Hunting Ground

FIVE

“WE are worried about the innocents,” said the Russian wolf from the podium. Ostensibly, he was speaking to the crowd, but his words were for Charles. He spoke in English, which was well because Charles’s smattering of Russian wasn’t trustworthy on serious subjects, and he was distracted by Anna, who sat, very still, beside him.

“We are strong,” the Russian said, “and we can protect ourselves. But we have mates who are human, families who are human. They will suffer, and this cannot be tolerated.”

There was something incongruous about the venue they were in: an elegant auditorium with oak accents, trimmed in fabrics of various brownish gray hues, understated and expensive. A place where Angus hunted the CEOs of large companies and captured them with images of the power his technology could give them. The men and women filling the seats this morning were a different kind of predator. Dressed in their best they might be, but the current occupants of those nice seats made the CEOs look like puppies by comparison.

“If you can’t protect your own, you deserve to lose them,” commented Chastel from the back quarter of the auditorium. He didn’t speak loudly, but in a room designed for sound and populated by sharp-eared werewolves, he didn’t have to.

Charles waited. The Russian wolf, whose turn it was to speak, looked at him to enforce discipline. But it wasn’t Charles’s job. Not this time. Brother Wolf was confident that it would be theirs very soon. Then they would discipline Chastel, and blood would flow. But here, in this room, it was someone else’s job.

The morning of the first day of the meeting was a very good time for a demonstration.

“Jean Chastel,” said Dana. “You will not speak again in this room until it is your turn to do so.”

Charles was probably the only one in the auditorium who wasn’t surprised that, when the French wolf sneered and opened his mouth to say something to the fae, he couldn’t. In Chastel’s own territory, with his pack behind him, she wouldn’t have been able to bespell him so easily. But this was Dana’s territory (one of the reasons the Marrok had decided to hold these talks in Seattle). Chastel had only his collection of unhappy Alphas who did not share their power with him, no matter how cowed they were, because Chastel would never have let them that close to him. Chastel was not the Marrok.

He could have been-wasn’t that a frightening thought. There had been a European ruler equivalent to Charles’s da at one time.

After the Black Plague… he wasn’t old enough to have been there-but Da and Charles’s brother had been. It had been horrible. Dehumanizing. Especially to those who weren’t truly human anymore. So much death, so many lost. Someone had seen the writing on the wall, knew that humanity would recover-and had come looking for the monsters who had fed upon the dying. So the first Marrok had been created. He hadn’t been called the Marrok-that was Da’s decision in the New World -but that’s what he’d been. Made Alpha of all Alphas and by the power of that, able to take on any other. Or he should have been.

Chastel had killed him-and anyone after him who tried to reestablish rulership. Chastel could have taken it for himself, but he didn’t want it. He didn’t want the responsibility. He just wanted the freedom to kill and keep killing as he pleased.

Arthur Madden, Master of the Isles, was the closest equivalent to the Marrok that Chastel had allowed in Europe-mostly because Chastel didn’t consider the British Isles to be a threat to him.

Even with so much power, Chastel did his murdering more secretively these days than he had when he was first Changed. And that, Charles thought, was because there was one person on this planet the Beast feared. And his da had told Chastel that he didn’t want to hear about any more ravaging monsters in France. That had been a couple of centuries ago.

Thinking about it, Charles wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Chastel could care less about the Marrok bringing the werewolves out to the public. He’d as near as nev ermind done it himself centuries ago. The most probable reason Charles could think of for Chastel’s presence at this summit was that he’d wanted a chance to take out the Marrok-which he didn’t get.

At least he’d be quiet for now.

Charles turned his head to Dana and nodded his appreciation. She looked frumpier than usual today. She’d given herself twenty pounds more on the hips, lost six inches in height, and wore an expensive but unattractive suit and schoolteacher shoes. He wondered if she’d done it to see if she could get any of the wolves to challenge her-or if, as Anna had said, her other guise had been too distinctive, too beautiful.

“Nice shooting, Tex,” murmured the Emerald City Pack’s witch in a voice that would, for all its softness, carry into the crowd. She and her mate stood just behind the small table Charles and Anna sat at-honor guards.

