Though Charles wanted to pelt down the hill as soon as the witch was gone, he led the way in a slow, controlled jog that Anna could easily keep up with in her snowshoes.
As they got closer, the trees and underbrush obscured the place where Asil and his father waited. Cautiously, Charles slowed and stopped.
He looked at her and then at Walter. She nodded silently and crouched where she was. Walter settled in like the old soldier he was. If it weren't for him, Charles would have stayed right where he was. He would not chance Anna's life on a hunch. But Walter would take care of her if something happened, so Charles was free to take a risk.
When Charles walked out into the open, Asil had finished his prayer, but just knelt where he was, with his head bowed-as if he were trying very hard not to give offense to the Marrok.
"Slowly," murmured Asil without looking up. Asil's ears had always been keen-or maybe he'd picked up Charles's scent. "We are bound to her, your father and I. I must do what the witch has commanded, as if she were my Alpha." He turned his head finally and met Charles's eyes with despair. "Your father she has bound tighter. She figured out who he was and took his free will from him like a puppet master attaching strings to his marionette.
"I'm hoping," Asil explained, still in that soft, soft voice, "that when he comes out of this change he is still sane." Tiredly he rubbed his jaw. "I have to wait and see, but you do not. You need to take your mate and leave here, gather up the pack in Aspen Creek and run to the ends of the earth. If she holds him, every wolf who owes him allegiance will be hers.
"She's quite mad-she wasn't exactly stable before-but she's tied herself to Sarai's dead wolf. The living and the dead do not good bedfellows make."
Charles waited.
Asil gave him a slight smile. "I think that she overestimates her strength. If she does not hold him..." He looked at Bran. "Well, then, perdito, I think then it is better to be far, far away."
Bran staggered to his feet and stood like a newborn foal, with his legs spread out so he wouldn't fall. There was nothing in his eyes. Nothing at all.
If not for the lump of icy wrath that was gathering in his stomach, a gift from his father, Charles would have believed him wholly taken over.
One more shift, Charles thought, and maybe he could do one more after that, but he was going to have a hell of a hangover if he did. Not for the first time he wished he'd inherited his father's ability to speak inside other people's heads. It would save a lot of energy.
He changed, hoping Asil could wait until he was able to talk. It took a little longer than he was used to-and he was afraid he might be stuck as a human longer than he'd calculated.
But finally he was through-and naked as a jaybird. He didn't have the energy to pander to his modesty.
"It is too late, she is already coming," he told Asil. "When a witch has such a hold, she can see through their eyes." His brother had told him that. "They are living golems for her."
Asil closed his eyes. "We are undone."
"You despair too easily," Charles said. He couldn't say much about Anna or Walter without the chance that it would be immediately carried to the witch. "Our pack has an Omega to call upon. Maybe it will be enough."
"Do you know what he was?" Asil asked.
"Yes."
Asil looked at the Marrok. "Kill him now, if you can. If you love him, if you care about the pack."
Charles looked at his father, who looked as frail as a werewolf could look. Not a wolf to inspire fear in the hearts of those who beheld him-more fool them.
He laughed harshly. "If you think I could kill him, you are a fool. He is the Marrok-and not nearly as weak as he looks. Never believe what you see with my father."
That was true, and Charles was hurt. Even breathing hurt.
He should leave, thought Charles, as his father's empty eyes ran over him. He'd already proven that the witch could take him when she pleased. All he could be was a liability.
Stay. I need you.
"For what?" he asked. He looked, but even with his father's voice in his head, he could only see a dumb beast in the Marrok's eyes.
Because you are the only one I know I won't kill.
Anna listened to them talk and wrapped her arms tightly over her stomach. She knew that Charles was counting on her-on her and Walter to be his ace in the hole.
The problem was, she wasn't much of an ace. A deuce maybe, or a joker, but not an ace. Walter had been a soldier, he was a better bet.
"Do you know this place? Can we move somewhere we can see them and still stay hidden?" she whispered to Walter.
He started off at a right angle to where Charles was talking to Asil. Anna followed him as quietly as she could. He moved through the woods like Charles did, as if he were a part of it.
