Charles let his hand linger on Anna’s back. She wore a sweater and a light jacket, but he pretended he could feel the heat of her through the clothing that covered her.
Brother Wolf wanted her off this island and somewhere far away from killers who hunted werewolves and left no scent behind for them to discover. But Charles knew better. To try to encase his Anna in bubble wrap would be to kill the woman who protected him with her grandmother’s marble rolling pin. She was the woman he fell in love with.
Then why are you hiding your ghosts from her? Brother Wolf said.
Because I am afraid, Charles answered his brother, as he would have answered no one else. He had lived a very long time, and only since he gained Anna had he learned to fear. He’d discovered that he had never been brave before – just indifferent. She had taught him that to be brave, you have to fear losing something. I am afraid I will lose her. That they will take her from me – or that I will drive her away when she sees what I really am.
Beauclaire had addressed that. Charles couldn’t remember the fae’s exact words, but he felt them. People as old and powerful as he should never be given someone to love.
For Anna he would destroy the world.
Anna felt Charles more than heard him, even though he’d taken his hand off her back and let her go ahead. She could hear the others walking in front of her, but Charles was a silent, reassuring presence behind.
She could smell the wrongness in the air and it made her wolf nervous. It felt like something was watching them, as if the wrongness had an intelligence – and it didn’t help to remember that at least one of the people they were hunting could hide from their senses.
Anna fought the urge to turn around, to take Charles’s hand or slide under his arm and let his presence drive away the wrongness. Once, she would have, but now she had the uneasy feeling that he might back away as he almost had when she sat on his lap in the boat, before Brother Wolf had taken over.
Maybe he was just tired of her. She had been telling everyone that there was something wrong with him … but Bran knew his son and thought the problem was her. Bran was smart and perceptive; she ought to have considered that he was right.
Charles was old. He’d seen and experienced so much – next to him she was just a child. His wolf had chosen her without consulting Charles at all. Maybe he’d have preferred someone who knew more. Someone beautiful and clever who …
‘Anna?’ said Charles. ‘What’s wrong? Are you crying?’ He moved in front of her and stopped, forcing her to stop walking, too.
She opened her mouth and his fingers touched her wet cheeks.
‘Anna,’ he said, his body going still. ‘Call on your wolf.’
‘You should have someone stronger,’ she told him miserably. ‘Someone who could help you when you need it, instead of getting sent home because I can’t endure what you have to do. If I weren’t Omega, if I were dominant like Sage, I could have helped you.’
‘There is no one stronger,’ Charles told her. ‘It’s the taint from the black magic. Call your wolf.’
‘You don’t want me anymore,’ she whispered. And once the words were out she knew they were true. He would say the things that he thought she wanted to hear because he was a kind man. But they would be lies. The truth was in the way he closed down the bond between them so she wouldn’t hear things that would hurt her. Charles was a dominant wolf and dominant wolves were driven to protect those weaker than themselves. And he saw her as so much weaker.
‘I love you,’ he told her. ‘Now, call your wolf.’
She ignored his order – he knew better than to give her orders. He said he loved her; it sounded like the truth. But he was old and clever and Anna knew that, when push came to shove, he could lie and make anyone believe it. Knew it because he lied to her now – and it sounded like the truth.
‘I’m sorry,’ she told him. ‘I’ll go away—’
And suddenly her back was against a tree and his face was a hairbreadth from hers. His long hot body was pressed against her from her knees to her chest – he’d have to bend to do that. He was a lot taller than her, though she wasn’t short.
Anna shuddered as the warmth of his body started to penetrate the cold that had swallowed hers. Charles waited like a hunter, waited for her to wiggle and see that she was truly trapped. Waited while she caught her breath. Waited until she looked into his eyes.
Then he snarled at her. ‘You are not leaving me.’
It was an order, and she didn’t have to follow anyone’s orders. That was part of being Omega instead of a regular werewolf – who might have had a snowball’s chance in hell of being a proper mate.
