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.