He took her closer than she'd thought possible, to an old tree whose branches were dense and brushed the ground only a dozen yards from where the Marrok stood on four feet and stared at his son.
The werewolf wiggled under the branches, and Anna followed him on her hands and knees and found herself in a dry dark cave covered with a thick pad of old tree needles that poked into whatever patch of bare skin got near them but cushioned her knees. She crawled over them and lay flat on her belly so she could see out from under the branches and look out beyond the tree.
They were a little uphill from Charles, and, she was afraid, upwind. She ought to change; as a wolf she was stronger, and she had claws and fangs instead of the fingernails that were her only weapon. When she tried though, she knew it was too soon and she wasn't going to make the change. Even the effort left her weary and trembling.
Walter settled next to her, and the warmth of his big body let her know just how cold she was. She pulled off one of her gloves and buried her hand in Walter's fur to warm it up.
"He's talking to you?"
Charles held up a hand to keep Asil quiet. He needed to think. His father had a plan, that much was clear. But he didn't seem inclined to share it...if he could.
"What does the witch want with me?" asked Charles.
"I don't-" A funny look came over Asil's face. "Sarai thinks she will kill you, to break your father and regain power she lost when you destroyed the cabin. I think she's done this before, taken over a pack, I mean. Sarai sounds as if this is a pattern." He paused. "If I'm understanding this right, though, the others she took eventually died. Not quite. Faded until there was nothing left of them." He put his hands to his temples as if he had a headache.
Ah, thought Charles as his adrenaline rose. The ties of love are very strong. Maybe the witch was going to lose Sarai to Asil.
He set that aside for later consideration and thought about what Asil had said. "She might get a surprise if she tries to take over my father's pack," he said. "Anna thinks we're a bunch of psychotics."
Asil smiled a little. "She's right, you know."
Charles held out a hand and pulled Asil to his feet, staggering a little drunkenly as he did so. "You look a little rough. Are you hurt?"
Asil dusted the melting snow off his torn pant leg, though it was already soaked through. "No. Just a few scrapes. Mostly torn cloth." He gave Charles a thorough look. "At least I have clothes."
Charles was too tired to play that stupid one-upmanship game. "So the witch will kill me," he said, looking at his father and trying to figure out what the old wolf was up to.
"Maybe." Asil dusted the snow off his other pant leg. "Or she'll have him do it-or maybe Sarai or me. Your pain, your death, matters. Who brings it to you does not. As long as she's there to collect. But I bet she'll order your father to do it. She always liked to hurt people."
If he hadn't just been thinking about the way Asil's presence allowed Sarai to break the witch's control, he might not have understood the significance of that.
The cunning old wolf. Charles slanted an admiring glance at his father. "So that's it. What did your mother do all those years ago? Order you to kill Samuel?"
Asil frowned at him, but before he could say anything a wolf burst through the trees, carrying the witch. Charles felt the familiar coldness settle over him, as Brother Wolf settled in for a fight. His father might be an expert manipulator, but he wasn't in top form and there were too many factors out of anyone's control.
Sarai stopped well out of easy reach and kept herself between the witch and Charles as the witch slid off her back. Her protectiveness seemed to be instinctive-like a mother caring for her young.
The witch-Mary, she'd called herself, and Asil called her Mariposa, Butterfly-was smaller than he remembered, or maybe she just looked small next to Asil's mate. There was no scarf to hide her features this time. She looked young, as if the ugliness of the world had never touched her.
"Charles," she said. "Where is your woman?"
He waited, but the impulse to answer didn't sweep over him. He remembered the strangled pack bonds and a sudden, fervent hope sprang up-his father might have solved one of his problems.
"She is about," he said.
She smiled, but her eyes were cool. "Where, exactly?" He tilted his head. "Not where I left them." Brother Wolf was sure, though he didn't know how the wolf knew.
She stilled, narrowing her eyes at him. "How many wolves are in your father's pack?"
"Including you and your creature?"
Her eyes opened a little. "My, my, Asil certainly wasted no time telling you our business. Yes. By all means include us."
"Thirty-two...maybe thirty-three." There was no harm giving her information that would do her no good here and now. He just wasn't sure if he should count Samuel or not.
"Tell me why I should let you live," she said. "What can you do for me that your father cannot?"
