Anna stood up and he handed her his T-shirt. She cleaned up as best she could, handed him back his shirt, and then climbed back into her clothes. He was faster, since he had only to zip his jeans. She was brushing the dirt off one of her socks when he took the shirt and pressed it against a tree.
She watched him as she put on a shoe and started dusting off another shoe.
Charles murmured to the tree in what she was pretty sure was his native speech – which he very seldom used. He and Bran were the only ones left who spoke it as his mother’s band of people had used it, a variant of the Flathead tongue. It made him feel sad and alone to use it, he told her once, and he and his father communicated quite nicely in English, Welsh, or any number of other languages.
Clothed and shod, she ran her fingers through her hair to dislodge leaves, grass, mud, and whatever creepy crawlies might have come to rest there. Charles went down to one knee and pressed the shirt into the ground … which ate it.
He murmured one more phrase and came back to his feet. He saw her watching him and smiled, his face more open than she’d seen it in a long time. ‘I wasn’t going to put it back on,’ he explained. ‘And leaving something like that lying around when we’re traveling with a witch is just not smart. The apple tree will absorb it eventually and guard it until she does.’
‘Are you done yet?’ called Isaac.
Charles tilted his head and called back, ‘I suppose that’s why they call you the five-minute wonder.’
Anna could feel her eyes round and her mouth drop open. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’ She paused and reconsidered. ‘I am so telling Samuel you said that.’
Charles smiled, kissed her gently, and said, ‘Samuel won’t believe you.’ Then he took her by the hand and started off in the others’ wake.
9
As they climbed, scrambling over broken cement, rocks, and bits of assorted underbrush, Anna had too much time to think about the show they’d just put on.
It had been her fault.
Charles had been trying to raise her wolf – because apparently the black magic had been affecting her. She cringed away from the self-pitying stupidity she’d allowed herself to wallow in. Talking hadn’t worked to pull her out of it, so he’d kissed her, and her wolf had risen up to shrug off the effects of the magic, just like he’d thought she would. And then her wolf had changed the game.
Anna remembered distinctly that he’d warned her that they had an audience – and she’d totally ignored him. That was bad enough. To do it when there was a distinct chance that they were going to run into the bad guys was the height of stupidity.
‘Anna,’ said Charles. ‘Stop brooding.’
‘That was really dumb,’ she said without looking at him. ‘My fault. I’m sorry. We could have been attacked by the killers.’ She threw up her hands. ‘We might as well have set up cameras and invited everyone to watch. And now we’re going to have to go meet up with our audience and explain ourselves.’
He stopped abruptly and jerked her to a halt beside him with a hand on her wrist. It startled her with its hint of violence – Charles was never out of control.
‘If you think that it was dumb, unnecessary, and your fault,’ he said in a husky voice, ‘then you weren’t paying attention.’ He kissed her again, his mouth demanding her response, his body hot against hers.
Charles smelled like home, warm and right. She knew she should pull back, knew that this was more distraction they couldn’t afford, but she was so hungry for him – not just for sex, but for the simple touches, the absolute certainty of knowing she was welcome to pet and tease and laugh. Anna sank into him and gave as good as she got.
They were both breathless when he pulled back.
‘When we get back tonight, we will talk,’ he told her. ‘I just learned something.’
‘That my wolf is shameless,’ she muttered, though she couldn’t pull away.
He laughed, damn him. More of a huff than a chuckle, but she knew amusement when she heard it.
She’d thrown him down in the middle of a hunt when there were a herd of people listening in. All the werewolves, he’d reminded her – and Beauclaire, who was here to find his daughter, not to listen to her make out in the woods. And now, to show that she hadn’t learned her lesson, all she wanted to do was take up that last kiss where it had left off.
‘No help for it,’ Anna muttered. ‘Time to face the music.’
‘Shame is … not a very productive emotion,’ Charles told her. There was a funny little pause when he tilted his head to look at her face and then away. ‘Brother Wolf liked claiming you in front of the others so that there will be no question who you belong to. While I …
Anna stared at him incredulously. If there was a more private man in the world than her husband, she hadn’t met him.
‘As for the other …’ Charles grinned rather fiercely at her and raised his voice. ‘Isaac, go on ahead; we’ll follow.’
‘You’re the man,’ Isaac called back.
‘We’ll trail them closely,’ Charles said. ‘If something happens, we’ll be right there – but if we wait until there are more interesting things about than we are, they won’t give you a hard time.’ He didn’t need to say that no one would give him a hard time.
‘Thanks,’ Anna said, not knowing how else to respond.
He put his hand on her shoulder as they started back up the trail. While they hiked, there was none of the reluctance to touch her that had characterized him for the past few months. He kept a hand on whatever part of her was closest to him.
Charles had tried to open their bond and call up her wolf to defeat the black magic and hadn’t been able to. Brother Wolf had panicked because Charles had somehow messed up their bond – and then Anna threatened to leave them and Charles had panicked, too. If she hadn’t allowed them to make love to her, to re-establish their claim, things might have gotten … interesting, in the same way that a grizzly attack is interesting. Because neither he nor Brother Wolf was capable of letting her go.
It had been something of a revelation.
The bottom line was that he was a selfish creature, Charles decided more cheerfully than he’d been about anything in a long time. He guided Anna around a hole in the ground with a subtle push of his hand on her hip. She probably had seen the hole, but it pleased him to take care of her in such a small way. He was willing to pay any price to keep her safe … any price except for losing her.
When they got back to the condo he would tell her about the ghosts who threatened to kill all that he loved unless he could find the key to releasing them. It was a risk – but quite clearly, he had damaged their mate bond by trying to do this alone – and that was worth any risk to fix. He’d see if, between the two of them, they could mend what he’d broken – and if not, he’d call his da.
If this trip had done nothing else, it had given him distance from the unrelenting grimness that his life had become since the were wolves had revealed themselves to the public. He’d been so focused on duty, on need, and on just getting the job done that he’d lost perspective.
Honor, duty, and love. He would not sacrifice Anna for his father and all the other werewolves in existence. Given a choice, he chose love.
That meant he had to find a way to deal with the ghosts – or quit being his father’s hatchet man. It wasn’t the result his father had been hoping for from this trip, but Charles couldn’t help that. He would not lose Anna even if it meant they went to war with the human population.
The decision left him feeling oddly peaceful, if more than a little selfish.
‘We found it,’ Isaac called.
Charles started jogging and Anna stayed by his side – just where she belonged.
