Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega 4)

She didn’t need him. She was a werewolf and he’d spent the whole of their time together making sure she could take care of herself. She was tough and smart. She didn’t need him to deal with a fae.

But he was coming anyway.

The Cantrip agents did pretty well, he thought, given that they were used to human reaction times and he was not human. The biggest limitation on their speed and the path he took was the car. He skidded it pretty good as they came off the expressway and onto the city streets because its suspension was for crap. He had to drop speed a bit, but not much as they rocketed through red lights and crosswalks with kids and little old ladies.

Leeds fell silent and Marsden closed his eyes with one hand on the oh-crap handle and the other braced on the dashboard. The quiet in the car was good. It allowed his ears to pick up the first hint of rubber slipping on pavement, even before he could feel it. That gave him a little more reaction time, so he sped up a bit.

Even with the map, he circled her location twice before he found a road that led to the house where the orange car was parked. He pulled in behind and took a deep breath, opening the car door, and that was when Anna’s panic nearly dropped him to his knees.

He’d never been more grateful for his ability to shed his human skin for wolf in moments, in a breath, instead of the long drawn-out process his father and the other wolves had to go through. It hurt, it hurt, but Anna was frightened and that made the other of no concern at all.

On four paws, he bolted through the plate-glass window; the glass cut deeply, but he ignored the damage. He healed as he ran through the stone house, over a silly little fountain, and out the closed patio doors, shedding water, blood, and glass as he ran.

The graceful black wolf who was his mate crouched, hindquarters and tail tucked, at the far side of the yard. She was better at controlling her responses in human form. The only time he’d ever seen her look scared was when she ran on four paws.

Whatever she saw, and he didn’t see anything in front of her where her attention was focused, it really scared her. His Anna had the heart of a lion.

Whatever it was that frightened her, he needed to kill it and lay it at her feet. A gift of love, he thought whimsically as Brother Wolf calculated where the invisible and presumably fae creature had to be, based on Anna’s body language and position.

Charles hit it hard. Brother Wolf had found their target. As it fell with him upon it, he dug in wherever he could. Two things happened when his fangs sank into flesh that tasted of bark, sap, and lemons. First, he could see the fae. Second, Anna’s fear dissipated, and that quick dispersal felt like a spell breaking.

This is not our villain. There was no doubt in her thoughts. He has been here a long time. He might know something about the fae we are hunting. Who better than another fae who is at large in the same vicinity? He has promised to answer our questions. If you kill him, we’ll never know. Charles, you cannot kill him. Not before we find Amethyst.

Anna wasn’t hurt. But Brother Wolf wanted the fae to die; leaving your enemies alive was not smart. Any fae who frightened Anna was his enemy. Fear was a power the fae used to protect themselves, to freeze their prey, to kill. He knew that, understood that, if Anna did not. It was a weapon, and this one had used it against Anna.

Please, Anna said, breathing a little calmness to him. Not enough to influence him; he didn’t think she had done it on purpose. Maybe she was trying to calm herself down and the effect had sifted through their bond.

But wherever she had aimed, it succeeded in allowing him to think. Anna wasn’t hurt. Anna wasn’t hurt, ergo he did not need to kill this fae. And, given that it had not hurt her, if he killed it, it would be because he wanted to. To kill when it was not a matter of defense or law was murder.

Woodland fae are too tough to kill easily, anyway, Brother Wolf grumbled at Anna.

Charles extracted his fangs and stepped back, letting the growl dwelling in his chest ring in the open air.

The wounded fae was definitely one of the tree folk but not a particularly dangerous one, not if he’d been too frightened to fight back when Charles had attacked him. His skin was more like tree bark and he had no flesh to soften the rawboned look. Yellow and red eyes, one each, blinked up at Charles in fearful horror.

Though Charles’s strike would have killed a human, this fae was not much hurt, he thought. The fae were tough, the forest fae among the toughest. As Brother Wolf had observed, this one would not die easily under the fangs of a werewolf.

Beside him Anna shook herself, shivered, and shook herself some more. And even if she was not terrified anymore, she was definitely disturbed, allowing Charles to stay between her and the fae.

If not for the humans watching, the FBI agent, the Cantrip agents who were cautiously climbing through the remains of the patio doors, and the woman in the house who stared out through an upstairs window, he would have pressed against her, reassuring her that she wasn’t alone. He would have done it despite the audience if she had still been frightened. But she was recovering and he wouldn’t take that from her.

Charles circled the fae as it struggled back to its feet. The damage he’d done mended itself, the barklike skin flowing together until there was no trace of fang marks or hurt.

Leslie cleared her throat. “Hey, Charles,” she said. “Quite an entrance.” Her voice was steady, though he could smell her fear.

He glanced at her and then away. In his current state it wouldn’t be safe for her if he caught her eyes. Excess adrenaline made it impossible for him to stay still, so he stalked back and forth like a lion in a cage and waited for someone to do something.

“All right, then,” Leslie said. “Sir. I don’t know your name. I think you have to agree that we located you. That’s not a question.”

The fae shuddered and took on human semblance—a bland-featured man of average height and average build wearing a sand-colored, double-knit suit fifty years out of date.

“It wasn’t fair,” he said. “It wasn’t fair. I didn’t know it was a werewolf. If I’d known it was a werewolf, I wouldn’t have made that bargain. It wasn’t fair.”

“You didn’t ask,” Leslie said. “You should know better than to make assumptions.”

“Not fair,” he said again, pouting. “Spoiled the game.”

If the fae was talking about playing games, Leslie might need a little coaching. Hostile fae could be difficult. Charles took a deep, deliberate breath and pulled his human shape out and donned it. He shook his head and a few shards of glass tinkled on the ground. He dusted himself off and got rid of a few more. His skin burned where the glass had cut deeply and the werewolf magic continued to heal him.