Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(48)
Author: Patricia Briggs

Anna stared at him incredulously. If there was a more private man in the world than her husband, she hadn’t met him.

"As for the other…" Charles grinned rather fiercely at her and raised his voice. "Isaac, go on ahead; we’ll follow."

"You’re the man," Isaac called back.

"We’ll trail them closely," Charles said. "If something happens, we’ll be right there – but if we wait until there are more interesting things about than we are, they won’t give you a hard time." He didn’t need to say that no one would give him a hard time.

"Thanks," Anna said, not knowing how else to respond.

He put his hand on her shoulder as they started back up the trail. While they hiked, there was none of the reluctance to touch her that had characterized him for the past few months. He kept a hand on whatever part of her was closest to him.

CHARLES HAD TRIED to open their bond and call up her wolf to defeat the black magic and hadn’t been able to. Brother Wolf had panicked because Charles had somehow messed up their bond – and then Anna threatened to leave them and Charles had panicked, too. If she hadn’t allowed them to make love to her, to reestablish their claim, things might have gotten…interesting, in the same way that a grizzly attack is interesting. Because neither he nor Brother Wolf was capable of letting her go.

It had been something of a revelation.

The bottom line was that he was a selfish creature, Charles decided more cheerfully than he’d been about anything in a long time. He guided Anna around a hole in the ground with a subtle push of his hand on her hip. She probably had seen the hole, but it pleased him to take care of her in such a small way. He was willing to pay any price to keep her safe…any price except for losing her.

When they got back to the condo he would tell her about the ghosts who threatened to kill all that he loved unless he could find the key to releasing them. It was a risk – but quite clearly, he had damaged their mate bond by trying to do this alone – and that was worth any risk to fix. He’d see if, between the two of them, they could mend what he’d broken – and if not, he’d call his da.

If this trip had done nothing else, it had given him distance from the unrelenting grimness that his life had become since the werewolves had revealed themselves to the public. He’d been so focused on duty, on need, and on just getting the job done that he’d lost perspective.

Honor, duty, and love. He would not sacrifice Anna for his father and all the other werewolves in existence. Given a choice, he chose love.

That meant he had to find a way to deal with the ghosts – or quit being his father’s hatchet man. It wasn’t the result his father had been hoping for from this trip, but Charles couldn’t help that. He would not lose Anna even if it meant they went to war with the human population.

The decision left him feeling oddly peaceful, if more than a little selfish.

"We found it," Isaac called.

Charles started jogging and Anna stayed by his side – just where she belonged.

The place where the others awaited them had once been a yard with a small house or storage shed, maybe ten feet by fifteen, in the center. The wooden part of the structure was long gone, but the granite foundation blocks were still in situ. The eyebolt that was driven into one of the blocks might have been original, but the chain and cuffs attached to it were bright and shiny new.

Beauclaire was standing in the center of the foundation, his eyes closed and his lips moving. Charles was pretty sure he was working some magic, but with the feel of the blood magic that had already been done here clogging his senses, he couldn’t tell.

Along the perimeter of the clearing, Malcolm trailed after the FBI agents, who were busily using their flashlights to examine the ground for clues or a trail.

"We’ll have to come back in daylight with a team," Goldstein said, and there was a hard edge to his voice. "We shouldn’t be tromping around here at night; we’re going to miss or destroy clues."

"You aren’t going to get Beauclaire to leave without his daughter," said Leslie. Then she glanced back at the werewolf behind them and stepped a little closer to Goldstein.

Charles took a good look at Malcolm himself. "Malcolm," he said sharply.

The bearded werewolf looked up. "You told me to watch them."

Isaac had been in a low-voiced conversation with his witch, but when Charles spoke he looked over, too.

"Malcolm?" he asked, his voice too gentle.

The other wolf sighed and drifted a little farther away from the FBI agents, but also shifted his body language from stalker to bodyguard. Charles wasn’t sure that the humans could consciously read body language well enough to tell the difference, but their hindbrains could. As soon as Malcolm started to behave himself, Leslie’s shoulders relaxed and she quit patting her thigh with her right hand.

Isaac left the witch kneeling beside the chains, her fingers tracing spells that left little red glowing lines behind them.

"Hally says that there were ten or twelve people killed here over a period of years," he told Charles. "She says that she’ll gather some of her apprentices and they’ll put the island to rights after the police have gathered their evidence. She’s doing what she can now. We don’t want a herd of armed people in a place that has such a strong dark magic residue – the words ‘accidental shootings’ don’t even begin to cover the disasters that could spring up."

"Good," said Charles. That was one less thing for him to worry about. "Any sign of Lizzie?"

"Not right here. No one alive but us and some rabbits within hearing range, and there aren’t any trails into or out of this place. I can’t smell anyone but us in the vicinity. Maybe if I were in wolf form, I could do better."

"We’ll all change to hunt for the girl – except Malcolm, if he can help it," Charles said.

"I can help it." Malcolm sounded a little put out to be left behind.

"We need you to be able to take us back to the mainland in a hurry when we find Lizzie," Charles explained. "She’s going to need medical attention as soon as possible. It’s not just guard duty."

"You believe Lizzie is here," Beauclaire said sharply, leaving off his spell casting. "Can you smell her? Do you have proof?"

Charles waved his hand at the stone. "They have used this place to kill all of their local victims once they are through with them. Do you think that they found a better place than this isolated and quarantined island to keep their victims while they are still alive?"

The fae stared at him, his face hungry. "How do you propose finding her? If she were here, I would be able to find her. But my magic doesn’t tell me anything. It hasn’t from the beginning." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I thought it meant that she was dead."