CHARLES watched Anna walk out and knew he'd sent their relationship back to the beginning. But if he hadn't stopped her, it would have been disastrous. He couldn't afford to let himself be distracted. Not by his Omega, and not by the real possibility that he'd destroyed something between them.
Most mates would be angry at being chastised in front of others. But most mates hadn't been brutalized in an attempt to break them. Anna hadn't broken, not quite.
But he couldn't afford to risk that she'd quiet Brother Wolf before she affected the Beast. Brother Wolf's aggression, his willingness to kill, was the only weapon Charles had to control the situation.
Thoroughly tired of Chastel, though he'd only been in his presence for less than a quarter of an hour, Charles called on Brother Wolf, who wouldn't be bothered about the future, to take center stage. Negotiations, as far as he was concerned, were over, had been over the moment he'd had to growl at Anna. Or maybe when Chastel had called her a pretty piece, as if she were nothing.
"You don't want to talk about my mate," he told Chastel in a very soft voice. Brother Wolf could care less about politics. This one had made him hurt Anna-and it wouldn't bother him in the slightest to kill him here and now.
Chastel lifted his upper lip-but couldn't make himself say anything, not when faced with Brother Wolf. They stood there, eye to eye for a count of four. Then Chastel dropped his eyes, grabbed his coat, and stormed out of the room.
Charles followed him out, intent on trailing the Beast to make sure he wouldn't take it into his head to go after Anna. Charles took two steps into the main restaurant before he stopped, only vaguely noting Chastel leaving the building-because Anna hadn't left after all.
He'd thought she'd be halfway to the hotel by now. Instead, she sat on a short barstool that wobbled under her and played the infamous battered piano, her back to him and the rest of the people in the room. The piece she played wasn't complex, but it was a happy little tune. Familiar. He frowned but couldn't place it beyond the thought that it was some sort of children's tune.
Automatically, he swept the room for possible threats and found none. The only people here were human-and as he watched, they were relaxing into the music. Someone laughed and someone else called for more ribs.
She hadn't left. And that meant he could clean up the mess Chastel had left behind. It would only take a few minutes, then he could come back here and protect her from... Charles stopped and took a deep breath. Brother Wolf thought he could fix this by saving her from some danger-he didn't understand women very well. That Anna was still here was a hopeful sign that Charles didn't understand them as well as he had thought he did, either.
***
SHE glanced out at the audience and saw that the unusual muted quality of the restaurant had dissipated somewhat. She also hadn't heard any sudden noise that would signal a fight, so she was hopeful that Charles had matters under control. She needed something more modern next, something appropriate to the mostly middle-aged crowd she was playing for-which on the piano generally meant Elton John or Billy Joel, both pianists who could also sing. She took the last few notes of "Maple Leaf" into "The Downeaster 'Alexa.' " It wasn't a "happy tune" precisely, but it was beautiful.
It didn't take Charles long to settle the other wolves down. Without Chastel around to prod and push them, no one was interested in a public fight.
He ordered food for everyone-the house special was limitless ribs at a per-person charge-and asked if they would wait for a few minutes while he made sure his mate was all right. The French wolves were a little restless, knowing that Chastel would note how long they lingered without him-but no one objected. Alphas understood about watching over their own.
Anna had gone on to some melodic piece. Without vo cals, it took him a few bars to pin down the song. He was a fan of Billy Joel, but "The Downeaster 'Alexa' " wasn't one of his favorites. It reminded him too much of all the people he'd known who were left floundering as time brought change that destroyed their lives. It spoke to him like the names of the dead, sending chills of memories best forgotten-but it was beautiful.
Her hands arched gracefully over the battered keys and pulled music and something more into the room. It was subtle, but he could see it in the chatter and in the way the old one who'd been hunched over his plate slowly straightened, eyes bright as he whispered something to the large young man sitting beside him. The man said something quietly in reply, and the old one shook his head.
"Go ask her," he said, his voice still quiet, but loud enough that Charles could pick out the words over the music. "I bet a gal who can play the ragtime right knows a few more old-time songs."
"She's all by herself, Gramps. I'll scare her. Aunt Molly-"
"No. No. Molly won't do it. Won't want me to embarrass myself-or exert myself. You do it. Right now." And the frail old man practically pushed the big man out of his seat.
