3

Charles held two of the awkward drink carriers and strode through the crowded hotel lobby. In his hurry, it didn’t dawn on him that there was anything unusual about the way his path cleared, or the empty elevator that took him to the third floor where their meeting with the feds was to take place. Not until the man waiting for the elevator when it opened on the third floor backed up three paces and, keeping a wary eye on Charles, broke for the stairs, did it strike him that people’s reactions had been a little unusual.

He was a big man and Indian. (He’d been Indian for more than a century and only occasionally thought of himself as Native American. When he paid any attention at all, he might consider himself half-breed Salish or Flathead.) The combination of size and ethnicity usually had people avoiding him, especially in places where Indians weren’t as commonplace. Not their fault; it was in the nature of man to find the unknown intimidating, especially when it came in the shape of a big predator. His da dismissed it, but Charles was pretty sure that somewhere in their hindbrain most people knew a predator when they met one.

His brother maintained that what sent people backing away was neither his size nor his mother’s blood, but solely the expression on his face. To test Samuel’s theory, Charles had tried smiling – and then solemnly reported to Samuel that he had been mistaken. When Charles smiled, he told Samuel, people just ran faster.

The only one who appreciated his sense of humor was Anna.

People didn’t retreat from him when Anna was beside him. But even without Anna’s presence, having a person he wasn’t even looking at backing away from him as if he held a loaded gun instead of a bunch of espressos and lattes in a pair of flimsy cardboard drink carriers was a little excessive. He steppedout of the elevator and moved slowly so the man didn’t think he was giving chase.

Brother Wolf thought it might be fun and sent him a picture of the man running terror-stricken through the lobby as Charles loped behind him– still carrying the silly drinks. Because Anna had specified hot drinks for all, and he would never welsh on a bet.

So he walked with deliberate slowness down the hall instead of chasing, instead of rending and tearing sweet, metallic, blood-drenched meat between his teeth, just as he’d taken the elevator instead of running up the narrow stairs where someone might bump into him and spill the drinks.

Da had been crazy to send him on such a mission when he was so close to losing it that even a clueless human could tell there was something wrong with him. Charles had known there was something up when he’d arrived for lunch as requested and it had been only his father who awaited him, cooking BLTs in the big house’s kitchen.

Da had eaten his own lunch and waited until Charles had finished his before leading the way to the study. His father shut the door, sat behind his desk, and pursed his lips, giving Charles his‘I have a job for you and you aren’t going to be happy with me’ look. Father–son meals often included that expression on his father’s face. When Da wanted to talk to him alone, it was seldom a happy talk.

Charles waited, standing, to hear what his father had to say. His wolf was agitated, unhappy– and that meant he could not sit on the chair provided and hinder his ability to move.

‘Asil has been nagging at me about you,’ Da said.

‘Asil?’ Asil didn’t particularly like him – and Charles hadn’t so much as seen Asil for a couple of weeks. Which, come to think on it, was a little odd in a town so small someone might sneeze twice and never notice they’d driven all the way through it.

‘Anna, of course, goes without saying,’ Da continued.

Charles braced himself. She knew why someone had to keep order; she knew why it had to be him– she just thought he was more important. Anna was wrong, but it warmed him that she thought so. If her opinion had made his father decide to send someone else, though, it was something that had to be dealt with. Charles, as the Marrok’s son and longtime troubleshooter, was the only option for keeping the violence down to unnoticeable-by-the-public standards. His reputation – and who his father was – kept the packs from going to war to protect their own when someone needed to die.

‘I know what she had to say. But Anna is wrong. Brother Wolf is not ready to break loose.’

‘No,’ agreed his father softly. ‘But your grandfather would tell you that you need to cleanse yourself of all those ghosts you carry with you.’

Charles flinched. He should have known that his da would understand what was happening to him. Da wasn’t a spiritual man, not that Charles could tell, anyway. He was pretty sure that his father couldn’t see the ghosts the way that his grandfather would have. But his da had a way of seeing right to the heart of things when he wanted to.

‘I have tried,’ Charles said, feeling about thirteen. ‘Fasting and sweat lodge haven’t worked. Running. Swimming.’

‘You hold on to them because you do not feel that their deaths were just.’

Charles turned his head away slightly and angled his eyes down but not so far that he couldn’t see Da’s face. ‘It is not for me to determine the law, only to carry it out.’

Da frowned at him, not like he was displeased, just thoughtful.‘I had a talk with Adam Hauptman.’

Charles raised his eyebrows and found a dry voice to say,‘Adam is worried about me, too?’

‘Adam is worried about his mate, who is injured, cranky, and obstreperous,’ replied his father. ‘So he’s not available to take on a rather tricky situation.’

Charles didn’t follow where this conversation was going, so he adopted silence as a strategy. Da liked to hear himself talk anyway.

The old lobo sighed, stretched, and put his feet up on his desk– a sign that Charles was talking to hisfather and not just the Marrok.‘I’ve been racking my brain – not to mention Asil’s brain – with how to make your job easier.’

He spoke as if Adam’s situation had some bearing on Charles’s, though he couldn’t see how. ‘You have.’

His father frowned at him.‘No. It’s becoming painfully obvious that nothing I’ve done has helped you.’

Bran didn’t say what it was for a few moments, just studied Charles’s face as if it were not the face he’d worn every day since he became an adult nearly two centuries before.

‘I cannot send anyone else to enforce the rules – but I am, as of this moment, relaxing the penalties for many transgressions in the hope that it will allow the Alpha wolves to need less

help enforcing them.’ He held up a hand and Charles bit back his protests. ‘You are the only one I can send out, yes. But if you falter, there will be no one but me – and I do not trust myself. So it is necessary that you not break. Anyone who has been Changed less than five years gets one warning. Asil is as frightening as you – and he also is not an Alpha right now. He has volunteered to go out and scare the bejeebers out of young idiots who break the rules the first time.’

Charles knew it was wrong. His father had weighed and assessed the needs for the wolves’ survival and had made the necessary changes in the laws of the packs. But it wasn’t shame, but rather relief, that made him drop his eyes.

‘I have failed you,’ he said.

‘No, son,’ said Da. ‘I nearly failed you. You are, as Asil has reminded me, one of my pack and I am responsible for your well-being.’ His tone turned wry.

‘Asil has appointed himself my guardian?’ asked Charles softly. Asil was overstepping himself.

‘He was bored, he told me,’ said his father. He gave Charles a small smile. ‘I have given him a job so he doesn’t get bored again.’

Da rocked back in his chair and studied the ceiling as if it were interesting for a moment, before turning his yellow eyes back to Charles.‘Asil scaring the britches off our young wolves won’t be enough. I