The witch was a little thing, the mate to one of Angus’s top wolves, a quiet, scar-faced man named Tom Franklin, who was nearly as unhappy about his mate’s being in the room as Charles was about his, if for entirely different reasons. The witch was blind, and that meant-at least to her mate-that she was vulnerable.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem for Tom. Charles knew him as a tough son of a gun, but no second was going to be able to protect his mate in this crowd. In other circumstances, Charles would have counted on a witch’s being able to protect herself pretty well-but this one smelled clean and pure. White witches weren’t nearly as powerful as their black counterparts.

Charles wanted his mate out of this room, too. He tried to focus on the Russian, who’d continued speaking now that the interruption had been taken care of. But too much of him was focused on Anna.

She’d started out all right. She sat close to him and paid attention. But there were more than fifty Alphas in the little auditorium. Fifty Alphas, some of their mates, and a smattering of lesser wolves, over a hundred in all-and most of them were more interested in seeing his Omega wolf than in watching whoever was speaking. And under the weight of all of those eyes, Anna was shaking.

I will kill them all, Brother Wolf whispered, for frightening her.

Charles glanced at Anna, but she didn’t hear Brother Wolf this time. Why she heard him in Dana’s home but not now, Charles put to the back of his mind as a mystery that would solve itself eventually.

Brother Wolf’s protective streak aside, it wasn’t Anna he was worried about, not directly. She was tough, and she would bear up to a few hours of stress-and he’d make sure that’s all it would be. The problem was the wolves.

The wolves nearest Anna were, almost to a man (and a couple of women as well), beginning to focus entirely on her. Her Omega qualities called out for their protection-and these were Alphas and dominants in whom the instinct to protect was paramount. A few of them knew what was happening if not why. Arthur met his eyes and grinned. Bastard. He was enjoying this.

The Russian finished his comments and moved his right foot back, turning his body toward Charles-inviting Charles to address his concerns without asking verbally.

Charles stood up. He could have taken the podium and the mike that the Russian wolf had indicated he would yield to him, but doing so would have left Anna alone (with the second of the Emerald City Pack, his witch, and Dana to guard her) and Brother Wolf was adamantly opposed to that.

It was a good thing this was a small auditorium, and werewolves, like their cousin in the fairy tale, had very big ears.

“I hear you,” Charles said, projecting his voice to get his words to the back row. “You are right to have concerns. Almost three decades ago, the year the fae came out, three of our wolves reported being contacted by unnamed government agencies who threatened exposure if they didn’t cooperate. One wolf was told that his family was at risk.

“This year, forty-two of our wolves were contacted-by government agencies, by foreign countries, and by at least three different terrorist organizations. In many cases loved ones and family members were threatened or held under implied threat. My father takes care of his own, and he took care of them. Money, power, and influence mostly, though several people died.” He had killed two of them himself.

“But in the end there can be only one way to cope with blackmail.” He paused and looked out at the wolves. “Bring our secrets out into the open, and they have no more ammunition. And we must carry the tide of popular opinion when we do. Only then will we be truly safe.”

He turned his gaze to the Russian wolf, who did him the courtesy of dropping his eyes at once. “I am not saying that it is a perfect solution-merely that it is the best available to us.”

First day, he reminded himself, stick to the script. Today he offered the first of the proposals they had come up with for the European wolves.

“We plan on public opinion keeping the government under control, forcing them to be, at the very least, circumspect in their dealings. My father is aware that public opinion is a much bigger weapon here in the United States than it is in some countries where the governments are less responsible to their citizens. In light of that, he offers this much-for the next five years he will allow any wolf who wishes to migrate to come here.” That was a big concession. Usually migrations were only allowed after a lot of negotiation.

“Also, he is willing to consider the migration of whole packs.” Now he had their attention. He made sure he wasn’t looking at the French wolves, who had the best reason to want to leave where they were. Packs only moved into open territory or territory they had killed to take.

“There will be conditions. They must submit to the Marrok and agree to the rules that we live by here, in his territory. They must agree to go where they are told. In return, they will receive the benefits that all of my father’s wolves do-protection and aid.”

He glanced at the big clock in the back of the room and noted with some relief that his internal clock was correct. It was eleven-still early for a lunch break but not absurdly so.

The Russian wolf bent back to the mike. “We have had these recruiters you speak of among us as well. Unhappily, our response has not always meant that the only casualties fell among our enemies. I am not as certain as the Marrok or you are that the best answer is to expose ourselves, but… given the generous offer of relocation, we are willing to acknowledge that coming out to the humans would be a solution to many things.” He bowed to Charles-and offered a lower bow to the fae.