Sarai's attention was on Asil. She, at least, was convinced that the witch had Charles under control. He wasn't going to get another, better opportunity.
One benefit of experience was that he didn't give himself away with surges of adrenaline or emotion. "You should let me live because that might be the only thing that keeps you alive."
"What do you mean?" An eyebrow raised, and she cocked her head in a way that was almost wolflike.
Did he trust his father's calculations? His father was gambling that he could break the witch's hold if she ordered Bran to kill him.
There were other things Charles could try. Maybe there would be a time when he could attack her without risking so much. All he would need was a half second when he was within touching distance and the others were not.
But he could fight now-in a day of the witch's tender care that might not be the case.
Charles looked down as if ceding authority to her, and he whispered the next words slowly; unconsciously she took a step forward, listening. "My fath-" And in the middle of the second word he launched himself at her with every ounce of speed he had left in him.
"Sarai!" The witch screamed in utter terror. If he'd been in top form it wouldn't have been enough. But he was slowed down by exhaustion and by his wounds. The wolf who had been Sarai hit him like a freight train and knocked him away from the witch before he could touch her.
He'd hoped surprise would allow him to kill the witch outright, but he was realistic. So he'd planned on the hit and let the force of the contact power his roll away from Sarai, rather than break his ribs.
Now that the fight was on, his old wounds bothered him only distantly-and mostly as a drag; one of his legs was slower, and his punches wouldn't be as effective.
Wounded and in human form, most people would be forgiven for thinking that the other wolf would have the advantage. They would be wrong.
If she'd really been Asil's mate, he would have been in a quandary. But she wasn't. Charles knew it, even if poor Asil was caught by his mating bond, confused by the ability of this poor imitation to ape a living creature. The spirits of the mountains knew she was dead, and they sang it to him as they gave him back some of his strength.
She caught him with a claw along one side, but she was, in the end, a simulacrum of an Omega wolf, while Charles had spent most of his life hunting down other werewolves and killing them. Even wounded, he was faster than she was, moving out of her way as water moves around a rock. Thirty years of various martial arts gave him an advantage her age could not, by itself, overcome.
He drew the fight out as long as he dared, but he was tired, and the worse fight was still ahead.
Anna fumbled at the bindings of the snowshoes to get them off. The snowpack on the ground between them and Charles was broken up and no more than six inches deep anywhere she could see. She'd be faster without them. If only she could figure out when she would be of use.
If she'd had the damned, clunky snowshoes off earlier, she'd have run out when the female wolf attacked Charles. But as Anna ripped and tore at the snow-crusted catches, it soon became apparent that Charles had that fight well in hand. He stood relaxed and at ease while the battered female wolf circled him, looking for an opening. A little calmer, Anna ripped off the second snowshoe. She wouldn't be wearing them again, no one would, but she could move now if she had to.
Unfortunately, she wasn't the only one who saw who was in charge of the fight.
"Asil," said Mary. "Help her."
The Moor looked at the witch for a moment, then pulled off his shirt and dropped it on the ground. He stalked to the battle with the ease of a warrior who understood death and welcomed it. If Anna hadn't been so worried about Charles, if she'd been watching a movie, she'd have sat back, eaten popcorn, and enjoyed the view. But the blood was real.
She leaned forward and realized she had a death grip on the back of Walter's neck. She loosened her hand and rubbed his fur in apology.
One minute Asil was walking toward the fight, the next he was at full speed. He passed Charles at an oblique angle and hit Sarai with an elbow strike on the side of the neck. She went limp and he snatched her up over his shoulders and ran.
"Asil!" But the witch gave no command, and Asil jumped off a rise and hit the steep side of the mountain on the edge of his feet. At the speed he was going, he might as well have had skis on.
Help, Anna realized, could have a lot of meanings. From the shelter of the tree, Anna couldn't see Asil, but she could hear the sound of something moving very fast down the side of the mountain, away from any further orders he might be given.
The whole thing had taken maybe twenty seconds. If Anna had been distracted, Charles was not. He ran at the witch, but she threw something at him that brought him down into the rucked-up snow. The force of his attack kept his body moving toward the witch in an awkward tumble.
