Bran threw his head back and gave a shout of laughter. “Not at all, my dear. But they aren’t set up to deal with this. If I thought I was risking Charles’s life, then I’d find someone else. He’ll be uncomfortable, and it won’t be easy-but there isn’t a wolf in the country that knows the Cabinets as well as my son. And wounded or not, he can hold his own with any wolf you’d care to name.”

“You’re sending him alone?”

Charles couldn’t read her voice, but his father obviously saw something that intrigued him. “Not necessarily.” He got that look on his face when he found a satisfactory solution to a problem that had been troubling him. Charles was just a little too slow to figure out what he’d meant in time to stop him. “You could go with him.”

“No,” Charles said absolutely, but he had the sinking feeling that he was too late.

Bran didn’t pay any attention to him at all. “It won’t be fun. Those are rugged mountains, and you’re a city girl.”

“I’m a werewolf,” she said, her chin raised. “I should be able to handle a little rough country, don’t you think?”

“She doesn’t have a warm coat, gloves, or boots,” growled Charles a little desperately. He could tell his father had already made up his mind, though he had no idea why Bran was so set upon it. “This time of year we’ll be using snowshoes-and she doesn’t have any experience. She’ll slow me down.”

His father had such a look when he wanted to use it. “More than the hole in your leg will?” He folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. He must have read the obstinate refusal in Charles’s face because he sighed and switched to Welsh. “You need time to work things out between you. She doesn’t trust any of us. Here there are too many people who would ruffle her feathers.” His father was a gentleman, he would never say a word against his mate, but they both knew he was talking about Leah. “Your Anna needs to know you, and you don’t reveal yourself easily to anyone. Take her out and spend a few days alone with her. It’ll be good for her.”

“To see me kill the intruder?” Charles bit out in the same language his father used. She knew what he was, but he didn’t want to rub her face in it. He’d gotten used to scaring everyone else, he didn’t want to scare her, too. “I’m sure that will just reassure her a whole lot.”

“Perhaps.” There was no give in his father once he’d decided on the proper course, and everyone who tried to stand in his way would be knocked aside as easily as bowling pins.

Charles disliked being a bowling pin. Mutely, he stared at his father.

The old bard smiled a little.

“Fine,” said Charles in English. “Fine.”

She raised her chin. “I’ll try not to slow you down.”

And he felt as if she’d hit him in the stomach; he’d managed to make her feel unwanted, which hadn’t been his intent at all. He had no gift for words, but he tried to mend things anyway.

“I am not worried that you’ll slow me down,” he told her. “Da’s right. With this leg, I’m not going to be breaking any speed records. This isn’t going to be fun, not in those mountains in winter.”

He didn’t want her to see him kill again. Sometimes it was all right, and they fought him, like Leo had fought. But sometimes they cried and begged. And he still had to kill them.

“All right,” Anna said. The tightness in her voice told him that he hadn’t undone the damage-but he couldn’t lie and tell her that he wanted her with him. He didn’t. And though he knew her ability to detect a lie was still pretty hit-and-miss, he wouldn’t lie to his mate.

“I understand.” Anna continued looking at the floor. “It won’t be fun.”

“I’ll call and have them open the general store,” said Bran. Impossible to see what he was thinking-except that he’d chosen not to help Charles. “Get her equipped however you think best.”

Charles gave up and turned his attention to something he knew how to do.

“Tell them we’ll be there in an hour,” he said. “I’ll need to talk to Heather and Tag first. We’ll head out in the morning.”

“Take my Humvee,” Bran said, taking a key off his key ring. “It’ll get you farther in than your truck.”

Aren’t you just being so helpful, now? thought Charles with frustrated bitterness. Bran couldn’t read minds, but the small smile told Charles that he read his son’s expressions just fine.

Charles wasn’t surprised to see Heather waiting for them. She stood just outside the guest-room doorway, leaning against the wall with her gaze on her feet. She didn’t look up as they approached, but said, “I killed him by bringing him here, didn’t I?”

“Did Tag go home?” asked Charles.

Heather looked up at him, examining his face. “He said he’d had all the blood he could deal with for a while and went downstairs to watch a movie.”

“Your Jack will be fine,” Anna said, apparently impatient with Charles’s neutrality. “Charles and I are going to take care of the werewolf who attacked him-and hopefully that will be good enough that your friend won’t freak out to the press.”

Heather stared at his Anna for a moment. “Thank goodness for someone around here who doesn’t act as if information were more precious than gold. You must be Charles’s Chicago Omega.”

Anna smiled, but he could tell that she had to work at it. “Wolves do tend to be secretive, don’t they? If it helps, I think your bringing the other wolf-Tag, was it?-was the thing that tipped the balance.”

Heather glanced at Charles out of the corner of her eye, and he knew she’d hoped for that when she called her uncle for help. Still, he read the truth in her voice when she said, “He was the only one it occurred to me to call. I knew he’d come just because I asked him.”

Tag was like that.

“Is it possible that we could wake your Jack up?” asked Charles.

“He’s been in and out,” she told him. “He’s just sleeping, not unconscious now.”

The human was a little older than Heather. His face was drawn and pale. As soon as Heather woke him up, the scent of his pain filled the room.

Interesting, thought Brother Wolf, seeing wounded prey. An easy meal.

Charles had never figured out if Brother Wolf was serious or being funny, since they both knew he’d never allow them to feed upon a human. He suspected, uncomfortably, it was somewhere in between. He pushed Brother Wolf back and waited until the human focused on him over Heather’s shoulder.

“I am Charles,” he said. “A werewolf. Heather, I’m not going to eat him.”

Heather backed out from between them though he could tell she wanted to stay there and protect her friend from him.

“Why did you attack us?” Jack whispered, working to get the words out.

“Not me,” Charles said. “Ask Heather. She’ll tell you. We just heard about the rogue a few days ago. I was wounded, and my father wanted to wait until I was healed before sending me after him. We thought that with the hunting season almost over, there was little danger in waiting a couple of weeks.”

“Wounded?”

Charles gritted his teeth to control the wolf-who was wildly disapproving-as he untucked his shirt and turned around. The burn across his shoulders was obvious, but he’d also been smelling his own blood since Anna had fishtailed, so he was pretty sure that the current bandage was bloodstained where it covered the hole in his back.

Neither Jack nor Heather was a threat-but Brother Wolf didn’t care; displaying weaknesses for others was wrong. But it was important that Jack understood why they had waited. If they wanted him to keep quiet, Jack had to understand that they were capable of policing their own under normal circumstances.

“Bullet burn,” said Jack.

“And two more that hit,” Charles agreed, retucking his shirt.

“Jack used to be a policeman,” offered Heather. She’d kept her head averted, not looking at him, and Charles appreciated it.