She didn’t even know if the Marrok would object to the attack. Maybe werewolves were allowed to attack whomever they pleased. That’s what had happened to her.
She turned away from the phone and saw the boy’s face looking out at her from the open newspaper. She looked at him a moment more and then dialed the number again—surely the Marrok would at least object to the publicity it had attracted. This time her call was answered on the first ring.
“This is Bran.”
He didn’t sound threatening.
“My name is Anna,” she said, wishing her voice wouldn’t quiver. There was a time, she thought a little bitterly, when she hadn’t been afraid of her own shadow. Who’d have thought that turning into a werewolf would turn her into a coward? But now she knew the monsters were real.
Angry with herself she might have been, but she couldn’t force another word out of her throat. If Leo knew she’d called the Marrok, she might as well shoot herself with that silver bullet she’d bought a few months ago and save him some trouble.
“You are calling from Chicago, Anna?” It startled her for a moment, but then she realized he must have caller ID on his phone. He didn’t sound angry that she’d disturbed him—and that wasn’t like any dominant she’d ever met. Maybe he was a secretary or something. That made better sense. The Marrok’s personal number wouldn’t be something that would be passed around.
The hope that she wasn’t actually talking to the Marrok helped steady her. Even Leo was afraid of the Marrok. She didn’t bother to answer his question—he already knew the answer. “I called to talk to the Marrok, but maybe you could help me.”
There was a pause, then Bran said, a little regretfully, “I am the Marrok, child.”
Panic set in again, but before she could excuse herself and hang up, he said soothingly, “It’s all right, Anna. You’ve done nothing wrong. Tell me why you called.”
She sucked in a deep breath, conscious that this was her last chance to ignore what she’d seen and protect herself.
Instead she explained about the newspaper article—and that she’d seen the missing boy in Leo’s house, in one of the cages he kept for new wolves.
“I see,” murmured the wolf at the other end of the phone line.
“I couldn’t prove that anything was wrong until I saw the newspaper,” she told him.
“Does Leo know you saw the boy?”
“Yes.” There were two Alphas in the Chicago area. Briefly she wondered how he’d known which one she was talking about.
“How did he react?”
Anna swallowed hard, trying to forget what had happened afterward. Once Leo’s mate had intervened, the Alpha had mostly quit passing her around to the other wolves at his whim, but that night Leo had felt that Justin deserved a reward. She didn’t have to tell the Marrok that, surely?
He saved her the humiliation by clarifying his question. “Was he angry that you had seen the boy?”
“No. He was . . . happy with the man who’d brought him in.” There had still been blood on Justin’s face and he stank with the excitement of the hunt.
Leo had been happy when Justin had first brought Anna to him, too. It had been Justin who had been angry—he hadn’t realized she’d be a submissive wolf. Submissive meant that Anna’s place was at the very bottom of the pack. Justin had quickly decided he’d made a mistake when he Changed her. She thought he had, too.
“I see.”
For some reason she had the strange feeling that he did.
“Where are you now, Anna?”
“At a friend’s house.”
“Another werewolf?”
“No.” Then realizing he might think she’d told someone about what she was—something that was strictly forbidden—she hurried to explain. “I don’t have a phone at my place. My neighbor is gone and I’m taking care of her cat. I used her phone.”
“I see,” he said. “I want you to stay away from Leo and your pack for right now—it might not be safe for you if someone figures out you called me.”
That was an understatement. “All right.”
“As it happens,” the Marrok said, “I have recently been made aware of problems in Chicago.”
The realization that she had risked everything unnecessarily made his next few words pass by her unheard.
“—I would normally have contacted the nearest pack. However, if Leo is murdering people, I don’t see how the other Chicago Alpha wouldn’t be aware of it. Since Jaimie hasn’t contacted me, I have to assume that both Alphas are involved to one degree or another.”
“It’s not Leo who’s making the werewolves,” she told him. “It’s Justin, his second.”
“The Alpha is responsible for the actions of his pack,” replied the Marrok coolly. “I’ve sent out an . . . investigator. As it happens he is flying into Chicago tonight. I’d like you to meet him.”
Which was how Anna ended up na**d between a couple of parked cars in the middle of the night at O’Hare International Airport. She didn’t have a car or money for a taxi, but, as the crow flies, the airport was only about five miles from her apartment. It was after midnight and her wolf form was black as pitch and smallish as far as werewolves were concerned. The chances of someone seeing her and thinking she was anything but a stray dog were slight.
It had gotten colder, and she shivered as she pulled on the T-shirt she’d brought. There hadn’t been room in her small pack for her coat once she’d stuffed it with shoes, jeans, and a top—all of which were more necessary.
She hadn’t ever actually been to O’Hare before, and it took her a while to find the right terminal. By the time she got there, he was already waiting for her.
Only after she’d hung up the phone had she realized that the Marrok had given her no description of his investigator. She’d fretted all the way to the airport about it, but she needn’t have. There was no mistaking him. Even in the busy terminal, people stopped to look at him, before furtively looking away.
Native Americans, while fairly rare in Chicago, weren’t so unheard of as to cause all the attention he was gathering. None of the humans walking past him would probably have been able to explain exactly why they had to look—but Anna knew. It was something common to very dominant wolves. Leo had it, too—but not to this extent.
He was tall, taller even than Leo, and he wore his black, black hair in a thick braid that swung below his bead-and-leather belt. His jeans were dark and new-looking, a contrast to his battered cowboy boots. He turned his head a little and the lights caught a gleam from the gold studs he wore in his ears. Somehow he didn’t look like the kind of man who would pierce his ears.