Once the Russian had seated himself in the middle of his fellow countrymen, Charles said, “Our host has had food delivered downstairs. Let us take a break for lunch.”

He caught the witch’s mate by the sleeve when he would have headed off to some errand-probably having to do with lunch. “Tom, stay a moment. With your mate, please.”

From near the door, Angus looked at Charles’s hand. A good Alpha protects his own. Charles dropped his hand and gave him a nod to tell him that he meant no harm to Angus’s wolf. Tom saw what was going on and made a hand gesture that seemed to have more effect on Angus than Charles’s reassurances.

“There was no time for introductions this morning,” said Charles when they were alone. “Anna, this is Tom Franklin, Angus’s second, and his mate-I am sorry, you were not introduced to me.”

“Moira,” the witch said. The wraparound sunglasses she wore made her expression difficult to read, but his nose told him that meeting the Marrok’s hatchet man wasn’t scaring her. Unusual, but then she couldn’t see him either. “Nice to meet you both.”

“And this is my Anna.” He looked at Tom. “There are too many dominant wolves, and she’s been”-not afraid; he found a better word and used it-“overwhelmed this morning.”

Anna stiffened.

It was Tom who saved him. “Good to meet you. Hell. I’m a little overwhelmed, too. Who wouldn’t be?”

“But you aren’t an Omega,” Charles told them. “Tom-you probably wouldn’t notice-”

The witch interrupted him. “Because he was too worried about me being ‘overwhelmed’ himself”-she nudged Tom with her shoulder-“by all the überwolves. Not being handicapped by overprotective, studly impulses, I could pay attention to other things. By the end, they were all focused on Anna, weren’t they?”

Charles felt his eyebrow creep upward as he looked at the witch.

“Hey.” Moira shrugged. “I’m blind, not sensory deprived.”

“I’m causing trouble for you,” said Anna. “I’m sorry. I’ll try not…”

Under his gaze, her voice trailed off. “Do not,” he told her softly, “apologize to me for what was done to you. If it were you who were the problem, I would have no worries. You would stay here and not flinch if the Beast himself leapt slavering in your face. Your courage is not in doubt.”

The witch pursed her lips, and said, “Wow. That was a good one.”

After an assessing look at Charles, Anna turned to Moira, and said, in a very serious voice, “He scored a few points, all right.” She looked back at Charles. “So what is the problem, if it isn’t me?”

“Omega,” said Charles formally, “it is the privilege of the dominants to protect our submissive ones, the heart of our packs. Alphas are called upon to protect even more strongly. An Omega calls to us strongest of all.”

Anna gave a puzzled nod. She already knew that, Charles thought. She just couldn’t see what it had to do with the situation. She was too used to looking at the dominant wolves as threats.

“Sweetie,” said the witch, “while you were up here getting the cold shakes from all those nasty wolves staring at you-they were trying to figure out why you were upset and who they needed to kill for you.”

“Whoops,” said Anna as she comprehended the scope of the problem. “I-” He saw her bite back her apology. “I need to go, then, don’t I? I can go back to the hotel.”

“Well,” said Charles apologetically, “I’m afraid that won’t work.”

“Why not?” Anna smiled, and asked archly, “So are you renting it out during the day? Stashing ex-girlfriends there?”

He didn’t have to bend very far forward to touch the top of her head with his chin. Putting his mouth next to her ear required just a little more bending.

“Because Brother Wolf has been spending the whole morning getting pretty worked up, too.” He pulled back and let his brother out just enough so she could see him in his eyes. “If you were in our hotel room, I’d never get anything done here for his fretting.” He looked at Tom. “You weren’t doing so well either.”

Angus’s second started to smile. “You want Moira and me to take your lady out to play?”

“If Angus will let you.”

Tom pulled out a cell phone. “I don’t think he’ll have any objection.”

Charles narrowed his eyes at Anna. “This is important as well. You have the credit cards. I want you to use them.” He watched the refusal in her face-she didn’t feel part of him… part of them yet. His money was not hers, not to her.

