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WHICH way? Which way? Anna, her tongue lolling out to absorb the coolness of the air, decided to let the others choose Her breath sang out of her throat, and exultation made her shiver

The hunt

It didn&039;twas only a will-o&039;-the-wisp chi of pork that had been spoiling for two days andinside For the first time ever, she loved the hunt even when Charles wasn&039;t running beside her

Because we are with you, Brother Wolf told her That is whatas we live

Good, she told hi time before it ended in a note propped in front of a very sht It read, "I didn&039;t hide any of theus" They weren&039;t the first ones there-she could smell the scents of several other wolves-and another wolf showed up just as they were leaving

Then Ric had picked up another scent-presuh she didn&039;t recognize it And she&039;d been hot on his tail when his Alpha threw his weight against her and she stuainst the wall as a net snapped up and jerked Ric off his feet in a nicely packaged bundle

Between her jaws and Isaac&039;s, it had taken theet it off-after they teased hiing upside down in a tall shaft that ran all the way to the open air some four stories above their head

Isaac made a noise in his throat that sounded sympathetic and probably wasn&039;t The trapped wolf snarled as they left him behind, and Ric&039;s Alpha appeared extremely happy for a while after that

Anna caught Moira&039;s scent and led theh a tunnel no ht fit Isaac was very unhappy-and Ric had to drop to his belly to squeeze through

It dumped the with distress by the tied to destroy the two-by-six wooden wall lined with a moisture barrier that had kept the air out Anna and he had to drag Isaac by the scruff of his neck into a place with better air-though it was sood way) and stale

"ANYONE here have Arthur&039;s rowled No one answered, and so he took his own cell and dialed his father for it

"What&039;s wrong?" asked Bran when he answered on the first ring

"That&039;s e&039;re trying to find out Do you have Sunny Arthur&039;s ive ood as his word, Bran was back on in a moment and read him off the number

"I&039;ll call you when I knohat&039;s happened," Charles said, and hit the END button

He called it, but was unsurprised, given Arthur&039;s distress, that she didn&039;t answer Then he called another number "I need to knohere this cell phone is: 360-555-1834 GPS location, then an address for that if there is one" He didn&039;t bother waiting for a reply, just hung up

Arthur was pale and sweating, his skin chill to the touch His body twitched, but he remained unconscious

It would take a while before hisa trail took tiiven a computer, Internet access, and a few days-his man was better But time was not Sunny&039;s friend

Twenty

"Charles?"

"Yes?"

"That phone is about a quarter us "I have to check this out You&039;ll watch over her for me?"

The Ea, and the fae, we all atch"

THEY found Sunny just outside the fence, a hundred yards froate: naked, broken, and dead Just in case they didn&039;t spot the body, a sky-blue Jaguar that he presuths aith the driver&039;s side door hanging open

Sunny&039;s body was still wared with death

A spirit knelt beside her, one of the forest folk He seldoh he could tell when they were about The spirit&039;s slender brown hands petted Sunny&039;s cheek as it crooned to her-so he knew that Sunny had been alive when they du away as men, who didn&039;t notice its presence, surrounded the corpse It brushed against Charles, and he felt its sorrow pull his own spirit

Poor thing, it told him She was so scared, so scared Alone She was all alone

Distracted, Charles barely remembered to stop the others before they could touch her

"Let me catch the scent," he said "So I&039;ll know her killer" It wouldn&039;t help to question the spirit They told him what they wanted to, whether he wanted to hear it or not

The other wolves backed away, and he set his nose between her neck and jahere scent would linger And he ss could there be running around in the night targeting olves and their kin?

