Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega #1)(5)
Author: Patricia Briggs

He turned and held out his hand to Anna, who had stopped at the base of the stairs. She wasn’t bothered nearly as much by the raging wolf as she was by the men who stood in the basement. The walls of the hallway were too narrow, and she didn’t like having so many of them close to her.

"Come here, Anna," said Bran. Though his voice was soft, it was a command.

She brushed past the other wolves, looking at feet rather than faces. When Bran took her elbow, Charles growled savagely-though how he had seen it through the hanging wallpaper was beyond Anna.

Bran smiled and removed his hand. "Fine. But you’re scaring her."

Instantly, the growls softened.

"Talk to him a little," Bran told her. "I’ll take the others upstairs for a bit. When you’re comfortable, go ahead and open the door-but it might be a good idea to wait until he quits growling."

And they left her alone. She must have been crazy because she immediately felt safer than she had all day. The relief of being without fear was almost heady. The wallpaper fluttered as Charles paced behind the barrier, and she caught a glimpse of his red fur.

"What happened to you?" she asked him. "You were fine when we left this morning."

In wolf form, he couldn’t reply, but he did stop growling.

"I’m sorry," she ventured. "But they’re packing up my apartment, and I had to be there. And I needed to get clothes to wear until the trailer makes it to Montana."

He hit the door. Not hard enough to do damage, but in clear demand.

She hesitated, but he’d quit growling. With a mental shrug she threw the bolt and opened the door. He was bigger than she remembered-or maybe it was just that he looked that way when his fangs were so prominently displayed. Blood oozed out of the hole in his left hind leg and trickled down to his paw. The two holes in his ribs were trickling a little faster.

Behind him, the room, which had been pretty nicely furnished when she left, was in shambles. He’d pulled large chunks of plaster off all four of the walls as well as the ceiling. Shreds of the mattress carpeted the room, intermingled with pieces of the chest of drawers.

She whistled at the damage. "Holy cow."

He limped up to her and sniffed her carefully all over. A stair creaked, and he whirled with a growl, putting himself between her and the intruder.

Bran sat on the top stair. "I’m not going to hurt her," he commented. Then he looked at Anna. "I don’t know how much he’s actually understanding right now. But I think he’ll do better in his own home. I called our pilot, and he’s ready to fly out."

"I thought we’d have a couple of days yet." She felt her stomach clinch. Chicago was her home. "I have to call Scorci’s and tell Mick I’m leaving, so he can find another waitress. And I haven’t had a chance to talk to my neighbor and tell her what’s going on." Kara would worry.

"I have to get back to Montana today," Bran said. "Tomorrow morning we’re holding a funeral for a friend of mine who just died. I was going to leave you here to follow me later, but I don’t think it’s a good idea now." Bran nodded at Charles. "He’s obviously not healing as well as I thought. I need to get him home and have him checked out. I have a cell phone. Can you call your neighbor and your Mick and explain things to them?"

She looked down at the wolf who’d put himself between her and his father to keep her from harm. It wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that.

Besides, what was her alternative? Stay in the Chicago pack? Boyd might be a vast improvement over Leo, but…she had no desire to stay with them.

She put her hand on Charles’s back and feathered her hand through his fur. She didn’t have to reach down to do it, either-Charles was a big werewolf. He altered his stance until he pressed against her though he never took his eyes off of Bran.

"Okay," she said. "Give me your phone."

Bran smiled and held it out. Charles didn’t move from between them, forcing Anna to stretch out and grab it while Charles stared coldly at his father. His attitude made her laugh-which made it much easier to convince Kara that Anna was going to Montana because she wanted to.

Chapter TWO

After the disaster this morning, Anna had dreaded the flight to Montana. She’d never been on a plane before in her life, and she’d have thought that it would be terrifying, especially in the little, six-passenger, twin-engine Lear Bran led them to.

Bran sat in the copilot’s seat, which left all six of the passenger seats empty. Charles pushed her past the first set of forward-facing seats with a nudge of his nose and stared at the pair of backward seats until she sat down. When he settled in the space on the floor and put his head on her feet, she set her box on the seat next to her, buckled up, and waited for takeoff.

She didn’t expect to have fun, especially when Charles so emphatically was not. He rode stiff and grumpy at her feet, growling softly when the plane bounced a little.

But riding in the small plane was like being on the world’s tallest amusement-park ride. A gentle one, like the Ferris wheel, but with an edge of danger that just made it all the more fun. She didn’t really think they’d plummet out of the sky any more than she believed that a carnival Ferris wheel might break free and go rolling down the arcade. And no Ferris wheel in the world had a view like this.

Not even swooping in to land on an itty-bitty strip that looked smaller than a Wal-Mart parking lot spoiled her mood. She buckled in and braced herself with a hand on her box so it wouldn’t fall on Charles as the plane dropped, and her stomach tried to stay where it had been. She found herself grinning as they hit the tarmac and bumped twice before the wheels stayed on the ground.

The pilot taxied into a hangar big enough to hold two planes that size, but the other half of the building was empty. Anna gathered her box and followed Charles out of the plane. He was limping badly-staying still for so long clearly hadn’t done him any good. He was still keeping himself between her and his father.

Once on the ground, she started shivering. Her jacket was a little thin for Chicago, but here it was barely adequate. The hangar wasn’t heated, and it was cold enough to see her breath.

She hadn’t realized how close Charles was, and when she turned to look at the plane, her knee hit his bandaged side. He didn’t show any sign it bothered him, but it had to have hurt. It was his own fault, though. If he hadn’t been crowding her, she wouldn’t have bumped him.

"Ease up," she told him, exasperated. "Your father is hardly going to attack me."

"I don’t think he’s worried about my hurting you," Bran said, amused. "Let’s get you somewhere away from all the other males so he can relax a little."