She was independent, and she’d spent at least the last three years almost too broke to feed herself. Money was more important to her-and spending someone else’s an impossible task. “You need clothes of all sorts. What we could get for you in Aspen Creek is not sufficient for this venue. Your status as my wife means you need clothes for formal occasions. Dresses, shoes, and all the trimmings.”

She was still mutinous, but weakening.

Tom put down his phone. “Boss says fine.”

“And,” he said, “if you go shopping for the Christmas presents, I won’t have to.”

She grinned suddenly at that-and he knew he had her. “Okay. Okay, fine. What are the limits?”

Tom raised an eyebrow-that Charles handled the Marrok’s finances… and was very good at it, was pretty well-known.

Charles tilted his head. “If you decide you want to buy a Mercedes, you might have to pull out both cards. Go. Conquer downtown Seattle so I don’t have to.”

“Banished.” Anna sighed, but she couldn’t hide the humor that softened her expression as she gathered her jacket and purse. But he took her comment seriously.

“Not permanently,” he said. “We’ll go and introduce you to Arthur more properly tonight. You’ll know Tom and Moira by the end of today. I think that if we keep you out of the auditorium today, everything will work itself out.”

“Tomorrow night Angus has invited everyone to our hunting grounds,” Tom said.

Charles nodded. “That will be less formal, and everyone will be paying attention to the hunters. Give them some chance to observe you without staring and vice versa.”

“Where do you hunt?” she asked Tom. “By the airstrip?”

Tom shook his head. “Angus has a pair of warehouses.”

“It’s cool,” said Moira. “He’s turned the whole thing into a maze-tunnels, lots of half stories and walls that can be moved to change it up. You’ll have a great time.”

“What are we hunting?” Anna’s voice had lost the tautness of stress.

“A treasure,” said Tom. “The exact nature of which is a surprise. We dragged stuff all over the warehouse yesterday.” He glanced down. “Wolves eat fast. If we’re going to leave, we ought to get out now.”

Anna gave Charles a shy kiss on the cheek and strolled out of the room without a backward glance. Until she reached the doorway, and then, in full view of the curious who’d had the courage or discourtesy to linger in the auditorium after he’d dismissed them, she kissed her palm and blew it to him.

And despite… or because of their audience, he caught it in one hand, and pulled the hand to his heart. Her smile dropped away, and the expression in her eyes would feed him for a week. And the expressions on the faces of the wolves who knew Charles, or knew his reputation, would make him laugh as soon as no one was watching. Keeping them off balance wasn’t a bad thing either.

SHE wondered that the cards Charles had given her hadn’t burned their way out of her purse from the blaze of frictional heat. They’d already dropped one load of shopping at the hotel and had just completed the last bit.

“We’re about halfway between the hotel and Angus’s offices,” she said. “Which way should we head?”

“I’ll take you back to Charles,” said Tom.

“If you’re going to eat with that stuck-up Brit, you need to get ready,” advised Moira over the top of him. “Go to the hotel and start on it. You have a cell, your mate has a cell. If he doesn’t know where to find you, he can call.”

Anna looked at Tom.

He shrugged, his face not looking half as meek as his words. “You think I’m going to argue with her, you’ve got another think coming.”

Moira bumped him with her hip. “Ooo. You’re so scared of me.”

The big, scary wolf grinned, his mouth pulled a little by the scar on his face. “Truth. Nothing but the truth.” He spoiled it by rubbing the top of her head, then he kept his hand where it was so he could stay out of reach as she batted at him.

Anna had quit being nervous around him after the first hour as he patiently led them from one store to another. She’d heard of Pike Place Market for years… and at first she hadn’t been that impressed. It looked like just another flea market… with fresh fruit and fish.

Then Moira began tugging her here and there to this little store and that little booth-for a blind woman she was a heck of a shopper. And Tom was always in the right place to put his arm out to guide her and murmur low-voiced warnings as they dodged around other shoppers and across the uneven floor.

Tom was consulted about fit and color while Moira fingered fabrics and dickered with the shopkeepers. The result was that for less than she’d spent on a couple of pairs of jeans in high school, she had the beginnings of a whole wardrobe. When the booth didn’t take credit, Tom paid despite Anna’s protests.

“Calm down,” he told her. “Charles is good for it.” The last statement seemed to amuse him.

She also acquired a whole slew of Christmas presents as ordered. Last year she’d been afraid (and too broke) to send presents to her father and brother. This year she… she and Charles had them and all of Charles’s family and a double handful of others to buy for.