‘You need someone stronger,’ Anna told him again. ‘So you wouldn’t have to hide when you’re hurt. So you could trust your mate to take care of herself and help, damn it, instead of having to protect me from whatever you are hiding.’ She hated crying. Tears were weaknesses that could be exploited and they never solved a damned thing. Sobs gathered in her chest like a rushing tide and she needed to get away from him before she broke.
Instead of fighting his grip, she tried to slide out of it. ‘I need to go,’ she said to his chest. ‘I need—’
His mouth closed over hers, hot and hungry, warming her mouth as his body warmed her body.
‘Me,’ Charles said, his voice dark and gravelly as if it had traveled up from the bottom of the earth, his eyes a bright gold. ‘You need me.’
He kissed her again, his hands roaming from her jaw down her neck and shoulders. His hips pressed forward, and he released her mouth as he slid his body up until his sex pressed, hard and full, against hers. She jerked involuntarily, and he laughed in the same deep way that he had spoken. She growled at him, wolf to wolf.
‘There you are, there you are,’ he said. ‘Are you just going to let me do this alone?’
He was talking too much when he should be feeling. She curled one leg up until the angle of their hips was better, climbing his body until she could bite down on his collarbone. He drew in his breath at the pain and she released him. Now his attention was on her instead of on making words, so she could be gentler. She licked the wound she’d made, feeling it heal under her tongue as she cleaned the iron-rich blood from his skin. She lunged upward and this time she caught the tendon in his neck gently, and his gasp had nothing to do pain.
She wiggled her hips, rubbing the seam of her jeans on him as she absorbed the heady smell that was her mate when he was aroused. She wanted to smell it better so she slipped down and rested her open mouth against his hardness, letting her hot breath caress him through his jeans. It had been so long since they’d touched.
His scent grew stronger: musk and forest, salt and bitter, with an indescribably delicious edge of sweetness.
‘Anna,’ he said, a little desperately. ‘Isaac, Malcolm, and probably that damned fae can hear us.’
She opened her mouth and bit – not hard, just enough to shut him up and to let him know that pushing her away was not an option.
Charles made a noise that might have been a laugh, but all she heard was the surrender in it, and then he let her knock him onto his back in the damp soil of the island and unzip his jeans until she could get to him. Once she had his bare skin in her hands, the frantic need lessened, partly assuaged by the clear evidence that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
His skin was so soft to sheathe something so hard. She licked him delicately, loving the taste of him now seasoned by the ocean’s salt. She loved him in all of his flavors, loved the noises he made as she pleasured him, loved the catch in his breath and the jerkiness of his movements – he who was always graceful.
She swallowed him down, claiming him, man and wolf, in the most basic way possible.
‘I am yours,’ he said, a finger under her chin dislodging her claim. ‘And you’ – he moved his hands under her shoulders and pulled until she was all the way on top – ‘are mine.’
Her jeans were in the way so he rolled her to the side and strip
ped her shoes, pants, and underwear off in three quick motions. He pulled her back on top with hands that were more urgent than gentle and slid inside her.
She closed her eyes and absorbed the feel of the slow burn, the slick pressure and warm friction that meant he was hers. Then he grabbed her hips and asked, so she moved – and quit thinking altogether.
Limp and well loved, Anna panted on top of Charles. As the last tingles died down, she started to think again instead of just feel.
‘Did we,’ she whispered, feeling the blush start at her toes and travel all the way out to her ears. ‘Did we really make love while everyone was listening? Right out in the open? When there might be a bad guy we can’t see or hear watching?’ She might have squeaked the last word.
Underneath her, Charles laughed, his belly bouncing her up and down. He felt resilient and relaxed, like a cat bathing in the sun. ‘All I was trying to do was get you to call up your wolf so she could fight off the black magic that was making you doubt yourself.’ He paused and the relaxation faded. ‘Making you doubt me.’ He rubbed her back. ‘I made you doubt me.’
