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,
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.”
FIFTEEN
In the end it was the cold that drove Anna. She couldn’t stay any longer staring at the bodies: the man who had died for her and the woman she’d killed. But it was the cold, leaching the heat from her body that gave her the impetus to move.
Wearily, she got to her feet, disturbing the wolves who were piled around her in the futile effort to keep her warm. She looked apologetically at Charles. “I know the cars are only a couple of hours away-can you show me how to get there?” She looked at the corpses and then back to Charles. “I can’t stay here anymore.”
With a groan, Charles stood up. Bran steadied him a little when he staggered. Asil rose with the others. Only Bran looked fit for travel.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can’t eat enough to stay warm. And I can’t manage to change to the wolf.” As soon
