Charles couldn’t help but wonder if matters would have been different if his father had been here.

ANGUS had over a hundred channels on his TV: sports channels, news channels, comedy channels, cartoon channels, science channels, and about fifty shopping channels. The only thing either Anna or Ric could stand to watch was a South Park marathon.

The kids were being chased by the Nazgûl fifth graders-and the station switched to a commercial for male enhancement products.

“So,” Anna said to distract herself from the silly grin on the face of the man on TV, “you think entering the hunt will be useful how?”

The man must have bothered Ric, too, because he jumped up from the couch and turned off the television before settling back on the desk again. “I don’t think that my Alpha understands the difference between submissive and Omega. Now that I do, I would like him to also. I think the hunt will help-a game where I can face down the dominants with impunity.”

“You think that would work? Charles would just strangle me and put me out of his misery.”

He leaned back and waved his hands. “Hello, psychologist, yes? Or almost. Of course I don’t know. I believe it will help me-and I think that participating in the hunt will help you with this issue you have with dominant wolves.”

“Like throwing the kid who is afraid of water into the deep end to sink or swim?”

He grinned. “Not so bad as that. I think that if you have something to do, some task-like finding this bait that the fae lady and Angus have hidden in the pack’s hunting grounds-I think you won’t be so afraid. And if you are not afraid, they will not crowd you. And by the time you have a moment to worry about them”-he snapped his fingers-“they will have been surrounding you, hunting with you, and it will seem silly to be afraid.”

She looked at him. Charles had suggested something similar, she remembered. Though he hadn’t intended her actually to participate. “The ocean. Like throwing a two-year-old into the ocean. With sharks.”

He laughed. “Look. I am not long a wolf, but I observe. My mentor at the uni-university to you-he says I am a genius. I will give you his number, and he will tell you so.” He paused, and he grinned a little self-consciously. “Of course he will also tell you I died tragically in a skiing accident. Anyway, it means this: you should listen to me.

“We wolves are more resilient than when we were human. The wolf is always in the present, it does not worry much about past or future. Your wolf will keep you from panicking if she can. The hunt will give her the help she needs. By the end, you will be better because she will help you.”

“Unless they do kill me,” Anna said.

“No blood,” Ric said. “It is in the rules. Did you see the way that fairy made the Beast shut his mouth yesterday, or was that after you left?”

“Before,” Anna said. “And they prefer fae. A fairy is a specific kind of fae whose actual form is about twelve inches high-and I’m pretty sure that Dana is not one of those.”

“And she will be on hand to keep things safe: they will behave themselves.”

She knew Charles wouldn’t be happy if she chose to be in the hunt. Accidents happen. Especially when they are on purpose. Charles had enemies, and it would do her no good to be avenged after she died. She didn’t want to make Charles unhappy with her.

“Look,” said Ric seriously. “Isaac, my Alpha, will be in this hunt, too. I think he’ll agree to bodyguard you with me. No one else is going to be working together. Can you imagine Alphas cooperating with each other? The three of us, we stand a better chance at winning. And we can keep you safe.”

“I had two people get hurt trying to defend me yesterday,” Anna said. “And that was on a shopping trip.”

“Someone tried to hurt you?”

She knew Charles had called his Alpha last night to warn him about the possibility that the vampires had been targeting her because she was an Omega-rather than because she was Charles’s mate. Apparently he’d decided not to pass on the news.

“You should have been told,” she said-and then she took care of it.

“We are viewed as weak,” Ric said grimly when she had finished. They’d decimated the nuts, eaten the lunch delivered by a pair of Angus’s wolves, then found a secret stash of trail mix. Ric picked through the bag and took a couple pieces of dried peach. Then he threw them up into the air, catching them in his mouth on the way down in two quick snaps. “Maybe it is not just my wolves who need to be told but everyone else as well. It is not safe in our world to be seen as weak. It makes us prey.”

“If your Alpha didn’t look at you as some sort of super-submissive, he’d have told you about the threat of the vampires, and you’d have been alert to the danger,” Anna agreed.

He tossed her a couple of banana chips, and she snatched them out of the air without her hands as well.

He saluted her. “Though, mind you, I think that’s a piss- poor way of protecting even the submissive ones. They are not children-they are werewolves.”

He closed his eyes, tossed a cranberry into the air, and ate it on the way down. “You say we are like submissive wolves who do not obey. I wonder if there are dominant wolves who do not protect?”

“Yes.”

Anna looked up, but Ric had to turn all the way around to see Chastel standing in the doorway.

“They call us beasts.” He smiled at Anna, his eyes hungry. “Are you afraid of me, little girl?”

Ric might as well not have been there for all the notice Chastel took of him. His focus was all on her, his eyes wide and golden. A faint flush over his cheekbones told her that he was excited-he looked just as Justin, the wolf who had Changed her, had looked before-

She swallowed that thought. This man was looking for prey. And she would not be sport for him. Nor for anyone. Not ever again.

She called up her wolf, not so much to start the change but to borrow the wolf’s courage and let it settle into her bones. When she was certain her knees wouldn’t shake, she stood up as the silence gained weight like a brewing storm. She took her time before answering-he displayed the patience of a good hunter.

“You’re the one who should be afraid,” she said finally, letting her matter-of-fact voice carry the message she wanted to give him-that she wasn’t afraid of him. Because she was afraid of him, she couldn’t tell him she wasn’t. But she could lie with the truth and make it stick.

“If you touch me, Charles will hunt you down and eat your marrow while you are still alive to scream.” She called upon her two acting classes and let her mouth turn up. “I’ll be happy to watch.” She licked her lips.

The smile dropped off his face, and he growled.

She wasn’t helpless, not like she’d been in Chicago when Justin hunted her down-or later, when the pack helped subdue her to his will. Here, the only other person in the room was Ric-and he would help her, not Chastel. Chastel would best her, probably best them both. But she would make sure he was hurt-and then Charles would kill him. Her wolf approved, and her fear slid away, leaving her balanced lightly on the balls of her feet and ready for blood and death.

There was only now, between this breath and the next-and that left no time for fear.

“Your vampire was lovely. She died too quickly.” Anna imitated the motion she’d used to snap the woman’s neck. “Hopefully you’ll make a better show.”

“My vampire?” He dismissed her words with an impatient hand. “You are a fool, and your mate is a thug, lacking in intelligence. Nothing but his father’s lapdog, who fetches and kills on command.”

She let her smile bloom. “Is that what you think? How foolish of you.”

With the hand that the Frenchman couldn’t see, Ric gestured sharply, trying to get her to stop baiting the Beast. She knew it was stupid, but Ric couldn’t know that her alternative was cowering in a corner. So she baited him.