Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(19)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"Maybe if we were meeting the Queen of England." She thought about it for a moment. "Or if I really needed to outshine someone I didn’t like." She took a few more bites of a sandwich that needed a little something…onion or radish, maybe. Something with a bite.

She really couldn’t imagine a situation dire enough to risk wearing something like that set, especially not if the bracelet was worth four thousand dollars. What if the clasp gave way?

"Ah. That would be never?" It didn’t seem to bother him one way or the other.

Anna thought about it seriously. "Maybe if I needed to intimidate someone – like if my brother decided to remarry and my dad told me he didn’t like her so I had to fly to Chicago and drive her off. I would even cut her in line for a hot dog while I was wearing them. But she wouldn’t be seven, either."

Charles smiled. It wasn’t a laugh or a grin. But it wasn’t his you’re-going-to-die-before-you-breathe-your-next-gulp-of-air smile, either, which was as close to a real smile as she’d seen on his face for a while.

She gave a contented sigh and tapped the toe of her boot against the leg of his suit. They’d have been more comfortable in casual clothes, but then they’d have had to go change. And she was afraid that going back to the condo would give him an excuse to shut down again.

"It’s all right," he said. "We can go change and do some more touristy stuff."

He was reading her through their bond. Hiding the warm fuzzies that gave her behind a distrustful look, Anna took a bite of her sandwich and then said, "Okay. But only if you’ll agree to do this with me." She took her now-bedraggled map out of her pocket and tapped a finger on an advertisement.

Charles looked, heaved a long sigh. "I should have known we wouldn’t get out of here without doing the imitation trolley car cemetery tour complete with costumed ghouls."

"Not in my territory," snarled someone behind her.

As it seemed an unlikely response to Charles’s pseudo-reluctant agreement, Anna initially assumed it was directed at someone else. But Charles tilted his head and lowered his eyelids, the muscles tightening subtly in his shoulders, so Anna turned around in her seat to see who had spoken.

In rows along the outdoor marketplace were dozens of dark green wagons, resembling nothing so much as the covered wagons in her father’s beloved old Western movies. The wagons served as kiosks where people sold T-shirts, purses, or other small portable goods. Standing on the top of the one nearest them was a young-looking black man, fine-boned and slight, watching them – watching Charles, anyway – with yellow eyes as the strings of beading supplies hanging from hooks all over the wagon swayed unsteadily.

From photos, she recognized him as Isaac Owens, the Alpha of the Olde Towne Pack – Boston being the Olde Towne, complete with the final Es. He wasn’t in the habit of running around on the tops of unlikely perches or he’d have been in the local paper a lot more than he already was.

"You’re attracting attention," said Charles in a conversational tone designed not to carry to human ears. Isaac, being a werewolf, would hear him just fine despite being a dozen yards away. "Do you really want that?"

"I’m out. They know who I am." Projecting his voice to anyone who cared to listen – and people were starting to pause what they were doing to listen – Isaac raised his chin aggressively. "What about you?"

Charles shrugged. "In, out, it doesn’t matter." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "No more does your declaration. You lost control of the situation that brings me here when you chose not to report the deaths in your territory. You have no say over what I do or don’t do."

"We didn’t kill anyone," Isaac declared, and pointed at Charles. "And you will have to go through me to take any of my pack."

Isaac was new, Anna remembered. New at his job, new at being a wolf – and, like her, he’d been a college student when he’d been Changed. Normally it would have been years before he was Alpha, no matter how much potential dominance he had. But the Olde Towne Pack had lost its Alpha last year in a freak sailing accident and Isaac, who had been second, had stepped in to do the job. His second was an old wolf who probably didn’t know anything at all about this stunt.

The woman who was working the kiosk – her body bestrewn with hand-beaded jewelry and tattoos in a bewildering mixture of color and texture – was backing slowly away, trying not to draw attention to herself. Not a bad strategy for someone caught between predators, though less glittery jewelry might have helped – another reason for Anna not to wear the diamonds.

"If no laws were broken, no one is at risk," said Charles, and Isaac sneered.

"Get off the stupid wagon before that poor lady calls nine-one-one," Anna said, exasperated. "Come introduce yourself, Isaac, and see what happens." She said it loud enough that she was clearly audible to the crowd of people that was forming a ring around them – close enough to see what was going on, not so close as to get involved. That meant she was speaking almost as loudly as Isaac had been.

The local Alpha looked at her for the first time and frowned. His nostrils flared as he tried to catch her scent – which would have been impossible to filter from the rest of the people nearby except that she smelled like an Omega wolf.

After a rather long pause, Isaac shrugged his shoulders to loosen the muscles and walked off the end of the wagon – a good nine-or ten-foot drop. He landed with flexed knees and turned to the proprietor of the shop, who’d stopped when Anna had drawn attention to her.

"My apologies," he told her. "I didn’t mean to scare you." He smiled and handed her a card. "A friend of mine runs a pub – stop by and have a meal on us."

The woman took the card with a rather shaky hand that steadied as Isaac’s smile warmed. She glanced down and her eyebrows rose. "I’ve eaten there. Good fish and chips."

"I think so, too," he said, gave her a wink, and strolled over to where Anna and Charles sat.

"Nice PR," Anna said. "Though considering what went before, I’m not inclined to give you an A for it."

He studied her, ignoring Charles’s brooding presence. "Ayah, nah," he said, exaggerating his Boston accent into incomprehensible nasal sounds before he dropped most of it to continue more clearly. "What in the hell are you?"

"Good to meet you, too," Anna said. "I bet that card was your second’s idea, wasn’t it? To make up for your lack of manners?" She dropped her voice and added a touch of Boston to it. "Oops – sorry I destroyed your car. Here, have a meal on me. Was that your dog I ate? Oh, sorry. Have a drink at my friend’s pub and forget all about it."