The other four shoes were new and smelled of leather, dye, and, lightly, of Anna. One pair was low-heeled pumps and the other red leather and high-heeled, the kind women wore for men.
Charles could care less about shoes-and he suspected he wasn’t alone among men in his feelings. Shoe, no shoe, he didn’t care. Naked was good, though over the past couple of weeks he was beginning to think that dressed in his clothes was a decent second best.
Even smiling at the thought of Anna in his sweater, he didn’t slow down his hunt. He tracked the edge of the witch’s spell until he found the trail the vampires had left-not difficult, as at least one of them was bleeding badly. He let his nose go to work, then he had no smile left in him.
A vampire, he’d thought, or possibly two. His nose now told him there had been more than that. He caught six individual scents. Six vampires who’d been after his Anna.
And he wondered if she’d been as honest as he thought when she told him she was all right. The pink shoe broke in his hand, and he dropped it. He was growling again as he followed the vampires to a parking garage-space number forty-six.
Four minutes, and a little intimidation-not difficult, the way he was feeling-and he found that the space had been paid for six months but occupied only now and then.
No way to tell if the vampires were connected to the person who rented the space or if they’d just found an empty space to use. He was inclined to suspect the latter. They weren’t planning on being there long, and the cars were checked every two hours.
“Yeah,” the man-not much older than a boy, really-said. He wasn’t looking at Charles now, and not doing so had allowed him to calm down a little. “Someone came boiling out of here like they were fit to be tied. I remember it because it was a minivan, a blue Dodge-not the kind of vehicle you roar out of town in. I didn’t notice it coming in, but I did the vehicle check when I started work tonight. I don’t remember a minivan except Mrs. Sullivan’s parked in here when I did it.”
Charles wasn’t concerned about that. Mind tricks that work on humans were among the most common gifts of the vampires. If they’d told the attendant not to remember, he wouldn’t have.
“Tell me about the minivan.”
“Three men and a woman. They all looked like FBI, you know? Expensive and conservative.” The man looked up at Charles. “Are you a cop or something? Shouldn’t you show me some ID?”
“Or something,” murmured Charles, and the attendant paled and looked away again. Gently, Charles thanked the man for the information and left.
He could have gotten their faces from the cameras, but there was no need to traumatize the young man further-he had their scent, and he would not forget. If not today, then eventually he would run into them-the world was not that large to a man who lived forever. When he found them at last, he would remember this night to them.
When he reached the place where the attack had occurred, he stopped and put Anna’s new shoes in the plastic bag and took them with him. There had been no blood, no meat at the end of this hunt-and Brother Wolf was not satisfied. Not in the least.
By the time he made it to the hotel, he’d gotten a semblance of control. It would have to do.
ANGUS was sitting on the floor in front of their room, reading a newspaper. He didn’t look like much of a guardian, but there were few other wolves Charles would rather have guarding his mate’s door. There wasn’t much that would be able to get past the old wolf who ruled Seattle.
“Something interesting in the paper?” Charles asked politely.
“Not really, no.” Angus folded the paper back into its original shape with economical precision, then got to his feet. He kept his face averted and down. Not slow on the uptake, was the Alpha of the Emerald City Pack. Charles might have his game face on-but any wolf worth his salt would smell the frustration of a failed hunt on him from twenty feet out.
“Your mate was worried about allowing anyone in before you got here. With Tom mostly down and out, and Moira-”
“-without enough magic to light a candle,” finished Anna, opening the door. “And I’m sorry, but I don’t know Angus from Adam-I know we were introduced, but I met a lot of people this morning. And I think that our attack was engineered by one of our own kind. Opening the door just because someone said he was Angus didn’t seem smart.”
Charles gave her a sharp look-he’d smelled only vampires. Had there been a werewolf, too? He pulled the predator in him under better control once more.
He needed a few answers. And he had to make sure she didn’t guess how hard it was for him to appear calm and collected. It was a good thing she was still working on listening to her nose.
“As there was no urgent danger threatening, wisdom dictated that I wait here until someone she knew better came,” said Angus, sounding rather pleased with Anna.
“Anna,” said Charles, ignoring the urge to inspect her more closely to make sure she was all right. “This is Angus, Alpha of the Emerald City Pack. He would never, under any circumstances, have set Tom up to face a pack of vampires.”
Angus gave Charles a sharp look as Anna examined him-and Charles tried to curb his possessive instincts. She was just evaluating Angus. The Emerald City Alpha was only an inch or two taller than Anna, who wasn’t overly tall for a woman-and he didn’t weigh much more. He was wiry and whip-thin. Sandy hair and dark eyes gave him a casual handsomeness that he used ruthlessly. People who didn’t know him underestimated him all the time, which was probably one of the reasons he was so pleased with Anna’s caution. The other would be that she had taken it upon herself to protect one of his wolves.
But Anna knew Bran, who was even better than Angus at being underestimated-Bran did it on purpose.
“I’m sorry if I offended you.” Anna’s apology was sincere.
“No trouble,” Angus said. “Do I look offended? Let’s all get inside, and you can tell us what happened, so we’ll see what’s to be done. Vampires, eh?”
Anna backed away from the door. The scent of her distress and the stink of recent fear permeated the room. Her lip curled as she smelled it herself. “Sorry,” she said. Her shirt was covered with blood, and the air in the room was redolent with the rawness of open wounds.
Not hers, Brother Wolf told him hungrily. But it could have been. He couldn’t tell who had thought that last, maybe both of them. It didn’t help his controclass="underline" he was having an unusually tough time keeping it together.
He had to keep his distance, just until he could get himself calm and centered. He allowed Angus to pass between him and Anna, and when it didn’t send Brother Wolf into a rage, Charles took a deep breath of relief and allowed himself to examine Anna.
Her freckles stood out on her pale cheeks, but the scent of her fear wasn’t fresh. Angus hadn’t scared her, she’d just been being cautious. Brother Wolf settled down, but only a little.
“Here,” Charles told her, and handed her the bag of shoes.
She looked at the bag blankly before her face lit up in a grin. “You are supernatural, Charles. Absolutely supernatural.”
She opened the closet and dumped the shoes in with a pile of bags that hadn’t been there this morning. There were a couple of plastic-covered dresses hanging next to the hotel’s bathrobes, too. She’d been shopping and back once before they were attacked. The vampires could have been waiting, watching the hotel, and followed them out.
A low growl in the room brought his attention back to the task at hand. The little witch, still wearing her sunglasses, was curled up on the giant pillow at the head of the bed. If Anna was pale, the witch’s face was chalk white under the inky blackness of her short hair, and she looked gaunt, as if she’d lost ten pounds since he’d seen her earlier that day.
From the dent in the bedspread, Charles could tell the brown wolf who was Tom had been settled in front of his witch, but the invasion of other wolves had sent him to his feet. One of his front legs was visibly crooked and must be hurting-but that didn’t keep him down.