“True-named, and you didn’t follow orders?”
Angus threw his head back and laughed. “ ‘For God Almighty himself, Bran. I got my first look at the shivering little thing that is your daughter-in-law quaking in her boots in an auditorium filled with predators and thought your son had found a wererabbit.”
“Thank you,” said Anna with a nasty edge to her voice.
Not intimidated in the least, Angus grinned at her. But when he talked it was directed at Bran. “I thought she wasn’t up to his weight. But that was before she killed a vampire and set that old fairy on her heel. Here’s me bespelled by that fae-‘Stop,’ Anna told me. And damned if I didn’t have to listen to her, fae compulsion or no fae compulsion. Broke Dana’s hold just as certain as if you had broken it your own self.”
“You should have seen her kill the witch a couple of weeks ago,” Bran said affably. “Asil had been fleeing from this one for two hundred years, and my son’s little ‘rabbit’ killed her while in human form and armed with nothing more than a knife.”
“Asil?” asked Angus, suitably taken aback. “Asil the Moor?”
“That’s the one,” said Charles.
“Suddenly I don’t feel so bad at being rescued by a rabbit,” Angus said cheerfully.
Anna narrowed her eyes at him. “One more rabbit comment, and you’ll regret it.”
The Marrok spoke into the silence that followed Anna’s threat. “If I come now-”
“No,” said Charles in instant rejection.
His father sighed. “You did note the ‘if,’ didn’t you?”
There was no good answer to that, so Charles just waited.
Satisfied that his son had been properly brought to order, Bran said, “I do not think it would help at this stage. It certainly wouldn’t make any difference to the negotiations. Chastel did exactly as he intended-and we’ll work around him.”
“I am sorry, sir,” said Charles.
“Not at all. It would not have mattered if I had been there. Until one of the Europeans decides to rid the world of Chastel, we’ll all have to work around him. It would have been… very unexpected had he played ball with us.”
“He’s not an anti-Omega,” said Anna. “He’s an anti-Marrok.”
Charles explained the reference, and his father laughed easily. Some people might think that would mean he wasn’t angry-they’d be wrong. “I suppose both are correct.”
“Why don’t you take him out?” asked Angus suddenly.
“Not my place,” Bran answered. And then said, proving he’d thought of it, “And then I’d have Europe to take care of, too. I can assure you that my plate is more than full. I do not need anything more to do. Are you looking for a job, Angus?”
“Hell, no.” The Emerald City Pack leader grinned appreciatively. “Not that I could take on Chastel, anyway. Your son is a nasty, infighting, rat-bastard. I’ve seen him fight cold before-you should have seen it when he’s enraged. Took him all of two minutes to have Chastel on the ground.”
“Charles’s fights are always fast,” said Bran. “Most serious fights are. We aren’t cats to play with our food.”
Charles heard his father draw in a deep breath as he changed the subject. “So. Your job, Charles, as I see it, is to find the vampires who killed our poor Sunny. Eliminate them and find out who hired them. Conduct business as usual tomorrow-and understand that no one can agree to accept help, but they will listen to what you have to say. And we’ll help them as we can. This is the only way we can let them know that we’ll do so. And keep Dana from making you kill anyone you don’t intend to.”
“She’s broken her word,” Anna said.
“We can’t prove it,” Bran answered.
“What happens when a fae breaks her word?” Charles asked his father. “All I’ve ever heard is that they don’t.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said his father. “I’m not fae-and we have nothing on the fae for keeping secrets. I’ve never known a fae to break his or her word-bend it, twist it into a pretzel, yes. Break it, no. I would have expected lightning to strike her down from on high. Since that hasn’t happened, your guess is the same as mine.” He paused. “Be careful. And you might consider wearing your crucifix and finding something that would work for Anna. It’s not foolproof, but it is helpful when you’re dealing with vampires.”
And he rang off.
“You know,” Anna said thoughtfully, “I’m kind of disappointed. I thought he knew everything.”
“Not everything,” admitted Charles. “He’s just very good at giving that impression.”
“And ad-libbing,” said Angus. “Though I’ve never really caught him at it.” He paused. “You know, I’m thinking that he might be that lightning bolt. Hope I’m there to see it.”
Charles yawned. “So, tomorrow is one more meeting. I’ll pull out some of the more creative things Da kept for last, then… perhaps an early end to the negotiations, which are useless now.”
“Sunny’s death,” Anna said. “It seems wrong to let her death be… useful to us, but Sunny’s death would be a good reason to close the meetings early.”
Angus nodded. “No one will be fooled-they know what Chastel has done-but it will allow us to save face.”
ANNA burrowed under him and grumbled when Charles laughed as cold toes made it to places cold toes should never hit an adult male. He rolled over on top of her, and she sighed happily, her eyes slitting open and glittering blue in the darkness of the hotel room.
“Well, hello,” he murmured to Anna’s wolf. “Werewolves,” he informed her solemnly, “are warm-blooded. Very warm-blooded. We don’t get cold and stick frigid toes and fingers into places cold things shouldn’t go.”
She blinked at him a couple of times. “Warm,” she said, her voice husky.
“Yes,” he answered. “But you could have pulled up the blanket before you got that cold.”
She arched up off the mattress and kissed him hard, gripping his jaw in her hands.
While he kissed her, he rolled over until she was on top. Anna’s wolf sometimes did things that Anna wasn’t comfortable with. He’d learned to make accommodations for that-and one of those things was to make sure that unless Anna was in charge, she got the top. If she woke up underneath him, she had a tendency to panic.
He couldn’t communicate with Anna’s wolf the way he-and Anna-could talk to Brother Wolf. She tended to come out when Anna was asleep and usually spoke in one-word sentences.
She nipped his ear, tugging on the amber earrings she’d gotten for him.
“Gently,” he told her. “I like those earrings.”
He ran his hands up the small of her back, and she arched into him with a happy sound. He let her play as she would for a while before catching her hands.
“Hey, lady wolf,” he said breathlessly. “We need to wake up your other half before we take this any farther.” He didn’t actually know how much Anna knew about what her wolf did at times like this-whether she was along for the ride or still asleep. But it didn’t seem right to do anything serious unless he was certain Anna knew what her wolf had been up to.
She stared at him, and he watched the change happen, just in her eyes. Blindingly blue eyes warmed to root-beer brown in a few heartbeats. She didn’t seem surprised to find herself braced on top of him, just smiled and flexed her hands on his shoulders.
“All right?” he asked.
In answer, she wriggled her hips and pushed herself down. He groaned at the unexpectedly aggressive move. Anna’s wolf did things like that-Anna was usually more temperate. She set a hard and rapid pace, and he let her do as she would.
“I’ll just lie back and think of England,” he huffed to make her laugh.
It backfired on him because she rose up-and then stopped, holding his hips down by tucking her feet over his thighs. “If you are thinking of England,” she said, “I must not be doing this right.”