Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega 2)

She had seen him in action before, had seen him kill, and she had not flinched from him. But this had been different, Charles knew it. This had been... not unprovoked, but certainly not necessary either.

Chastel thought too much of his own hide to try anything while in the middle of a pack of enemy wolves. He wouldn't have hurt her, not right then. None of that had mattered to Charles, though-all he could see was those fangs buried in Anna's throat and him all the way across the building and too freaking slow.

He looked at her, just to make sure his vision hadn't happened. She'd found a comfortable spot and stretched out on it, her face tilted toward him, resting on her extended arm.

Anna had said she wanted to talk about some things. She hadn't sounded angry or, worse, disappointed.

And there were things he needed to know. Like why there weren't dozens of wolves bringing him in-he'd heard Dana call for his hide, had expected them. Why Anna said she had left Angus in charge-though he expected that it had something to do with the pull he'd felt from her shortly after he'd left the warehouse.

If Brother Wolf hadn't been foremost, he'd have simply waited for the other wolves, acting for Dana, to attack him in the warehouse. But Brother Wolf had demanded the chance to choose the battleground. That meant down to the shore, so the deep water at his back kept him from being flanked-werewolves don't swim, they sink.

And Dana's element was freshwater, not salt.

But Anna had pulled the rug out from under his battle plans. They weren't coming after him-and Angus, not Dana, had been left in charge. Anna, who was all alone on her log, watching him out of the corner of her eye while he paced.

He kept his distance for a while longer. While he was wolf and Anna a good distance away from him, she couldn't tell him that... what? She was disgusted by his attack on Chastel? That he'd scared her? Or, possibly even worse, she enjoyed watching? She wouldn't say any of it, and he knew her well enough to understand that.

So he didn't know why he came to her as wolf and not man. She sat up and patted the log in front of her. He hopped up and she hugged him, long fingers playing with his ears and the sensitive spots on his face.

She leaned against him. "Love you," she said.

That was what he'd needed. He took a deep breath and changed. She backed away, giving him space.

"How come you don't have four dozen red or blue T-shirts and fifty pairs of boots?" Anna asked when he was finished. "And do you think this mate thing would work well enough that I could change back to human with clothes instead of stark naked?"

He glanced down at himself, fully clothed as usual. No other werewolf he'd ever heard of could clothe himself coming out of the change. He didn't know if it was werewolf magic or a bit of the magic of his shaman grandfather. He only knew that it had started happening when he was fourteen or fifteen and being naked was considered shameful in his mother's tribe. Then it had been buckskins-he could still do those if he thought about it.

Charles turned around so he was facing her, looked hard at her grinning face, and took it in his hands and kissed her as if he could fill himself with her. She opened her mouth and let him in, welcoming him with warm touches and small sounds. They had not been together long enough for even the most basic touches to become routine-but he didn't think he could ever take her kisses for granted, the touch of her tongue, teeth, and lips.

When he pulled away, he left his face against hers as he said, "I don't know. We'll just have to see-keep a count of the red T-shirts, maybe."

"Why red?" she asked. "Why not green or blue this time? I've seen you do blue. Do you pick?"

He laughed, needing this, small intimacies he'd never had before Anna. "I don't know. No one ever asked, and I never paid attention."

She put her mouth against his ear, and the feel of her breath in his ear certainly made him pay attention. "I bet they wondered, though. Too scared of the big bad wolf to ask."

He laughed again, the relief of her presence-not just Omega but his Anna-making laughter necessary, whatever the excuse.

She pulled back, her eyes still smiling. "Dana is a water fae, isn't she? The ones who lure men into the water and drown them."

"Yes."

"How did she do it? Was it compulsion-or was it some sort of manipulation?"

He couldn't read anything in her face. "I don't know. Why are you asking?"

"It's not like you to freak out like that-not without planning it better. And Chastel. He is how old? His modus operandi is more subtle than it was tonight, right? He takes out little kids and human women in front of people too weak to hurt him. You, he would never antagonize like that, not where you would be justified in attacking him face-to-face."

With Anna here, Brother Wolf settled down into a contented presence. Charles could think more clearly, consider tonight's oddities.

"Not quite true. He is reckless sometimes-and no coward, really. He likes to play games: his lunge at you that would have been fatal if he'd wanted it to be-that is very much the Beast of Gevaudan." But she was right in that the Frenchman's behavior had been odd. "But that moment when he laid the bag, his prize, at your feet, that was unusual." He thought a moment. "Romantic, even. I don't know that I've ever heard Chastel had a partner. Women, mostly, he kills. Children, too. It's as if their fragility calls out the worst in him."

"He told Ric and me that he was the opposite of the Omega. All the violence, none of the protective spirit."

Charles felt his eyebrows go up. "That's perceptive," he said. "I would have just called him a sociopath. My father calls him evil."

" 'Evil' works for me," Anna muttered. She played with the bark of the tree: mostly rotted from its immersion in the water, it virtually dissolved under her fingers.

"But the thing with the bag wasn't typical of Chastel," Charles said. "And... what I did wasn't usual either. Not like that. It felt like he had done it, ripped your throat out-even though I knew very well that he hadn't touched you. You think the fae had something to do with it?"

"I think I read bloodlust on her body when you attacked Chastel. The first thing out of her lips was an accusation-of something you actually hadn't done. Stupid fae hadn't remembered that once the bells sounded, the hunt was over." Anna's nails dug into the tree as if she had claws, and her voice was hard. "She wanted you as her prey."

And he knew, suddenly, that the reason Dana hadn't gotten him was sitting beside him on this log. She didn't look tough, his Anna, with her freckled face and body that could still stand to gain ten pounds even though it was considerably more sturdy than it had been the first time he'd seen her. But she was tougher than old shoe leather, and what was hers, she took care of.