Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega #5)(54)

Anyone else.

Asil nodded to her almost-question. “After Tennessee is when Bran brought him here. Back in the 1930s, I think. He’d been a well-known artist under a different name when his wife died.” The old werewolf, whose mate had also died while he survived, made a sympathetic sound. He patted Wellesley again, and this time left his right hand on the other werewolf’s shoulder.

“He tried to keep up his life, but one day he just left. Left his pack. Left his house with everything in it. A wolf who was there, a member of his pack, told me it was eerie. As if one morning, just after breakfast was ready to eat, he decided he was done with it. No one heard of him for a while. It was the Depression, and traveling on trains was a way of life for a lot of people. There was no easy way to find him.”

“Not like now,” Anna said. It was hard to get the words out of her throat, but at least she didn’t have to whisper.

“Not like now,” agreed Asil. “Technology has made a lot of things easier—but also Wellesley’s case in particular made Bran decide that it was important not to lose track of any werewolf if he could help it.”

“You were in Spain during the 1930s,” Anna said. Her voice was shaky. She didn’t like sounding like that—fear was dangerous around werewolves. But even knowing that there was nothing sexual about what Wellesley was experiencing, she couldn’t help the cold sweat that trickled down her back.

Asil made an assenting sound.

“You know a lot about this for a man who was on another continent at the time.”

Asil’s smile flashed. “I know everything worth knowing,” he told her. But his face grew pensive. “I asked after I started to visit with him. I wanted to know as much as I could in hopes I could help him. I knew a little before, of course. His story was widely published at the time. I think part of what has made Bran so harsh on the wolves, now that the public knows about us, is that he is afraid that someone will remember the old story of Wellesley.”

“Tell me?” she asked.

“As you said,” Asil told her, “it was easier to be lost and wander back in those days. Lots of men without families or pasts wandered the railroad and the highways in the Depression era. Wellesley was just another one of them until he finally lost control of the wolf in a little town with a population of about four hundred people. It’s not around anymore, that little town, or maybe more people would remember this story. Wellesley is sometimes certain that there was a black witch—or something like a black witch—involved. But in the aftermath, there was only Wellesley and some bodies: a black man in a mostly white town.”

Asil patted Wellesley again, but the other werewolf didn’t appear to notice him. After a moment, Asil started talking again.

“That’s when Bran became aware of him. He sent Charles to break Wellesley out.” There was a pause, and Asil said sourly because he didn’t want to respect Charles, “I understand he broke into that jail where Wellesley was under heavy guard and left with him. But if you can get that closemouthed wolf to tell you how he did it in plain sight of two guards, leaving an empty and locked cell behind them with no one the wiser, there would be a lot of people who’d love to hear that story.”

“Can’t you ask Wellesley?” Anna asked.

Asil shook his head. “He doesn’t remember anything except bits and pieces—mostly that’s his wolf, anyway. Wellesley doesn’t have enough memories to defend himself from anything someone wants to claim about that day if someone goes digging up old newspaper records or someone’s diary about the matter.”

“You think he is innocent?”

Asil sighed. “I think that truth is complicated—and speculating on things without adequate facts is useless. You can ask your mate if you are curious. His orders were to kill or rescue, depending upon what his judgment told him was best—and here is our Wellesley, safe if not sound.”

Wellesley’s sobs had been quieting, but Anna was deliberately focusing on Asil, so she didn’t notice the difference in him soon enough.

Asil, though, Asil was on Wellesley before his sharpening teeth could do more than scrape against her collarbone. Then they were both rolling around the room while Anna scrambled to her feet. Before she could jump in and add her weight to the game, Asil had Wellesley pinned to the floor in some complex wrestling move that didn’t allow the werewolf to use his great strength to break free.

And Wellesley—or the wolf spirit that lived in Wellesley—was trying. His eyes, those brilliant gold wolf’s eyes so startling in his dark face, saw nothing but enemies. His face, changing slowly to wolf, was wild. His jaws snapped and snapped at the air as if there were some way that he could climb out of the bones of his body to get at Asil—but would be satisfied with anyone.

Asil crooned to him in Spanish as if the mad creature were a child. There was power in his voice, the werewolf magic of a very dominant wolf trying to settle Wellesley.

She could feel the other man trying to come back, but the wolf spirit was dominant, too. Asil, she thought, could have subdued the other wolf, but he was hoping that Wellesley could control it himself. A wolf this old who couldn’t control himself better than this would need to be killed.

The impulse to soothe Wellesley, to bring him the relief that her Omega nature brought to troubled wolves, was instinctive and felt desperately necessary. But she gathered herself together and thought before she gave in to that desire.