Hunting Ground

She got out of reach quickly and turned back to look at him. He knew that she couldn't read anything in his face. He knew it. He had too much practice controlling all of his expressions.

But she saw something that had her dropping her front half down to a crouch and loosening her lower jaw in a wolfish grin-a universal invitation to play. He rolled forward, and she took off with a yip of excitement.

They wrestled all over the front yard-making a mess of his carefully tended walk and turning the pristine snow into a battleground of foot-and-body prints. He stayed human to even the odds, because Brother Wolf outweighed her by sixty or eighty pounds and his human form was almost her weight. She didn't use her claws or teeth against his vulnerable skin.

He laughed at her mock growls when she got him down and went for his stomach-then laughed again at the icy nose she shoved under his coat and shirt, more ticklish than any fingers in the sensitive spots on the sides of his belly.

He was careful never to pin her down, never to hurt her, even by accident. That she'd risk this was a statement of trust that warmed him immensely-but he never let Brother Wolf forget that she didn't know them well and had more reason than most to fear him and what he was: male and dominant and wolf.

He heard the car drive up. He could have stopped their play, but Brother Wolf had no desire to take up a real battle yet. So he grabbed her hind foot and tugged it as he rolled out of reach of gleaming fangs.

And he ignored the rich scent of his father's anger-a scent that faded abruptly.

Anna was oblivious to his father's presence. Bran could do that, fade into the shadows as if he were just another man and not the Marrok. All of her attention was on Charles-and it made Brother Wolf preen that even the Marrok was second to them in her attentions. It worried the man because, untrained to use her wolf senses, someday she might not notice some danger that would get her killed. Brother Wolf was sure that they could protect her and shook off Charles's worry, dragging him back into the joy of play.

He heard his father sigh and strip out of his clothing as Anna made a run for it and Charles chased her all the way around the house. She used the trees in the back as barriers to keep him at bay when he got too close. Her four clawed feet gave her more traction than his boots did, and she could get around the trees faster.

At last he chased her out of the trees, and she bolted back around the house with him hot on her trail. She rounded the corner to the front yard and froze at the sight of his father in wolf shape, waiting for them.

It was all Charles could do to not keep going through her like a running back. As it was, he took her legs right out from under her as he changed his run into a slide.

Before he could check to see if she was okay, a silver missile was on him and the whole fight changed abruptly. Charles had been mostly in control of the action when it was just he and Anna, but with the addition of his father, he was forced to an earnest application of muscle, speed, and brain to keep the two wolves, black and silver, from making him eat snow.

At last he lay flat on his back, with Anna on his legs and his father's fangs touching the sides of his throat in mock threat.

"Okay," he said, relaxing his body in surrender. "Okay. I give up."

The words were more than just an end to play. He'd tried. But in the end, the Alpha's word was law. Whatever followed would follow. So he submitted as easily as any pup in the pack to his father's dominance.

The Marrok lifted his head and removed himself from Charles's chest. He sneezed and shook off snow as Charles sat up and pulled his legs out from under Anna.

"Thanks," he told her, and she gave him a happy grin. He gathered up the clothes from the hood of his father's car and opened the door to the house. Anna bounced into the living room and trotted down the hall to the bedroom. He tossed his father's clothes into the bathroom, and when his father followed them, shut the door behind the white-tipped tail.

He had hot chocolate and soup ready when his father emerged, his face flushed with the effort of the change, his eyes hazel and human once more.

He and his da didn't look much alike. Charles took after his Salish mother and Bran was Welsh through and through, with sandy hair and prominent features that usually wore a deceptively earnest expression, which was currently nowhere in evidence. Despite the play, Bran didn't look particularly happy.

Charles didn't bother trying to talk. He had nothing to say anyway. His grandfather had often told him that he tried too hard to move trees when a wiser man would walk around them. His grandfather had been a medicine man and liked to speak in metaphors. He had usually been right.

He handed his da a cup of hot chocolate.

"Your wife called me last night." Bran's voice was gruff.

"Ah." He hadn't known that. Anna must have done it while he'd been out trying to outrun his frustrations.

"She told me I wasn't hearing what you were saying," his da said. "I told her that I heard you tell me quite clearly that I was an idiot for going to Seattle to meet with the European delegation-as did most of the rest of the pack."

Tactful, that's me, thought Charles, who decided sipping his cocoa was better than opening his mouth.

"And I asked him if you were in the habit of arguing with him without a good reason," said Anna breezily as she slipped by his father and brushed against Charles. She was wearing his favorite brown sweater. On her it hung halfway down her thighs and buried her shape in cocoa-colored wool. Brother Wolf liked it when she wore his clothes.

She should have looked like a refugee, but somehow she didn't. The color turned her skin to porcelain and brought out rich highlights in her light brown hair. It also emphasized her freckles-which he adored.

She hopped up on the counter and purred happily as she snagged the cocoa he'd made for her.

"And then she hung up," said his father in disgruntled tones.

"Mmm," said Anna. Charles couldn't tell if she was responding to the hot chocolate or his father.

"And she refused to pick up the phone when I called back." His father wasn't pleased.

Not so comfortable having someone around who doesn't instantly obey you, old man? Charles thought-just as his father met his eye.

Bran's sudden laugh told Charles that his da wasn't really upset.

"Frustrating," Charles ventured.

"He yelled at me," Anna said serenely, tapping her forehead. The Marrok could speak to any of his wolves mind to mind, though he couldn't read their thoughts no matter how much it felt like that was what he was doing. He was just damnably good at reading people. "I ignored him, and he went away eventually."