'Tis the gift to wake and breathe the morning air,
To walk every day in the path that we choose,
Is the gift that we pray we will never never lose.
As his father's quiet voice finished the second verse, Charles realized that it fit his father, too. Though Bran was a subtle man, his needs and desires were very simple: to keep his people alive and safe. For those goals he was prepared to be infinitely ruthless.
He glanced over at Anna, where she sat alone on the bench. Her eyes were closed, and she mouthed the words with Bran. He wondered what she sounded like when she sang-and whether her voice would fit with his. He wasn't sure she sang at all though she'd told him she'd been working at a music store selling guitars when she met the wolf who attacked her and Changed her against her will.
She opened her eyes and met his. The impact was so strong he was amazed that his fingers continued playing without pause.
His.
If she knew how strongly he felt, she'd have run out the door. He wasn't used to being possessive, or to the savage joy she brought to his heart. It ate at his control, so he turned his attention back to the music. He understood music.
* * * *
Anna had to make an effort not to hum along. Had the audience been purely human, she'd have done it. But there were too many people around her whose hearing was as good as her own.
One of the things that she'd hated about being a werewolf was she'd had to give up on so many of her favorite musicians. Her ears picked out the slightest waver in pitch or fuzz in the recording. But those few singers she could still listen to...
Bran's voice was clean and dead on pitch, but it was the rich timbre that made the hair on her neck stir in awed appreciation.
As he sang the last note, the man who was sitting on the bench behind her leaned forward until his mouth was almost against her neck.
"So Charles brought a toy home, eh? I wonder if he'll share." The voice was lightly accented.
She slid forward on the bench as far as she could and stared fixedly at Charles, but he was closing the cover over the keys to the piano and had his back toward her.
"So he leaves you like a lamb among wolves," the wolf murmured. "Someone so soft and tender would do better with another man. Someone who likes being touched." He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to pull her back toward him.
Anna jerked out of his hold, forgetting the funeral and audience. She was done with letting just anyone touch her. She stumbled to her feet and whirled to face the werewolf, who leaned back on his bench and smiled at her. The people on either side of him slid away to give him as much room as they could-that was a better judgment of what he was than the easy curve of his lips.
Anna had to admit he was lovely. His face was refined and elegant, his skin, like Charles's, was teak and sunlight. His nose and black eyes said Middle East, though his accent had been pure Spanish-she had a good ear for accents.
He looked her age, twenty-three or -four, but for some reason she was absolutely certain he was very, very old. And there was a hint of wildness, of some sickness, about him that made her wary.
"Leave her alone, Asil," Charles said, and his hands settled on her shoulders where the other man's had been. "She'll gut you and leave you for the crows if you bother her."
She leaned back against his warmth, more than a little surprised that he was right-or at least that her first reaction hadn't been fear, it had been anger.
The other wolf laughed, his shoulders jerking harshly. "Good." He said. "Good. Someone should." Then the odd humor left his face, and he rubbed it tiredly. "Not long now." He looked past Anna and Charles. "I told you the dreams are back. I dream of her almost every night. You need to do it soon, before it's too late. Today."
"All right, Asil." Bran's voice sounded flat and tired. "But not today. Not tomorrow. You can hold out a little longer."
Asil turned to look at the congregation, who had been a silent witness to it all, and spoke in a clear, ringing voice. "A gift you have, someone who knows what needs to be done and will do it. You have a place to come home to, a safe place, because of him. I had to leave my Alpha to come here because he'd have let me rot in madness out of love." He turned his head and symbolically spat over his left shoulder. "A weak love that betrays. If you knew what I feel, what Carter Wallace felt, you'd know what a blessing you have in Bran Cornick, who will kill those who need killing."
And that's when Anna realized that what the wolf had been asking Bran for was death.
Impulsively, Anna stepped away from Charles. She put a knee on the bench she'd been sitting on and reached over the back to close her hand on Asil's wrist, which was lying across the back of the pew.
He hissed in shock but didn't pull away. As she held him, the scent of wildness, of sickness, faded. He stared at her, the whites of his eyes showing brightly while his irises narrowed to small bands around his black pupil.
"Omega," he whispered, his breath coming harshly.
Behind her, Charles stepped closer, but he didn't touch her as the cool flesh under her fingertips warmed. They all stood frozen in place. Anna knew that all she had to do to end this was to remove her hand, but she was strangely reluctant to do so.