Anna tucked her head in the hollow of his shoulder and closed her eyes, but hiding didn’t work. After a minute, she laughed helplessly. ‘There is no saving it, is there? We might as well go face the music.’
Anna sat up and lifted her head to scent the air. All she smelled was green growing things, Charles, sex, and the ocean air. ‘The wrongness is gone,’ she told him.
He frowned and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. ‘From here,’ he said. ‘Not from the whole island. That’s interesting.’ Then he looked up at her and smiled. ‘I think we’d better pull ourselves back together. They’re waiting for us.’
Anna stood up and he handed her his T-shirt. She cleaned up as best she could, handed him back his shirt, and then climbed back into her clothes. He was faster, since he had only to zip his jeans. She was brushing the dirt off one of her socks when he took the shirt and pressed it against a tree.
She watched him as she put on a shoe and started dusting off another shoe.
Charles murmured to the tree in what she was pretty sure was his native speech – which he very seldom used. He and Bran were the only ones left who spoke it as his mother’s band of people had used it, a variant of the Flathead tongue. It made him feel sad and alone to use it, he told her once, and he and his father communicated quite nicely in English, Welsh, or any number of other languages.
Clothed and shod, she ran her fingers through her hair to dislodge leaves, grass, mud, and whatever creepy crawlies might have come to rest there. Charles went down to one knee and pressed the shirt into the ground … which ate it.
He murmured one more phrase and came back to his feet. He saw her watching him and smiled, his face more open than she’d seen it in a long time. ‘I wasn’t going to put it back on,’ he explained. ‘And leaving something like that lying around when we’re traveling with a witch is just not smart. The apple tree will absorb it eventually and guard it until she does.’
‘Are you done yet?’ called Isaac.
Charles tilted his head and called back, ‘I suppose that’s why they call you the five-minute wonder.’
Anna could feel her eyes round and her mouth drop open. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’ She paused and reconsidered. ‘I am so telling Samuel you said that.’
Charles smiled, kissed her gently, and said, ‘Samuel won’t believe you.’ Then he took her by the hand and started off in the others’ wake.
9
As they climbed, scrambling over broken cement, rocks, and bits of assorted underbrush, Anna had too much time to think about the show they’d just put on.
It had been her fault.
Charles had been trying to raise her wolf – because apparently the black magic had been affecting her. She cringed away from the self-pitying stupidity she’d allowed herself to wallow in. Talking hadn’t worked to pull her out of it, so he’d kissed her, and her wolf had risen up to shrug off the effects of the magic, just like he’d thought she would. And then her wolf had changed the game.
Anna remembered distinctly that he’d warned her that they had an audience – and she’d totally ignored him. That was bad enough. To do it when there was a distinct chance that they were going to run into the bad guys was the height of stupidity.
‘Anna,’ said Charles. ‘Stop brooding.’
‘That was really dumb,’ she said without looking at him. ‘My fault. I’m sorry. We could have been attacked by the killers.’ She threw up her hands. ‘We might as well have set up cameras and invited everyone to watch. And now we’re going to have to go meet up with our audience and explain ourselves.’
He stopped abruptly and jerked her to a halt beside him with a hand on her wrist. It startled her with its hint of violence – Charles was never out of control.
‘If you think that it was dumb, unnecessary, and your fault,’ he said in a husky voice, ‘then you weren’t paying attention.’ He kissed her again, his mouth demanding her response, his body hot against hers.
Charles smelled like home, warm and right. She knew she should pull back, knew that this was more distraction they couldn’t afford, but she was so hungry for him – not just for sex, but for the simple touches, the absolute certainty of knowing she was welcome to pet and tease and laugh. Anna sank into him and gave as good as she got.
They were both breathless when he pulled back.
