Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega #5)(53)

“Or they could have wanted to know where all our lone wolves, our powerful and vulnerable damaged wolves are,” said Anna slowly. They asked about the wildlings, Jonesy’s note had said. Charles had told her that there were wolves out here that had dangerous knowledge—things other people would kill to know. “Surmising that we would have to go out and warn them.” It only made logical sense, as long as you knew enough about how the pack worked, how the wildlings worked to know that a phone call was probably not going to do the job.

“We weren’t followed,” said Asil.

“On NCIS, they use satellites and can pick out individuals in guerilla-troop ground movements,” Anna told him.

“What is this NCIS?” asked Asil.

“They also have a mass-spec that can look at a clump of mud off a shoe and tell Abby the cross street it came from with no error. And it only takes five minutes,” said Wellesley dryly. “Mass-specs don’t work like that.”

Apparently, Wellesley watched TV. And knew what a mass-spec was and how it worked. This conversation could not get more surreal.

Asil growled.

“It’s a TV show,” Anna told him. “About the Naval Criminal Investigative Unit. It’s a mix of mystery and military thriller.”

“A TV show,” Asil said, disdainfully.

Wellesley grinned, ducked his head, and raised a hand to high-five Anna.

There was a crystalline moment when she understood that this wasn’t a good idea. Wellesley clearly had some issues. All of the werewolves had a bit of multiple personality disorder—the human half and the wolf half sometimes existed in a state of conflict. Charles and Brother Wolf were a functional demonstration of how separate the wolf spirit and the human could be. But her mate and his wolf existed in harmony.

Wellesley and his wolf were not functional at all. Getting close enough to touch him when he had spent the last half hour switching back and forth between normal and creepy was stupid.

And still, she was the mate of Charles Cornick, who was second in the Marrok’s pack. If she let that friendly gesture hang, that would be quite a statement—one she did not want to make.

She stepped around Asil and slapped Wellesley’s upraised hand with her own.

Anna was a werewolf. She had been working out with Charles virtually since he’d brought her to Montana. Her reaction time was good; she was quicker than a lot of the wolves.

And she had no time to respond as Wellesley’s hand closed over her wrist, and he plowed into her like a grizzly bear, sending them both to the floor. She hit the hard-packed dirt floor underneath his not-inconsiderable weight. He wrapped himself around her, his body shaking. Her stomach lurched with memories that she thought were long behind her.

Something hit the ground right next to her ear, startling her out of her panic. She turned to see that Asil had buried a knife … a sword … something with a beautifully crafted hilt in the dirt. The blade was only visible for about a quarter of an inch.

Asil had been going to kill to defend her, she realized. But he’d apparently understood much faster than she exactly what had happened—and more importantly, what hadn’t.

Wellesley hadn’t attacked her … hadn’t meant to attack her, anyway. He was trying to get as close as he could while sobbing wildly and muttering something in a language she couldn’t understand.

“Omega,” said Asil quietly, he crouched beside her, his face only a few feet away from hers. “I should have stopped you from touching him. My wife, she had better control of what she was. No one would have understood what she was, or been affected by her by a casual touch unless she wanted them to.”

“What do I do?” she whispered, partly so that she wouldn’t startle Wellesley into anything more violent. But mostly because her throat was so dry with fear and remembered horror that she couldn’t have made a louder sound if she tried.

“Stay still,” he said. “Hopefully, his reaction will ease after a few minutes.”

She looked at him. She wasn’t going to be able to lie here, with a stranger on top of her, for a few minutes.

He saw it. “If I try to pull him off,” he told her, “it’s not going to help anything.”

She nodded. She understood that Wellesley was getting some sort of relief from her, and he would react badly if someone tried to take it away from him. Asil didn’t think Wellesley was rational enough to let her go.

“Okay,” she said, trying not to sound panicked. Hoping that Charles wasn’t picking up on this. He wouldn’t if she managed to keep herself from blind terror. “Okay.”

“What can I do to help?” Asil asked.

“Talk,” she said. “Distract me.”

“How about a story?” He reached out and put a hand on Wellesley’s shoulder. “His mate died, and his wolf wanted to die with her. It happens that way sometimes. As far as I know, they’ve been at war ever since, he and his wolf. A hundred years more or less, I think. Like a split personality disorder, but your other half is a killing machine, and you can never let it take over.”

“The girl in Tennessee?” Anna murmured, fairly certain that Wellesley wasn’t attending the conversation between her and Asil. He was crying noisily, and it was a horrible thing to hear from a grown man. But it reassured her, because he didn’t sound like …