Leah raised a superior eyebrow.
Anna shook her head at Leah and took one of the cookies off the plate because they smelled good, she was hungry, and Kara had started to look uncertain. Kara liked Leah, but she wasn’t unaware of Leah’s games. She also knew that usually Anna was more inclined to laugh about them than be offended.
There was no chocolate in the cookie, but it was good anyway. Especially since the whole cookie thing had broken up the way every wolf in the room had been focused on Anna’s history as a victim.
“Yum. Thank you,” Anna said—and Kara gave her a relieved grin.
Tag came up and picked a cookie off Kara’s plate. “Thanks, a leanbh, I’ll take another. Your cookies are always worth a second visit.” He was, Anna thought, deliberately unclear about whether his endearment was aimed at Leah or Kara.
He took a big bite and looked down at Anna. He was taller than Charles, who was very tall, and outweighed her mate by fifty pounds of muscle—and still the most impressive thing about him was his hair. Bright orange, it covered his head and hung nearly to his waist in strands of dreadlocks. His beard was a shade darker and exploded exuberantly down his chest in a mass that the members of ZZ Top could only envy.
“For the record,” he told her gently, in the light tenor that always seemed wrong for such a beast of a man. “We’ll not stand for any to hurt you.”
And so he undid all the good distracting the peanut-butter cookies had achieved.
Tag gave a nod to the rest of the room, and there was one of those low growls that, until she’d become a werewolf, Anna associated with groups of men watching their favorite football team when the official makes a bad call. Sage, perched on the back of the couch next to the fireplace, paused in eating her cookie to give her a grimace.
Sage’s silent support allowed Anna to swallow the lump of cookie in her mouth, and say, with innocent earnestness, “For the record, Tag. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, either.”
For a moment, the tension held. Tag’s eyes widened for an instant, lightening as his wolf considered if she’d insulted him. Then he threw his head back and laughed like a coyote.
When the room broke out in scattered snickers that had more to do with the break in tension than anything Anna had said, she considered them thoughtfully.
Hester and Jonesy were dead. All the attackers who had set foot on pack territory were dead, but those men had been backed up by real money. Someone who could acquire a helicopter.
And all that this bunch had to talk about was Anna, and what had happened to her in Leo’s hands—something that was over and done. She wasn’t sure what that said about them, but she was sure she wanted to redirect that focus.
“This is not about me,” she told them. “This is about someone’s coming into our territory and killing Hester—which directly led to the death of her mate. We may have killed those who put foot on our land, but they went to a lot of trouble to try to take Hester. We didn’t kill them all. We don’t know that they won’t be back.”
“Do we need to send a warning out?” asked Asil. “To the pack in general, but also to the wildlings—it seems like they may have targeted Hester because she was isolated.”
Asil knew about that note. He was finding a reason to go out and talk to the wildlings. He skirted the truth of what he knew with the wussy words “may” and “seems.” Anna made a note to pay attention when Asil used those kinds of words.
“I think warning the wildlings is a good idea,” Anna said before Leah could quash the idea. “If we’re being alarmist, there’s no harm done. If there is a second attack, being prepared would be useful. Leah? You know all the old wolves hunkered down in the mountains—how do you think we should do this?”
Leah glanced around the room and frowned. “You know Bran doesn’t like to broadcast where they live and who they are. Too many of them still have enemies who would love to know where to find them when they are … less capable.”
“Charles and I can do it,” said Anna. “He knows them.”
Leah frowned. “That will take several days. They are scattered all over our territory. I think we need to break this job down.”
“I know most of them,” Asil said. “One way or another. And none of them is likely to want to attack me. Anna and Charles can take one group, and you and I the other.”
That wasn’t going to work, thought Anna. Leah was scared of Asil. There was no way she was going to go with Asil. Or Charles.
“Three groups,” said Leah briskly. “Even if some of them answer their phones, we’ll cover them faster.” She frowned, looked at Anna and Asil, then she smiled.
Whoops, thought Anna.
“They know me, and they know Charles. If they don’t know Anna, they will understand who and what she is when they meet her. Each of us will take a group. Anna, you take Asil with you, so I don’t have to explain to Bran how I let you go off and get yourself killed.” Leah gave Anna a smile to show she knew Anna could take care of herself. And because she was pleased with herself.
That Leah would take great glee in sending Anna off with Asil, who would not stop flirting with Anna because it annoyed Charles, did not mean that her stated reason wasn’t also truthful.
“Juste?” Leah looked around until she found the quiet man sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.
Juste had been born four or five hundred years ago in France and tended to be reserved. He’d joined the pack after Anna, taking advantage of Bran’s offer to provide places for European wolves who wanted to move. Anna didn’t know much about him because he didn’t talk much—but he’d survived centuries of living in France without falling to the Beast of Gévaudan, so he must be tough.
“I can go with Charles,” Sage said—and Leah just lit right up.
Anna could see the thoughts rush through Leah as clearly as if she were speaking them aloud. Sage and Asil had something going on—something they’d been pretty private about. And if Leah could send her off with Charles while she sent Asil with Anna … well. If some sparks flew, it wouldn’t be her fault, now would it?
Anna opened her mouth to say something, anything—though she didn’t know whether it would have been an objection or just an agreement. But Tag spoke before she could put her foot in her mouth—because anything would have been the wrong thing.
“I’ll initiate the phone tree,” Tag said. “Because we don’t know what our enemy wants, we should make sure that all the humans in town know to be careful and to watch for strangers.”
From Leah’s nonreaction, Anna was pretty sure that Leah hadn’t been going to do that. Leah shared Bran’s indifference to humans, and she did not make the exception he did for those who lived in his town. All of Aspen Creek was precious to Bran.
“We should keep a pack member at the gas station round the clock,” suggested Asil. “If our enemies are running around the woods, they have to find fuel somewhere. I know that Troy and Eureka are both within a reasonable travel distance, but even so, it would be stupid of us not to keep watch.”
“I can do first shift,” said Peggy.
The whole pack turned to look at the dark-haired cheery little person who’d spoken. Peggy had a female human mate, the safety of whom was the reason she’d petitioned the Marrok to move to his pack. Female werewolves were relatively rare, and they were more or less (depending upon their pack) expected to find a male werewolf to mate with. Peggy’s former Alpha had begun harassing her and her mate—so she packed them both up and moved to Aspen Creek. Picking up and moving had been no big thing for them employment-wise—Peggy could carve beautifully and sold her art online, and her wife was a long-distance truck driver.
“I live across the road from the gas station,” she said. “I know all the cars that stop there—and I’m a night owl anyway. When Carrie is out, I usually sleep during the day. She won’t be back until next week. The kids who work night shift know me, so I won’t scare them the way some of you might.”
And the time for Anna to do anything about Leah’s plans passed without anyone’s noticing except her.