The conference would run through Christmas-she had the impression that there had been some incident that had stepped up the Marrok’s timetable. Charles had been gone for a couple of days and returned even more grim than usual. He hadn’t volunteered where he’d gone or what he’d done, and she’d been too intimidated by his oppressive silence to ask. It had been the next day that the Marrok began planning this summit-and he and Charles had begun to fight about it.

She’d found a pair of small gold hoop earrings with round bits of rough amber for Charles-to replace the one he’d given to the troll. And at the same shop, she broke down and bought a cheaper, more dangly pair for herself. She felt guilty about it-but maybe she could pay him back for them. They had been cheaper than they would have been in Chicago.

She came out of a little shop the proud new owner of three silk shirts-and her gaze caught on the display window of a store a few doors down.

“What?” Moira said urgently. “What is it, Tom?”

“A quilt, I think,” he rumbled. “Jeez, Moira, if the two of you buy anything more, I’m going to have to help carry stuff-and that makes me a lousy guard.”

The quilt was trimmed with narrow strips of red and green, the colors of the old Pendleton blankets. On the interior, there were four squares and a center section that was round. The square panels were abstract mountain scenes of the same mountain, the top two were daylight, spring and summer. The bottom were night, fall and winter. The center panel was deep mottled green with the red silhouette of a wolf howling.

“I don’t think we face anything worse than a pickpocket here,” Moira was saying to Tom. “I trust you to handle them with a few bags on one arm.”

Moira touched Anna’s shoulder. “What are you doing out here? Go in and buy it. Tom, what does it look like?”

Anna looked at the price on a discreet tag pinned to the edge of the quilt and swallowed.

They went back to the hotel after that, Anna the proud new owner of three… three… quilts. One for her dad, one for the Marrok, and one for Charles-the one she’d seen in the window.

“You can put them down on the bed,” Tom said, sounding amused. “They won’t break-or run away.”

“I’m in shock,” Anna told them. “Except for the first time I saw Charles, I don’t think I’ve ever lusted after something so badly in my life.” Then because Tom, at least, would know that she wasn’t telling the whole truth, “Okay. There was that cello at the luthier’s in Chicago that cost more than most cars and was worth every cent.”

“And she kept finding more quilts,” said Moira to the air, her amusement evident.

“I couldn’t help it,” Anna said. Even though she was joking, mostly, she was still shocked by the sheer possessiveness she’d felt. They were lucky she’d stopped at three. “Maybe I’ll have to take up quilting.”

“Do you sew?” Moira asked.

“Not yet.” Anna heard the determination in her voice. “What do you think? Will I be able to find someone to show me how to do this in Aspen Creek, Montana?”

Tom laughed. “Anna, I think Charles would fly you to England twice a week if you wanted him to. You should be able to find someone to learn from closer than that.”

His statement gave her an odd feeling. She touched the package she’d had wrapped for Charles, then turned with a smile when Moira told them both they needed to get moving because there were shoes to be found, and the day was wasting.

Anna pulled the hotel-room door shut behind them and tried to deal with the revelation that she was pretty sure Tom was right.

It wasn’t until they were standing in front of the elevators that she found her balance. So he would fly her to England if she asked him to-she’d followed him up a frozen mountain buried in the depths of a Montana winter, hadn’t she? It made them equals.

“Hey.” Moira snapped her fingers in front of Anna’s nose. “Shoes, remember?”

The elevator had opened.

“Sorry,” she said. “Revelation, here.”

“Ah.” Moira appeared to consider that for a moment. “Nope. Shoes are more important. Especially if you’re going to have that British snob eating at your feet.”

And so Anna girded herself and set off for a second round of marathon shopping. Dark came early in the dead of winter, even if it was just raining. When Moira had done her worst, when Tom was complaining about numb feet, and Anna had shoes-and her hair trimmed and styled-Moira finally relented and told them they could head back.

To the hotel, the witch insisted firmly, not the auditorium.

Moira leaned around Tom as if she needed to see Anna’s face when she made her final pronouncement. “Men don’t care about dressing for dinner. Men shave and put on a tie and ‘poof’ that’s good enough. Wom-”

They stormed out of the darkness of a basement apartment stairwell and brought a spell of silence and shadow with them. A spell that had hidden them from Tom’s sharp senses as well as Anna’s less-well-trained sensory abilities.