He didn&039;t touch her as he moved from one pulse point to the next Where the vampires had fed, the flesh was torn, but there had been no ti And they had fed everywhere

He s, and stood her witness He was thorough,party But he found no surprises: there were just the four vampires who&039;d attacked Anna

Brother Wolf ild as he understood that this could have been her, this could have been their Anna lying here

Charles closed his eyes and forced his body to stillness Long, cool fingers stroked his face and sang to the hich didn&039;t help What a forest spirit was doing out here in the middle of the city, he didn&039;t know-and he seized upon the distraction of the mystery it offered

He opened his eyes and looked around There were any number of abandoned warehouses nearby-and blackberries, the infa over their e a sanctuary for those who didn&039;t mind their thorns

One randfather&039;s songs run through his head, bringing clarity and peace-despite the spirit that patted and petted him If he&039;d been alone, he would have knocked the spirit away-Brother Wolf didn&039;t like to be touched by anyone except Anna But no one else could see it and he had enough of a reputation for oddness He didn&039;t need people to know that he saw things no one else did, too

When he could be reasonably sure that Brother Wolf would allow him to behave in a civilizedher into the warehouse for Arthur" It wouldn&039;t help the British wolf-except as confirmation that she was out of the valing twenty feet over their heads, up one of the long shafts that occasionally perforated the ceiling of this level-after their near disaster with the airless room, Anna was pretty sure that the shafts were useful

As she stared at it, a wolf snatched victory out of their reach

It was too dark to be sure who it was, even if she had known all the other wolves in their furred for, snatched the prize, and disappeared into another opening a floor lower, still well over Anna&039;s head Watching helplessly as their prize was stolen out fro

Isaac snorted in disgust

And Brother Wolf was surrounding her, his anxiety, his fear and love ainst Isaac-which Brother Wolf did not like at all

So But when she asked, Brother Wolf couldn&039;t or wouldn&039;t tell her

She had to get to Charles Now The probleet back-oh, she could have backtracked, but they had wandered all over the place and would have had to go through the narrow tunnel again

Up would be good

She was running full speed ahead when a white wolf pushed in front of her A second as hard on her tail-Isaac and Ric

It was Isaac who found the first set of stairs headed up They eround floor of the smaller warehouse, and when they made for the door, a olf in human form stopped them

"If you cross the outer door, you are officially done," he said

The Alpha wolf stared coldly at hi up his hands as he backed away "Just saying what I&039;o outside, that&039;s out of bounds"

They ran past hiht of the yard, sneezed his pleasure at leaving the underground labyrinth behind Anna took in a deep breath and s their surroundings for the ene on the other side of the chain-link fence a hundred yards away

It took a moment for her eyes to link the spiffily dressed olderon top of Tootten two good strides in when she hit the side of the white wolf, who&039;d run in front of her to stop her, his attention on the vahed and motioned with his hand A blue minivan drove up, and he cli the door

Isaac growled low in his chest, an echo of the noise she was ht Ric gave them both a puzzled look-but Anna had never run into vampires before yesterday either

There didn&039;t see around here, so Anna turned and hts were blazing, Brother Wolf&039;s presence an ache in her chest

Inside the warehouse, all of the wolves who had stayed in huroup, focused inward There were too

All of the clothes had been pushed against the wall, and it took her a while to sort hers out By the time she had them collected, Charles had found her His eyes were all for the gathering in the center of the room, and there was an odd stiffness to his body that worried her

She changed, her body protesting the shift even more than it had when she&039;d taken wolf form She, like all the wolves, had been well trained not to make much noise while she shifted, but, damn, it hurt

"O," she whispered as her hands slowly, grat ingly, reluctantly re-formed as wholly human She tucked the the pain Every change was different, but she hated the ones where her hands were the last thing to make it to human There are so ht-headed

Charles growled at her pain

She looked up, but there was no one anywhere close to thee on the other side of the pile of clothing She glanced at hirow still His eyes were yellow, and the corner of his ain, as if he had a nervous tic

"Charles?" her voice was still hoarse frouttural, and she knew that he was on the verge of so

Anna worried about it for all of a half second before his words registered "Arthur&039;s Sunny?"