The shock on Asil's face faded, and skin around his eyes and mouth softened into sorrow that grew and deepened before tucking itself away, where all private thoughts hid from too-keen observers. He reached out and touched her face lightly, ignoring Charles's warning growl.
"More gifts here than I'd believed." He smiled tightly at Anna, eyes and mouth in concert. "It's too late for me, mì querida. You waste your gifts on my old self. But for the respite, I thank you." He looked at Bran. "Today and tomorrow, and maybe the next day, too. To see Charles, the original lone wolf, caught with a foot in the trap of amor- this will amuse me for a while longer, I think."
He freed himself with a twist of his wrist, captured her hand in his and, with a sly look at Charles, kissed her palm. Then he let her go and slipped out of the church. Not hurrying, but not dawdling, either.
"Be careful around that one," Charles cautioned her, but he didn't sound displeased.
Someone cleared his throat, and Anna looked around to meet the eyes of the minister. He smiled at her, then looked at the church. The interruption of his service didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. Maybe he was used to werewolves interrupting things. Anna felt a blush rise up her face and sank back down on the bench...wishing she could sink even farther. She'd just interrupted the funeral of a man she didn't even know.
"It is time to bring this to a close," the minister said. "Our mourning is done here, and when we leave, we must remember a life well lived and a heart open to all. If you would all bow your heads for a final prayer."
Chapter FOUR
Northwestern Montana,
Cabinet Wilderness
Walter didn't know why he'd survived the beast's attack, any more than he understood how he'd survived three tours of ' Nam when so many of his friends, his comrades, had not. Maybe his survival both times was just luck-or maybe fate had other things in store for him.
Like another thirty years wandering alone in the woods.
If his survival after the beast's attack had been unlikely, the rest of it was just plain weird. The first thing he'd noticed was that the aching arthritis that had haunted his shoulders and knees, the throb of an old wound in his hip, had all disappeared. The cold no longer bothered him.
It took him a lot longer to realize that his hair and beard had regained the color of his youth-he didn't carry around a mirror.
That's when he began paying attention to the oddities. He was faster and stronger than he'd ever been. The only wounds that hadn't healed with the same remarkable speed as his belly were the ones on his battered soul.
He didn't really understand what had happened until the morning after the first full moon when he woke up with blood in his mouth, under his nails, and on his naked body: the memory of what he'd done, what he'd become, clear as diamonds. Only then did he know he had become the enemy, and he wept at the loss of the last of his humanity.
* * * *
Aspen Creek, Montana
With Charles's arm around her shoulder, Anna followed everyone to the frigid parking lot of the church. They stopped on the sidewalk and watched as the lot slowly emptied. A few of the people leaving the church glanced at Anna, but no one stopped.
When they stood mostly alone, Anna found herself under gray-eyed scrutiny that was wary, despite the friendly smile Samuel gave her.
"So you're the stray pup my brother decided to bring home? You're shorter than I expected."
Impossible to take offense when clearly none was meant; at least he didn't call her a bitch.
"Yes," she said, careful to resist the urge to squirm under his gaze or to babble endlessly as she sometimes did when she was nervous.
"Samuel, this is Anna. Anna, my brother, Samuel," Charles said in introduction.
Apparently deciding Charles's brief introduction wasn't good enough, his brother reintroduced himself. "Dr. Samuel Cornick, elder brother and tormentor. Very nice to meet you, Anna-"
"Latham," she told him, wishing she could come up with something clever.
He gave her a charming smile that, she noticed, did nothing to warm his eyes. "Welcome to the family." He patted her on the head, mostly, she thought, to irritate Charles.
Who said merely, "Quit flirting with my mate."
"Behave," said Bran. "Samuel, would you take Charles back to the clinic and look at his wounds? I have a job for him, but if he isn't going to recover soon, I'll have to find someone else to send. I don't think he's healing as well as he should be."
Samuel shrugged. "Sure. No problem." He looked at Anna. "It might take a while, though."
She wasn't stupid. He wanted to talk to Charles without her there-or maybe it had been Bran, and Samuel was just helping out.
Charles picked up on it, too, because he said smoothly, "Why don't you take the truck back to the house. Samuel or Da will give me a lift back."