They hit Tom first, but not by much. Anna heard Tom’s gasp, but before she could see what had happened to him, a delicate, strong-as-steel arm snaked around her throat.

Magic moved and settled around them all, a familiar spell, one used by packs to conceal fights or kills or anything else they didn’t want the rest of the world to know about. But the attackers didn’t smell like wolves.

As she fought to free her throat, she could see one of their attackers, a woman, run into the witch like a linebacker, knocking her down, off the curb and into the street.

A scream cut short, and a body hit pavement hard from Tom’s direction. She couldn’t see him, but it wasn’t Tom who had screamed; she’d be willing to bet Tom had never made a sound that high-pitched in his life. Moira’s attacker left the blind witch to help the others with Tom.

“Pretty Anna.” Her attacker was a woman, and as she whispered she licked Anna’s throat. She wasn’t human, though. Nothing human could have immobilized Anna this easily-or taken down Tom in whatever numbers. “Come with me, little girl, and the others will survive-”

And, the immediate shock of the attack over, Anna kicked and broke the enemy’s knee. She wasn’t a “little girl.” She was a werewolf.

The woman screamed into her ear-a sharp, high-pitched noise that deafened and hurt and drove Anna to the pavement to escape it. Hard hands dug into her shoulders in preparation to drag her somewhere. Anna twisted and writhed and hit the woman’s jaw with her heel. That stopped the noise.

Her wolf took over then. Not in wolf body but in her human form, Anna taught the woman what she should already have known-Omega didn’t mean doormat. It didn’t mean weak. It meant strong enough to do exactly what it had to in order to triumph, whether that meant cringing in the presence of dominant wolves or tearing her enemy apart.

Anna was too far gone to pinpoint exactly when she understood what had attacked them: vampires. But she remembered Asil’s lessons in how to kill them. When the vampire lay in two pieces-body at her feet and head rather nearer to Moira, who was screaming in incoherent rage-the wolf gave a satisfied snort and let Anna take over. And Anna heard what the wolf had not.

What Moira was yelling was, “Damn it, damn it-tell me what they are! Tom. Tom. Anna!”

And, as she sprinted to the pile of bodies that must have Tom on the bottom, Anna told her, “Vampires.”

Moira didn’t hear her, so Anna ripped the arm off the vampire she’d been trying to pry off Tom, and yelled, “Vampires, Moira. Vampires!”

And light exploded around them, warm and brilliant-and the vampires she and Tom hadn’t killed stopped fighting and ran. Anna’s vampire grabbed his arm off the ground before tearing after the others. Anna took a step after them, then forced herself to stop.

There were still four vampires, and that was probably three too many for her-and she couldn’t abandon her fallen comrades.

“Tom?”

“He’s alive,” she told Moira after a quick-but-thorough examination-done from five feet away. “But he’s going to need a moment before he’s ready to believe we aren’t the enemy.” She knelt beside the witch. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, damn it. Just fine.”

Moira was bleeding, Anna could smell it, but not a lot. She saw cuts on knees and elbows, but nothing horrible. The horrible thing had nothing to do with the vampire attack.

Moira’s glasses had been knocked to the pavement and Anna saw what she’d hidden behind them. One eye scarred beyond belief, as if someone had ripped it out with a clawed hand. The other withered like a raisin, a sickly yellowish white raisin.

Without a word, Anna found the sunglasses-which were unbroken-and put them in Moira’s hand. The witch’s hands shook as she shoved them onto her face, then she steadied.

Anna understood about shields and the odd shape they sometimes took.

“He’ll be all right,” Anna said-glad that Moira couldn’t see what Tom looked like. It would be easier to convince her that he would be all right that way. Werewolves were tough.

“Can you shield us from sight? The vampires were doing it-or someone was”-it had felt like pack magic-“and now that they’ve run, it’s gone.” She didn’t know enough about pack magic to do it herself-and it usually required a pack anyway. Her pack, her new pack, was in Aspen Creek, two states away.

“I can manage for a little bit, but you’ll have to tell me if it’s working,” Moira told her, sounding more like the opinionated woman Anna had been spending the day with and less like the scary witch.

Anna glanced around, but the beheaded vampires’ bodies had turned to ash, either from true death or from Moira’s sunlight-she didn’t know that much about vampires.

