Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega #5)(73)

Anna drew in her breath, seeing what Charles had seen. “He’s afraid to come home because he thinks the traitor is his mate.”

“Africa, because he needs to be as far from here as he can get,” Charles told her.

She stiffened because she realized what it meant if Leah was the traitor.

He said the whole thing out loud, anyway. Just to make sure. “If he’s right, I am going to have to execute his mate.” He drew in a breath, his chest tight. “And probably my da. Because even if Leah has betrayed us, if I execute her, he’ll come for me. His wolf spirit won’t let him do anything else.”

And he’s not in Africa, said Brother Wolf somberly. He’s somewhere a lot closer than that.

Anna nodded jerkily. She’d met his da’s wolf, the monster the Marrok held leashed with his mating bond to Leah. She knew what they’d both be facing after Charles killed Leah.

“Leah is just about the most straightforwardly honest person I know,” Anna said. “Every thought that crosses her mind comes out her mouth. How could she keep a secret like that from Bran? From her mate? I can’t even keep a surprise birthday party from you. There’s no way I could keep a bigger secret.”

Brother Wolf sent his apologies through their bond to Anna. He hadn’t known the party was supposed to be a secret.

“My da’s bond with Leah isn’t like ours,” said Charles with certainty. His da didn’t talk about his mating, but Charles knew his da well enough to know that he wouldn’t want anyone else rummaging through his mind, least of all Leah. And his da had the abilities necessary to make certain his bond functioned just as he chose. “And suspecting she is a traitor isn’t going to encourage him to open that bond any further than he can help.”

“That’s why he’s closed the bonds to the pack down so tightly,” Anna said.

Charles nodded.

“Could he be wrong?”

“I hope so,” Charles said.

“What are we going to do?” asked Anna. He didn’t think the question was directed at him.

He tried to draw serenity from the forest around them. It didn’t work, but it helped.

“We are going to find Jericho and take care of the immediate problem,” he told her. “We’re then going to finish warning the wildlings. I don’t think we need to consider them suspects anymore. But they do need to be warned nonetheless. Then I’m going to sit down with the files that Boyd sent me last night and see if I can figure out what set my da off.”

Anna nodded. “Okay. That sounds like a plan of attack.”

She was quiet all the way up to the small cabin that was Jericho’s home—thinking things through.

Charles hoped that she’d think something different than the scenario that was playing out all too clearly in his head. He did not want to face off with his da. Though he had known, from the time he understood what happened to old wolves, that eventually the duty of killing his da would probably be his—it was not something he was resigned to.

They smelled the bodies well before they reached Jericho’s cabin.

“These people died before the attack on Hester,” Anna said.

Charles nodded. “By a couple of days, I’d guess.”

She reached out and took his hand, holding it tightly in hers. He was so blessed in his mate, who understood when to talk and when not to.

Asil, Sage, Juste … and Leah were waiting for them next to a line of dead bodies—obviously werewolf kills—that they had laid out neatly. Sometime during the trip here, Asil and Sage must have worked something out because Sage was standing so her shoulder brushed Asil’s.

Anna dropped Charles’s hand and went to look at the faces of the dead to see if she knew any of them without anyone’s saying anything. She was young to have such an understanding of necessity.

They weren’t pretty corpses—and so badly rotted that he didn’t think Anna had the experience to tell what they might have smelled like when they were alive.

“This one was one of … of the men I knew in Chicago,” she said, finally, pointing at one of the dead werewolves. “And maybe this one.” Pointing at another—his face was pretty badly torn up.

“The last one is human,” said Juste. He wasn’t doubting her—just advising her.

She sighed. “He was human then, too.” She frowned unhappily at the dead man in question, then bent and quickly ripped open the dead man’s jacket and shirt, exposing the front of his chest.

The tattoo must have been a beautifully rendered dragon. Charles could see it in the delicate skill used on the parts he could distinguish. It didn’t look so good now, distorted by death and by the ragged wound that cut through it.

Anna coughed at the additional smell she’d released, putting her hand over her nose. “Yes. This one.”

When she finished coughing, she said, “He used …” She stopped speaking, glanced at Charles, and closed her lips.

He could take a good guess at what she would have said if she hadn’t been worried about setting him off. This was another of the men Leo had allowed to abuse her. Charles did her the courtesy of swallowing his rage as best he could.

“Too bad they are dead,” said Asil, with a growl. So Charles wasn’t the only one who had heard what she didn’t say.