Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega #5)(51)

“Oh, stay,” said Wellesley, in a low, clipped tone that was nothing at all like the voice he had been using a moment ago. “This is more interesting than anything that has happened in a while.”

Anna looked at Asil, but he didn’t see her. He was watching Wellesley like a cat watches a mouse—but more wary and less hungry.

“Let us look at the newest members,” said Wellesley, sounding more like himself. Or at least, more like he’d sounded at first. He opened his hands and closed them a couple of times as he continued, “They would have had to deceive Bran the shortest length of time.”

In another person, Anna would have taken that as a threat. But it didn’t track with what they were talking about or with the rest of his body language, which had been submissive to Asil the whole of this encounter.

“It’s not Kara,” said Anna positively.

“No,” agreed Asil. Anna noticed that Asil had seen those hands, too. He paced a little as if he were thinking, but the movement in the small room left him directly between Wellesley and Anna. “She is a baby—and we know her background. She could not lie to me, let alone Bran.” He paused. “And I’m pretty sure that she didn’t know anything about Hester. It’s not like anyone talks about the wildlings other than as a general warning.”

What was Asil’s game here? To see if Wellesley could finger one of the other wildlings?

“She could have heard something,” Wellesley said, but this time it was a soft whisper, apologetic and tentative. “Children do.” He was still bent low, staring hard at the corner of the room away from both Asil and Anna.

Wellesley shook his head violently. “That’s stupid,” he growled. “Stupid. Stupid. We have seen her when she didn’t know we were watching, haven’t we? She is weak, she is prey. We should eat her. She would taste like the girl in Tennessee. Better maybe.”

Anna looked at Asil again, her eyes wide. She expected to see the same alarm or confusion that she felt. Or more probably anger—Kara was a particular favorite of Asil’s. He was angry enough, she saw, but there was compassion on the Moor’s face, too.

“Wellesley,” said Asil, with cool command in his voice. “You will not speak of my little friend in that way. I don’t like it.”

Wellesley growled, and Asil growled back. The artist glanced over his shoulder with wolf-yellow eyes. He was taller and more muscled than the Moor, but he backed down as soon as his eyes met Asil’s. He dropped to one knee, almost like a man proposing, his face turned again to the far corner of the room, though his body still faced Asil.

In a soft voice, he said, “It might be that someone spoke in front of her. That she told someone she shouldn’t.”

In her head, Anna heard again the voice of Wellesley’s monster saying “like the girl in Tennessee,” and wondered what Wellesley had done.

“It isn’t Kara,” Asil said again.

“If it were Kara, you could give her to me,” said Wellesley in a singsong voice.

“You go too far,” warned Asil, his lip beginning to curl.

Anna decided that if someone didn’t step in, there would be trouble. And there was no one else but her. She couldn’t risk soothing them with her Omega abilities—there was too great a chance that it would be more effective on Asil than Wellesley. Then she’d really be up a creek without a paddle.

She decided to try to distract them with words instead. Or even just Asil. There was something really wrong with Wellesley.

She had visions of Jack Nicholson in The Shining in her head. Leah had said that she had given them the most broken of the wildlings, and Asil said he’d picked the worst one first. Asil had told her Wellesley’s condition most closely resembled schizophrenia. She’d known a girl in college who coped with schizophrenia, but that girl had never been creepy.

She hadn’t been a werewolf either, but still …

She didn’t know how to distract Wellesley, but Asil was easy.

“Kara talks to Asil,” she said firmly, as if she weren’t stepping figuratively between two angry werewolves. “She talks to Leah and a little to me. But with the rest of the wolves, she is really wary—and I don’t think she talks to any of the kids at school. Bran keeps getting letters from her teachers: ‘Kara is hardworking and intelligent. I am concerned that she has no friends among her peers. She doesn’t participate in group work or in any outside sports activities’—and variations of that. Leah makes her write a letter every week to her parents, most of which are four sentences long because Bran imposed that rule after her first letter was ‘Dear Dad, I’m alive. Kara.’”

Sometime during her monologue, Asil pulled himself together. More or less, Anna thought.

“It’s not Kara,” said Asil definitively—and then he put some power in his voice, and said, “Stand down, Wellesley. Leave Kara alone.” He paused. “And I better not catch your scent anywhere near her or where she has been.”

Wellesley abruptly sat on the floor, turning until his back was toward them. He nodded, showing he was paying attention to the conversation.

“Okay,” he agreed, his voice a lot more normal than his posture. Almost conversationally, he asked, “What about Sherwood? He would know about the wildlings—he was one for a while. He would know about Bran’s absence because he is in Adam’s pack now.”