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go, Wanderer?” her eyes seemed to ask him. “How much are you willing to risk?”
    Ella Bandita hadn’t said a word. He didn’t know if he imagined her murmuring taunt or if she really was talking to him through his mind. He could only be certain of that icy blue gaze holding him captive, her wide mouth curving in a smile.
    The Wanderer hated her. Sometimes he had felt his loathing gnaw at him, ever since the night Ella Bandita had stolen his heart. But his breath still caught in his throat from the way she looked at him. Images of the days they had coupled tormented him again, memories forever stored in his bones. In spite of all that happened in the last five years, the Wanderer still yearned to answer that siren call daring him to accept a predator’s challenge. He’d already lost the most precious part of himself, but determination possessed the Wanderer to prove he was strong enough to conquer the most dangerous woman in the world.
    Then the throbbing in his hollow made his knees buckle. He collapsed, scarcely able to breathe. But he could still hear his heartbeat. The sound was faint, but enough to relieve the Wanderer from his obsessive lust. He stood up and looked at Ella Bandita again. His desire was gone and he despised himself for his weakness.
    “That will make the taste of my heart much sweeter,” he said. “Won’t it?”
    The Wanderer savored that moment of victory when her face paled and her mouth tightened. But she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, opening up only to stare through him. She clicked her tongue to summon her horse. Once she was back in her saddle, it was as if his rejection had never happened. She looked down, her composure restored, and shrugged.
    “Yes,” she said. “I suppose it will.”
    Then she opened one of her saddlebags and pulled out a thick wool coat covered with tiny holes.
    “It’s going to snow later tonight.”
    She threw the coat to him. The Wanderer caught it, the fabric rough between his fingers.
    “I would hate for you to freeze to death,” she said.
    Her large teeth gleamed when Ella Bandita chuckled. She kicked its flanks and her stallion crossed the river in two bounds, running to the north. The Wanderer went numb watching her disappear, rooted where he stood until he shuddered. Rubbing his arms, he was amazed how much the air had chilled since that morning and donned the coat. There were sharp nips where moths had eaten through the wool, but the garment warmed him enough.

    He dropped to the ground and buried his face in his hands. The hollow inside him was even more painful now that he was back in his human body. His stomach grumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in more than a day. But his hunger was insigni ficant, for the Wanderer knew he wouldn’t live long enough to starve to death. Once Ella Bandita ate his heart, he wouldn’t suffer the purgatory of an existence without life, and the loss of personality of her other conquests. He would die. He wondered how long it would be. Two days? Perhaps he’d have three or four if the storms were brutal enough to slow her down.
    The Wanderer pulled his head up and caught his re flection in the still shallows of the river. He shook his head and looked again, stunned with what he saw. Time had not stopped in his years as a wolf. Instead of the rounded cheeks of his youth, he was now a man in his early prime. The bones of his face were pronounced, his jaw firm beneath his full beard. His skin was slightly weathered and his eyes had lines he’d never seen before.
    Although much younger than he had ever known him, the Wanderer saw he looked exactly like his grandfather. Then he realized he was almost the same age the Bard had been when he married. His next birthday would be his twenty-eighth.
    But he wouldn’t reach that milestone. That certainty pierced to his hollow, and made the emptiness hurt in a way it never had before. He was compelled to move and do something to save himself, but he