Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega 4)

He’d thought they’d find her dead. He’d said as much. Charles understood; he’d mostly thought that, too. It had been Anna who had hoped for them all.

“It’s not over,” Charles told him. “It’s going to continue to be bad for a long time.”

Amethyst’s father gave Charles an expression that wasn’t really a smile; there was too much experience in it. “I’m a doctor. A pediatrician. That’s usually my line. I know someone, a really good someone, who picks up the pieces and helps people put themselves back together. Amethyst will be all right.” He looked at his daughter and when he looked up again, his eyes were wet. “It’ll take years of therapy. Probably for all of us: a long uphill battle. But we’re still on the field fighting the good fight, battered and beaten though we are, and I understand just what a great gift that is.”

By the time Leslie drove them back to their car, it was nearly dinnertime.

“We don’t get that all the time,” Leslie told Charles as she turned onto the highway. Anna grunted as she slid from one side of the car to the other. It wasn’t a pained grunt, so Charles made do with a glance over his shoulder to make sure she was all right. “It’s why I joined up, you know, saving people.”

“She isn’t saved yet,” Charles told Leslie.

“I know, years of counseling and medication even, but much better than I thought they were going to get.”

“Yes,” he said, “but she isn’t going to be safe until that fae is dead.”

Leslie sucked in a breath. “We have the man who owns that property in custody. He lawyered up immediately, but my man on the ground says he is definitely fae. He couldn’t bear the touch of metal.”

“The current justice system is not up to handling a fae of this caliber. Not if the Gray Lords have removed his restrictions. If he is not killed, that poor pile of bodies in the attic won’t be a drop in the bucket. Fae don’t die on their own; you have to help them along.”

“I think,” she said, “that we’re going to have to agree to disagree.”

“Just make sure you don’t let him slip through your fingers,” said Charles.

Anna changed in the back of the car, while Charles leaned against it and made sure no one got close enough to look in the back window. When she was human again and dressed, she got out of the car and just hugged him.

He hugged her back and let himself admit just how much he needed her touch.

“All those children,” she said. “All of those children dead. And that was just here, in this town. How long ago did he start? One a year for what? A thousand years? Two thousand years? And Amethyst? Do you think…?”

She couldn’t even make herself say the words. All he could give her was the truth.

“I don’t know. Probably.” He kissed the top of her head and found that he was comforting himself as much as he was her. “But we stopped him and she’ll grow up strong and true. Her parents will see to it. And she’s tough.”

Amethyst had grabbed on to him, he thought. Grabbed on with both hands, and held on because she had known he’d keep her safe. She wanted to be okay, and that was a good step.

“She’ll survive, Anna. He won’t win—we have him now. Let the human justice system do what it can. When he leaves it, I’ll hunt him unto the ends of the earth if I have to.” Cliché words—and they sounded hollow to him, though he absolutely meant them.

Absurdly, they seemed to be what Anna needed. She took a deep breath and said, “Yes. Yes. That. How fortunate for the world that you are in it.” She pulled back, wiped her eyes, gave him a smile.

He didn’t know what she meant. He was a killer with bloodstained hands. He was necessary, though. Maybe that was what she meant.

“Part of the solution,” she said. “My dad always told us to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. You are always part of the solution.”

“Solution to what?”

“Anything. Everything. Me.” Her smile brightened and then died. Her voice was dead serious when she spoke again. “There is evil in the world, Charles. I know I’m not telling you anything that you don’t know. But those people out there?” She swept a hand out toward the bustling rush-hour traffic on the road running past the parking lot where they stood. “Those people have no idea. And the reason they have no idea is because you are around to keep them safe. You and Bran and Leslie—and Leeds and Marsden, too. But mostly you. Where you are, there hope is also. The hope that good is strong enough to prevail.” She took a big breath and let it out. “I want your child.”

His stomach plummeted. He didn’t know that he could have that conversation right now. Not when his shirt was still damp from Amethyst’s tears and the stink of the dead was still in his nose.

Anna turned away from him, rocking up on her toes and back. He wondered if she was thinking about running away. Or wishing she could run back to the Anna she had been before she learned about the evil in the world.

“I understand now, I think,” she told him in a low voice, her back still turned. “You know what’s out here. You think that if you, if we, have a child, then they will come after him or her. Those who serve evil. You see a child as a hostage to fate. Isn’t that Shakespeare? Evil always goes after the innocents, Charles. But no innocent will be safer than one under your protection. You brought hope into my world when I had given up.”

She turned back to him, and she was wiping her cheeks again. She hesitated, her eyes widening—and then she reached up and gently wiped his, too.

“But I saw you today,” she whispered. “I do think you are wrong. I think your child would be the safest person in the universe. But I’m done hurting you. I saw your face and I know why you’re scared. That was a lot of pain you felt for her. It’s okay. I don’t like the way this discussion has come between us. When you are ready, you just let me know, okay? Don’t wait until forever.”

Children die, he thought. He was pretty sure he kept those words to himself and hadn’t given them to Anna.

She stood on tiptoe, waiting for him to duck down to her. When he did, she kissed him, first on the nose and then, hotly, on the mouth.

“Get in the car, sweetcheeks,” she said briskly, though her voice was husky. “I have horses to look at.”

“Anna,” he said as he buckled himself into the passenger seat.