“And this is my Anna.” He looked at Tom. “There are too many dominant wolves, and she’s been”-not afraid; he found a better word and used it-“overwhelmed this morning.”

Anna stiffened.

It was Tom who saved him. “Good to meet you. Hell. I’m a little overwhelmed, too. Who wouldn’t be?”

“But you aren’t an Omega,” Charles told them. “Tom-you probably wouldn’t notice-”

The witch interrupted him. “Because he was too worried about me being ‘overwhelmed’ himself”-she nudged Tom with her shoulder-“by all the überwolves. Not being handicapped by overprotective, studly impulses, I could pay attention to other things. By the end, they were all focused on Anna, weren’t they?”

Charles felt his eyebrow creep upward as he looked at the witch.

“Hey.” Moira shrugged. “I’m blind, not sensory deprived.”

“I’m causing trouble for you,” said Anna. “I’m sorry. I’ll try not…”

Under his gaze, her voice trailed off. “Do not,” he told her softly, “apologize to me for what was done to you. If it were you who were the problem, I would have no worries. You would stay here and not flinch if the Beast himself leapt slavering in your face. Your courage is not in doubt.”

The witch pursed her lips, and said, “Wow. That was a good one.”

After an assessing look at Charles, Anna turned to Moira, and said, in a very serious voice, “He scored a few points, all right.” She looked back at Charles. “So what is the problem, if it isn’t me?”

“Omega,” said Charles formally, “it is the privilege of the dominants to protect our submissive ones, the heart of our packs. Alphas are called upon to protect even more strongly. An Omega calls to us strongest of all.”

Anna gave a puzzled nod. She already knew that, Charles thought. She just couldn’t see what it had to do with the situation. She was too used to looking at the dominant wolves as threats.

“Sweetie,” said the witch, “while you were up here getting the cold shakes from all those nasty wolves staring at you-they were trying to figure out why you were upset and who they needed to kill for you.”

“Whoops,” said Anna as she comprehended the scope of the problem. “I-” He saw her bite back her apology. “I need to go, then, don’t I? I can go back to the hotel.”

“Well,” said Charles apologetically, “I’m afraid that won’t work.”

“Why not?” Anna smiled, and asked archly, “So are you renting it out during the day? Stashing ex-girlfriends there?”

He didn’t have to bend very far forward to touch the top of her head with his chin. Putting his mouth next to her ear required just a little more bending.

“Because Brother Wolf has been spending the whole morning getting pretty worked up, too.” He pulled back and let his brother out just enough so she could see him in his eyes. “If you were in our hotel room, I’d never get anything done here for his fretting.” He looked at Tom. “You weren’t doing so well either.”

Angus’s second started to smile. “You want Moira and me to take your lady out to play?”

“If Angus will let you.”

Tom pulled out a cell phone. “I don’t think he’ll have any objection.”

Charles narrowed his eyes at Anna. “This is important as well. You have the credit cards. I want you to use them.” He watched the refusal in her face-she didn’t feel part of him… part of them yet. His money was not hers, not to her.

She was independent, and she’d spent at least the last three years almost too broke to feed herself. Money was more important to her-and spending someone else’s an impossible task. “You need clothes of all sorts. What we could get for you in Aspen Creek is not sufficient for this venue. Your status as my wife means you need clothes for formal occasions. Dresses, shoes, and all the trimmings.”

She was still mutinous, but weakening.

Tom put down his phone. “Boss says fine.”

“And,” he said, “if you go shopping for the Christmas presents, I won’t have to.”

She grinned suddenly at that-and he knew he had her. “Okay. Okay, fine. What are the limits?”

Tom raised an eyebrow-that Charles handled the Marrok’s finances… and was very good at it, was pretty well-known.

Charles tilted his head. “If you decide you want to buy a Mercedes, you might have to pull out both cards. Go. Conquer downtown Seattle so I don’t have to.”

“Banished.” Anna sighed, but she couldn’t hide the humor that softened her expression as she gathered her jacket and purse. But he took her comment seriously.

“Not permanently,” he said. “We’ll go and introduce you to Arthur more properly tonight. You’ll know Tom and Moira by the end of today. I think that if we keep you out of the auditorium today, everything will work itself out.”

“Tomorrow night Angus has invited everyone to our hunting grounds,” Tom said.

Charles nodded. “That will be less formal, and everyone will be paying attention to the hunters. Give them some chance to observe you without staring and vice versa.”

“Where do you hunt?” she asked Tom. “By the airstrip?”

Tom shook his head. “Angus has a pair of warehouses.”

“It’s cool,” said Moira. “He’s turned the whole thing into a maze-tunnels, lots of half stories and walls that can be moved to change it up. You’ll have a great time.”

“What are we hunting?” Anna’s voice had lost the tautness of stress.

“A treasure,” said Tom. “The exact nature of which is a surprise. We dragged stuff all over the warehouse yesterday.” He glanced down. “Wolves eat fast. If we’re going to leave, we ought to get out now.”

Anna gave Charles a shy kiss on the cheek and strolled out of the room without a backward glance. Until she reached the doorway, and then, in full view of the curious who’d had the courage or discourtesy to linger in the auditorium after he’d dismissed them, she kissed her palm and blew it to him.

And despite… or because of their audience, he caught it in one hand, and pulled the hand to his heart. Her smile dropped away, and the expression in her eyes would feed him for a week. And the expressions on the faces of the wolves who knew Charles, or knew his reputation, would make him laugh as soon as no one was watching. Keeping them off balance wasn’t a bad thing either.

SHE wondered that the cards Charles had given her hadn’t burned their way out of her purse from the blaze of frictional heat. They’d already dropped one load of shopping at the hotel and had just completed the last bit.

“We’re about halfway between the hotel and Angus’s offices,” she said. “Which way should we head?”

“I’ll take you back to Charles,” said Tom.

“If you’re going to eat with that stuck-up Brit, you need to get ready,” advised Moira over the top of him. “Go to the hotel and start on it. You have a cell, your mate has a cell. If he doesn’t know where to find you, he can call.”

Anna looked at Tom.

He shrugged, his face not looking half as meek as his words. “You think I’m going to argue with her, you’ve got another think coming.”

Moira bumped him with her hip. “Ooo. You’re so scared of me.”

The big, scary wolf grinned, his mouth pulled a little by the scar on his face. “Truth. Nothing but the truth.” He spoiled it by rubbing the top of her head, then he kept his hand where it was so he could stay out of reach as she batted at him.

Anna had quit being nervous around him after the first hour as he patiently led them from one store to another. She’d heard of Pike Place Market for years… and at first she hadn’t been that impressed. It looked like just another flea market… with fresh fruit and fish.

Then Moira began tugging her here and there to this little store and that little booth-for a blind woman she was a heck of a shopper. And Tom was always in the right place to put his arm out to guide her and murmur low-voiced warnings as they dodged around other shoppers and across the uneven floor.