"No!" the witch shrieked hysterically as she rapidly backed away from him. Anna had to remind herself that this witch was old. As old as Charles for all that she looked fifteen or sixteen. "I have to be safe. Sarai! Sarai!"
Anna braced herself to intervene, but Charles put his hands on the ground and levered himself up. Whatever she'd done to him had hurt, but she couldn't see it in his face, just in the slowness of his movement. Surely if he needed her, he'd find some way to signal?
She glanced at the werewolf beside her, but though he was alert and focused, he didn't seem worried. Of course, he didn't know anything more of witches than she did-and he'd only known Charles for a day.
Anna wasn't the only one who had noticed how slowly Charles was moving. The witch put both of her hands to her face.
"I forgot," she gasped, half-laughing, and then she pointed a finger at him and said something that didn't sound like Spanish to Anna. Charles flinched, then clutched his chest. "I forgot. I can defend myself."
But Anna wasn't listening to her, she was watching Charles's face. He wasn't breathing. Whatever the witch had done to him would be fatal if allowed to continue. She didn't know much about witchcraft, and doubtless most of it was wrong. But the witch had released Charles once, with sufficient distraction. Maybe it would work one more time.
Anna was through waiting for a signal.
She erupted from the shelter of the tree and reached full speed within two strides; her old track coach would have been proud of her. She ignored the nagging ache of her over-used thighs and the bite of cold in her chest, focused only on the witch, only dimly aware of the wolf running at her side.
She saw the witch drop her hands and focus on Anna. Saw her smile and heard her say, "Bran, Marrok, Alpha of the Marrok, slay me your son, Charles."
Then she raised a finger and flicked it at Anna. Anna had no time to prepare when something hit her from the side and knocked her to the ground, out of the pathway of the spell.
It came at last, Charles thought. The witch's command rang in his ears-which were well and truly ringing anyway with whatever she had done to him. It came at the worst possible time because he was half-blind and stumbling, and he had no idea how long it would take his father to break her command over him.
If he broke it.
But he could not burden his father with his death, so he gathered his wits and figured out from where the wolf was attacking with his nose and the sense that told him when something hostile was watching, because nothing else was working properly.
He reached out, grabbed fur as tightly as he could, and let the force of his father's nearly silent charge push him over on his back, then used his feet to make sure Bran continued over and past him.
It wasn't that neat of course. His father was quicker than Sarai had been. Quicker, stronger, and a damn sight better with his claws. Still, his da's most formidable weapon-his mind-was fogged by the witch's hold, and Charles was able to throw him without taking too much damage. The leftover momentum was sufficient for him to roll to his feet and await his father's next attack.
Walter was a deadweight on Anna, and she rolled him aside as gently as she could. If she hurt him, he didn't show it. His body was limp and moved without resistance, and she could only hope that she wasn't damaging him further. He'd knocked her out of the way and taken the witch's spell himself.
She came to her feet and scrambled toward the witch. She couldn't afford to stop and make sure Walter was all right until she'd done something, anything, to keep the witch from doing more harm.
"You don't want to hurt me," the witch said, widening her chocolate eyes. "You want to stop."
Anna's run slowed until she stood motionless, so close to the witch that she could smell the mint of her toothpaste. For a moment she had no idea what she was doing or why.
"Stay there." The witch unzipped her coat and reached inside, pulling out a gun.
Omega, Anna remembered, meant she didn't have to take orders-and as easily as that she could move again. With a precision that she'd learned from a brother who'd boxed in high school, and the speed and power she owed her werewolf nature, she punched the witch in the jaw. She heard the pop as the witch's jawbone broke and she fell face-first on the ground, unconscious.
She took a deep breath and looked at the battle raging between Charles and his father. For a moment they were moving too swiftly for her eye to follow, then Charles stood motionless, except for the rapid rise and fall of his breath, just out of reach of his father, his body both ready and relaxed. Blood oozed from slices on his shoulder and thigh. A single rip, running from under his left arm across his abdomen to his right hip, looked to be more serious. The Marrok stood to one side shaking his head very slowly, shifting his weight from side to side.
She should kill the witch and free the Marrok.
She turned back and looked down at the limp body. The girl looked so innocent, so young to have caused such harm.
