He had a little magic, he'd told her, gifts inherited from his mother. She wondered what else he could do, but it felt impolite to ask. She'd never been around anyone who could actually work magic before, and it left her a little more in awe of him than she already was. The Chicago pack had stories about magic-using people, but she'd never paid much attention to them; she'd had more than enough to deal with just being a werewolf.
She fanned her fingers out on her thigh and stretched them.
"Quit worrying," Charles told her, his voice gentle enough, but without the inflection that meant he was talking to her, not someone he'd just picked up off the street. She'd just realized this morning that he'd been talking to her differently-because he stopped.
The snow-covered mountains, taller than the Sears Tower, rose on either side of the road, as cold and solid as the man beside her. She wondered if it was his business face she was dealing with. Maybe he locked down everything in preparation for killing someone he didn't know in order to protect his pack-maybe it wasn't her fault.
* * * *
She was uncomfortable and frightened-and trying to hide it. Asil had told him that everyone was frightened of him. He wished he knew what he could say to fix it. To fix something, anything.
After leaving Asil's, he'd turned the problem over in his head-problems, really, though he was starting to believe that they were two aspects of the same issue. The first was her fear of him this morning-or maybe fear of what they'd done with so much pleasure the night before. He had enough experience to ensure that she had enjoyed it. It hadn't seemed to bother her until she went to the shower. Since there were no monsters lurking in his house (besides him), he was pretty sure that it was something in Anna that had changed.
One of the danger signs they watched for in a new werewolf was a sudden change in personality or mood that seemed to have no obvious cause, an indication that the beast was gaining control of the human. If Anna hadn't been three years a werewolf and Omega besides, he'd have thought her beast was taking control.
Maybe the opposite was true. Omegas have all the protective instincts of an Alpha, Asil had said. Could her wolf have taken over last night?
His father taught the new wolves that the wolf was part of them, just a series of urges that needed to be controlled. It seemed to help most of them in the transition phase. Scaring them by telling them there were monsters living in their heads would certainly not help them gain the control necessary to be allowed out into the wide world.
It was a useful fiction that, as far as Charles could see, sometimes was true. His father, for instance, seemed to blend seamlessly from wolf to human and back. But most of the wolves who lasted eventually came to refer to their wolves as separate entities.
Charles couldn't remember not knowing that there were two souls that caused his single heart to beat. Brother Wolf and he lived together harmoniously for the most part, utilizing the specialized skills of either for the sake of their goals. It was Brother Wolf who hunted, for instance-but if their prey was human or werewolf, it was always Charles who made the kill.
He'd seen over the years that the werewolves whose human and wolf were almost entirely separate-like Doc Wallace-usually didn't survive long. Either they attacked someone older and stronger than they-or Charles had to kill them because they had no control over the wolf.
A werewolf who survived learned to integrate human and wolf and leave the human in the driver's seat for the most part; except for when the moon called, when they were very angry...or when they were hurt. Torture a dominant, and the wolf came to the forefront. Torture a submissive, and you were left with the human.
With all the protective instincts of an Alpha and none of the aggression...and three years of abuse, maybe Anna's wolf had discovered a way to protect her. That would explain why Leo had never succeeded in breaking her.
Maybe when his aggression last night had frightened her, her wolf had come out to play. And maybe that was why their human souls hadn't bonded the way their wolves had.
Except that couldn't be right, because he'd have noticed if the wolf was in ascendance. Even if he somehow had overlooked her eyes changing from brown to pale blue, he'd never have overlooked the change in her scent.
Charles was pretty sure it was something that Leo had done to her, or had someone else do to her, that was the root of his current troubles.
Getting angry wasn't going to help with Anna, that much he could be certain of. So he pulled his thoughts from various ways he might torture Leo, who was, after all, already dead, and tried to think his way to a solution.
Charles was better at frightening people than removing their fear. He wasn't sure how to discuss this morning, last night, and the way their mating had not been completed without making things worse.
If matters didn't improve, he'd go to his father for advice...or Heaven help them all, Asil, again. If he explained everything in plain words, Asil might laugh at him, but he was too much a gentleman to leave Anna in trouble.
