Alpha wolves don't mingle well with others. Anna wondered if all of them had congregated here on purpose, or if some misguided person on the restaurant's waitstaff had decided to keep all the potentially problematic clients in one place.
Someone had made a hasty effort to clear a space for fighting because a couple of tables were lying on their sides against a wall, and chairs had been tossed wherever they landed.
"You don't have the courage of a half-bred mongrel," said one of the two men standing in the center of the room with cool deliberation. He had an accent, but it was so slight she couldn't place it immediately.
Charles looked at her, then at the door they'd just come through. Anna understood. This was private business, and they didn't need any unexpected visitors to complicate matters further. She shut the door and leaned against it.
It also gave her a quick escape-so many dominant wolves... Even with Charles, she couldn't help remembering what the dominant wolves in her first pack had done to her. And her heartbeat picked up. Not panicked. Not yet. But not comfortable either.
The room looked like nothing so much as a scene from a reenactment of West Side Story or, with slightly different props and costuming, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Four men stood on one side of the room, six on the other. A few paces in front of either group stood a man, ready to fight. The testosterone level was so high that she was amazed it hadn't triggered the little sprinklers in the ceiling.
There was a thirteenth man still seated in the corner of the room. He had his back to the wall and was cleaning his hands with a damp towelette. He noticed Charles's entrance first and tipped his head in a casual salute. "Ah," he said in a beautiful upper-class British accent, "I was wondering when the cavalry would arrive. Good to see you, Charles. At least the Russians aren't here, eh? Or the Turks."
Action froze for a moment as everyone realized a new player had entered the game.
"You know how to see the bright spot in a cloudy day," said a dark-skinned man in the larger group. "I've always liked that about you, Arthur." His accent made him, and therefore the group of wolves he stood with, the Spaniards.
Which meant that the man who'd been tossing insults could be none other than Jean Chastel, the Beast of Gevaudan.
He wasn't handsome, precisely, but there was a power to his features and in the way he carried himself that made her first Alpha, Leo, look like a half-grown pup. He made an impression, as most of the Alphas she'd met did; he took up more space in the room than he should, as if he were weightier, both physically and metaphysically, than he ought to be.
He was aware of Charles, but his pale eyes stayed firmly on his opponent. Neither tall nor short, Chastel had a lean build. His hair was longish and brownish, brushing his shoulders. His beard was several shades darker than his hair and close-trimmed. But the physical details didn't matter nearly as much as the force of who and what he was.
His opponent didn't stand a chance against him-and the Spaniard knew it. Anna could see it in his stance, in the way he wouldn't look at the Frenchman's eyes. She could smell it in the scent of his fear.
"Sergio, mi amigo," said the dark Spaniard who'd spoken before. "Stand down. The fight is over. Charles is here."
The Spanish fighter hadn't noticed Charles's approach, and his startled look was very nearly his undoing. Jean Chastel's right arm shot out and would have connected with his opponent's neck, but Charles had already been moving-as if he'd known what the French wolf would do before Chastel had known it himself.
Charles intercepted the blow and jerked Chastel around, using the other's momentum to propel him into his own people. A quick glance at the Spanish wolves had them all backing up a step, then his attention was focused on the first wolf.
"Fools," Charles snarled. "This is a public place. I'll not have you disturbing the peace while you are guests on Emerald City Pack grounds."
"You'll not have us, pup?" murmured the Frenchman, who'd recovered quickly from the unplanned impact with his wolves. He tugged on the sleeves of his long-sleeved, button-up shirt, a gesture that looked more habitual than effectual. "I'd heard the old wolf had sent his puppy for us to feast on, but I thought it was merely wishful thinking."
There was something abject about the way the rest of the French contingent stood that told Anna that none of them liked what their leader was doing, that they followed Jean Chastel out of fear. It made them no less dangerous-maybe more so. Her wolf knew them for Alphas, every one of them, and all afraid.
Beneath all the aggression and posturing in the room, there was an undercurrent of fear: hers, the Spaniard's, and the French wolves', so thick that she sneezed at the smell of it, drawing unwanted attention. Jean Chastel's eyes met hers, and she held them, despite the violence they promised. Here, she thought, here was a monster worse than the troll under the bridge. He stank of evil.
"Ah," he said, sounding almost gentle. "Another story I'd dismissed. So you found yourself an Omega, half-breed. Pretty child. So soft and delicate." He licked his lips. "I bet she's a tasty morsel."
"You'll never find out, Chastel," said Charles softly. "Back down or leave."
"I have a third choice," Chastel whispered. "I think I might take that one."
There was no good outcome for this, Anna realized, the push bar of the door digging into her lower back. Charles might have allies among the Spaniards, and maybe even the British wolf. But even so, if they stepped in, they'd be showing that Charles was weak. She had boundless faith in Charles's abilities to wipe the floor with the French wolf, but even that would be a failure of sorts. This was a public place-a fight would mean police and exposure of quite a different sort than what Bran wanted.
Maybe she could help defuse it. She'd been working with Asil, an old wolf in her new pack, to try to come to some understanding of what she could do. His dead mate had been an Omega just like Anna, so he knew something about how her abilities worked-which was more than anyone else did. Even Bran, the Marrok, had only vague ideas. With Asil's help, she'd managed a few interesting things.
Charles didn't say anything to Chastel. He just stood, his arms loose at his sides, his weight on the balls of his feet, as he waited for Chastel to make a decision.
Only Charles allowed her to put her fear aside-Charles, her wolf, and the door.
She imagined a place in her mind, deep in the forest where the snow lay lightly on the ground and her breath frosted in the air. It was quiet there, and sheltered. Peaceful. A creek full of fat trout trickled under a thin layer of misty ice. In her mind's eye she followed a trout as it slid, a silver shadow, through the fast-moving water.