Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(29)
Author: Patricia Briggs

Leslie Fisher’s face grew speculative before it returned to neutral. She’d caught that Anna’s slip had been on purpose, but she didn’t comment out loud.

"You might as well go home," Fisher said. "If you think of anything else, give me or Agent Goldstein a call."

Chapter 6

Anna locked their door and took the collar off Charles, laying both it and the leash on a small table against the wall.

"If her father is an old and powerful fae, why can’t he find her?" Anna asked.

Perhaps his power doesn’t lie in that direction, answered Brother Wolf. Or there is something blocking him. I do not know a lot about fae magic, other than to say that no magic has answers for everything. It is a tool. A hammer is a good tool, but not useful for removing screws.

"All right," she said. "I’ll buy that." She pulled off her shoes and finger-combed her hair. She was tired. "Can you tell me what’s wrong with Charles?"

Brother Wolf looked at her and said nothing.

"I didn’t think so," she said. "Charles, how can I help if you don’t let me in?"

You cannot help, Charles replied.

She sucked in a breath. "Did you just lie to me?" She wasn’t sure, but it hadn’t felt like the truth, either.

Brother Wolf looked away. Charles will not let you help.

"Fine," she said. "There. I lied to you, too." It wasn’t fine, not even close to fine.

We should be human when the fae lord comes, Brother Wolf said, finally.

Anna didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. After a moment, Charles began changing back. It wouldn’t take him long, five or ten minutes. The blood of a Flathead shaman meant that it took him a lot less time to change than any other wolf she’d met.

It hurt to change, hurt more when you did it back and forth in only a couple of hours – and Charles hadn’t been in a good place when he’d started. Anna could feel the pain he was in – faintly, because he’d never let her feel it all if he could help it.

It was better to leave him alone for a few minutes. It was better to remove herself from the temptation of a real fight, especially when they could have visitors at any time. And they weren’t back to square one, either. Their bond lay open between them, a testimony that he was better than he had been.

It was four in the morning. She debated showering and getting dressed – or brushing her teeth and going back to sleep. She didn’t make it to the bathroom. The bed was still rumpled from when she’d left it earlier, and it was too inviting to resist.

She crawled under the blankets and buried her head in Charles’s pillow. She felt more than heard when Charles came into the room. He paused by the bed and patted her rump lightly, and something inside her relaxed. "Don’t get too comfortable, Sleeping Beauty," he rumbled teasingly, sounding like his old self. He might not be letting her help, but he was making progress just the same, despite his decision to retreat behind Brother Wolf earlier. "We’ll have company sooner rather than later. You made the fae an obvious offer to give him information the FBI won’t, and he won’t wait until a polite time of day to come calling. I doubt he’ll sleep much as long as his daughter’s fate is uncertain – I wouldn’t."

She waited until the shower started before pulling her head out from under the blankets. No. Charles wouldn’t rest while a child of his was in danger. If he had children.

Female werewolves couldn’t carry babies to term. The moon called and they changed to wolves, the violence of it too much for the forming child. She’d asked Samuel, who was a doctor, about staying in wolf form for the full term instead. He’d paled and shaken his head.

"The longer you stay a wolf, the less the human rules. If you stay wolf too long, there is no coming back."

"I’m an Omega," Anna had told him. "My wolf is different. We could try it."

"It always ends badly," her mate’s brother had said roughly. "Don’t, please, talk to Charles or Da about it. The last one was brutal. There was a woman…She managed to hide from Bran until it was too late. A werewolf isn’t a wolf, Anna, who will care and protect its young. When we finally tracked her down, Charles had to kill her because there was nothing of humanity left, only a beast. He backtracked her to the cave where she’d established her den. She’d given birth, all right. And then she’d killed the baby."

His eyes had been raw and wild, so she’d changed the subject. But Anna had her own thoughts on the matter – Brother Wolf was no unthinking creature who would eat his young, and she was pretty sure her own wolf was gentler still. But there was no need for desperate measures yet.

The werewolves were out to the world now with no further need to hide. There were options for couples who could not have biological children for one reason or another that would work for werewolves as well. Right now, with the public so ambivalent about werewolves, it would be difficult to try to use a surrogate to carry their child. But they could afford to wait awhile for public opinion to change.

"For public opinion to change about what?" asked Charles as he opened the door of the bathroom to let the steam roll out. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and was drying his long hair with another.

She didn’t have to answer him because someone rang their doorbell. The fae was supposed to call them; she’d left Charles’s number. Apparently he’d decided to drop in uninvited instead.

Anna hadn’t undressed, so she ran her fingers through her hair and started toward the door. Charles moved in front of her and dropped the towel he held to the floor.

"No," he said.

She rolled her eyes, but said, "Fine. I’ll wait for you."

He dressed quickly without apparently rushing while she watched him. Watching Charles dress and undress was one of her favorite things to do – better than wrapping and unwrapping Christmas presents. Werewolves were, as a whole, young, healthy, and muscled – which were attractive characteristics. But they all weren’t Charles. His shoulders were wide and his dark skin had a silklike sheen that invited her fingers to touch. His long, black-as-midnight hair smelled –

"If you don’t stop that," he said mildly, though he paused with his shirt just over his shoulders so she could see the way the smooth muscles of his back slid down into well-fitted jeans, "our gentleman caller might have to wait awhile longer."

Anna smiled and reached out to run a finger down his backbone. She pressed her face against his cotton T-shirt and inhaled. "I missed you," she confessed.

"Yes?" he said, his voice soft. It got even softer when he said, "I’m not fixed yet."

"Broken or whole," she told him, her voice dropping to a growl, "you’re mine. Better not forget that again."