“That will work,” said Tom, though he didn’t make any effort to move. His voice was still growly, and his eyes gleamed yellow in the darkness. “Anna, my cell’s in pieces, and Moira won’t carry one. You need to call for help-I’m not going to be walking anywhere for a few days.”

Dominant wolves didn’t deal well with injuries like that. Ones that left them vulnerable. Angus’s pack would be set up like most of them. Angus clearly at the head, then two or three near the top, the rest ready to step in when necessary. And Tom had a broken arm, and she was pretty sure there was other damage not immediately obvious.

“You have a healer, right?” Anna asked.

“Alan Choo,” said Tom. “But you call Charles and tell him to send-”

Deciding he wasn’t going to budge, she turned to Moira, who’d followed Tom’s voice until she could touch him. From the look on her face, it was a good thing for the vampires that they were either dead or had fled.

“Moira, tell me about Alan Choo. How dominant is he?”

“He’s not.” Tom sounded exasperated. “He can’t make you safe.”

A moment before, Anna had been numb and shaking with the aftereffects of the fight. But when his words registered, Anna was suddenly furious that Tom would put himself at risk for her. Again. Because the vampires had been hunting her.

Power came to her call, and she said, “I will make myself safe.” When he didn’t have anything to say to that, she turned to the witch. “Moira do you have Alan Choo’s number?”

“Give me your cell phone, and I’ll call him myself,” Moira said in an odd voice.

Anna handed it over and turned to deal with the witch’s mate-and found him looking at her with a little smile. “Shit, woman,” he said, “I haven’t been put in my place so well since the last time Charles did it. You’d better call him. Your mate’s going to be wondering why you drew upon him that way.”

What way? But telling him she didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about didn’t appeal to Anna. She’d learned about revealing weaknesses, too. Even if she liked him.

“He’ll have to wait-Moira, tell Mr. Choo to meet us at my hotel room.”

“And just how are going to get to the hotel without help?” Tom asked. He tried to sit up and failed. “Shit,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere for a while.”

Anna waited until Moira was through talking to their medic and took her phone back from Moira. Then she answered his question. “Your mate’s going to keep us invisible, and I’m carrying you back to the hotel.”

At Moira’s astonished face, she rolled her eyes before she remembered the witch couldn’t see her. “Werewolf, here. I may not look like a brawny male, but I can carry Tom to the hotel just fine.”

Tom relaxed a little. “We don’t have any females,” he said. “You look pretty scrawny. I forgot.” She looked at him, and he gave her a faint smile. “Sorry.”

They weren’t too far from the hotel, but it seemed like a hundred miles. Tom was not light-werewolves are denser than humans, and she kept worrying about the pained sounds he made no matter how carefully she walked. Then he quit making sounds, and that was worse. And remembering to warn Moira about curbs and broken bits of sidewalk was harder than Tom had made it look.

Just when she was ready to call it over, she looked up-and there was the hotel.

Her cell rang. A couple of people coming out of the restaurant attached to the hotel patted pockets and looked bewildered, so Anna thought that maybe Moira’s spell was fading.

Anna’s hands were occupied, so Moira pulled the phone out of Anna’s jacket and silenced it. Tom had lost consciousness a little while back, and Anna worried about blood trail-but it couldn’t be helped.

She’d figured out a plan of action on the way back. She’d call Charles and explain the situation. If she understood about pack hierarchy and Tom’s danger as a wounded dominant, certainly Charles would, too.

“Door,” she whispered to Moira, and the witch trailed her fingers from their place on her shoulder to the glass door and held it open while Anna scooted inside with her wounded burden.

“Windy tonight,” someone in the lobby commented as the door shut behind them.

By some luck there was no one in the hall by the elevators-or on their floor when it stopped. Anna had to set Tom down to find the keycard for her room. Moira stayed beside him, murmuring softly, when Anna left him there as she tore the bedding from the bed and layered it with towels to absorb the blood.

Getting Tom up again took time they didn’t have. He was semiconscious and defensive-and Anna was anything but calm. Finally, she just hefted him up. If he bit her, she’d still have time to get him in and shut the door. He was in too rough a shape to do any real damage, not compared to the damage the vampires had done on purpose. And she found that she was willing to risk that.

