The hall emptied into a cozy kitchen and a narrow stairway lit by skylights and lined with flowering plants growing in various pink, powder blue, and lavender pots. At the top was a large room, one side entirely of glass that looked out over the water. In the center of the room... greenhouse, whatever it was, stood the fae.
Her skin was pale, a stark contrast to the thick hair that flowed to her hips in mahogany curls. Her face was screwed up in concentration which made her... cute. Slender, long fingers, splattered attractively with paint, played with a small paintbrush. Her eyes were deep blue, like a lake in the high summer sun. Her mouth was dark and full. And she was tall, as tall as Charles, and he was a tall man, over six feet.
Aside from the hair, she was nothing like Anna had expected. There were wrinkles at the side of her eyes, and her face was caught between maturity and old age. She wore a gray T-shirt that had less paint on it than her hands did, and gym shorts that revealed legs that were muscled with the stringy power of age rather than taut youth.
In front of her was an easel holding a largish canvas that faced the other direction, so Anna couldn't see what was on it.
"Dana," rumbled Charles.
Anna didn't want the woman looking at her mate. Which didn't make sense. The fae was not beautiful, and she wasn't even paying attention to Charles. It must still be a leftover reaction to the odd moment on the docks.
Or maybe it was the "dear boy."
Anna's hand had found its way back under Charles's jacket, and she clenched the thick silk shirt he wore and tried not to growl-or drag him away.
Dana Shea looked away from the easel, and smiled, a radiant smile that had all the joy of a mother's first look at her infant, a boy's triumph the first time he hits a baseball with a bat. It was warm and intimate and innocent, and it was directed at Charles.
"Dana," Charles's voice was harsh. "Stop it."
A hurt look slid over her face.
"That magic doesn't work with me," he told the fae-and he was starting to sound seriously angry. "And don't think that my father's favor will allow you leeway with me."
Anna closed her eyes. It was a spell. She breathed through her nose, allowing the sharp smell of turpentine and Charles to clear her head. A spell, but she didn't think it was directed at Charles, not precisely. Dana knew Charles; she'd know he had his own defenses against magic.
Anna knew what this was-a challenge. The fae woman wasn't a werewolf, but she was a dominant in her own territory. And just maybe she considered Charles her territory. As he had certainly once been.
That was what her wolf sensed. This woman had slept with Charles. Anna supposed that in two hundred odd years he'd had sex with a lot of women. But Dana had not been Charles's mate.
Taking another deep breath, Anna leaned her forehead against Charles's arm and thought of the way his scent made her feel, of the sound of his laughter and the rumble of his voice in their bed at night. She wasn't looking for the passion, though there was plenty of that, but for the deeply centered clarity that he brought to her-and she returned to him. Something that she alone could give him: peace.
His muscles softened against her forehead, and his lips came down to brush the top of her head. She opened her eyes and met the fae's gaze.
"Mine," she said firmly.
The fae gave her a slow smile. "I see that." She looked at Charles. "You understand the impulse," the fae told him. "I couldn't resist testing her. I've heard so much about the puppy who caught the old dog in her trap."
"Careful," warned Charles. "That strays perilously close to a lie."
The fae raised an eyebrow in offense.
"You don't want me," he told her. "Don't be a dog in the manger."
She turned up her nose and started painting again, all but turning her back to them. "Aesop. I'm trying for Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, and you bring up that dry old Greek."
"I suppose if Dana is occupied, we can give her the Marrok's gift tomorrow," said Charles without making a move to leave.
The fae sighed. "You know what I like best about you-and hate the most-is that you never have known how to play properly. I am the jilted older woman whose onetime flirt has found a younger, prettier woman. You are supposed to be embarrassed that your new love knows about us." She looked at Anna. "And you. I expected better from you-you are his woman. You should at least be angry with him for not warning you we'd been lovers."
Anna gave her a cool look, remembered that they had come here to make nice with someone who would help them accomplish their task, and didn't say, "You aren't worth getting angry about." Instead, she simply told her, "He is mine, now."
Dana laughed. "You might just do, after all. I was afraid he'd found someone who would always give him his own way, and that would be dreadfully bad for him. Just look what being mated to that whiny fashion plate has done to his father." The fae started to put out a hand, but then gave it a rueful look. "I would shake your hand, but I'd get paint all over you. I am known here as Dana Shea and you must be Charles's mate, Anna Cornick, who was Anna Latham of Chicago." Anna, remembering what Charles had told her about True Names, was a little uneasy with how... precise the fae woman had been in naming her.
"I'm not the only one," Dana continued, "who has been curious about the woman who managed to tame our old wolf. So be prepared for a lot of rudeness from the women"-her voice took on a serious warning note as she looked at Charles-"and flirting from the men."
"You've heard something?" Charles asked her.
Dana shook her head. "No. But I know men, and I know wolves. None of them are dominant enough to face you directly-but they'll see her as a weakness. When your father chose to stay home, he gave them an opportunity for challenge. You are not an Alpha-and they'll resent having to listen to you." She took up a turpentine-soaked rag and cleaned her hands. "Now I'll quit lecturing you, and you can come around here and take a look at what I've done instead."
Chapter THREE
BRAVE woman, thought Anna, to thoroughly antagonize us, then show us something that matters to her. There was nothing in Dana's face to show that their opinion was important to her-but Anna could see it in her body language.
Anna didn't know what to expect, but she drew in her breath when she got her first view of the painting. It was skillfully executed, exquisite in detail, color, and texture. A robust young woman with reddish hair and pale complexion leaned her head against a plastered wall and stared out of the painting at something or someone. There was a yellow flower, delicate and fine-textured, held in hands that were neither.