Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega 2)

Angus repeated the question for the only one at Arthur's house who couldn't just listen in to the whole conversation. "Moira, do you know of a dagger called Carnwellen?"

"Carnwennen?" Moira squeaked.

"Probably. Tom said the other."

"Carnwennen was King Arthur's dagger. Little White Hilt, it means. Arthur used it to hunt the Very Black Witch."

"It has a white hilt," observed Tom. "Doesn't look all that little to me. 'Bout as long as her forearm, almost enough to be a short sword instead of a dagger."

"It couldn't have been too little," said Moira, when Tom's reply had been repeated for her. "He supposedly cut the witch in half with it."

Anna saw Tom look at the dagger again.

"Yes," he said. "I think it might be good for something like that."

"Keep safe," Angus told him.

"Remember," Moira said, urgently. "Never trust the fae."

Anna frowned, "The troll told us that."

"Told you what?" Tom asked.

But Anna was more concerned with finding Dana than in repeating herself. A paved trail broke off from the road, and Tom caught her arm, pulling her to a stop. "Anna, are we going to Dana's boat?"

"I don't know," she told him-and pointed her finger. "That way."

"We could have taken a car, you know?" he said, folding his cell phone closed with one hand and stuffing it into a pocket.

He was wrong. "No, no car."

His eyebrows lowered. "Of course not. Fairy magic, eh? Cold iron." He took a good look at her wrist manacles. "I would have thought those would keep you safe."

"I have to go," she told him intensely. "Now."

"This is the Burke-Gilman Trail," he told her. "If you are headed to Dana's boat, this trail goes right by her dock. It's a more direct route than running down the road-and we're much less likely to attract interest with that thing. Not many people out on a jogging path in the middle of winter at this hour of the morning."

Then he let her go. Let her decide.

She ran down the trail, stretching her legs and letting the hunt take her. Wild Hunt. It was early morning, but the darkness still kept watch over them, darkness and the faintest sliver of the moon. It was almost the time of the dark of the moon, she thought, but there was still light to hunt by tonight.

THEY were nearly to the docks when the geas faded. She could see Dana's houseboat-but was able to force her legs to walk. Once she had slowed, it wasn't such a hard thing to stop altogether. The manacles were doing the trick, she thought, because it seemed like her hands and feet returned to her control before any other part of her body.

"Tom?" Anna asked, panting.

"All praise to the Virgin Mother," he said. "You're back with me."

"Magic," she said.

"Right. What happened to you?"

She told him, speaking faster as her tongue started working right again.

"Dead bodies talking, eh?" he said. "Nasty." Then he called Moira and Anna told the story to the witch-and presumably all the werewolves gathered around the phone.

"She who takes the dead..." Moira sounded exhausted. "That would probably be one of the Morrigan. Babd or maybe Nemain, probably not Macha. Sorry, you don't need that. My concentration's shot. They want you to kill Dana. Why?"

"She broke her word," Angus said. "Now she's got to be an example. I don't like them using Anna to do it."

"Wild Hunt," Anna said. "They called the Wild Hunt, I think that's what they said. Some of it was a little difficult to interpret. It sounded like the hunt was just to be me."

"They sent a wolf stuck in human form with a dagger-however enchanted-after a woman who is a Gray Lord," Angus said heavily, to whoever else was listening-or maybe just to himself. "I don't think she was meant to succeed."

She is Nimue, the Lady of the Lake. Brother Wolf spoke to her in clear words for the first time. His voice sounded like Charles, but not quite and it thundered through their bond.

After the words, he added a flood of information that had no words. Pain that he tried to keep veiled from her-not hiding it, but protecting her from it. The dagger was part of a treasure stolen by Arthur-including Excalibur, which Dana now had. Worry and command-she was to return to Arthur's apartment and wait for the Marrok. She was to stay away from Dana. He thought she was being used to return the dagger to Dana, for safekeeping.

He thought she was only a warning, meant to be destroyed after she delivered her message.

And then Brother Wolf was gone again-and the bond felt... weaker.

"Never trust the fae," Anna said. She believed Brother Wolf. But she was the only one who had heard him, thank goodness, or they would not let her do what she needed to.

"Moira. How is Charles?"

"Not good."

She knew that, felt it while Brother Wolf communicated with her. "How long does he have?"

"I can help for maybe fifteen minutes more-and then it's just a matter of time. He's in a lot of pain, I think, and that doesn't help."

"If he-" She had to suck in her breath and try again. "If he had died before you got there, would you have been able to tell what had killed him? That it was a death curse? That a fae had laid it upon him?"

"No," Moira told her. "I can't tell who laid it upon him now. If he were dead, probably no one could even tell for certain that it was magic that killed him. If Charles hadn't still been fighting it-"

"And Dana had no way to know that Angus and I both know that she's broken her word to Bran. She would have thought Charles was the only one." She was talking to herself. "How far out is the Marrok?"

She wasn't even sure Bran could help. She'd learned he wasn't infallible, just scary.

"He'll be landing at Sea-Tac in ten minutes."

"Not soon enough," Anna said. She ended the call.

"What are you planning?" Tom asked.

"I think that's too cerebral a name for it," she told him. "I'm playing it by ear. But I think this is Charles's only chance." It was meant to be her death. Charles was dying.

The phone rang.

Tom looked down at it. "Angus. He might tell us to go ahead."

"And if he doesn't?"

Tom turned his phone off. "Do we go in together, or do you want me as backup?"

She thought about it. "She likes men. I think that this might go better if you come with me." She looked again. "But let me borrow your jacket." People underestimated her all the time. Maybe the Gray Lords had, too.