Iron to Iron (Wolf by Wolf) Read Online Free Page A

Yokuto to pass him. It was a necessary sacrifice. He needed the space to plot with his new ally, and riding close would afford them that.
    Salt and wind lashed Luka’s hair as he leaned against the deck railing. The sea unfolded beneath his feet. Shades of aqua and sapphire, echoes of the cloudless sky as far as the eye could reach.
    The rest of the Axis Tour riders sprawled across the deck, letting their muscles mend just in time to be ripped apart again by unforgiving desert roads. (Luka’s
least
favorite part of the Axis Tour: potholes, sand-clouded vision, dust in his teeth.) Even Katsuo was curled up in a chair, napping.
    Felix—
oh, wait
,
Adele
—walked up to the railing, keeping a whole section between herself and Luka. Instead of leaning, she sat with her boots dangling off the side of the ship. She closed her eyes and lifted her paste-covered face to the sun. Again, the zinc oxide was very strategic, distracting the eyes from the fräulein’s more feminine features.
    “What’s the plan?”
    The volume of her question made Luka wince. There weren’t any other racers in their vicinity, but boat winds had a habit of snatching words and spreading them. He stepped closer, lowering his own voice to a rough whisper. “The plan is not to talk about the plan where everyone might be eavesdropping.”
    “So when can we talk about it?” Adele’s eyes snapped open. They were even more striking under daylight: clear as the Mediterranean shallows, something you’d want to swim in.
    “We’ve got about three and a half days of riding to Cairo—provided the desert doesn’t decide to play hide-the-road. Camps are longer in this stretch, since sand makes for
Scheisse
night visibility. Ride close, and we’ll camp together.”
    “Camp?” Adele grunted.
    “Trading night watches. Breaking bread—er, dehydrated meat. Trying not to cuss while figuring out how to set up those
verdammt
pup tents.”
    “I know what camping is.” Her boots thumped the side of the ferry, offbeat. “I’m just not sure about camping with your ogling eyes.”
    “Worry not, Herr Wolfe. My intentions are completely honorable.” Luka’s fingers wandered to the welt on his face. It was mostly bruise now, set exactly where his goggles fitted. “Aside from plotting Katsuo’s eventual demise, of course.”
    “Of course.” She nodded, both feet drumming in agreement. “I’m glad we understand each other.”
    Did they? Maybe Adele thought she understood him (most people thought so, another hazard of being 1953 Poster Boy Wonder), but Luka was having a very hard time understanding her. The ladies in his life were his mother—a sweet woman whose shoulders had a habit of hunching every time his father walked into the room—and his fans: girls with pressed blouses and pinned-up curls, who smelled like gardens and smiled as if they had something stuck in their teeth. They were perfectly pleasant, but uninteresting. There was no…
challenge
in them. All they did was listen to Luka’s tales about the Axis Tour and nod, hoping he’d wrap up the story and kiss them. (Sometimes Luka did. Their lips were red and velvet soft, and—just like the first victory, just like his smokes—they did not fill him.)
    Adele Wolfe wasn’t like them at all.
    Luka found it fascinating.
    “Anything else?” Adele asked.
    He’d been staring, he realized. Caught up in those drown-worthy eyes. Luka overcorrected, swinging his stare out to sea. “Make sure you’ve got a scarf for the next leg, to cover your mouth and nose,” he told her. “That sand will shred apart your insides if you let it.”

    The desert road was just as terrible as Luka remembered. Worse, perhaps, because this year he wasn’t leading the pack and Katsuo’s wheels did an excellent job of spewing dust at Yokuto, who in turn flung it toward Luka. It didn’t matter that he was wearing protective gear. The sand always found a way in, lodging between his molars and making the insides of his