That left him with one more task. She needed to know that the other males would still feel free to offer themselves, because that was dangerous to her and anyone around him when someone tried.
And because she had the right to know that she might be able to accept one of those other males-at least that seemed to be Asil's opinion. Charles thought that once their wolves had bonded it was permanent-but he didn't know anyone who'd had that happen before their human selves had bonded. Maybe Anna could find someone who didn't frighten her as he seemed to.
* * * *
The Humvee was an artificial oasis, Anna thought. The heated leather seats and climate-controlled cabin seemed out of place in the endless expanse of still, frozen forest.
The dark, almost black, stands of evergreen trees stood out in stark contrast to the snow. Occasionally, roads, distinguishable more by the way they cut through the trees than by any vehicle track, branched off the highway they were traveling. As their road narrowed into a white scar between steep hills crowding in on both sides, she wondered if "highway" was the right word for it.
"Our mating bond didn't become permanent last night," he said out of the blue.
She stared at him, feeling the familiar flutter of panic. What did that mean? Had she done something wrong?
"You said that all we needed to do was..." She found she couldn't quite get the next few words out. In the cold light of day they sounded so crude.
"Apparently I was wrong," he told her. "I assumed since we'd gotten the most difficult part of being mated out of the way, all we needed was consummation."
She didn't know what to say to that.
"It is probably better," he said abruptly.
"Why?" She hadn't known if she'd be able to get out a word, but she sounded, to her ears, merely curious, none of the panicky feeling that had closed over her at his words evident in her voice.
But she didn't come anywhere near the disinterested neutrality he brought to his voice. "The main reason I didn't want to bring you with me today was that I didn't want you to see me kill again, so soon. But I've been my father's assassin for a hundred and fifty years; I don't suppose that will change. It's only fair that you see me clearly, when the hunt is upon me, before you choose."
The steering wheel creaked under the force of his grip, but his voice was still calm, almost detached. "In my father's pack there are a number of wolves who would worship the ground you walk upon. Wolves who are not killers." He sucked in a little air and tried to give her a reassuring smile-but it stopped somewhere short of effective since all it did was show strong white teeth. "They are not all psychotic."
He was trying to give her away again.
She looked at his white-knuckled hands-and suddenly she could breathe again. Telling her that she could look elsewhere was ticking him off, breaking that freaky calm he'd held since breakfast. She thought of his possessive rage last night and felt confidence steady her heart; he wanted her-no matter how stupid she'd been this morning. She could work with that. She couldn't stay embarrassed about how much she wanted him forever, right? A week or two, and she should be over it. And a year or so afterward, the strength of what she felt for him wouldn't scare her so badly, either.
Feeling better, Anna resettled herself in the Vee's roomy seat so she could get a good look at him. What had he been talking about before he offered to give her up?
Being a killer.
"I know about killers," she told him. "Leo's pack had Justin. You remember him, right? He was a killer." She tried to find a way to make the distinction clear. "You are justice." That wasn't the way-it sounded stupid.
" 'A rose by any other name...' " he said, angling his face away from her.
She took a deep breath to see if her nose could help her read what he felt, but all she could smell were the two strangers who had donated their clothing. Maybe she just didn't know how to work her nose-or maybe he was better at controlling himself than most people were.
Charles was a careful man. Careful about what he said and careful of the people around him. One night in his bed, and she knew that. He cared. Cared about her, about his father, even about Heather's Jack. Her stomach settled as she gathered the hints and actions into a coherent picture. How hard, she thought, must it have been for a man who cared so deeply to learn to kill, no matter how necessary it was?
"No," she said firmly. Ahead of them, and off to the right, a series of spectacular peaks thrust defiantly into the heavens. Their snowcapped summits, unfettered by trees or vegetation, gleamed in the sun so brightly that even through the tinted windows they dazzled her eyes and called to her wolf. This was a place a werewolf could run.
"A killer is just a murderer," she told him. "You follow rules, carry out justice and-try not to hate yourself for being good at your job."
* * * *
Her assessment, following the debacle of last night, took Charles totally by surprise. He looked at her, but she'd shut her eyes and snuggled down for a nap-his Anna who had been terrified of him not five minutes ago. Sleeping was not the usual reaction people had when he pointed out that he killed people.