“What would have happened if you had hated me?”
He sighed against her hair. “Then we’d not be here. I wouldn’t want to end up like my father and Leah.”
“He hates her?”
He shrugged. “No. Not really. I don’t know.” How had they ended up on this subject? “He’d never say anything one way or another, but matters are not right between them. He told me once, a long time ago, that his wolf decided that he needed a mate to replace my mother.”
“So what went wrong?” she asked, as her body softened into his.
He shook his head. “I have no desire to ask the Marrok that question and suggest you don’t, either.”
She thought of something else. “You said something about a full-moon ceremony.”
“Right,” he said. “There’s a ceremony held under the moon to sanctify our bond-like a marriage ceremony, I suppose, though it is private. You’ll also be brought fully into my father’s pack then.” He felt her stiffen; the pack ceremony, which included the sharing of the Alpha’s flesh and blood-literally-could be pretty frightening if you weren’t ready for it. And why would Leo have done that right when he’d done so much else wrong? He decided it was something they could discuss when he wasn’t trying to get her to relax and come crawl into sleeping bags with him. “If you choose, we could do a separate marriage in the church if you’d like. Invite your family.”
She twisted so she could see his face. “How can you tell that we aren’t bonded?”
“It’s almost like pack magic,” he told her. “Some wolves can barely feel it. Pack magic is what allows an Alpha to draw on his wolves to give himself an edge in speed or quicker healing. It lets him control wolves under his power or find them if he needs to.”
Anna stilled. “Or feed off their rage? I think Isabella did that; she liked it when the pack fought among themselves. ”
“Yes,” Charles agreed. “Though I’ve never seen my father do that. But you know what I mean?”
“Yes. Mating is like that?”
“On a smaller scale. It varies between couples. Sometimes it’s just being able to tell where your mate is. My da says that’s all he and Leah have. Sometimes it’s more than that. One of the wolves in Oklahoma is mated to a blind woman. She can see now, as long as she’s in the same room with him. More common are things like being able to share strength-or any of the other things an Alpha can get from his pack.”
He fell silent and waited for another question.
“My toes are cold,” he suggested after a bit.
“Sorry,” she said, and he rubbed her cheek with his thumb.
Touch was something he usually avoided. Touch allowed the others to get too close to him-a closeness he couldn’t afford if he was to survive his job as his father’s pet killer. It made Brother Wolf all the hungrier for it. With Anna, he let go of his usual rules. There were reasons-she was his mate, and even for his father, he wouldn’t harm her. She was Omega and unlikely to go rogue. But the real reason, he admitted to himself, was that he could not resist the feel of her skin against his own.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he told her. “Come sleep.” And then, when she stiffened against him, he said, “It’s too cold to do anything more interesting.”
She stilled. “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”
He buried his cold nose against her neck, startling a small laugh out of her. “You’re getting better. What if I said you’re too tired, then?”
He stepped out of the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then he picked her up and jumped off the rock, bending his knees to make the landing gentler. He’d forgotten his wounds; as he carried her over to the sleeping bags, his injured calf ached fiercely. He ignored the sizzling pain. His chest wasn’t happy with him, either, but when she settled into the sleeping bags with him, it would have taken a lot more than a couple of bullet holes to make him unhappy.
She was asleep long before he was.
They stopped by Baree Lake, but the only sign anyone had been nearby was a pair of snowmobile tracks across the frozen water. It was wilderness, but it was also Montana. Snowmobiles didn’t bother him as much as the dirt bikers because the snowmobiles didn’t damage the land. He’d run into a couple dirt bikers here a couple of years ago, and had followed them to Wanless Lake, about twenty miles from the nearest road, where they had finally parked their bikes and gone swimming. He wondered how long it had taken them to get their machines back down without the spark plugs.
There was no easy way to get from Baree to the Bear Lakes in the winter. He and Tag had mapped out something that appeared to be a passable route-but if it got too rugged, he’d find a different way. All he wanted was for the rogue to see them and go hunting.
He thought about those snowmobile tracks though. Most of the Cabinets were too rough for snowmobiles. If you only wanted to go to Baree Lake and back, though-say to find a few victims and get some news coverage for a werewolf kill-they’d be fine.
An organized pack of renegades, determined to force Bran not to reveal the existence of werewolves to the real world, would require different treatment than a single rogue. He would keep the snowmobiles in mind and be ready to face multiple opponents if necessary.
Anna was a restful companion. She was clearly enjoying herself, despite being a little stiff this morning. She didn’t complain as their trails grew rougher, requiring a lot more muscle. She was mostly quiet, which let him listen for other monsters in the woods. Since he tended to be quiet at times, he was glad that she didn’t chatter. She’d woken up cheerful and relaxed and stayed that way-until they dropped into a small hanging valley.
He could measure her growing nervousness by the slow shrinking of the distance between them.
When she finally spoke, she was near enough that she accidentally stepped on the back of his snowshoe with hers. “Sorry.”
The resultant stumble hurt his wounded leg, but he’d never have told her that. “No problem. Are you all right?”
He saw her consider a polite lie and discard it.
“It’s kind of creepy here,” she said finally.
Charles agreed with her: there were a number of places in the Cabinets that felt like this. He couldn’t be sure, but this felt worse than usual-it was certainly worse than the part of the mountains they’d crossed yesterday.
Her observation made him give a thorough look around them, in case she’d noticed something he hadn’t. But there was nothing to be seen, nothing more threatening than the cliff face that rose above them and cast its shadow over the valley and the thick growth of green-black trees on all sides. But he didn’t discount other forces at work.
The spirits of these mountains had never been welcoming, not like the Bitterroots or Pintlers. They resented intruders.
It might be that the spirits were just more active in this valley-or something could have happened. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it was more than just spirits making mischief. From last week or a hundred years ago, he couldn’t tell, but something dark lingered beneath the snow.
“You’re a werewolf,” he told her. “Creepy shouldn’t bother you.”
She snorted. “I was never afraid of monsters until I became one. Now I’m afraid of my own shadow.”
He heard the self-directed derision and snorted right back at her. “Baloney. I-” He caught a wild scent and stopped, turning his nose into the wind to catch it again.
Anna froze, watching him. He waited until the scent got a little stronger; their stalker was not worried that they would notice him.
“What do you smell?” he asked her softly.