Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega #5)(63)

“Asil,” she said slowly, “I thought you liked Wellesley.”

Asil pulled lunch-meat packets and a block of cheese from the fridge and gave her a politely surprised look. “Of course. Why would I dislike him? He figured out what you were, decided it might help him out of trouble he got himself into. He then grabbed you without leave, and if the Marrok hadn’t opened the floodgates, you would be dead. And probably so would the rest of the pack.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” said Wellesley without moving. “I have only been partially in control of my actions for the last … what is this year, anyway? Ninety years or so.”

Asil pointed at him with the knife he’d gotten out to cut the cheddar. “Do not blame your wolf for what you did. Your wolf only understood what she offered. It was you who decided to use her to break your curse.”

“That’s fair,” Wellesley said. “I guess I did.” He paused. “I’m not sorry. If I’d killed us both … us all? Anyway, if we were dead, I’d be sorry. But since we survived, I am merely very, very grateful. If I could move, I would kiss your hand, Anna.”

“You’d better get moving pretty soon,” said Asil cheerfully. “Charles is, I am certain, on his way. If you think I’m unhappy with you, you just wait until Charles explains his feelings to you.” He chopped up some cheese. “Charles is a man of few words. You are just lucky he quit carrying a club.”

“I think he has an axe,” Anna said.

Asil looked up at her. “An axe?”

She nodded. “I don’t know why, but I think he was carrying an axe when I first nudged him to see if he could help.”

Asil smiled. “Good. An axe is exactly what this calls for.”

“Asil?” she asked. “Speaking of axes … Where is the door? Uhm, and the doorframe?”

“I threw it down the hole,” he said, looking a little embarrassed for the first time. “It was in my way.”

“It was supposed to be werewolf-proof,” muttered Wellesley.

“I am not just any werewolf,” said Asil. “And if it had had a doorknob like any proper door, it would still be where you left it.”

? ? ?

WITH ANNA THERE to remind Asil of his manners, Wellesley was eventually helped to a chair in his kitchen and fed sandwiches at a rate that made Asil complain about his new calling as a short-order cook. Anna snagged two or three herself and noticed that Asil had eaten maybe twice that many.

There were a lot of things that she wanted to know about what had just happened, but she found herself nodding off between one swallow and the next. The next thing she knew was her mate’s voice.

“Anna?” said Charles.

“Sorry,” she murmured, without opening her eyes. “Food coma. It happens when I get sucked into cartoons and do battle with evil thorn-things.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Charles said.

You need to wake up, said Brother Wolf. So that no one dies.

And that jump-started her adrenal gland just fine. She sat up and rubbed her face. Asil, Wellesley, and Sage were in the kitchen, none of them looking very happy.

Charles was kneeling beside the couch. One hand on her face. The other hand was holding …

“That,” Anna said, “is a really big axe that you didn’t have this morning when you left.” And it had blood on it. Not his blood, she didn’t think. It didn’t smell like his blood.

Not ours, agreed Brother Wolf happily.

Charles grunted, then when she raised her eyebrows, he answered her implied question.

“When you contacted me the first time, I’d just stolen the axe from the Viking who attacked me and broke his leg with it.”

“I see,” she said.

“It took me awhile to take out his twin brothers, or I’d have gotten back to you sooner.”

She considered that statement and decided he wasn’t trying to be funny. He looked apologetic.

“I would rather you not get hurt by Viking twins …” she had to say it again, “because Viking twins are apparently a thing here. Anyway, please take care of pressing business before you answer me. If you are dead, you won’t be of any use at all.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time,” he said.

She didn’t think that he looked too scary, but then she looked over Charles’s shoulder at the others. Sage was a little pale, but her face was very calm. Wellesley looked almost dead—but he’d looked that way when she nodded off. Asil looked like a ticked-off cat cornered by a big, freaking dog.

So apparently the not-scary was a relatively new thing. Interesting that Brother Wolf had been the one to wake her up, possibly so she could prevent Charles from killing someone?

“Since we are all here now,” she said, “maybe Wellesley will tell us exactly what happened in. . .”—she looked at Charles—“Rhea Springs, Tennessee, right? Because I think that’s where he picked up that interesting Sleeping Beauty curse.”

“I don’t know that it matters,” Wellesley said tiredly. “Most of the principals are dead, except for me. Even the town is gone, drowned by the TVA in the forties.”

“Call me curious,” Asil said. “I’ve seen a lot of witchcraft, but I’ve never seen a witchcraft construct that lasted that long and hid itself so well. Usually, they die once the witch dies.”