Tired of herself, Anna rubbed her face, puffed out her cheeks, then blew like a winded horse. Finally, she lifted her gaze and met his again. “I’m a mess,” she told him. “Mostly I don’t know what I’m feeling or why-and I don’t want to talk about the rest yet.” Or ever. To anyone. She was a stupid coward and had gotten herself into a situation in which she was helpless. When they got back from the mountains, she would find a job. With money in the bank and something constructive to do, she could get her bearings.

He tilted his head. “I can understand that. You’ve been uprooted from everything you know, dumped among strangers, and had all the rules you knew pulled out from under your feet. It’s going to take some time to get used to. If you have questions about anything, just ask. If you don’t want to talk to me, you can catch my father or…Sage? You liked Sage?”

“I liked Sage.” Did she have any questions? Her irritation at herself transferred to him just fine, even though she could tell he didn’t mean to treat her like a child. He wasn’t trying to be patronizing, only trying to help. It wasn’t his fault that his soothing tone put her teeth on edge-especially when she could tell he was still angry about something. Did she like Sage? As if he had to go out and find friends for her.

She was tired of being afraid and uncertain. He wanted questions. She’d been taught not to ask-werewolves keep secrets as if they were gold in a vault. Fine.

“What was it that Asil said that pushed you from irritated to enraged?”

“He threatened to try to take you from me,” he told her.

She thought over the conversation, but didn’t see it. “When?”

“It takes more than this attraction between us to seal us together as a mated pair. When he told me that you didn’t smell of me, he was telling me he knew we haven’t completed the mating-and that he considered you fair game.”

She frowned at him.

“We haven’t made love,” he told her. “And there’s a formal ceremony under the full moon that cements our bonds-a wedding. Without those, Asil can still make a play for you without retaliation.”

Yet another thing she’d never heard before. If she had been ten years younger, she’d have stamped her foot. “Is there a book?” she demanded hotly. “Something I can look up all this stuff in?”

“You could write one,” he suggested. If she hadn’t been watching his mouth she’d never have seen the flash of humor. He thought she was funny.

“Maybe I will,” she said darkly, and turned on her heel- except there was nowhere to go. His bedroom?

She shut herself in the bathroom and turned on the shower to hide any sounds she made, a second barrier because the door she’d locked behind her wasn’t enough.

She stared at herself in the mirror, which was beginning to fog. The blurring reflection only enhanced the illusion that she was looking at a stranger-someone she despised for cowardice and uncertainty, who was good for nothing except waiting tables. But that was nothing new; she’d hated herself ever since she’d been turned into this…this monster.

A pathetic monster at that.

Her eyes looked bruised, her cheeks pale. She remembered her panicked retreat from Charles’s brief show of temper, how she’d helplessly apologized for forcing her company upon him in this expedition. And she despised herself even more. She didn’t used to be like this.

It wasn’t Charles’s fault.

So why was she so angry with him?

Viciously, she stripped out of her clothes and stepped into the steaming shower, feeling some relief as the pain from too-hot water sliced through the stupid tangle of emotion she was wallowing in.

And in that moment of clarity she understood why she’d been so upset by the end of the funeral-and why she was so upset with Charles in particular.

She hadn’t realized how much she wanted to be human again. She knew it was impossible, knew nothing could undo the magic that had been forced upon her. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want it.

For three years she’d lived with monsters, had been one of them. Then Charles had come. He was so different from them; he’d given her hope.

But that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his fault part of her had decided that she wasn’t just leaving her pack, she was leaving the monsters behind.

He’d never lied to her. He’d told her he was his father’s enforcer, and she hadn’t doubted it. She’d seen him fight, seen him kill. Even so, somehow she’d managed to convince herself that Montana would be different. That she could be normal, could be human, every day except for the full moon-and even that would be different here, where there was room to run without hurting anyone.

She should have known better. She did know better.

It wasn’t Charles’s fault that he was a monster, too.

It had been easy to lay the destruction of the Chicago pack’s holding cell on the silver poisoning. But tonight, confronting Asil, he’d shown her that he wasn’t any different than any other male werewolf: angry, possessive, and dangerous.

She’d allowed herself to believe that it was just the Chicago pack. That the mess Leo and his mate had created was the reason for the terrible thing the pack had been.

She’d wanted a knight in shining armor. A voice of reason in the madness, and Charles had provided it for her. Did he know that was what she’d been looking for? Had he done it deliberately?

As the water matted her hair and ran into her eyes and over her cheeks like tears, her last question clarified and answered her greatest fear: of course Charles hadn’t set out to be her knight deliberately, that was just who he was.

He was a werewolf dominant enough to back down the Alpha of a pack without the resources an Alpha could draw on. He was his father’s hit man, an assassin feared even by other members of his own pack. He could have been like Justin: ravening and cruel.

Instead, he knew the madness of what they were and managed, not just to overcome it, but to use it, to make something better. She had the sudden picture of his beautiful hands gently arranging flowers while his wolf craved violence in the worst way.

Charles was a monster. His father’s assassin. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe a lie again. If Bran had told him to, he would have killed Jack. Killed him knowing that the human was only a victim, that he was probably a good man. But it wouldn’t have been casual. She’d seen the relief that had flowed over him when Bran had found an alternative to killing the human.

Her mate was a killer, but he didn’t enjoy it. Looking at it clearly, she was a little awed at how he’d managed to be so civilized and still meet the demands of who and what he was required to be.

The water was cooling off.

She shampooed her hair, enjoying the way the soap rinsed away so easily; Chicago water was much softer. She conditioned her hair with something that smelled of herbs and mint, recognizing the scent from Charles’s hair. By that time, the water was starting to become uncomfortably cold.

She took a long time combing out the tangles without looking at the mirror and concentrated on feeling nothing. She was good at that, having perfected it over the past three years. When she faced him again, she didn’t want to be a whiney, scared-of-herself nitwit again. So she needed to control her fear.

She knew one way to do that. It was a cheat, but she gave herself permission, if only for tonight because she’d made such a fool of herself by hiding in the bathroom.

She stared at herself in the mirror and watched her brown eyes pale to silvery blue and back. So much and no more. The strength and fearlessness of the wolf wrapped around her and gave her calm acceptance. Whatever happened, she would survive. She had before.

If Charles was a monster, it was by necessity rather than choice.

She dressed in the yellow shirt and jeans, then opened the bathroom door slowly.