Charles smiled. That was right. So often people got it wrong, treating their elders like children, people to be coddled and ignored. He knew better, and so did the big man. The Elders were closer to the Maker of All Things and should be deferred to whenever they made their will known.
He tensed a little as the big man made his way through the diners and closer to his Anna. But there was no threat in the human's body language. Charles thought that the big man had spent a long time trying to look less... lethal than someone who moved like a fighter and stood six inches taller than most people could. Charles sympathized-though he had learned to take advantage of the effect he had on people rather than disguise it.
BEFORE she'd quite finished, she noticed there was a big man standing miserably beside the piano, hunching his shoulders and trying not to look scary. She judged him to be only moderately successful.
He had a scar on his chin and a few more on his knuckles and was, she judged, an inch or so taller than Charles. Maybe if she'd still been human, she might have been worried, but she could tell by the way he stood that he was no threat to her. People seldom lie with their bodies.
He obviously was waiting to speak to her, so when she played the last measure of the song, she stopped. For some reason she wasn't in the mood for happy songs, so it was probably just as well.
A few people noticed she'd finished and began clapping. The rest put down their food and followed suit, then went back to their meal.
"Excuse me, miss. My grandpapa wants to know if you'll play 'Mr. Bojangles'-and if you'd mind if he sang with you."
"No problem," she said, smiling at him and keeping her shoulders soft so he'd know she wasn't scared of him.
"Bojangles" had been sung by a lot of people, but the very slight old man, leaning heavily on his cane, who stood up and made his way to the piano, looked a lot like the last pictures she'd seen of Sammy Davis, Jr., who'd recorded her favorite rendition of the song-right down to the maple color of his dark skin.
His voice, when he spoke, was a lot more powerful than his frail body.
"I'm gonna sing something for you," he told their audience-and everyone in the room looked up from their meals. It was that kind of a voice. He paused, milking it. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't dance anymore." She waited until the laughter he'd invited died away before she began.
Usually, when she first played a piece with someone she didn't know, especially if the piece was one she knew well, it was a mad scramble to make her version fit with the other person's perception of how the song should feel. But except for the very beginning, it was magic.
CHARLES worried a bit at first as the old man missed his cue, worried more as the beat came up again, and a third time-and closed his eyes when he started singing at entirely the wrong time.
But Anna worked around it in a more clever bit of playing than anything she'd done up to this point, and he knew she was better on the piano than he'd thought from the pieces of music she'd chosen.
The old man's voice was just right. It, the beaten-up piano, and Anna's sweet self all combined in one of those rare moments when performance and music blended to make something more.
"Bojangles" was a song that took its time to get to where it was going, building pictures of an old man's life. Alcoholism, prison, the death of a beloved comrade-none of those things had defeated Mr. Bojangles, who even in his darkest hour still had laughter and a dance for a fellow prisoner.
He jumped so high...
It was a warrior's song. A song of triumph.
And at the end, despite his early words, the old man did a little soft-shoe. His movements were stiff from sore joints and muscles that were less powerful than they used to be. But graceful still, and full of joy.
He let go a laugh... he let go a laugh...
When Anna finished with a little flourish, the old man took his bows, and she did, too.
"Thank you," she told him. "That was really fun."
He took her hand in his own worn hands and patted it. "Thank you, my dear. You brought back the good old days-I'm ashamed to say just how old. You made this man happy on his birthday. I hope that when you are eighty-six, someone makes you happy on your birthday, too."
And that won him a second round of applause and shouts of "encore." The old man shook his head, talked to Anna a bit, then smiled when she nodded. "We just figgered out that we both have a liking for oldies," he said. " Except for me they're not oldies."
And he started singing "You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You," a song Charles hadn't heard for forty years or more. Anna joined in with the piano after a few beats and let the old man's trained voice lead her in the dance.
When they were done, the room burst into applause-and Charles caught a waitress's attention. He handed her his credit card and told her that he'd like to pay for the old man's meal and those of his family-in appreciation for the music. She smiled, took his card, and trotted off.
The old man took Anna's hand and made her take another bow as well. He kissed her hand, then let his grand-son escort him back to his table in triumph. His family rose around him, fussing and loving as they ought, while he sat as a king and took his due.