew she was dead. "Mima, no!" he cried.

The whimpering Samara kept him from cradling Mima's head in his lap.

He stumbled to his feet and found himself standing in a pool of blood.

A lake of blood.

But he was no hero, no knight saving a good and virtuous maiden from evil. Instead, he'd brought an evil maiden into the center of his family. Brought them death. He'd betrayed them all by inviting a stalker into Volek House.

Knowing he had to make certain she was dead, Wolf forced himself to kneel beside Linden's body and feel for a heart-beat. He found none. He stared into her vacant brown eyes for a long moment.

A stalker. How could he have been so blind?

He discovered Guy and Annette were dead, too, both shot through the heart. Numbness crept over him. Who else besides himself and Samara was alive?

Behind him someone groaned.

Wolf whirled. His grandfather, blood trickling down his left cheek from a gory furrow along his scalp, was struggling to rise. Wolf hurried to help him. Sergei stared at him, seemingly without recognition.

"It's Wolf, Grandfather. Lin--the stalker's dead." Grandfather, holding to Wolf for support, put a hand to his head, winced, then gazed uncomprehendingly at the blood on his fingers.

"A bullet must have creased your skull," Wolf told him. "Silver." Grandfather's voice was hoarse and slurred but Wolf understood.

Silver bullets. Linden, like the Petersburg stalker, knew silver poisoned shifters. Ordinarily Grandfather's wound would already be healing because shifters healed fast. But not when the wound was from a silver bullet.

Grandfather looked around the room. "Mima," he said sadly. "Guy. Annette." He let go of Wolf and staggered across to stare down at Linden's body. He knelt and picked up the small revolver and Wolf noticed for the first time that the top of the barrel and the plate above the grip were embossed with gold. A lady's gun.

"Holds five bullets," Sergei said. "Four dead. One wounded. Was the stalker alone?"

Wolf looked away as he answered, unable to meet his grandfather's eyes. "She was alone."

"Is everyone else all right?" Grandfather asked.

Wolf admitted he didn't know.

Without another word, Grandfather, his head still bleeding, stumbled from the room. Feeling as though he were in a trance, Wolf followed, scarcely aware of Samara's warm presence.

They found Natasha dead on the threshold of her room, a silver dagger embedded in her chest. Frightened sobbing from inside the closed mahogany wardrobe led them to Natasha's daughter, five-year-old Tanya, terrified but unharmed. Carrying Tanya in one arm and Samara in the other, Wolf trailed after Sergei. They found no one else, living or dead, in the house.

"Liisi warned everyone to take the children outside," Wolf said, finally remembering.

Grandfather clutched the frame of the back door. "Can't go any farther," he muttered. "You search. Try the barn first. Leave Tanya and Samara with me."

Free of the two children, Wolf sprinted across the moonlit grounds to the barn. "Grandmother Liisi?" he called when he he reached the closed doors, not wanting to frighten her. "Grandmother, it's Wolf. The stalker's dead."

He heard the scrape of the bar. Liisi opened one door a crack and peered out.

"Sergei?" she asked.

"He's alive but hurt. Samara and Tanya are with him." Liisi opened the door wider and motioned him to enter. As he did, he saw she carried Grandfather's Winchester.

"How badly hurt?" she demanded.

"A bullet creased his head. A silver bullet."

Liisi shuddered. "Help bring the children to the house," she ordered and hurried away without waiting for him to say anything more.

By the light of the lantern Liisi left behind, he found Morning Quail huddled in the hayloft holding Druse, with Stefan cuddled close to her side. Ivan and Arno, clinging to one another rather than to Morning Quail, stared wide-eyed at Wolf.

"Is the bad monster dead?" Arno asked.

Wolf had to swallow twice before he could speak. "Yes, she--it's dead. We're going back to the house now."

"No." Morning Quail spoke softly but firmly. "No go in house. When sun rise, I go to my people."

Though he tried to persuade her there was no longer any danger, she kept shaking her head.

"What about Stefan and Samara?" he asked finally.

In answer she pushed Stefan at him. "You take."

"But they're your children!"

Again she shook her head. "His children. I no bring trouble to my people."