Anna had killed someone before, but that had been almost an accident. Killing in cold blood was different.
Walter knew how to kill. Instinctively, she looked for him, but he hadn't moved...except his eyes. Surely they had been closed when she'd left him. Now they were open, and a whitish film coated them.
Anna found herself kneeling beside him without really knowing how she had gotten there. No heartbeat, no breath. This man had survived a war and over thirty years of self-imposed isolation, and he'd died for her. She fisted her hands-one gloved, one not-in his fur.
Then she walked over to the unconscious witch, grabbed her chin and the top of her head and twisted with more than human strength. It was easy, just like in the movies. One crack, and the witch was as dead as Walter.
She released the witch, stood up, and took one step back, breathing far too hard. It was so quiet in the forest, as if the whole world had taken a deep breath and not let it out. As if she were the only living creature in the whole world.
Numbly, she turned on her frozen feet to see the Marrok standing over Charles's body.
She'd been too late.
As the sun slowly set, setting the sky aflame behind the dark mountains, Asil held Sarai, still unconscious, in his arms. He buried his nose against her neck, breathing in the familiar scent he'd never thought to smell again. She was so beautiful.
They weren't so far that he couldn't hear the fight, but out of the witch's sight, she'd have a harder time controlling him.
Asil waited. He'd done all he could to take them both out of the battle since they'd only be on the wrong side if they fought. It was the best he could do.
So he held Sarai on his lap and tried to forget that it was the last time.
If Mariposa succeeded, she would kill him. He'd taken Sarai away from her again, and she wouldn't stand for it. If Charles or Bran succeeded in killing Mariposa, his Sarai would be gone for good. A witch's creations did not survive their maker.
So he held her and breathed in her scent and pretended that this moment would never end. Pretended it was Sarai he held...almost he caught a hint of cinnamon.
As her scent faded into fir and pine, snow and dreary winter, he wondered if he had been able to see the future that long ago day when a frightened and bruised child had been brought to his home, would he have had the fortitude to kill her? He put his head down on his knee in bleak despair, holding tight to a small, battered scrap of buff fur.
He didn't have it in him to be glad that Mariposa was dead and Sarai's wolf freed at last.
Which would have been a premature celebration at any rate, because madness swept through him like a fire in a forest in August. He was too tired, but the rage didn't care, just gathered him in an implacable grip and demanded that he change. A wild howl echoed down the mountainside, and Asil called out in return.
The Beast had awakened. Asil opened his hand and let the wind take the last part of Sarai from him before he answered his master's call.
Anna didn't think about running until she was halfway to Charles and sprinting.
He couldn't be dead. She could have killed that blasted witch two or three minutes earlier. It couldn't be her fault he was dead-that his father had killed him.
She brushed by the Marrok, and his power roared over her as she dashed through it and fell, sliding in the snow. She crawled the last two feet to Charles. His eyes were closed, and he was covered with blood. She reached out, but she was afraid to touch him.
She was so sure he was dead that when his eyes opened, it took a moment for it to register.
"Don't move," he whispered, his eyes focused beyond her. "Don't breathe if you can help it."
Charles watched the wolf who was no longer his father stalk forward, madness mated to cunning in an unholy combination.
Bran had miscalculated. Maybe if the witch hadn't died and broken the control unexpectedly. Maybe if Charles had just given his father his throat at the beginning of the fight, trusting that his father couldn't kill him, even under compulsion. Maybe if it had been Samuel here, instead of him.
Or maybe it was something that would have happened no matter what anyone had done, once the witch had subjugated his father entirely-the way Bran's mother had subjugated him so many centuries ago.
"Why" didn't matter anymore, because his clever, chameleon-like da was gone. In his place was the most dangerous creature who had ever set foot on this mountain.
Charles had thought he was done in. His chest burned, and he was having real trouble breathing. One of those sharp claws had pierced a lung-he'd had that happen often enough he knew what it felt like. He was on the point of giving up, when Anna suddenly appeared-taking no more notice of his da than if he'd been a poodle.
With Anna in danger, Charles found himself much more alert-though his attention was split in his frantic need to know that she was all right.
