So he went to the only other person who might understand what had happened, why the bond between him and Anna wasn’t complete: Asil, whose mate had been an Omega. Asil, who disliked him almost as much as Leah did, though for different reasons.

Brother Wolf thought that there might be a lot of amusement to be found in this morning’s talk. Amusement or fighting-and the wolf relished them both.

Charles sighed and watched the fog of his breath disappear into the cold air. It might be that this was a wasted effort. Part of him wanted to give it more time. Just because the slow part of the mating process, when wolf accepted wolf, had been finished almost as soon as he first saw her, didn’t mean that the other half would work so fast.

But something told him that there was more wrong than time alone could solve. And a man who had a werewolf for a father and a wisewoman for a mother knew when he ought to listen to his intuition.

Behind him, the door opened abruptly.

Charles continued to rock the porch swing gently back and forth. Encounters with Asil usually started with a power play of some sort.

After a few minutes, Asil walked past the porch swing to the railing that enclosed the porch. He hopped on it, one bare foot flat on the rail, leg bent. The other fell carelessly off to the side. He wore jeans and nothing else, and his wet hair, where it wasn’t touching his skin, began to frost in the cold, matching the silver marks that decorated his back; Asil was one of the few werewolves Charles had seen who bore scars. The marks sliced into the back of his ribs where some other werewolf had damaged him-almost exactly, Charles realized, where his own wounds were. But Asil’s scars had been inflicted by claws, not bullet holes.

He posed a lot, did Asil. Charles was never sure if it was deliberate or only an old habit.

Asil stared out at the woods beyond his house, still encased in the shadows of early morning before dawn, rather than looking at Charles. Despite the recent shower, Charles could smell fear and anguish. And he remembered what Asil had said at the funeral: that he’d been dreaming again.

“Sometimes my father can ward your sleep,” Charles murmured.

Asil let out a harsh laugh, bowed his head, and pinched his nose. “Not from these. Not anymore. Now why are you waiting here for me this fine morning?” He made a grandiose gesture that took in the winter, the cold, and the time of day in one overblown movement of his arm.

“I want you to tell me about Omega wolves,” Charles said.

Asil’s eyes widened with comically exaggerated surprise. “Problems so soon, pup?”

Charles just nodded. “Anna barely knows about being a werewolf. It would be helpful if at least one of us knew something about the Omega aspect.”

Asil stared at him for a moment, and the superficial amusement faded. “This might be a long conversation,” he said at last. “Why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea?”

Charles sat at a small table and watched as Asil busied himself preparing tea as if he were a Japanese geisha, where every movement was important and exact. Whatever his dream had been, it had really thrown Asil from his usual game of playing the crazy werewolf. It was only seeing him like this that let Charles understand just how much of a performance most of Asil’s histrionics were. This was what happened when Asil was truly disturbed: overly precise movements, fussing about nonsense and things that didn’t matter.

It didn’t make him any less crazy or any less dangerous, but he saw at last the reason his father had not put Asil out of everyone’s misery, yet.

“Tea never tastes quite as good here,” the Moor said, setting a delicate china cup edged in gold in front of Charles. “The altitude doesn’t let the water get hot enough. The best tea is brewed at sea level.”

Charles lifted the cup and took a sip, waiting for Asil to settle down.

“So,” the other werewolf said, taking a seat opposite Charles, “just what do you need to know about Omegas?”

“I’m not sure.” Charles ran a finger around the edge of the cup. Now that he was here, he was reluctant to expose the problem with Anna to a man who wanted to be his enemy. He settled on, “Why don’t you start by telling me exactly how they differ from submissive wolves.”

Asil raised his brows. “Well, if you still think that your mate is submissive, you’re in for a real surprise.”

Charles couldn’t help but smile at that. “Yes. I deduced that right off.”

“We who are dominant tend to think of that aspect of being a werewolf as rank: who is obeyed, who is to obey. Dominant and submissive. But it is also who is to protect and who is to be protected. A submissive wolf is not incapable of protecting himself: he can fight, he can kill as readily as any other. But a submissive doesn’t feel the need to fight-not the way a dominant does. They are a treasure in a pack. A source of purpose and of balance. Why does a dominant exist? To protect those beneath him, but protecting a submissive is far more rewarding because a submissive will never wait until you are wounded or your back is turned to see if you are truly dominant to him. Submissive wolves can be trusted. And they unite the pack with the goal of keeping them safe and cared for.”

He took a sip of tea and snorted. “Discussing this in English sounds like I am talking about a sexual relationship- ridiculous.”

“If Spanish suits you better, feel free,” offered Charles.

Asil shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You know about all of this. We have our submissive wolves here. You know their purpose.”

“When I met Anna, for the first time in my life, the wolf slept.”

All casualness erased, Asil lifted his eyes from his tea to look at Charles. “Yes,” he whispered. “That’s it. They can let your wolf rest, let it be tranquil.”

“I don’t always feel like that around her.”

Asil laughed, spitting tea in his cup, at which he gave a rueful look, then set it aside. “I should hope not, not if you are her mate. Why would you want to be around someone who emasculated you that way all the time? Turn you from a dominant to submissive by her very presence? No. She doesn’t have to soothe you all the time.”

He wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin, which he tidied and set beside his cup. “How long has she been a werewolf? ”

“Three years.”

“Well then, I expect it’s all just instinct right now. Which means that if you aren’t feeling the effects all the time, either she feels very safe with you-or you’ve got her so unsettled she doesn’t have any peace to share.” He grinned wolfishly. “Which one of those do you think it is? How many people aren’t afraid of you at some level?”

“Is that what bothers you?” asked Charles, honestly curious. “You aren’t afraid of me.”

Asil stilled. “Of course I am.”

“You don’t have the good sense to be afraid of me.” Charles shook his head and went back to his questions. “Omegas serve much the same purpose in a pack as submissives, but more so, right?”

Asil laughed, a genuine laugh this time. “So now do I defend myself by saying ‘of course I have enough sense to be afraid’?”

Charles, tired of the games, just sighed. “There is a difference, between submissive and Omega. I can feel it, but I don’t know what it means. Instead of following anyone’s orders, she follows no one’s. I get that.”

“An Omega has all the protective instincts of an Alpha and none of the violent tendencies,” Asil said, clearly grumpy at being pulled back to the point. “Your Anna is going to lead you a merry chase, making sure that everyone in her pack is happy and sheltered from anything that might harm them.”

That was it. He could almost pull the strings together. Anna’s wolf wasn’t violent…just strong and protective. How had Anna’s adjustment to being a werewolf-and to her systematic abuse-affected the wolf?

Thinking aloud, Charles said, “Pain makes a dominant more violent while it does just the opposite to a submissive wolf. What happens to an Omega who is tortured?” If he’d been thinking of Asil rather than Anna, he would never have put it in those terms.