Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega 2)

THE water was black under the floating dock, and Anna had no desire whatsoever to play. She knocked at the door, glad for Tom at her back.

"Who is it?" Dana's voice sounded as if she were standing beside them.

"You know who it is," said Anna, not bothering to raise her voice-Dana could hear her. "I have something for you. A gift, a warning-it depends upon you."

"I'm in the studio." The door opened.

Anna led the way through the boat and up the stairs to the studio.

The lights were on, and otherwise the scene was very much like the one the fae had set the first time Anna had been here. She was working on a painting that Anna could not see. The painting the Marrok had sent was hung on the left-hand wall, all by itself. A sword leaned casually against the same wall, but closer to the far side of the room than to the middle. It looked very much like the one Arthur had shown her, had claimed to be Excalibur. From what Brother Wolf told her, this one was likely to be the real thing. Its duplicate was shattered all over Arthur's treasure room, having spent itself defending her mate.

"The Gray Lords sent me here to attempt to kill you," Anna told the fae woman, who had not looked up from her painting.

"Brother Wolf thinks I'm a messenger," Anna continued, "sent here to warn you that if you do this again, the Wild Hunt itself will be sent to you. He believes I've been sent to bring you their gift. And for you to kill." She took a deep breath. "And I think he is right."

The fae looked up from her painting. She was beautiful. Not a cold, flawless beauty, but striking. This was a woman who would be terrible in her anger and fierce in battle. Anna felt the same fascination for Dana that had hit her the very first time she'd seen her.

Anna took a deep breath and closed her right hand over the steel manacle on her left wrist. When she looked again, Dana was still beautiful-but Anna didn't feel as though she was being sucked into her beauty anymore.

Dana smiled, as if Anna's struggles amused her. "Who is Brother Wolf?"

"A friend." Anna didn't want to give Dana anything she might use. "I was meant to come here and attack you-but they didn't count on the little present Arthur's vampires left me with." She showed Dana one of her wrist manacles and shook one foot to make the chains jingle.

"Their failure left me with a few options-and you as well. If I had attacked you, and you killed me... you would be in their power, wouldn't you."

"I am a Gray Lord-I answer to no one."

"When Charles dies. When you kill me-the Marrok would hunt you down. You'd be forced to die or leave this continent. To go back to Europe. To be under their thumbs."

Dana's lips thinned with anger and-Anna's nose told her-a wisp of fear.

"You said you brought me a gift?"

Dana was just trying to change the subject, Anna judged. But Anna was in control of the conversation.

"You didn't know," she said, sounding, with some effort, relatively sympathetic, "when you cursed Charles, that we all knew you broke your word to protect the wolves attending this conference, did you? I saw, Angus saw-and we told Bran and Charles. Not enough for an accusation. But more than enough that if Charles died of unnatural causes, Bran would look right at you."

The fae put down her paintbrush and used it as an excuse to look away. But Anna could tell a lot more from scent than she could from her expression, anyway. The scent of panic was an old friend. She wasn't afraid of Anna. She was afraid of the Marrok. Good. Hopefully it would be enough.

Anna strolled around the painting, until she stood only a couple of feet from Dana.

"Nimue, Lady of the Lake," Anna said, calling upon the part of her that soothed and calmed. "Take the curse off my husband. My word on it that no word of your deceit makes its way out into the world." And my word is good, she thought, but she didn't say it. "The Marrok will not hunt you, nor harry you out of his lands."

The fae stared at the painting on the easel. Picasso was a wiser choice than Vermeer, Anna thought inconsequen tially. Not even experts could agree on what Picasso was trying to say with his paintings. No one could tell Dana she'd gotten it wrong.

"No," said Dana, her voice thick with rage. She raised her hand and pointed it at the painting, not hers, but the one on the wall-the Marrok's gift. "I have not hurt so in a thousand years. Look what he did to me. Every time I look at that, it feels... it feels as it did the day I had to leave it. I vowed before the both of you that I would repay him in kind. That he would pay, and pay in the same way I do-with the same sorrow. I lost my home, he loses his son. I will go back to Europe, and he will-"

Anna stabbed her with the dagger she'd concealed in Tom's jacket. Under the ribs and through the heart-just like her favorite forensic TV show had taught her.

The fae's eyes flashed surprise, just for an instant, before there was nothing in them at all.

" 'No' was the wrong answer," Anna informed her.

"Don't move," said Tom, and he used the sword that had been sitting against the wall.

Anna pulled the dagger out of the body and cleaned it with a rag Dana had on the small table with her paints. Trying to avoid thinking about what had just happened. And failing miserably.

"That's six headless bodies this trip," she said, hating that her voice shook. "And I'm not counting the first two vampires we killed-because their bodies are dust. Six is just a bit much, don't you think?"

"Maybe she'd have stayed dead," Tom told her. "I don't know much about killing fae. Cold iron is supposed to do the trick-and that dagger's got plenty of that, nice sharp cold iron. But I for damned sure didn't want to run into her ever again after this, so there's no harm in making sure."

"Would you... would you call?" Had she been in time? Did it even work? Was Charles dying while she stood here?

Tom took the bloody rag from her and wiped the sword clean with a few efficient swipes. Then he handed it to her and pulled out his cell.

"Hey, Moira," he said. "How's Charles?"

"Better." Moira sounded half-dead. "Not good. Not good by a long shot. But the curse dissipated a few minutes ago. He'll make it."

"That's what happens when an Omega goes negotiating," Angus commented. "Even the fae can't stand against one."

Tom looked down at Dana's body. "Just so," he said. "Though I don't know that anyone expected exactly this result."

THE troll, in his guise as a street person, was waiting for them just outside the door. He was leaning against the boat, smoking a cigarette and watching his feet.