She looked terrible. Her hair was sweat-dampened and deformed by her absent hat. Windburns reddened her face that he wouldn't have noticed was dirty, too, except for the tear tracks that ran from her eyes to her jaw in ragged lines. He whispered a warning to her, but she smiled (as if she hadn't heard a word he'd said or the danger he'd implied)-and terrified as he was, he was momentarily dumbstruck.
"Charles," she said. "I thought you were dead, too. No. Don't move-" And she put her hand on his shoulder to make sure he didn't. "I..."
Asil growled hungrily, and Anna turned to look.
Asil was not a small wolf. He wasn't as big as Samuel or Charles, but he was big enough. His fur was so dark a brown as to be mistaken for black in the growing shadows. His ears were pinned, and there was saliva dripping from his jaws.
But Anna wasn't stupid-her attention, like most of Charles's, focused on the Marrok. Bran was watching them as a cat waits for a mouse to do something interesting-like run.
Her breath caught, and the scent of her fear forced him to sit up-which was a dumb move-but his da was watching Anna now and ignored Charles.
Caught in Bran's mad gaze, Anna reached out instinctively and grabbed Charles's hand.
And it happened.
Unexpected, unheralded, the mating bond settled over him like a well-worn shirt-and for a moment he didn't hurt, wasn't tired, sore, beat-up, cold, naked, and terrified. For a moment his father's rage, eating him up from the shadows, was as nothing to the joy of the moment.
Anna took a deep breath and gave him an astonished look that clearly said, You told me we needed sex for this to happen. You're supposed to be the expert.
And then reality settled in.
He gave her a jerk that skidded her back so he was mostly between her and the two mad wolves, who were watching her with utter intentness.
She freed her hand gently, and he was glad of it-he told himself-he needed both hands to defend them. If he could manage to get to his feet.
He could feel her scooting farther behind him, which he appreciated-though he'd half expected her to fight him. Then two cold hands settled on his bloody shoulders and she leaned against his back, one of her breasts pressed on his old wound.
She drew in a breath and began to sing. And the song she chose was the Shaker song that his father had chosen to sing for Doc Wallace's funeral, "Simple Gifts."
Peace swept over him like a tropical wind, as it hadn't since the first couple of hours after he'd met her. She had to be tranquil, Asil had said, or something of the sort. She couldn't give calm that she didn't have. So she sang and drew the peace of the song into her-and gave it to the wolves.
On the third line Charles joined in with a descant that complemented her rich alto. They sang it through twice, and when they were finished, Asil heaved a sigh and settled on the snow as if he were too exhausted to move.
Charles let Anna pick the songs. The next one was the Irish song "The Black Velvet Band." To his weary amusement, she picked up a little bit of an Irish lilt as she sang it. He was pretty sure from the phrasing, she'd learned the song from listening to the Irish Rovers. In the middle of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," his father walked tiredly over to Anna and put his head in her lap with a sigh.
The next time he saw Samuel, he'd have to tell his brother that his Anna defeated the Marrok at his worst with a couple of songs instead of the years it had taken Samuel.
Anna kept singing as Charles heaved himself to his feet-not a pleasant experience, but his father's claws and fangs weren't silver, and even the worst of the new wounds were healing. It was dark but the moon was bright, not yet full, but waxing strong.
He stepped over Asil, who was sleeping so deeply he didn't even twitch, and walked to the bodies. The witch's neck was broken, but he'd feel better when they burned her body to ash and gone. Walter was dead, too.
Anna finished her song, and said, "It was for me."
He looked over at her.
"The witch threw some spell at me, and Walter got between us."
Anna was pale, and there was a bruise forming along her cheek. Despite the food she'd been eating, he thought she'd lost some weight the last few days. Her fingernails were torn, and her right hand, which was gently petting his father's muzzle, was cut on the knuckles where she'd punched someone-presumably Mariposa.
She was shivering a little, and he couldn't tell if it was the cold or shock, or both. Even as he thought about it, Bran curled around her, sharing his warmth.
Walter had been right: Charles hadn't been taking very good care of her.
"Then Walter died as he lived," he told his mate. "A hero, a soldier, and a survivor who chose to protect what was precious to him. I don't think, if you could ask him, that he would have any regrets."
