Sarai frowned at her. "No one is safe enough. Not in these times." But even as she scolded her, she enfolded the girl she'd reared as her own in her arms. "You've grown, child, let me look at you." She took two steps back and shook her head. "You don't look well. Are you all right? Linnea promised she'd take care of you...but these are dark times."
"I'm fine, Sarai," Mariposa told her, but the girl's voice was wrong, flat and confident-and she was lying.
Sarai frowned at her and put her hands on her hips. "You know better than to try lying to me. Has someone hurt you?"
"No," Mariposa replied in a low voice. Asil could feel her power amass around her, different now than it had been when they'd first sent her to her own kind for training. Her magic had been wild and hot, but this power was as dark and cold as her voice had been.
She smiled, and for a minute he could see the child she'd once been instead of the witch she had become. "I've learned a lot from Linnea. She taught me how to make sure no one can ever hurt me again. But I need your help."
The doorbell woke Asil up before he had to watch Sarai die again. He lay in his empty bed and smelled the sweat of terror and despair. His own.
* * * *
Charles made himself at home on the old wolf's porch swing and tried to lose himself in Indian time. It was a trick he'd never quite mastered-his grandfather had always grumbled that his father's spirit was too strong within him.
He knew Asil had heard the doorbell, he could hear the spit of the shower-and he'd never expect Asil to do him the courtesy of a quick appearance, especially when his visit had come at such an ungodly early hour in the morning. He and Anna would be getting a late start, but their prey wasn't a fish who was best caught in the dawn's light anyway. And this was more important to him than catching a rogue, even if that rogue was killing people.
He'd almost gone to his father instead of Asil after he'd talked to Heather at Bran's house. It was only the scent of his stepmother that kept him from knocking on Bran's bedroom door. This morning, Charles hadn't been up to the dance Leah would insist he perform. When she had driven him to being rude (and she would), his father would intervene; no one, not even one of his sons, was allowed to be disrespectful of the Marrok's mate. And then there would be no discussion anyway.
So he went to the only other person who might understand what had happened, why the bond between him and Anna wasn't complete: Asil, whose mate had been an Omega. Asil, who disliked him almost as much as Leah did, though for different reasons.
Brother Wolf thought that there might be a lot of amusement to be found in this morning's talk. Amusement or fighting-and the wolf relished them both.
Charles sighed and watched the fog of his breath disappear into the cold air. It might be that this was a wasted effort. Part of him wanted to give it more time. Just because the slow part of the mating process, when wolf accepted wolf, had been finished almost as soon as he first saw her, didn't mean that the other half would work so fast.
But something told him that there was more wrong than time alone could solve. And a man who had a werewolf for a father and a wisewoman for a mother knew when he ought to listen to his intuition.
Behind him, the door opened abruptly.
Charles continued to rock the porch swing gently back and forth. Encounters with Asil usually started with a power play of some sort.
After a few minutes, Asil walked past the porch swing to the railing that enclosed the porch. He hopped on it, one bare foot flat on the rail, leg bent. The other fell carelessly off to the side. He wore jeans and nothing else, and his wet hair, where it wasn't touching his skin, began to frost in the cold, matching the silver marks that decorated his back; Asil was one of the few werewolves Charles had seen who bore scars. The marks sliced into the back of his ribs where some other werewolf had damaged him-almost exactly, Charles realized, where his own wounds were. But Asil's scars had been inflicted by claws, not bullet holes.
He posed a lot, did Asil. Charles was never sure if it was deliberate or only an old habit.
Asil stared out at the woods beyond his house, still encased in the shadows of early morning before dawn, rather than looking at Charles. Despite the recent shower, Charles could smell fear and anguish. And he remembered what Asil had said at the funeral: that he'd been dreaming again.
"Sometimes my father can ward your sleep," Charles murmured.
Asil let out a harsh laugh, bowed his head, and pinched his nose. "Not from these. Not anymore. Now why are you waiting here for me this fine morning?" He made a grandiose gesture that took in the winter, the cold, and the time of day in one overblown movement of his arm.
"I want you to tell me about Omega wolves," Charles said.
Asil's eyes widened with comically exaggerated surprise. "Problems so soon, pup?"
Charles just nodded. "Anna barely knows about being a werewolf. It would be helpful if at least one of us knew something about the Omega aspect."
Asil stared at him for a moment, and the superficial amusement faded. "This might be a long conversation," he said at last. "Why don't you come in and have a cup of tea?"
Charles sat at a small table and watched as Asil busied himself preparing tea as if he were a Japanese geisha, where every movement was important and exact. Whatever his dream had been, it had really thrown Asil from his usual game of playing the crazy werewolf. It was only seeing him like this that let Charles understand just how much of a performance most of Asil's histrionics were. This was what happened when Asil was truly disturbed: overly precise movements, fussing about nonsense and things that didn't matter.
It didn't make him any less crazy or any less dangerous, but he saw at last the reason his father had not put Asil out of everyone's misery, yet.
"Tea never tastes quite as good here," the Moor said, setting a delicate china cup edged in gold in front of Charles. "The altitude doesn't let the water get hot enough. The best tea is brewed at sea level."
Charles lifted the cup and took a sip, waiting for Asil to settle down.
"So," the other werewolf said, taking a seat opposite Charles, "just what do you need to know about Omegas?"
"I'm not sure." Charles ran a finger around the edge of the cup. Now that he was here, he was reluctant to expose the problem with Anna to a man who wanted to be his enemy. He settled on, "Why don't you start by telling me exactly how they differ from submissive wolves."
Asil raised his brows. "Well, if you still think that your mate is submissive, you're in for a real surprise."