Burn Bright

That had been smart, Charles thought. And not entirely a lie: if they had a fire department in Aspen Creek, it would consist of the pack. He would just have told them he was burning a cabin on purpose.

“Good,” Charles said.

Asil added, “Even if someone from the Forest Service decides to come all the way up here, they’ll be checking on a controlled burn and not bodies.” He didn’t say “good girl,” that would have been too much. He didn’t look at Leah, but he let her hear the approval in his voice. Leah’s shoulders softened—the only sign of her pleasure at the compliment paid to her by the Moor.

That, said Brother Wolf, was diplomacy.

Asil kept talking, “Tag—you’re the only one who knew Hester well, the only one here, anyway. Do you want to be the torchbearer?”

Asil’s question sparked the pack into action. Hester and her mate were not the first bodies the pack had burned, though they generally used a proper cremation process. The place of torchbearer was usually a place of honor only—a wolf who witnessed the cremation of the body.

But wolves who died as wolves couldn’t be buried where someone might dig them up believing they were going to find a human.

Fire was good at destroying evidence. Because of that, Charles had supervised the burning of a number of houses over the years but never in the Marrok’s own territory before. Never a formal funeral—though he knew the protocols.

Asil seemed to have taken it upon himself to take charge of the burning, and Charles was content to let him work off steam by taking over the organization of the fire itself.

Charles wished the fire would do as good of a job destroying the magical artifacts he and Asil hadn’t been able to find as it would turning Hester’s body to ash.

He had, himself, never seen so many things imbued with magic in one place before. The mishmash of magics made the hair on the back of his neck stand up worse than standing in the middle of a busy airport did. The thought of that chest sitting in his truck left an itch he couldn’t scratch right between his shoulder blades. So did the note in his pocket.

Anna should be back by now.

He started to turn to look for his mate, but he was distracted by the flash of fire out of the corner of his eyes. He hadn’t expected, with Asil in charge, for them to light the cabin so quickly.

Tag, smelling of smoke and diesel and gasoline, took his place next to Charles, and Asil joined them.

“I liked her,” said Tag, without any of his usual drama.

Charles thought of the way Hester had chided him without a word from her cage, and said, “As did I. Though I did not know her well.”

As fires do sometimes, this one roared up in a sudden burst of light and sound. It seemed exactly right, a fitting tribute to a tough woman and her mate—hot and wild and powerful. Leah shouted, and the pack called back, answering both Leah and the roar of the fire. Charles threw his head back and howled—and the call of the pack changed as the other wolves replied in kind. Then they fell silent and stood witness.

Tag had said that her people burned their dead, and Charles wondered who her people had been. Hester was an ancient name. It might even have been her birth name, though old creatures tended to change their names now and then.

His da said that names had power. Names that had belonged to you for a long time had more power. Like many of Da’s sayings, it was true on different levels. Both witchcraft and fae magic could use a name in working evil magic upon someone. But the magic of names went further than that. Charles had found that his own name, Charles Cornick, the Marrok’s son, had often saved him trouble. The fear of his name caused people to give up the fight before it started.

Hester was a name like that—a name of power. She had been a legend among the wolves, hers a quieter legend than the Moor’s or the Marrok’s because she, herself, preferred it that way. But her name had served admirably to distract people from the troubled man who had been her mate.

Charles hoped that Jonesy had enjoyed the peace that she had bought him with her name.

“Godspeed, Hester,” Charles whispered. “Sweet dreams, Jonesy. Good journey.”

On the tail end of his last word, there was a cracking noise inside the cabin and the fire leaped upward, and Charles felt the increase in heat on his face and his skin roughened with the breath of … something.

Correlation not being causation, it hadn’t been Charles’s wish that had caused the small explosion. Asil met his gaze (briefly) and shrugged. That explosion had been something they’d missed in their search. Fae magic was elemental magic, based in aspects of earth, air, fire, or water and those same elements could have unpredictable effects on fae artifacts. He had no hope that the fire would destroy everything they hadn’t found. He really hoped they hadn’t missed something that was going to kill everyone in the clearing.

He sensed Anna approach just about the time that Charles was ready to go look for her. Anna set her cheek against Charles’s arm. “I think the fire was good send-off for them both.”

Yes, agreed Brother Wolf. But Charles thought it was more a statement of support for Anna than any real opinion about what they should do with the bodies of their fallen. Once someone was dead, Brother Wolf was usually pretty unsentimental about the remains.

Anna gave him a little smile of agreement. She knew Brother Wolf, too.

Her face beneath the smile was pale, the small muscles of her jaw tense.

“What’s wrong?” Charles asked—because it was obvious to him, once he paid attention, that something was.

She tucked her arm in his and led him away from the others. Then, in a very quiet, not-to-be-overheard voice, she said, “I know one of the dead men in the back of the van.” She let go of him and stepped back—and he didn’t think she knew she did it. Her voice shook a little, and she spoke faster. “I don’t know his name, but I saw him at Leo’s. We should get a photo of him to the Chicago Alphas as soon as we get somewhere with cell reception.”

Leo had been the Alpha who had ruled his Anna’s first pack. Charles had killed him for his crimes. Anna’s expression meant he didn’t have to ask her if the dead man had been one of those who’d abused her at Leo’s behest.

Charles didn’t reach out to touch Anna, not when she had just stepped away from him—and not when there were such ghosts in her eyes. He couldn’t say anything for fear that the thing he would say would be the wrong thing. She didn’t need his rage. He waited for her to do something that would tell him what she needed from him.

After a moment, she let out her breath and shook her head. She stepped into him and twined her right arm around his left, gripping his arm hard briefly before her whole body softened against him.

He took that moment to glance around, but no one was watching them—and if they’d overheard what Anna had said, they were being circumspect. Anna was being quiet—but they were surrounded by werewolves. It was unlikely that they had been entirely unobserved or unheard.

Anna stared at the fire, though he didn’t think she was really seeing it. But after a while, she said, “Fire is a powerful thing. It cleanses as it destroys—and it brings light to darkness.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“I think I understand why some cultures burn their dead,” she said. “It feels like a celebration, doesn’t it? The final conflagration.” She paused. “Burn bright, Hester. Drive away the shadows, Jonesy. Sleep with the heroes and the saints.”

With the cabin and all the other things burning, the scent of burning flesh was very faint. Charles rested his chin on the top of her head and reflected that it was for the best that, as young as she was, she probably couldn’t distinguish the scent of the fire devouring Hester’s body from the scent of the rest of the burning things.

He’d have burned Anna’s past for her if he could have—but memories are not so easily set alight as a cabin.

• • •

ANNA AND CHARLES left after most of the others. There were still flames, so five of the wolves stayed—and would stay until the last ember was out.

Charles got into the passenger seat, but before Anna started the car, he put a hand on her arm.

“Wait,” he said, then pulled a folded paper out of his pocket. “Asil and I found this in the bedroom while we were looking for things that might blow up the mountain if they caught fire.”