‘When we get back tonight, we will talk,’ he told her. ‘I just learned something.’
‘That my wolf is shameless,’ she muttered, though she couldn’t pull away.
He laughed, damn him. More of a huff than a chuckle, but she knew amusement when she heard it.
She’d thrown him down in the middle of a hunt when there were a herd of people listening in. All the werewolves, he’d reminded her – and Beauclaire, who was here to find his daughter, not to listen to her make out in the woods. And now, to show that she hadn’t learned her lesson, all she wanted to do was take up that last kiss where it had left off.
‘No help for it,’ Anna muttered. ‘Time to face the music.’
‘Shame is … not a very productive emotion,’ Charles told her. There was a funny little pause when he tilted his head to look at her face and then away. ‘Brother Wolf liked claiming you in front of the others so that there will be no question who you belong to. While I … I regret your embarrassment but otherwise agree with Brother Wolf.’
Anna stared at him incredulously. If there was a more private man in the world than her husband, she hadn’t met him.
‘As for the other …’ Charles grinned rather fiercely at her and raised his voice. ‘Isaac, go on ahead; we’ll follow.’
‘You’re the man,’ Isaac called back.
‘We’ll trail them closely,’ Charles said. ‘If something happens, we’ll be right there – but if we wait until there are more interesting things about than we are, they won’t give you a hard time.’ He didn’t need to say that no one would give him a hard time.
‘Thanks,’ Anna said, not knowing how else to respond.
He put his hand on her shoulder as they started back up the trail. While they hiked, there was none of the reluctance to touch her that had characterized him for the past few months. He kept a hand on whatever part of her was closest to him.
Charles had tried to open their bond and call up her wolf to defeat the black magic and hadn’t been able to. Brother Wolf had panicked because Charles had somehow messed up their bond – and then Anna threatened to leave them and Charles had panicked, too. If she hadn’t allowed them to make love to her, to re-establish their claim, things might have gotten … interesting, in the same way that a grizzly attack is interesting. Because neither he nor Brother Wolf was capable of letting her go.
It had been something of a revelation.
The bottom line was that he was a selfish creature, Charles decided more cheerfully than he’d been about anything in a long time. He gu
ided Anna around a hole in the ground with a subtle push of his hand on her hip. She probably had seen the hole, but it pleased him to take care of her in such a small way. He was willing to pay any price to keep her safe … any price except for losing her.
When they got back to the condo he would tell her about the ghosts who threatened to kill all that he loved unless he could find the key to releasing them. It was a risk – but quite clearly, he had damaged their mate bond by trying to do this alone – and that was worth any risk to fix. He’d see if, between the two of them, they could mend what he’d broken – and if not, he’d call his da.
If this trip had done nothing else, it had given him distance from the unrelenting grimness that his life had become since the were wolves had revealed themselves to the public. He’d been so focused on duty, on need, and on just getting the job done that he’d lost perspective.
Honor, duty, and love. He would not sacrifice Anna for his father and all the other werewolves in existence. Given a choice, he chose love.
That meant he had to find a way to deal with the ghosts – or quit being his father’s hatchet man. It wasn’t the result his father had been hoping for from this trip, but Charles couldn’t help that. He would not lose Anna even if it meant they went to war with the human population.
The decision left him feeling oddly peaceful, if more than a little selfish.
‘We found it,’ Isaac called.
Charles started jogging and Anna stayed by his side – just where she belonged.
The place where the others awaited them had once been a yard with a small house or storage shed, maybe ten feet by fifteen, in the center. The wooden part of the structure was long gone, but the granite foundation blocks were still in situ. The eyebolt that was driven into one of the blocks might have been original, but the chain and cuffs attached to it were bright and shiny new.
Beauclaire was standing in the center of the foundation, his eyes closed and his lips moving. Charles was pretty sure he was working some magic, but with the feel of the blood magic that had already been done here clogging his senses, he couldn’t sense it.
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