But he didn’t bite her. She got him into the room, on the bed. Moira shut the door, and they both heaved a sigh of relief. Anna’s phone rang for the second time. Moira shoved it into her bloody hands.

It was Charles.

“Anna?”

His voice was dark and urgent-and as soon as she heard it she felt him running through the dark streets. Felt his panic and the rising rage behind it like a dark tide of violence.

“I’m fine,” she told him-though after she said it, she wasn’t entirely sure that was true. In the heat of battle nothing had hurt-but she’d caught a few good punches and given a few, too. She didn’t remember it, really. But her knuckles were sore, and so was her right shoulder. And her stomach wasn’t too happy with her either. Fortunately, she hadn’t taken stock until after she’d told him.

“Angus’s healer called Angus to tell him he’d been summoned to our hotel room,” Charles said. “Just after I felt your need.”

Anna remembered the power she’d summoned to shut Tom up-and his conviction that Charles would feel it. Leah, the Marrok’s mate, sometimes used Bran’s clout when Bran wasn’t even there. Evidently, Anna could do the same thing.

“Yes, well.” Anna looked around and took in a deep breath. That secrecy spell, the one the vampires used, had some odd effects on the combatants, too, she remembered, enforcing the need for secrecy. She should have called Charles right away.

“I’d like it if you’d come here, too.” She’d like it a lot. “Maybe Angus-but no one else. Tom’s been hurt pretty badly.”

“Badly enough the rest of his pack needs to stay away,” said Charles coolly. Her sense of him had faded with his urgency, and she wasn’t sure she should trust that coolness. The drop from violence to calm had been too fast.

“Right,” she answered, though it hadn’t been a real question. “Moira and I got him back here-but I didn’t realize how badly he was bleeding. There’s probably a blood trail-”

“No,” said Moira firmly, though she was as white as the sheet she was sitting on-as white as it was because they were both covered in blood. “I took care of the blood.”

Anna had learned enough about witchcraft to know that she didn’t want to know any more. The alert beast inside her accepted, provisionally, that they were safe.

“You heard that?”

“I did.”

“So we’re safe in the room. Tom’s not mortally wounded-I don’t think…” The room abruptly smelled different. “He’s changing.”

“Best thing for him to do, if he can,” said Charles. “You stay back from him. Moira should keep him calm enough that he’s safe to be around. I’m coming-and I’ll call Angus and tell him that if he values his second, he’ll call off the rest of the pack. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes, and you can give me the whole story then.” Her phone stopped making noise, so she decided that he must have ended the call.

“Have you been around Tom when he changes before?” Anna asked Moira softly.

“Yes,” said the witch.

“Good.” She let herself sink into the chair opposite the bed. “Just sit still. It’ll take a while longer this time-and changing when you hurt really sucks. He’ll be vile-tempered when he comes out of it. Maybe not really himself, not for a while. Give him a little time before you touch him. He’ll probably let you know when he can bear it.”

“They almost killed us,” Moira said. “If I could have seen them-”

“That blast of sunlight was impressive,” Anna told her. “Next time we’re attacked by vampires, I’ll cower behind you and shout what they are into your ear.” She paused. “It’s a good thing you were with us. We’d have lost on our own. Someone knew a great deal about Tom.” She remembered the dog pile of vampires who’d been trying to kill him-virtually ignoring her and Moira. “But they discounted you.”

“Why would vampires attack us?” asked Moira. “Oh, I know they aren’t friendly-but they are practical. Attacking Charles’s mate is anything but practical.”

“Someone paid them, I expect,” Anna said tiredly. “Someone they were pretty certain could and would keep Charles away from them. Someone who knew we’d be out shopping today.” She looked down at her hands as Tom growled and wheezed with the difficulty of the change. Then she said the last bit slowly, “Someone who could give them pack magic to mask the noise and the bodies until they were done.

“You think one of the werewolves is behind this?”

“I don’t know.” But she was afraid she did.

Tom completed his change. His breath came out in harsh, groaning pants. His fur was chocolate brown except where a silvery scar wound around his muzzle-and he was nearly as big as Charles in wolf shape. Charles was a very big wolf.

Moira reached out and touched his neck, and the wolf lunged, sending Anna to her feet. But before she did anything stupid, he settled again, his head in Moira’s lap.

Someone knocked on the door, and it wasn’t Charles.