He nodded a quarter of an inch, his eyes locked on her face "Vaates"

And the va for the wolves to find Sunny When he-the vampire in the suit-saw Anna, he old eyes, she decided it was soone She had the plate number, but it wouldn&039;t matter: probably the van was rented anyway

A wolf howled, a wildto show their sympathy for one who had lost his mate-all of them from human throats

Charles held out his hand, and Anna let him pull her to her feet She was a little stiff still-and he looked as though he needed soht of anyone in the rest of the roo naked in front of a bunch of strangers Most wolves got over that in the first year of being changed For Anna, it was still an effort Not because of ave her the illusion of safety frorabbed her clothing and put it on as quickly as she could, shoving her feet into her tennis shoes while she tucked her socks in her pockets

"Is Arthur all right?" she asked

Charles closed his eyes and pulled her to hi in like a marathon runner

"No," he said "And neither am I"

Her skin hurt, her bones ached, and she wanted to be held as much as a person who&039;d fallen asleep on the beach for four hours without sunscreen would want to cuddle But because he needed it, she relaxed against him

Sunny had been killed by vaa if she&039;d been turned" She made it a statement, but she rip tightened Her change-sensitive skin protested, her sore muscles complained, but her anted to burrow inside of him, to keep him safe

SHE was here, she was safe He let the reality of her, of her scent, push away the need to htly, he knew it Just as he knew she needed tiive it to her The sound of her pain as she changed had stirred the wolf up again Brother Wolf wanted blood or sex, and he wasn&039;t going to get either No blood-and no sex, not until he calmed down a lot Brother Wolf wouldn&039;t hurt Anna, but heGradually, as she softened against him, Brother Wolf consented to settle down a bit It would be a long tiain It was too easy to see Arthur&039;s agony and understand that it could have been his own

The attacks were odd Too focused on the wrong things, the wrong people, to acco The attack on Anna could have been an attee But Sunny&039;s death acco He couldn&039;t see why Oeted-especially since one wasn&039;t a wolf So eted the mates of two of the three most powerful or dominant wolves at the conference What would that accoiven that the talks had done all that they could

He couldn&039;t see the shape of what the va fit

O for a wolf Her personal experience with the eneht-Brother Wolf did, and that was good enough for hioal, Charles could think of at least one reason why a wolf ht hire someone to murder Sunny and attack Anna A wolf, especially a do an Oa

Maybe even Chastel wouldn&039;t have been able to do it

Charles ive her space He tried to ignore the relief in her body posture-it wasn&039;t a reaction to hi on her flesh that made her want to stand alone

"You&039;re the first ones back," he told Anna "What brought you in so early?"

She gave him an odd look "Brother Wolf told me you needed me here"

He had no idea what to say to that Should he admit that he had no idea what Brother Wolf had been up to? Would that worry her? Before he had to roup around Arthur and approached Charles

"There is some concern for Arthur&039;s sanity," she murmured softly as soon as she was close

And there were no other wolves here ould stand a chance of controlling Arthur if he lost it, she ," Charles said

"I&039;ll coht?"

He didn&039;t want her anywhere near the other wolves There were too many of them If they all attacked her, there was no way for hia wolf could be useful

"Thank you," he told Anna as he argued silently with Brother Wolf "That would help"

Arthur was sitting on the ground, cradling histo her while the others held a wary vigil His face was streaked with tears and his nose ran "Sunny girl, irl"

He looked up, and his eyes focused on Charles "She is gone"

"Yes," Charles said

"Vampires did this," he whispered Then he roared, his voice echoing in the tall room "They hurt her!"

"I knoill find theed, ale In his pain

"I will"

Arthur tightened his hold on his wife, tucking her head against his shoulder "She hated growing old," he said, rocking her "Now she won&039;t have to My poor Sunny girl"

Angus said to Charles, though he made no effort to quiet his voice, "He&039;ll survive If theto take hiht be a good thing to reether" He looked at Arthur a moment "Arthur, would you let us take you home? The others will be here soon, fresh fro of fear and pain was not, probably, going to send any of these wolves into a frenzy But there was no use in taking the chance